ML .. that book is going to be my next purchase after i finish Draw Close (which BTW is great!) I find that many of my friends and family come to me now for marrriage advice and thought it may be of great importance to my arsenal when it comes to helping others.

sorry for the small thread jack.

Makes sense. Thank you for the additional clarification and for taking the time to look up that post for me!

Yes, that also makes sense.

I checked at the Barnes & Noble down the street yesterday, and they didn't have these in stock, so I ordered them from Amazon. They should be here next week.

I brought this up to my wife last night and we talked about it for a bit. She did say that there were occasions in our relationship -- even prior to our loss -- where she wasn't really wanting to be intimate but didn't say anything and went along with it anyway. But she didn't think it was a major issue and not something that would have led to sexual aversion. That makes me feel more hopeful that focusing on UA time -- specifically recreational companionship, conversation and affection -- will help her feel more open to SF.

We've had good conversation the past three nights after getting the little guy to bed. Some of it painful, but good to get it out on the table and talk about it. Much of it about our relationship, but lots of other things too. I feel like we're connecting more. We both need to work on being more open with each other about our feelings and what we want. I was thinking this morning that I shared my negative feelings with her a few days ago, and I need to make sure that I'm also sharing my positive feelings with her too. So once I finish this post I'm going to send her a note expressing just that. We have a long way to go, but I'm feeling better about things than I have in a while.

I'm looking forward to a home date night tonight; we are going to make popcorn and play some board games. Grandma is coming over to babysit tomorrow evening, so we'll get to spend some one on one time together outside the house!

This is my assessment too. I don't think she has a sexual aversion. She seems to just be disinterested because she is emotionally detached. It is not hard to overcome.


When you have discussions with her, I would be sure and keep them POSITIVE. Negative conversations are an enemy of good conversation. Your time together should be pleasant and enjoyable or she won't want to be around you at all.


Great! I am hopeful for you too!


nice!!

Zeb -

My history parallels yours to some degree so I wanted to chime in.

UA time is critical. Out of the house is best - especially if your W is a SAHM - but in the house is better than none. Trust me, I'm well aware of the expense of babysitters! The real danger of doing UA time at home is that you can easily fall into doing chores or sitting together watching TV, or looking around thinking about what needs to be done (dusting, Christmas things put away, etc.). Plus, kids seem to have a sixth sense for when mom and dad are trying to spend time together.

The recreational companionship questionnaire is a great source not just for things to do, but of things to talk about. "I haven't done that in years", "My grandmother showed me how to shoot a rifle", etc. Great source of conversation.

The EN and LB questionnaires don't work if you're not honest. There is a difference between being radically honest and being brutally honest! Focus on the top 5 EN's, and out of those, focus on the 'intimate' EN's the most (RC, SF, AF, CN).

Don't go after all the LB's at once. Go after the top 2 or 3 things that bother your spouse the most. When you get one thing fixed, add another.

It's going to take some time for your W to get back in the swing of SF. Don't expect too much too soon. It's funny, my wife's top EN is O&H and mine is SF...I keep thinking about that scene in 'Crazy, Stupid Love' where the dad picks up a slightly deranged teacher by telling her the truth about his life. They go back to his place, where he proceeds to tell her more of his deep personal thoughts, as she gets hotter and hotter and eventually jumps him. If only it were that simple...

You're in the right place. If you can afford to counsel with the Harleys I highly recommend it. Jennifer is fantastic, especially at getting through to women. She's in the Phillipines and can call you late at night when the kids are in bed.

If you still have an issue with SF after you give it a good few months of meeting your UA time together and start meeting each other's ENs I wonder if her history of sexual abuse may be affecting her ability to meet your SF needs.
Just a thought, usually sex improves greatly after you start spendning UA time together and meeting each other's ENs. If it doesn't, you ma consider this as a complicating factor.

The way to overcome trauma of the past is to change current behavior. Delving into the past is a distraction that prevents people from making the present great. So, I wouldn't focus any attention on the past.

Hi bitbucket, thanks for the suggestions!

Well this ended up being a bit of a bust, as my wife was too tired for the original plan. We did spend time talking instead of watching TV though, so it was still "couple time", just not as we'd originally planned it.

It was fun! We called it a "college date night" and went out for gyros and then to a new billiards hall to shoot some pool. We were only out for 2 1/2 hours though, because she wanted to be home before our son went to bed so she could do his bedtime routine with him. I was not expecting to be heading home so early :o/ I asked why, and she said she didn't want to miss her favorite time of the day with him. I said (in a nice way, not snarky) that she can put him to bed every night, but how often do we get to have an evening out? She agreed that next time she'd let grandma put him to bed so we could have more time together.

Sunday evening we had a neighbor couple over for dessert and board games. We wrapped it up by 9:00 p.m., so we would have had some couple time afterward, but she had school work to do, so I ended up doing some reading and watched some television.

So last week we ended up with about 12 hours of UA, which is quite a bit more than what we'd been doing, but still not enough. Now that her school semester has started back up it is going to be more challenging. I'm going to ask her to work on her homework earlier in the evening so that she can be done by the time our son goes to bed, allowing us couple time afterward.

Any suggestions on how I can request her to finish reading "His Needs, Her Needs" without nagging her about it? I read it in December and gave it to her just as she was starting winter break from school, assuming that she'd have ample time to read it before spring semester started. She's read some, but hasn't picked it up in a couple of weeks. I've ordered some of the other books and I'd like her to read them with me when they get here. Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but when she doesn't find time to read this as part of working on our marriage, but finds time to do plenty of other things for her hobbies or for other people, it makes me feel sad that she's not making working on our marriage a higher priority. :o(

I've been thinking about this and I'm a little confused. I can see the importance of keeping things positive, but how do you balance that with being open and honest and dealing with things that are bothering you?

Zeb, that is a great start!

Since she is not into reading HNHN, I would get the workbook, Five Steps to Romantic Love, and start doing the exercises in it. That might be more interesting to her than reading HNHN. And the more UA time you spend with her, the more motivated she will be to do this program. That workbook has an UA worksheet in it that should be ripped out and copies made. If you will sit down 1x a week and schedule your UA time, then you can schedule less important things around it for the week. It is harder to put off time that is scheduled.

Otherwise you are going to be battling this out every day, every week if you don't just sit down one time during the week and just schedule it out. That is great that you got 12 hours, but if the time is not scheduled, it is too easy to put it off in favor of other things.

My Amazon order arrived this morning! In addition to "Five Steps to Romantic Love", I also got "Love Busters" and "His Needs, Her Needs for Parents". Would you recommend that we start with the workbook, or "Love Busters"? Before you answer, please see the rest of my post.

So I did this last night, taking care of our son while also making dinner and cleaning up afterward, then giving him his bath and keeping him occupied until bedtime so that she could work on schoolwork.

After he was in bed, she said that she was too tired to do anything and just wanted to watch television. I suggested instead that since she was tired we could put on some mellow music and snuggle on the couch. I brought up that watching TV doesn't count as UA time, and that by my reckoning we had about 12 hours last week (she thought it was a little more than that). Since this is a busy week for us, and my older kids will be over Thurs - Sun, I wanted us to try to get some UA time in while we can.

She expressed resistance to committing to 15+ hours/week of UA time (I didn't think it was the right time to bring up the 20+ hours/week recommended for restoring love). She said that she needed time for herself to do things like hobbies or reading in order to wind down and relax. She asked if it would count as UA time if she did some knitting while I read if we also engaged in some conversation at the same time.

I didn't try to counter her at all on any of this, just kept talking with her. Eventually we turned to other topics and we spent the rest of the evening in conversation.

I have been wondering recently about why she finds spending time on her phone so engrossing and more interesting for her than spending time with me. I know her Facebook password and she has previously said that she has no problem with me accessing her account. I had refrained from doing so out of respect for her privacy, but because of what I've been reading on this forum I thought I'd take a peek.

What I found relevant to our relationship was quite a bit of complaining about me and badmouthing me to her Facebook friends. Some of the things she said -- for example, saying that she does 99% of the care of our son -- are blatantly false. Some relate to things that are intensely personal that I would never have agreed to her discussing with others. Much of it centers around how I parent my older kids (her stepkids) -- an area that has been a point of contention since we've been married. I thought we'd worked through a lot of these issues and that things were better in this regard. But apparently not, not when she is posting something like "Yeah, I just about lost it. And he wonders why I'm not attracted to him lately....maybe it's because he makes himself look like an [censored]!" in relation to how I handled a discipline issue with my son.

I'm not sure how I should handle this. Does this constitute DJ if she is venting about things to other people? Should I address this with her? Should I try to take it constructively and use it to work on things I can improve upon myself?

I'm honestly feeling a little sick about this right now. I've been working really hard the past few months to improve our relationship. It doesn't seem to me that the effort has been reciprocated. And now it doesn't seem like I've even made any headway toward improving things. Not if she harbors this much anger and disrespect toward me. :o(

I can see that a big part of the problem is that she is not being honest with you about the source of her unhappiness. That means you are groping around in the dark and can't find the light switch. You can't ever find your way if she purposely keeps the room dark.

I would FIRST put a keylogger on her computer so you can check to see what she does. This much hidden hostility makes me very suspicious because most women are open about their complaints to their husbands. UNLESS THEY ARE MANUFACTURING GRIEVANCES AGAINST THEM. The only reason a woman would manufacture grievances is if she was having an affair or if the husband was averse to getting complaints. So get a keylogger on her computer FIRST. Get eblaster so you only have to access it once. It costs about $100, is undetectable and will email you reports. You don't have to get them again.

So first off, get the keylogger on her computer and lets see what else she is doing. That will determine your next steps.

And secondly, don't ask her anymore to have UA time with you when she is tired at night. I honestly don't know how ppl can manage to have quality UA time that late and it sounds like your wife is even less interested. Instead, plan it for a time when she is at her most energetic. Get her out on dates away from the house when she is at her most energetic.

After you put the keylogger on her computer and watch for about a week, I will tell you which way to go with this. But we have to make sure there is no affair going on.

In the meantime, go to the chapter on blended families in HNHN for Parents and read up on that. Discuss it with her because it sounds like she is unhappy with you about your kids.

Did you SAVE copies of the correspondence you saw last night? If not, I would forward copies to yourself for safe keeping.

The two things wrong with this suggestion are a) it was suggested at a time when she most tired and b) mellow music and "snuggling" = EXPECTATION OF SEX. Both are huge turn offs to a woman who is in emotional withdrawal. I would stick to things that will be more attractive to her. Going out to dinner is a nice way to have conversation and show her affection.

Ask HER to come up with activities she will enjoy. Hand her the sheet and ask her to come up with the activities. The person who is the least motivated should drive that boat until she becomes more motivated.

Seconding ML's suggestion that you step up the snooping a bit. A keylogger and a look through cell phone as well as debit/credit card records are in order. Look for anything unusual or amiss. Don't let on what you're doing!

I wouldn't say a word to her about her FB posts yet, not until you confirm that bad-mouthing and griping is ALL that's going on. Some people will complain about their spouses to their friends, and it all kind of feeds on itself - they don't fully realize what they're doing because it's a habit.