If you continue to have this concern over the POJA, then how about calling the radio show?

The book "He Wins, She Wins" addresses your concern specifically and thoroughly. There is also a companion workbook coming out in January.

First, thank you for taking the time to go through my posts. I'll try to answer all your questions, starting with this one because it illustrates the kind of impasse I fear from the POJA.


Yes. I really do understand this.

But it seems any alternative that he finds acceptable is hurtful to me and has also become detrimental to our marriage. For about 15 years of our relationship I went along with what he wanted and simply avoided contact with my family. (I'd see each of my parents, who are divorced, for one to 3 days every couple years.)

Now my parents are both in their mid 80's. They won't live forever. And about 2 years ago I really thought about how I basically have turned my back on my family for my husband's comfort and I feel so ashamed of myself for doing this. And very resentful of him for discouraging me from seeing them. So about 2 years ago I decided I would just carry on and go visit each parent once a year without him.

But that IS detrimental to our marriage. Neither one of us likes being away from the other.

OK I know this is judgmental again, by my thoughts are "what kind of person did I marry? I know plenty of people who aren't crazy about their in laws. They still make some effort to maintain the relationship for their spouse.

How could I be "deeply in love" with a man who is close to his family but doesn't want me to have a relationship with mine?

Anyhow, I'm getting melodramatic... There are a lot of other issues. The family thing does not dominate our marriage, but it's a good example of why the POJA scares me that there would be no compromise on his end if he has to agree to want to do something.


Good question. We probably spend about 2.5 hours together a day, but most of that is watching TV together so I'm not sure how "together" that really is.

We are both home most of the time but I am in my office working 11 - 13 hours a day. That's another "issue" - probably the biggest one, because I have been the primary breadwinner, doing stressful work for very long hours to support living in an expensive area where I don't even want to live but he doesn't want to leave. (He's been considering moving for me but he doesn't want to, so with POJA he would not be "enthusiastic" about moving and I'd be stuck here.)

Ugg. I just keep thinking - the problem already is that he doesn't want to do anything. His reflex to any idea I have is "no." How can the POJA make that better? It would just make me stop doing many things I do for him now. And that won't make him any happier. And I'll feel bad. But I guess I have to try it to see. Maybe it will change the dynamic.

Being home watching TV does not count as UA time.
As a general rule, UA time should be out of the house like on actual dates doing things you both enjoy.

Hi... Welcome!

So to begin- you have to spend 15 hours a week together Focusing on Emotional needs of conversation, sexual fulfillment, affection & recreational companionship. This is what makes you want to stay married & in love and your glue! First thing to be addressed!

Now, I don't have a lot of time but you are missing the fact that YOU have to be enthusiastic about the outcome of your decisions. You Win/He wins. (You aren't winning in the living scenario above. POJA isn't veto as You Are Not Happy! )

So if you hate where you live- and he doesn't.... He has to negotiate with you until YOU are happy.
That could mean moving somewhere else Both of you like.... It could be coming up with 15 different things that need to happen to make you happy to be there (such as he gets a better paying job) & he doesn't mind doing them. It could be totally different from above- that's what negotiation is about!

THIS is your ticket to not loose.

Take your parents- don't force him to visit But You are not enthusiastic about never seeing them again. So he needs to negotiate until both of you are happy. A million options could come up.

So, keep reading as you don't quite get how it works yet.
Do you have the book He wins. She wins?

Also, 15 hours of real UA time
No love busting
POJA
Then you will have a romantic, wonderful in love relationship!

Don't have time to read this whole thread, but the default position in the POJA is to do nothing. You don't keep doing something your spouse is not enthusiastic about just because you are not enthusiastic about not doing it! That means the default position about visiting the parents is to do nothing until an enthusiastic agreement is reached.

.....however, it takes two people who are on board with the idea and spirit of POJA for it to work.

I can see your reluctance to try it because as things stand now, your H would not be on board with it and the only person that would make a change in how they look at decisions would be you. It won't work that way and would only make things worse since you'd basically be giving all decision making over to him.

If you can't get your H to see the benefit of it and commit to giving it an honest try....the way it was meant to be done, not as a method of someone getting their way....then there's no sense in it at all.

It's going to at least take an initial agreement to try it for X long to see any benefit. He needs to be convinced that it can work, but it will take him agreeing to try the plan.

Again, I totally understand this fear. Because I had it, about many things.

And, we also lived through a similar situation, but I was on the other side. My husband markos had to give up his relationship with his parents for awhile because I didn't want to be around them.

I'd like to ask you: Why would you want to force your husband to do something that is painful for him? You see, POJA isn't about compromise. It's "forced empathy." It forces you to care and protect your spouse. You would not be caring for him or protecting him if you forced him to do something that is painful for him.


It's not "together" at all. Dr. Harley advises couples to get out of the house together, alone, for at the very least 15 hours a week. The two of you should be going on dates, and you should spend the time talking, doing something fun, and showing affection. And later end the date with sex.

If you did this, your lovebank would be full. And I guarantee you that with a full lovebank, it will be easier to talk about situations like the one with your parents.


My husband has the same problem He just doesn't seem to want to do as much things as I want to do, which can be very frustrating and even annoying. But POJA has made our life better because it forces us to care for each other. I don't get my way at his expense, and so he doesn't get hurt. And the same thing goes the other way -- he doesn't hurt me by getting his way at my expense. So we don't hurt each other anymore. And we are much, much happier in life.

I used to view POJA as a way for him to control me. I don't anymore. I now see it as an opportunity to explore new ideas and ways of thinking with my husband, who sees things completely different than me. And that's a good thing. Our decisions are better, and I end up liking them more, when we make them together rather than if I had just done what I wanted on my own.

Here's what I suggest:

Get the books Lovebusters and His Needs, Her Needs, and 5 Steps to Romantic Love. Read through them with your husband, and agree together to try the program wholeheartedly for 6 months. Just give it a try, and in 6 months see where you're at.

If you write into the radio program with a question, they will even send you one of the books for free.

That is not a justification for independent behavior or forcing one's will on the other.

OK. I am going to do this.

I listened to one of the radio archives where these men are writing in saying they are blindsided to learn their wives want divorces. And Dr. Harley said (paraphrasing):

The women do what the man wants because they want the man to be in love with them and they don't want conflict. But then they are not getting anything for themselves and they stop loving the man.

And I thought OH. MY. GOD. That is exactlywhat I have been doing. I do whatever he wants because I want him to love me. I don't want to be that difficult, "high maintenance" wife. But I'm denying him the opportunity for a truly happy/fulfilling marriage because I'm not letting him know how I feel about him as a result of this capitulation on my part.

I have denied him the choice of getting exactly what he wants right this minute or having a happy marriage.

Also, not giving him what he wants in the moment makes me feel sick with dread. The poor dear, what will become of him if he experiences a moment of disappointment? But that's just my personality in all relationships. I guess I just have to man up if I want a fulfilling life.

BTW, Prisca asked:

In the case of my parent, it's not that I want to force him to do something painful to him. It's that I feel very guilty for not seeing them. My values are that you visit your parents at least once a year, but I have not been living by those values because of his discomfort. I also believe your husband comes first, so it's a conflict. But I resent him for putting me in this position where I've chosen not to live up to what I believe is my obligation to my parents. In the case of my parents, he does have a legitimate reasons for not feeling enthusiasticabout spending time with my mom or step mom.

NOW, This is probably another disrespectful judgment on my part... but with other family, like my cousins, I simply don't believe his aversion to them is legitimate. I honestly think he decided he would not like them before ever spending time with them. And that initial attitude ruined any chance that we could have a good relationship.

Not consciously - he's not a deliberately cruel person - but on some level he withholds his happiness/pleasure in things that I enjoy in a way that feels mean. He will refuse to taste a food I say is yummy. Or he talks over me right as I get to the punch line in a story. Or he refuses to hear stories about my childhood/wild youth. It's a reflex, not a conscious action, but the result is that he's just not going to give me the pleasure of sharing certain joys together. His blanket refusal to enjoy anyone and any custom that was in my life before him feels like a repudiation of me. He says he loves me but he hates everyone and everything I love? It used to hurt. Now it ticks me off. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's definitely how I perceive it.

However, I believe he really is trying to be better about some of those things (like tasting food, LOL) so maybe the POJA and other books will help.

Hehas been trying to take me out to spend time with me and we do it sometimes but I am often "too busy/too stressed." (Though clearly I have time to go on the internet and write all this...) OK I am going to get the books and go out with him and focus on him and start being more honest about the myriad things I do for him that I don't want to do.

Today we had this exchange - in the past I would not have been honest:

Me: Blah blah blah
Him: I told you that earlier. You don't listen to me when I talk.
Me: You're right, I'm sorry. I don't listen. In the past when I would talk to you, you made it clear it's painful for you to listen to me speak so I stopped trying to talk to you. Then I withdrew and stopped listening when you talk to me as payback. Now I'm stressed out and spacey but it's also a habit to just not listen. I'm going to try to pay better attention.
Him: OK then.

I was able to explain it in a neutral, matter of fact tone, and he seemed to appreciate it. He didn't get defensive or angry. I think there is definitely hope.

Thank you! I will keep reading.

I want to move out of the state. He does not. I felt like POJA would be "do nothing." (Which means he gets what he wants and I remain miserable.) I also felt like I was being unfair because this is where I met him. And I married him. Who am I to say 10 years later "I can't take it any more." Why didn't I think of this 10 years ago.

Today I mentioned a compromise of moving to another area still in this state (about an hour away) that has many things I like better and he informed me that he doesn't want to leave this city. Period. It's his home. But he didn't say it like an ultimatum that he never would, just like that not what he wants. I dropped the subject for now.

After reading your post I just thought of a few things that could happen to make me much happier here. Though I still want out of this state because I hate certain things about it that I can't control/change. But I realized there are things that really affect my daily life that if they changed I'd be much happier here. That's a start.

Didn't mean that, just that POJA doesn't work as designed if only one spouse is willing to do it.

Well of course. But no one has said otherwise.

You are perfectly entitled to change your mind. There is no rule that says the POJA is immutable. Circumstances and feelings change. You do not have to apologise for this.


Great stuff and yes, you were wise to drop the subject for now. POJA is very tough until you have had practice and even then it can be tiring. Keep the conversations short and always pleasant.



Yes it is and this is exactly how it works. The two of you put your heads together and between you come up with a solution that is better than either of you would have thought of alone. It takes trust, honesty and practice but it is brilliant.

Start using it for small things so that he can see how well it works for him. Maybe who gets to use the car on Saturday mornings?

You are right. That is a disrespectful judgement. Anytime you say your husband's feelings are not legitimate, you are lovebusting. Any time you say what it is he's thinking, you are being disrespectful.

This is one of the lovebusters that has been chipping away at your marriage.

It sounds like you are feeling neglected (lack of intimate conversation when he doesn't want to listen to your stories) and also disrespected (by him talking over you). But you are addressing it in a very disrespectful way.

No, but there seem to be many posters that come here very interested in POJA and wonder how they can make it work if their spouse is not or will not get on board with it.

This seemed to be (or started out as) one of those.

Right. We know this. That describes about 100% of people who come here.

Right.

Was simply making sure the OP was aware of this since I didn't see it stated by anyone else.

I have been thinking about this a lot the last few days. FIRST let me say that things already seem better. I have been trying to pay more attention to him - and we've actually had some nice conversations. I'm calmly informing him when I'm not wanting to do things or when I'm not happy about things, and he has actually seemed receptive to that information. And he's solicited my agreement on some important decisions where I believe in the past he would have just bull dozed over me with what he wanted to do.

He also indicated he would read the books with me, which is a first (his being willing to read something that I discovered). When I told him about the POJA he smiled and the first words out of his mouth were "I'll never see your mom again!" And when I told him that when I leave a mess it's a withdrawal from the love bank he told me I ROB the bank. Fortunately for our marriage, I do find him amusing. Overall I feel very relieved at the idea of having a say in where our lives are headed and not constantly doing things I don't want to do.

BUT I'm feeling both stubborn and confused about two things. 1) the POJA when the spouse won't do something very important to you. and 2) Disrespectful Judgments

1) In this thread someone said something along the lines of: if we have a good marriage it won't really matter if I never see my friends and family 'cause we'll be happy doing other things together. And I was reading columns where someone asked Dr. Harvey about that very thing - a wife who wanted a husband to give up all his friends. And he said something similar.

It seems really dismissive of the pain it causes me to be isolated from my family. My friends from before the marriage are already gone and his friends are our friends. I'm a little sad and resentful about the lost relationships, but I don't lie awake nights pining for them. But my family is different. Those of you who are parents, if your child grew up and married someone who didn't want to see you, would you just think "well I want my child to have a happy marriage so I guess I'll never see them again. Such is life...?" I just can't wrap my head around this.

I am hoping the point is that maybe with the POJA and other tools eventually he may begin to desire to do these things for me. But when people say "If he doesn't like them just make new friends/family" it really freaks me out -- these people are important to me. I love them and they love me.

If the tables were turned and I came into this forum saying "I want my husband to spend time with my friends and family from before our marriage but I don't want to visit his or have them at our house ever because I don't really like visiting with anyone other than my friends/family and I didn't grow up with them, so they don't mean anything to me, and now after several years of him going along with me, suddenly he's upset and insisting on visiting them without me sometimes and I don't like that either."

Would your advice be that he shouldn't DJ me or take independent actions like going without me? Or are you just pointing out my DJ to him because that's my role in this and I'm the one posing the questions?

2) With the DJ - Are you (as in everyone on here) saying that DJ are bad because they're never going to get you closer to your goal of a happy marriage, or are you saying they're is no reason to make them -- that people don't do things worthy of disrespectful judgment? It seems some people in here are saying nothing anyone ever does is deserving of negative judgment. I read another thread where a lady said her daughter was selfish and people said that was a DJ. But what if her daughter IS selfish? What if my husband has absolutely no reason for refusing to meet my friends other than that he assumes he won't be interested in them? I understand why it's counterproductive to express a DJ, but some people are selfish. Some people are rude. Some are cruel, dishonest, lazy, etc.

It seems that in some cases the only way to avoid a DJ is to be dishonest. Or is it the way it's expressed - the disrespectful part - that is to be avoided?

Thanks so much.

It's not okay to be dishonest. The way it is expressed - and this is very tough - because talking things through gently, when you know your spouse does not want to address them, and is avoiding the topic and interrupting and changing the subject - well, those are disrespectful judgements too, a spouse already having made up his mind and not wanting to talk about it.

Sometimes a spouse does things that are deserving of a DJ, and are unacceptable. You have to address it carefully and find a way to tell him how his behavior is hurting you and give him a chance to stop, if he has any empathy for how his selfishness is hurting you.

The way that it's expressed - I think you hit the nail on the head here. All you can take responsibility for in DJ's is your own part in it; you have no control over how it's perceived. You have to be as gentle as you can without shutting down communication.

You asked about parents of grown children who are married and you never get to see. It is hard, but eventually you get used to missing your child and your grandchildren far away, and you live with it and hope you'll see them soon, and don't give up on chances to see and be with your grown child again.