Clearmind,

Glad you're putting in the work. Remember this takes time. Your 15 year anniversary is coming up. Any plans to make that a bang?

Do you have the workbook Five Steps to Romantic Love? That has the worksheets.

Aldo have you seen this by Mel?
The critical importance of UA time

Also I just read back.

About the discipline on the kids. POJA.

Did you POJA this? If you don't like the decision you made before you need to sit down and POJA this.

Can you do this?

brainhurts,
thanks to the link from mel. i will check that out. dont have that workbook, but probably a good idea to get that one.
as to our anniversary, we made reservations to a five star hotel downtown. this will be our first anniversary since recovery. not sure what will happen?? i.e. our emotions and feelings about that day. for those who have been through the first anniversary, what should i expect? im sure the BS will have bittersweet feelings. how can i make it a great anniversary and not have the bad feelings come?

brainhurts,
as to POJA, we usually don't have an issue with that. we are pretty agreeable and find solutions that make us both happy. in the past, i have always trusted the discipline that my husband did. when he started the new discipline, i was trying to figure out if i was just being over sensitive, as sometimes mothers are! after we talked about it, he agreed with me that it really wasn't the right thing to do. he does not have any problem to stop that discipline.

brainhurts,
as to the first anniversary since recovery, i have thought of the idea of making the day i moved back home as the "new" anniversary date for the "new" marriage. have any others changed their anniversary dates?

Awesome posts, Markos!!! I thought the same thing when I read these posts: they are not getting in enough UA time. Please schedule your UA time, clearmind, religiously. This will make the greatest impact in the fastest time. The best way to do this is to schedule 4 - 4 hour dates a week out of the home. Can you do this?

The UA worksheet is in the back of the Five Steps to Romantic Love workbook. You can tear it out and make copies. It is an excellent workbook that can help you put your marriage back together.

And I would not suggest changing your anniversary date because the day you moved back home will be reminder of the tragedy. I would do everything to avoid any reminders.

p.s. I wanted to add that I think you guys are doing great, clearmind. It is never easy to recover a marriage, but you are on the right track. If you find you continue to struggle, I would strongly suggest you sign up for the MB online program. But if you are diligent in your UA time, avoiding lovebusters and meeting the top 4 intimate EN's, you should be fine.

I would give your feelings a lot of credit. Both feelings and logic have an important part in the raising of children, and both husband and wife have an important perspective in their raising. Your children have half of the DNA of each of you, after all. I passionately believe that the unique perspective that comes from blending both the mother and the father's perspective in each individual family is the best possible way to raise children.

So I would be careful of labeling yourself as "over sensitive," and I would encourage your husband to be even more careful of that! Give your feelings credit, as they may be telling you something important. If you are uncomfortable with something, you can always put it off and give it time to see if you become comfortable with it after you've had time to think it through. During that time you may decide it's a good idea, or you may come up with an alternative that you both like better. Another thing you can do, that Dr. Harley sometimes suggests for husbands and wives trying to persuade each other, is offer to try something a few times and see how you feel about it. Afterward, you can know if it's something you'll be comfortable with long term or not.

Sometimes I find out Prisca is not enthusiastic about something I want to do in the raising of our children. Sometimes this makes me feel emotional and disappointed, or worried. But when I am calm, I think that that feeling, on my part, is irrational: there are always lots of good alternative methods for solving childrearing problems, and I know that my perspective alone isn't near as good for our children as mine + Prisca's.


He sounds like a great guy.

melodylane,

we are still trying to get in the requisite 20 hours/week. it is so hard with both of us working full time and not having family in town to help with child care. im still waiting on someone to give me the number of her babysitter. and i don't trust child care companies on the internet, even if they do have back ground checks. we are doing what we can but i know that is not enough.

thanks for the statment on changing my anniversary. i didnt even think of it that way.

melodylane,
thanks so much for your encouragement. i dont know what i would of done or what would of happened to our marriage without the help of you, all the other vets, and marriage builders. i can not thank everyone enough. you all have truly changed my life and my marriage. i am a true believer of this program.
thanks again.

markos,
i agree with you that both perspectives are better than one when raising kids. my husband and i do agreee on the majority of the issues on child raising. but sometimes issues do come up and we plan to use POJA.

and yes, he is a great guy!

my 15th wedding anniversary is coming up in a few weeks. this will be the first one since recovery. we have already made plans but now my husband says he doesn't even feel like celebrating, feels like part of our marriage was a lie. what should i do?? cancel what we have planned or should we go ahead and try to get through it? would that be better for our recovery?

What did you have planned, our of curiosity? A trip somewhere? A weekend away?

marital bliss,
we dont have too much planned at this point, only reservations at a 5 star hotel downtown. i wanted to do something for the entire weekend but he didn't want to be away from the children for 2 nights. last night he told me the only time he feels totally safe is when he is with the children.

How much UA time are the two of you getting in each week?

marital bliss,
we are getting about 15 hours a week of ua. definately not enough. i initiate every night, but sometimes he just isn't into it. my husband posts under 20yearhistory. he recently posted his thoughts on ua. last night we had a date night which by the end of the night, we had a great time and laughed more than we have in a long time. but it didn't start off as that. after i dropped the kids off with mil, he said he wanted to pick up the kids and be with them. after we talked for about a hour, (he had things on his mind), he decided after all that he wanted to go on date and we ended up having a wonderful time.

Hmm..
How long have you been getting even 15 hours? Are these hours spend away from the children? It sounds to me like your husband is avoiding being with you in favor of his children. Has he always preferred spending family time over spending one-on-one time with you?

I see this a lot with couples I know - they are living a child-centered life. They don't understand that it is detrimental to their marriage to do so. I told one of them once that their baby daughter was NOT their main priority - their marriage was. They looked at me like I had jack rabbits hopping out of my ears, LOL!

I think it would be great to see the two of you get away from the kids for the weekend to celebrate a covenant that has withstood a huge storm. I know you're still in the process of recovery, but you are recovering together. That's cause for celebration.

I haven't checked on 20years lately. Has he been posting?

marital bliss,
we have been getting about 15 hours since we started recovery. most of it has been 2 hours each night after kids go to bed. we have date night every other weekend. my husband said last night we were "shipping" the kids off when we do that. he has not always preferred spending family time over one-on-one time. when they were smaller, he was the one that arranged the overnights and i was the one that cried whenever the kids left. i miss them terribly now when they leave but i know the importance of ua. i know it is vital to recovery. my husband agrees with me but when he is having a down time, he said he needs to be with the kids and that the kids deserved the family time.
20yearhistory posted a couple days ago about ua and his feelings on it.

Would he not agree that the kids deserve a healed and whole family?

Sorry, clearmind - I should really be posting this to him. I'll hop over to his thread

marital bliss,
my husband does think that the kids deserve a whole and happy family. he couldnt stand the thought of the kids growing up in a broken home, neither could i. that was the main reason we decided to reconcile. but when my husband is going through the down and tough days, that is when he feels he needs the kids the most. last night he was having a tough day and he told me that the kids deserved the family time more than i deserved ua. we talked it through and the evening turned out great but he does have his moments, which i do understand. what i put him through changed him and he is trying to process that.