I try and usually suceed in not challengeing how she thinks or feels. I feel that would fall under the category of disrespectful judgement. She sometimes describes an action of mine as IB. I try not to challenge that even if I disagree

Ok, I guess I will ask her.

I wrote a new thread and then could not post because my laptop battery died. I'm posting this via my cell phone. Will start my new thread tomorrow. For now I'll just say that my husband does still debate me but not as much as he used to. We both have eliminated most love Busters, but both still have some IBM and DJS. He just naturally enjoys debating and will do it without even knowing.

Biggest love buster for me right now is not following through on agreements, promises, and full MB program. Cherry picking. More tomorrow. Can't do this too well on phone!

Thanks so much, ML, for your help!

When are you coming back to the forum? This seems very important to your Wife for you to follow MB.

What have you planned for UA?

Are you still debating her?

Thanks for your interest. My wife and I agreed that it would probably be better for her to post her thoughts and feelings before I returned. We are working at following MB. I have a call with our coach this afternoon. Our UA time this week has been reduced due to many things, including our daughter returning home from abroad, wife's work schedule changing, We have had some IC and A. Also have a date scheduled for Sunday. Debating, far less and on less important topics.

You must guard against this at all costs. There will always be things that come up that compete for your attention. You must make your UA time THE priority in life or it simply will not happen.

Also, plan 20 hours to accommodate unforeseen emergencies.

We do both know that UA time needs to be a priority, just not sure how to make that happen. Planning 20 instead of 15 hours sounds logical just, to me at least, overwhelming.

It might be overwhelming at first, but once you fall in love again you won't let less important things get in the way.

Yes, but until you fall in love again do you just muscle through doing it?

Yes, which typically takes a couple of months as long as there are no love busters.

Thanks. We are both trying to eliminate lovebusters. We have done pretty good on the big ones now we need to work on the more subtle varieties.

Planning and spending 20 hours with your wife is overwhelming?

While the feeling may be true, I would caution you against trying to talk about it. Who wants to hear that spending time with them is overwhelming?? This is one of those subtle disrespectful judgements. Keep it to yourself.

Feelings follow actions. Do the actions of planning your UA, and actually spending it together, and eventually your feelings will follow.

Isn't one of the problems she has with you the fact that you say you will do something and then don't follow through? You CAN'T do that anymore. YOU have to make UA YOUR priority. Everytime UA doesn't happen, she's going to see it as just another time you've let her down. You just can't afford that anymore.

I absolutely feel that every moment with my wife is far away the best part of my day, week, life. What is the overwhelming part is trying to plan and schedule with very different and changing schedules. My follow through issues are being worked on with help and advice from our coach

You handle that by putting your marriage first, before everything else. You schedule your UA first. Then you schedule everything else: work, school, travel, visiting friends/family, church, house cleaning, working out, etc, etc, etc.

UA won't happen if you try to squeeze it into your already busy schedule. You need to scrap the schedule, plan UA, then build your schedule around your marriage.

And you're not done working on them, as evidenced by letting UA slide. Not following through is a major lovebuster for most wives, and it is especially so for YOUR wife. You can't let things slide anymore. Any time you do, you will have dashed all of your progress and you will be starting over at square one. IF she lets you start over.

I apologize for not coming back to the forum sooner to respond. I am at somewhat of a loss as to how to ask the questions that would be most helpful not only to me but also to the many people following this thread. Although I know that everything should be schedules after our UA time, how do people actually do that with different jobs with varying and changing schedules, grown kids who need to have time and attention when they are available and the many other things that though no higher a priority seem to some times crowd scheduled time to the side.

I am getting a better understanding of the huge love buster that my lack of follow through is especially to my wife. And I am trying with better understanding and help from our coach to overcome this lifelong bad habit. So I really do welcome any and all suggestions as to how I can do MB better and bring the in love feeling back to my wife and our marriage. Thanks in advance to all of you.

From: The Policy of Undivided Attention

What would happen if you didn't show up to work because other things somehow crowded out the time? Do you allow that to happen?

Trying, how do you find time to do less important things like go to work and do things with your children?

The way my h and I schedule our time is by sitting down Sunday afternoon and making out our schedule for the week for our dates. Time that not scheduled is much easier to put off.

50 hours - 15 hours = 35 hours a week to spend with your children (if you want), or hunting, or baking, or shopping, or studying, or [insert random activity here]. Is 15 hours a week really that much time?

I'm a grown kid, and so is my wife. Neither one of us needs attention from our parents any more because we are grown, but when we do see them, we work out our schedules at times that work for both sides, just like any other adult relationship. I might call/email a parent and say "Hey, we can be in your area August 22, will that work for you?" and they might say yes or no. If they say no, we make other plans.