I am not saying I do everything right. If I did everything right I would not be here. I did not say you were wrong. I think you are 100% correct.

All I was saying is that I normally do not take work calls while with my wife. This morning was an exception due to the nature of the person who called me.

I was also saying that my talk with my wife was about products she likes also. I know that I can be obsessive about topics I like and probably bore my wife to death.

Well, you point blank rejected every suggestion I made. By all means, go on doing telling me that everything you did was appreciated, but I don't think it will help you improve your marriage. I also will not waste my time if that's how my points will be received.

I'll tell you something (and you can reject this too, if you like):

I love Apple products. I love them aesthetically, as artefacts, and I admire the seamless interface between hardware and software - the stuff just works. Other stuff frustrates.

But I don't want to have a conversation about them - not for more than about a minute, and I certainly would not find a conversation about them with my husband "intimate". If I was slightly hoping that my H and I might...just..spark a bit of romance after a difficult period, and if we spent the morning together and he then got excited about Apple products, I would respond, and listen...but the conversation would not light a fire. I don't get "excited" about Apple products. I do get excited when my H suggests that we go away for the weekend, or asks if I'd like him to get tickets to see my favourite group, and suggests that we make a whole day of it, since the concert is at the seaside and the weather should be nice.

Make sure it's about her and not about you. That's all. She's withdrawn and last week had one foot out of the door.

Point taken. I apologize.

I really could not have an intimate conversation with her since we were in a waiting room. I was just excited she was talking to me.

I would love to go away for the weekend or even an overnight date, but I don't think she is anywhere near talking about that.

I would suggest the weekend away or overnight to her anyway. You might be very surprised at her answer. In the past even when I felt I was dead last on my husbands list of priorities, I would almost jump at his suggestion of a night away with him. It might be just what she needs to show her that you are truly sorry for your inappropriate visit to the hospital without her, and that she is what you care about most in life. She is so important to you that you will leave everything behind for a weekend or an overnight and focus just on her. The trick however, is that you have to actually focus just on her. No work calls, nothing but UA time meeting her needs.

That is just another disrespectful judgement. You need to learn what these are, and avoid doing them, with all your might. Assuming you know what your wife thinks, how she feels and what she would say about a suggestion, is disrespectful. And although you have only said that on here, what you are doing at home is NOT suggesting otherwise enjoyable things (things that most wives enjoy; a weekend away) because you assume that, because she avoids you now, at home, she wouldn't want to go away with you. If you put the suggestion to her, and ask her how she would like to spend a weekend away, you might well find that she loves the idea - especially if she gets to choose what to do.

The poster markos has had to struggle to learn to recognise when he DJd his own very withdrawn wife (Prisca, who posts here). They were only able to turn their marriage around to the state where it is very happy now, by painstakingly learning what the other spouse saw as a DJ. I think markos has said that it took him more than two years, and several emails to Dr Harley (as well as doing the online course), before he began to understand where his wife saw DJs in his words. In fact, I believe he has said that he did not always understand why they were DJs to her, but he finally learned that this did not matter; he did not have to understand WHY, and certainly he did not have to agree with her assessment. He only had to understand that they WERE DJs, and then he had to practice not doing the things she complained about - without asking "why".

You have a very serious problem with a withdrawn wife, and I'm still not sure, from your response to me yesterday, "I really could not have an intimate conversation with her since we were in a waiting room. I was just excited she was talking to me...I would love to go away for the weekend or even an overnight date, but I don't think she is anywhere near talking about that."

...whether you understood the point I was trying to make.

I wasn't trying to say that your wife does not feel enthusiastic about talking about Apple products, because I don't.

And I wasn't trying to say that you should have offered to take your wife away for the weekend - sitting there in the doctor's waiting room.

I was trying to say that you need to put all your focus on making any time you spend with your as enjoyable as possible FOR HER. I didn't read anything in your earlier post that suggested that you had done this.

In fact, your words about the talk in the waiting room were, "We went there and as we were waiting I talked to her about the new Apple products that were announced yesterday ( I am a big fan)."

You said that you talked, and you said that you are the big fan. You did not say anything to suggest that she led the talk about the products; perhaps she did, but you didn't say so, and I was dealing with what you wrote. It came across to me as your having talked excitedly about your passion, while she let you. That might seem like great conversation to you, because you were talking about something you love, and your wife didn't actually tell you to shut up, but I'm trying to get you to ask yourself whether that was great conversation for her. Do you really know that it was?

The issue I'm trying to focus on is not actually about a conversation about Apple yesterday in the waiting room; it does not sound as if anything went wrong there, and I'm sure it was not a big deal.

The big deal is about what you should do when you have a chance for conversation with your wife. You should focus on her, and her interests. Dr Harley makes men work quite hard on this, because so many of them don't realise the benefit that this brings to their marriage. They think that they are doing quite a good job as husbands - or at least, not at all bad - and they don't know why their wives are not in love, or are reluctant to make love, or, in your case, why she spends all her free time with your daughter, and tries to avoid spending time with you. Spending time with you is not as enjoyable as it should be, and I think that how you talk to her, and what you talk about, is a big part of that problem (reference the talks you have about your kids).

"Intimate" conversation does not have to mean talking about love and sex; it means talking to your wife, without setting her straight, about whatever she is interested in.

Here is a tip that I have had to learn about the love bank.

Your spouse has units put in, or taken out, by your behavior...REGARDLESS of your intentions, reasoning or circumstances surrounding the behavior.

For instance, my spouse has DS as a large need. When he comes home from work and the house is a big mess, he feels frustrated and it takes away love units from his love bank. For a long, long time I wanted to justify *why* the house was not clean...well I had a lot of running to do that day, spent all day on a organizing project and didn't get a chance to pick up, whatever. It took me awhile to realize that it just didn't matter. His love bank was impacted regardless of what I did that day or what my reasons were for a messy house. Maybe it isn't my fault, but ultimately his love bank is still impacted negatively.

So then I stopped justifying why I wasn't able to meet his ENs and focus on how to meet them regardless of the situation.

In this case you are telling us why you just HAD to take that phone call. It doesn't matter. Maybe you would have lost your job, I don't know. But it doesn't really matter when it comes to your wife's love bank, you withdrew units no matter what your justification was. So you need to ask yourself each time a situation like this comes up, whether it is worth withdrawing units for.

And please tell me you did not justify to your wife why you had to take the call. She may have known it was unavoidable (if it was), but it bothered her either way and made her feel unimportant.

Thank you sugarcane, that puts a lot into perspective. I make a lot of decisions based on what or how I think my wife will react when I should just go ahead and ask her. She will tell me what she thinks. Looking at your post, I see that DJ probably is my biggest lovebuster.

I am also working on getting rid of annoying habits that my wife has complained about, on which i have done nothing because i thought they were no big deal. Example is I leave a few pairs of shoes underneath a table by the garage door so that I can slip them on when I need them. Last night before she got home I put them in the closet where they belong. After I shaved before bed last night, I made sure to clean the sink real good afterwards. I know this a minute things I am doing, but I am trying to get on the right track.

When we finally went to bed, I hugged her goodnight and she hugged me back for the 1st time in a week. This hug led to much more and she did not hesitate or withdraw. In fact, she kinda initiated it.

This morning I cooked her breakfast and she allowed me to. She has a few errands she needs me to run and I stated that I should be able to get them all done before I get home.

These things are not minute, and you are doing a very good job to take them seriously.

Or rather - maybe they are minute, but if you understand the concept of the love bank, you will see that you cannot afford to make any withdrawals when it is running low, or in the negative, as I suspect yours is with your wife. Also, things that are minute in a good marriage become much larger in a bad marriage, as resentment grows at the fact that you never listen to her, don't care about things that matter to her, treat her badly, (and this last straw of having seen that other woman recently).

Remind me: do you have Dr Harley's book Love Busters? You will not make any long-term progress in your marriage unless you treat this as your instruction manual.

I do have the book. I will start reading it again. I am pretty sure I didn't get very far into it the first time.

When was "the first time"? What made you get it then?

You need to read a section of it every day, and make notes on it.

Did you listen to the radio show yesterday?

I started reading it right after my wife discovered my porn habit/addiction.

I did not listen to the radio show yesterday. I will do that now. (If I can figure out how.)

Just click the link to "Marriage Builders Radio" in the red area at the top of every page on this site.

Listening now.

If you do this on a desktop Mac, the programme is downloaded to iTunes as an MP3 file, so you keep it (and can listen again!). I don't know how it works on a portable device.

My work computer is not a Mac

I will come up with a plan so I can listen daily.

In what way does she "get mad"? What does she say about why she is annoyed? Why would it annoy a wife for a husband to want to read stuff to improve their marriage? Did she see you as a hypocrite when your reading did not change your behaviour?

And since you've just told me that you last read a Harley book about 8 years ago, how can you know that she would be like that now?

You are again painting her as unreasonable and downright difficult, and when you did this about your seeing that other woman, it took quite a bit of work on our part for you to see that the unreasonable, difficult spouse was YOU.

You need to ask your wife how she would feel if you downloaded the app. This would be a good opportunity for you to also try and sell MB to her, if you sense that the conversation is going well.

But your home computer is, so download today's file when you get home.

She just says she doesn't want to hear anything quoted from books. She said that just a few weeks ago.

She has stated in the past (within the last year) to a friend that she knows I would do anything, take any class, go to any group that she asked me to to improve our marriage. The one area I have told her that I did not want to do again was marriage counseling. We have done that before and we both agree they just make things worse.

We did do the Daily devotional Dr. Harley wrote about two years ago. We probably did it for about a month, but got stuck on an exercise and did not continue. My wife has stated that she liked it when I would read to her at night, but me being a coward and afraid she would reject the idea (I know that is a DJ), I have not pursued it again. I am afraid she would reject it because i only think of doing it again when we are in a bad place.

In what context? What book were you quoting from, and why?

Is she saying that she would do this too?

The one area I have told her that I did not want to do again was marriage counseling. We have done that before and we both agree they just make things worse. [/quote]
That's good, because we would never tell you go to to MC. We agree that it makes things worse.

Well, I'm glad you recognise the DJs in this account.

The thing is, I think you give up too easily. You find an excuse for so many suggestions. Yes, your wife might have said certain things in the past, but from what you write above, she is keener on the idea of working to improve your marriage than you seem to realise.