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Obviously, his job does not leave enough time to sustain a marriage, so that has to be addressed FIRST. Lovebusters are a huge part of it, but the major issue is that you can't sustain a marriage when you don't have any time for it.
You can eliminate all the lovebsuters but you will never have a marriage if you don't have any time for it.
No, they don't put you on the radio when you call in. They discuss your situation and ask how you would like them to address it.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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It takes 15 hours to maintain the romantic love in a marriage and 20 hours to CREATE. If you can get in 4 - 4 hour dates per week while he maintains his job, then his job would work. The dates should be scheduled at a time when you both have the most energy in 2 to 4 hour blocks.
Can you do that?
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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You are not the first one to show up who thought MB had some good ideas, but not all of it was possible. You are not the first to think that your situation was somehow different, and that you'd just have to somehow make it work differently.
I did, too.
It doesn't work. This program WILL NOT WORK if you cherry-pick it to death. I do not think "it has some good ideas..." I think it is 1000% correct, but for some reason y'all are not understanding that he is NOT going to quit his career, and I am not going to divorce him just because he won't. So I want to do the program and would love advice while going through it, but if y'all don't think I am serious then I apologize for wasting your time. It is NOT that I am not willing to make a lifestyle change, I would, but his career is not mine. What does he say when you go to him and say "Honey, I need more time alone with you. I need you to arrange your schedule so we can spend 15 hours a week together, out of the house without the kids." What does he say when you do this? We can't get very far unless we can persuade you to be more insistent with him.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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JBKT16, I am a little bit worried that in the discussion about jealousy and the discussion about UA time, that this may have been missed. Please reread it: JBKT16, that sounds so much like how Prisca and I used to be. We didn't have a lot of trouble being in love with each other, when we weren't fighting, because we were great at meeting each other's emotional needs. But we were terrible at love busters, and therefore we were terrible at resolving conflicts.
Something I'm seeing here is that you need to keep problems on the front burner. Your husband agreed to do Marriage Builders with you, but then nothing happened for a week. Instead of letting a week go by, bring it up EVERY DAY which will show him it is important to you. Your husband engages in selfish demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts. Each and every time this needs to go on a worksheet like Dr. Harley describes in Love Busters and you need to give him that worksheet each week and keep a record, with him striving to get that worksheet empty for an entire week at a time.
But for this to work you have got to bring it up and keep bringing it up - it is an issue, and it has got to stay an issue.
...
I believe you two need to work through the book Love Busters together, focusing on the first few chapters and exchanging the weekly worksheets Dr. Harley suggests, until the worksheets are empty. Then after Love Busters if you work through He Wins She Wins, you will probably have a great marriage, because it sounds like you already know how to meet each other's emotional needs. Along the way you will learn to resolve the difficulty that he is causing by not giving adequate time to meet your needs.
I would bring this up to your husband EVERY DAY. If he agrees one day, bring it up the next day until he does it. If he refuses or never gets around to it, keep bringing it up, but find out what Dr. Harley suggests. Since your husband said he'll do Marriage Builders with you, order Love Busters and ask him to go through the first few chapters with you and start exchanging the worksheets it suggests. See if he says yes or no. We really need to know what his answer is before going further. I did order the books, the day that y'all advised me to. Just waited to receive them. Despite what everyone thinks I AM serious about changing, and I have already made a lot of changes to myself. Thank you for your advice. What does he say when you ask him to go through Love Busters with you? The suggestions I make involve you interacting with him and coming back and telling us what his response is. The program doesn't work if the wife tries to do it alone.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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JBKT16, I am a little bit worried that in the discussion about jealousy and the discussion about UA time, that this may have been missed. Please reread it: JBKT16, that sounds so much like how Prisca and I used to be. We didn't have a lot of trouble being in love with each other, when we weren't fighting, because we were great at meeting each other's emotional needs. But we were terrible at love busters, and therefore we were terrible at resolving conflicts.
Something I'm seeing here is that you need to keep problems on the front burner. Your husband agreed to do Marriage Builders with you, but then nothing happened for a week. Instead of letting a week go by, bring it up EVERY DAY which will show him it is important to you. Your husband engages in selfish demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts. Each and every time this needs to go on a worksheet like Dr. Harley describes in Love Busters and you need to give him that worksheet each week and keep a record, with him striving to get that worksheet empty for an entire week at a time.
But for this to work you have got to bring it up and keep bringing it up - it is an issue, and it has got to stay an issue.
...
I believe you two need to work through the book Love Busters together, focusing on the first few chapters and exchanging the weekly worksheets Dr. Harley suggests, until the worksheets are empty. Then after Love Busters if you work through He Wins She Wins, you will probably have a great marriage, because it sounds like you already know how to meet each other's emotional needs. Along the way you will learn to resolve the difficulty that he is causing by not giving adequate time to meet your needs.
I would bring this up to your husband EVERY DAY. If he agrees one day, bring it up the next day until he does it. If he refuses or never gets around to it, keep bringing it up, but find out what Dr. Harley suggests. Since your husband said he'll do Marriage Builders with you, order Love Busters and ask him to go through the first few chapters with you and start exchanging the worksheets it suggests. See if he says yes or no. We really need to know what his answer is before going further. I did order the books, the day that y'all advised me to. Just waited to receive them. Despite what everyone thinks I AM serious about changing, and I have already made a lot of changes to myself. Thank you for your advice. What does he say when you ask him to go through Love Busters with you? The suggestions I make involve you interacting with him and coming back and telling us what his response is. The program doesn't work if the wife tries to do it alone. I understand that it won't work with me doing it alone. I think we are heading in the right direction just by him actually following through and bringing up the program (basically saying he was ready to discuss it). We went to dinner and talked through all the basic concepts (he had read them all the night before) and our major issues (which he recognized right away that he was making many more withdrawals than deposits), we both said we would work toward ending all love busters, and to learning to communicate and negotiate better. So far that aspect has been much better, but we were all sick (throwing up) this weekend so the weekend wasn't a good indication of any progress. I don't have the book yet, so I don't know how he will respond when I ask him to go through the book. I have a feeling he will think that what we are doing is enough, but I know we need as much guidance as possible.
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You are not the first one to show up who thought MB had some good ideas, but not all of it was possible. You are not the first to think that your situation was somehow different, and that you'd just have to somehow make it work differently.
I did, too.
It doesn't work. This program WILL NOT WORK if you cherry-pick it to death. I do not think "it has some good ideas..." I think it is 1000% correct, but for some reason y'all are not understanding that he is NOT going to quit his career, and I am not going to divorce him just because he won't. So I want to do the program and would love advice while going through it, but if y'all don't think I am serious then I apologize for wasting your time. It is NOT that I am not willing to make a lifestyle change, I would, but his career is not mine. What does he say when you go to him and say "Honey, I need more time alone with you. I need you to arrange your schedule so we can spend 15 hours a week together, out of the house without the kids." What does he say when you do this? We can't get very far unless we can persuade you to be more insistent with him. When we talked about the 15 hours he said he totally agreed that we were lacking UA time and that it would need to change as well as the love busters. But then his comment was "I don't know if we can get 15 hours but we need to try to get as much as possible". As I mentioned a second ago we were all sick this weekend, so we didn't get to make any progress, or get to discuss anything any further. To add to all the other commitments in his life, his mom is in a re-hab center and he and his sister are taking turns going up and being with her. Which is obviously important, but adds to schedule that much more.
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It takes 15 hours to maintain the romantic love in a marriage and 20 hours to CREATE. If you can get in 4 - 4 hour dates per week while he maintains his job, then his job would work. The dates should be scheduled at a time when you both have the most energy in 2 to 4 hour blocks.
Can you do that? No, we can't, not entirely out of the house anyway. It would be impossible for us as far as time and money is concerned.... So I am just supposed to give up? I know there has to be people who have overcome challenging situations before. What are y'all suggesting, that I divorce him because he won't want to get a new job? Even if he did get a new job, I have been through that with him and he was miserable. He did that for "us" at the beginning of our marriage. He would only resent me for wanting him to quit doing something he is passionate about.
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No, we can't, not entirely out of the house anyway. It would be impossible for us as far as time and money is concerned.... So I am just supposed to give up? I know there has to be people who have overcome challenging situations before. This program does not work without the 15 hours outside of the house.
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I understand that it won't work with me doing it alone. I think we are heading in the right direction just by him actually following through and bringing up the program (basically saying he was ready to discuss it). We went to dinner and talked through all the basic concepts (he had read them all the night before) and our major issues (which he recognized right away that he was making many more withdrawals than deposits), we both said we would work toward ending all love busters, and to learning to communicate and negotiate better.
So far that aspect has been much better, but we were all sick (throwing up) this weekend so the weekend wasn't a good indication of any progress. I don't have the book yet, so I don't know how he will respond when I ask him to go through the book. I have a feeling he will think that what we are doing is enough, but I know we need as much guidance as possible. Tell him you've ordered the book and ask him to go through it with you when it arrives. There's no reason to wait. Tell us how he responds.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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When we talked about the 15 hours he said he totally agreed that we were lacking UA time and that it would need to change as well as the love busters. But then his comment was "I don't know if we can get 15 hours but we need to try to get as much as possible". I would respond to that by saying "But we have to - I absolutely need this much time for you." What does he say to that? BTW, it's great that you went out to dinner - can you start doing that more often each week?
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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It takes 15 hours to maintain the romantic love in a marriage and 20 hours to CREATE. If you can get in 4 - 4 hour dates per week while he maintains his job, then his job would work. The dates should be scheduled at a time when you both have the most energy in 2 to 4 hour blocks.
Can you do that? No, we can't, not entirely out of the house anyway. It would be impossible for us as far as time and money is concerned.... So I am just supposed to give up? I know there has to be people who have overcome challenging situations before. What are y'all suggesting, that I divorce him because he won't want to get a new job? Even if he did get a new job, I have been through that with him and he was miserable. He did that for "us" at the beginning of our marriage. He would only resent me for wanting him to quit doing something he is passionate about. I wouldn't prescribe "quitting the job" as the solution. I would simply insist that this problem has to be solved, somehow - you need him to spend 15 hours per week with you, and if he wants to solve that by rearranging the schedule, changing jobs, or whatever, anything will work as long as it solves that problem. I'm sure he can come up with lots of options, but not if you don't insist that you have to have this from him.
If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app! Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8. Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010 If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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I read in one of the articles that he recommended getting the hours outside of the house was the best. And I agree. But while reading the article I had the feeling it was just 15 hours (without kids or friends around), not that every hour had to be out on a date.
If we got an hour a night alone, in the bedroom, that would be 7 hours. If we took advantage of "nap time" on the weekend (which we did do this saturday before we got sick) that would be another two hours. Then we could get the 6 hours out of the house together. That would be 15 hours. Would a schedule like this not work?
Here's the parts of the article that I was remembering:
"The time you plan to be together should not include children (who are awake), relatives or friends. Establish privacy so that you are better able to give each other your undivided attention.
Throughout our entire married life, most of the time that Joyce and I have spent giving each other undivided attention has been away from our home. That way we were able to avoid interruptions from our children or unexpected company...
When I apply the fifteen-hour principle to marriages, I usually recommend that the time be evenly distributed throughout the week, two to three hours each day. When time must be bunched up -- all hours only on the weekend -- good results are not as predictable. Spouses need to be emotionally reconnected almost on a daily basis to meet each other's most important emotional needs."
These are just a few of the phrases that stood out to me. It makes it very clear that the time must be alone, with no friends or family, but the way I took the article is that he suggest most of the time be out of the house. Not that every hour MUST be out of the house.
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Oh my,
I just read about the unlimited hours a person can work in Texas. And I thought 42 hours was bad (considering normal work week was 36-38 where I used to live...). Here, regular days over 10 hours are illegal...
Well except for emigration, you have to find the time to have fun with your husband. Much of this time, should be spent in blocks of 2-4 hours.
Wednesday:
You could go out with him right after work, if he is ready 17:30 and spend 3 hours relaxing and having fun together.
Saturday: you have 8 hours of time between 13:00 and 21:00 where you can put in 4 hours family time and 4 hours UA time.
Sunday, you also have 12 waking hours and can put in family and UA time.
On 1-2 of the other days, you could have lunch with him, if possible in private, since you are working at the same school.
The thing is, though, that
1. it is very hard to have an integrated life, if your husband is spending so much time away from the family.
2. if anything unexpected comes up, and it always does, you don't have 15 hours and will be stressed because there is no redundance in your schedule.
Is it an option to attend some of the games with him, not to spend time with him during the game, but you could explore the town and drive home with him.
It is dangerous for him to have so much time without you, especially since he is probably mixing with young people who do all kinds of not-marriage-compatible things, like partying with cheerleaders etc.
me, DH
all the children
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Also, since he is coming home after 8, why don't you have the children go to their rooms by 19:30, so you can have time for yourself, untill your husband comes home?
me, DH
all the children
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But while reading the article I had the feeling it was just 15 hours (without kids or friends around), not that every hour had to be out on a date. Yeah, I used to think that too. Those of us pointing out that UA must be done outside of the home have talked to Dr. Harley himself. We have been through the program. I myself have actually argued with him about this. Dr. Harley is the one who maintains that UA must be outside of the home. UA at home simply does not make enough lovebank deposits. It is not effective. It will not work. He talks about this on the radio show as well.
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If you have no kids and hassles and are dating, an hour in between is probably more effective than in your situation.
The problem with an hour in the bedroom in the evening, is that you will be tired and probably will be sleeping together instead of "sleeping" together.
This is not fun time, like the time your husband spends celebrating with his team after they have won. Also, you will notice the clothes laying in the bedroom that have not been folded away, the kids will get up and do all sorts of things (I'm talking "mommy, why is the door locked, I want to a. pee, b. kiss good nigt, c. have you finish my paper for tomorrow, d. give me my school money, e. ask if I can see the end of Star Wars, just this time, f. ...).
It will probably not be a good environment where you can spend time connecting, laughing and talking about the good times, so that you (especially women need time to connect) will be in the best of moods to be romantically seduced. Instead, you will come to dread these sullen and tedious hours, locked up in the bedroom doing whatever you do in the bedroom.
me, DH
all the children
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One problem with spending your time for undivided attention in the house is that at least one of your children will interrupt your privacy. But even if you were to send all of your children out of your hours to child care, the environment of your home is likely to cause you to be less romantic. It's a place where you have been busy caring for children. Going almost anywhere else to be alone, giving each other your undivided attention when you are there, would tend to create more of an opportunity to meet each other's intimate emotional needs.
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Also, since he is coming home after 8, why don't you have the children go to their rooms by 19:30, so you can have time for yourself, untill your husband comes home? I can't do this because then the kids would never see their dad. That is not fair either. They don't stay up much after he gets home, but they are typically still up. The little one is sometimes in bed, if he has a longer than usual night.
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With the Marriage Builders program, you would schedule 15 hours of UA outside the house, AND 15 hours of family commitment time.
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