Her words, not mine.

Her words, not mine.

And certainly never talk to her about her family or upbringing in this tone, it would offend anyone who doesn't feel as negatively about their own family. Maybe she's said those words too about them first, but otherwise, you should not be. At all.

She has also felt that way. And I came from a fairly similar background. And our parents have changed too in the meantime. The "villians" are the religious leaders/way of life that our families followed and that we bought into ourselves - that is what I mean by her upbringing - its mine too. We don't talk about our parents as the bad guys, but as misguided "victims", just as we were. And the feeling is mutual. Its been a journey for both of us and we have grown up and out of it together.

Was this IBLP, by any chance?

Me yes. Her background was similar and heavily influenced by it, but not part of it.

My approach to conflict resolution in marriage is that a husband and wife need each other's perspective to find the wisest resolution. So when a conflict arises, it's an opportunity to learn more about each other while discovering win-win alternatives. With my background, and Joyce's, it wasn't too difficult to apply that principle to our marriage. It was my parents, former Mennonites who had been taught that wives should do what their husbands tell them to do, who eventually rejected that notion and applied the principle of equality to their marriage, providing me a healthy example.

There's a sense in which you are in my parent's position with the struggle you face to find win-win resolutions to conflicts. It's your children who will benefit most by your efforts, but you will both struggle somewhat with the religious and theoretical implications of it all, as my parents did.

Because my parents cared greatly for each other, they grew together as they made the transition, and it looks as if that will happen to you as well. You both care greatly for each other, and that care will help you see the wisdom of accommodating each other's perspective whenever you make a decision. By avoiding demands, disrespect, and anger whenever you face a conflict, and discussing the issue with an effort to gain insight into each other's perspective, you will gradually get to a point where a conflict is no longer a threat to you. Instead, like Joyce and I feel, it will be an opportunity to grow closer together. You will no longer feel unsafe, but instead, feel his good will toward you.

Best wishes,
Dr. Harley

Me yes. Her background was similar and heavily influenced by it, but not part of it.

But when it comes to her, her spoken or written word needs to be the gospel truth on what is happening inside her head, how she feels, or why she did/didn't do something. Anything else you conjure up to explain it is dangerous to your marriage and will destroy her feelings for you.

What if she doesn't know why she does things or feels a certain way?

I think God has really led you guys to the right place.

Will your wife post here?

If you want to fix your marriage and get your wife back on board, start a list of all these ways people are saying that you are disrespectful, and start practicing eliminating them.

I just asked her to forgive me for the ways I've been disrespectful. She responded well and asked me to forgive her for the same things.

Very likely at some point. But probably not if she reads the suspicions of an affair earlier in this thread.

As men we are systematic thinkers...we want to understand the inner workings of things, how they operate, etc.

DBack, I would strongly suggest you get the book Lovebsuters, so you can find out ways you are love busting her and eliminate them. Most of us had no idea about common mistakes until we read that. Eliminating all love busters will be the first step in turning this around and attracting your wife back to you.

[So is Dr Harley. So there is some place for that, if done right, no? Last night I was reading one of his articles about a wife with an Electric Fence personality, as he called it.
He proceeded to explain why that led her to make the choices she did.

As a clinical psychologist who has been in direct therapy with 50,000 individuals and supervised over 600 counselors, I have not found that resolving issues of the past does much to help people deal with issues of the present. In most cases I've witnessed, it makes matters worse because it drags the most unpleasant experiences of the past into the present. I know that my perspective is in conflict with many therapists who are trained to treat the past before they can treat the present, but I have yet to see any convincing evidence that this approach is more effective than letting the past stay in the past. My personal experience is that dredging up the past actually increases the risk of suicide and other dangerous symptoms of mental disorders. Another important reason that I am opposed to bringing up issues of the past is that it wastes time. When you could be forming an effective plan and putting the plan into motion to resolve an issue of the present, you spend months, and even years focused on the past while the problems of the present keep building up, eventually burying the client.

In your situation, I strongly recommend that you not waste your time talking about the past. And don't try analyzing your husband. I know that his affair was a terrible shock to your system, and you want to feel closure. You have been terribly disillusioned by what he did, but the best you can do under the circumstances is look to the future instead of the past. Don't discuss the past with your husband or anyone else for a while, and see if you don't agree with me that it helps improve your relationship and it also causes you to be more relaxed. Focusing on the past causes depression, while focusing on the future with an eye to making it successful causes optimism and gives you energy.
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2413831#Post2413831

"Some counselors think it's a good idea to "resolve issues of the past" by talking about them week after week, month after month, year after year. It keeps these counselors in business, but does nothing to resolve the issue. In fact, it usually makes their poor clients chronically depressed.

My experience as a Clinical Psychologist has proven to me that dredging up unpleasant experiences of the past merely brings the unhappiness of the past into the present. The problems of the present are difficult enough to solve without spending time and energy trying to resolve issues of the past, which are essentially unresolvable. You can make your future happy, but you can't do a thing about bad experiences of the past, except think and talk about them -- and that makes the bad experiences of the past, bad experiences of the present." Dr. Willard Harley

An analysis of the wayward spouse's childhood or emotional state of mind in an effort to discover why he or she would have an affair is distracting and unnecessary. It takes precious time away from finding the real solutions. I know why people have affairs: We are all wired for it. Given certain conditions, we would all do it. Given other conditions, however, none of us would do it. So the goal of the first step is to discover the conditions that made the affair possible and eliminate them.

One of the reasons I'm not so keen on dredging up the past as a part of therapy is that it brings up memories that carry resentment along with them. If I'm not careful, a single counseling session can open up such a can of worms that the presenting problem gets lost in a flood of new and painful memories. If the goal of therapy is to "resolve" every past issue, that seems to me to be a good way to keep people coming for therapy for the rest of their lives. That's because it's an insurmountable goal. We simply cannot resolve everything that's ever bothered us.

Instead, I tend to focus my attention on the present and the future, because they are what we can all do something about. The past is over and done with. Why waste our effort on the past when the future is upon us. Granted, it's useful to learn lessons from the past, but if we dwell on the past, we take our eyes off the future which can lead to disaster.

I personally believe that therapy should focus most attention, not on the past, but on ways to make the future sensational.

So is Dr Harley. So there is some place for that, if done right, no? Last night I was reading one of his articles about a wife with an Electric Fence personality, as he called it.
He proceeded to explain why that led her to make the choices she did.

I do want to be careful to not disrespect her with negative stereotypes. But isn't it also important to know yourselves, and each other?

Thanks, I read the first chapter online last night. Still looking for a local copy so I don't have to wait on delivery. Our library seems to have it somewhere.

Thanks, I read the first chapter online last night. Still looking for a local copy so I don't have to wait on delivery. Our library seems to have it somewhere.