Ok, one last question ( I think) and then after today I won't post again until after I have talked to him. Knowing my husband, the researcher, he will want to explore all the options. Example, when we buy a car ( which isn't that often..we drive ours into the ground...got rid of his 20 year old Honda Accord only because our son needed a safer car to drive) he first of all will spend a couple of months researching the different types of cars. Then he will narrow it down to a couple like the Honda Accord and Toyota Corolla ( whatever the equivilent was/is Then we will spend WEEKS test driving each one SEVERAL times. Then after he has decide on the actual car,he then researches what is a fair price to get one and the techniques he needs to use to get the best deal( websites, message boards, articles) He finds out what people have actually paid. Then he goes in and negotiates and gets the price he wants for the car.

It is like that for just about everything we purchase. He has mellowed a little bit. Our microwave went out last summer and he just went on consumer reports for an hour or so and decided the one at Walmart that was like our other one would be as good as any other one.

But, I know that he will come here and research... He might present other options for therapists, though I doubt it. Steve would be good because he doesn't know my husband. My husband doesn't work with him so he has nothing to be embarressed about. I do think he will wonder about the infidelity, but I can tell him he has helped others.

Now...he will obviously come here on the forum if we do the online class.... Which presents a huge problem for me...Gulp, I've only ever talked about my marriage here ***EDIT***. He would be so completely appalled at how much detail I've gone into here. He is a very, very private person. Which has been part of my struggle. I have no one to talk to about what I am going through. No one except yall have any idea I'm going through this: no one at church, my mom, my homechooling friend, etc NO ONE. I made a vow when I got married that if I had a problem, I would talk to him and not someone else.. Except then I just bottled everything up. I really don't want him to read what I wrote.....

My parents never really said no to anything I wanted when I was a teenager for a couple of reasons. I knew what my limits were and was quite happy with them. And if I wanted to do something that I thought they might not want me to, I figured out all of their arguments against it and made a list of logical reasons that counteracted them. So I like going into it with ways to argue in my favor.

I might ask a follow up question if you answer this one, but otherwise I'll talk to you on the other side.

There is no other program and no other counselors around that have the success rate this program has. I would hazard a guess that the success rate where infidelity isn't the issue the success rate is astounding. Now where you'll find that information I'm not sure . Maybe others can provide some data on it.

As far as you backing this program your reasonings can simply be that you believe this to be the best program for you. That you�ve read enough about the goal of this program and it describes exactly how you want your M to operate. And there is no one better to coach you through it then the people that have lived and breathed it�s concepts (Steve and Jennifer). He can over-analyze it if he wants. You simply state this is the one you are enthusiastic about. Then negotiate with him. What would he need to be enthusiastic about trying some of the MB resources?

As far as him reading what you wrote. You have nothing to hide. These are your thoughts and feelings at the moment. There is no need to explain yourself. It is your perspective. If you aren�t allowed your perspective then I�d suggest you question if your spouse is marriage material.

I often wonder what my W would think if she came back and read some of my posts. But I�m no longer concerned. Even if she read something that she felt was stretching the truth or me posting things she remembers differently. It�s nothing more than a difference of perspective and we don�t have to remember or see everything exactly the same way. So if she does read and questions what I�ve said I�ll simply state that that is in the past and I am so glad we�re moving on to the future.

Do yourself a favor. Stop over analyzing him. That�s great detail you go towards to describe his behavior. He sounds pretty normal to me. LOL.

No, but the lady in the mirror can. You can choose to stop being a conflict avoider TODAY. No one else can do that but YOU.


More conflict avoidance. He can't solve the problem if you won't tell him. Don't ask at all if you are going to beat around the bush. You will just be wasting your time.

The failure rate for marriage counseling is 84% according to one well published [and peer reviewed] study. Marriage counselors have a higher divorce rate than the general population and are destructive to marriages. Marriage Builders is completely different from other programs in that it focuses entirely on restoring the romantic love. There is no other program that does that. Traditional marriage counseling and other programs focus on "communication" and "conflict avoidance," which does nothing to restore the marriage. Even the best communicators end up divorced if they are not in love.

Traditional marriage counselors typically counsel couples in conflict together, which makes the problem even worse. The couple spends the hour citing criticism of the other, and they leave in worse shape than they went in..

TW, if you can't swing MB coaching, you would be better off doing nothing. REally.

p.s. if your husband comes here, you can ask the mods to remove your threads.

What would he wonder about the infidelity? Every marriage counselor has to deal with a large volume of infidelity cases BECAUSE 50-60% of couples experience infidelity. The way you save a marriage is the same whether or not there has been infidelity. They all use the SAME basic concepts. The only difference in an affair situation is that there might be relocation to get away from an affair partner.

Another key difference between MB and other programs is that Dr HArley doesn't just claim his program works. He gives the couples continual TESTS to find out if it is working. Anyone can just SAY their program works, but Harley MEASURES his success. He gives his couples a test in the beginning to record the level of romantic love and compatibility in the marriage. He does this continually throughout his program. So, if he sees a couple is not progressing, he find out why and make a course correction.

Tired, I hope you're just extremely busy and not avoiding us.

If you're not ready to talk to your H yet that's understandable. I hope we can help you gameplan your approach once you find the courage you need.

TW, I noticed your comments on NYCRunner's thread. Have you made any progress to the other side?

We are still marking time.

Yes.. I'm a little hesitant to post much about it, though... I guess it got to the point where I couldn't keep it inside and I told him that I couldn't tell him what I really thought and slept on the couch. He was very upset the next morning. I wrote him a letter and put the cd of the show in the car that day. I put in the article Mr. Alias put in about conflict avoiders. I was completely honest about how unhappy I was.. how lonely I was.

He came home that night angry, ver very sad and scared.. He thought I wanted him to move out or that I was saying the marriage was over. He even asked me if I thought someone else could make me happy.. ( The answer was NO... I wanted us to be close. There never has been nor ever will be anyone but him. He has been and always will be the love of my life.) He couldn't believe that I would talk to a radio show and not to him.. He just couldn't understand that at all and didn't understand at all what I really wanted.

And that is all I am going to say about the details. I am working on telling HIM what is going on in my head instead of sharing with anonymous people on the internet. Suffice to say that he HEARD me.. I HEARD his heart and we are working together as a team again. One thing I suggested is that we have a time at least once a week where I share what I am struggling with or fear or whatever. He is so transparent that he always tells me everything and all his struggles. It is much, much harder for me. But I am going to work on it.

I'll post on other threads, but probably won't post much on this one.... As I said, I need to work with HIM..

That's 99% of the battle right there tired. Good for you. Be sure you use that time each week to be completely transparent ... no matter how hard it is. He deserves that.

There will be bumps along the way, there will be times where the usual ways you work together show up. Where the dysfunction that feels so "normal" will appear. Recognize it and change the behavior.

I must say I feel so much better being radically honest with my W.

Update

Last week he initiated a date and we made hot chocolate and drove around looking at Christmas lights.

This week he took me out to eat and to see Les Mis (One of my all time favorite musicals and stories.. You clearly see rules and justice without mercy vs the grace of God and showing that grace to others) We started talking about where we should eat and we had just about decided on our favorite restauraunt.. He said don't let the kids know.. then he said, "I have an idea.. no wait..bad idea..never mind." I asked him what and he said, "I was going to suggest the kids take their own car to the Mexican food place and then they could just come back home instead of to the movie. But I forgot.. this is about us..no kids allowed.." I grinned at him. "I'm trying to be better!!" I then mightily praised him and told him how awesome he has been doing.. He always comes in now and greets me first with a great big and long hug and kiss before he talks to the kids. He has been texting me and calling me to check on me and tell me how much he loves me... Which has meant a lot this week since he got some kind of bug and felt HORRIBLE!!

Anyway, yeah hubby!!!

Happy for you TW.

to Mr. TW.

Aww. So glad to hear that Tired.

How are you doing with your openness and honesty? Are you able to discuss many more things?

Ok, althought then that causes disagreements. Here is a situation that happened before we left on vacation:

I told him that one thing that I didn't like about our vacations is that it was hard for me to enjoy them because I was always on edge, scared to death that I had made a mistake that I had done something he wouldn't like or agree with. So I suggested that he go over the plans/reservations together so we could handle any disagreements. So for this trip, I printed everything out for our vacation: all hotel reservations, tickets, google map directions etc and he was home yesterday afternoon for me to go over it with him. He thought it looked good.

So far so good until we went to bed (night before we left) and he asked me questions about the hotel we are staying at the first night..good questions and I guess I did not check like I should have ( Expedia booked a 2 double bed room for us for tonight.. I put in there 5 people and they normally don't do that unless a rollaway is possible,but it doesn't say so on the sheet. I thought we wanted a hotel close to the airport since we get in at midnight and will basically just sleep and then drive to his sister's house when we wake up.. My other reservation is a condo with beds for everyone, kitchen, etc and he thought I had booked a suite for tonight.. Ony now it is nonrefundable. IF he had noticed it the afternoon we went over it, I could have fixed it!!!!

Anyway, he just kept hammering me with questions at which point I left to go to the playroom and cry. I normally would have kept it to myself but I also couldn't trust myself to say anything because I thought the whole purpose of us going over the reservations. He later said that when we went over it, he say inn and suites and assumed we had a suite. He couldn't understand what was wrong.. "I'm not mad.." he said.
But this makes me feel like a failure. See I'm always waiting for the one detail I screwed up. "But I told you no big deal, it is just for one night." Oh yes, but after you hammered me with all of these questions about why didn't I think of....To me, it seemed condescending when you say, well we'll just deal with it since you screwed up... He said that is not how he meant it at all... Oh and somewhere in there I said that I just wanted to enjoy the vacation and just have fun. At which point he said that is all I care about anymore having fun and that what he does is never good enough..

Later we talked about that it isn't so much my having fun..it is that I am so tired of being SO stressed.. I'm a 45 year old woman who still bites her nails, who cannot sleep for more than 4 or at the most 5 hours at a stretch, who is lives in fear of making mistakes.. To which he said, You need to learn to just go with the flow.. I'll be honest, I don't know how.. He told me to just relax with the plans that his sister may want to do something completely different.. Which honestly is fine, then it is HER fault. I told him my favorite positions are being 2nd in command. As music chairman, the buck stops with the music minister. I have power, I make plans, but the buck stops with him. Or when I did MOPS.. I was assistant co-ordinator. My friend had a all the headaches and I was there to point out things she forgot or to pitch in and I still did a ton, ran some meetings and such, but the stress wasn't there because the buck didn't stop with me.

He apologized about how he brought up the problem with the reservation and acknowledged that he should have looked closer yesterday afternoon and that it was one night and not so big a deal.. and he could see how the way he brought up the questions made me feel attacked. He reitterated how much he appreciated my planning our vacations and what a good job I do.. I told him that I just need to figure out how to not feel like I have completely ruined our vacation if I make a mistake ( which there is always something I have forgotten every single time.. I really need a second in command to be checking my details like I have done with the music minister..I'm the one that remembers all of the picky details.)

At the same time somehow I don't want him to feel like a failure. He told me that lately he feels like all I am saying is I have such a horrible life and I just want to have fun.. Which isn't what I mean. He doesn't feel like what he does for me is good enough...

I told him part of it was me working out my place right now.. I told him about how when I was pregnant with our first child that I worked full time, gave teacher inservices on critical thinking, was head sponsor for the senior class, sang in adult choir, played in the bells and taught Sunday school. I felt valuable. ( Though the though of all of that makes me extremely tired. I couldn't keep up that pace now, nor would I want to.) He said keeping up with our three isn't busy enough? I said, no.. Right now my two boys are VERY self-sufficient. They do their own laundry, drive themselves where they need to go, make their own dentist, eye appointment, they can cook when they need to.. ( Now if they would only clean their bathroom, I would have really trained them for their future wives.. oh and middle one just sleeps on his mattress as he is too lazy to really make his bed... poor wife someday.) They keep up with their dual credit and online classes. I've worked myself out of a job ( which is as it should be!)

But I need him to help me brainstorm about what I can be involved in that would make me feel valuable and needed and fuflilling God's calling. But it has to be an activity that can work around all of our vacations and mission trips.... That is what is hard. My husband was SO busy in residency and working tons ( many rotations were call every other night which meant that he left at 5 or 6 in the morning, didn't come home that night and got home at 7pm the next night and repeat...)


So yes, honesty is working but it seems like it is causing more problems sometimes..

BTW, we had a GREAT vacation that we all really enjoyed..

Sorry, I wrote this the day before we left and tried to edit. This happened December 30th. We went on our 2 week vacation and had a good time, but that is why it may be confusing to read.

Tired,

Thanks for the update.

I read through your post and am a little confused. When you say it causes disagreements and problems � what are those?

To me this sounded like some open discussion and honesty � and yes some conflict. But that�s how you resolve issues. You can�t avoid conflict and expect to resolve them.

It seems you felt attacked and you both talked it over. That�s good.
He let you know later on that he wasn�t upset over the parts he would have liked to be different. That�s good honest feedback too.
You felt attacked enough to have to leave the room. That may have been a good time to try to tell him what you were feeling. Leaving the room doesn�t help but if in the heat of the moment it�s what you have to do that�s OK. You were able to come back to all of this later and talk about it. That�s good too.

Did you reach any conclusions to this scenario? When you talked about it later did you discuss alternatives that you could try should something like this happen again?

I must ask �
Is this a matter of you being overly sensitive or him being extremely rude and/or badgering in the way he delivered his questions or maybe a combination of both? What do you think?

I agree the time for him to ask such questions was when you sat down to go over the accommodations � but things do get lost in communications and I don�t know that it�s a bad thing that he asked more questions later on. As long as his tone and approach weren�t attacking and/or you were able to communicate when the discussion was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

You typed this �

Is that what he said or what you heard in your head?


Did you talk about ways you could discuss this so you don�t feel attacked and he doesn�t feel like a failure? Sounds like an opportunity to find a WIN/WIN don�t ya think?

I guess part of it is that I never want either of us to ever be upset or to ever disagree, which I realize is unrealistic but I don't know how to not feel that way.

Yes, we negotiated a solution about him looking closer at the arrangements. We had already POJA that I would like him to look over all the arrangements before trips so that he could catch any mistakes/clarify what he wanted. So it really upset me that we did that and he STIL FOUND A MISTAKE. Plus, he wouldn't leave it alone, which is why I got up and left. He kept saying, "Where is ...supposed to sleep? We can't get our money back ( no, not now but if you had caught this when I asked you to look it over, we could have) "Why did Expedia let you book this?" "Are you sure there is a trundle?" "We could have gone farther away from the airport.." At which point he said, "It's ok, we'll just deal with it." in a very exasperated tone of voice... Then he asked me more questions like asking questions would make him understand why I made this silly mistake or something. I don't know, but I had already apologized and gave honest answers and I was really feeling like I was being attacked and that is when I left.

Later in our discussion, he apologized and said the way he did it was bad. I am also oversensetive. I mean one reason I asked for him to look over all the arrangements is to prevent this from happening.

As far as him not feeling like a failure..no.. Exactly what would I say in this discussion.... I apologized for making him feel like that.. But he has really felt attacked. In fact, I've avoided mention of marriage builders because he HATED HATED the radio show with me on it. It made him really upset...

It sounds to me like he nitpicks you death, which would naturally make you feel bad. That sounds like he was grilling you. That is probably why you feel like walking on eggshells with him. I can't imagine living like that.

But having conflicts is part of marriage. You will always have them. What matters is HOW you handle them. Like Dr Harley says "Joyce and I have a conflict every hour."

When did your husband listen to the radio show? And what did he "hate" about it?

He listened to the show when I wrote him the letter and left the cd in his car a week or so before Christmas. I asked for us to do counseling, preferably with Steve. He thought that I was saying our marriage was over and that I wanted somone else.. ( I still don't get how he got that..)

He could not believe that I went on the radio to talk about our marriage. I did tell him in the letter that I had been posting on marriage boards as well, but he hasn't ever brought that up but I'm sure he wouldn't like me posting here either.. Joyce really irritated him by saying how wonderful and perfect he was.. He says he is tired of everyone saying that.. If I was so wonderful, then my marriage wouldn't be in the toilet and why in the world would she call a radio show if I'm so wondeful.. Why couldn't you just talk to me about it????? He also said that it made it sound like he was supposed to worship me and he couldn't do that. He couldn't plan dates and tell me over and over and over how wonderful I was... He also thinks all I want to do is have fun... which is true except that I want to have fun with him... THAT is what I want. He says life can't be fun all the time. ( Which I agree with.)

The other thing that made him really mad was the part about the mission trip... They did get that wrong in that he did that with my consent. We've both gone TOGETHER to that place and we are going as a family in May.. I just couldn't figure out what to do with the kids this time, so that is why I didn't go.

As far as nitpicking..he didn't over vacation. We had a wonderful time and actually had some UA time ( took walks around the lake together at my sil's house and spent one day upstairs, making love and talking while the children blissfully enjoyed ESPN and Disney channel on their repective tv's ( we don't have cable at our house, so they were in heaven!!!) It was such a nice vacation and so relaxing..

So what is your plan to fix your marriage?