Yes. I do. No I haven't filled out the questionnaire. I think it is definitely a good time to do that. DH hadn't been very on board before and has been coming around and I think would now be more receptive to doing that.

Sometimes when I see a solution yes I do. When it's just something I'd like him to not continue to do, no. I compliment him and am making an effort to positively comment on the things he does well. I don't know if it's quite working out to be 1 negative for every 10 positives though. There's definitely room for improvement on positives. I had gone so long with just letting good things go without a word that I'm still forming the habit of making sure to comment when he does something good so I still miss opportunities where later I realize I forgot to say thank you or compliment him on this or that that I noticed.

No. The majority are not about the bad. They used to be and sometimes I think maybe that's why he's a bit touchy about it now, that maybe he thinks I'm gonna start on a complaint tirade again.

Thanks for the articles cited.

UA time is going well. With him being back at work and DD now out of preschool for the summer we aren't getting as much outside of the house. We had been using the mornings she was there to spend out.

Now that we are paying sitters for time we are both at work and money is still tight, we may get out of the house about once a week depending on budget and sitters.

Melody, I think you and someone else mentioned DH maybe still being withdrawn. I'm not really seeing that, but maybe he is some of the time. During these times it feels more like conflict. I say this because his actions and the changes from a few months ago when I started following Marriage Builders has been huge. I can't say exactly that he is fully in love with me again, but it feels like we are on the path and that his love bank is out of the red. Our time together is less awkward than it was before and often feels like we are in a state of intimacy. Just last night after he got home from work we spent several hours talking and laughing. He asked things about my life where just a few months back he'd have barely listened to me, contributing little to the conversation, focusing more on TV, his computer or whatever book he was reading and never really seemed interested in me and my life. His drive for SF also seemed really low then and now we have gotten back to the average frequency and sometimes more of how it was early on in our marriage.

hope, that is awesome! I would focus more on getting in your 15 hours of UA. Find a way to make that work. I am in a romantic, passionate marriage and we can tell a decided difference when we drop below 15 hours. When you fall in love again, you won't be willing to forgo any of your time and will be finding ways to make it happen. So stick with it!

You are doing great!

Would your husband agree that you have a handle on it the majority of the time?

How many hours UA are you getting? What is the quality?

Listen to this radio clip. Dr. Harley talks about the importance of UA and eliminating lovebusters to have that romantic love.

Radio clip on building romantic love

That's a good question. I'm not sure. That may be and I do know how I see it doesn't matter if he does see them that way. During or even when I ask he isn't really pointing out anything just the vague comment that I always seem unhappy about something or that he's always doing something wrong. I haven't gotten him to read the LB's book so I'm not sure he could explain them specifically to me in that way.

I think since things are going much better now it's time I gently present Marriage Builder's again to him. Very good time for me to ask him to fill out the worksheets for me to have to know what he thinks I need to work on.

We are getting 15 to 20 per week. Some weeks more, some weeks like this one is looking less. This one less because Saturday he didn't feel well, Sunday I had an awful migraine and today he went to bed around the same time DD did because he has a very early out of town meeting to get to in the morning. I am trying to make up for that though. I've canceled plans I had for tomorrow for us to spend together instead.

Not sure what you mean by quality? A good amount of that time is spent doing things at home versus out and I know it's preferred to have time out. It's only because of financial challenges of sitters that it is that way. Weeks when we have access to family or friends who take her for nothing or a trade we take advantage of having more time out. When me and DH were dating though we didn't spend a lot of nights out. We spent most of our time at each other's houses. Mostly his because he lived on his own. We liked the private time just us without crowds of other people and distractions.

I really liked that clip. Thanks!

Here's an excellent thread by Mel on The Critical importance on the policy of UA

Dr. H says UA time should be spent meeting your spouses most intimate EN, which are SF, IC, RC and Affection.

I am long overdue for an update. Things have been continuing to go well with the occasional bump or bad few days. I feel like most of the time I am able to figure out what went wrong and put the train back on the track so it hadn't seemed noteworthy to post here. I have updated my posting name as one I thought was more unique.

The latest bump in the road occurred last week. Me and DH are trying to get back on track financially after him being unemployed for so long. Things are getting there with a ways to go. It seems when one thing gets paid another unexpected bill happens. Well I got paid and was paying towards some small bills. DH has a hospital bill that we hadn't paid anything towards and I went to make the payment. It wouldn't let me. I texted him to ask him if he had done it already because it wasn't letting me. He had a major AO getting mad at me for handling his bills and that he didn't want me paying for his stuff. The AO caught me completely off guard since I thought he'd be happy to know we were getting a few things caught up and mostly in general because he hadn't had an AO like that in months and the things he said just seemed to come out of nowhere. I did think I probably should have informed him first and gotten his agreement before handling those things. Even still it did feel to me that something else must be behind his reaction.

I had to work that evening and when I came home I tried to talk to him about it. He started to become angry again until it came out exactly why it was. The day before my mom had come up and watched DD while I went to work. I chatted with her a bit before I left. My mom had asked how we were doing financially as they have loaned us money knowing we were struggling to catch up. I had mentioned DH had just had his state truck inspection and it needed new tires to pass so that ended up being a costly thing and that luckily one of our credit cards that was just in my name we were able to put them on to cover them. Well, it turned out that when DH had gotten home my mom had said to him that she heard his truck had needed more stuff. She asked him why how come if he was now working he couldn't pay for his own stuff and I was paying for it....

Yeah... That night I had thought he seemed a little off, but he hadn't told me that occurred when I asked if he was okay. He just had said he was tired. So after he calmed he told me he was angry that he thought I had talked badly to my mom about him, that he felt they thought he was just their failure son in law, that he was worried I thought of him that way and that that was how he was feeling about himself by not fully being able to provide for his family like he thought he should.

I have not spoken to my mom yet, but plan to tomorrow when I'm off about her comments and how I am not happy that she spoke to him that way or turned what I said that way.

I am at a loss at how to help DH feel better about his feelings of failing his family. I certainly don't see him that way and financial support is not one of my top needs. How do I make sure he knows that?

mariposa, there are a couple of things going on here. The first thing is your husband's angry outbursts. That is the kiss of death. He needs to work on that NOW. I would get that lovebuster under control PRONTO. It does not matter WHAT your mother said or you said, he should never have another angry outburst. There is no excuse for an AO. That lovebuster will undo all the progress you make in your marriage.

The next issue I see is your not following the POJA. Never do anything without the enthusiastic agreement of your spouse.

And lastly, what your mother said to your husband was disrespectful and hurtful. I would address that with her.


He will feel better when he gets back on his feet financially. You can't make him feel better, but you can continue to treat him with love and respect. It is important for him to support his family so I wouldn't dismiss that and tell him its not important. It really is important.

Yeah. He has always been bad about the AO's. As we have been working on things he has improved them and they are definitely not nonexistent, but much less frequent than before. I know that is definitely not where it should be, but I do think the progress he is making is going well.


Yes definitely my thought there after it happened. POJA is definitely something I'm striving to do. Learning and putting it into practice all the time after the habit of not is definitely harder than I thought it would be even after reading the many posts from others here struggling with it too.


I don't dismiss it. I know how important that is to him and the hit being unemployed and relying on my income only affected him.

POJA was very, very hard for me too, mariposa. Just stick with it and it will soon become a habit!

And if your husband needs help with angry outbursts he might want to look into angerbusters. That is an excellent program I hear.

You are definitely on the right track!

Thanks! I will have to look into that program.

Love your new screenname, Mariposa! butterfly, right? here's a sad little imitation:

<>;<>

I agree with ML's advice, your H's anger will prevent the solving of every other marital problem, and needs to be resolved right away. I wish there were AngerBusters in our city! Anyway, my H has been in AM classes for about 5 weeks now, and we have some similar issues to yours I think. It's been difficult for us to resolve conflicts, too.

Just wanted to say Hi and that I'm rooting for you!

Mariposa, here's a letter I received from Dr. Harley when I wrote him with (nearly) the same question you pose here. I hope it helps you!

Moderator's: If it's not OK to post letters of advice from Dr. Harley, would you please let me know? If so, I will remove it and say "Sorry!"

Thanks, Zhamila

It's OK!!