How do you focus on yourself, your goals and desires rather than the shortcomings or the changes that should be made concerning that of your spouse?

What is the backdrop to your question, ladyserrano? Are you still separated from your H? Do you have contact with him? Are you thinking of getting back with him?

We have talked about it as well as doing counseling, but I know the challenge for me is focusing too much on what he's suppose to do to make me happy rather than making myself happy. I realize that I lose myself when I'm in a relationship. I believe it goes back to my parents failed relationship and making sure that I dont end up like them; yet, I have.

If you're going to think like that, you'd be better off staying single. When you are married, what your spouse has a direct effect on how you feel.

The whole reason for getting married is because the other person makes you feel good - Dr Harley's Love Bank model. If you are going to deal with feeling bad by detaching, you might as well not be married at all. You won't be able fully to detach; you will just learn how to live with being unhappy. You can divert attention from feeling unhappy to some extent by taking up hobbies and staying away from your spouse, but why go back to a marriage actually anticipating doing those things? That is not a marriage at all.

What strategies does your counsellor give you? What is the counsellor's goal? Does he or she tell your H to get a proper job? Do they tell him to stop his neglect of you by doing specific things, and if so, what?

How is this counsellor teaching you to fall back in love with each other?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, how do I focus on changes with myself that will bring about positive changes rather than nag and complain about his shortcomings. I figured that finishing my degree, starting my business, etc., would be a way to focus on good rather than what he's not doing. Not saying this would excuse him or myself from being responsible or dedicating time to making things better.

Our pastor has counseled us, and she definitely suggested that he get a job. She as well as her husband have told him that he isn't fulfilling his duties as a loving husband and father should. She also suggested that I no longer nag him and find ways to stay busy with what I love that I won't give so much energy into those things he needs to change. She doesn't want me to get to a place that my heart is hardened.

Your pastor is not an expert at saving marriages. She is giving you advice that is not different in expertise from what you would get if you simply asked someone in the street. The average person would tell you that, if you want to stay with your husband, you'll have to find a way of diverting your unhappiness - but the average person has a less than happy, romantic, fulfilling marriage. The average person, and your pastor, does not know how to deal with unhappiness in your marriage, and with not feeling much love for your spouse. Your pastor has given you back-of-an-envelope advice, and it will harm you (specifically you; not so much your husband) in the short and long run.

You've been here a while, but it seems clear to me that you have not learned much about Marriage Builders. If you had done, you could not consider going back to your husband under these circumstances, nor would you give even one minute's serious consideration towards trying to bury your frustration and divert your attention to your education and your business, as a way of coping with your unhappiness.

If you were to write to Dr Harley, who is a successful marriage coach with a track record of restoring romantic love to thousands of marriages (unlike your pastor, who might succeed in getting people to stay together, but who does not focus on romantic love at all, by the sound of it), he would give you his advice for free. He would tell you that everything your husband does has an effect on the amount of love you feel for him, and that if he behaves badly, you will be unhappy. He would never advise you to divert your attention to other things and ignore the problems in the marriage. He would tell you to complain respectfully about the problems - your husband's under-employment and his loafing about the house - and he would tell you to keep the complaints on the front burner until they were dealt with.

He would advise your husband to take your complaints very seriously, and to get a job, pronto. He would support you completely for having separated from him, and he would NOT let you get back together until your husband got a job and got his depression successfully treated. Once living together, he would advise both of you to tell each other about the things that you do not like or that upset you, and he would advise you to work on annoying behaviours until they are eliminated.

This is all because of the way Dr Harley recognises that love is built, which is as a result of a person meeting your emotional needs. If a man meets your most important emotional needs well, you will fall in love with him, and if he stops doing that, you will fall out of love with him. That is the way love works.

Now, you can go back to more or less what you had before, if you want, and you can try and trick your mind into not focusing on your husband and instead on living your own life, and you may be successful in doing that. However, that would be a marriage in name only. People do not get married n order to lead separate lives, or make themselves happy. If you want to have a happy, fulfilling marriage, you are not going to be able to have that by focusing on something else. That is illogical; surely you can see that.

You need to read Dr Harley's Basic Concepts, and you need to read the articles about complaining, about the nagging wife, and about the 3 states of mind in marriage. You need to stop counselling with your well-meaning, but ignorant and possibly dangerous, pastor, and you need to send Dr Harley an email, telling all about your marriage and the fact that you are now separated, and ask him what needs to be done if you are to rebuild your marriage.

And you need to not go back to your husband until he shows himself to be a different man from the one you left.

This is the opposite advice from what Dr. Bill Harley would give you. I am sorry to say that your pastor is not experienced in saving marriages. I am sure she means well, but this advice will not help you. Finding your happiness outside of marriage and stopping the complaining will destroy your marriage.

What you have said is so true. I understand fully what you are saying. Thank you so much for the input. I will definitely do what you suggested.

Wait a minute. You said this on 2nd February:

I don't think you said anything explicitly about domestic violence when you were here before. For what reason were you using a domestic violence group? What has your husband done to you? You cannot go back to him after a couple of weeks, if he has been violent towards you. I am even more shocked now that your pastor has been telling you to focus on something else to distract your attention from his faults.

Please tell us about the violence.

The other thing that has been unexplored is the problems he has with your kids. You said something to the effect that your son cannot bear to be around him, because he is unkind to your son. Are you planning to take your older kids back to live with him? Is their relationship with him any different from before?

I was married before, and I experienced a lot of abuse in that marriage on every level. My current husband has taken my phone away, my keys away, and has locked me in the room with him to talk. I felt threatened because my first husband did that before he started becoming physically abusive. So I sought out help from a domestic violence group, because I don't want to be going down that road again. Plus my mom along with other family members felt like I need to protect myself and kids. After I told my mom, she of course told everyone she could tell. My husband likes to bring up everything he has done for me and the kids when he feels I don't appreciate him. My thing is get a job because going month to month trying to figure out how a bill is going to get paid is stressful to me. So he'll get really irate and start yelling, slamming things and anything else that is intimidating. Our issues just run deep when it comes to financial.

As for my 18 year old son, I believe he feels intimidated or even jealous of my son. My son goes to school, works, and looks nice. IF there is anything my son needs, I will help him. He helps out with his sisters and anything that I ask of him. Also he doesn't like to hear my current husband speak ill toward me. because it reminds him of his father, which was my first husband. I don't think my husband likes that I help him out so much. He actually feels like I give the oldest three more attention than our child, which is the furthest from the truth. I am still a breastfeeding mom to our child, and she gets my attention when I come home from work. I've had to step in and stop them(my son and current husband) from fighting. My kids including our 2 year old daughter are more content now that we are away. He finds fault in everything that they do...not cleaning up right to not closing the bedroom door all the way when they leave out. IT's just a lot more that he nick picks about. It's really childish...very childish.

You're not exactly selling him to me. Please tell me why you want to take your children back to that environment. What has been done to sort out his relationships with the children?

And critically, what has been done about his anger and violence?

That's the thing...I am not going back to him until I know for a fact that things are going to be better. HE said he was going to see about counseling for himself. I've even explained to him that our child together doesn't need to be around him alone until he can control his anger. As of now, the kids don't talk to him. When he tries to talk to our toddler via video chat, it's only for a minute or two and she's back to playing. So in regards to fixing that relationship between them, they aren't even remotely concern from what I can see. They don't talk about him or ask for him. I don't try to push it.

So I guess that is why I asked my first question about focusing on myself, because I know you can't make a person change. They have to want it for themselves. I feel I need to create some happiness of my own and not get so caught up on him following through and making changes. I guess where I stand is that if he changes then that would be good for us, but if he doesn't then it will be his lost.

Yes, but you asked that first question in the context of your plans to go back to him soon. It was those plans that I said were a bad idea. You should not go back to him if you have to focus on yourself to be able to tolerate living with him.

Oh. No I definitely know that wouldn't be a wise decision. My kids are truly at do much peace right now. And I'm not even angry with him. There have been times that I would just go at him and didn't.care about what I said.

I really think you'd benefit from writing to Dr Harley about your situation. His advice is free if you write care of the radio show.

Thank you. Guess I need to figure out where to start.

Thank you for the information.

This is abuse, by the way. It isn't actual violence, but it is abusive, and you are already going down that road.

You must not go back to him until he has undergone an effective anger management course. Dr Harley will talk to you more about how your H should prove that he has stopped being angry, when you write to him.

I've also heard Dr Harley give people specific advice about jobs, and ordered them to follow up and report back to him. He is entirely action-oriented in his approach, and concentrates on getting things done. You really need to write to him.

All you need to do is start with your first thread here, and take the key sentences from that, which describe the problems in your marriage, then from the second one, where you actually left your H, and finally from this one, where you have been counselling with your pastor and discussing going back. Don't get hung up on where to start your story. You've already posted it perfectly well on this forum, so use your own words.