The default of POJA is do nothing. Neither of you can see her until you've negotiated and come to an enthusiastic agreement.

The next step is for him to find out what it takes for you to be enthusiastic about her being in your lives or him enthusiastic about not seeing her.

Then, how do you make the chosen solution happen? Are there checkpoints along the way that will indicate that progress is being made towards the chosen solution?

Thanks for the example! It is really helpful.

I highly agree that it should be improved for him as well! I want him to be happy. I feel that is why I feel so horrible now. I sacrifice to make him happy, but now I�m seeing now that is not the right move. Not only do I feel controlled but I have tons of resentment as well.

Last night he said he wasn�t scared to ask me the question, he was scared because the potential of him going would hurt me. To me, he had already decided he was going. I do not want him to never see his daughter again. I know his relationship with her is important. It is important to me too. I am hurt incredibly by her behavior. That has nothing to do with his relationship with her because he cannot control her.

I am hurt incredibly by his behavior too. What has gotten me to this point is that I don�t feel my H respects me. I feel he has SDs when it comes to his daughter. He pushed to have her live with us at one point when I didn't want her here. Then when she was here he belittled me about my depressed attitude. Never once I have received an apology from him.

In times when she has hurt him (which is part of an ongoing sick cycle), prior to her having kids, he was ready to never have anything to do with her again. Now that she has kids the game has changed. She uses them to control H or anyone that she can. She has found that although she can�t demand him to divorce me she can use the kids to keep me away from her and them. H does not feel I have done anything wrong and feels she is not right in her behavior. She will not reason�. Hmmmm seems kinda like how H is doing now with this subject.

He is unwilling to do nothing. He stated so in our coaching call today. He seems to have it set in his head that I want him to turn his back on his daughter. I have told him that is not the case but it doesn�t seem to matter. Steve even told him the same. Steve tried to get him to see the big picture, the end of all this, with no avail. I know he wants a relationship with his daughter and I want that for him too.

Today I felt controlled. I�m tired of trying at this point. My taker is in full force right now. Resentment and control is what is getting his needs met at this point. He is blatantly against POJA when it comes to his daughter. How can we move forward with the lack of alignment to the process?

Today he has been very angry, no AO, just very distant and cold. That doesn�t help matters, it just multiply the withdrawals. I don�t know how much longer I can endure the lack of love. I am finding that I don�t want him to even bother opening a door for me. Opening a door is not what I need. I need major love deposits if he is going to insist his way with his daughter.

OMG!!! That sounds so simple. For him to see her he needs to fill my love bank. Make me his #1 priority to love, fill my love bank without abandon. I'm sick of hurting and being on a receiving end of his anger and selfish demands.


I believe this will be two failed marriages for him where his wife said he is controlling. Hello?!?!?!?!?!

Because you are. Selfish Demands are a form of control.

You can't. It is impossible to negotiate if one spouse allows him or herself to have Selfish Demands, Disrespectful Judgements, or Angry Outbursts.

Your husband is a part of your life by invitation only. He is going to have to start taking your feelings into account.

Being unwilling to use the POJA on some issues, especially the ones that bother you the most, undermines the spirit of integration that Dr. Harley talks a lot about. What is it he says? Yes, whatever independent behavior one insists on doing regardless of how their spouse feels will get between the couple and end up making the marriage an unhappy one, even if the activity is as clean as stamp collecting, and even if it's the only one.

I sympathize with you - I know what it's like to have grown stepchildren move into your home without your agreement, sometimes along with children, girlfriends, and spouse, and how it feels when their wishes and well-being mean more than yours. It's an extremely difficult situation to live with and yet still treat your husband with respect, dignity, and to continue to meet his needs. Especially difficult to meet those needs with enthusiasm and a smile.

The best you can do is just continue to be respectful and let him know, simply and with no justification, that the way he's carrying on his relationship with his daughter hurts you. Every time it hurts let him know - simply, quietly, unemotionally. Then, for goodness' sake, don't try to justify why you feel the way you do.

Do you still have some more sessions with Steve?

Thanks for validating my feelings.

Then I�m not sure how much more I can take.

Good point.

He says he is not going to turn his back on his daughter and shut her out like she does to him. I tell him I don�t want him to shut her out of his life completely. I want them to have a relationship. He seems unwilling to understand my perspective. He has DJs around the whole issue. I have made comments in the past out of hurt and anger around the subject of her. Not only has she hurt me but H does too. In a moment of sanity I can see that all I want is to be loved and when I share my feelings about SD21 it results in days of unloving behavior. How can I not feel the way I do with that occurring?

Yes! This is exactly what I need to be doing! Thanks for the direction!

Steve has spent in excess of his time with us on the phone. One hour sessions have turned into two twice. He said to set up a call next week. I have yet to do that as I am not sure there is any point in moving forward. I have sent Steve an email and followed up with a voice mail to ask him some questions around this. This weekend we are suppose to go out of town to see my family. I however, do not really care for him to go along at this point. He is so unloving, controlling and judgmental I don�t want to be around him.
LifetimeLearner, if you don�t mind me asking I see you made a go-at-it to save your marriage and it appears the marriage failed. Is this with the step-family situation?

He just sent me a text saying that I never gave him an answer if he and SD11 could go have dinner with SD21 tonight. I'm not his freaking mom!!!

I'm going to respond with this 'I have shared my feelings. My perspective is not understood. Sharing my feelings has resulted in selfish demands, disrespectful judgements and angry outbursts. Negotiation is shut down.'

Need your help..... if i don't have to justify my feelings how does he gain my perspective?

His response. 'Then I will go' 'And btw.... my perspective is not understood either and it has resulted in selfish demands and disrespectful judgements as well.'

This is why "how would you feel if I...?" is the way to go. I'm guessing you feel that you are in a position of either stuffing your feelings or being the bad guy for saying no. Maybe you could respond with something like "of course you can go, but that will withdraw love bank units if you do."

What I mean by justifying your feelings is that if you get into a discussion about why this hurts you, that leaves it open for arguments against your reasons such that you get reasoned to ignore your feelings right along with him, and in the end it won't really work to change your feelings.

The biggest problem in my situation wasn't step children, although who was highest priority between them and their children and me was a big issue. It just wasn't the only big issue.

Ok, I would love not to have to justify why I feel the way I do. When he tries to get my perspective, what do I share? Isn't getting my perspective understanding how I'm feeling and what causes me to feel that way? In the moment it may seem like it is about SD21 but in reality it is about the SDs and DJs of H around so many issues.

Explain the cause? Nope.

You go too far in explaining your perspective of why you�re hurt. Which opens you up to you committing LBs like DJs and possibly a SD. As mentioned previously it allows him to convince you you are wrong for feeling what you feel.

The best option for you is to keep it simple. Explain you are hurting yes but only explaining that you don�t feel you�re his #1 priority.

"I feel hurt. It feels, to me, like you put your daughter before me and that hurts.
I would love to negotiate a solution that we can both be happy with. I am not going to demand you do anything. We need to find a win/win here.".
�You shouldn�t feel that way!�.
�I feel what I feel. Please don�t tell me how I should feel by your actions. That is a DJ. �

Instead you tried to convince him he was selfish and he just turned it back around on you.

I take it your H has never read nor understands the different types of resentments (Type A and B).

WO, it seems you are demanding that your H make this M his priority. In this case he seems to have a different perspective on what�s most important. You can�t insist he make you be the priority. It would be nice if you could but demands don�t work. You can only explain to him how you�re hurt by his actions. He has to want to make you the priority.

Telling him to make you the priority is going to be thrown back in your face as a selfish demand. At least until he understands the concept of Resentment Type A and B. If he never learns that and accepts that as a healthy marriage principle you�ll have your hands full.

Right no your best option, IMHO, is to find a way to negotiate with him. Once he realizes he can successfully negotiate a win/win solution he may more open to learn and implement what to do with resentment Types A and B.

In some cases, Dr. Harley recommends discussions go no further than "I felt disrespected when you said that" "Why?" "I just felt it was disrespectful." "Yes, but why?" "Oh, I just felt it was disrespectful."

Makes sense! Thanks for the renotification!

I have shared with him that I do not feel important. He tells me it is not a competition. I tell him I know that, but I still don't feel important. He keeps bringing it back to that it is a competition.

Yes he has and Steve has also spoken to him about it. H has a strong stance that his resentment is far worse in the end. Steve asked him if he saw how one sided he was and H said yes. Steve changed the subject.

I can see your view on how I am having a SD trying to get him to see that he should make M his priority. Maybe my canned response should be I hurt because I don't feel like I am your #1 priority but then again I have done that and he tells me it is not a competition.

To piggy back on the others, you don't have to justify why you feel the way it's a dive u do. Your feelings are your feelings. However you can't also expect him to understand or feel certain ways. He/you, however, should respect the way you feel the way you do.

For example, my wife has opinions and feelings that I don't always agree with and visa versa. It's not our job to educate our spouse or to try and change their feelings. It is our job to understand they feel a certain way and it is what it is. So if I do, act, or say something that offends my wife, then it is my job not to repeat the offensive behavior regardless if I agree with her or not.

The way my wife and I handle things is I will say, "it really upset me when you... " then, I will acknowledge the offensive behavior and apologize for it and not repeat it.

if there is something that I want to do, I will ask her "would it be OK with you if I... " If she's okay with it, she'll say yes. If not, then she'll say no and I'll leave it at that.

This whole argument needs to be cast in a different light besides "make our marriage a priority."

Asking your spouse to NOT do something that would hurt you is not a selfish demand.

"I am not enthusiastic about that. I am willing to negotiate if we follow the Four Guidelines for Negotiation."

"Are you willing to do what it takes to make me first in your life?"

Better response (it takes out the whole "make marriage a priority" debate out, as markos suggested):
"Are you willing to do what it takes to protect me?"