I will need help. And I will ask here, that is why I created this thread! Please watch for it as I know you are a self professed 'DJ queen' and you seem to have a very deep understanding of them!

OK I have a question about this. It seems that in many instances LB's are easier to call out in the moment. But I am an in the moment kinda girl so maybe that is just my desire on how to do this and not best protocol.

For instance, if I have complained to H about his interrupting, and we are talking and he does it, and then does it again, and again (some nights he is very bad), but I say nothing in the moment and just get through the night and then write 'interrupted 17 times' meanwhile the night is ruined and he doesn't get the info for a week from now....vs me telling him the first handful of times he does it and making him aware of it and perhaps curtailing more happening throughout the night...IDK how do I handle this.

It seems like some nights are great, very few LB's, and some nights are a plethora and I want to stop it at that moment.

Or this morning he was barking at the kids loudly and being a bit confrontational, I didn't say anything in the moment but it was an LB. I would put this on the form, but not discuss for a week. It just seems better to address it as it is going on, perhaps stop the behavior...he gets the feedback right away vs when he can't even remember what happened that day specifically... (that will be me, I won't even remember a week back).

What are your thoughts on this.

It is a natural desire to try to handle the lovebusters in the moment. You are not unusual in that.

However, with most couples, this does not work. It very often leads to fights and MORE lovebusters. And if that is somehow avoided, one spouse will often feel he got the short end of the stick. He will feel berated, or put on the spot, or defensive, or just plain terrible. This will make him less likely to listen to your complaint and more likely wanting to defend himself.

There may come a time when you can address the Lovebusters in the moment. But it may never come. It is best to get away from the heat of the emotion and address it in a matter of fact way through writing. There is a lot less risk of making a mistake and lovebusting in response.

Markos and I can now make small complaints in the moment SOMETIMES. But even now, we stick to complaining in writing. It is safer for both of us. When we don't follow that guideline, things tend to go downhill fast - and our marriage is recovered and we are deeply in love!

Given that your husband seems reluctant about complaining, it is best to try to make it as safe as possible for him.

Also, I know a week sounds like a long time right now. But in the grand scheme, it is not. The goal is for the frequency of lovebusters to go down over time until they are gone completely. Months from now, you may find that weeks go by before you send a form to each other.

Thanks for your responses Prisca we are going to start doing the LB worksheet weekly.

Great!

LB's are going to be the death of us.

Here is a recent example. One of the things we have done in past for UA time was pistol shooting. H is passionate about this, I enjoy it but am not passionate about it nor do I want to do it with as much frequency as he does. But I do enjoy it, so told him that I would like to have my own pistol for this activity. He did a lot of research on them, we went to look at them and I picked out what I wanted. He then filled out (without me asking) the paperwork required for me to get a permit to buy one because he 'knew it would be hard for me' and hung it on the fridge. I have to take this paperwork to the sheriff's office to apply for my permit, which is about 20 minutes away.

It has hung on the fridge for 3 weeks. I have just been busy and have not prioritized taking the time to complete this task. Plus, in general I am slow at getting things like this done, so it is not out of the ordinary for me to take this amount of time to get something like this done.

This weekend we were out together. He brought up the complaint in some manner that he felt it was disrespectful and unappreciative for me to not bring in the paperwork in a timely manner. He said he had taken the time to fill it out and it made him upset that I did not bring it in promptly. I, however, felt like it was a disrespectful judgement on his part to *expect* me to bring it in promptly. I did not ask him to fill it out in the first place, thanked him for doing it, and did not in any way commit to bringing it in sooner.

At which point we both just disengaged and had a quiet afternoon of ignoring each other, as usual. It was not a pleasant day at all.

Later I brought it up again, and he said that he was more hurt now that I had 'ya but' his feelings. He said I always do that, historically have done that, and he expects me to, and I did. He told me his feelings and I 'told him why he was wrong for having them.' I do not feel like I did that at all, I just didn't agree that I should have brought the paperwork in promptly, I felt like it was an LB on his part to expect me to.

We seem to run into these kind of rock/hard place things a lot. I know we both have different perspectives, I guess I don't know how to appreciate his perspective without *agreeing* to it. If I had said, 'I appreciate you telling me your perspective and I am sorry you felt unappreciated' and nothing more, I feel like that is agreeing with him that I should have promptly brought the paperwork in, and I do not agree with that. So how do I respond to these runarounds without making it worse, which is obviously what I did?

Also, one of my complaints for years has been about H's bad and edgy attitude. I don't even know how to complain about that without it sounding like a DJ honestly. He is often in a negative edgy mood and not fun to be around. He complains a lot about various different things.

How do I complain about his *attitude* when his attitude is really his own perspective in a way? I do mention his specific complaining as an LB, but often his attitude comes across in a nonverbal, non tangible way. How do I complain about that? I will ask him nicely, 'you seem upset, is something bothering you?' and he will say with attitude, 'no I'm fine.' If I complain that he is not fine, that is a DJ. But it is obvious by his body language/tone/inflection/etc. that he is on edge or has a bad attitude. Overall he is not fun to be around when he is like that, which is a majority of the time.

Any advice on how to make complaints about attitude would be appreciated.

One more.

H has for years been emotionally disengaged. Often our time spent together was spent with him 'checked out' either because he was out of love, LB's on my part, whatever the reason.

Now I too am out of love and, let me tell you, it is SO HARD not to emotionally disengage. When he is LBing, I no longer want to be around him, I just sit quietly and stare out the window. When I was in love with him, I worked hard to 'make him happy' and engage him, at the cost of sacrificing most of the time.
Now, if he is LBing or if he disengages, my whole being just feels like *whatevers* and wants to do the same thing. It is so hard to keep smiling and remain pleasant and engaged. HOW does anyone do this???

For instance, one of his constant LB's is interrupting. Some days when he is trying, he rarely does this. Other days, especially when he is in a negative and edgy mood, he interrupts me almost every time I speak. It doesn't take long for me to stop speaking. Why keep trying to have conversation when I feel so disrespected and unimportant? But then I feel like I just play into the situation and myself LB by disengaging.

How do you remain pleasant and engaged when you are completely annoyed? And how does that not positively reinforce bad behavior?

My husband used to do this too. And I was honest with him about it. It made me not want to be around him. So I told him "this is very unpleasant for me and I would like to go home now." When he acted like that, the date was over. That is when he started being on his BEST BEHAVIOR on dates. He started saying "was I very pleasant tonight?" And sometimes now we say it to each other. We now COMPETE to see who can be the most pleasant.

If he is being unpleasant and negative, you should be honest about it so he will know he is messing up. He can't change unless you tell him.


If his negative attitude is a love buster, he needs to CHANGE IT. Or he can take you home.

As far as filling out the paperwork, I would take a different approach to such things. My H is extremely efficient and likes to get things done right away. This was an area that I needed improvement on in the past. Since I knew that procrastinating drove him nuts and was an area in which I could improve, I learned to stop procrastinating. It made me a better person, relieved me of a lot of stress and made him happy. That is way you can change to make him happier.

Remember, the goal here is CHANGE behavior that is bad for your marriage. His attitude is very bad for your marriage and your procrastinating might be a problem too.

Would he act this way on a first date? Did he act this way on your first date? Does he imagine anyone would want to be around him when he acts like that?

"Timely manner" is a disrespectful judgment on his part.

I've been in his shoes on this. Markos tends to put things off more than I do, which can be annoying. BUT, I cannot complain to him in a way that makes it look like MY timescale is better than his. He thinks differently than I do, and has his reasons for putting things off, and just because I feel more urgency in getting things done sooner does not mean that my way is somehow better than his.

"Timely manner" adds a value judgement to the complaint, and value judgments need to be avoided when complaining.

Markos putting things off is still very annoying to me, but I can't disrespect him in my complaints.

exactly!

I have told him he is not fun to be around when he is like this. He will sometimes say he is 'fine' and isn't edgy at all, whereas I feel through his mannerisms that he is. So, he disagrees with my perception that he is edgy or has a bad attitude. Isn't me stating he has a bad attitude a DJ on my part?

I think if I ended dates because I felt he had a bad attitude and/or did not feel he was enjoyable, we would end a LOT of dates and get very little UA time. And I am guessing it would not take long for him to get discouraged and not want to go on dates. He already is 'along for the ride' more or less when it comes to MB, and he gets discouraged very easily.

Although he has never said my procrastinating as a whole is an LB, I do procrastinate a lot. I agree that it is a character flaw of mine that would benefit me to change. I will work on this.

I know we disagreed a lot and he was very educating and superior acting. I just saw it at the time as confident and I am attracted to confident personalities. I don't recall if he interrupted me, but I am guessing he did because he has always done this.

This is how I perceived the situation. I felt it was a DJ for him to think I should have done things in what he considered to be the appropriate timeframe.

I did ask him to communicate with me what his expectation is. For instance, when he did the paperwork and showed it to me, he could have said he was eager to get my pistol so we could start shooting together, and would like me to get it in within the week. I could have then told him whether I could or could not do it in that timeframe. Sometimes I feel he just assumes something without communicating it, and then is frustrated when I don't do what he thought I should, even though he never told me what that was. It is this miscommunication that seems to always get us in a bind. I feel like I am held accountable for things that were never communicated to me and I don't think thats fair.

Yes, but that is not what I told you to say. I didn't tell you to tell him he has a bad attitude. Tell him you find him very unpleasant to be around and ask him to tak you home.

I am concerned that you are mis-labeling all bad behavior as "perception" and wrongly concluding that that implies an entitlement. Perception is not behavior. When your husband is irritable and crabby, that is bad behavior that hurts you. A perception is a viewpoint.


That is great. No date is better than a bad date.


If he wants encouragement he needs to step up here because his actions are pisspoor and make the situation worse.

Well, it sure doesn't work for him now, does it? So If he wants you to be in love with him, he needs to make some changes.