I don't feel any need for you to convince me, either. This is for you, and your marriage. If you haven't tracked the hours, then you don't know if it was 15 or not. There's a big difference between 14 hours and 15 hours. Close doesn't count.

You need to know. For you. And Hilltopper.

Do you know how many times I thought we were hitting 15 hours, and in reality, it was only 8? The only way to know is to track the hours.

Do it so you'll know

Right now I'm feeling upset that H discussed who knows what about our M with his mother. His mother and I have grown apart over the last few years.

I am guilty of not building up H's ego and of course I can kind of understand because his mother makes him feel better. And she is a huge avoider of conflict and discussing feelings. In my opinion this is why we've grown apart and I don't enjoy hanging out with her as much. She pretends everything is fine when it's not. I don't do well without communication and dealing with others who hide or choose to hold in their feelings.

Long story - short. After I heard of the phone call I called her and let her know that I knew H had called. I said let's clear the air between us with this tension and told her my exact feelings and told her I would like her to share hers more often. She mentioned that she grew up tap dancing around her mother and she doesn't like confrontation. I can kind of understand, but I have a terrible relationship with my own mother and I don't feel like I ever want to be like her or make my children ever feel how I did. So I choose not to behave like that or use it for an excuse.

Anyway I feel like H threatened me this morning on the "you are an abuser and I won't put up with this abuse, just wait and see your not going to like how I'm gonna change". This for sure tells me he HATES doing things for me holds bitterness. Although I listened and didn't fire back in my normal manner and trust me I wanted to defend myself. testing for a divorce?

Look people I like MB and I WANT it to work! I want UA time to work, but we can't even get there because of the arguments. DJ's seem better to focus on than UA. I don't even want to hang out with H if we are fighting. I'm sure this will all lead to a better understanding of each other in the end. We love each other but don't act like it. Really since this journey on MB has started it hasn't gotten any better. worse, worse worse

tgrace, I am not pointing this out for the fun of it. Here is a perfect example of why I feel this type of attitude is hurting you:



It has nothing to do with convincing us and everything to do with following the program. Dr Harley is pretty adamant about scheduling/tracking the UA time and making it a priority.

Look at this quote from the Five Steps Workbook (pg 182):

He also has a graph so that you can track what you ACTUALLY did.

This is an example of where you are going to have to put your opinions about what will work for UA time to the side and do what Dr Harley says will improve your M.

Ok so does talking last night for an hour count? even if it wasn't about fun things.

I agree and UA time this weekend feels like it will be incredibly awkward and difficult. If we can get there I will start tracking. Just need to see what's in store for our plan tonight.

Focus on your side of the street and get the sitter like Dr Harley said, get out and have some fun UA time. You need to actually DO it before you can say it doesn't work!

Again, this is where I am getting the feeling that you think you know better than Dr Harley. If you think he's got it wrong, then write an email to him explaining the advice he gave to your H and explaining why you think he's got it backwards.

But don't tell your H you are on board and then not follow Dr Harley's advice, grace.

We will talk about this tonight. And I do enjoy my wine, just seems like H needs to have it all the time and I'm not into that.

For our marriage, Marriage Builders was like learning to play the piano. I needed to have all ten fingers going, but I kept trying to work on just one thing. We had to get several aspects of this program going moderately well before things finally started to click. My disrespectful judgments and angry outbursts were one issue. Prisca's were another. And UA time was yet another.

For awhile I focused on just love busters, and Prisca got to the point where she saw no reason to be married to me. I wasn't meeting her emotional needs.

Dr. Harley says that UA time is the core of his program and that it will not work without it. He will not even continue to counsel people who will not agree to try to find the time for undivided attention; he tells them not to waste their money.

Right now your feelings are telling you to be disrespectful and angry toward Hilltopper. It is a struggle to be very very careful and override those feelings all the time. You will make it easier for yourself if you will allow Hilltopper to make love bank deposits. This will cause your feelings to quickly catch up to your actions. Of course, you need to help him do this by giving him accurate feedback and information about what he needs to do. And this needs to be mutual and reciprocal. You guys can cooperate with each other to quickly restore love in your marriage.


Of course not. That is absolutely a deal breaker, and we are pushing him hard to not fight with you. But his emotions are like yours; his feelings are prompting him to be disrespectful and angry just like yours are doing for you.

Tell Hilltopper, honestly and respectfully, that his love busters are such a major problem for you that it is making it almost impossible to spend UA time with him.

I also urge you to give Dr. Harley your side of this. He can give Hilltopper more complete advice if he has your input, and from what we have seen I believe that we will see Hilltopper try to follow Dr. Harley's advice.


It did for us as well as lots and lots of problems were uncovered. But after that, it got better. LOTS better. Ask Prisca.

Really that's the way you see it? I don't know better than Dr. Harley and he has certainly helped with a million marriages. My side of the street is not clear as well, but it's a work in progress. UA time isn't quite there, adjusting and need better planning. Sitters are in place, need to utilize. I followed through with H's number one need, SF, got rid of AO's. So I'm pretty sure the effort is there and the concepts are starting to sink in but definitely takes time and takes two on board. Lets just say its been a rough couple of months.

Hilltopper shouldn't be discussing anything with his mother without your enthusiasm. This is why both of you need to start following POJA.

Markos doesn't even see his parents anymore because I am not enthusiastic about it.

It is essential that both of you take each others feelings into account on everything.

He's not testing for a divorce. He's scared, and like Markos said, his instincts are telling him to DJ you in order to get what he wants. He abused you this morning by saying these things.

You did good in not responding.

UA should not include relationship talk. It should be full of conversation that is enjoyable.

Dr. Harley says to discuss conflicts once a week until they are resolved. Once a week. No more, no less. Agree when you will discuss the conflict ahead of time and for how long. The rest of the time, fill up with conversation that is enjoyable.

Would Hilltopper agree with this?

Yes.

Normally if he said something like this morning to me. I would scream and throw a couple of choice swear words at him. I may have a tone (H has pointed out) sometimes, which I'm becoming more aware of or a higher pitch when I'm passionate about something, but no more screaming in AO's. Ask him yourself and see what he says.

What other conclusion could I come to when you are saying UA time is not the issue but the DJing? Dr Harley knows that you two are DJing each other. He said he'd like to see you two focus on the UA time and then talk about the DJing.

Let me ask you this. Have you read the UA articles here on the site?


Here

and this:

Here

He mentioned just a few days ago that you yelled at him for 30 minutes.

It sounds like you are doing better with AOs. But I don't think they're eliminated completely.

Great! Start with making your UA time the top priority (fun and enjoyable and enough of it) and go from there!

It's rough right now. But remember that marriages that were in far more dire straits have fully recovered and are fully in love.

The two of you can do this. You are lightyears ahead of other troubled marriages. You want the same thing. You are on the same side!

Tgrace, your MiL, she's a friend to your marriage, right? What would make you enthusiastic about him and or you reasoning through stuff together with her? She knows you two a lot better than we do, and loves you two and your kids in a way that we don't, right? She may be better at helping you two get consistent with the date night stuff than we would be, because she knows your situation and what you two like and don't like. What do you think?

Yes, Mil is a friend to our marriage. In fact, Mil and I had a fantastic relationship in the past. It slowly dwindled over the last few years. I had brought issues to her attention and I felt like she was agreeable, but then the same issues would arise and she would always pretend that things were just fine. I finally stopped bringing things to her attention and still saw her often, but there was always a slight tension. I don't think I would prefer to reason stuff out with her since her and I have some communication issues. H and I have discussed this in the past, that she holds her feelings inside as he does, probably to prevent conflict.

When I talked to her on Friday I made sure to tell her how I would like her to be more open and communicate with me. She has made it clear in the past that she has raised her children already and doesn't like to be a babysitter. She loves to spend time with the children, but only if I am there. We usually get together in groups with the other siblings and their children as well. And if she has ever wanted to watch the kids in the past, she has only taken one at a time (doesn't help).

I told her on Friday how I felt about this and that for our entire marriage she has never really offered to watch the kidlets so we could spend time with each other. I have never taken advantage of my parents and I would never have any intentions on doing this with her either. After that emotional conversation and being clued in that H and I are having troubles in our marriage, she left me a message saying she would watch the kids if we wanted to go out. It's a start, but honestly I would probably utilize other resources for the time being. Mil and I have to sort out a few issues that have led to a building tension before we can move onto babysitting.

WOW .. that was almost as if i wrote it. We are experiencing similar issues with my commonlaw step mom (of 2o years). She doesnt communicate with us .. and when she does its usually a big blow out of some kind. Ever since my wife and I have taken on MB we have noticed how vey much so my dad and his commonlaw wife have very independant lives and I can see how negativly it effects them but they refuse to address it. So we also chose to use other resources for baby sitting for our children since the "grandparents" chose NOT have our children over or visit them very often. And when they DO have them .. all they do is sit at "Grandmas" and watch TV while she sews ... and ignores them. Hardly a visit if you ask me.

What really blows my mind is just how much turmoil is going on around me (relationship wise) in my relatives. Now that my marriage is doing pretty good (better now than it has been the last 16 years) I notice quite frequently the misery everyone else is in ... many i try to give advice to .. but they just dont want to take advice from me since im younger then they are and dont want to read self help books (even tho they suggested we do that when our marriage was in a sham and my wife and I were constantly fighting) So we did .. and found MB ... and worked through it .. and solved most of the issues.

Well .. enough about me .. how was your weekend? I see that Hill is taking Maca now. That is great! Seems like you tow are getting better at preventing a fight and negotiating things very well. Probably not perfect but much improved since you started your thread I imagine.

Keep up the great work!

MNG