Thanks for the link!

As good a deal as that seems - especially when compared to the 45-50 minute telephone session fee - it will take us 6 months or more to save up enough to purchase that. Credit card = not an option.

So - at least for now - we will have to stick to what we can learn from HNHN and the rest of the articles, questionnaires, and other options available on line.

Honestly, after the lack of effort from him during the last 11 years - it will probably take me moving on to Plan B for him to agree to the on line course anyway. Through our security system - I can see him right now. He is off work today. After promises to read the book, he has spent most of the day on the computer. I hope to check the internet history and at least find one trip to MB.com. Just one. I think that it is probably not going to be that way though. My guess is that he has been playing his favorite game. I will give benefit of the doubt and endeavor to believe that he may have read a chapter earlier today. I hope so.

You may not have seen the history - but after multiple attempts at counseling and his lack of effort - I am no longer certain that I want to save the marriage. This is a last ditch effort and will require some major changes. My love bank is completely empty, in fact has been in the negative most of the time lately. So even though I am willing to try, I can no longer pretend and I will not be the only one who does the research and work this time. When we discussed things over the weekend - I was not very upset at all when he sounded like he didn't want to bother. That is a problem.

I am here because we still love each other (just not romantically), have such a history, and we still have 2 kids at home. 20 years is a long time. The financial thing stops us from doing the on line course - we can't get around that right now. Any other hesitation on his part to do the questionnaires or research pretty much seems like a final nail in the coffin to me.

There are much cheaper options, without the coach. Go back to the link and look at programmes 1 and 2, down the left hand side.

Got it - thanks! Yes - I missed those other links.

We will see how things go with the questionnaires tonight and the CDs for HNHN. They should arrive in the next week or so. If he can't even bring himself to listen to those - I don't have much hope.

Just be careful not to set him up for failure. That is an easy mistake to fall into. Especially easy when it is someone you have been married to for 20 years so you know his weaknesses better than your own :-)

Agreed. That is why I ordered the CDs. I am pretty sure if I expect him to continue to read the book (if he even started), I will be disappointed. The CDs should make it much easier on him. He could listen on the way to and from work, etc.

Surely my expectations of him caring enough to listen to the CDs are not too much. If they are - please point me to an article or section of the HNHN book that will help me adjust. I do not want to be unreasonable but I am already stifling the urge to make a disrespectful judgement here. I feel that it is not a big deal to read a book, especially one that will help you figure out how to meet your spouse's needs and possibly be a huge step in saving a 20 year marriage, but then I am not him.

Spotted this while reading about UA time today... it is us. Makes me cry.

You can only work on you. It is his job to work on him. Complain respectfully when he does not meet your needs. At the end of dinner or first thing in the morning are often good times. Any time when you are calm and collected and when you can get his undivided attention.

You keep repeating the complaint without threats or disrespect. Let him work out HOW to solve the problem. Saying that it is not a big deal to read a book is disrespectful. Of course if he asks, you can always offer him a suggestion :-)

However, ultimately you may find that you need plan B to get his attention. That is not something you should threaten him with.

-- I am going to delay the EN and LB questionnaires and more discussion so that I can post and maybe get some replies to this Plan A letter. I'd like to avoid any love busters with this. --

Dear Husband,

We had quite a discussion over the weekend. I am writing to remind us both about some points that were made and apologize again for my part in allowing our marriage to get to this point. I am so sorry for everything and that I have been pretending everything was ok.

I have admitted that I am not in love with you and that I need my most important emotional needs to be met in order to fall back in love with you.

You admitted that you are not as in love with me as you used to be. You also agreed to try Marriage Builders, including reading His Needs, Her Needs. I know that you really don't like to read - so it means a great deal to me that you have agreed to this. I am hoping to make things a little easier - so I have ordered the CDs in case you'd like to listen instead. They should be here in a week or so.

We both still love each other - but we are not in romantic love right now. I have some questionnaires that can help us identify important emotional needs and love busters.

Part of working on restoring romantic love is that we must agree to spend 15 hours of undivided attention with each other per week. Working on these questionnaires together will count toward that time.

What I am willing to offer is that I will read the book again and do more research on line. In case you'd like to see it - the web site is www.marriagebuilders.com. It has been very helpful to me in recognizing some of the love busters of which I am guilty. I will work hard to learn about your emotional needs and love busters and try to meet the needs and avoid the love busters. I will also listen to your thoughts as we discuss this letter and try to brainstorm ways to work things out.

I hope that you'll join me in working to restore romantic love to our marriage.

With love,
me

Just checking in... I am glad to say (and was pleasantly surprised) that hubby read the first chapter of HNHN.

Does anyone have feedback on that Plan A letter?

Missgeorgie, I would try a different approach. Put aside the questionnaires and instead focus all your energy on UA time and eliminating lovebusters.

For your UA time, you will want to schedule 20-25 hours per week out on DATES meeting the top 4 intimate emotional needs of affection, conversation, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment. It should be scheduled out of the house in order to maximize effectiveness. If you don't do this step, then nothing you do will ever work. [when Dr Harley was in private practice, he refused to take on anyone who would not do this because "my program will not work" otherwise."]

The UA time will make the fastest deposits to your lovebanks and you will see a huge difference in 8 weeks. You need to do this right so you get the biggest bang for your buck.

It takes 20-25 hours to CREATE romantic love and 15 hours to MAINTAIN. So if you just did 15 hours, you aren't going to get too far. Doing the 20-25 hours for a couple of months should get you into the love zone so you can scale back.

Here is the worksheet for your UA time. Dr Harley recommends sitting down every Sunday afternoon and completing this together. http://www.marriagebuilders.com//graphic/mbi4508_tuaw.html

Do you have the book Lovebusters? One of the best ways to eliminate lovebusters is to buy 2 copies of the book and read a lesson or two every other night. Eahc of you will highlight sections that stand out to you in your books and then exchange the books. You would then do the lessons in the back of each chapter. There are also workbook pages associated with that book.

Dear Husband,

We had quite a discussion over the weekend. I am writing about some points that were made and apologize again for my part in allowing our marriage to get to this point. I am so sorry for everything and that I have been pretending everything was ok.

More than anything I want us to be happy and in love. I know that this plan will work if you are willing to follow the program with me. The end result is that we will fall back in love again. I want that more than anything.

The fastest, most effective way to do this is to begin going out on several dates every week and meeting each other's intimate emotional needs of affection, conversation, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment. The idea is to have fun, romantic dates. The suggestion is to schedule 4 4 hour dates every week and to plan them out every Sunday afternoon. This will make us fall in love the quickest.

The next step, which we can do simultaneously is to spend 2 hours a week doing the lessons in Lovebusters. It has been very helpful to me in recognizing some of the love busters of which I am guilty. I will work hard to learn about your love busters and try to avoid them. I will also listen to your thoughts as we discuss this letter and try to brainstorm ways to work things out.

I hope that you'll join me in working to restore romantic love to our marriage.

With love,
me [/quote]

Thanks MelodyLane!

I am feeling so ambivalent about things at this point - but I definitely did tell him last weekend that I don't want to divorce - what I want is to be back in love with my husband. I don't know if that's my pride and not wanting to feel like a failure, or if it is genuinely hoping to be in love with him again. I don't think he has cracked the book since Monday. I told him yesterday that I had ordered the CDs for us. Hopefully he uses those.

I will include those changes in the letter. I don't know that we can get 20 hours outside of the house... but we should be able to get 20 hours together.

What would you be doing? And how many hours outside of the house can you get?

That would require some brainstorming as well. My initial thoughts are that we could go for walks together for an hour or half hour each day... so that's 3.5 to 7 hours. Backup plan for weather would be an inside track or other inside physical activity (like weight training). We could set up a weekly 4 hour date for dinner and a movie... new total, 11 hours. That potentially takes care of a little over half of the time. I'd like to talk this over with him so that he can agree/disagree with those and come up with his own ideas for the rest of the allotted time.

He hasn't cracked the book again since Jan 25th. The CDs arrived over the weekend. I am still hopeful that he will take them and listen in his car. Right now they are still in our room.

I had an angry outburst yesterday and I need to apologize for it. I feel my anger was justified - but the outburst was not. I could have expressed my anger in a calm manner. He was doing one of his annoying behaviors. (I was sick and it was too much trouble for him to go to the store to get food for our home and child for the week.) I said some mean things. Told him behavior like that was part of what made me not want to be married any longer. While that is true - I should not have said it so harshly. Even though I know all of that - there is still this part of me that just wants him out. I wonder sometimes if I am subconsciously being mean to try to get him to leave. The roller coaster goes on... today is a low. I just want to be off.

Your time together needs to be in 2-4 hour blocks in order to be effective. Can you join a gym and work out together? Can you get in more dates than that? And a movie is not a good way to spend a date unless you already have 20 hours. You can't meet each others needs during a movie becuase your attention is on the movie. My H and I go to movies, but it does not count as UA time.

It is real important to get this piece right and let me explain why. When you are changing habits, you must see a return on your investment fairly quickly or you and your H will stop doing it. Therefore, you need to do go all out and do this right. If you do it right, pretty soon you will be looking forward to it and won't miss it for the world.


I would focus more on getting out on enjoyable dates and eliminating lovebusters.


Your anger was not justified at all. What you did was a selfish demand coupled with a disrespectful judgement. You decided that grocery shopping must be done and used his reluctance as a baseball bat against him. So this is more than an angry outburst and I hope you recognize this. Have you read the book lovebusters?

]
Not complying with your demands is not an annoying behavior.

Understood about the movies. Yes we can join a gym and work out together. Have done it before. And then it turned out to be just me going after about 2 months.


While I will certainly try to focus on going on enjoyable dates... if I am having difficulty avoiding lovebusters after having gained at least partial understanding of them... how is he going to avoid them if he doesn't even learn what they are? Or do you mean for me to avoid them as a continued part of Plan A whether he learns or not?


I'm confused. I did not make a demand. I asked him if he would go since I was sick. Maybe my saying how his behavior made me feel like I didn't want to be married could be perceived as a threat - but that wasn't the intention of the comment.

I have not read the LB book. I have only read HN,HN and learned of the LBs through this website (basic concepts). Does the LB book provide different or more detailed definitions compared to the website?

I went back and re-read the definitions here on the site, and aside from what I mentioned above about a perceived threat, I don't see how my request = selfish demand. I did not push him to go. I got up and went myself. Yes - I should have found a better way to tell him that I saw his reluctance as a lack of domestic support. (Which is definitely annoying especially since it happens all the time. Domestic support may be low on the EN totem pole - but it is still there.)

After reading them again, I do see the disrespectful judgement. I admit - that is going to be super tough for me to avoid. I thought that he should care for me the way I would care for him if he had been sick... the way I HAVE cared for him when he was sick. And that is what made me angry. It seemed unjust.

So - how can we express our thoughts without it coming off as a disrespectful judgement if we feel that our spouse is not meeting our emotional need for domestic support? He and I were raised differently so there are different values and beliefs, even after 20 years. His mom did everything that was 'domestic'. My parents had a more equal partnership. Is that a case maybe where we have to reach POJA on each others expectations? Chore charts? With special *** sections for when someone is sick?

-- Editing to add...

I will be the only one setting up those enjoyable dates and still going to the gym after a while.

In case it has been missed - there is a recurring theme here. I try and I keep going. If he even tries - it only happens for a short time and then back to square one.

So that is probably something he doesn't enjoy so scratch it off the list. Find things you both enjoy doing.


You both need to learn to avoid them. Did you buy the books and start those lessons?


Demanding that he do something under threat of a consequence is a selfish demand. You lashed out at him with anger because he would not do what you wanted him to do. You punished him by telling him you didn't want to be married because he wouldn't comply with your dictates.

When you would like him to do something, you should ask respectfully and then treat him respectfully if he does not choose to do so.


I can tell you have not read Lovebusters. You need to read the whole book before you do anything else.


It is unjust to try to force your spouse to do something against his will. That is not how this program works. You are different people so it is unjust to try and force your way on him. He is not you.


Your spouse should NEVER meet your needs in a way that makes him unhappy. If you ask him to take out the trash and he doesn't want to do that, he should not do that. No sacrifices!! Read the book Lovebusters and stop lovebusting him.


EVERYONE was raised differently unless you are his sister. We are not concerned with "beliefs and values," but with behavior. What you will do in the program is learn how to best meet each others needs, but that *HAS* to be done with enthusiastic agreement.


Try eliminating love busters and strictly finding things that you BOTH like. If you had an angry outburst at me and made a selfish demand as you did above, I would not want to be around you. This is why it is critical that you UNDERSTAND and eliminate lovebusters. If you wont do that, you can't very well expect him to do that or to want to be with you.

Your husband will continue doing things HE ENJOYS, so it is critical you both find things you enjoy. He stopped going to the gym because he doesn't enjoy that.

Think on this: every one of your needs and every one of his needs should be met in a WAY that makes you both happy. There is no win/lose. For example, if having a clean house is an emotional need of his and you hate cleaning house, if you sacrificed and cleaned house every day, pretty soon you would stop doing that and you would have an enormous resentment. His need would have to be met in another way.

Having an emotional need does entitle you to make demands upon your spouse.