To the above I am adding:
I will look past her inappropriate way (if it is disrespectful) of expressing herself, and deal with the complaint in a respectful way.
Her cooperation is absolutely necessary but I cannot count on it. Instead of regarding her abusive methods as the only effective way to get his attention, she will hopefully regard my willingness to negotiate with respect as something they should both do.

Focus on POJA. I am convinced that POJA is, indeed, the only way to save our, any, marriage in conflict. POJA means finding win-win solutions.

Identify her list of issues. Prioritize them and begin working on the top three.
I will address every complaint your wife makes with patience and kindness. I will discuss and address every issue she raises, and do it without any disrespect or anger on my part. I will focus on the top three of her list, and then the rest of the list.
Guideline 1: Set ground rules to make negotiation pleasant and safe.
Ground Rule #1:
Try to be pleasant and cheerful throughout negotiations

Ground Rule #2:
Put safety first-do not make demands, show disrespect,
or become angry when you negotiate, even if your spouse
makes demands, shows disrespect, or becomes angry with you
Ground Rule #3:
If you reach an impasse where you do not seem to be
getting anywhere, or if one of you is starting
to make demands, show disrespect, or become angry,
stop negotiating and come back to the issue later.
Guideline 2: Identify the problem from both perspectives.
Guideline 3: Brainstorm with abandon.
Guideline 4: Choose the solution that meets the conditions of the Policy of Joint Agreement -- mutual and enthusiastic agreement.

Dear Forumers,

As you can see from my last post, I have my best shot at a 'plan' for restoration and I am, hopefully working with Markos on going through Love Busters to better eliminate them.

Our three biggest issues are Honesty (trusting me) and she believes I value my family over her and the third is the resultant feeling she has that she simply wants nothing to do with me and it talking divorce.

1. Trust
I understand that I have lost her trust with things like the most recent toilet repair or taking out the mail incidences. I CAN master that. I have a humongous motivation never to deceive her or do something like that again.
And, I understand it will take time for her to trust me.
Honesty is important to me as well and I will wait patiently for opportunities from her to do something, like take out the mail, etc. to earn back her trust. I believe in and comply with Dr H's extraordinary measures and radical honesty.

2. Prioritizing my family over her.
Though that one sounds easy to resolve, it isn't. A quick example of how this one plays out. Understand, we have 4 kids that are from my 1st marriage and 1 son of our own. The latter is the only child still at home. Of the 4 adult children, 2 live here in town, and 2 live out of town.
For 20 years, those four children, even before two of them left town to reside, would spend Christmas Day with their bio mother and her extended family. So, my W and I have historically celebrated Christmas with them and my wife's extended family on Christmas Eve. We worked hard to establish our tradition of Christmas Eve, to "make lemonade out of that lemon" of a situation.
This year only 1 of those 4 was able to be here Christmas Eve, due to their constraints of living out of town or having a spouse's Christmas Eve family commitment.

So, we had our Christmas eve celebration with only 1 of my 4 adult children. Then, on Friday, the day after Christmas, we had another get together as they, except for the son who is out of the country, were, able to be here, which included one's spouse and my grandchildren. My W agreed to the second get together, though I don't think she was enthusiastic and would have preferred I stand firmer on our Christmas Eve tradition.

The issue: I believe my wife from her perspective, feels compromised by that because for years, we worked around everyone's schedule and settled for Christmas eve so that my kids could have Christmas with their bio-mother and her extended family, all of whom live here in town.
From my perspective, I enjoyed my wife's extended family members who were able to attend our get together Christmas eve, but if only 1 of th 4 of my adults kids were able to be here, it felt like having a party when we knew they couldn't attend. I had no problem being flexible and having a second get together.

How does one resolve something like that where she feels I am too flexible, and yet I feel it's pointless to have to force a tradition causing much loss of good will, if we, for example, say, "Christmas eve is our window as it traditionally is. Be here then, period, or we skip this year."? To me, that atmosphere and loss of good will defeats the whole purpose of Christmas and celebrating Jesus's birth, etc.
As your children marry, have spousal commitments of their own, live out of town, etc., well, I just don't know how to manage that and keep the Christmas eve tradition we worked hard to establish.

3. She wants nothing to do with me and wants a divorce.
She feels I treat her disrespectfully. She is completely withdrawn and hass been for some time. I certainly understand how she can feel that way when I override her wishes in preference for mine or when I post things that sound self-validating at her expense. I am working on that, incidentally.
She feels I talk a good game and will say 'I believe in POJA', and yet turn around a do something we have not agreed to. I completely understand that. I am so averse to divorce that, for the rest of my life, I will do POJA even if it means missing Christmas with my children and grandchildren (from the above issue.)

POJA is extremely difficult sometimes. How does one find POJA on an issue where their positions are so opposite? Of course, I know they don't do anything in the interim. Long term, what do they do?

She is the smartest, most beautiful and caring person I have ever known. She bent over backwards for me for years, and like a putz, I didn't reciprocate. I have been so selfish and negligent of her/her positions for so long, I fear I have lost her.

Any ideas on how I might attack these issues?

Thanks, Remark

You POJA this. You have trouble with POJA. Dr. Harley recommends to POJA On small stuff until you get it. Are you able to POJA On anything?

Do you have the book "He Wins, She Wins"? This is Dr. Harley's book on negotiating.

Have you read the Q&A series on "trouble with POJA"?

Here, and read all 4 letters in the series.
Trouble with POJA Letter #1

Yes, we have HW,SW

Have you read it? Are you going to sign up for the online program?

I just read all four letters. Yet, I still have trouble applying the POJA concept to our specific situations occasionally.

The solution is that you do nothing until and unless you both enthusiastically agree on an outcome. You have neither celebration. You do not have two celebrations unless you are both enthusiastic about having two, and you do not have two celebrations so that you can each have a celebration on the day each prefers, while each also has to endure a day that each feels indifferent about. Having two celebrations made you somewhat indifferent to the first one and your wife slightly resentful about the second one. Unless you were both enthusiastic about both, neither should have gone ahead. POJA is not about spreading the misery equally; it is about enthusiastic solutions, and not causing resentment.

You begin brainstorming from the position of a blank slate. I'm sure there would have been some unhappiness about doing nothing at all as the permanent solution for that year, so the avoidance of that unhappiness would have been a great incentive for you to find a mutual solution. However, if you could not have come to any solution, then doing neither celebration should have been the answer. Next year you will negotiate again.

Remark, I still see you as being more concerned with your relationship with your children than you are with your relationship with your wife. Yes, it would have been disappointing not to have seen 3 of your children at all over Christmas, but given that they are in their own relationships and presumably putting their relationships first in their own lives, you should have accepted by now that you will never have the same relationship with them as you did when they were under your care - i.e. seeing them at times that are important to you. Under what circumstances could any young couple have the same relationship with both sets of parents that they had when each of the spouses was single?

What I'm, trying to say is, when two people get married, each spouse cannot assume they will spend the holidays with their parents as if they were not married. There are her wishes to be considered, and there are his - and one would hope that the marital relationship would come over and above any desire to spend time with one's parents.

You are putting your relationship with your kids on an equal footing (at best) as that with your wife, when your kids are not doing the same - as they shouldn't. Your 3 kids took their leave of the Christmas Eve celebration because their marital relationships came first, as indeed they should have done, and yours should have done the same.

This should never really have come to this crisis (for want of a better word; I know it did not develop into a full-own crisis). When kids are grown up and married or living abroad, you cannot make the same deal about "everyone being together at Christmas" as you were able to do when they were younger; not at the expense of your wife's feelings.

They need to "leave and cleave" and so do you.

SC,
I had no problem with the two celebrations. I was enthusiastic. I enjoyed both. As far as POJA goes, we discussed the Friday option and she went along with it, though 'enthusiasm' may not have existed from her end. In the discussion, I offerred to meet with them elsewhere if she didn't want to participate. Friday was a day off from work for most of us, though my wife and one daughter had to work. So, we had the get together after hours, in the evening.

When my one daughter has a custody schedule of her own to deal with, and is not able to get down here until late on Christmas Day, I struggle with insisting on Christmas Eve even though we worked for years to establish a tradition of our own.

Is it that bad to consider entertaining a new tradition if the old one no longer is working for the larger, extended family?

I understand the concept of valuing my kids over my wife though I don't think I do. To prove that I need to give up Christmas with my kids and not see them not see them on a day when I didn't even have to work, to elevate her importance seems radical, but I understand.

Thank you for your perspective, as tough as it is for me to own.
Remark

I am anxious to do the MBOP, and have asked Dr H if we should do it if she is not willing to do it. He said POJA is not necessary in this case, and it is up to the program to get her on board. We're also considering a similar program that is at our church and runs from Jan 15 thru Mar 15. I'd prefer the MBOP but will settle for whatever she'll agree to.

Still considering. It is surely my preferred option over spending $$$$ on a divorce.
Thanks, Remark

Is your W enthusiastic about it?

No, not really. So, no, it's not a good idea.
Nough said.
Thanks,
Remark

But that doesn't mean you can't negotiate about it and come up with something that you're both enthusiastic about.

I do hope you realise that I am not giving you "my perspective". I am doing my best to give the advice that I think Dr Harley would give you. My perspective, and everybody else's, is completely irrelevant on this forum. Our job is to give the correct answer and not the wrong one! My advice was based on what I've learned about how decisions should be negotiated, and the role of POJA and the default position.

However, it seems I might have misunderstood your dilemma. Could you summarise your question, please? I understand about some kids not being able to attend on Wednesday and all those details, so there is no need to re-state them. It's just that I thought you were saying that your wife made a reluctant agreement. Is that not so?

"To prove that I need to give up Christmas with my kids and not see them not see them on a day when I didn't even have to work, to elevate her importance seems radical, but I understand"

No, I don't think you do, and I also do not like the way you worded this. There is a withering contempt buried in those lines. Now, obviously it does not matter whether I like your response or not, but when I had time to post to you before, I pointed out some passive-aggressive digs that were very politely expressed by you, and that I found objectionable. My point was that if I could see sarcasm and contempt in your description of a situation, then your wife probably could, too, and indeed, she came here to thank me for expressing her point of view.

I wasn't asking you to "give up Christmas with your kids" and especially not for the purpose of "to elevate her importance". I was telling you that they seem to have given up Christmas with you, and I said that if that's how things were moving as they grow older, you should not ask your wife to do something she does not want to do in order for you to hold on to the old relationship you had with them.

Remark, you don't have to assert your intelligence by not-so-subtly demeaning other people. Just use your intelligence to try and stop doing the objectionable things you do that result in your marriage being in the state it's in.

SC, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to assert my intelligence. I work hard to avoid offensive language. Ironically, I spent an hour or two on that post before posting it. From my perspective, it seems more a matter of practicality and logistics. It parallels a leader forcing his will on a constituency that does not want what he is enforcing. And, this is Christmas, (celebration of Jesus) as opposed to some political issue.
My family of origin always worked with the other extended family members and scheduled things when they were most available and I was never aware of anyone specific's preference. Perhaps, that is my struggle. Yet, I realize her perspective needs also to be considered in a POJA resolution, of course.

What is a less offensive way of expressing all of the above?

Thanks,
Remark

Please try and do what I asked earlier, and summarise this problem. It seems that I misunderstood the issue and I misunderstood how much of a conflict there really was.

The kids couldn't come on the 24th so you wanted to do...what?

Your wife wanted to do...what?

Was the decision that you arrived at, of having two events, satisfactory to both of you?

If not, who was not satisfied, and with what?

Can the dual-event arrangement be sustained if the same problem arises next year, or not? Will one of you be resentful if you have to do this again?

Was it an enthusiastic decision for both of you? I'm guessing not, since you wrote here about it.

BH,
Do you know if only one of the spouses does the MBOP? Should I do it alone if she doesn't want to do it?

Thanks,
Remark

You will receive a coach and have direct contact with Dr. Harley by being able to post on the weekend forum. You have contact with your coach one at a time. You don't talk to your coach as a couple at the same time. You each will communicate with your coach individually.

What does Dr. Harley say about it?

He hasn't given us a direct answer when we asked him the same question. His response to W was "He encourages any couple in our circumstances to participate in MBOP." But, that doesn't address the question of only one participant if only one wishes to participate.
Thanks,
Remark