How goes it with scheduling UA time and are you willing to get rid of OS friends?

Unfortunately the boundaries are so open right now that women you hardly know feel able to look you up on facebook and ask you how its going. Its clearly not a married mans priority to entertain bored strangers.

I don't think your marriage can survive the constant intrusion of bored strangers seeking your attention. It upsets your wife. What's your solution here?

Scheduling UA time has not happened, I probably have not approached it the right way.

We have been getting a bit of unscheduled UA time, mostly conversation, but others as well. But the conversation is not always pleasant so those unpleasant times would not count.

I have no problem getting rid of the OS friends and have actually approached her several times about doing so on facebook. She has bucked the idea each time, and I think it boils down to me having to live with my mistakes. I say I want them gone because they are not worth causing any problems in our marriage. She has also said it would not be fair for me to do such a thing and her not do it as well.

Also, I am wondering....do you all POJA your posts before you post them?

I would set her down tonight and plan to go out together four hours, four times over the next week and as many weeks ahead as you can plan. Put it in the diary and stick to it.

You cant do anything until you've done this simple step. Do fun stuff and talk about fun stuff.



I would take the lead here skyrims and just do it. Your wife hasn't gotten to the 'please do it now' point but it will make an enormous difference to her if you just delete them and show they are not important.

You never got her input when these fb friendships started, they were never POJA'd; So just delete them. She's told you she doesn't like it, that its not enthusiastically agreed to by her, that's all you need to know.

You don't need her to hold your hand when they are deleted and you don't have to worry about what's 'fair' on her side. Delete the OS friendships because it makes your wife unhappy and because YOU want to. That's what your wife wants to see.

The vets wouldn't need to because they only post Dr Harley's advice and the married vets all enthusiastically agree with Dr Harley! Some of the couples post together and talk to each other as they post.

In your case I'd just concentrate on getting good advice here for now while you are still learning how to PoJA. You have to walk before you can run.

But I like your thinking.

Did you ever listen to the clips I posted to you? What did you think?

As Indie said I would just do it anyways. Fair has got nothing to do with it. Your direction should be to do whatever it takes to make her the focal point of your attention. In your situation it is even more important than others because the one thing that hurts your W is your lack of attention to her.

Sit down and plan out a ton of UA time. The more you spend doing things together the less time you have for meaningless things like friends on facebook. I refuse to use that site.

I don't think you're grasping this part of the POJA correctly. If you are not both enthusiastic about keeping the friends, then doing nothing means you don't keep them. They can't remain on your friends list if you aren't both enthusiastic about them being there.

Also, there are some things that Dr. Harley says are a bad idea for marriage even if both husband and wife are enthusiastic. This is one example! Another example would be a heroin habit.

Over time a couple will build up a "list" of agreements they've made, things that they can count on their spouse to be enthusiastic about. An example Dr. Harley gives is that for breakfast, he is always enthusiastic about Joyce making something for breakfast if she wants, so she doesn't ask him. But if HE wants to cook something for breakfast, she might or might not be enthusiastic, so he should ask.

My wife is VERY enthusiastic about me posting Marriage Builders advice on this board. So enthusiastic that when I stopped for awhile earlier this year, she missed it and told me so. It gives us a lot to talk about and something to do together; it also helps our marriage as we practice applying the concepts over and over and over again.

We POJA posting activity and decide on the level of which that we are both enthusiastic about. Since all posts are about MB, it is a pretty well defined sandbox. We have enthusiastic agreement as long as we stay in the sandbox. We discuss our participation regularly to make sure we remain in enthusiastic agreement.

I have listened to and read everything that has been suggested and more. There is not one thing that I have disagreed with or that I have not learned something from. I only wish we had started sooner.

As of this evening I have gone through facebook...the only females left are either family or are people that are close friends to my wife. People that I would contact if my wife were stateside and I needed to get ahold of her. I just learned that my wife was going to sit down with me this evening and do this, but I think it is better that I had already done it.

Good job.

Way to go on making your marriage a priority and putting EPs in place.

Great job taking the right actions.

Now, through the POJA, is your W enthusiastic of any OS person that remains on the Friends list?

Immediately would be a Great Time to get her input and agreement on those that remain. Get rid of Any potential conflicts about this all at once.

Oh well done. You have indeed shown her how seriously you take her feelings. She said it bothered her - and you dealt with it without further ado!

That's what PoJA is all about. Do let her know you encourage her complaints and you will handle them as well as you have here.

Hi Jeger! I want to address the above. I have a feeling that you are not calling her to tell you are going to be late because you don't want to disappoint her? Is that why you are not doing this?

Jeger, how's it going with UA time? UA time really is chapter one page one. Nothing can be built without that.

I certainty don't want to disappoint her butt thst is not the reason I wouldn't call her.....usually it is because I am rushing around trying to finish up what must be done and I do not realize the time. I do have some stress over the issue..but I have been trying to put that aside now and at least send a text as soon as I realize I am late or am going to be late. (texting is/was the norm...but after talking I think we might agree that a call is better). I have some more questions but it is nearly midnight here so we are out!

You sound like me

I'd set a 'call Sky' alarm on your phone. The time the alarm should sound is when you supposed to be walking to your car. If it sounds when you are walking to your car, call her and say 'Hey honey, I'm walking to my car'. If it sounds when you're rushing around, call her and tell her what's up.

If you get into the habit of calling her every day regardless, you won't forget when the stress is on.

Agree with indiegirl, just call her every day at the same time so you don't have to worry about it!

Agree to all the above. Jeger, I was constantly late. It was very irritating to my wife. Once I started setting an alarm at the time I was supposed to be leaving, I could call or text and let her know I was going to be late. It was a huge stress reliever on my wife and cut out a lot of our conflict.