Just imagine trying to meet the needs of all those individual children, and have private romantic dates with your spouse all the while being followed everywhere but the bathroom and bedroom by a camera filming team ....

If somebody offered our family a deal like those families, part of the contract would need to include 15 hours of guaranteed UA time for Prisca and me, or we would not accept.

By this do they mean that the solution to wanting things that you haven't got (like a romantic marriage, or a good sex life within the marriage, or any specific emotional need) is to stop wanting those things? Train yourself not to desire them any more, and your problem is solved. Accept what is good in what you already have - like a husband who provides well for you, even if you never see him or he never talks to you, is affectionate with you or spends time alone with you. If that is what you have, find things within that to make yourself happy. Spend your empty hours helping other people. Find happiness within yourself and do not look to anyone else to fill your emotional needs.

In fact, emotional needs are not needs at all; they are "emotional wants" that you can live without.

Find happiness within. Stop looking to others for happiness. Do away with your wants and desires.

That kind of thing?

Here's a good clip that goes right with the discussion.
Radio Clip on Putting your Marriage Before the Children

Yes, exactly that. I see this often cloaked with a Christian veneer, with justifications like "You shouldn't be selfish," "you should be sacrificial," etc. But to me, the truth is that this is an approach that denies the humanity that God created. The good gifts of the world God created are to be received with gratitude (1 Timothy 4:4), not denied in some sort of ascetic nirvana.

And as Dr. Harley points out, it's not evidence-based. The people who have actually researched good marriages find that what people do that leads to good marriages is not to reduce their expectations, it is to meet each other's expectations, finding win-win approaches that both husband and wife are enthusiastic about. In fact, premarital counseling that teaches couples-to-be the "lower your expectations" approach has been shown to have a detrimental effect on marital satisfaction afterward.

From within the "have no emotional needs" camp, I have heard the view that romantic love (of the kind proposed in Dr Harley's article) is a particularly foolish need/want. This stems from a view that romantic love is a temporary state lasting two or three years at best, at the beginning of a relationship. This is a heady and addictive phase. The problem (in this view) with that phase it that is never lasts forever. As you know your mate for a long time, you see him or her as a complete human being instead of the sex god/Victoria Secrets model that was presented to you when dating and in early marriage. As you are together for a long time, romantic love fades. Successful marriages (in this view) are those that find a sustainable love that accepts the spouse as he or she is. It asks nothing of them. It is not conditional - and conditional love is a bad thing. This love is sustained through dull times and bad times by commitment, which isn't there in romantic love. With romantic love (in this view), when RL fades because the spouse gets older, puts on weight and goes grey, there is nothing left to sustain the relationship. With unconditional love, you would even set your spouse free to have an affair if that makes them happy. You would never try to manipulate their love for you.

The person who wants romantic love for life is a fool (in this view). The desire for RL makes that person ripe for affairs, because they are always seeking the thrill of the first few months of a new relationship.

Frank Pittman, among others argues that RL is a fool's pursuit and that it cannot be sustained within a marriage - hence affairs take place for those who haven't grown out of the childish desire for romance.

Dr Harley's model says to people who want a romantic personal relationship; create that relationship and sustain romance for life, within the marriage.

It seems to me that the solution to the person who is lonely in the marriage or even may have gone as far as having an affair to get their romantic fix, is not to "grow up" and give up the desire for romance - which they won't succeed in doing. I can't see how you can sell marriage on the grounds that "it gets dull after kids come along. Get over it!" The solution is to have a romantic marriage for life.

The question is, how does one convince their spouse of this if said spouse is more in the camp of marital love should be unconditional?

Dr Harley said:



The commitment is unconditional in regards to life circumstances. Love ( the emotional connection) is conditional to how your spouse treats you.

You say:

"That's great, Honey! Love absolutely should be unconditional! Let me list the things I expect you to provide for me unconditionally, from now on."

If they decide to give you these things, then great.

If they don't give you these things, then you negotiate a new arrangement for your marriage that does not include this kind of "unconditionality."

For your specific situation, please focus very closely on what Dr. Harley suggests you do. Don't make no progress for years. Listen to the radio show, call in if you can, and take steps to get things off the fence and moving along!!!

Yes, that is the kind of thing that I have heard for most of my life.


One of the interesting things Dr. Harley touches on is the phenomenon of "cognitive dissonance," which is the observation that people unconsciously create their beliefs to match their feelings. People who say things like this typically aren't in love.

Some of these people go on to spend time with members of the opposite sex, engaged in conversation, recreation, etc., and pass the romantic love threshold. SUDDENLY, these people believe in love for a lifetime, and believe they happen to be married to the wrong person, and they can't live without the person they are in love with, and it would be wrong to spend their life with anyone else, etc. The commitment goes out the window as it follows the feelings. Often these people started with a belief that romantic love is a foolish fleeting phenomenon, thus easily dismissed, and no reason to take precautions to avoid an affair.

Of course, they could have easily spent this time with their mate and been in love with them. Then, their beliefs would probably line up with Dr. Harley's.


And that was how Dr. Harley started his marriage counseling career, before he discovered that it didn't work! One of his lesser-read books, Defending Traditional Marriage, goes into great detail about how these attitudes sabotage marriages.

Sacrificial? Like Christ?


Weather unbearable suffering, and then give up your life?



And for that suffering and death; the Kingdom of Heaven, and forgiveness for our sins.


In other words, sacrifice; giving up something of lesser value (life in the flesh), for something of greater value (the Kingdom of Heaven and forgiveness for our sins).



Trading your house for a chicken dinner isn't sacrifice, it's stupid.


Giving up an Annoying Habit or Independent Behavior for the happiness of your marriage, avoiding "Type A" resentment, and compensating for "Type B" resentment would be more of a Christ-like sacrifice than any tit-for-tat sacrifice.

I wouldn't say we've made no progress. I would say we have made very uneven progress. We were doing much better in the beginning, but things have tapered off with time.

I have read most of the material on the site and most of the books. I have not listened to the radio show. I have auditory processing issues, so I don't learn well by listening to things. I rarely listen to talk radio because of these issues. I am a very visual learner, so reading just works better for me.

I think my H seems a little overwhelmed when it comes to MB. I don't know how much he's read, but I don't think it is very much. I also think he feels a little hopeless about ever being able to meet some of my EN's (mostly FS and SF). I get a lot of mixed messages. Sometimes, he expresses a desire to meet my EN's and we seem to be making progress. Then other times, he will say things like, "You don't seem very happy with me," or "Maybe you'd be better off with someone else."

As far as his EN's go, I'm not even sure what they are. He did fill out the questionnaire once, but later, he admitted that he wasn't very honest about his answers. I could guess at some of his EN's, based on what I know about him, but I will admit it might be difficult for me to attempt to meet them at this point. I think Affection would come very high on the list for him; he's always been a very affectionate person. But I'm just the opposite, and it's very difficult for me to be affectionate if I don't feel an intimate connection with someone. Right now, I feel very withdrawn. When I ask my H about his EN's, he usually says I do a good job of meeting them, which I find strange, since he's never told me what they are.

I fully admit that I have been stuck in a rut of thinking that maybe this is as good as it's going to get for our marriage. Things have been this way for so long that I'm not sure even I believe that they can change at this point. I feel like we have a comfortable relationship, we have a comfortable friendship, but there isn't any passion there, there isn't any romantic love. It's been so long since I've felt that way towards my H, that I don't even remember how to feel it. We go out together, we spend time together, we enjoy casual conversation and recreational companionship (which are top EN's for me and I think would be fairly high on my H's list as well), but it never really goes beyond that. Certain intimate EN's (such as SF and Affection) are virtually nonexistent in our marriage and have been for some time.

I can usually pick up a lecture rather easily without taking notes...

However, sometimes there is a glut of information to process.


For instance, there is a neat little site called slideshare that often has academic presentations - they usually consist of a Powerpoint and an audio recording of the presentation. When I listen to those, I either have notepad open, or have a pen and paper ready. I pause and rewind the presentation as needed when I hear things that I REALLY want to remember and write them down; first, exactly as I hear them, then I rearrange my notes into concepts I can better memorize but retain the main point.

On the topic of children and marriage. I used to subscribe to the philosophy that babies come before partners, mostly because I felt, as the mother, that their future emotional health depended on me meeting their every need ( me- no one else).

We've held our marriage together for nine years with little effort but it sure has taken a toll. Thank God for finding marriage builders ( was linked on a mothering site I visited years ago). Finally realized after years of lurking that it was possible to have romantic love again and why I kept looking for that excitement elsewhere ( admiration from random guys).

I've closed my love bank to others and stopped love busting and working on UA time. Trying to get a date a week and looking at games to play in the evening when kids in bed.

Needless to say these improvements to date have benefited our kids noticeably. My husband is much happier and so he treats them better- more patience. My oldest is learning to fill herself up with more than me when she's lonely at night in bed. Her " why do you have to go spend time with dad so much?" ( wanting more cuddles from me) me " because dad and I have to come first so that everyone's happy" her with derision " is that from MARRIAGE BUILDERS?" lol
We have a long way to get to where I know we can be but it is encouraging to see the changes already. I would do things differently if I could go back nine years to the birth of our first.

Another good clip.

Radio Clip of the Effects of Children on a Marriage

Right.

I sacrifice to Christ, because He is my God and the object of my worship.

I don't ask other people to sacrifice to me, because I am not an object of worship. There is a God, and I'm not Him! Similarly, I don't sacrifice to others.

Here's one thing Jesus actually said on the subject:
"12 Then He also said to him who invited Him, When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just."

Make your sacrifices to God by giving to those who cannot repay.

By definition, in a typical marriage, spouses can repay.

I'm so glad you were pulled out of that philosophy. Fathers are so important in children's lives, but there seems to be a thread of thought out there that only mothers are important. Yet the statistics show that the lack of an involved father is devastating.

I love that Dr. Harley's program typically draws a father in to become more involved. For my wife, me spending time with the children makes great love bank deposits. And for me, I know that I am a much better father for our children when I am cared for and being cared for by my wife. We went out on a wonderful date last night, and when we got home I just wanted to eat our kids up. A great marriage is a great motivator for fathers and mothers to be great parents!

As far as doing everything for kids, I think our primary job as parents is to teach them how to do things for themselves!

As I recall, the big problem was that your husband is not involved in finding a way to follow the policy of undivided attention with you. You cannot solve this problem on your own, or by posting on the forum.

Let him know that this is a condition of receiving caring love from you.

One of my greatest regrets in life is having a child centered marriage ... man what I would give to go back to pre-affair and pre-divorce and have great sex and hot romance with my husband.

Now I know .... what not to do ....!

Regarding UA time, it doesn't always have to mean "going out on a date." I would imagine there are few people who could afford, both in terms of money as well as practicality, to get out of the house on a date with their spouse more than once or twice a week.

My wife and I have five kids, and have sectioned off some time at the end of the day when the kids are in bed, in which we go up into our bedroom and have UA time. It isn't for too long, usually about 45 minutes or so, but we do it everyday and it gives us a chance to catch up with each other. Our marriage has encountered some major difficulties lately and this was one thing we implemented to help solve the problems. Though we are certainly not out of the woods I'd like to think that we are moving in the right directions.