Ok, trying to figure out how to sell MB without sounding like a nag to a man who thinks the marriage is fine. He thinks family time is MUCH MUCH more important than UA. I have been and am trying to be honest about how I feel. Yet, I don't think you can sell a man on a program by saying, "I need you to spend time with me. I need you to spend time with me." and lets talk about issues when you do get to see him..

Last week we had a grand total of 4 1/2 hours of UA time because he was on call 4 days last week. This week we have an hour so far. He will be gone for a conference Thursday/Friday. He leaves the next Wednesday for a mission trip for a week and a half.

So, do I spend Saturday trying to nail down the fact that we do not spend enough time together and I REALLY want us to institute POJA and UA or do I try to make it an enjoyable time??? Do I kidnap him to have a fun recreational time on Saturday and then talk about it on Sunday afternoon?

I have been keeping the house pretty much spotless and continuing to exercise and try to make myself look attractive as those were the two areas he mentioned wanting improvement when we discussed our emotional needs. How do I try to get my needs met without sounding like a nag or a broken record?

He has been making an effort by being more physically affectionate with me. Making me talk about difficult issues: he asked me what was wrong and I told him I was scared about the biopsy and he held me and comforted me. He has been admiring me and telling me how good the house looks and what a good job I've been doing. So it isn't like he isn't doing anything. But still we need more UA time.

Dr Harley encourages spouses to complain if their needs are not being met

TW, I would cut and paste this to your thread. It all relates so there's no need for a new thread. It's helpful for people who don't know your story to be able to page back and get the jist of it and see what you've been struggling with so far.

I can tell you that I though my marriage was fine too, once. Evidently my wife did not. While you have the advantage of KNOWING you weren't satisfied, it took my now-ex wife's extramarital affair to show her that she was not happy. Now we're divorced.

If your DH were to come here, I would tell him that him being happy in the marriage is NOT enough. And that if he is not meeting your EN's and doing things to keep you in love with him, then you are bound to find someone else who will. He doesn't think so (and niether do you), but it will happen one way or another. The relationship you have now is not "sustainable" in it's imbalance of happiness. (e.g. you can't keep "kidnapping" him.)

But I doubt if he would be interested in hearing my words, who am I anyway?
Perhaps it might mean more coming from Dr. Harley himself. (I predict he will say just what I said, but who knows?). I would suggest you e-mail the show and request a radio interview. This is a well-worn topic and they would probably be delighted to go over it again. THEN you can play the interview for him and see if that has an impact. I would not do this without talking to him first however -- that's IB. Do a little POJA first.

I also have to say I think you may be being a little hasty. As I've said before I believe these topics take a lot of time to understand and master. You got 4.5 hours last week. That is a triumph in most marriages. How would you feel about making in a GOAL to work toward 15 hours/week and then 20? See what your DH would say about mapping it out with you. myabe 6 this week, then 8-10 next. You have one this week and it's only Tuesday. Not bad. Do you have an actual schedule that you've talked about? Dr. Harley recommends filling out a schedule weekly, together. I think you'd feel better knowing there was something written down, to work with.

Can you meet him at the conference?

-----Being gone for 10 days away from you is not MB and is somethign that should be addressed at some point----- *might be another question to pose to Dr. H and make part of the radio interview that your husband will listen to.

I welcome him here, as well. It might mean something different hearing it from folks who have been on both sides of it.

opt

Ac

This does belong on your existing thread, because even though that thread has evolved, this is an issue that we were dealing with recently. Also, your old thread provides context.

I remember that I and other people advised you on your existing thread that the UA issue cannot be resolved in your situation without some changes in lifestyle. Yet you are still saying that your H has to work these hours, and he has to be away for these days, so that leaves only this time for UA. We advised you that you and he need to consider changes in his working pattern and work life so that 15 hours' UA time can happen every week.

Have you considered doing that?

Yes, that is my point. How do I sell this to my husband. I have given up all of my activities to be home, but his work hasn't changed. So now I have no outside interests and am basically organizing the house. ( But those closets sure are looking good!) How do I sell him?

How do I make it so it isn't a selfish demand? I mean if I REALLY want the 15 hours alone and he thinks time at home with kids is enough then what?

I don't agree that you are being hasty, tw. The incremental approach is not the way Dr Harley advises those of us who do the online course to approach UA time when it's difficult. Also, the incremental approach will never work as long as there are big blocks of time when your H has to be away from you.

From what I understand you to be saying,

- you could not increase UA time last week because H was on call for 4 nights

- you cannot get much in this week because we are already at Tuesday and you've only had an hour so far, and H will be away on Thursday and Friday

- his leaving next Wednesday will several curtail the time available that week

- his being away the whole of the following week means UA time will be nil that week.

So things are getting incrementally worse over the next few weeks, not better.

You cannot take an incremental approach with those regular or revolving commitments, even if Dr Harley recommended it - which he doesn't.

I don't have a magic answer to make a spouse listen to you. Dr Harley has written about what to do when a spouse won't listen. Have a look at PW2007's thread in this forum. She is expressing exactly the same frustrations as you. Our dear friend Brainy posted some links for her to read and listen to, so you should read them too.

In your shoes, I would phone the coaching centre and speak to Dr Harley's son Steve. Everyone here speaks highly of how he is able to motivate reluctant spouses. It would be good if your H agreed with your decision to call Steve but if he doesn't agree, call him anyway. It is not an issue of independent behaviour when you are trying to save your marriage using MB.

Use the link in the red area at the top of every page and book a call now. You have talked around this for long enough, and no action is being taken. This situation is critical.

In addition to all the above, does "on call" mean he is still at home, but just might need to leave at any moment?

My H is on-call on weekends (also in emergency services) but we can still do our UA time - but in those instances, we do something more simple like going for a very long walk, which he can leave if need be, rather than out for a fancy dinner or bowling.

Yes, this is what it means. Basically he got home Friday at 7:30 and we ate dinner and went to bed. He left at 5am and came home at 8:30 pm as he bounced from case to case that came in. He ate and went to bed as he was exhausted from surgery. The phone rang several times in the middle of the night until he left at 4am. He did 3 hip surgeries and came hom in the middle of the afternoon. Yes, we did spend a couple of hours of ua time that afternoon. We've almost finished putting together the windmill. But to be honest, he was absolutely exhausted so he wasn't that talkative.

I would also encourage this contact. I have now had 5 sessions with S. Harley, some alone, and some with my W. At first I thought I'd hear some canned phrases, generalities, and non specific comments easily applicable to anyone. That was not the case though. Although I wasn't reluctant, and initially contacted him for a sanity check, his comments and rather quick observations made we 'stumble' and 'pause' uncharacteristically since his discussion quickly became acutely applicable to 'me' , 'us' and 'our' situation. It is worth a try for you, and if you can eventually get your husband there on a one-on-one, it should be telling.

We had the best day on Saturday with over 5 hours of UA time. Sunday he was frantically getting ready for his trip and I was the secretary running off this or that, finding this or that, etc. I just hated to ruin Saturday by complaining, so I didn't. Here is a letter I wrote. I have also run off several chapters. I think he could fit them in his stuff. How does this sound?

Dearest ,

I love you. I�m going to miss you SO much while you are gone! Tell __________ I said hello and he needs to come back to visit us in the states with his whole family next time! I�ll be interested to see how God uses you in this assignment!

I have been enjoying our time together SO much over the last few weeks. Thank you for making an effort to fill my love bank! It hasn�t gone unnoticed. I feel closer to you than I have in a while!! Thank you SO much for making an effort!

I have run off a couple of excerpts from the Fall in Love and Stay in Love and Love Buster books. They cover the concepts of Undivided Attention, Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA), honesty and making career decisions. I know that I haven�t done a good job of following POJA all the time. If I think that I can�t get you to agree with something, so I just won�t bring it up and do it anyway. That isn�t good. I�m sorry for doing that. The chapter on honesty also struck a chord in me. If I am not honest about what is bothering me, then how can you fix it? I also think that spending undivided time together is important. I thought that you might have some extra time on the trip to read some of this.

I was wondering if you might be willing to consider doing an experiment? Would you be willing to try and spend the UA time and follow the POJA for 3 months? He suggests meeting on Sundays to talk over and plan the week. I would be curious to see if doing this also helps with your stress with your job. Speaking of which, you haven�t said much lately about it. I�m not sure if it is better or if you just don�t want to burden me with it. I do want you to continue to share your feelings about it with me. Together we can tackle anything!

I love you and have enjoyed having fun with you the last few weeks! I �ll be counting the days until you return.

Your best friend

tiredwife, I like your letter!! Good job! If you would like, I will email you the undivided attention worksheet. I scanned it into my computer and we just print it up every week.

The best way to plan UA time is to schedule it out, writing out the dates, activities, etc. Time that is not scheduled is too easy to put off so Harley recommends writing out the schedule and sticking to it.

If you want it, just hit mod notify and give them your email address and ask them to send it to me. I will forward you the sheet in PDF form.

Here is the workbook we got when we went through the MB course: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi6090_step.html

It has all the worksheets in it along with step by step instructions.

Also, we did not learn the POJA until we had been consistently following the POUA for a few months. Our first forays at the POJA were a DISASTER and we had a pretty good marriage at that point! It was WW11! Just a word of caution.

Wow, that letter is fantastic!

Thanks for the offers for the books, but first I bought the 5 steps to Romantic love for my Kindle app on my laptop, only to discover that you can't print off of it!! But then they sent me 5 steps and Love Busters when I called!! So I have all the forms I need. Thanks, though

Well it is done. I put it in the computer along with the articles. He will probably find it when he opens it up to get work done on his 6 hour flight. Heart is pounding..

Thanks guys for putting up with me and my questions since there isn't anyone I can talk to. Now, a couple of thoughts/questions about POJA. I'm sure he will readily agree to it because he thinks we are already doing it. The problem is my dishonesty. I don't tell him what I really think or feel sometimes. For example: our family was taking the typhoid vaccination ( 1 pill every other day , there are 4 of them) We were partway through when my husband brought home the flu shot to give us. I asked him if it was really a good idea to take this at the same time as the typhoid since they were both live vaccines. He saw no problem whatsoever. Plus, he had already signed them out of the office so they couldn't be returned and he didn't want them to go bad. I reluctantly agreed. That is what I typically do..ok, you know best. But if he needs my enthusiastic agreement. Oh dear.. He may not be able to do anything... I would not have agreed to it. Well, I would have compromised and said that perhaps all of us could do it but my daughter. The boys are adult size, but she isn't and has allergy type issues. Sure enough, the day after the flu vaccine she threw up and had 101 fever. It was over in 24 hours. But that was my biggest fear.. She would react badly and I would be stuck trying to figure out what to do while he was overseas!!!

So how is he going to be enthusiastic about this agreement. He has all the plans. I'm not always against them, but I'm not always ENTHUSIASTIC about them either.. Also, how do you get enthusiastic when you have no thoughts or plans sometimes? Let us take retirement:

He wants to do locum tenems for 4 months out of the year which will pay for our living expenses for the year. It may be around here or may be somewhere else. We would live in the trailer somewhere. We would serve in the mission field for 4 months and travel for fun for 4 months. That is his plan.. My problem is this... I love home and community. I enjoy traveling, but then I have no support system. And what exactly am I supposed to do while he does locum tenems? Volunteer somewhere but then disappear at the end of 4 months??? But what do I want to do? I don't know.. I'm just terrified of being without community. But we've been talking about this since we were first married. It feels completely unfair of me to suddenlly back out of something he thought was a mutual plan we had agreed on. Sigh....

I know Dr. Harley says that everyone is prone to an affair. I think I have to disagree. Honestly, I've discovered what a rotten wife and mom I truly am. If I had my life to do over again, I would stay single. I would live in a very small one bedroom house. I would go teach/volunteer/ serve the community etc on my time and hours and then go to a quiet house where I have to serve NO ONE and just relax... If I want to clean the house, I would. If not, who cares!!! If I want to go help someone it is my choice on my timeline. There are not little people around 24/7 who need something. I have no interest in getting involved with anyone!!

I guess I am just selfish...

No you are not selfish, you are reacting to the years of things being miserable but at the same time you are afraid of what you have to do to turn this around. In other words you are human!

Good clip of Dr. Harley talking about how we all are pre-disposed to affairs.
Radio clip

[quote=living_well
No you are not selfish, you are reacting to the years of things being miserable but at the same time you are afraid of what you have to do to turn this around. In other words you are human! [/quote]

But I'm not miserable. I'm actually pretty happy most of the time. Everyone always notices how I'm always happy.

My husband is the nicest guy on the planet. I think so. Everyone else thinks so. If I can't live with him then there is no one I could live with!!! Honestly, some of you tell stories on here that I could not and would not put up with!