prevalere, it sounds like your next focus should be on managing lovebusters. He is violating several of them with meltdowns and mistreatment! Hopefully, Dr Harley can help him with that.

Here is what I see you can improve on your side with this example;

First, characterizing his desire to go swimming each Monday as "too rigid" is a disrespectful judgement. For example, my wife finds it very important to leave for work, appointments, or events at least 30 minutes before hand, I do not. She gets very anxious if we don't fit this time frame. I do not. My past habit was to just think of her as a "clock nazi" and go about whatever time framed happened. As you can imagine, it doesn't work out very well. It is a demonstration of care for me to consider her feelings on this, and a disrespectful judgement to dismiss it. So, we leave for appointments and events 30 minutes early regardless of my thoughts on it -- it does me no harm and causes no resentment.

Secondly; it really sounds like you made an agreement which you were NOT enthusiastic about. If you are NOT enthusiastic, you do NOT make the agreement or "just go with it." The defualt position is DO NOTHING until enthusastic agreement is reached. Not; just go with it. Not; just do nothing at all, ever.


Last; consider how you are addressing things when you are not in agreement, or when your conditions for agreement change. If you are breaking an agreement using Selfish Demands, Angry Outbursts, or Disrespectful Judgements it is not going to make future POJA situations any easier or more attractive.


POJA agreements should always be win/win, and when renegotiated it should again be win/win. Resentment is bred by win/lose settlements on the part of either spouse.

There goes that word again... "rigid."

I hate to break it to you, but this program is "rigid."


Don't get too down, though. A lot of what is going on here is that you have a very low balance in your Love Bank.


So, let's get to the meat-and-potatoes of this program, shall we.


Do you know what UA time is?


How many hours of UA time are you and your husband getting each week?


If you are overlooking this, THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT CONCEPT IN THIS PROGRAM, you are wasting your time trying to nail down POJA. POJA between two spouses in conflict or withdrawal is not very likely to turn out well.


I am just guessing you are not meeting the bare minimum of 15 hours a week.

Am I right?

Wow, some great responses.

I think you are right in so many of the things you have all said. Perhaps I need to take some more time out in re-evaluating how I am approaching the program before I give in to despair.

I can see a lot has to do with my own pre-conceived attitudes and approaches to these issues.

Thanks everyone!

You know, I bet part of the problem is that you are somewhat of a free spirit. You want to have fun and don't want things to be scheduled! And if that is what you want from your spouse, then yes you must learn to accept him the way that he is. That said, things can be done.

For the swimming example, yep. You should have just done it or kept doing it and asked to renegotiate while you were doing it. In a way, I can understand how he felt violated. Now, melting down is an unacceptable way to handle it. But that is one thing that aspie's have trouble with. So I hope Dr. Harley can help.

Now affection. Just give him a schedule. But what I sense from you is that you think that would be too mechanical and you want him to just do it naturally and vary it. You don't necessarily want a hug first thing in the morning EVERY day, follwed by a kiss, etc You want him to vary what he does. Is that it? I bet the same thing about making love.

I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but aspies like schedules. I think my son is on the spectrum. He is wonderful because he has gotten into the habit of doing all of the kids laundry on Monday mornings. If he can't do it that day, it feels off to him and he must do it as soon as possible. He also loads the dishwasher without being asked now and has kind of adopted that job as well.

But if you want him to do something at the last minute...look out. I MUST warn him ahead of time if the schedule will change. I can't spring things on him last minute. For example, one time he had in his mind that he was going to come home and watch football after church and my husband decided that we would straighten up the house as a family first. Oh my.. he left the house he couldn't handle it. ( And yes, he was punished. That is the kind of stupid things he gets punished for. Also, in the last year or two he has gotten A LOT better and hasn't run off or had a melt down; though some of it may be how I deal with things.) All it would have taken would for me to have said the day before or even the morning of that we want to straighten the house and we should be done before football. Same thing when we took him driving. I had to warn him ahead of time when we would practice driving. My husband would try to just take him and that never worked. He freaked. I'm sure he parks in the same place and goes the same way to his community college dual credit classes. I had to take him up there before the first one and we practiced where to park and walked to his classes together. After the first semester, I haven't had to do that. He now registers by himself and everything else.

In some ways my son would make a great husband: he can cook, do laundry, clean up. He is very sweet and does care VERY deeply, but has a harder time showing it. His wife will have to love sports; though he says that isn't a requirement. ( I think it will have to be!) In other ways,... oh my.

Scheduling your time will help as well. Dr. Harley recommends sitting down on Sunday afternoon to schedule the week. Maybe if you said I do like swimming but I get bored doing it the same day each week could we just schedule one day each week? I don't know if it would work with him or not if he likes routine, but it might. My son would be fine as long as on Sunday we talked about the week to come and he knew what to expect.

Conversation is going to be harder, and maybe Dr. Harley can give you some tips there. If it is politics, theology or sports my son will talk a blue streak. Feelings are much, much harder for him.

So if I'm right, you will have to negotiate a win win solution to his need for schedule and your need for spontenaity.

You haven't answered HHH's question about UA. I, too, am still interested in what other principles of the program you are applying, or if you have an understanding of them yet.

I am very interested to see you make this work. I believe in the MB program and would love to see it bring you and your husband closer, in spite of the medical issues.

Can you develop the interests that your husband has? Or have you tried? Dr. Harley talks about developing common interests and activities; this makes POJA AND conversation much more meaningful and smooth. It may sound like the cart is before the horse, but redefining the things that make you happy is much more satisfying than not liking the things your husband likes.

I hope you'll let us know how this comes along. It will take time, as there is a lot of material here, a new way of looking at things and a new way of behaving. Many of these concepts apply to all your relationships however, so it's so worth it to put in the effort!

Let us know when you get in touch with Joyce.

I wonder if your husband could come here.

opt

Um, I don't think that's how POJA works. The two types of resentment would kick in. Unless THAT theory should be modified in the case of Aspbergers....

This is correct. POJA is up for renegotiation at any time.

I agree EXCEPT. She didn't mind swimming. She likes swimming. What she objected to was the rigidity of having to do it the same day every week. So to me, it would not be taking out massive love bank withdrawals for her to do it. And believe me, if I said to my son, "I know I agreed but I don't want to do it anymore." He would have a big problem with it. If instead, I went that day BUT said, "I love going swimming with you but I need to change how we do that so that I can keep enjoying it. Could we talk about changing the days up? I still want to do this with you. I still want to do it with you once a week. Can we talk each Sunday about the day we want to do that? "

I'm guessing that is not how she approached it. I'm guessing she just said, "I want to renegotiate this. I don't want to go swimming every Monday." Which he would see as renegging on something she agreed upon.

I'll be interested in her reply to me. I think a big problem is that he wants things to be scheduled and predictable and she wants things to be more spontaneous and not so planned.

Prevalere, I wonder if you are being realistic about what you want for your life. I have a brother who is diagnosed with mental illness who has a lot of great qualities and no trouble getting into relationships, but he doesn't have what it takes to make it stick beyond the 2 year mark. Similar to the article here about the electric fence personality, it can work, but it will be a lot of work on your part.

If you believed that your H was doing his level best, his limitations wouldn't affect you negatively the same way, but his continued LBs provide you continuous evidence that he is not doing his level best with this. Have you two been forthcoming in MC about the meltdowns and silent treatment, have they help you eliminate them?

Most folks get married with the idea you would start a family one day. I don't know if that is one of the things you want from your marriage. But with a partner with an issue like this and not getting help and outside support, you have a tough road ahead. I am not telling you to leave, like the counselor does, and will hep you reason through and brainstorm solutions. But if it was my daughter, I would urge her to get her ducks in a row as well, while making her best effort for her marriage.

How about his family, did they give you two any advice how they made it work with him in the house when he was younger, like tiredwife's advice after dealing with her son?

Then this needs to be said at the time. Remember that most Aspies are hyper sensitive to anything they perceive as bullying (which can include anything that they do not understand). So everything has to be spelled out. The good news is that Aspies never mind, they do not feel that they are being 'educated'.

Prevalere � I just wanted to chime in � I am married to an Aspie and we have successfully been doing the Marriage Builder�s program since Dec. 2011. My H loves both the program and the POJA. It gives him the rules and steps that he can follow and following the POJA makes him feel �heard� in the relationship. Things that can feel rigid to a non-aspie - the detailed lists and schedules - are the very things that enable an Aspie to function normally.

You should not have to reinvent the wheel every time with ways to get your EN�s met. Just be sure you list very specifically how you want a need met (and vice versa � he will be happy to make you a list too, I am sure). Give plenty of notice if you are changing or adding something to your list. Then your H can add these things to his �to do every day� list.

If he is Love Busting or not meeting your needs, then keep bringing this to his attention in a respectful way. Agree with the others it would be a good idea to e-mail the Harleys for help with this.

Aspies often have a lot going on-make sure your UA time gets plugged in as a priority, then follow through with it.

Also, someone up thread mentioned about clumsiness. My H follows a rigorous physical exercise program that has all but eliminated the clumsiness that plagued him during his childhood & teen years.

Good Luck!
RC

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Perhaps you have to renegotiate swimming as:
We will go swimming together on Monday's unless I am sick.

or
I am not enthusiastic about going to swimming every week. But I would like to accompany you sometimes.

or
I am not enthusiastic about going to swimming every week. But I am enthusastic if you want to go and we also do someother activity we both like on Wednesdays.


The problem is that you have married someone that is very schedule oriented. And you may be more of a "free spirit" who likes things to be open ended. Just like you feel uncomfortable being constrained to Mondays he has no idea what the big deal is just going the same day each week.


An article on POJA for the very incompatible.
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5026b_qa.html