tiredwife I know you are getting a lot of input but don't want you to miss the incredible and very accurate point melody was making. As you work to schedule your 15 hrs of UA make sure you learn what is your husband top 2 intimate ENs so you guys could make sure does two are being meet.

It is a great idea to sit down every Sunday afternoon and schedule your time using the UA time worksheet. Download it free here. It should be spent focusing on the 4 intimate emotional needs of affection, conversation, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment. I am sure we have told you this before, but I didn't think it would hurt to remind you.

Something occurred to me on our date tonight. The longer we do this, the more effective we are at making lovebank deposits on our dates. For awhile we used to turn to the other and say "was I very pleasant tonight??" We would grade each other at the end of the date and it was an AWESOME learning tool. Now we are PROS!

It's worth mentioning that when Dr. Harley counsels a couple, these are the four needs he directs them to focus on, regardless of what they rate as their top needs. These four needs are what should be present in UA time.

Personally, I found that my wife needed lots of other conversation and affection as well, in addition to our fifteen hours of undivided attention.

But when we are in withdrawal, we tend to not want these needs to be met, and we tend to rate other needs higher like domestic support or peanut butter sandwiches or something.

Have you ever written Dr. Harley?

I wrote to him about honesty when I first came on this site a couple years ago, I think. He asked whether I would rather be loved and have him disappointed with the real me or continue having him love a fake me. At that point, my answer was love the fake me. The thought of him being disappointed in me terrifies me.. I guess I just finally got tired of the band-aids I had all over me. ( If you can find the clip, great.)
Since that time I have been honest about a lot of things: how much I miss him, how much I hate the way the job is tearing him apart, how the legal situation is so completely unfair, that I am frustrated that I need recreational companionship and he just wants to piddle doing chores, that I was faking orgasms, that I have serious reservations about his retirement plans, etc. He is a great listener. So I keep trying to reveal more and more of me. I guess it is just a process that I have to keep doing. It is just hard for me to worry about disappointing him. But since honesty and openness is his top need, I need to be honest and let him worry about his reaction. It is hard, though.

ANd, you can tell him that you worry about disappointing him...

Is this it?
Radio clip of Tiredwife's Question

This sounds like GREAT progress, but where is the answer to the question about UA time?

That is a good thing to tell him about, too.

Question: when you disappoint him, how does he respond?

Yep, I'm Elizabeth. Thanks for finding that so I could listen to it again. I have the most trouble with emotional honesty. I don't think I have a right to feel what I feel or I shouldn't feel things that are wrong. I'll explain that in answer to Markos' post about how does he react.

One morning I couldn't keep my sadness in. ( We were in bed and had just woken up.) I told him that I missed making love to him and missed being close to him. To which he said I thought we were doing better. I then explained that it had been 2 weeks. He then said that he didn't want making love to be another thing on his to do list that it needed to be spontaneous. Then he asked if I was wanting another child or something. I burst into more tears and said ABSOLUTELY NOT. My problem is that I don't even want the ones I have. He said, "You don't mean that. Being a mother is the highest calling you can have. You are so important, etc.)No, that is the way I feel. He continued reassuring me about how I was just having a bad day and being a mom is the most important job in the world.

I understand that being a parent is the most important job in the world to him. I get that. It isn't to me. I am wife, woman, lover, interesting person, etc.

So that is how he responds. He will listen, sympathize and sometimes explain to me why things are the way they are.

I shouldn't feel like I wish I could run away from being a mom, but I often do. I don't think I should have those feelings, but they are there. It is hard for me to be honest about feelings like that. He did look completely horrified that I felt that way and so he had to explain it away.

That sounds a lot like some of my old conversations with Prisca. She would keep quiet about what was bothering her, so quiet that I thought everything was great. Then when she finally told me I was so emotional that all I could focus on was the emotional shock of not having been told sooner. I had to learn to focus on Prisca's complaint and handle it, even if it was late.


Do you see how this conversation spiraled away from your original complaint? By having a point-counterpoint discussion, the discussion went far afield from "I'd like to make love more often" onto how do you feel about the children, do you want more, etc.


OUCH. You need to tell him that this was a disrespectful judgment. It is disrespectful for him to tell you how you feel.

Complaining about love busters is a very important part of honesty.

We need to know how he reacts when you complain to him about this disrespect.


Ouch - this is a lecture, a disrespectful judgment.

Has he read love busters with you? Will he follow the weekly exchange of love busters worksheets that Dr. Harley recommends? Doing so practically eliminated the disrespectful judgments from our marriage.


You shouldn't have to defend that - instead of saying this to him, let him know he was disrespectful, and end the conversation, or change the subject.


Disrespectful lecture. Telling you how to feel.


Oops - you are buying his lecture. According to Dr. Harley, EVERYONE needs an escape from the stresses in their life. For married people, it should be an escape with their spouse.

Prisca and I have seven children and have been all over the parenting boards that say you shouldn't really need time alone with your spouse and parenting is the most important thing and you should just feel different, etc., etc., etc. It's not true. WE need an escape! And we escape together, all the time.

The solution to this is the Policy of Undivided Attention. Not following it is like draining a battery and never recharging it. It's a terrible thing to happen to parents of children. Children need charged parents, and parents do indeed need an escape. A healthy escape, together. If he really wants to care for his kids, he will need to care for their mother by taking her off alone and meeting her most important emotional needs.


Print out the policy of undivided attention and tell your husband you need this. Bring it up EVERY DAY until the problem is solved. Be prepared to make this a make or break issue.

If you guys were following the policy of undivided attention and your husband still wasn't interested in sex often enough for you I would suggest that you get his testosterone checked.

I would also suggest checking into whether he is involved in porn use or an affair. I would suggest that regardless.

That is exactly what I used to do to Prisca. It is a lecture, and it is abusive.

The solution is for the wife to no longer tolerate it. Prisca definitely does not. Complain to him about his disrespect and start ending discussions when he becomes disrespectful.

His reaction is a disrespectful judgment, and this is why you recoil from being honest.

You are not honest because he dismisses your feelings - you communicate them, he dismisses your feelings and he tells you how you should feel and why you should feel that way.

For you to be more honest with him, he will need to address - not dismiss - your complaints.

When your honesty is met with extraordinary care, honesty will follow naturally.

No, absolutely no porn use or affair. There is a serious thing going on at the office. I don't want to talk about it here just in case it is found. It is legal in nature. But Dr. Harley talks about how job problems can cause a husband to close his love bank. He cannot do anything about the job until the legal issue is resolved. It would make him look guilty. He isn't.

He thinks UA time is ridiculous. Period. It won't work with his job.

You say it is disrespectful. But he does NOT use a disrespectful voice. No one in our real life would see him as being disrespectful. He always uses a calm and loving voice.

Exactly!

Even if it is said in a kind and loving tone, it is still a disrespectful thing to say.

And we can see the effect: it has an emotional effect on you. Being told how to feel ALWAYS affects people this way. You wish he would have listened to your feelings and addressed your complaint rather than launching into a lecture about how you should feel.

He could do it completely kind and gently, and his intentions might be wonderful, but he is being disrespectful. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

You need to be honest with him that he is doing something that bothers you: trying to talk you into feeling a certain way instead of listening to your feelings, accepting them, and CHANGING together so that you can build a life together that makes you feel good.

Tired, I am glad you finally answered me, because now we can get to the heart of the problem.

There is no way to make this work if your husband is going to dismiss this very important need of women. If it will not work with his job, then he needs to pick you over the job.

He sounds like a good man, and if you will do what needs to be done and tell him that UA time has to happen if he wants to keep you, he will probably do what needs to be done and change his life to take care of what is most important in life: his family. Taking care of YOU is the most important part of taking care of his family.

Dr. Harley's advice when a wife complains to her husband and the husband dismisses her complaint as "ridiculous" is to prepare for a separation. There is a good chance that separation could save your marriage! But the path you are on now will lead to its end.

Put the issue on the front burner and insist that instead of telling you it is ridiculous, he needs to find a way with you to make it happen. You have to do this, tired - it's just as important as radical honesty. Let me tell you that Prisca INSISTS on UA time with me, and she also INSISTS that I will not be disrespectful or angry toward her if I want to live with her. And I am thankful that she does - the result is that we have created a wonderful marriage. It is so, SO much better because my wife set her standards very high.

In 40 some odd years of counseling Dr. Harley has never had a man lose his job from telling the job to stop imposing on his time with his wife.

So did Markos! He could say the harshest things in the sweetest voice. But the disrespect still drained my love bank.

I don't believe you, and here is why:

These are not statements made by a woman who is in love.
Your husband is neglecting you and abusing you with Disrespectful Judgements. It's no wonder you have trouble being honest.