Read:
How to Negotiate When You Are an Emotional Person (this article has a lot of advice on what to do when you are frustrated)

Multi-tasking is great, dad. Just don't forget to prioritize. Sometimes we let tasks that seem urgent take precedence over what is important. I've made that mistake myself plenty of times with so many things (and people) wanting my attention.

I have not had a whole lot of experience with the AO stuff but I wonder: is the built up frustration because you are avoiding conflict and not discussing things as needed prior to the outburst? I know the very few times AO's have occurred in my home over the yeras are because of this.

Prisca,

Just printed this out...will read it this evening.

Thank you.

Awesome, dad; glad to hear you are getting educated.

One suggestion: if you haven't already, apologize to helpformom for your angry outburst. AOs are never justified.

Sunny,

Thanks for your note. I would humbly say that I do "prioritize as I go" with multitasking, focusing on the most pressing issues first.

My dilemma is that I'm not sure what to do when my #1 LB is caused, no thats not right...when a contributing factor??? to MY LB (an AO) is when trying to deal with someone else's #1 LB toward me, and that LB doesn't go away...and I feel I don't have the mechanisms in place to handle it in a healthy way.

I did for the movie incident already.

We discussed all posts to both of us in detail. They were very helpful and educational.

Thank you.

Do you guys have Love Busters yet, and Dr. Harley's workbook?

Markos,

Soon -- on order.

This needs to be a research project for you. What does Dr. Harley say to do about this? What does Dr. Harley say to do to avoid having an angry outburst when your spouse love busts you. I believe the article my wife posted to you today will be very helpful for you on this, especially when combined with the information on Angry Outbursts in the latest edition of Love Busters.

Of course, in this case, your wife didn't demand anything, didn't say anything disrespectful, and didn't have an angry outburst at you. You simply wanted her to do something, and she didn't do it. Not doing something isn't a love buster - we aren't entitled to make our spouses do anything, even turning off the television. As my wife noted, you could have simply turned it off yourself if it was bothering you. You entered a negotiation situation, probably without realizing it, and definitely without having the tools you needed to negotiate.

Good for you on the prioritizing! It was a learned skill for me as I was always bad about it before.

I understand your dilemma. Of course, doing the program soup to nuts as it was intended will help with learning the correct coping mechanisms - including a THOROUGH discussion of lovebusters, etc... And a trained coach would be invaluable! I wish H and I had gone that route instead of the do-it-yourself one. We've done well with it but I think we had an advantage: being that I am in school, working on my degrees in order to become proficient at all this, I've been very dogmatic in ensuring we follow things correctly.

Markos,

How, then, to negotiate the elimination of a LB that the other person won't/can't fix?

Is that covered in the book/workbook?

Let's talk prioritization again:

first, eliminate your angry outbursts.

You can't negotiate anything if you are still having angry outbursts. Please reread the quotes I posted from Dr. Harley at the beginning of this thread.

You are not going to make it if this discussion keeps sliding off of your angry outbursts and onto your wife. You have got to take care of this beam, or no other mote is going to matter.

Also, note again that there was no love buster on your wife's part in this situation. Failure to do what would like for our spouse to do is not a love buster. So this question is a pure hypothetical that doesn't even pertain to the most recent situation.

Finally, don't expect to ask questions and get them all answered here on your thread. That is why I said this is a RESEARCH PROJECT for you. It doesn't work if you have to be spoonfed all the answers.

A suggestion on prioritizing:

If it involves your wife, it comes first.

Right now, as several people of long history with MB have noted, your marriage is on life support due to failure to follow this program. You can't just sit back and say "glad we dodged that bullet" without a plan to avoid the next bullet, because there are many of them flying.

Markos,

I appreciate your help, but with all due respect some of your notes are making me feel uncomfortable and confused.

You're statements have accused me of not making my wife a priority, of assuming I'm expecting every question of mine being answered here, and then quoting me with words that I never said.

Maybe something is getting lost in translation in my search for solutions in my posts.

hfd, I'm encouraging you to work harder. You have been here 3 years and were unable to answer some really basic questions about angry outbursts. After three years, you ought to know these things, if you'd spent that time learning and using the Marriage Builders program. You might not know how to put the information in practice, or you might not have the new habits developed yet, but you'd at least know.

You ought to be uncomfortable about that. You ought to be really uncomfortable until you have a plan to deal with this stuff, because as we have seen, it is an ongoing issue, if you want to recover your marriage.

If you don't want to recover your marriage, if you want to spend a few more years posting off and on but not learning and using the program, I'll bow out.

If you think I am hard on you - your wife's love bank is harder. Love banks are truly ruthless. They do their calculations without any conscious choice on our part. I don't think you should ask your wife to spend more years waiting for you to get this stuff - I think you should act quickly and make good on the promise of Plan A - that you will use this program to build a fantastic marriage better than it ever was before.

I get you, guy, I really do.

I guess I feel like I'm being hammered here becasue I haven't been doing this MB program in full-efficiency mode.

And I'm sorry about that, but it wasn't from any malice on my part or HFM's.

I think things got better between us, better than they ever were, with what we were using with MB, so we thought we were on the right trajectory. And so I still come here hat-in-hand for help.

My point to you earlier is that I'm trying to separate and make better items that I think are related? Or, maybe not.

Meaning, on the one hand, I am responsible for my AOs -- and I MUST correct that. And I have learned that those AOs begin with frustration.

And then over here, on the other side, is the behavior, LB that causes me to get frustrated.

And if that LB doesn't get addressed, am I to then always be in a constant cycle of communicate, separate, relaxation that Dr. Harley describes? each and every time the LB leads me to get frustrated?

This is me just "thinking out loud" -- I am not expecting to be spoonfed answers.

Thanks.

Would that be a bad thing?

That's not what happened though, right?

Prisca,

What if the LB was something along the lines of a medical/clinical issue that a loved one would not address?

You first. Would it be a bad thing for you to have to spend the rest of your life relaxing in the face frustration (including Lovebusters) as Dr. Harley says to?