well, MTnMan...
You did well by avoiding an Angry Outburst so while there may have been some love bank withdrawls it would have been a lot worse with an angry outburst

Personally,
I would send flowers with a gift card to a pedicure to her workplace.

Believe me, I can see how she feels this way. Being a SAHM is a very hard job. When my youngest was 5, I was so happy to get back to work so I could take a break. It is exhausting.

Your wife needs some relief, but you can do this in a way that will enhance your marriage and give her relief if you follow the policy of undivided attention. GEt her out of the house 4-5 times a week and do things with her that she enjoys. Hire a babysitter that drives who can haul the kids around. That way you can go out on fun dates and give her a break.

Yes, I understand being a stay at home Mom is a hard job. I have not shown her enough appreciation for it.

We honestly struggle to find baby sitters and have no family in town, so it's been hard to schedule time away from the kids. This is something I need to work with her to resolve.

One other thing, when she brought up the 50/50 split this morning again, I asked her to start making a list of domestic duties as I would like to split the work with her but she said she refuses to make a list as she thinks I will use it to judge what she does everyday. and, she doesn't ask for a list of all the things I do at my job, so why should she.

I thought this is what Dr. Harley suggests for splitting domestic duties. Any thoughts on how to make this work? I honestly have no problem doing more, but I'd like to understand what needs to be done.

Dr. Harley would encourage using the POJA to reach enthusiastic sharing of household duties...not have them assigned to you.

But since she is in withdrawl from your marriage you need to plan A her as much as possible and follow the guidance from other posters on how to do this.

But in the end the POJA should be applied.

Why not ask her for a list of items for you to do that will help alleviate her load? Let her pick out the duties.

And I would find a babysitter asap. Do you live near a local college? Ideally, it would a college girl who can drive.

I would avoid debating her perspective about who does more. Instead, I would just look for ways that you can do more than you are doing now! Look for things you can do that are more important to her than what you are doing now - maybe you can eliminate some things and add others, and spend your time more effectively.

When your wife is willing to cooperate with you, answer your questions, provide information for you, and brainstorm with you, that is a great shortcut to help you quickly adjust to her feelings and learn to meet her needs quickly.

When she is not willing to do this, you have to do it the long and hard way: trial and error. It's a lot more work, but it is possible - I've done it.

My take is that since your wife is basically one foot out of the marriage already, you're not going to get a lot of cooperation from her. So you look for things that you can do (sustainably - things that won't be an emotional drain on you or build long term resentment) that will meet her emotional need for you to be a partner in caring for the children and the home.

Since she is in serious withdrawal, she may be unwilling to tell you what she would like for you to do. Ask her on a regular basis, but expect to be rebuffed for awhile.

So, make a list of all the domestic duties you can think of. Go through the list and pick ones that you feel like you can do, and start doing them.

It is much easier when your spouse will work with you to fill out forms and let you know what they would like. But, that is really just a shortcut. When you have a spouse in withdrawal, she will be unwilling to do that with you. And that leaves it up to you to find out the hard way, through trial and error.

This is something that you need to step up and try to resolve on your own for now. You can ask for her input, but she is likely to rebuff you. Brainstorm options yourself. Find a babysitter yourself.

MtnMan, I have some good news for you. You made a love bank deposit. I can tell because of her complaint here. You went and helped take care of some duties around the house, and then what did she complain about? That you don't help around the house!

Do you know what happened? You made a love bank deposit by taking care of one of those things that matters for her. You met an emotional need. And it was uncomfortable for her. It bothered her. It interferes with what she is telling herself, that you are no good and will never be any good and she can never get what she needs in her marriage from you.

So, she pushed on you in response to that discomfort. She disrespectfully compared the amount of work you do to the amount of work she does. She's basically saying "Well, you might have finally done some help around the house, but you'll never do enough."

She's trying to persuade herself that she's right to leave the marriage. In the face of you providing evidence that you are willing to learn to meet her emotional needs, after all. You are doing good!!!

The proper way to continue in response to this is to keep looking for ways to increase your effectiveness in meeting her emotional need for domestic support AND her intimate emotional needs (affection+intimate conversation). Proceed on both of those fronts.

Whatever you do, don't debate her. What she is saying is not logical and will not stand up under debate - but debating her is a love bank withdrawal. She wants you to debate her, argue with her, fight with her. She wants that so that you can prove that she was right all along, that you're not the man for her.

You did good to cut it off when you did - next time don't debate it at all. Meanwhile, keep looking for opportunities to meet the need for domestic support again, because it is making a major difference in her feelings toward you and causing some major uncertainty in her plan to end the marriage. AND, at the same time, work diligently to make opportunities to engage in conversation and recreation with her - find ways to be with her when she is the happiest, and make yourself the source of that happiness.

I do get cooperation from her after showing that I care. She is actually very cordial and friendly to me, up until the point when I neglect her by "checking out" and not bringing my A-game like I did last night. For example, she was very willing to go out this weekend and was very pleasant about it, but we couldn't find a babysitter so it didn't happen. She actually worked hard to find one and contacted many girls we've used in the past, but none were available.

It took me several days to get us back to that point, and now we are back there again. It's my fault that it continues to happen and I blew it by falling down in the care department.

Read through Dr. Harley's pages on the three states of mind in marriage again:

* Three States of Mind in Marriage
* Intimacy
* Conflict
* Withdrawal

By refraining from love busters and meeting your wife's emotional need for domestic support last night, you encouraged her to come out of withdrawal. But when a wife comes out of withdrawal, she enters the state of conflict. Dr. Harley often says "She'll come out swinging." That's exactly what she did! But it's good news.

Learn to repeat this. And then when she comes out in the state of conflict, swinging, learn to avoid debating her and avoid doing or saying anything that she finds demanding, disrespectful, or angry. Learn to re-translate her disrespectful complaints into pieces of information about how you can better meet her needs. For example, last night she was disrespectful, but she also gave you the information that you could meet her needs better if you provided more domestic support. She won't do this translation/filtering, so you'll have to do it yourself for now if you want to save your marriage.

Learn to repeat what you did last night to get her out of withdrawal. Then learn to weather the storms of conflict. Then you'll be in intimacy. Learn to stay there, and you've saved your marriage.

That wasn't what she complained about, though. She complained about domestic support. It was you who brought up the issue of neglecting her. Instead of falling all over yourself to apologize for not having conversation with her, just have conversation with her! (Enjoyable conversation, of course.) Most women would love to have a guy go take care of the dishes and then come talk to her for a few hours.

So, you take care of some of the housework, you come in, she complains that you don't take care of enough of the housework - and then instead of responding that you should have been talking to her, you should say "I'd love to find ways that I can do more for you here." And THEN you start talking about something enjoyable. Simple as that.

When she complained about domestic support and you shifted the discussion to you supposedly neglecting her last night, you were being disrespectful. You were saying "You're not really upset about housework; you are upset that I went to do housework instead of having conversation with you." Even though you are saying "I'm sorry," you are actually dismissing and invalidating her complaint, psychoanalyzing her and minimizing the important of the complaint she made.

This will drive her bats. A woman in her position WANTS to have a reason to continue believing her husband is the bad guy. She will not believe you are really different, and will goad you, push you and test you to try to get you to prove her belief.

It's not only about her complaint about domestic support though. She was upset about my comment after putting the kids to bed that "I would go do the dishes and then leave". It was disrespectful of me to assume she was just going to bed and tell her I would leave the house (assuming she didn't want me there). I think she had other expectations that I would show her care by staying and talking, rather than telling her I would do the dishes and then leave the house.

So you did good - but you can do better. Remember to ask "How would you feel about ... ?" And remember to try to prioritize intimate emotional needs over non-intimate emotional needs (but don't neglect either side).

Either way, the fact that she argued about this says STRONGLY to me and to Prisca that you are having an impact. Magnify your impact by avoiding debating anything with her. And don't tell her what a louse you are, either. Just use the information you've gained about what she would want to do a better job each time you get a chance.

Ever seen Groundhog Day? It's a LOT like that - each day you try, don't quite make it, gain a little more information to use the next day to get a little bit further.

It has been over a month since I posted. I'm back.

I am still in my anger management program and I have not had an angry outburst since November 14. I wanted to share this information because after my AO on Nov-14, I realized the importance of keeping an anger log on a daily basis so I don't slip back into complacency with it. I am proud to say that it feels good to take responsibility for the anger and to not allow myself to show this ugly side anymore.

Here are some problems I am now facing:
- W thinks that I am getting complacent and still not meeting her needs. I stay at the house several nights per week now and she is concerned that I am getting complacent again. She says the anger is gone, but it has not been replaced with all the things I should be doing to meet (not neglect) her needs. She says that she feels like she is "loaning me" love bank units rather than me earning and making deposits. When I hear this, my first instinct is to logically show her that this is not true and last night, I fell into this trap. I tried to prove to her that UA time and Family Commitment should be making love bank deposits. I also gave her examples on how removing anger and showing empathy has changed my relationship with the kids and her recently. It has been much more peaceful and everybody is more calm now. Ironically, I clearly did not use empathy to address her feelings last night and I can see how it was instead a DJ to "show her" that I'm doing things to save our marriage. Even though I do not get angry about her complaints now, it is still a struggle to put myself in her shoes and understand her perspective (the definition of empathy) when I feel like she is wrong and I'm being judged. What do others do to filter out feeling judged and stop trying to logically make your case when your spouse has a complaint?

- I am doing way more than I ever did in the past 14 years to schedule and spend UA time with her, but it is clearly not enough based on her feedback. Last week, her parents were in town so we went out on a date to a movie. We also went to my company's annual holiday party on Friday night and spent the night in a hotel together. No kids! During the dates, I made conscious efforts to show her affection and open up conversations. She says I'm not using enough words (her preferred type of affection) and instead it feels like "groping" and an attempt to get sex. She also says that our conversations are boring. My "words" are clearly the problem here - in conversation and affection. Any advice on how to improve?

- Last night, when we were coming up with some final gift ideas for our parents, I mentioned this online jewelry store and how it had a black friday deal that I wished we had used to buy a necklace for my mom. W asked me why I hadn't told her about it and I blurted out that I didn't tell her because the kids and I bought something for her and we wanted it to be a surprise. The second I said it, I regretted it. I ruined the surpirse and she was upset that I spoiled her gift surprise. I apologized but at that point it was too late and she was upset.

- Even though I know it's a love buster, I made selfish demands this past weekend and yesterday to get new passports for us. I booked us a family trip on a Disney Cruise to the Bahamas in January and it is "recommended" to have passports. I feel like it's my job to make sure we get everything done leading up to the cruise, so I pushed too hard on getting the photos and applications done for the passports. I demanded that we get the photos done on Sunday and then completed my application yesterday to "lead by example". Today, she refused to go to the post office to submit the application with me. She did not want to see me. I almost drove to the post office to submit mine alone and then I remembered POJA and stopped myself. "Don't do anything without enthusiastic agreement" was ringing in my ears. I do see the error in my ways with the selfish demands and know that I do this at home and at work. It works at my job because I lead a large team of people and get to make and drive the decisions. However, I realize this won't work at home and I think POJA is the solution. is that true? do you have any recommendations on how to practice POJA?

thanks,
mtmman