hmm, i first notice that he has you at -2FS and 0DS. that's ... interesting. does he agree with you being a SAHM? or did it happen out of necessity? it seems odd, to me, that you'd be at 0DS!

on the upside, +2s for H&O, RC, SF! however, that manly need, admiration, is at an all-time low, -3. that's the first facet of your plan. IC is 0 as well - do many conversations turn into arguments, or unpleasant?

you see, when we women are frustrated (maybe BHs too?) we so want to get our spouses onboard that instead of making it attractive, we turn our best chance into our spouse's least likable possibility through our method of communication. i'm not necessarily talking about you, teetering, because i know this is something i struggled with mightily. you see, you have been on the boards, reading up on all kinds of info, and you're going "YES! i want to do this and make our M ever so much better!" but your H, otoh, has had little to no exposure. plus, if i remember correctly, he's also wayward (?) and isn't processing properly. all HE sees is that you're asking him to do a whole lotta work, when he isn't even happy in the first place.

may i suggest that, instead of trying to "educate" him on MB, you start today by fulfilling those low ENs, and avoid all LBs. do not allow any conversation to be unpleasant, even if that means you are left talking only about the weather. in the meantime, i'm going to have a quick look over your thread, because i can't remember how far into waywardville we were here. i'll be back in a bit. we'll talk later about how you can meet his need for affection more specifically.

ok, i'm back again. teetering, do you know how to add a signature line to your posts? it's very helpful, especially when other posters are helping multiple people, because it's easy to get backgrounds crossed! if you need help doing it, just let me know and i'll give you a step-by-step. i've only just skimmed your posts this time around. i don't think i know the ages of your children?

your sig line can contain you, spouse, children (just DS or DD+age), ages of all, M date, and a very brief synopsis of where you are now. it just helps to have a quick refresher!

now, i see last night you had trouble trying to pin down your H on how to fill his ENs. i know how you feel about this, but try not to pressure him about it at this time. just do the best you can from what you have learned in the past. later, when you are both more relaxed about it, you can elicit exactly what he likes. it is clear that what you're doing now for affection isn't working, because he has you in the negative. have a good think about the past. start with a positive response from him, then what you did to get that response, and work from there.

teetering, we need to talk about 2 other things, and i don't think it's going to make you too happy, but it's got to be done if your M is to have a chance at being successful.

first: you need to establish whether your H is having an affair. we already know his boundaries are poor from your description of him calling/messaging another woman. but you need to know if this is the extent of it or not. it's important that you find out for a few reasons. 1) you can't fight a battle without knowing the parameters of the war. 2) you can't make any decisions about your own life, and those of your children, without complete information. 3) the advice you get here will be different depending on where your relationship really is, because you can't build a long-lasting M if the foundation is crumbly.

second: awhile back you mentioned that you had written some stuff about old boyfriends. you added that it was to "elicit a response." now, i don't know if the response was supposed to be from your H (trying to get him jealous so he would show more interest in you/the M?) or from other readers, but it's really neither here nor there. the thing is, you wrote about personal stuff with other men and your H read it. this must have wounded him badly (intentionally?), and men hang onto stuff. heck, my own husband, when angry enough, would bring up something i had said ages ago - for 17 YEARS! sheesh, and they say women are the ones with long memories and grudges! so this is kind of working against you, whether it's fair or not and whether you want to see it that way or not. it certainly helps explain why he is so suspicious, although i do believe that some of this stems from his own behaviour.

i think that you and your H have gotten to that place where you are so hurt all you want to do is hurt back, because that's the only thing that feels good. i can see that you, teetering, are ready for this to change. now we just need to lay the foundation so that you can change together.

lastly, i'd just like to add that i know sometimes you feel judged. that we are quick to response in what seems to you like a pat way. but the thing is, firstly, all the advice given here comes directly from what we have all learned through dr harley. as a matter of fact, the board moderators are pretty good at keeping advice given here limited to dr harley's plan. secondly, Ms and their downfalls are sorrowfully the same. no matter the participants, everyone says/does the same things, almost as if it's been scripted; it would be laughable if it weren't so sad. after you've been around the boards awhile, and eventually start posting to others, you'll really be able to see this. it's really hard to get past the "my sitch is different" thinking, but once you do (and i'm not saying you personally have this thought), it's actually a relief to understand that you're not different, and that the plan will indeed work for you.

so, i'm off to work for a couple of hours. sorry i've written you a book. the tl;dr version is this:

1) do NOT allow any conversation to end up in an argument today. avoid talking about the relationship (to help avoid an argument). keep conversation light & enjoyable (if it kills you, lol).

2) think carefully about how you can show affection in a way that would please your H.

3) find something you can admire him for today, and do so.

4) think about what i've said about those two topics and post your thoughts.

ps: don't expect anything in return from him. this will just give you an expectation that can be crushed, leading to frustration and arguments. post your feelings here instead.

I thought the scores on FS and DS interesting as well. My SAH situation was initially involuntary, but soon after became a decision we both came to an enthusiastic agreement about. A couple of years in, it began to get more difficult. We were running low on money, had moved to a new state, and neither of us had many friends. He has advanced exponentially since then, but financially we are pulling ourselves out of a hole filled with school loans. It's something he's always been upset about, but also, wanting me to stay home and seeing how it's benefited our children has left him ambivalent about what to do. I've always worked and stayed home, but the money I bring home can only be called supplemental, and it's not consistent, and that frustrates him as well. He doesn't know what to expect from my projects. And an issue I've always had with him in that regard is that he has demeaned my project work, telling me that I'm not working at all because the money I bring home is not much. In the past, I've been working and consistently heard him anxiously yelling to himself or out loud that my work is not worth it, that it's nothing, and that I need to get off and take the children. For awhile, I stopped working because his loud complaints when I did work were so disturbing that I didn't feel it was healthy for our son to choose work and leave him with his father during those handful of bitter hours. So, I'm eager to get back to work and he's eager for me to start making "real" money and supporting us, but because it's not happening right now, he is dissatisfied.

In the area of DS, he would like me to clean more consistently and thoroughly. I rarely ever do dishes or fold laundry, although I'm more likely to clean the rest of the house, but he'd like us to take turns more so that he isn't stuck with those two things so often. That's easily remedied!

We habitually argue and it gets ugly. That's why IC is low.

Don't think he's wayward currently, but he did cross boundaries in my opinion, although I wouldn't call what I know cheating. The godsister he was calling and emailing frequently was no secret. I was aware of them talking and emailing, but not the frequency and not the content. He also shared with an old friend of his that we were getting divorced at a time when we were talking about it, but no action had been taken in that direction with the exception of us both withdrawing from each other. That conversation was something I inadvertently discovered, and I was quite upset that he would discuss our marriage negatively to another woman whom I've never met. He also told another woman that he worked with years prior that we were having marriage trouble after she shared with him that same about herself(go figure!). He seemed shocked that I was upset about the things he'd said to these women, and unless he knew that I'd read his emails that he'd accidentally left open, then he didn't have a chance to delete anything and the extent of the conversations are what I just mentioned.

He told me that he chatted with these women and other female friends on FB and that he expected that I was doing the same too(I definitely wasn't), which he didn't mind. I was surprised, because this was someone who was historically so jealous that he didn't even want me at clubs and bars with him there too. He claimed that his new openness was a result of a new found maturity, which I actually don't fully dispute. He has matured incredibly since we first started out.

The female friend that he told that we were getting divorced had mentioned to him in an email, probably at his prompting from the way it was written, that she was single and hadn't met the "right guy...yet(wink, wink)" and so I believe it's quite possible that he chatted with her a bit too much, perhaps attempting to keep her in the wings in case we really did divorce.

The "god sister" made a point to tell me that he was calling her too much(she actually agitatedly FBed me as he was calling her from another room), and so clearly she felt he was misleading her and out of line. When she found out I was pregnant a couple of months later, she pretty much stopped talking to him altogether which confirmed my thinking. He claimed he had no clue why and she was like family(this is true), feeling as though he could call and talk to her whenever he felt like it; and of course, he could never even be attracted to her since she was like his sister growing up.

So at the absolute least, he has little understanding of women and what attracts them to men(possible as proven in our relationship all too often), and at the most, he fully gets it and was exploiting himself and everyone else at the time because he felt as though we were over(also possible).

My journaling that he found online via keylogging me was around the same time as his chatting with these other gals. After years of him pushing me away, I had finally(the second or so finally!) given up attempting to reach out to him and open up and just began introspecting. We're both already introverted, but I just starting writing because talking to him wasn't working. What I wrote was about exes, but particularly one guy who wasn't officially an ex and who I met while I was dating my husband. We'd gotten very close and I had every opportunity in the world to be with him, but I turned him down for my husband, who was my then out of state, mostly online bf. We did kiss twice though, and I told my then bf/now husband so after he pressed me a couple of days. That was pretty much the end of my relationship with my guy friend, and with a crappy marriage, I wondered to myself why when I was single, I had turned down someone who was literally crazy for me, for someone who seemed to always be not so enthused. I verbalized this to my husband as well before, but I did it in anger, and perhaps he didn't believe that I really felt the way I did. The rehashing hurt my husband, and he also wasn't fully aware of how much I'd cared about the guy and how much he'd cared about me, which hurt him too. Although, I told him I wasn't sure why he was surprised. He treated me very poorly our first years together, and I stayed for pitiful reasons. I kept the old guy friend(whom I haven't spoken to at all with the exception of the initial "hey, how's your life been since then" years ago, as a FB friend until last year when I realized that if my marriage was going to continue, that I needed to respect my Hs wishes and delete the guy from FB as he'd likely wanted years ago. I just didn't feel it justified since I intentionally had not had any meaningful conservations with him since we "dated", and haven't spoken to him at all since the beginning of my marriage when we first "friended" each other online. Any way, it was insensitive of me to have him as a "friend", and it's likely that part of me did it out of resentment and anger, the other part of me was just curious about what had happened of him, and what I saw in him in the first place.

On another note though, our day was amazingly fabulous!! I got a little put off when he began getting dressed at the time we agreed to leave for church this morning. We ultimately missed church all together, but he swooped in and made it better by making the entire day a family outing day. So we both scored very high points with each other. And the night is still young and my kiddos are in bed. We're reading IC in His Needs/Her Needs, and then watching a movie before bed, so I'll end here for now.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, and helping me to wade through these murky waters.

One day at a time Teetering! ... Thats a great update!

that *was* a great update! i hope today is going well, too. i am so pleased to hear you guys are reading some MB books. keep working. baby steps. keep those good feelings going.

Thank you both for the encouragement!

Three more days to add to the "going well" pile. Minor bumps along the way that have been peacefully discussed. DS, the cleaning part at least because I've come to enjoy cooking, is what IC is to my husband: deplorable! So, I really have been putting in the effort, washing clothes and folding them, cleaning daily, just generally making sure that these aren't things he has to think about while he's working.

I was pretty impressed with myself actually, and was a bit dismayed when he came behind me telling me that I'd missed the proverbial spot. We sat down and talked about that one, and he expressed that he didn't feel as though DS was best described as his need, rather a universal requirement, therefore he wasn't all too blown, but nonetheless appreciative. Not the response I was going for, and I've feared/experienced that he may express a need, I make every attempt to fulfill it, and he replies that it's just not good enough. Really smothers my soul for a moment in time. I wanted for him to understand that many of the task involved in DS are almost painful to me, and I'm having to reframe so that I can see the great mission involved in order to stomach them. Gotta work on that!

Otherwise, he's really working hard at making my days pleasant and we're enjoying reading together at night over a glass of wine and light music.

hey teetering! The Harleys read your email on the show today and you can listen to it by clicking on the "rebroadcast" button until noon tomorrow. It should be in the archives a few days afterwards.

I only caught a small part of it, but the gist of it was "snooping is not a requirement, but a RIGHT." It was a pretty good segment!

Thanks for letting me know Melody! I didn't see an email from them saying it would be on today. That was some great information, and I'm glad I got clarification.

I caught the entire segment. What I got from it was that if spying makes your spouse feel secure, then let them have their way and don't take offense to their insecurities or suspicions. Gladly meet their need for more information, which is a right of theirs to have. Otherwise, spying/investigating is not a requirement for a happy marriage or MB if you feel secure and essentially trust your partner.

So as it relates to my story, the Harley's did not say that polygraphing or investigating would be something they would recommend unless either of us felt a pressing need for whatever reason.

Exactly! We recommend that kind of stuff when there is very strong indication of an affair. I am glad you got your answers from the horses mouth..

Wow ... great progress here. thanks for the update! Keep up the good work .. it can only get better if you follow the principals outlined here.

So far two steps backwards this week. Still focusing on meeting his stated En, but he says he needs more than that. Mainly, that I need to get out of the house and get a "real" life. A sincere part of him feels like my staying home with our children is/has been worthless and he continues to make that clear. He even stated that perhaps he will quit his job and become a sahd, that way he can spend his whole life worrying about how to meet my needs versus living an actual life.

I get what he is saying. He resents the downtime I have; he has less than I do, and because of that, feels meeting my needs is impractical and unfair. If I had a real life, I would have less concern for our marriage. How does one meet the needs of a spouse who is fundamentally attracted to distance? He wants independence and financial support most, and alone time.


Also, romance is for children, he says. My longterm desire for it is a result of media influence. It's petty and frivolous. Grown adults had better things to concern themselves with. This is his rationale for choosing against meeting most of my needs. He hopes to sell me on their minimalization. Not sure how to handle that one.

Uhm. We don't know how as the majority of those needs go against everything MB tries to teach us.

Independence creates the desire for more IB.

So he'd like to be married to you in a way where he has to do little for you and spend as little time with you as possible? Why be married then?

But let me back up � is that what he said? I like my independence, I want you to help support us and I�d like to be left alone?


Is that what you think? Is that how you�d like your marriage to be? Void of Romance?

I don�t like his theory and it�s my assumption you�re dealing with someone who may simply not be marriage material.

I love the way he makes it sound childish as a means to back you down from everything this site stands for. This program works � one just has to choose that it has sound principals instead of poo-pooing it just because one doesn�t want to do the work.

I would communicate to him that you feel disrespected. That you aren�t a child. That you are a grown woman and you do know what romance feels like and that it is a cornerstone of a great marriage. The reality is is that truly great marriages have romance. I have to have romantic feelings for my wife or else I feel I�m settling for less than what is optimal. Why bother settling when you can have it all?

Wow, your H's comments kinda struck a nerve with me. I feel a little fired up over it.

Actually I feel sorry for him mostly ... and for you, of course, teetering. It can't be good being married to someone who wants you to settle for his crumbs.

Ugh, I really hate this, and sadly it's no different from what is typical between us. He really defines himself by his independence and he has always said that he wanted the same for me and that I didn't make the cut. Yet, his behaviors when I have gotten just a tad out of reach for him have been to quite literally track me down and reel me back in, hence the OP. It's an absolute maze of confusion and power imbalances from my view.

His ideal would be for me to grant him fully his own sense of independence, and that my "independence" act in service of his. I am to be available to him when he needs, but his availability to me is based upon how he feels and whatever else he may be up to.

He does not believe that he needs to be doing anything specifically for me romantically. It flies in the face of what he thinks about relationships. You could say this is an issue of a lack of POJA, but the POJA is too confining for him. He's free! No one tells him how to live his life or what to do. In fact, he'll do just the opposite if you so much as suggest him to do differently. Sometimes he will comply, but then he realizes that he is in fact complying and becomes inflamed. He's terrified of being taken for a ride, and will not surrender to mutuality. He must be one up, or he necessarily feels put upon.

And yes, the above are things that he said. He needs me to get out of the house and work, get a real life, bring in some real money; then he'll likely have more to talk about or find himself willing. This is not new either, we argued about money before we were even a couple of months into dating. He needed me to get a better job and break all financial reliance on my family. I was a teenager at the time and full-time student, he was living with his mother.

I can't help but wonder whether or not he believed that I was his ticket to financial freedom and everyday that he has to work and make money and I'm not bringing in any myself is a total disappointment to him. My family is relatively well off and his is working poor. When we met online, he told me quite a few lies to suggest that he was uncomfortable with that fact.

His theory on romantic love isn't new either. I asked him yesterday if he was ever actually in love with me. He became defensive and angry said yes, and then asked me what it meant to be in love at all. And actually, these types of philosophical questions are interesting to me, so I didn't take much offense; but he proceeded to tell me(as when we were dating) that romantic love doesn't last, and that it's childish to expect it to.

Like you, I believe romantic love is a cornerstone to a great marriage. It compels you to meet your spouses needs because their joy is your joy. We've never been in agreement about that, and I'm running out of steam trying to sell that message.

I'd also add that when we met, he wanted to be rich and famous. He was in the entertainment industry, not doing much at the time really, but with big dreams and a potential for going somewhere. He was in and out of clubs, surrounded by beautiful women and famous artist every week. A number of our friends have made it to international acclaim, their families flailing, but nonetheless, the have the material things in life and the notoriety. I feel as though he may resent our marriage and lack of excessive riches because he believes that his potential alternative may have been more suitable to the life he wanted to live.

In short, I married a rock star at heart, turned regular old guy. And to top it off, I make a horrible groupie.

I don't think he knows what romantic means. I bet he's thinking of the infatuation stage of a R. And yes that does die down and it is replace with something that is way more adult than that.

Romance is the feeling that is learned when one feels safe, secure and loved by their partner.

I would agree with this. It sounds like his idea of romance is what you'd read out of a romance book. Romance is so much deeper and different for each person. My wife and I have candle light dinners and I write her poetry and have written and recorded a few love songs for her. But we also sometimes just take a walk while holding hands. Or we'll curl up on the couch together and I'll tell her how good it feels to be next to her. It's that text I send her for no other reason than to tell her I miss her and am looking forward to coming home to her smile. Sometimes it's taking her mom home at night because I don't want her driving alone in the dark. Maybe it's just a hug out of the blue. Romance is so often that subjective word that most people don't really know how to define but have preconceived notions about what it isn't.

This is insulting, demeaning, and says he doesn't value what you do.



Being a stay at home parent is a lot harder than people realize that haven't done it. I'm a school teacher and until my wife lost her job, I would be pretty much a stay at home parent during the summers (of course it's nice having paid summers off). Often we don't appreciate what others do until we have to do that.



Oh the word fair. One thing I've learned from teaching is that there isn't a set standard of what fair is or isn't. Basically what is fair for one student may not be fair for another student. And we can get so trapped in the 'poor me'. Is it fair that one of my close friends had a mom that met a wealthy guy, married him, they moved to Hawaii, and left him a paid off house, a new truck, a boat, and nearly a six figure yearly spending allowance? Is it fair that someone less qualified than me was hired for the position I want to be working in because the other guy was friends with the hiring administration? However, does it really matter if any of that is fair? And does it do me any good to dwell? Nope.



He wants a room mate. This is not how marriage works.



I'm pretty sure your desire for romance is normal. Just like your desire to want to have a connection with your spouse and be intertwined completely in each others lives.

Don't get me wrong, I like playing beer pong sometimes and other times going to the shooting range and every once in awhile jamming out with my guy friends. I like my times when I can veg and zone out on a video game or not being distracted in the weight room. But my wife is my best friend, and the one that I want to spend the majority of my time with. Going somewhere with her and engaging in recreational activities or just curled up on the couch watching a movie with her I'd pick to do over anything else. When you're in love...like intimate, romantic love, you crave the other so deeply. We've been married 10 years and together for 13 years. And she still drives me absolutely crazy...just like she did the first time I saw her in those tight jeans and long brown hair flowing to her waist.

Here's something I posted in another thread that I think I meant to post in yours...

I've been thinking about your viewpoint on snooping. My wife and i have each others passwords to most everything. This helps because, for example, i have 50 gigs of storage space on drop box. If my wife were to setup her own dropbox acct, she'd only get a few megabytes. We share Google music and this is set up through my email, so she has my password to my email so she can log into Google music. I have her passwords because i tend to have to trouble shot and install stuff on her laptop. I don't go through her emails or texts or whatnot but I have the password if i wanted to and she can't care less if I do check. This itself because of openness is reassuring. I remember one time, a guy that was on my wife's Facebook friends sent her in my opinion an inappropriate message. Now he wasn't hitting on her, flirting with her, or anything like that. But it was inappropriate nevertheless I responded to him that he was never to connect my wife again or there would be serious issues. I told my wife that I didn't want her talking to him.

She immediately unfriended and blocked him and told me she found it flattering that I was jealous and territorial and that she admired me standing up like a man for his wife.

So that's how my wife and I are with passwords and stuff. Every great once in awhile I'll get nosy/curious and check to see who she's texting. And she gets curious who I'm talking to also. But since I'm not hiding anything, then I don't care what she reads. And, really, if she wanted to constantly check my emails and texts, it wouldn't bother me. I'd want to know if I was doing something to cause her to feel like she needed to be constantly checking on me. Or maybe even I might wonder if she was doing suspicious activities that were causing her to be suspicious of me. I would most definitely think something was up if she was guarded with her passwords.

We certainly have different ideas of what romance is. For example, he likes to ruffle my hair or pin me into corners and wrestle. He will hold hands in private or in the car if the spirit moves him, but is generally uncomfortable with such in public. He is ok with brief hugs and kisses and claims that he has a greater need for affection than I give him. But, I'm not sure I understand what he wants. Walking side by side in public can be a bit much for him. He really hates waiting for me to get out of the car or walking with me because he says I walk too slow. To strangers, he is very affectionate and sweet and appears to be that way to me, but in private is mostly detached. I ask him directly what he needs from me, but it's difficult to get a straight answer.

Our RC is high though. We sit on the couch a watch movies or tv every night. We really like that. But without the tv on or other distractions, he seems unable to manage well.

I've asked specifically for months to just write the occasional sweet note or purchase a small little surprise gift or something. He has refused, and I believe it's because he knows I want it and he doesn't want to feel as though he is submitting to my request. He cannot follow my lead as it relates to me.

It's lovely that you and your wife have that bond.:) I know it exist. I've experienced it and seen it myself. I'm just not sure it's possible for us. It's not what he seems to want with me.

Well, I was speaking from the deeper emotional side of romanticism. We don't tend to have a lot of public affection, we do the typical holding hands or my arm around her. We always stand really close to each other and walk near each other. We don't tend to kiss a lot out in public but plenty of hugs and high fives happen. Around friends we're a bit more affectionate than we are out in public. And at home...well, our son tells us that we're inappropriate a lot.

We're both very playful with each and will wrestle, flirt a ton, and she's quite fond of slapping me on the rear end. However, I think our text messages would make a porn movie star blush.




It's taken a lot of work and patience to get to where we are now. When I first found this site, we were about on the brink of divorce. We really didn't like each other much at all. And we weren't nice to each other. All I knew is that I wanted to save my marriage. My wife didn't care so much about saving the marriage as she wanted us together for the kiddos. We used to never let each other 'be vulnerable' around each other. And the thought of spending alone time with no distractions...just talking and enjoying each others company was a terrifying thought.

This program can work if both of you can get on board.