True.
Prisca, she can't stay calm and she won't stop her tirades long enough for him to learn what set her off. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Did you listen to the program? How can Jim engage in discussions with her, when she is punishing him and blowing off steam? Obviously when she gets angry he turns into a mushroom and when all is said and done, he has no more understanding of the problem than before it happened.

Wouldn't sharing the radio show replay with her clarify things where Jim isn't shutting her down, but where she understands how her punishing accomplishes nothing?

Wives don't listen to Marriage Builders Radio unless there is something in it for them.

This is a statement of fact, but it doesn't give him a course of action. What can HE do about that?

If he'd like her to change, he's got to show her what's in it for her. I doubt very seriously she thinks anything to do with Marriage Builders will do anything for her other than shut her up and get her off his back. What's in it for her?

Yep

First, he shouldn't brush her off when she wants to discuss something. Is she breaking a Marriage Builders rule by discussing the past? Yes. But she hasn't bought into the Marriage Builders rules. She's got to be shown that the rules are actually in her best interest.

How? If he is responding to her by telling her he refuses to discuss the past with her, then he is shooting himself in the foot. All she will see from that is that he has following some program that allows him to sweep things under the rug and expects her to to just shut up and put up.

He's got to show her that there's something in this for her. Apologizing for what he did in the past and turning the conversation to what he plans to do in the future is one way to do that (and it will take more than one such conversation).

He shouldn't continue in a conversation when she is having an AO, but he should address her concerns as soon as she calms down.

Markos used to try to share radio shows with me.
I saw it as him trying to educate me and found it very disrespectful, and almost always responded to him hatefully. I doubt very seriously she will accept it from him. She is probably in no mood to be educated by him.

He's going to have to show her instead of tell her.

He could invite her to join him in Marriage Builders. The approach would probably have to be a long the lines of "I've found this program that can help me be a better husband to you. I need this. Would you join me?" But giving her a radio show to listen to won't likely win her over.

In January, Jim said this: "At the time of the email which was March 2015, my wife had kicked me out of the house. The summary of the show was that I feared being honest with her because of the angry outburst that was sure to come. Dr. Harley suggested that I stay out of the house and enjoy being separated for a time. I should continue to talk to my wife via the phone/email but that I should stay away until the anger problem was solved. The struggle seemed to be centered around my wife wanting us to "discuss" the horrible things that I had done to her over the 30 years of our marriage. When we would discuss these things, it would inevitably end up in a fight and would escalate to an angry outburst on both of our parts. We are now almost a year later and we don't have angry outbursts anymore and haven't now for probably 6 months. I didn't stay away from my wife but was back in the house within a day or two back in March 2015. Now I don't have a problem speaking the truth to my wife. When I do open up, even if the item is something that is difficult to discuss, it does not escalate into a fight."

According to him, her angry outbursts no longer happen. The recent problem in their marriage is Jim's neglect, not her angry outbursts.

I noted that in Jim's radio show, he said absolutely nothing about the way he neglects her, such as the bike riding of 25 years (which he gave up, but now he ignores her and blows off her concerns).

He lied to her over Christmas (she did not have an angry outburst in response, BTW), which is what caused her to bring up the past again, and which brought him back to the forum.

He has pointed out clearly that her anger is no longer the problem; it is his lack of actually doing anything in the marriage to win her love that is still the problem. She complains about neglect in the past not to "punish him by bringing up the cycling" but because the neglect is still going on.

Don't forget that she was ill in February and he neglected her, and he came here to tell us that she told him to leave again.

The neglect is very much a feature of the present.

So, again, what's in this for her?

She brings up the past because she thinks he is neglecting her simply because he does not understand how badly it hurts. She thinks that if she makes him understand, he will not do it again.

THAT is why she keeps bringing up his neglect (the cycling). It's not about the cycling: it's about the fact that the neglect is still going on.

Her strategy, to make him understand, is a bad one, but she does not know that. She only knows that she has given him chance after chance to change, and he easily forgets what he promised, and does it again.

Thus, the Marriage Builders rule to "not discuss the past" will only be seen by her as an attempt to shut her up and force her to just accept his continued neglect. Sharing the radio show will be seen the same way.

Jim-

We are going in circles with you about this one point. It does not have to be one way or the other. You have to learn to do BOTH: resolve the mistakes of the past AND be having 15 hours of UA together meeting intimate emotional needs.

Your problem is that when you talk with your wife, you don't follow the instructions which we give you. You change them up somehow. So I suggested that you email her, so that your anxiety doesn't get in the way and you can stay on track.

So Jim, is that why your wife kicked you out? Because you are avoiding her requests to discuss these items? Is it because you clam up when she asks you a question? Or is it because she asks something of you and you do it, but you change up what you do a little bit from exactly what she asked? (Like getting pears instead of peaches at the grocery store?)

This was in FEBRUARY. She asked you to come back into the room with her. But you thanked her by NOT planning the getaway that you had talked about together, and by NOT taking her out of the house on dates. By the way, stick with things you would have done to court her BEFORE marrying her. I doubt that grocery shopping was on the list.

The trip you planned to Disneyland... When is it and is it a trip with your kids or an alone trip?

Yes, the reason that my wife has always kicked me out is that I never approached her first to discuss our issues. Its always been me not talking to her about the whys of what I did to her. Now it feels like I have a convenient excuse not to talk to her about things because its an MB principle that says don't talk about the past.

I just spent the last 3-4 hours with my wife in a combination of emails and talking on the phone. The whole discussion kind of boiled down to my not focusing on my character flaws so that I can change my behavior. My character flaws include lying, dishonesty, controlling behavior, ignoring my wife; these types of things. The "events" that have happened have just been symptoms of the underlying character flaws. She's not interested in addressing the events as much as she wants me to address the character flaws. This is what she really wants me to talk with her about. Actually, she doesn't even really want me to talk about it with her, she just wants me to figure it out and change my behavior...to do something, take some action.

It sounds to me like the steps that Dr. Harley lays out in the 5 Steps to Romantic Love booklet. He recommended that I read through the section on dishonesty and go through the exercises that are reflected there. This sounds exactly like that to me.

I told my wife that I had some homework to do and we ended our conversation about 30 minutes ago.

Did you call her or did she call you?

She called me

Did you sit in church with her?

Are you continuing your thoughtful messages?

Well we didn't go to church together since she kicked me out of the house. I have been sending the thoughtful messages but am running out of things to say. I don't want to sound contrived and that's how it feels right now.

Understood. But don't quit now. It will feel contrived. No way around that.
Some ideas:
Just checking in to see if you need help with anything around the house...
Thinking about you.
Miss seeing you at night...
Would you join me for dinner...
How's your day going?
I was thinking about that time when...(positive memory).
Work is crazy today...would love to meet you halfway for lunch.
Thanks for...

Wanted to provide an update on where we are now. We made some significant progress over the past 2 days. We emailed for hours on Monday and then talked in person on Tuesday.

We agreed to work together to dig down into the love busters that i have to work on and to figure out why I do them. We have started with the dishonesty love buster and are using the MB workbook/worksheets (my wife doesn't know this but thats what we're using) to understand the issue.

We talked a lot about how to discuss and resolve issues between us and the topic of angry outbursts and disrespectful judgments was talked about heavily. One of my biggest problems is controlling behavior. To the point where I don't see that its controlling. When I suggest that AO's and DJ's are extremely destructive to resolving issues, my wife is adamant that I can't tell her how to feel. She feels that she needs to express her feelings honestly and if she is angry, she is going to be angry and that is the natural consequence of my thoughtless actions. She feels like me telling her that we can't get angry and disrespectful is me trying to control her. I think that we've got a ways to go until the whole AO/DJ thing can be understood.

I am going to take 2 days off of work this week (Thu/Fri) and we are going to spend time together just living. There will be some UA and some issue discussion with lots of honesty. We both are hoping that this will get us on the right path together.

My wife asked me to come home and insisted that I stop sleeping on the couch. If we're going to be married then we need to act like we're married.

The whole thing really opened up when I asked how I could help with the house since I've been away for a number of days. This was one of my thoughtful notes sent yesterday afternoon. She allowed me to come home and take care of the trash and mail (we live in a rural area and haul our own trash). I offered to take her to get something to eat and she took me up on the offer. We had a nice dinner and some good open/honest discussion.

We had a big snow storm hit the area today so I may not be able to get home tonight so we've already got plans in place to talk on the phone if I can't make it home from work tonight.

I've approached my Heavenly Father in prayer asking for some softening of my wife's heart and I believe that this has happened. I will continue doing what I've been doing consistently.

More as things progress...

Good update!



What do you mean by a couple of days "just living"?

And she's RIGHT. You cannot educate her on this -- educating your spouse, even on something that is beneficial for her, is a disrespectful judgement.

You cannot tell her what she cannot do.

You can complain -- "It hurts me when you yell at me." "I bothers me when you disrespect me." And then she can decide on her own what to do with that information.

You can invite her to join the program with you, and the program will educate her. She can then decide what to do about her own lovebusters. But YOU CANNOT EDUCATE HER YOURSELF.

So, what are you going to do differently this time? How are you going to stay motivated?

You do understand the irony of using the MB program on dishonesty without her knowing about it, right?

Plan at least 25 hours of th activities this weekend. You need to make serious Love Bank deposits.

Two - 3 hour dates per day would be a good start.

Like breakfast date and activity, dinner date and activity...

Plan?