Hello, i have been reading and reading and reading. I have seen many references to you being the best on the board and no disrespect to anyone else.

Will you please review my posts, and please give me the most honest and best plan of action for me at this point good or bad if there is one to turn my marriage around. Im not being demanding and if my post is formed that way, then please rebuke me as that would probably be a start.

Blessings and Love

I will see if I can help!

I don't think anyone would take disrespect at that -- she is the best!

I'll keep giving you what I can, too, Ruikee. I think at this point the best thing we can help you do is support you, and give you stamina, and keep pointing you back to making every little love bank deposit that you can make.

I listened to your show from Monday, but a good chunk of it was cut off! Kind of confused. But it sounds like Dr. Harley thinks that if you position yourself right, and build some new habits now that she sees, of you being a man who cares for her (makes love bank deposits), that when this current relationship fails, there is a good chance she will consider coming back to you, because it makes sense.

ruikee, I looked over your posts and I don't see anything I can add. You are getting advice from the very best this forum has to offer in addition to Dr Harley.

Thank you, markos!

QUoted for TRUTH!

She's our gal, and DANG, she's good! I think we need to copywrite her....

Thank you all and you as well Markos.

So keep doing what i am doing. I cant stop the divorce so it will happens unless she stops it in about a month or so. And then continue on this way.

I have been doing really good, as much as she lashes out and disrespects me, i do not retaliate with any LBs.

Now i do have one question. I would like more time with my son. She says she would never do anything to limit my time with him because she doesnt want what happend to my stepson to happen to our son. But whenever i do ask, she doesnt allow it. But when it is convenient for her, she lets me have him which i never turn down.

Is doing to court for more time with my son a lovebuster?

But increase the love bank deposits. Are you in contact with her daily? What things are you doing to make deposits?

I do think you should get an appropriate amount of time with your son, and I tend to think that going to court for that would be okay, although it might still be a love bank withdrawal (even a respectful complaint is a minor love bank withdrawal).

What happens when you plan an event and then tell your wife "I'd like to take Son to the ballgame on Saturday?"

Do you guys have a legal agreement about visitation time in place at this point?

How much time are you getting with your son?

Thanks Markos, i figured it would be a lovebank withdrawal. That request has only happened once and of course she said she had plans with him. We do have a parenting agreement since the day she left. When she left i asked when i could see him and she said I dont know so i had to go downtown to get something solid. I have counted and i have had more time due to my W cancelling for her convenience.
i wanted an even split 2-2-3 so there would not be alot of time apart from either of us. She said he was too young. I asked when, she said when he is 3, which is next month.

Right now it is every wednesday and Sunday and every other weekend. If there is a 3 day i get him on that Monday. 4 weeks in the summer.

I would much rather parent him more during the week than the 4 weeks in the summer. Those are weeks away from his mother, which i really dont want either.

I honestly havent been doing as much since the Holidays when i found out she actually filed. I am not in contact with her daily. I thought it would be too much as a push.

That is where i need help, how can i make the love bank deposits while being apart. Especially when she isnt open to them. Ive asked for dates. Ive asked to spend time together with our son as a coparenting thing. All to receive the response No thanks.
When she took my stepson to the military school, i offered my vehicle since i thought they may be taking alot of things. no thanks was the response.

I keep trying to think as if i were on a business trip and we we're dating, but other than flowers, cards, letters, and text, i havent been able to produce any other ideas.

Thank you Markos for being so encouraging it means alot to me.

Blessings

I think I would want to get 50/50.

Whatever agreement you have, though, I would stick to that and plan events with your son for times when you have him.

And at some point, you might invite her along.

btw, Ruikee, I went back on all your threads and posted a bunch of comments. Some of them may be helpful, I hope. I'm looking there now because I think I tossed out a few ideas as far as how to make love bank deposits.

Here's what I know: you got to figure out how to do this. You may make some mistakes along the way (overzealous and end up making a withdrawal), but you will just have to jump in and do that in order to get the information you need to figure out how to make really effective deposits.

Get to know this girl, as she exists today.

I advise against overt affection AT THIS POINT IN TIME, and suggest you just go for "thinking of you" kind of gestures. An occasional phone call "Just thinking of you." A card for a holiday (not President's Day or whatever, but does she have a birthday coming up?). A text or email here and there.

If you can stomach it, just getting her to talk about her current relationship may help. Dr. Harley commented once that if a woman in a bad marriage were in an affair, what she'd be talking about with the affair partner would be her bad relationship with her husband. So, other way around. But no disrespectful judgments: you don't say how bad the guy is, or whatever, because that's criticism for her mistake.

Got to get her talking. Without demanding it or trying to manipulate it. You're there, and available, and you're thinking of her.

Thanks Markos, i do remember you giving some ideas, i will review them and try from there. When she is lashing out at me, isnt that an indication that she has moved from the withdrawal stage to the conflict stage. Could there be a key there as well, to have some sort of strategy while she is in the conflict stage if that is what it is?

Blessings

yes, Ruikee, yes! It is a good sign if she is lashing out at you! You are exactly right that that means she has moved into conflict.

Now, of course, conflict totally sucks. She will have zero motivation to be respectful, non-demanding, and calm (not angry). Go review that radio show I gave you awhile back where Dr. Harley says a former angry man's wife will go crazy and test him, irrationally. To the utmost.

And your job is to be a calm, calm rock, through all that. That's the strategy you need to have. She can say anything to you she wants (even abuse), and it will not cause you to become controlling and abusive (demands, disrespect, anger). You listen, you find a reason why she is right and tell her so, so you can agree with her. Accept what she has to say, totally nonjudgmentally.

You will be laying a foundation here.

And internally, you extract the information out of what she says, word them as respectful complaints to yourself -- and respond to all of them. By respond I don't mean say something, I mean do something. Whatever it is she wants done, give it to her, if you can. Whatever she wants you to stop, by all means, stop it! She will be giving you, in an almost unusably disrespectful way, a roadmap to repair the relationship. You will need to extract the information that constitutes that roadmap, and follow it.

This is good news. I was not aware she was lashing out at you.

As for ideas, read the suggestions, and become an idea factory. Do something for a love bank deposit every day.

But if she's in conflict, your opportunities will be increasing. IF you remain free of demands, disrespect, or anger. Remember that disrespect is a massive minefield, and she won't be nice enough right now to tell you if you've hit a disrespect mine, so use your head. Anything that smells like an attempt to educate her is disrespectful. Anything that smells like you even want something may be disrespectful.

Be optimistic, but don't let that optimism turn into an expectation that is going to result in you feeling crushed at some point and expressing frustration about it to her.

I follow you, so she goes off on me when i asked why our son had shoes that were too small, she says when was the last time you bought him anything useful. Which she knows is false, i spend most of my time buying him clothes and such.

So would the roadmap there would be to buy him more useful stuff and send it over with him?

When she said that i didnt even respond, just addressed another question she had about his signs of autism.....

I will read the suggestions.

This morning i sent a text saying, Good Morning Pretty Mama, love Cole, he says that all the time. She responded, good morning sweet boy, mommy misses you.....

Yes, step up a little more to take care of his needs,
and also -- she may perceive the question about the shoes as being disrespectful! Questions that start out with "why" often can be. Remember that she needs evidence that you'll never even be close to controlling again.

Assume she has a rational reason why the shoes are too small. Turn such instances into joint problem solving: "I noticed his shoes are too small. Would you like me to buy him another pair?"

Let me mention, at least in this household, mothers are very sensitive about any suggestion that their children are not properly shod. Little old ladies love to look at our babies when they are not wearing shoes and say "Where are your shoes? It's cold out." Now, to a little old lady, 95 degrees is cold out, but when they say things like that, it implicitly condemns Prisca's parenting, and hurts her dearly.