Hello mrEureka - thanks for the reply. Sorry, I do believe in "letting things happen". When people are naturally drawn to each other, things happen. For you to ask me how I "won" my wife's attention, suggests there was some sort of competition. I just was me, and let her be her, and TOGETHER, we moved in a particular direction. But then, somewhere along the line, that lovin feeling just got lost.

I also believe that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I think it would be remarkable for my wife to show any romantic yearnings for anyone, tell you the truth. Individuals who are self sufficient seems to run in her generation in her family. I'm thinking of her brother, as well as two of her first cousins, who, in the 27 years I've known them, have shown no interest in anyone, male or female. Naturally, we never know for sure how we would react to a situation that hasn't happened, but if she did, and it really opened for her an avenue of happiness that I couldn't provide, while I can't say I'd be happy about it, I wouldn't stand in the way either. And I do believe my wife would be perfectly content if I never reached out to her again, indeed, that message was clear the last time I attempted it - admittedly, it's been quite a while.

Your analogy about the lumber pile doesn't fit. Of course lumber isn't going to fashion itself into a house, it is not living. It has no free will. It has no desires, no passions, no preferences, no needs, no nothing. It is indifferent to whether it is built into a house, or a bonfire, chopped into splinters, or simply left to rot. We aren't talking about piles of lumber here, but human beings trying to find what happiness they can in the time they have.

People fall out of love when they neglect their relationships. Romantic feelings do not happen by fairy magic.

Anyway, your best thinking has ruined your marriage. You have no idea how romantic relationships are cultivated and maintained and are lecturing people who are in long term, romantic, passionate marriages. Are you willing to put aside your own biased ideas about marriage? If so, we can help you.

Zach, it doesn't seem to me as if you've read Dr Harley's free articles on his concepts of the Love Bank and The Most Important Emotional Needs.

If you have read them and you don't agree with them...remind me then, why you are here?

Here's the thing, Zach,

Dr. Harley has studied how to create the feeling of being in love.

mrEureka and I have studied Dr. Harley's methods, tried them in our own marriages, seen it work, and helped other people do the same.

We know how to create the feeling of romantic love in a marriage, and so does Dr. Harley.

There's little point in you trying to teach mrEureka about your viewpoint. It might be fun for you, but mrE is much more concerned with helping people restore their marriages. If you'll listen to him, he can help you. But if you're here to educate him, it won't help you other than a moment of enjoyable conversation, and it won't accomplish his real goal, of helping people save their marriages with this tried and true plan.

Zach, let me mention something else.

When you download and install the Marriage Builders Radio app (you are doing that, right? you are going to listen to the show?), you will be using an app mrEureka created. mrE used the Marriage Builders program in his own marriage and saw such great success and wanted to help other people get that in their own marriages as well.

So in addition to volunteering his free time here to write to people online and teach them how to have a good marriage and create or restore the feeling of romantic love, mrEureka ALSO gave of his free time to create the Marriage Builders Radio app program so you can listen to Dr. Harley's professional help every day on your phone, in your car, or wherever.

All of that was done free. mrEureka didn't get any sort of salary for that. He does it just to help people, because he cares. That's why he's posting here, and why I am posting here. We would like to help you and your wife fall in love and stay in love for a lifetime, and we actually do know how to do that. And from Dr. Harley we have a plan to do that that works.

You might believe people should never follow a plan like that, and if so, more power to you. Do what you want in life, by all means. But if you would like to be in love with your wife, and only your wife ... if you would like to keep or regain everything in marriage that brought you together rather than pitching it aside as you deal with kids, jobs, houses, and life ... then you are in the right place, and the plan is here.

But you need to approach it as a STUDENT. You need help from the expert teacher, and can maybe benefit some from students who have been in the class longer.

If you are here as a STUDENT to learn how to do this, then great things can happen in your marriage.