I am a newbie that needs a lot of guidance. My husband and I have had a very rocky marriage since the beginning and now I am not so sure I want it to continue. He, on the other hand, can't see life without me, and I understand this. I've been the only constant in his life, so of course he doesn't want to lose me.

A little background...my husband and I met when we were 14. I am now 43 and he is 44. We got married at 18, basically because I was pregnant. He wasn't anywhere near ready to be a husband and father. Neither was I ready to be a parent, but I had no other choice.

There was a lot of independent behavior on both parties during the entirety of our marriage. We did a lot of things so very wrong and we continue to do a lot of things wrong. But, after 25 years of the same old same old, I'm tired. And, I want more out of life than scrubbing toilets. I understand that our lives are what we make of them, but in our situation my life is dictated by other people and will be for awhile because we have a special needs child.

I have had to focus on our son, get him the services he needs, get him to be as independent as I can, watch over his schooling, etc and that has left my husband feeling second place. His feeling are valid, but never in our marriage have I ever put him second place. He was/is always my first priority, however I was/am never his first priority. My husband has always done what he wanted, when he wanted as long as he was able to. And, to make matters worse, when he does these things, he will obsess over them to the point that it is the only thing he will do besides go to work.

My confusion lies within the joint policy of agreement... I understand that the reason why my marriage is in the state it's in is because of our independent behavior and other reasons. However, I am not the type of person to tell my husband that going to see his friends is not something I am enthusiastic about so he can't go either. I want him to go. Just because I don't enjoy socializing with his friends, doesn't mean he should have to stay home. That would cause resentment from him towards me.

On the other hand, he just left to run errands and get his hair cut and was a little upset that I didn't want to tag along. I wasn't prepared to leave the house so early on a Saturday morning, and even though he said he'd wait around for me, I just didn't want to go to the bother of getting ready. Saturday mornings are my time to lounge with a cup of coffee and my FB games. I should have went, yes?

Scootcher, it is ok for you and your husband to do things apart a) as long as you are both enthusiastic about it and b) you are each others favorite leisure activity and c) you are spending 20+ hours of UA time per week ALONE meeting each others intimate emotional needs.

My husband also runs errands on Saturday mornings and I don't go because I don't ENJOY doing that on Saturday mornings. It wouldn't help if I went along anyway becuase that would be SACRIFICE. I don't mind that he goes alone but if I went grudgingly it would only cause resentment. So I am enthusiastic about him running his errands and me staying home and drinking coffee all morning.


No one said you should tell your husband to stay home so I am not sure what you mean with this.

The idea is to find activities that you enjoy doing together so you don't lead separate lives. Do you have His Needs, Her Needs?

Scootcher, you shouldn't do anything you are not enthusiastic about. So if you don't think going is a great idea, you shouldn't go.

Why do you say you are not sure if your marriage should continue? How much time do you and your husband spend together each week?

One thing to add about separate recreational activities: they should not be with people you are not enthusiastic about your husband seeing, and/or with people of the opposite sex.

As an example, my parents were extremely disrespectful toward my wife for years, so she told me she didn't want us to see them any more, so we didn't. We found other people to spend our time with, and our marriage was much better for it. (And eventually my parents learned that if they wanted to see us they had to apologize and be respectful.)

My take on the POJA is that if both were not enthusiastic about an outing, then it didn't happen. For instance, during the summer months, his friends have evenings that include sitting around a fire pit, drinking, smoking, and throwing horseshoes. Sounds like a delightful time to some people, but not for me. I don't drink, I don't smoke, and I don't play horseshoes. I am a very very shy person and the thought of making small talk with people I barely know sends me into a panic. My husband enjoys activities like these, but would enjoy it more if he didn't have to answer the question of my absence all evening.

Either way, if he stays home there is resentment and if he goes there is resentment. If I go, there is resentment and if I stay home there is resentment. There is no way to win this one that we can see.

There is also no way we can get 20 hours of UA time a week. He commutes 2 hours to work and is gone from 4:30 AM until 7:00 PM during the week. In order for him to be able to leave by 4:30, we are in bed by 9:00. Weekends are spent doing household chores and running errands. I'm home during the day and I do my part, but he has his own chores and errands. He also helps out his grandmother on the weekends when she asks him to do things for her. That's not something that he can just choose not to do.

Moving is not an option. Neither is him finding another job.

We enjoy summer activities: riding the motorcycle, going camping, going to baseball games. We have yet to find any winter activities that we both enjoy. He is more social and likes to visit people whereas I am a homebody and like to read, watch movies, etc.

Money is pretty tight at the moment so I have not been able to purchase any of the MB books. I did print out a lot of the articles and questionnaires.

We do not spend much time together at all. Tonight we plan on going out to dinner (at an inexpensive diner but I love it!) and start Christmas shopping.

I have no issues with him spending time with his friends or with doing other activities without me. He's been doing them the whole entire time we have been married. We don't have many common interests because we never really focused on finding them. The few we do are activities done outside during the summer months.

There is absolutely no way I could tell my husband that he couldn't see his parents, and they haven't been nice to me at all! When I mention how rude they are to me, he doesn't believe me and always takes him mother's side.

Why don't I think this marriage should continue? Because I'm tired of feeling like an object rather than a beloved partner in life. I am tired of being the responsible adult in this relationship. I am tired of being the mom and dad to our kids. And, because I have recently come to the conclusion that I deserve more and I don't think he is capable of doing more.

You don't see it because you aren't used to looking for alternatives. People who aren't accustomed to using the POJA tend to be very black and white. Your husband's "resentment" will only last until you find a suitable alternative. Your resentment, on the other hand will last forever if you go and endure an unpleasant evening.

The default position of doing nothing is very temporary. You do nothing until you find a suitable alternative. When Harley says "do nothing," he is thinking 2 to 3 hours tops while you brainstorm an alternative that suits you both.


There is no way you can find time for UA time but you can find time to "run errands" and do chores? How is that? Almost all of this is stuff that is less important than your marriage. Chores, running errands, helping grandmother are all more important than your marriage? That is why your marriage is suffering.

Am not sure why you wouldn't move closer to his job. Maybe because everything else is more important than your marriage?


I would keep looking until you find activities that you both enjoy. Complete opposites do just fine when they really put an effort into finding activities they both enjoy.


You can get a free book if you email the radio station and they read your email on the show.

Or you can buy a used copy on Amazon for $5.77 plus $3.99 shipping. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...s=his+needs+her+needs&condition=used

Have you seen these?
What to Do When Your Recreational Companionship Becomes Boring and Unpleasant (Part 1)
What to Do When Your Recreational Companionship Becomes Boring and Unpleasant (Part 2)

Yes, you do deserve more, but it doesn't sound like you expect more. You don't do anything to create or maintain an intimate, romantic marriage and then you complain you don't have a good marriage.

You can't have a good marriage unless you take steps to have a good marriage.

It is hard work to have a bad marriage. Wouldn't you agree? It is so much easier to have a great marriage. Do you remember when you were dating and first married? Wasn't life so much easier then?

Also what are your DH's top ENs?

Ok, I see where the POJA would work until there is an alternative. I can see though where if there is just a tad bit of resentment on his part, he won't want to compromise and come up with an alternate activity.

As I stated, these are HIS errands and chores. If I could help him get them done during the week, I would. His grandparents depend on him for a lot of things, it is important to him to make sure they are OK. There's no way around it because he is the only one that does things for them.

Moving is out of the question because of the fact that we both have made a lot of mistakes with credit cards and such. Hubby was out of a job for about a year a few years ago and we did what we could to survive. Which meant that a lot of things just didn't get paid. Including the house. We're almost caught up, but we would be considered a bad risk to creditors. Not to mention, that his job is in a big city where it would cost more for us to live, where as the area we live in now is much smaller and affordable.

Thanks for the link. I didn't even think about trying to find it on Amazon. We're getting ready for our outing or I'd reply to everyone else's posts. I will as soon as I can, just know that they are very appreciated.

Let us know if you decide to look for solutions. There isn't anything we can do if you won't do anything.

My husband likes to sit for 1-2 hours and have coffee/play games on weekend mornings. So, we wake up at 5am, have 1-2 hours to ourselves (in the same room, but do our own thing) and then by 7am we're both out the door and 'enjoying' all our little errands together!

You said you are never his priority... he asks you to participate in various things (errands, haircut, out with friends) but you seem to say no a lot. Can you see why he thinks that you don't actually want to spend time with him? Whereas you feel like the 2nd priority because he chooses activities you don't enjoy?

So, you guys just let this simmer for so many years and now are bitter/grown apart. So it's time to take action on that and start coming up with creative ways to change.

Bring him here and people can help him with POJA too

Why not? Is this the only job on the planet for him?

This is Independent Behavior on both of your parts. Have you considered that this may have be detrimental to your marriage? I would be very unhappy if my husband spent his leisure time without me.

I would LOVE it if my husband proactively invited me to do errands with him (instead of me tagging along). He sounds like he really wants to spend time with you.

You should not throw in the towel. It sounds like you have a very workable marriage, where you two just need to make some adjustments. The work will be worth it!

This is the only job in the area for him to have great potential at and make decent money. We have bills to pay and working at McD's is not going to suffice. He has awesome benefits, awesome insurance...Sacrificing his happiness at a job just for the sake of spending more time together during the week is not worth it to me. He loves his job. It sucks that he is gone all day long, but that is a price we pay.

That may seem weird to some people, but he's happy working at this job whereas he was not happy working at his other jobs. I feel that his happiness at work has helped his attitude towards other things.

I don't quite get that... why would spending leisure time away from you make you unhappy? I may be wrong but that seems to me like co-dependent behavior and just as detrimental to a marriage.

No no. This has been an issue for years. We didn't just suddenly come to this conclusion.

I rarely say no to him when he wants to go places. We have gone to numerous functions and activities that he likes to do but I can count on one hand the number of activities and functions that we both went to that I wanted to do.

I drew the line at going to motorcycle rallies where the most popular event was to get drunk and get naked and then sleep it off in a 2 man tent in the middle of summer.