Couples in romantic marriages never fight. Dr. Harley and his wife never fight, and they have conflicts at least once an hour. Markos and I never fight either.

Do not expect the program to work if you plan to cut corners.

The only person on this thread who is not being respectful has been you, my dear. Pointing out holes in your plan is not disrespectful or hateful or discouraging. It's what we do here.

Found the clips. Listening now. Thank you.

Check out the book "Lovebusters." If you have already read it, read it again. UA time will not be effective if you continue to fight. Just like you cannot fill a bucket when you are punching holes in it, you cannot fill a lovebank when you are lovebusting.

In one moment you thank Prisca, and in the next, you tell her to quit replying and insinuate that we think we are gods.

It is very kind of Prisca to continue offering you advice. Is this the same method of dealing with conflict that you use with your spouse?

Prisca: I am not being disrespectful. I am explaining my position and being attacked for it. You are in no place to tell my that my marriage is doomed or that if I don't follow Dr. Harley then I WANT to get a divorce. That is no way to help someone.

I asked for you to please leave me alone. I trust that there are plenty of other people in this group that can help me. I'm sure you have decent intentions, but your style of communication is not compatible with mine. You have very much offended me and I care not to engage with you anymore.

I was not thanking Prisca I was thanking Brainhurts.



My spouse is much more respectful to me than Prisca has been and I really don't appreciate that insinuation. I am afraid if I get much more of these negative comments from you all then I will have to leave.

I am very disappointed. My husband and I love each other very much and are working very hard at getting back to a better place. Perhaps I was silly in thinking that this forum could be of use. I didn't come here to be attacked. I came here for help.

I have never even mentioned the word divorce. Your marriage is far from it, and will be even further if you follow the plan.

But you fight. I suspect when you do fight, you use Disrespectful Judgements towards your husband. Do you have the book "Lovebusters"?

Pardon me Prisca, that was alis that said that.

We fight MAYBE 3 times a year.

We have disagreements/conflicts all the time but we have always used Dr. Harley's rules and remain respectful (with the exception of our very infrequent fights that I mentioned above). And we try very hard to find solutions with the POJA. (This is all prior to committing fully to the program from scratch.)

We do have the book and we are working through the program, like I said. We have both books and the workbook. We have started with the contract, and that is why we are at the point in which we are.

We have committed to 15 hours a week so we are making that happen, as we work through the Love Busters part. We will up it to 20 since we know we need to do some restoration before we go down to 15.

When we first read about the program after we were first married, we had already eliminated Love Busters so we were really in a great spot (and we had actually eliminated them, they weren't always non-existent). We have done a decent job at keeping them at bay until recently.

I absolutely know why. We have let our daughter (as well as other commitments, such as college)increasingly take our "couples" time away. Every time we go on a date, we fill each other up. We absolutely love it. We realize now that we need MORE in order to STAY in love. And we need more intention put into meeting each other's needs.

The program really is awesome. And we are excited about doing it. But we aren't completely out of love. We don't hate each other and fight all the time. We actually are in love, but we see the potential of slipping quickly down a slope if we don't put more intention into our relationship.

We don't have 90% of the problems many other couples have. We are very supportive. No independent behavior. Open and honest all the time. We will identify a few things as we work through the program and get those solved, but as you all have said (and I agree), STAYING in love by spending lots of time together really is going to solve many of our problems. That is why we are working so hard at finding activities we both enjoy and doing them - UA style.

scaredwife, you can always write Dr H.

You see, scaredwife, I see you where I was 10 years ago. Markos and I were newlyweds, very deeply in love. We also didn't have the typical problems most couples around us had. We thought we'd be in love forever.

After the first baby, problems started. We didn't have the time together anymore. Fights started happening. We had NEVER fought before.

We also tried to cut corners when we found Marriage Builders. We thought we could do it, that we were different.

The things I have been telling you are the things I wish I had been told 10 years ago. Because if you don't fix the problems now when they are small, they will only get worse. For us, it ended up being as big as verbal abuse, an affair, and a separation. I never, in a million years, thought we would ever have to face any of that.

So please listen when people tell you not to cut corners. Fix the problems now when they are small.

Everybody thinks they're different, and can cut corners. It almost always fails.

You understand that we can only go by what you tell us, right? Your first post and the most recent describes two completely different marriages. As per your first (yes, I know you said it was emotional) was one that was a marriage on life support. Your later post describes it as great but needing an tweak. If you are angry at some of us, please do remember that you described a dire situation that needed a major overhaul. Throwing barbs at us because we cannot distinguish what the reality is isn't productive. Neither is being demanding and selective to advice you deem gentle enough, that is conflict avoidance.

And I owe my great marriage to Melody's swift kick up the butt about UA time.

Let me do some clarifying. Here is what we came up with before I saw all the comments here about no in-home UA time....

Tentative UA time schedule:

1 hour each night before bed - conversation, sex (no phones, no distractions, just us - this would get us 7 hours per week)

We have done this before, though not a full hour and we have LOVED it. Chatting in bed is one of our favorite activities, honestly. Every time we make time for it, our relationship always benefits.

At home dates:

1 hour on Saturdays
1 hour on Sundays
2 hours one weeknight

Out of the house date:
4 hours - 1 weekend night per week

I realize that you all have criticisms of this. Like I said, this is what we came up with BEFORE I read any of the comments saying it had to be out of the house.

Activities we plan to do on our at-home dates (taken directly from the recreational companionship survey):

- games (canasta, checkers, chess, cribbage, rummy, other card games or board games, corn hole or washers in the backyard, computer games)
- exercise (done it, love it)
- programming
- cooking
- gardening
- knitting, quilting, sewing (we have actually done this together and we both love it)
- woodworking (done it, love it)
- metal work
- listening to music (we really like to go through albums together and critique them and rank them - odd hobby but we love doing it together)
- home remodeling (done it, love it)
- play music together (I sing and my husband plays the guitar, he has spent some time teaching me guitar before and we have always thought it would be really fun to play/record together)

Out of the house dates:
- eating out
- visiting a local observatory
- estate sales, antique malls (our absolute favorite)
- museums
- going to a baseball game
- bicycling
- camping
- hiking
- canoeing
- rock concerts (an old time favorite)
- classical concerts
- fishing (maybe)
- horseback riding
- going to a rodeo
- hot air ballooning
- roller skating (done it once, loved it)
- taking an art or photography class together
- visiting the local salt mines
- taking day trips to local towns
- swimming

We aren't ignoring the advice for UA time. We did all this brainstorming and planning a few days ago. We already had started the habit of date nights, but we recognized a need for more.

I still don't see how our at home list can't work. We really enjoy spending time together at home, if we just make the time to do it and to do it with intention and eliminate all other distractions. It has worked before. I really don't feel like being judged here or like I even need to defend myself. I can certainly appreciate your warnings, and I will definitely let you all know how it goes, but I really don't need disrespectful judgments from you. I realize that isn't perhaps your intention, but it is what is coming across.

Thank you for sharing your experience with empathy. After rereading some things I see I attributed someone else's comments to you and that is my bad.

I really do appreciate it. And I will heed your advice. I understand how small problems can blow up into larger ones.

I do plan on contacting the Harley's because I feel like our plans for some home dates will actually be beneficial, and just as much as out of the house ones.

I don't want that to be the rule, but with young kids, I'm searching for ways to get more time in without spending a lot more money, especially since my husband has such great anxiety about that, like I mentioned before.

And honestly, I have anxiety about leaving her in someone else's care so much. Having a sitter over after she is already asleep is certainly an option, and one that I am very strongly FOR and will definitely use. That with a combination of other things, I think we can make it work.

I think I will do that. I'd really like to hear more about recreational companionship as a part of UA time because honestly they are hobbies my husband and I are dying to do that now I feel like we are "breaking the rules" if we do them. I really don't think woodworking in our garage should be out of the question, especially since it's something that we have historically LOVED to do together. The same is true for others on our list. I DEFINITELY see how sitting on the couch talking for 30 minutes here and there isn't going to build romantic love. But recreational companionship and quality UA time with conversation mixed in IS. And we have gotten that with many of the activities that DR. HARLEY suggested, and we did it at home.

I will contact them and see what I can find out. Thanks for the suggestion.

SW, like I said earlier, most couples just absolutely REFUSE to do this because they place their marrige at such a low priority that they would rather do just about anything than spend their time together. He has discussed the importance of spending UA time out of the home several times on the radio show [not even he and Joyce spend their UA time at home] and posted about it on the private forum. He recommends 4 - 4 hour dates.




If you will use some creativity and think outside of the box, I am sure you can find some creative ways to get out on low cost dates. It would irresponsible to not do so, since the success of your marriage depends on it.

Who would babysit your kids while you did this?

Also I am excited. I have contacted some friends to find out what time their kids go to bed and see about doing a swap - one night after we put our daughter to bed I can go over to their house so they can go out for a date and one night the other wife can come over after she is in bed so my husband and I can go out. Hopefully I can find someone who is willing! I have contacted two couples so far.