One of the whole points of Marriage Builders is to learn to not handle conflicts (differences of opinion) by calling your spouse names like "hard headed" or "unreasonable." It doesn't matter the justification - the basic premise behind such terms is that one spouse believes his or her perspective is superior and the other spouse needs to be enlightened. But as Dr. Harley's book Love Busters asks "Who wants to live with a critic?" Disrespectful Judgments have got to be ELIMINATED (not just tolerated when they are "justified") if you want to have a good marriage.

bcboy, can you post about your situation and how all of this relates? Usually when we can go from hypotheticals to actual scenarios, we can show how this is beneficial to apply for the OP and for anyone reading and lurking.

Dr. Harley feels differently about this. The quote below is from one of his Q&A responses.

Are you saying that if your husband enthusiastically does something for you that makes you happy, and doing so makes him genuinely happy, then he is sacrificing?

No.

It is hard work to change bad habits. After the bad habits are removed, the resulting great marriage is much easier to sustain than a bad marriage. But believe me, it was hard work for those of us to implement these concepts into our marriage. It did not come easily or naturally.

Exactly, and maybe what Mr. Eureka intended was it's not the great marriage itself that's hard work, rather it's the effort in changing a bad marriage into a great one that's hard work.

I think sacrifice is initially easy but it quickly becomes much harder work than doing the job properly would have been.

In the short term, it is laziness ( I can't be bothered thinking up an alternative option, just do this one thing for me, would ya).

But then you actually have to go on the date, and put up with an unhappy spouse for a few hours which is hard work. Of course, you might blame them for not being more fun but the truth is you could have avoided the problem by thinking it through.

If it is a bigger, more long lasting, decision than a date then you will have created LOTS of hard work. A poster recently wanted to get a dog against his wife's wishes. He would have come home to an unhappy wife every DAY. How hard would that be?

I know someone who went out and bought furniture without PoJAing it with her H. He feels it was too expensive but reluctantly gave in.

She says she feels fully entitled because he spends so much on other stuff she hasn't signed off. OK, but what she is overlooking is that he will see that item of furniture daily. Every day he will get a hit of lovebusting that will fuel his own belief that you can do what you want with the money of the marriage.

She couldn't have made more work for herself if she had tried.

One of the things I'm learning from this thread is that there are at least two motivations for doing something nice for your partner:

1) because you truly enjoy doing things that make them happy
2) because you feel obliged to for some reason, but it's not something you truly enjoy

I think #2 involves sacrifice and is what POJA is designed to minimize, and I think #1 does not involve sacrifice and is beneficial for both Love Banks.

If you are someone who regularly employs sacrifice strategies for problem solving in marriage, then you have a steep hill to climb if you are to change that habit. That is the context of this discussion, and that is the hard work which I am referring to.

Thanks for explaining.

I find MB concepts fascinating, and I'm wondering if you (or others) know about the development of Dr. Harley's concepts as he was hammering them out.

In the article, How Dr. Harley Learned to Save Marriages, where he describes encouraging each spouse to do whatever it takes to make each other happy, I get the impression that sacrifice was part of that (underlines are mine):
Doing something for your spouse when you don't feel like it implies that you're not enthusiastic about it. I'm guessing that the quote above describes his early attempts at helping couples restore their love for each other.

When he writes that he "became more effective in motivating them to meet whatever need was identified," I'm guessing that's when he crystallized POJA to help with this situation. Does anyone know if that's true?

It's more the "I will do what I want, when I want" right that people do not want to give up. Essentially people get a bit scared that doing PoJA means giving up independent behaviour. People are scared their spouse's requirements will be too limiting and they don't want to give them any right to modify their behaviour.

The other thing newbies tend to be unkeen on is less parenting. Modern parents tend to hover over their children 24 hours a day and don't want to give that up to spend more time together as MB requires.



Well, you can be enthusiastic about a decision even if it is going to be a hard, unpleasant slog for you. Initially going out on dates when you have fallen out of love is awkward, but people will do it if they can be persuaded there is a good payoff. The more success stories Dr Harley will have gathered, the more people would have been willing to try it for themselves.

Dr Harley and Joyce both enthusiastically agreed for him to do a PhD even though it was hard work and long hours which took a toll on them both. That's because it would create the lifestyle they both wanted. At the end of the course Dr H could have continued to higher levels, but Joyce was not willing to sacrifice any more time for the chance for more money and success.

Enthusiastic sometimes simply means 'Well it will be hard work but I see it as being worthwhile for me/us'.