This is my 2nd marriage, we have been married for 6 yrs. In my 1st marriage I was advised to leave by marriage counselor and was told I was codependant and in a verbal/emotional abusive relationship that was unlikely to change. I had a 2 yr old, and was pregnant, and it was hard, but I never regretted it as I was in blissful peace and thanked God every nite for that peace and prayed for my children and my ex.

6 mo later I started dating my current husband. He was a previous aquaintence that I had instant liking to. I enjoyed his company as he was a great listener. I was impressed with how at ease was with holding my baby and how calm and mellow he was made me feel emotionally safe.

I struggled emotionally, physically, and financially at the time and confided as to him about that, shortly after he bought a house and invited us to move in with him and quit my job and marry him and I did.

My husband remembers our marriage being wonderful up until a couple years ago. I remember parts of it wonderful but parts very bad. I felt like I was the one sharing all the intimacy, but got nothing in return and enventually tired of it. Also, my husband seems to switch personalities on me, and I feel at ends about it. He is calm & mellow and wonderful at times, and then out of no where acts weird and immature and then at other times he is arrogant and greedy and bossy, yet at other times overly mature giving "words of wisdom" as though he is 100 yrs old and seen it all. LB's? Or just personality traits that I need to live with?

If they are just personality traits I need to live with I don't know that I can. I like Mr. Calm and wonderful, but none of the others, also the mood swings have me questioning who is this man? Does he have a mental disorder? Did I get out of a verbal/emotional abusive relationship just to end up with passive aggressive multi personality type?

I wonder if he has personality disorder, I wonder if he is capable of giving intimacy as he has never done so yet, he has demonstrated rediculous laziness and procrastination for things he doesnt want to do, is it realistic for him to put that kind of effort in?

(For the record, no one else has commented that he seems to act like diff personalities, thats just how I feel. His family adores him, my family and friends like him, but noticed some abnormalities he has with social behaviors at times and they get irritated with his cheapness and making excuses not to do favors or even help with favors they are doing for us).

Suggestions for getting the most help here:
1. Break your post into paragraphs
2. Click notify and ask the mods to move your post to MB101. You will get more help there.

I think that if you read the basic concepts (linked up top) and order the Marriage Builder books written by Dr. Harley and read those and ask your husband to read them and to work with you that you might both get it together and be able to create a good marriage.
If not, you gave it another try. This time, orderly and logical and based in sound concepts that give it a shot.

Also, you two might consider doing all the reading and using the phone coaching.

It would give your children the best chance of stability.

lol I guess I just wrote without editing or looking at how it was presented, I wouldn't want to read that mass jumble either, I will take your advice thanks

Have you read this? A Summary of Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts

Is this your DH first marriage?
How many children do you both bring into the M?

His Needs Her Needs for parents has an excellent chapter on blended families.
Caring for children means caring for each other
Read this.
Welcome to MB.

Also please make sure you understand Dr. Harley's basic concepts before you post to others.

I would do everything to try and fix your M before you just walk.

How long have you been married?

Excellent radio clips on blended families.

Radio clip on blended families
segment 2
Segment 3
segment 4

Thank you for taking the time to read and your input.

Was your DH married before? If so why did it end?

Why did your M counselor advise you to leave your first M?

Is your XH involved in the kid's lives?

MrsA, welcome to Marriage Builders. Your husband has annoying behaviors that bother you and this is something that is easily remedied with this program. I would begin by telling him the truth about your feelings [without the disrespectful judgments and psychoanalysis] and offering him a plan to improve your marriage. You can both learn new behaviors that will complement your marriage rather than harm it.

I would read the Basic concepts, but place most of your focus on the book Lovebusters. Start by taking the Marital Problem analysis questionaire and exchanging them. here

Another good questionaire would be the lovebusters questionaire: here


I would avoid disrespectful judgements like this if you expect to get anywhere with him. It is ok to tell him that you don't like the idea of a postnup but to judge him as "greedy.." etc would be a disrespectful judgement.

Please avoid the psychoanalyzing and keep your focus on changing the destructive behaviors that have entered your marriage. All this talk about his childhood and possible disorders is a distraction from making real and effective changes in your marriage. And your husband will be very offended if knows you are doing this. It will just cause conflict for no good reason.

Thank u brainhurts and melody, honestly I am ashamed of myself for psyco anylyzing his behaviors and my choice of words and harsh judgements
.
I do question if he is the man I thought he was, and if I like him as a person. My thoughts probably dont me that likable though so who am I to judge. I guess I am just trying to figure out if our marriage fell apart because of lb and everuthing or if because he isnt who I thought he was nor I what he envisioned.

Maybe I just need time to clear my head from hurts to get a clear perspective

You were in love with him before, correct? This program can teach you how to fall in love again.
To follow this you need tolearn to eliminate lovebusters and spend at least 15 hrs a week of UA time meeting each mother's 4 EN.

Was your DH married before? How old are both of you?

That is the whole point of this program: to change into someone your spouse can love and love to be with. If you can get your husband on board with this program, we can help you both make changes that enhance the love in your marriage. The program would help him change into a person you can love and vice versa.

When you said your current H was a previous acquaintance that you had instant feelings for, do you mean you met him and fell for him DURING your previous marriage?

Wow CWMI I didn't mean to give that impression. Actually what I said was I had an instant liking to my current H when he was a previous aquaintenance.

We had mutal friends and maybe on 5 different occations had 5 min convo's about impersonal things. I ran into him 6 mo after my divorce and we dated after that. Feelings came about 3 mo after dating, and 9 mo after divorce, and yes I did feel in love with him when I married him. I just now wonder if it was love or infatuation as how could I love someone whom I didn't fully know?

When I said I had an instant liking for him previous to dating I didn't mean I had feelings for him. I just meant that I found his demeanor likable, just as I find Dr H and his wife's demeanor on the radio instantly likeable and many others whom I may not know really but just get the instant hey I like you feeling.

Anyways, I think you all are doing a wonderful thing helping people with their marriages, but I don't think this forum is the route for me and as such I will not waste any further of your time.

Thank you again

I think what we are saying is the best thing you can do is give this program a real try, implementing all the aspects. If your husband still won't respond, then perhaps you may need to get out. As far as personality disorders go, he may or may not have one, but with Marriage builders, the main thing is will he get wtih the program or won't he.

Um, because he met your emotional needs in a way which you enjoyed? Which any person can learn to do?


This ain't a joint venture between Hallmark and the Disney-princesses sister. Love ain't magic and you don't need fairy dust.

You just need effort.

So with that chain of logic HHH even a serial killer would be a suitable spouse as long as he was meeting my emotional needs?... nonsense!

I never indicated that I was looking for some Hallmark movie/Disney fairytail romance and I find your comment to be a disrespectful judgment.

I found myself questioning if the person I was married to was a good person, not just because of postnup terms, but because of many finincial endeavors with family, friends, and customers that were not ethical. These things bothered me, my thought process was/is that if I am going to use marriage builders techniques to fall in love and stay in love, I want to do it with a person that is honest, and considerate to others and a good role model to my children. That is fairytale sounding to you?

To me that is wise thinking, so to me first thing is to get an open eyed knowledge of who my husband is. I did not have this when we married as I was in infatuation stage. I have spent many hours of conversation with my husband on my concerns of his behaviors as well as conversations and observations of others with him that know him well. (He is free and wise to do the same to me) After such, I do think he is a good person who just lost sight of what is right due to greed. I feel he has heard me and my concerns and wants to do the right thing, so this is good.

However, his irradic behavioral mood swings still have me concerned and confused, so I plan to seek professional counsel along with using the marriage builders concepts as I think they are sound when used appropriately. However, if there is mental/anxiety/health issues involved, they need to be addressed and I feel these issues are outside the realm of this forum to seek assistance with. This is all logical to me, not fantasy, and it in fact takes a great deal of effort.

For the record, it is responses like yours HHH that I have read in the various forums that made me not want to participate in this forum, not the lack of willingness of effort on my part. As such, I much prefer to just read advice to others and take it all in and apply what is usefull, rather than participate and have my words twisted and be subjected to inaccurate judgments.

If my husband is a good moral human being and role model to my children, and free of mental illness, I will wholeheartly give him all my effort and devotions, but I would be a fool to do this with just anyone. I have children to think about and I want them to be raised with good role models in a loving, caring environemnt. I wish I took the time to evaluate so thoroughly prior to marriage, rather than going on feelings. However, that doesn't mean I have to blindly make this marriage work now regardless of the type of man or potential disorders he could have, I just don't understand that line of thinking.

Have you read Dr. Harley's Love bank concept?

The Love bank

Yes I have. I have also read basic concepts, his needs her needs, love busters. I believe I have an understanding and can see how these things as well have affected our marriage and can improve our marriage. However, for example, if my husbands only motivation to not rip off my brother who trusts him on the sale of "blank" is to deposit love units or avoid lovebusters, it just seems messed up to me.

After much thought, it is more important to me right now that he recognizes this type of behavior as wrong and feels bad about it and changes this type behavior for that reason. If he doesn't agree it is wrong, but changes the behavior to deposit love unit or avoid lovebuster I just feel that he is not the type of person I want to be married to is what I am saying.

Being motivated to not rip people off by being concerned about how the people closest to you feel about that is a GOOD thing. We are not all Mother Teresa, you know? If we are all wired to have affairs, is it so hard to imagine being wired for greed?