Remark, if I were you I would go home and start spending 30 enjoyable hours a week with my wife and stop judging her for feeling differently about family than you do, and stop seeing my family.

Markos,

Why do you say I'm judging her? I'm just saying it isn't tenable for me long-term for me not to have my family in my life. Didn't you say that you "didn't have that gene (in your DNA)" also?

Thanks,
Remark

You're going to have to choose: your wife or your family. You cannot have both.

It is possible for you to live long term without your family, if you choose to. People do it all the time. Markos did, for awhile, and was prepared to do it for the rest of his life.

It all comes down to what's more important to you. Is your family more important than your wife? Then you need to move on, because recovery of your marriage will be impossible.

Remark, you are judging her by acting like there's something abnormal or wrong with her for wanting to be placed ahead of your family.

You have learned here at Marriage Builders that in order to have a good marriage, a man needs to not provide care for anyone, even his own family, unless his wife is enthusiastic about it.

NO MAN has a good marriage without following this rule.

Yet you are still telling her you wouldn't have married her if you had known that she felt this way.

The problem is that you don't want to follow the rules of having a good marriage, but you are saying that she is the problem. You are wishing that she was some kind of woman who would be happy without following this rule. This isn't much different from telling a woman "If I had known you wanted me to refrain from using porn, I wouldn't have married to you." The rules against porn and the rules against spending time with family members over your wife's objections are both equally important for having a good marriage, and there's nothing wrong with a wife expecting her husband to follow these rules.

I explained all of this to you months ago. The problem seems to be that you don't want to follow the rules that would save your marriage. You've agreed to follow them many times, but you don't do it. You act like there's something wrong with your wife for expecting you to follow these rules. You seem to think there are women out there who are happy without their husbands living this way. That's a mistake - any marriage will be destroyed if a husband or wife carves out exceptions to the policy of joint agreement.

Markos,

Thanks, I understand that. By the same token, God calls us to be in relationship, especially family.

Hopefully, Steven Harley can POJA something with us.

Thanks,
Remark

Baloney, Remark. Leave and Cleave trumps all, buddy.

Actually, God doesn't.

Matthew 19:4-8.4And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH '? 6"So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."

7They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?" 8He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart..."

SO TRUE!!!

Exactly. You can wish this truth away, be mad about it, be defiant about it, complain about it, but it won't disappear. It just IS.

If you need internet, Remark, go to a coffee shop or book store.


If youdont want to have the forum call out your bad behavior, pretend you don't know how to get internet access. (Which you appear to have done last week.)

I don't understand, Remark. We have discussed before that God calls you to be in relationship with your wife, keeping the covenant you made with her, and everything else is secondary.

Your religious beliefs on this subject don't line up with the Bible, and they don't make your wife happy. You've changed your mind on this several times, apparently. Sometimes you agree with me, and sometimes you disagree.

God does not call you to care for adult children in ways your wife is not enthusiastic about. God calls you to leave them all if that's what it takes to keep the covenant you have with your wife.

Remark, tell Steve I said hi!

Didnt,
Where/when did she agree to 30 hours of something?
You are intentionally/unintentionally being oppositional here. She doesn�t have to agree to 30 hrs. It is Your goal.

Originally Posted by DidntQuit

So what things are you willing to let him do to fill your love bank? Are you willing to set a schedule like Sugar suggested?

Would you consider the online program now? This way is not going to work.

Here is her agreement.

Originally Posted by JustDaytoDay

Oh, and also, I would be willing to "let" him do the 110+ pages of things suggested to him on his thread -- the things that he can't remember.

It looks like you have some research/remembering to do.
Are you willing?


Sure, pleasant dates I'm all over. I've wanted "dates" for a long time but been rejected.
Figure out which days and times work for her, and then make a plan for where you are going. You figured it out when you were dating. Please don�t react to any negativity which comes from her. If she agrees, then she agrees. Show up on time and Move forward with a focus on having fun!! Are you willing to move forward?


I'm just tired of being the source of all things bad to her.
That may be true. But you DO have the power to change this. It is a CHOICE.

We have been here to hold your hand long enough.
At this point, you will either decide to make the hard changes or you won't. But please don't tell us that you want to be a "Harley husband" but then not be willing. You are the one who needs to step up and do the right thing in your marriage.

We've both been miserable for years and she's done a good job of explaining to me how we're too different to keep the marriage going. But, sure, I'll not give up.
She�s says that hoping that you will disagree or prove her wrong. She is holding out for a glimmer of hope that you care. STOP agreeing with her. Just ignore that baloney. If you were just like her she never would have married you. Wouldn�t marriage be so easy if we all thought the same and acted the same? Not EVER gonna happen. You BOTH need to adjust. So please don�t look at that as an excuse.


I'm working on a mutually agreeable time slot with Steven Harley.
Good. Please don�t forget to include your wife in the scheduling.
I would suggest that you send a concise email in advance about your perspective of the family issue, and your separated status.

You are the husband. The husband woos the wife. She is under no obligation whatsoever to bat her eyes and give come hither looks at a negligent husband. Indeed, given that you think your current behaviour is acceptable it would be downright misleading of her to act like everything is hunky dory.

You have done ZILCH to pursue her: you could at the very least have gotten into work five mins earlier, or posted here during your lunch to let her know you are at least trying to find out HOW to pursue her.

Not only that, but taking time OFF work to feather your own nest and spend time with your son and eat at his favourite restaurant is quite simply just putting two fingers up to your marriage. You forgot her because your family comes first AGAIN and she quite frankly does not. That's what your actions say, even if the feelings are closer to rejection.

Look, if you want to prioritize your family - just don't be married. Divorce JD2D and let her go be with someone who doesn't quit and who shows up heal her hurts rather than lay carpet. Then just get used to living alone, because I honestly don't know how you convinced someone to marry you.

I am thinking of my boyfriend when we first met - he was moving and had no plumbing and was trying to do a hundred things at once. He would still text me hourly, wanted to know when he could see me and I got first refusal over who was having dinner with the day of the move. And when I did refuse, he didn't quit but kept pursuing me. That's the kind of thing a woman expects from someone she just met, just in order to decide he's worth a date.

Most women will run a million miles when they hear your opinions about family being anywhere near as important as the marital bond. It's not God who's telling you to neglect your wife for your family. The truth is they don't need you as much and there's no risk of letting them down. It's an easier goal for you, that's all

You'd rather fail than try with someone who actually needs you.

Am I missing anything? Did you send her flowers? Text her? Call her? Invite her out? Accept her refusals in a sexy 'I'll keep trying' way?

Or were your only interactions limited to running into her accidentally, making her the third wheel at dinner and forgetting her?

Then don't be a husband. You can't promise to forsake all others and then not do it.

Dr H does sometimes advise parents (usually when children are still in the home) not to get married because they are not in a position to prioritize a spouse.

Are you?

Then I have news for you, you will live a life not long from now without your family, because life on earth is not eternal and the human mortality rate approaches 100%.
This "family problem" is 100% self made by Remark. Had you been a man and had you protected your wife's rights as vigorously as you protect your own rights, there would have been no problem at all.

But being a whimp when it comes to standing firmly for your new nuclear family and running to your family to complain about the mean wifey is exactly what brought you to this place. After years of taking the back seat and taking punches, she is now in a place where she gets aggravated by the mere mention of your family. Of course you don't see it that way, because you have been walking all over her feelings without feeling the pain, they are not your feelings after all.

Remark, you are living the marriage of my own parents. My father has always run to his own family for support against his wife. How do you think that worked out? She could drink their blood.
And as to my own parents-in-law, ten years ago, I bought a book about in-laws, with the German title "next sunday I think I will commit murder". It was only after my husband started standing up for me and not throwing me under the bus by giving in to every wish of the family, often before this wish was even uttered, that I have gotten a closer relationship with my in-laws. Now, my heart does not start pounding if I see their number on the phone and I do not hate them. But I will tell you I did, because they cared nothing about my feelings, or did not realize I had any or that they were important. They would probably much rather have gone on living like that, and I would be tagging along, nothing more than an appendage of my husband, or at least a grand-children-bearing-machine, that should please refrain from talking during family functions and certainly not have own opinions that - God forbid - would differ from theirs - which were of course the God-given norm.

I totally get that at this moment you are just as out of love as your wife. But you have the key to a happy marriage in your hands. And that key is to stop the talking, stop the remodeling of your independant lifestyle condo and start having some fun with your wife. Why don't you take a week off and go on vacation with her, preferably to a place without telephone and such. Just the two of you with many new things to explore and see, so that you would have a neutral theme to talk about? It will take seriously fun dating time to get your marriage on track.

You seem like a person to me who does well in many areas of your life. It just seems, that your wife has been a vehicle to you, to your means. Just like a car, or a job. Someone who fulfilled functions for you that met your needs and that did not need much thought or consideration. I do not say that you have never considered your wife, but you have probably considered and accomodated her in way that would come logical or natural to you. You have been neglecting the parts of her, that are not obvious to you and that, although understandable, has been a very major mistake. Because you have ignored the little warning lights in the car, you are now having motor problems. The solution is not that the car is just dumb. The solution is to take better care of the whole system.

I am concerned that you fail to see your own influence in this situation and that will be you undoing. By blaming your wife in the secrecy of your own mind, you can keep feeling self-righteous. Only if you start loving your neighbour as you love yourself and start loving your wife as Christ loves the church, you will find the strenght to do the right thing and humble yourself to see what you could have done differently.

I see a lot of good potential in your situation and the only thing that is lacking is some energy to get the two of you feeling in love again, to attain the state of intimacy. In that state, things will practically solve themselves. To reach that state though, you will have to go a few months without lovebusting and with filling her love bank.

What is your plan for persueing her?

X2.

It's not the family who are the problem, it's the obsession with making them more important. If R had always put his wife first, she would likely have a close relationship with them.

The carpet thing is a stunning example. With marriage on life support, he goes to his son for distraction and comfort and to forget his wife.

The family is Nero's fiddle. He plays with them while Home burns.

That's why you have to exclude them - not because of JD2Ds attitude towards them - but yours.

Yep.

That is the really sad, really ironic, really tragic thing about all this.

Yes, I agree. I aid early on that my mismanagement of the kids and wife has caused all of this. And it's to a point where JD2D can't forgive and I can't seem to remedy.

Remark