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She needs us to go out with friends together more often and she wants to be able to go out with friends independently.

...and given her now-well-documented aversion (refusal?) to "enjoying" SF with you, would it be fair to state that she would accept your being ancillary to her ideal life, but in no way central to it?

Regardless - back to Plan A! Keep attempting to satisfy her ENs, protect against any expectations that you will see favorable changes, and let your LB$ drop to virtual zero.

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Originally Posted by NeverGuessed
would it be fair to state that she would accept your being ancillary to her ideal life, but in no way central to it?

Yes. This part is what I got out of it. She speaks of having a well rounded life. No one part being more important than the other. In other words, she needs all of those things to be happy.


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Originally Posted by FightTheFight
Is it necessary to have 15 hours EVERY week? Would it work out to say get 3 weeks a month of 15 hours and then set aside time one week a month for friends?

I's only necessary if you want it to WORK. Once she falls in love with you again, she won't want to squander her free time with friends that could be spent with you. Right now, her friends are much more appealing to her than you, so if she is hanging out with friends, then you are competing with THEM instead of making lovebank deposits.

There is nothing that will make her happier than having a romantic, passionate marriage with you. There is no friend who can hold a candle to that.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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Do you have the UA worksheet? Are you actually scheduling your time out or are you winging it?


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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Why don't you propose a deal? Agree to go out with her friends and her on the weeks where you have at least 18 hours of UA time. Set down with the UA worksheet and start by penciling in your own UA time FIRST. Then you can find a spot for the friends.

This won't be such a battle when she falls in love with you. Once she falls in love with you, she will look forward to her time with you.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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Originally Posted by FightTheFight
She has expressed that she needs more to be happy. She needs us to go out with friends together more often and she wants to be able to go out with friends independently.

These are the words of withdrawal or conflict. The kind of advice that is given by people that ask divorced people "what could have saved your marriage?"

Originally Posted by FightTheFight
The problem is if we spend 15 - 20 hours a week together we don't have time for those other things.

Yup! No time for independent lifestyles and affairs to develop! It's kind of the point!

Originally Posted by FightTheFight
Is it necessary to have 15 hours EVERY week?

Nope. Because your wife is not in love with you, it is necassary to have 20+ hours EVERY WEEK.

15 hours is just to maintain. It takes more to create and/or restore.

Originally Posted by FightTheFight
Would it work out to say get 3 weeks a month of 15 hours and then set aside time one week a month for friends?

Sure! If you want to undo all your work every 4th week, and have a gaping vulnerability in your marriage!


"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." - Niels Bohr

"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." - Michael Shermer

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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
Do you have the UA worksheet? Are you actually scheduling your time out or are you winging it?

We are scheduling it starting today. We talked again this morning. She is not off of her position but we have agreed to a basic schedule. Ironically, we are using a schedule you yourself proposed in another thread I found while searching.

We have agreed to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday.

T: 3.5
TR: 3.5
SA: 4
SU: 4

That gives us 15 hours outside of the home. The other 5 will be spent in the evenings after the kids are in bed.


Last edited by FightTheFight; 09/15/13 10:49 AM.

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Originally Posted by HoldHerHand
Originally Posted by FightTheFight
She has expressed that she needs more to be happy. She needs us to go out with friends together more often and she wants to be able to go out with friends independently.

These are the words of withdrawal or conflict. The kind of advice that is given by people that ask divorced people "what could have saved your marriage?"

I'm curious about this part of what you said. Are you saying these people are clueless about what happened to their marriage?


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Originally Posted by FightTheFight
Originally Posted by MelodyLane
Do you have the UA worksheet? Are you actually scheduling your time out or are you winging it?

We are scheduling it starting today. We talked again this morning. She is not off of her position but we have agreed to a basic schedule. Ironically, we are using a schedule you yourself proposed in another thread I found while searching.

We have agreed to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday.

T: 3.5
TR: 3.5
SA: 4
SU: 4

That gives us 15 hours outside of the home. The other 5 will be spent in the evenings after the kids are in bed.

Great job!! And have you written out the exact times and activities? Do you need the worksheet? If you want me to email you a PDF of the worksheet, hit notify and give the moderators your email address. Ask them to forward it to me and I will email you the worksheet.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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I actually have the worksheet. I don't know if it's OK to post the link here but it can be found on the MB website if one were to Google search it.

We do better just writing it down on a piece of paper ourselves though.

We are working on specific activities but are trying to come up with a rough framework first. So far, we have Tuesday as dinner out night.


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Originally Posted by FightTheFight
I actually have the worksheet. I don't know if it's OK to post the link here but it can be found on the MB website if one were to Google search it.

Really? where??


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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ohmigosh!! I just found it!! I had emailed Dr Harley about a year ago about adding it and I didn't know he had. smile


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
ohmigosh!! I just found it!! I had emailed Dr Harley about a year ago about adding it and I didn't know he had. smile

I don't think it is intentional. I can find no links to it from the website. I only found it by searching. I figured it wasn't cool to spread it around since they are selling a workbook for a very reasonable price and they give away a very generous amount already.


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Originally Posted by FightTheFight
Originally Posted by MelodyLane
ohmigosh!! I just found it!! I had emailed Dr Harley about a year ago about adding it and I didn't know he had. smile

I don't think it is intentional. I can find no links to it from the website. I only found it by searching. I figured it wasn't cool to spread it around since they are selling a workbook for a very reasonable price and they give away a very generous amount already.
It's intentional. Dr. H mentions the existence of the free worksheets available from the website on the radio program all the time. It's probably the lack of links to the worksheet that is unintentional.


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Originally Posted by FightTheFight
Originally Posted by MelodyLane
ohmigosh!! I just found it!! I had emailed Dr Harley about a year ago about adding it and I didn't know he had. smile

I don't think it is intentional. I can find no links to it from the website. I only found it by searching. I figured it wasn't cool to spread it around since they are selling a workbook for a very reasonable price and they give away a very generous amount already.

I found it in the questionnaire section here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4508_tuaw.html


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Originally Posted by markos
Originally Posted by LongWayFromHome
I know that baby sitters can be pricey, but rewards to your marriage over the long term will be worth it. Did you hear the call from a couple of weeks ago in which Dr. Harley told a caller that raising a family is expensive and it's unlikely to be able to save much money while the children are growing up?

That was me, actually. smile

I'd be interested in hearing that, if there's a link.

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Originally Posted by FightTheFight
Originally Posted by HoldHerHand
Originally Posted by FightTheFight
She has expressed that she needs more to be happy. She needs us to go out with friends together more often and she wants to be able to go out with friends independently.

These are the words of withdrawal or conflict. The kind of advice that is given by people that ask divorced people "what could have saved your marriage?"

I'm curious about this part of what you said. Are you saying these people are clueless about what happened to their marriage?

Pretty much.

When somebody has fallen out of love with their spouse and they end up with infidelity, or a bitter divorce, their thoughts aren't really very objective.

They think that more independence or outside friendships would have improved their marriage - because that is what they look for in divorce.


Yet, when couples with lifelong happy marriages are interviewed, they often state they would rather spend all of their time with their spouse than do anything else, or spend time with anyone else. Including their own children.

And, this isn't just something that Dr. Harley has observed, I read a writeup by a married psychologist couple (last name Schmidt, I believe... but I can't find the writeup :() that studied life long marriages all over the world - their results were the same.

The LAST thing a spouse in withdrawal wants to do is spend time with their spouse. In conflict, it may be a little more interesting, but it's easy for outside influences to distract from that time.

A spouse in the marital state of intimacy would rather spend time with their spouse than ANYTHING ELSE.

So - when you have one spouse fighting for "time with friends" it is an indicator of their marital state of mind.


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"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." - Michael Shermer

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Originally Posted by HoldHerHand
When somebody has fallen out of love with their spouse and they end up with infidelity, or a bitter divorce, their thoughts aren't really very objective.

They think that more independence or outside friendships would have improved their marriage - because that is what they look for in divorce.

Yet, when couples with lifelong happy marriages are interviewed, they often state they would rather spend all of their time with their spouse than do anything else, or spend time with anyone else. Including their own children.

And, this isn't just something that Dr. Harley has observed, I read a writeup by a married psychologist couple (last name Schmidt, I believe... but I can't find the writeup :() that studied life long marriages all over the world - their results were the same.

The LAST thing a spouse in withdrawal wants to do is spend time with their spouse. In conflict, it may be a little more interesting, but it's easy for outside influences to distract from that time.

A spouse in the marital state of intimacy would rather spend time with their spouse than ANYTHING ELSE.

So - when you have one spouse fighting for "time with friends" it is an indicator of their marital state of mind.

This is SO true for me.

Taffy tells me he is in love with me, but balks at even 15 hours of UA weekly. Even when we have 15 hours scheduled, he sometimes "forgets" the dates.

Of course, I can't say I feel he isn't in love with me, because that would be a DJ. Dr. Harley advised me to tell Taffy, "If you were in love with me, I would expect you to behave like XXXX (fill in the blank behaviour.)"

And I know that I have been unhappy in our marriage for years. BUt I could never put my finger on the source of my unhappiness. Like FC, I often put it down to dissatisfaction with other areas of life, (career, friendships, personal challenges, etc.) not my marriage, which I would discuss with Taffy. Now I see that it was just that I was not in love with Taffy. Because I wasn't getting my EN's met.

But I still thought our marriage was okay. I would have said, "pretty good", if asked about our marital state. Not great, but better than most.

The MB way has been a real eye-opener for me.


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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
Originally Posted by FightTheFight
Originally Posted by MelodyLane
ohmigosh!! I just found it!! I had emailed Dr Harley about a year ago about adding it and I didn't know he had. smile

I don't think it is intentional. I can find no links to it from the website. I only found it by searching. I figured it wasn't cool to spread it around since they are selling a workbook for a very reasonable price and they give away a very generous amount already.

I found it in the questionnaire section here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4508_tuaw.html

OK well, check this out (page 77): I Promise

Not to mention all the other goodies. smile

Last edited by FightTheFight; 09/15/13 06:14 PM.

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Originally Posted by FightTheFight
OK well, check this out (page 77): I Promise

Not to mention all the other goodies. smile

Thanks FTF! We really enjoyed the Honesty Worksheet. smile


DDays - six months of them
THANK YOU God and Marriage Builders.
We never knew that it could be this good! smile
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