You're welcome my friend.

You POJA the event before Friday night.

You do an event both are enthusiastic about.

Social interaction isn't one of the intimate needs in marriage, so time with friends comes after the minimum 15 hours a week of undivided attention anyway.

People in love don't fill their time with others, also.

But to be specific, going out is more of a sacrifice for the H in your scenario, as it is an action compared to the non-action of not going out for the wife, so going out has more potential for resentment by the H than not going does for the W.

Any enthusiastic agreement has the same base: what is it that each person wants to gain/enjoy from the activity? If the wife wants to gain the admiration of her friends, she probably isn't marriage material. If she wants to enjoy attention and good food, her husband can fill that need for her in ways that don't harm him: perhaps ordering in and putting on some music and dancing in the living room.

If the husband needs someone to sit silently by while he vegges out on television, he isn't marriage material, either. But if his base need is to spend some time not requiring use of his brain, well, there are ways a wife can help with that.

Get to the base need before getting stuck on a particular way to meet it, and negotiating is easier.

Agreeing with Brain and CWMI, especially this part:


Maybe it will help you to read up on Type 1 and Type 2 Resentments.

If the husband is not enthusiastic about going out with friends, they don't go. But that doesn't mean sitting around watching TV likes he wants to do. It will always appear that one spouse benefits from the default position of POJA. It is up to that spouse to start negotiations on what they can do with each other that will make BOTH of them happy.

Have you read up on the steps of negotiation?

Walk.

A long stroll outside holding hands is a cheap, easy, and fun way to balance introvert and extrovert.

My H would be happy to sit in the house every night and relax. Me, a stay at home mom, I need to get out or I'll go nuts, my life exists within these walls with cheerios on top.

If we can't agree, we drop our boy off at grandpas and go for a nice lovely walk. It's the perfect compromise.

The one thing we don't mention is that in the example of the introvert and extrovert, I would have hoped the behavior of each person was well evident while they were dating. Each has chosen to marry someone with different preferences than them.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

I'm sure once this situation happens a time or two, the couple would POJA in advance. I was trying to create a scenario where they don't have much time to POJA. Say the W calls the H at work Friday afternoon and wants to go out that night. It seems that from the W's point of view, the husband can get his way by simply stalling for a few hours.

I think Prisca's comment addresses this:

That puts some responsibility on the H to come up with a mutually agreeable solution. That's good, and I think that answers my original question on POJA.


Prisca, I tried several different search criteria on the MB website but couldn't find anything on Type 1 or 2 resentments. I finally tried a generic google search and came up with Following the Policy of Joint Agreement When You're VERY Incompatible in the Q&A Columns, in particular this:

Just want to confirm this is what you're referring to by Type 1 and 2 resentments because in the quote, it sounds like the first type of resentment is something one person does to another to hurt them. In the scenario I was describing, neither spouse wants to hurt the other, they just have different ways of unwinding at the end of the week.


I've heard that opposites attract each other, and often, the things that attract a couple during dating become annoyances that repel them after marriage.

I think there's an example of this in the Five Love Languages book: one person is the "chattering brook" and the other is the "dead sea." At first they get along great because the chattering brook has a need to talk and be heard, and the dead sea has the ability to be silent and listen. But after a while, the chattering brook gets annoyed with the lack of 2-way communication, and the dead sea gets annoyed with the constant chattering.

Anyone have any experience that confirms or denies the "attracts/repels" phenomenon?

Neither spouse has to WANT to hurt the other spouse in order to create Type 1 resentment. Type 1 resentment is created when one spouse forces the other to DO something against his will.

In your scenario, if the couple stays home, the wife may feel Type 2 resentment -- she doesn't get to go out like she would like to. But if she were to force her husband to go out with her, he would experience Type 1 resentment -- being forced to DO something he is not enthusiastic about.

Type 1 is worse than Type 2, therefore the default of POJA is DO NOTHING. It would hurt the husband worse to go out somewhere he doesn't want to go than it would hurt the wife to stay home and find something else to do with her husband.

Sounds a little like infatuation to me. I wouldn't count on it for a long term marriage type of relationship.
The discussion is not really relevant to MB principles, though. Dr. Harley would advocate an approach that would put this concept out to pasture.
IOW, using the meeting each other's needs concept and eliminating LB's and using POJA and honoring UA....puts two people's tendencies and BEHAVIORS more in line with each other.

I've been finding "I Promise You" quite helpful as it tends to relate principles I'm already familiar with to the actual engagmeent phase of marriage.

opt

Thanks Prisca & Optimism, appreciate your thoughts.

I just ordered I Promise You and am looking forward to reading it. I'm surprised that it's no longer available in the MB bookstore. Do you know if there's an updated book Dr. Harley wrote to replace it?

I also ordered Fall in Love, Stay in Love, and HNHN for Parents. I have the original HNHN and Love Busters, and I think all those will keep me occupied for a while.

KL,

You have such good questions. Have you thought about emailing Dr. H?
Email your questions to Joyce Harley at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com

Fall In Love, Stay In Love is my favorite! Glad you got that one.

I hadn't heard that it wasn't available any more! We ordered ours from the mb bookstore in 2010.

Sometimes he does retitle them, but I haven't heard of that for this book.