In addition to not lovebusting, you need to add to that respectfully complaining - keeping the things that are problems to you on the front burner - and also not responding to her love busters with love busters.

For example - when she becomes difficult or abusive, don't start talking to her or anybody else about how she's just different and just a person who can't be reached or whatever. (The way you are talking now.)

Eliminate the disrespectful "escape hatch" that you use to cope with the emotions she causes in you when she is abusive.

Read and actually do the things in that "how to negotiate when you are an emotional person" article. BUY the type of meter that Dr. Harley describes, and learn to use it.

That is good news.

You can do this, HL. I know you are sitting here saying you can't, and you can't because your wife is so difficult, but I am here to tell you that you can.

I would suggest rereading your threads and emails and taking note of the good resources that you have used in the past. Use them continuously. For example, good radio shows - relisten to them.

Here's a Marriage Builders piece you are not using:

Complain about your spouse to your spouse

Since you have lots of problems in the marriage, you need to be honest to your wife about these, and you need to keep the problems on the front burner. That means keep bringing them up.

We are not teaching you to suffer in silence. That is not Marriage Builders. This is not about enduring continued abuse and neglect hoping things get better.

The goal is that either one of you should feel free to talk about a problem in the marriage, so long as you do it in a way your spouse finds respectful, non-demanding, and not angry.

I know you will worry that your wife doesn't find ANY complaints you make to be respectful. But if she does say you are disrespectful, just withdraw the complaint (drop the subject) and come here or to Steve Harley or to Dr. Harley and get some help learning how to make your complaint respectfully.

Have you scheduled an appointment with your M.D. for antidepressants?

Marriage Builders specifies the following:

Demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts should not be tolerated in marriage.

When your spouse is abusive or neglectful, you do not have to respond with abuse (demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts) yourself.

The first step in overcoming angry outbursts (and those other two love busters) is to acknowledge that your spouse does not cause them. If you will not take this step, you are not safe for your wife.

HL, as long as you are posting that your wife's behavior causes, explains, or justifies your disrespect, demands, and/or angry outbursts, you are not even using Marriage Builders - you are denying its fundamental tenets. So it's not that Marriage Builders won't work for your wife - it's that you are fatally compromising the program. Steve Harley explained to me that it's like having an operating system bug - you have to fix this before any programs will work on that hardware.

All of us on your thread can see numerous instances in the past 24 hours where you have used language indicating you believe your wife is the cause of your disrespect. Phrases like "reached a limit" are an example.

We can't help your marriage if you believe that your wife can make you angry or make you disrespectful or make you demanding. Steve Harley and Dr. Harley can't help, either. If you compromise this, nothing will work.

It might just be the way you have written this but this account makes no sense to me, and I have some sympathy with your wife's viewpoint.

My child often does poor homework or no homework, and has in fact failed major exams for this reason. We are now having to pay a huge amount of money from our savings to get him to pass the exams that he should have. If I had known when he was about three years younger that we would be in this position because of his laziness I would have sat with him constantly until the work was done. In fact, I'm doing that now, and it is paying off well.

Your wife appears to have said that ""we" inspect every test", which I take to meant that she wants know about every forthcoming test or homework set, she wants to know what the questions or topics are and she wants to check that they have been done, before the test is failed for non-completion. That seems eminently sensible to me and is what good, involved parents do all the time. What is wrong with her saying that she does not want to find out after the fact that the test was failed, when she could ensure that it is at least completed properly on time?

Perhaps she issued this as a demand, which she shouldn't have done, but the course of action in itself was not a poor proposal. I found out after the fact from my son's teacher that some parts of his exams had been failed, from non-completion, to such a degree that even if he got A* on the remaining papers he could not pass the exams overall. These were critical, school-leaving exams and I was furious with her, him and myself for not being top of this.

So, if your child's teacher has said you must not do the tests yourselves, that is fine. If you do the work at home for your child, clearly he or she is not passing that work; you are. But if by that statement you understood the teacher to be saying "don't help", then I can see why your wife said that this isn't what she said, and if it IS what she said then I sympathise with your wife for saying "well, I'm not letting my child fail out of laziness, no matter what a teacher tells me. I'm going to intervene."

If she was demanding and disrespectful to you when she communicated this then she was wrong, but you were wrong if you dismissed her point of view in favour of what you thought was the teacher's view. I think this mutual disrespect is what is missing when you analyse your interactions with your wife. I think you've got to the point where you see everything she says and does as the ravings of an unreasonable, miserable nut-job and you refuse to countenance her point of view with any respect. That is not helping you well, as I hope you can see from the perspective of your parents' spare bedroom.

My wife agreed to therapy. I'm hoping that the follow through is there, because in the past it has not been. I'll see what Steve has to say tomorrow and see if he can recommend anyone in my area.

You've cited my name, but I can't tell whether this is intended to be a response to my post.

What kind of therapy has your wife agreed to? For what problem?

That is exactly my issue, we planned to ask the question, the teacher advised us not to do her homework for her because that wouldn't allow her to learn and agreed upon it. We help her when need be on homework but the rest is up to her and is her responsibility. Upon seeing to problems were missed she decided to throw out our decision, unilaterally, and alter what the teacher had told us and what we agreed upon.

Sorry this was meant to be a general response. Marriage therapy together. We agreed that we need a third party to intervene. I'm hoping to get a recommendation from Steve in my area. There is a history, my wife did MB, hated it, so although I don't mind if he will try, I don't think she'll field a call from Steve.

When my wife does something unilaterally that I was not enthusiastic about, I first make sure I am completely calm, and then I complain to her about it, as described above in the link I posted ("Complain about your spouse to your spouse.") In the past she was not very motivated to respond to my complaints, but that has changed tremendously. If she does not respond to my complaint immediately, I focus on continuing to stay calm and not responding in any way that she would find demanding, disrespectful, or angry. So far we have yet to hit an issue that we can't eventually solve in a way that makes us both happy, as long as I avoid the demands, disrespect, and angry outbursts, which I do primarily by staying calm and relaxed.

It works! It does require patience. Sometimes it means I must complain more than once - if the problem is not resolved, it has to stay on the front burner. That means bringing it up every day or so, or every week or so. Respectfully each time, without any judgmental implications that the problem should've already been solved right now, or should never have happened because she should've asked me first, or whatever.

What does your wife dislike about Marriage Builders?

My answer is a DJ so I'd rather not answer at all. She is opposed to it and has made it clear.

If your wife is no longer enthusiastic about an agreement, then you need a new plan.

It sounds to me like you don't understand the problem from her perspective. You would gain a lot from the exercise of learning to word, respectfully, her complaint about Marriage Builders. You might even learn what it would take to get her on board with it.

Does she feel that Marriage Builders was used to abuse her?

This still makes no sense to me. I don't think I understood what you wrote in the original post and I don't think you understood what I wrote.

If you agreed with each other and the teacher not to do her homework for her, then when she said that you need to check the tests and make sure they are done, that is NOT doing her homework for her.

You didn't agree not to have anything to do with homework whatsoever, did you?

How did your wife "throw out your decision"? What decision? Please be specific.

HER answer is not a DJ. Could you please try and describe the problem as she describes it?

I'm sorry if I'm new here and breech etiquette, but is Lonely4years your DW? Seems like someone presenting the exact opposite of your story. If it's not, her thread may be a good read to possibly see the "other side". She's going to be on the radio show Friday, so it may be a good listen as well.

MindMonkey, no, I'm not his DW.

I didn't read this entire thread but am going to when I get a chance this week!

I'd love it if my H would start his own thread. Maybe someday...

Ok I just read a few snippets of the start of this thread, am running out the door. But HLB, you do sound quite a bit like my H!

Question for you: are you a controller? It seems like perhaps you are a controlling person.

The first post, about you being asked to take kids to school so she could get ready, and then being upset about how fast she got ready, and in what manner....wow, that sounds EXACTLY like what my H would do.

He is very controlling, and basically has a very stringent set of standards...exacting standards. Through the years this has led me to drag my heels, even sometimes subconsciouly, and not do what he wants. I HATE it. I hate being controlled, or feeling like I'm just a puppet in his life, basically he demands I do things his way.

Anyway, just a question for you to think about.

I also think today's radio show talks about this a bit. My husband is a little OCD about things...always complaining about our warm, wonderful house, complaining about me folding laundry late at night and toys around (because he expects me to be a robot who is perfect and gets stuff done while he is at work). He has very exacting standards...Dr. H talked about this a little on the show today, and I found it interesting.

I'm off and will be back later.