Wow, do they ever need to update their payment method options.

They are actually asking me to send a CC # via email to them. Uhm. NO! That is an unsecured method of communication and I'm not going to do that.

So I've picked a time for me and a time for her and now I'm going to go call the Center to give them the number over the phone. That's, at least, a little less risky.

I need a little help.

My wife and I are in counseling with Dr. Chalmers. My wife has her first session tonight. It's my hope she's able to get us going on one of the MB options so this time her and I have a better plan and eliminate the issues that make our M fail.

I still remain withdrawn however my wife and I have begun to interact more and even have had a little bit of physical contact (hugs, snuggling, etc). I'm making some effort but it's too early, of course, for me to feel invested in her. I do have a vision of where I'd like to be and I'd like it to be with her. But the past is a deterrent to those feelings and until they do I'm vulnerable.

As an admission of guilt I have the wandering eye syndrome lately and any advice that people can provide that will keep me focused will be of great help.

I'm trying to do my part. As another admission I have a good friend here at work and it is a female friend that has been a huge help to my M. She's kept me honest and is quick with the hammer to set me straight. I think she enjoys the hammer part. :-) I've already informed her that our talks as friends is going to have to change. That I can no longer talk about personal issues. She's of no threat to my M as I'm in no way interested in her nor will I ever be. She is a true friend and friend of the M. However this could be an issue in my M as my W knows I chat a lot to this girl. This is something I'd like to discuss as it is the one principles of MB that I've struggled with. All of the people that have been of huge help to me and my M have been women. Let's face it, not too many guys are into fixing their buddy's marriages or even care to talk about their Ms and I have zero male friends that even know about this program. These female friends (plus my sister) are all very familiar with MB and have used parts of the materials to help in their Ms. So where do I go from here? If I don't have a close friend to confide in and keep me honest, what should I do?

FYI: No I did not discuss this in my one session with Dr. Chalmers as I'm just admitting to myself today that I need to change it and thus do this plan the right way. I will certainly fess up in our next session.

1. stop talking about your marriage to other people except us, your wife and Dr Chalmers. STOP THAT

2. stop gawking at other women

I think you are in the bad habit of venting and seem to enjoy doing that. It has not helped your marriage in any way, shape or form. IT has prevented you from solving marriage problems.

I noticed that you had been coming to this forum venting for years at the expense of looking for solutions. That is what I noticed immediately about you.

Venting is a distraction from looking for solutions. Stop venting and focus all your time on learning the principles of this program. You won't learn that from your female friend or your sister. You will learn that from reading the material here and implementing the principles in your marriage. Your WIFE should become your closest confidant.

MrA, my first reaction is: HOORAY! I am so glad to hear that both you and your wife are talking to Dr. Chalmers. This is great! This is fantastic!

Regarding other women, just do it. One of the greatest things you can offer to persuade your wife to do Marriage Builders, whole hog, including the parts that matter to you is to do Marriage Builders yourself, whole hog, including the parts that matter to your wife.

As an example, last year I let my wife know from work that I was about to head out for lunch. She responded something to the effect that I got to do anything I wanted while she was always constrained by this "POJA" she didn't like. And I simply replied that since she didn't want me to go out to lunch, I wouldn't. And I hardly go out to lunch any more.

The big thing was this: my wife noticed. I was willing to put the principles into practice even when it constrained me, even when I didn't much like the result. And it helped to win her over.

What am I, chopped liver??? Seriously, I am ready and willing to help you and to be a GUY you can talk to about stuff. I like helping people learn how they can fix their marriages.

Of course the thing about being a really good friend is sometimes we have to tell each other what we don't want to hear. :P

Despite all of the help you have sought from these people, it hasn't worked.

There are a lot of people who claim to "know Marriage Builders." But I'll tell you one thing, your friend with the hammer didn't hammer something she should have: she should not have talked to you about your marriage.

I help men and women on this site. (Try to, anyway.) I do not help women in person. One thing I know from Marriage Builders is that people fall in love with the people they talk to about their problems!

There's no need to let people know you won't talk about personal issues any more. Just stop doing it. If they have a strong reaction, that's a pretty good sign that you need a taller wall between you and that person.

For all the money you are paying for Dr. Chalmers, I hope you are supplementing with the free daily help from Dr. Harley:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4200_radio.html

Sit in class every day. I promise you it will help.

MrAlias,

I am seriously thrilled that you guys are seeing Dr. Chalmers. I hope you'll both put all of these principles into practice. You will be so happy. Even if you just start, really scrupulously doing this stuff, your wife stands a good chance of responding.

As you say, it's too early for the feelings to respond. But if you can get with it and stick with it, there is a lot of reason to be optimistic.

Well, for one I haven't had much interaction with you over the years Markos. The ones (male and female) that I did have interactions here with have long since moved on. Not saying that would stop me from interacting with you now just that it's hard to trust someone till they've earned that trust.

A forum , in particular this forum, is a difficult place to do that because you do get to hear the things you don't want to hear and you have to interact with people that you don't always see everything eye to eye.
There are posts that I need to let settle before I reply otherwise I react instead of processing the message properly. (I haven't always been successful in doing that BTW).

I understand the reasoning of having no personal contacts of the opposite sex. I do. I get it and am fully aware of the potential hazards of having them. I've seen them in action. For me it has always been a morale of mine that I would never have an affair. I would never do that to myself. I've seen enough infidelity within my family to know it isn't worth it. Plan A, Plan B, Plan D. Find someone else. Regardless I've already stopped doing it. As of last week I am only having those types of conversations with my sister.

This last post was meant as more than a vent. I recognize the vulnerable position I am in and am asking for people's help in keeping me accountable and seeing if they had any ideas on what to do while I feel nothing for my wife.

Things are in motion based on ME taking action. After tonight it is my hope that her and I start down the path of working the program together. If she refuses, yet again, to participate in the program then I have a decision to make, go it alone or just go. I am optimistic.

Thanks for your feedback marko.

PS: I make attempts about 2 or 3 times a week to listen to the radio program over my lunch hour (aka right now). The transmission over my smartphone isn't always successful. Some times it works other times it doesn't.

As time permits I will provide you with some info on many of the things I've done over the last 9-10 years. I've had some fascinating experiences.

Right now I'm working on some homework the Dr. gave me.

Today's Radio broadcast is about a W with H relunctant to join her in the MB program.

She said YES to the program and thanked me for doing this!!!!!!

That's fantastic! I am so happy to hear this!!!

BTW, what homework did Dr. Chalmers give you? Have you completed it, yet?

A few small things. We meet together with Dr. J Sunday.

15-30 minutes of reading a day. Right now we're both rereading the tour (Hmmm I assume she is). I ordered HNHN, LBs, FILSIL. They'll be here tomorrow. Love Amazon Prime!!!

We have to fill out the EN Questionaires and the "I would love it if" document before Sunday. We're not to share them yet.

I've sent Dr. J a short letter of a "I would love it if" topic so she can provide feedback. She's helping me with my LBs (currently DJs and Dishonesty(no PORH). She pointed out my issue where I make statements where I'm trying to educate my wife. It's funny cause I heard what I was saying and knew it didn't feel right and the good Dr caught it immediately.

Our primary homework is getting 20 hours of UA time. We have a few small plans but we definitely don't have enough slated to get to 20. It's my hope we can sit down tonight and look at the RC inventory.
Last night we spent about 90 minutes together. We're going to be starting a new way of eating in the household and our new Marlene Koch cookbooks showed up yesterday. So we spent that time together looking over the 1st of her books and jotting down the recipes we'd love to try. I am really psyched about that because one of my biggest issues right now is myself, my weight and physical condition (plantar fascitiis, back spasms due to loose discs, chrondomalacia(sp?) which is a knee cap issue. If I could lose weight I will look and feel better ... and that'll go a long ways towards improving my attitude and behavior. I've been struggling trying to improve my ailments and have spent a ton of dough doing so and yet I still am having problems. It's depressing.

This weekend (well Sunday) we will begin the new eating plan. It's going to be a great opportunity for her and I to spend some quality time together. We have to plan, purchase and prepare these meals and we're going to do it together.

Marko I've got a long ways to go to get back to doing things the appropriate way. I have a sich with her right now where I can even be honest with her. I just can't get myself to tell the truth. She's going back to her sisters again this Saturday after just being there last Sunday. She lives about an hour and a half away. It's where my wife boards her 2 quarter horses. She has a legitimate reason for going but she could have taken care of it Sunday.

It's too early for me to expect her to change her ways so the fact she's going back yet we haven't discussed our 20 hours of UA time yet is concerning to me.

I've been honest with her in the past and it helped some but I really need to get back to it. I'm sort of entrenched in my bad behavior of just not caring and thus I say nothing.

Is it bad that I'm waiting for my wife (expectation) to tell me she's excited about this plan and that she sees the value in it for her, that she admits she needs to change? So far all she's said to me is thank you for doing this, I'm glad it is making you feel better and that honestly she feels she's being pushed.

I'm sure this is going to help and maybe I shouldn't care how we get to a better place, just that we get there, but it would sure be easier for me is she seemed enthusiastic about it. I realize I'm probably LB'ing for saying all of that but it has always been an indicator of to me of our situation when I hear and see her reactions to me wanting more. It says a lot about her and I know she gets to own that but it's tiring being on the receiving side of resistance. It feels like she doesn't care enough even though it's probably really more about her fears than anything.

MrA, all of this sounds great.

Regarding the disrespectful judgment of educating our wives: that's sure an easy temptation to fall into, isn't it? I'll confess that I found disrespectful judgments one of the hardest things to recognize and eliminate. There were just so many things that my wife found disrespectful! Because it turns out I was just really a disrespectful jerk. But I'll tell you what, systematically eliminating all of this is worth it. It's the beginning of what will make the difference.

One thing you may find is that until you completely eliminate the three abusive love busters, your wife may just plain not be enthusiastic about spending time with you. I experienced a lot of that. And I made it worse by trying to demand that my wife do these things. But of course, what woman wants to spend time with a man who is abusing her? This has been the biggest reason for us taking longer than we should have to get traction with the Marriage Builders plan, so I encourage you to take the elimination of abusive love busters really seriously! And follow Dr. Harley's rule that if your wife feels something is disrespectful, demanding, or angry, then it is. I relied a whole lot on Steve Harley and then on our coach from the MB accountability program to tell me why the things my wife identified as disrespectful were disrespectful. I've got to confess, I was the epitome of "clueless husband"!!!

Loving Amazon Prime -- yes, me too!! And I think it's one of my wife's emotional needs or something. I first signed up for a "trial" Amazon Prime membership so we could get free fast shipping on a bunch of anger management materials I ordered last year, and I think most of our disposable income has gone to Amazon ever since. In particular, we've sent out a lot of Marriage Builders books, and bought several to give to engaged couples in our church.

One thing you'll find that Dr. Harley says is that he really puts a lot of burden on the husband for the success of the marriage. There's a lot of pump priming necessary to turn around a bad marriage, and a wife typically just does NOT have the stamina for it. What you will find is that if you patiently lead, your wife will likely follow. You'll have to lead by eliminating the love busters and establishing a new environment that is attractive for her to live in, and love busters will drive her back into withdrawal, and you'll be stuck wanting to judge her for that and claim that she's not doing the work but you'll find that that is counterproductive. Leave it to Dr. Chalmers to motivate and educate her, not you, because your wife will likely be VERY sensitive to that and trying to do it will drive her away and sabotage your efforts. Hopefully later on you guys will be able to get into the accountability program and you'll be able to continue to rely on a coach from Dr. Harley to do that.

Are you listening daily to the radio program? That's where Dr. Harley throws in a lot of those comments like the fact that he's harder on men and puts more burden on them. He's really mean that way. BUT, that's what has kept me motivated through a LOT of ups and downs the last couple years as we have learned to turn things around and eliminate the love busters. The prize, those hours of time together every week and that feeling of romantic love, is there for you, so lnog as you keep motivated and eradicate those love busters.

A little.

Don't try to tell your wife what her feelings should be. She may simply not feel much of that until you are further down the road. And it will withdraw love units for you to imply that she should feel different.

Patiently take each step: eliminate love busters, solve one problem at a time, schedule time together, read the material, listen to the radio show, and her feelings will follow.

MrA, did Dr. Chalmers administer Dr. Harley's personality test to you guys? And if so, did she discuss it? I think Prisca and I took this test when we started with Steve, and again when we did the seminar; I came back after I'd learned a lot more and requested to see my scores, and found out that I rate really, really high on that test. Which means I am an extremely "reactive" person, very likely to have an "ejection seat" personality (one of the concepts Dr. Harley mentions on the radio). It can be helpful to know where yo urate on this test. If you rate very highly you will probably have a lot of work to do to learn to control love busters.

Thanks for the reply Markos. I will definitely remain focused on the tasks at hand knowing the results of our efforts will prove worthwhile. Being withdrawn I certainly have my Taker out and it wants to know this isn't going to be another futile attempt.

We meet as a couple with Dr J tonight. She hasn't asked that we take the personality test. I know I did that some years back. It's been so long I forget what my acronym was.

Just a quick update. Her and I have been doing the affectionate things we did before. I took a leap and figured I'd better start the fake-it-til-I-make-it or this is never going to work.

So we've had a lot of intimate conversations (heh any convo would be an improvement for me. I really shut down). We've been hugging a lot and giving pecks on the cheek.

Yesterday we had a serious talk about my withdrawal and the funk I'm in. Not sure we accomplished much but she heard what I had to say and I heard her concern.