The WS shouldn't have to guess at what that is. It is the BS's job to set the plan for recovery.

There was NEVER any "guessing" needed in this case. N-E-V-E-R !!

Shall we start with the (never sent) NCL, continue with the (looooong delayed) job change, and finish with the (still ongoing) fixation on HER hurts and discomfitures at the expense of attending to the emotional wounds she inflicted on HFD! (I'll charitably end the list with the top three!)

HFD has been here about thirty months. Almost every step has been delayed, drawn-out, and/or (sadly) half-done, so he has no claim to MB stardom. HFM, by contrast, in that same thirty months, has not had the opportunity for a misstep, as she has never, and has still not, put her foot to the ground with this program, either in person, or through his solicitation by proxy. And I am saying that in full recognition of her recent six(?) note pro-forma participation. (As a point of comparison, folks here hammer Kiss for his tepid MB participation, yet in the eighteen months since his affair, he has contributed almost 350 entries!)

I am sorry they came across as DJs; that was not my intent...you know, they are really my fears or insecurities more than anything else, I think.

Yes, I would say 'yes' to both that her anxiety and depression themselves are Lovebusters, and that she commits Lovebusters when she is depressed or anxious.

You need to quit apologizing to other posters here. The point of this dialogue is to help you start following the program, not for you to defend yourself or apologize for your failings.

Okay, so I asked these questions yesterday, and I STILL have not seen an answer to them.

Have you made a list of action items from the posts in this thread, yet? If so, please post the list. If not, please go reread the thread from the beginning and make the list.

Have you made a list of questions you need to learn answers to? questions like, "Well, you won't eliminate angry outbursts by psychoanalyzing yourself to try to explain them. There's a defined procedure to follow. Do you know what it is?"

Posting on the Marriage Builders forum is not the same as following the Marriage Builders program. Let's see some action, dad. We can't seem to get you focused on what you need to do next.

Do you know what the number one cause for depression in women is?
Their relationship with their husband.

You can fix this.

I asked this question and I haven't seen an answer, yet. It wasn't a rhetorical question. It's designed to help you discover a misunderstanding in your thinking. You don't appear to have noticed the question, so as near as I can tell, you missed out on the chance to correct this misunderstanding.

Here's the relevant text to help you formulate the answer:

I bolded the key line you need to see.

Let me reword the question again, for clarity: was it a love buster, according to Marriage Builders, for your wife to not turn off the TV the other night?

Which suggests another Marriage Builders concept helpfordad needs to research: What is Dr. Harley's suggested FIRST solution that a couple should attempt when the wife is depressed? Are you willing to look for this one, dad?

By the way, a great way to get answers to some of these may be to write Dr. Harley himself. I learned a good many of these things from listening to the radio show, day in and day out.

Did you read this?

[size:8pt][/size]
HFD is not working the program and has not laid it out for his wife. When that happens, things will begin to change. He should have been working the basic concepts with her about 30 months ago.

I know first hand what LBs anxiety and depression can cause in a marriage. I WAS that person and I know how it not only affected my husband, but my children. So, I totally understand this. And yes, part of the reason for my depression was the loneliness I felt in my marriage. BUT... it was also clinical in that it had an internal cause as well. There are two kinds of depression, clinical and circumstantial. Part of my feeling lonely in the marriage was my depressed behaviors led to my husband not really wanting to be around me... So, it's like the chicken and egg conundrum. If HFM has clinical depression, she needs to seek treatment - which I recommended on her thread.

I totally agree that the only way to experience romantic love (and thus lose the resentment for the past mistakes) is to do the program right. I also know, again - first hand - that HFM really needs to take responsibility for her anxiety & depression - taking action to resolve it.

The cause of my anxiety and depression was my hormones. I go to a doctor to keep myself regulated and am on a special diet now - so I don't have to take ADs any longer. That being said, there are certain times I am still prone to depression throughout the month. I have to be very aware of it - as does H - so we can work together to make sure he meets my needs and that I don't LB him in that time. Because we work on this as a team now - it has made us closer.

So - once again, both parties need to do their part when it comes to the anxiety and depression issue. The first step though has got to be HFM taking action to determine causes and possible fixes for it, if there is a clinical component.

NG, I get your frustration on this because my mind goes there as well. It goes back to the premise of the man - regardless of who had the affair - being the one to be the workhorse.

I will admit that this is something that I wonder about and need to study up on. I get that it is due our innate natures as men vs women but I'd like to know more, especially as a dual psych/communications major!

Dad,

Just a note of encouragement:

I was once like you in that my mind was constantly rattled with questions of whether or not my FWH really got what he did - and why. That list of things you mentioned? I had those same concerns. In the back of my mind I just KNEW my H thought it was still all my "fault" that he strayed... I worried about whether or not he would check up on OW..... or feel the desire to... or still fantasized about "what couldn't be...."

I can tell you that once we built that romantic love and followed all aspects of MB, that dissipated. Was it magically gone overnight? No... but it slowly left my mind and is now gone unless there is an extreme trigger which has been very rare.

They didn't come across as DJ's, they are DJs. Like Markos said, these questions we ask aren't rhetorical. They are to help you get on the ball instead of getting so distracted that you miss the ball. Dr. Harley says that when a man tries to win his wife over it's usually much more successful than the reverse.

Although her depression and anxiety may make you feel frustrated, sad, mad, and hopeless, as I understand it it still isn't a lovebuster. Be gentle and safe in trying to understand what's so negatively affecting her, and work on what you can do to fix it (not change her mind or feelings about it) and you may just find she will turn a smile your way.

Her affair doesn't change the things you need to work on.
You can't demand for her to be cheery.

One's behaviors while depressed and/or anxious can certainly be LBs... believe me! I've committed them. But the depression/anxiety aren't LBs in and of themselves, no.

I thought lovebusters are habits that cause your spouse to be unhappy?

So what is it, then, when a spouse exhibits behaviors that withdraw love units, that makes the spouse unhappy, even though the spouse has respectfully made a thoughtful request? and it goes ignored or unresolved? (severe depression or alcoholism or something like that?).

I never demanded she be cheery or smile. SHE recognizes the anxiety/depression she's struggled with...I have, HFM has for longer in her life, for 20 years, 'coped' with the behaviors that emerge from it.

And I am not in a medical or clinical position to 'fix it'; I have spent years asking "would you consider discussing this with your physician" or "what can we do to come up with solutions so you're not anxious or panicked or feeling overwhelmed?".

Instead, I feel that we've just tried to "deal with it" for years.

As I bolded in my post to you, according to Dr. Harley, NOT doing something is not a love buster.

Example: Dr. Harley has an 8 part series about a wife who wanted her husband to take out the garbage. He did not talk to the husband and explain that not taking out the garbage was a love buster. Because it's not. The problem was the wife felt a sense of entitlement, which led her to be demanding and disrespectful toward her husband to try to get him to do what she wanted.

If she had called not taking out the garbage a "love buster," that would not have been accurate in Dr. Harley's terms, because husband and wife are ALWAYS entitled to choose to NOT do something they are not enthusiastic about. Telling her husband he was "love busting" her by not taking out the garbage would have actually been a disrespectful judgment if the wife had done it.

After about 8 emails back and forth Dr. Harley finally persuaded the wife to try negotiating with her husband, offering him an incentive to take out the garbage. This worked! Once she quit acting like she was entitled to her husband taking out the garbage, once she quit disrespectfully grumbling about how he SHOULD do this, he was SUPPOSED to do this, it was EASY for him, if he ONLY understood he would do what she wanted, etc., -- once all of that nasty disrespectful entitlement was gone from her thinking and gone from her speech and she treated her husband with respect, like a free person who was entitled to decide if he wanted to take out the garbage or not -- once this happened, she was able to easily incent him, and she got what she wanted, and the happiness of both husband and wife increased. Win-win.

Your wife did not engage in a love buster by not turning off the television. There is no way Dr. Harley's term "love buster" applies to this. Dr. Harley specifically rules it out.

So before you go much further down this road, I'd like to know if you intend to continue to disagree with Dr. Harley on this, or not? You were not entitled to have your wife turn off the television. She was present with you for a very upsetting experience, but she was not the cause of the experience, and she does not deserve to be ABUSIVELY blamed for it. When you call it a "love buster," you are being disrespectful and abusive to her. So this is a very important point, and I don't believe you guys can progress much further if you continue to feel entitled to action on your wife's part. Entitlement will translate into abuse and control, and will wreck the happy marriage that both of you want.

Please read this wonderful post from Dr. Harley to me. I think of this post especially in reference to your sentence "even though the spouse has respectfully made a thoughtful request." A thoughtful request is a request where declining carries NO penalty. Otherwise, it isn't thoughtful.


http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2405440#Post2405440

(I'd say signing up for Dr. Harley's online program is worth it just to read that post over and over again!)


Those are doing something, which is the opposite of not doing something. Your wife didn't exhibit a behavior - she exhibited a lack of behavior.
Drinking alcohol = doing something = love buster if your spouse is not enthusiastic
Spending money = doing something = love buster if your spouse is not enthusiastic
Not turning off the television = not doing something = unmet emotional need, and you will need to negotiate a way to get your need met. (And in the case of simple household chores, Dr. Harley frequently suggests doing it yourself or hiring someone to do it, because it's not an intimate emotional need. I'd say that applied here.)
Depression == illness == "in sickness and in health" == not doing something == not a love buster


Quit "dealing with it," then. Marriage Builders has a strong solution for wife depression. I've strongly encouraged you to research it in my above posts. My wife says she's actually posted it! Are you going to continue the pattern of hanging around but not getting the education and doing the work? Or is it time to start digging in and finding the answers to your problems?

I know for a fact that I've frequently posted radio links that answer the question "What does Dr. Harley recommend couples do when the wife is depressed?" I know I've made posts about this in the last few months. It would not take a lot of effort on your part to find it.

I get the impression that you are reading our posts, processing them and responding, and then moving on, never to return to a post once you've dealt with it. I think that's a bad idea -- take notes! Start a list of action items and questions to research. I've asked several times if you've started this list, and I have yet to see an answer. I get the impression you think my questions are rhetorical. I get the impression you are more concerned with defending yourself and proving that you've made a good faith effort than you are about learning how to make your effort more effective.

So, away with telling us what you've done for years about depression, and on to the only question on that subject that matters: do you know yet what Dr. Harley recommends couples do when the wife is depressed? If you don't even know the Marriage Builders recommendation for this, how is it going to help you to blog about the subject on the Marriage Builders message board?

What do we have to do to get you moving, to get you learning and following the program instead of posting your own personal experiences?

...

You want to be the source of your spouses happiness, and avoid being the source of your spouses unhappiness.

Emotional outbursts are an expression of your unhappiness, yes... but a spouse who is empathetic is going to be unhappy with you.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/mb2.cfm?recno=9&sublink=590




The emotional outbursts bother HFD, and make pleasant conversation and negotiation difficult, if not impossible.


(And Dad has his own outbursts to account for, as well).


The key is focusing on being calm and pleasant.

Here's a suggested search that will yield an answer quickly:

Click Search
Click Advanced
Click All Forums if it is not selected on the left
Under Display Name Search, enter markos (since I mentioned I'd posted about it)
Under Keyword Search Terms, enter depression. To narrow down to radio programs, enter:
+depression +radio_program
Set Date Range to Newer than 5 Years
Click Submit

I tried this and found a bunch of radio links!

dad, if you had been listening to the radio show frequently for the last three years, you'd know these things. If you'd been in the trenches posting and helping and reading the posts of people who are trying to teach Dr. Harley's program, you'd know these things.

I am not saying things like this to try to make you mad or to shame you. I am hoping you will realize just how much better things could be if you'd spent this time learning and using the Marriage Builders program! I am hoping you will change from being the kind of person who makes "it's hopeless, I've been trying to talk to her about depression for years" posts and starts making "Now I know what Dr. Harley says to do about this and I've tried it and these are the results; does anyone have some more information to help us?" type posts. And "Now I know what Dr. Harley says to do and I tried it, and it worked! I can't believe how much better things are! We are so amazingly happy and had no idea it could be like this! We were going about it all wrong! I hope everybody else tries this because it really works!" posts.

Yes, I was just trying to separate behavior that's a lovebuster from a "condition" or emotions that may have been mislabeled as a lovebuster. Depression isn't a lovebuster, but SD's, DJ's, etc. are.
Anyway, he's got the lead on how to help his wife's depression. Even if it's caused by past problems, he can still alleviate it. It's right hard to be depressed when you're in love.