You are most welcome. Sometimes it is reassuring to know that you are not alone.


I would and I did. We were married for 28 years before I had an inkling of his secret second life. But I wish I had known about the MB way. I had no idea that the tools existed to create a romantic marriage out of the ashes I was staring at.

Before I discovered the first and then what was probably dozens of affairs, I was as done with the marriage as you feel yourself to be now. Curiously the Fat Slag was not the reason the marriage ended, she woke me up and made me want to fight for it.

No he did not. Our first POJA was a house purchase. I did not want the house and he wanted it. This was the third house purchase done by him in secret by forging my signature and then disclosing the deal once completed.

The default POJA position is always to do nothing. We negotiated and could not come to an agreement. He then went right ahead. I discovered the house paperwork hidden in a file. We did this negotiation with Dr Harley's daughter Jennifer guiding us. On reflection it was far too ambitious. We had zero POJA skills and should have started with whether the eggs should be fried or scrambled. She had obviously never encountered someone that controlling.


We all have poor judgement skills somewhere. The beauty of a fully integrated marriage is that each trusts the other to protect us from our poor judgement skills. You were not attracted to your husband by accident; you saw him as someone who complemented you. I am sure that he still does. You need to unhook from the idea that he needs to have your strengths and remember why you married him. He does not need your strengths, he needs to have your weaknesses.


Yes, this comes through loud and clear. You are frantic with worry. But your worry is clouding your judgement. That is not good.


Not yet, you will be able to if you can get him to trust you again.


Great, give it a try. We can help but you need to start at the beginning :-)

Hi G2M,

Please take sometime to read Dr Harley's book Lovebusters. It truly helps to get clear on definitions and learn to recognize what a lovebuster is.

Its easy to get lost in your own head. For example you are giving your husband a negative labeling ie Logic Impaired. No one wants to be labeled. Its a personal attack. You want to learn to understand and recognize BEHAVIORS that are negatively affecting your marriage and entrenching the negative feedback loop. In "Lovebusters" Dr Harley presents three classifications of lovebusters and explains the impact for each type of abuse.

The three kinds of emotional abuse:

Selfish Demands (SD)
Disrespectful Judgements (DJ)
Angry Outbursts (AO)

It sounds like your husband resorts to all three a significant amount of time. And you are at least resorting to DJ.

Lets see, if your husband is not going to come around and work on creating a healthy marriage for the mother of his children, what can you do to help your children today and will not cost you a dime?

You can work on your side of the fence. Respect yourself. Protect yourself and your children from abuse. Respect your husband and stop labeling him but call out the behaviors you can no longer put up with and stop putting up with them. You do not have to prove, overly intellectualize, analyze. You do not have to play court of public opinion.

"Your angry outburst and tone of voice are devastating, I am going to take a break for 30 minutes so we can both calm down. I want to be able to calmly discuss this matter..."

Stop allowing him to suck every ounce out of you. Stay out of his boxing ring. He's playing a zero-sum game. You don't have to leave your children behind in a toxic environment. You can get into a shelter.

living_well, I am so sorry that your husband saddled you with so many horrendous problems. I really sympathize, you went through a lot, very much worse than anything I have encountered, and I understand why you would urge me to reconsider working things out with mine. The only comfort is that this is all behind you and you have cut your losses, even though you lost a lot. It doesn't sound like he was able to change to make the marriage work. I hope that you will find greater fulfillment and happiness going forward, and be cherished and treasured by a partner who is worthy of your love and efforts.

graceful2b, thank you for your kind advice.

I understand that the terms sound judgmental, and I should just describe the consistent behavior instead of giving it a term.

I am becoming more aware of H over the years, and how he reacts to situations and information.

1)He jumps quickly to act, not to wait and see or to take a more cautious approach, this leads to huge losses for us.

2)I am unsure what the condition is, but his way of processing and filtering information is different. He is very assured of his impression and then jumps to conclusion and acts.

Eg. He often sees an attack where there is none, and reacts accordingly.

I already mentioned how if I said that the Client wants "B" instead of "A", and he's already decided in his mind to do "A", it leads to a very abusive reaction from him.

Another example, if someone comments that there is too much "A" in a situation, and that there must be balance, he hears "A" must be banned!" He will then get really upset and reacts as if "A" would really be banned, and goes on a tirade about how unfair/dangerous/awful it will be to ban "A", etc. Ironically, he always dislikes and is critical of too much "A".

I can't explain to him what is meant.

He's decided, there's no changing of his mind, and he fights it with all his might.

It is a very tortuous process for me, and a lot of energy is wasted because he filters information very differently.

There's no nuance, no grey, no larger picture, it's a "with me or against me" type of thinking. He has always been and will always be right. No facts can exist, because in his mind and memory, they support his version of events. If I attempt to show facts, it leads to huge rows because this threatens his inner beliefs and need to protect himself. There is so much fragility.

It is a daily occurrence, with me and other parties. It makes it very difficult to communicate and we have stopped communicating.

I don't know how to communicate in such a way that he receives the true meaning of what I, or others, say?

This is what I meant by the logic or filtering impairment rather than intent. It happens also with friends, with colleagues, with clients.

All sorts of great wrongs occur in his mind, even when there are none. I can see this in his father, and his stepmother goes with it and adapts by tolerance, plotting and manipulation.

For example, she wants to safeguard her financial security and interest, she will not ask from H's father directly, but she will plan and plot for the alienation and isolation of H's father from everyone, his family and friends, create incidents that alienate H's father from his son and grandchildren.

She achieves her goals, diminished inheritance for H and the kids, majority of family assets go to her. I don't resent her for it, she is acting in her own interest after all. This is like the soaps, but maybe it is the only coping mechanism?

H also sets limits on our conversation, I can talk only about certain subjects, eg. trivia, kids, food, etc. Subjects that concern our relationship are off-limits, even if I am conciliatory, no DJ, etc., and he makes sure we don't spend any time alone so we can't talk about our marriage.

My friends told me that if I need to change his decisions, I have to pretend, plot and manipulate in order to deal with his character and personality, no communicating or talking things out, no matter how, just say "Yes".

Even approaching the subject is like walking on eggshells. There are all sorts of mines waiting to go off, unintentionally, because I can't be sure what would set him off.

I don't know if MB has dealt with this type of situation?

Atm, as I spend more time on the site, I am also beginning to understand that my situation is really not the worst, though I am unhappy. There's no adultery, none that I know of.

Yes, things got physically abusive, but that was a few years back, under the influence, nothing like what many other spouses here go through!

I want to improve the marriage, but ball is now in his court if he should sign on MB.


I am carefully considering your advice about caring for the children first without incurring cost. Unfortunately, the state of our world is such that inflation will deplete the lower and middle classes like us. I don't want to go into debt, for our house or for the kids healthcare/education/college fees.

I don't want to move to Germany, I can't speak German at all, I am terrified of my in-laws, I have no friends there, I prefer an English-speaking society, I don't feel comfortable there, but I might have to do it.

Yes. Dr. Harley has personally counseled more than 50,000 individuals and couples.

I want to address the issues 1 and 2 you share in your post above.
These are excellent examples of why the Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA) are used to protect the other spouse. The Policy of Joint Agreement says never do anything without enthusiastic agreement between yourself and your spouse.
Dr. Harley wrote an article addressing shared control for finances which you may like to read here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5023_qa.html

Every marriage that comes to MB has problems. That is why they are here.

G2M, you don't have to convince me that POJA is not gonna happen with your H...my ex shares very similar traits when it came to his work. You will have to take drastic measures to wake up your H (if he ever does). Have you considered not paying the rent and simply telling him you don't have the funds to pay it so he needs to? I don't know how renting/evictions work where you live but you may have to step out of your comfort zone and do something like that. Right now you are a work dog for your H, not a wife. If you leave, he will have to pay the rent anyway, correct? Are you both on the lease?

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2814023&page=1

Dr. H advised this poster to stop paying medical insurance for her stepchildren and husband. Even though this was a blended family situation, there was still a lack of POJA from the Freeloader husband and growing resentment from the wife. I don't think the wife listened to the advice but Dr. H did tell her (answered her email on MB radio) that she should stop paying and force the H to figure it out or step up with POJA.

And also, have you snooped at all to find out if there is an affair? Is 100% of your H's time accounted for? No sex in ten years and you have no idea where his money is going sounds like to me.

I was wondering about porn and self service. Have you snooped?

black_raven, this is exactly how I feel now.

I have been reading many of the links, but I still haven't come across a case quite like H.

Since my AO, he has set up a "Joint Account" but he doesn't put in the total income he receives, but puts in exactly what he pay me as "salary" before, enough for rent and 50% of bills and groceries, and then whatever he decides I should receive as "salary" I can use as I wish. However, as inflation has hit badly, the bills and groceries exceed this amount that he is willing to put into the JA. Any overdraft I have to account to him, eg. school books, German courses for kids.

If I leave, yes, he has to foot the bills. In his mind, he is probably also thinking he would have to hire someone to replace me, and that could be costly.

I find it difficult to snoop, I really respect his privacy. I guess I will do it if I suspect strongly of something amiss (drugs) or if I love him enough to fear adultery. I already know that he has incurred huge losses, so a lot of fees and his own secondary income are gone. He has his separate business/savings account, lots of them, here and in Germany, and he squirrels whatever profits accumulated to himself. Is it a lot? I don't think so.

I know he will NOT pay a cent for alimony, he will keep custody and kick me out.

If I stay in this marriage, it's because of a sense of duty to the marital contract and the children, which I greatly value.

Except for being a loving father, *none* of my needs in a marriage have been met. Not one.

My biggest struggle is to ascertain for myself if H can step up enough to gradually work towards a balanced, happier marriage.

My Love Bank is so severely depleted negative, I don't feel any love or hope.

For H, whatever I do (work, pay the rent and bills, lets him keep all the income and make all the decisions in life, etc.) won't top up his Love Bank either, he really needs a "traditional wife", someone completely submissive and who makes him feel good about himself all the time, a very different person from what I am.

In his mind, I am not a good wife, because even with what i feel are my Giving, there's "admiration" and "praise" for him missing.

He is only thinking about fulfilling himself, his needs, 100% of the time. He is 100% focused on the dream of becoming the successful "Genius" come true, to be on the pedestal. There's still this giant Black Hole of his needs to be filled.

Last week, as a large fee is stuck because of banking transfer problems, and I suggested that it goes to my account first, he went bezerk and threatened to call the police on me for trying to illegally embezzle the fees. Bear in mind that I delivered 80% of the design work for this project.

It takes introspection, an ability to reason, to know that these are LBs.

Even when I get sick, or am in pain, eg. tendonitis, he will also feel sick and tendonitis pain.

He can't help being this way, it's what he is, and he's unlikely to change.

He wants me to stay in the marriage because I am conveniently fulfilling many of his needs, not because he feels a shred of love for me.

What I have to do is to leave, find work somewhere and build my own security and future, my own life raft big enough for the kids when they come to me.

Duty alone is not enough for me to stay in this marriage, and married to the Captain of the Titanic means I need to build a life raft for me and my children.

Thank you all for your kind advice. I will not give up hope that some day, after my divorce, I might meet someone with whom it is possible to build a marriage with what I have learned on this site and the books which I intend to buy.

Hi G2M-
Did you end up leaving? PlanB?

Hi Openeyes11, I did move to a city 2 hours away. Nothing much has changed, except he doesn't even talk to me anymore or try to set up Skype for the kids to talk to me. I miss my kids alot, fortunately there's WhatsApp, and I feel less stress over their school pressures being away. I am working so hard, from 9am-9pm, then cooking and cleaning. It's not Plan B to me, I really don't feel any hope at all for this marriage except to manage the separation. I am back home now for a few days, precious time with my kids, then back to my crazy work schedule. As usual, my husband is out till late at night with his friends when I'm home. I do appreciate the forum for helping me through a tough patch.

I do realize that maybe some men are simply not made for marriage, i.e., they do not enjoy the companionship of their wives, and much prefer spending time outside the home with friends. He is extremely attentive and generous with his friends, just not with me. It is pointless to try to get him to see what's fair, what's right in a marriage, what do the vows even mean. He simply doesn't really care for me at all, he will not put efforts into something he doesn't cherish or feel is important to him.

I get it. Hugs!

Btw....I hope that you'll be able to get your kids back. Are they okay with you moving away?

Thank you, I don't think I will be fighting for custody even though I miss them tremendously. K loves them, so I'm not too worried, except that he indulges them too much. He often jokes that he only married because he wanted kids and could not have them by himself so he "borrowed" the mother...but it's not funny to me any more... I can only try to get K to agree to a plan for their schooling and education. I hope to earn enough this year to take my son to a good European school and focus on getting him to thrive this coming Aug/September. He is doing badly for now, and I believe the IB system is better and easier for him. My daughter is doing well, so I will let her choose her own academic path. Meanwhile, we just naturally separate without the trauma of divorce, that could be a good thing for the kids until we are both ready to file. I believe we can do so after living separately for 2 years (or more).

I find myself back at MB because I do hope to help some husbands out there seeking advice on MB understand their wives better. If they can "see" where my husband failed to "see", that could save their marriages, which to me would be a type of redemption for my own marriage failure.

Just taking the step of seeking answers on MB is truly a step in the right direction, and I wish for others what I could not find in my own marriage.

Reading the thread though, is quite an epiphany, I had so much anger inside me towards him, I was so bitter...and there really is no need for this, no point in it at all to feel hurt. Sort of blaming a pit bull for biting me...just accept this is his nature, and it's alright that the marriage did not work out in the end. Many marriages don't, and many couples are ultimately mismatched.

g2M, so glad to read you got out of this tragic situation.

Many marriages become mismatched because one spouse does not consider the other spouses feelings or afford great care. That thoughtless nature can be changed when there is willingness. Many of us here have created great marriage by becoming thoughtful, caring spouses. Your husband just refused to do that.

Thank you MelodyLane, for your kind words. I think most men who are able to make use of MB to try to reconcile with their wives have already overcome the biggest hurdle, the ability to see their own role in the marriage that brought about alienation with their spouses.

It would be wonderful if Dr Harley can probe deeper into the psyche of those who are willfully blind, is it nature or nurture?

I have read some books that touched on the differences between men and women, some men just need a very traditional type of spouse, i.e. spouses who willingly go with their every whim, agree with their every word, make them feel like a king, etc., and I'm just not that type of woman.

It is choice. Nature and nurture are all in the past by the time an adult reaches adulthood.

A part of me want to believe that my husband is different from his divorced parents, he could see their "issues", but he is understandably tolerant towards them. I would find it extremely difficult to live with either of his parents, so it's my mistake to believe that K could turn out to be different.

This goes deep, and it is like a fortress or an armor around K, protecting and preserving his sense of himself. He can do no wrong, ever. It is up to those around him to come round to his point of view.

I guess I just have to acknowledge failure and leave. Either that or change myself into a doormat. It is just very hard because I so wanted a marriage, foolish me.

Are you filing for divorce?

I'm very troubled by your situation Gave2. You have moved to another city and left your children behind. You have not indicated a wish to divorce.

Is there someone else in your life?