wow! So he was being ATTRACTIVE? Good sign!

Hopefully he can keep it up.

Hopefully you both can learn to negotiate with each other's best interest in mind, without sacrificing your own interests.

We are having some lovely UA times and even at home my H is trying really hard to be pleasant and thoughtful. I wonder though, this was such an abrupt change, is it sustainable? I mean he is still the same person. I know he can be this way when he wants to be. I just don't want him to switch back to the way he has been in the past. Also I don't want to be a year or two down the road and end up in the same situation as before last week with me making plans to move out. Should I still plan to move out until I know this is a permanent change? How long would that have to be?

Have a plan for separation in place in case he does revert back to his old abusive behavior. It sounds like he is taking this seriously now.

How are things going, Indiana's wife?

Are you and your husband mutually, enthusiastically united in dealing with your children's behavior now?

Did the two of you come up with a solution to address the cursing and disrespect targeted towards you by your DS?

Sunny, was this meant for Kat?

My apologies, yes it was meant for Kat.

Hi everyone. We had a really good couple of months, and then I have been noticing a gradual slide back toward how things used to be. By this I mean that I notice a little more anger, a little more demands, more expressions of dissatisfaction with something I am doing. Our time, for the most part, is very flexible and we set our own schedule. My H was annoyed when I slept until 8am on Saturday morning, and then did some reading for a couple of hours. A couple of days ago I received this letter:

"My dear Wife:

I am very grateful that our businesses are doing well and that we can enjoy the fruits of many years of sacrifice and labour. I feel we have done well.

It does bother me, however, when I am working at the items on the schedule for the week and you are doing things we did not schedule (ie. sleeping, reading).

I feel taken advantage of and unappreciated. I feel this has led to an imbalance in the number of hours of work we each contribute to the maintenance of the businesses.

How do you feel about the number of hours of work we each put into maintaining our businesses each week."

We have apartments that we maintain, and a really huge garden where we grow most of the vegetables for the winter. I felt offended at this letter but am not sure why. Part of me feels like "here we go again", he is unhappy with something I am doing, blaming me for his unhappiness and wants me to change. It is not my appearance now, it is how much I work.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

I think many wives would probably feel disrespected by a letter like that. He sees a problem but I don't think he knows how to express it respectfully. I think the problem he is seeing is that he feels resentful that he is working so hard, and he would like more help. It probably would have been more respectful if he had said "I'm working more/harder than I want to, and was wondering if you would feel like helping me some more."

Dr. Harley says it is good in marriage to make requests of each other, but of course they have to be requests: the spouse has to be able to turn down the request with no consequences, and there has to be no disrespect or angry outburst accompanying the request.

From some of the wording in his letter it sounds to me like he's trying to model what he's saying off of some of the things he's read here, but do you agree with me that the letter is disrespectful to you? If so I think you should probably tell him that you felt disrespected by his words and that you need him to be able to be respectful to you in his requests before you can talk to him about it.

As a non partisan reader (as opposed to someone with understandable emotional baggage), I am seeing an opportunity to negotiate your Saturday obligations. Two heads are always better than one when it comes to problem solving. Presume you both decided to take on all these projects but that does not mean you are chained to them for life.

What about POJAing all of it from the ground up? Maybe this work can be cut back or delegated in a way that makes you both happy?

When I do this he says I am changing the subject.

IW, the hours you each work needs to be re-negotiated. The objective is to find a solution that makes you both happy. The objective is NOT to find an illusory "balance." He can't make up arbitrary rules such as "balance" and apply it to you. That is disrespectful. You will have to each agree on a plan that suits you both without forcing your will on the other.

For example, you might only be happy working 20 hours and he wants to work 40. Since you are both different, the outcome should be different. The solution can be found in the POJA.

Okay.

But you can't proceed until this subject is taken care of.

::shrug::

The guidelines for successful negotiation only work if they are followed in order:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3350_guide.html

Guideline 1 is to set ground rules to make negotiation pleasant and safe. You can't get to the other guidelines and the solution until Guideline 1 is in place and being followed.

Indianajordan, talking to you: if you want to get something from your wife here, you'll need to ask for it in a way that has no demands or disrespect. I suggest starting with "How would you feel about helping me more, at 8:00, by doing ... ?"


Gotta sweep out the mines.

It's not exactly the same situation, but Dr. Harley told me:


http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2405440#Post2405440

Today my daughter and I had agreed to do the lawn mowing and trimming at one of our rental buildings. My H said that if we left around 10 to 11, the grass would be dry enough. I agreed. As it turned out, we were not ready to leave until 11:25. At this point my H said he was not enthusiastic about us leaving "late" It would run into lunch and we would not be back by 12:30. He did not want to make his own lunch and eat alone. He wanted us to wait until after lunch to leave. I did not want to do that because it gets too hot later in the day and I wanted to be back in time to get our son from the school bus. The upshot was: we argued, I left, did the yard, got back at 1:10, made lunch and we ate.

My H says that my deciding to leave at 11:25 instead of 10:50 is disrespectful and was an independent behavior. Was it?

Also, he says that when I came out of the house and told him I was leaving later than discussed and that he would have to make his own lunch, that I was breaking Guideline #1, that it was not pleasant.

What did you argue about?

You negotiated a time to leave (and presumably come back, and have lunch together, etc) and you did not leave at that time or follow that plan. He expressed that he was not enthusiastic about the new schedule. You should have 'done nothing' until a new schedule or plan was reached that you were both enthusiastic about.

Instead, presumably you argued that your position to not wait was the correct one, and then you left even though he was not enthusiastic.

Yes, I would say that this was disrespectful and an IB.

We did not negotiate a time to leave, he simply told me that this would be the best time to go. There was no explicit agreement.

He is a little upset right now that I did not mention that he wrote me a sweet little note that was waiting for me when I got home. He is upset that I did not even acknowledge receiving it. That it shows he is trying to be pleasant even though he is being treated badly. I feel like I am the one being treated badly, and no note is going to make up for that.

IW, the goal of the forum is to help you learn the skills to resolve your problems on your own. We are not here to resolve every conflict you have.

What principles should have been applied to this situation? What is the basic rule of the policy of joint agreement? How do you define Independent behavior?

I will give you a hint: you broke the policy of joint agreement and committed independent behavior. Are you familiar with those terms?