I have been in and out of this site off and on for a few years.

Within the last week my wife of nearly 12 years has simply shutdown. Plenty of issues led to the "snap" if you will. I am guilty of being a poor conversationalist and certainly not giving her undivided attention. As she says we take car rides in silence, watch tv in near silence and seemingly go about our lives in near isolation. To make matters worse she has mentioned, in various forms and ways, the lack of attention / conversation. So, i can't say this is new or even this appeared out of left field.

I did think things were getting better, however she claims they weren't better she merely stopped mentioning them and just lived with the situation. So for the last week we have lived with barely grunted responses from her if a response comes at all. Topped with "I know you are only doing this because I am angry, this is fake...."... Well I said it has to start somewhere.

I have read a great deal, we have been to counseling in the past and things improve which she admits and then we slide back. Counseling which she wants no part of and sees as needless. She hold the notion, I should simply know what she needs / wants and she has told me and i failed to act. In short her position is this ground has already been covered and she doesn't she anything changing nor getting better.

I can't accept that. I don't want to give up. I don't want to lose her.

I really struggle in the conversation department. I mean major difficulty. I want to talk to her, I really do. I find it difficult to find things to talk about. Made even worse now because she sees this as an attempt to talk only because she is angry. For instance I tried again last night and was met with a "that's nice but you had the last 5 years to talk to me and didn't "...

She said she had a headache the night before and I said would you like me to rub your head... "No, you didn't want to rub my head before... why now.."

Getting her to fill out the EN questionnaire is non-starter, however I don't think it is really necessary. I know it is conversation and companionship and undivided attention.

How in the world am i going to make that happen given her current state?

I could really use some thoughts on ways to break the silence. I have fully prepared myself for an uphill climb. We didn't get this way in a day, week or a month. It has been years. I know I am going to have to do the work and expect little in return until the Love Bank gains a few deposits. Or more than a few.

How can i create a few meaningful conversations? Any and all advice is welcome, especially if I have missed key issues.

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Thanks for the suggestion.

How do i break through on key issues like Affection (if I can't touch or hug her), conversation (where she won't engage or denounces it fake) and of course undivided attention which turns to sitting in silence?

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(unless she is having an affair).
It sounds like she has emotionally left your marriage. An affair will soon follow or divorce if you do not change.

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Welcome to MB

Have you read the Basic Concepts?

Your wife is in withdrawal.


Read about the Three States of Mind in Marriage.

This program can offer you a plan to help your wife come out of withdrawal, and to build a romantic marriage. Other counseling programs, as you have seen, do not work. They offer hope for a little while, but then things go back to the way they were, or worse. Sadly, the Love Dare is like those counseling programs. It is not a plan for creating a lifelong, romantic love. It will not work, long term.

Markos and I did the counseling thing, too. Also did the Love Dare. Our marriage only got worse until we both started following MB.

Withdrawal, yes that is the word i have been searching for. That's it.

But how does one pull the other back to Conflict, if the other won't engage? Is it a time thing? I keep trying and she comes around?

If I read it right, we go to conflict to negotiate and then to Intimacy.... But negotiate needs two.

I wrote her a letter last night, expressing my feelings and my desire to change. She read it and commented "that's nice, I appreciate it and how long did it take to write..." I told her a while and she responded with "all that to say you care for me." A dig I suspect but I let it go. Now of course this is a large part of the problem, i detest conflict with her and instead of responding, i say nothing. Mostly I can't come up with a response and if I do it doesn't come out right and then it turns ugly.

To frame it further for everyone, while I would rather not the conflict, I would go for the conflict if only to discuss a way forward. However, her stance is I don't want to cover ground we have covered a million times.

Oh how I wish I had gotten this right a long time ago.

Hi, Hawk,

This sounds so much like our situation before we came to Marriage Builders. We had been to three counselors with no lasting results, and even the temporarily improvements we had, I couldn't tell you what we'd done differently to cause them.

Marriage Builders is aimed at husbands like yourself: you know you need to change something and build some new skills to give care to your wife. And your wife is shut down and not even interested in telling you what you need to know to do different.

The good news is, Dr. Harley does know what you need to do different. You will need to start building a habit of making Love Bank deposits all the time. You will need to get systematic about it, with a written plan of things you do, and you will probably need to learn a lot about how this works.

First off, when you are trying to make a love bank deposit, don't get discouraged if your wife's response is disrespectful. She may dismiss what you are doing, minimize it, question your motivations, gripe that it won't be permanent, etc. It may hurt, but let it roll off of you like water off of a duck's back for now. Her emotions are not allowing her to be vulnerable to you right now, and this is her protecting herself. If you stay CALM (are you an emotional man? I am, and this can really shoot you in the foot if you are like me), and CONSISTENT, keep making the love bank deposits while studying and practicing to make better and bigger deposits, you will eventually notice (probably without warning) that she has moved from Withdrawal into Conflict, and then again notice (probably without warning) that she has moved from Conflict into Intimacy.

The trick is to stay CALM and CONSISTENT through all of that for the long haul, regardless of what she does. Because her emotions are pressuring her to try to do things that make you want to back off. And when she does, your emotions will pressure you to either back off or to get upset with her. Either one will destroy your efforts.

What is it she wishes you would do, or stop doing?

As markos said, expect her to shoot down your efforts for a while.
If you avoid love busters on your part, an concentrate on keeping your responses gentle, she won't stay in withdrawal forever.

When she returns to the state of conflict, invite her to join you here. Tell her you want to learn to care for her and that you're going to use this plan to learn how, and show her this site. Welcome her input -- ask her to give you detailed complaints. What does she want from you? What does she want you to stop doing?

There's not much point to asking her those questions now, while she's in withdrawal. For now, make what lovebank deposits she will allow you to make. What would she like? What has she complained about in the past? You can slowly pull her out of withdrawal by consistently making such small love bank deposits.

Eventually, she'll get mad enough to return to Conflict.

Like other say, your wife is in withdrawal. Her love bank has a negative balance. You offer to rub her head, that puts a small deposit but her balance is still negative. You try to talk with her, balance is still negative. But you have to keep going!

At this point she wants to see sustained actions. You can say you care, you can write a letter, but what you need are also sustained actions.

Surely you know something to talk about.
1) Your kids (if you have any)
2) Her family
3) Her friends
4) What the republicans are debating about
5) What is going on at your work
6) What is going on at her work/home
7) What is going on the news
8) Find a TV show to watch together and talk about that
9) How the Giants are going to win the superbowl

Also read this article: Conversation is Boring

She wants me to stop attempting to cover the same ground she thinks and i have to admit she is right, we have covered on numerous occasions. The ground being, I am not affectionate enough, we don't have meaningful conversations, undivided attention and we don't do things together.

Her stance is we have this battle, have had the battle and nothing changes. or it changes for a time period and then reverts. She feels like having the same discussion (the same for her since she has told me her expectations) is pointless.

I believe at this point I have enough to go on to make deposits. I can be persistent and generally don't give up easily. The issue for me is how to make them? The theme I am getting is to keep plugging away and generally people come around. i can live with that. i suspect my posting is going to increase as we go.

From her perspective she is asking the "why now question?" and what reason is there to believe it sticks. i can't honestly refute that one. I want to make it happen. But I have wanted to make it happen before, too.

Just for full disclosure purposes, she did have an affair about 6 years ago. Mostly for these same reasons I am writing about, that is when I found MB in the first place. I discovered it and exposed it after hiring a PI. We moved away and there has been no contact.

Yes, i have been checking and continue to do so and I have no reason to suspect another affair. However, the environment is certainly set for another one now.

You never entered a program of recovery after her affair, and your marriage is a crippled form of what it was before. Right?

How are her boundaries now? Were EPs put in place?

There's your game plan.
What kind of affection does she like?
What kind of conversation does she like?
Plan dates, without the kids. She may refuse to go at first. Plan them anyway.

What about love busters? What are you guilty of?

Yes, i would agree we never put a solid plan in place. We did talk with Dr. Harley a few times, however that ended when the good doctor said a few things that struck the wife in a different way.

Again, things seemed to improve (to me anyway) and then boom, def con 10 strikes and it is ugly. i usually say things seemed better, she responds they were and then old habits crept in and we were right back to the beginning. Of course how was I to know she was that unhappy. Clueless I can be but not that clueless. Her claim is things are ok as long as she isn't complaining about them not being ok.

My Love Busters...Hard to drop them in the defined buckets. Certainly my tone in some discussions upsets her. I wouldn't say angry outbursts, i never raise my voice or curse.

Independent Behavior comes up. As in I made some decision and didn't consult her. But this is less so.

The biggest one has to be I make things she wants to do miserable. By "miserable" I mean I typically ask questions like can we afford to do this, which then becomes you are making this miserable for me.

Two examples, she wanted to go out for New Year's to a big gala at a hotel in a distant city. The event was fairly expensive, plus a hotel, travel and the requisite new outfits. I asked about the event cost and what we were getting in return. This didn't go well. I have to find a better approach to these instances.

The second was recent. She wanted to go to a Yoga class for weekend in another city. I agreed (learning from previous adventures :-)). We would go, find someone to watch the kids, the dog, etc...stay in a hotel and she would go to the classes. Then she announced she wanted to go a day early, I explained that would make the trip cost prohibitive. She announced I made the whole thing "miserable" and didn't want me to go. In fact she was going to find someone else (a girlfriend) to go with her. When i pointed out someone else going didn't change the cost equation... well you can imagine the fall out.

I am not sure where that one falls on the LB scale but clearly it is one. i would say the biggest one.

Disrespectful Judgements? Selfish Demands? Independent Behavior? Those would have to be my LB's.

I can't believe the Giants won! All good topics for me(except the Giants :-)), I shall try all of them in some form.

Thanks for the jump start.

I am thinking of offering to attend Yoga with her at the gym This is something she likes, we have gone together a few times and it seems like a way to do the recreational companionship thing. Thoughts?

Requiring POJA is not a love buster.

Well we are off to Yoga together today at her suggestion.

Last night we talked about odds and ends like a friend of hers having her birthday in NYC.

I have to keep at it.

Yoga at the gym sounds like a great start! Is that something you enjoy? Because if you hate it, it isn't a good idea. If you like it, then do it.