Small Peace,
I am sorry to also say that even if you have a few good days, he has a very very long way to go.
Nothing will really ever change for real with all this nonsense about how unfair it is to him that he has to actually treat you like a civilized human being with care and respect.
My word.... He isn't serious SP and is throwing you crumbs to get you to back off. A women can't pull and tug a man up a hill.
HE needs to be the one doing the hard work on himself to make your marriage great.

You do need to separate.

If you don't you will be in this exact same spot forever until it actually hurts you physically.
What women's bodies do when we won't listen to it (and stay in very unhealthy relationships) is to slowly start making you sick until you can't not pay attention anymore.

We aren't telling you this because its easy to hear. From the outside your relationship sounds horrible and we are really trying to give you the best shot at either getting a man worth having or going your separate ways before living like this kills you slowly.

Hi All,

He agreed to keep working on things, and it has been getting better. We took a weekend away and had a great time with no LBs and lots of deposits. Now my question is, how to keep up the momentum once we're back in real life with obligations?

He's been stressed out ever since we got back because he has a lot of extra work. Today he was working from home, and he got upset when I asked him a question about whether he'd be able to get a small daily chore done that is usually his responsibility. He said that when he's stressed out, he needs me to be more supportive and basically not bother him about things like that- like if he answers "I don't know" when I ask him when/if he'll be able to do a chore, I should just drop it. I told him that I felt brushed off, and he said that sometimes his needs should be more important, and he just had too much on his plate to deal with me.

What he said bothered me, because I feel like we need to stay connected even when we're under stress, and it should be less about supporting each other at different times, and more about working through things together, side by side. I feel like he just wants me to leave him alone all day when he's busy, but that makes me feel uncared for.

Am I just being selfish? I didn't handle it too well- he didn't have an AO but I still got really upset because I felt brushed off. Should I have just dropped it until the evening when he's done with work?

These little problems are not going to stop.

Nothing can every be resolved until he is in Anger management and he promises to never have another AO again.

NO weekends away, no good days, no good weeks..... NEVER EVER.

Until you know without a shadow of a doubt that he won't have an AO at you.... all this is really pointless.

(I view it as a rattlesnake. It doesn't matter how nice that snake is to you sometimes. Until he learns how to not be a rattlesnake, it is only time before he bites. And he will.)

PS: No one is ever selfish like that way you are suggesting. You are upset and need to let him know without love busting and then not punish him. That is your being radically honest.

I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to bring up problems, and differentiating between complaints, requests, and conflicts.

Today, I was running late and forgot to pack a snack for my daughter, and called my husband (who was still home) to ask if he had time to bring it to her school. He got upset, and said that it really bothers him that I'm always running late, and also when she has to get a hot lunch at school because I didn't have time to make her lunch, and that he didn't have time to bring her snack. So I went home to get the snack and was late for work, and was ok with that.

The reason I'm always running late is that I feel overwhelmed with too much to do to get myself and my daughter ready in the morning. Running late is kind of stressful but doesn't bother me that much, and as far as I can tell, doesn't cause any material consequences to my daughter or my husband.

Is this a situation where he should have simply said (when he had calmed down) that it bothers him when I'm running late and don't make her lunch, and I should have simply said I'm sorry, and will stop running late and will make sure that I make her lunch every day? Or would it be appropriate for me to say, let's negotiate a solution together?

As it stands, he is unwilling to negotiate a solution together. He said that I'd let stuff slide to the point where it affects others, and if he'd done that, he'd feel really bad, apologize, and get it together. I told him that I wanted to work on fixing the problem together, and offered a bunch of possible solutions. He said that he just wants me to leave on time and make her lunch every day, and it's up to me to figure out how to do that. He says that it's my responsibility to leave on time, and not leaving on time knowing that bothers him would be disrespectful to him.

I should add that I'm only responsible for getting her to school etc. 2 days a week, and he does it the other 3. He feels resentful that he leaves on time and makes her lunch on his days but I'm less consistent on my days.

I should also add that we've had this conflict for years and have had numerous arguments about it. I'm trying to avoid having another one.

So again, my question is how this should be handled by us.

Another example: last weekend, we had friends over and were playing cards. I went to check on our daughter, and she was having trouble sleeping, so I stayed in her room awhile helping her get to sleep. My husband came in and told me everyone was waiting for me to come back and I was being inconsiderate. The next day, I told him it bothered be that he had said that, and I wished he'd left out the part about being inconsiderate. He said he was sorry for saying that, but still felt like I was being inconsiderate, and would like me to stop being inconsiderate in the future. I told him I wasn't clear on what he wanted me to do, and he took that as me refusing to agree to stop being inconsiderate, and got upset. He said that I always want him to change his behavior but refuse to change mine when he asks me to. Should I really have just said, "ok, I'll try to be more considerate"? In other words, was this a complaint, request, or conflict?

Does this mean he is stilling having AO's?

This is the problem here smallpeace.

I wouldn't have called it an AO, but he did use DJs. He is working on both but is having a lot of trouble with the DJs. He says he doesn't know how to express himself without them, and figuring out different ways to say everything is more than he feels capable of handling right now. I think he's going to write to Dr. Harley again soon.

Should negotiation always be an option, or are there times when a complaint is a complaint, and you're just supposed to stop whatever the complaint was about (for example, being late or being inconsiderate)?

The biggest problem I see in your examples is that your husband is full of disrespectful judgements.

Are your actions bothering him? Yes. Is he going about talking to you about it in the right way? NO.

The problem he sees about when your daughter gets to school CAN be solved (and it needs to be solved together), but you can't start solving it until he eliminates demands, disrespect, and angry outbursts.

This is a copout. He is more than capable of learning how to treat you with care, he just doesn't want to. He's not that fragile.

It was a complaint/conflict which he expressed with disrespectful judgements and demands.
No, you should not reward his disrespect by saying ok, which is capitulation to not only the disrespect, but also the subtle demand that you behave in the way he chooses.


I will assume it would bother you to be inconsiderate of your daughters needs. Dr Harley might say it was a health and safety issue to take care of your daughter, I'm not sure because its surprised me sometimes what does and does not qualify, but regardless of that aspect, now that a complaint has been brought you should not have friends over while you might need to care for your daughter until you negotiate a solution to such a situation in the future.

He could have said, "it bothered me that you didn't come back down right away and left me to entertain our friends." That would have been an appropriate complaint. At that point you would have had a lovebusters free conflict and could have begun negotiating.

I told him last night that we should stop trying to solve problems until SDs, DJs, and AOs are eliminated, and he agreed. How do you know for sure when they've been eliminated? How many weeks/months should pass without them?

He wouldn't have said that, because he would say that he and our friends were all complaining that I'd been away too long, so it wasn't just his perspective. He's having a hard time grasping the concept of different perspectives, which I think is what makes him have so many DJs. Whenever I try to point out to him that something is just his perspective, he thinks I'm telling him he's crazy and nobody else thinks the way he does. He also tends to say that I'm just pretending to have my perspective because I don't want to admit that I'm wrong.

With the situation yesterday, he kept saying that he was just trying to uphold a standard of conduct that he thought we'd both agreed to. When I'd say my perspective was a little different, he'd say I was just trying to make excuses. He said my being late was IB.

They are eliminated when they never come back.

Dr. Harley recommends for women to separate for at least a year while the Husband goes through anger management and prove that he has eliminated AOs. Are you not going to take that advice, like we have given you multiple times, until he eliminates his AOs?

Everything he says is one big DJ. Just so you know. Your best option might be to get a coach. You having to educate him isn't going to work. You can however protect yourself. When he says something disrespectful like this drivel you let him know that hurts your feelings. That he's DJ'ing yet more. And I'd suggest you find a way to let him know you won't stand for it. Say "ouch. I'm going to have to walk away right now as you're being hurtful. Let me know when you're willing to talk with me without DJ'ing". And then walk away.

Of course the better advice is what everyone here has been telling you and that would be for him to get Anger Management. He seems to be clueless to his rudeness.

Just now, I asked him if he could look for his phone charger (he has been using mine for the past few weeks, and we keep needing it at the same time). He said that he'd tried looking for it and couldn't find it so was using mine because I've asked him to try to keep his phone charged so I can stay in touch with him. He said that everything he does is wrong and no matter what he does he's still wrong. The more I tried to tell him I didn't think he was doing anything "wrong", asked him how I can phrase requests so he won't get offended, etc., the more worked up he got, until he had a full-on AO.

I told him that he needs to move out. He yelled that that's the most sensible thing he's ever heard me say, and left in a huge huff, calling me a few choice words on his way out.

Just a few minutes before all this happened, he'd been acting sweet. I'd said I thought it was a good idea for us to act positive around each other, and save complaints for scheduled times and emails, and he'd agreed. I guess he saw my request that he look for his charger as a complaint. I still don't understand how he got that I was telling him he was "doing something wrong". He kept saying that I'm always telling him he's doing something wrong and he can't handle it. From my perspective, I NEVER tell him he's doing something wrong. But that's how he hears it.

Anger Management or else. Otherwise you're just setting yourself up for more hurt.

Now he's denying that he had an AO, and is saying he was in control the whole time. He's saying that he kept pleading with me to stop telling him he was wrong and I kept pressing on no matter what he said, so he raised his voice. He's saying that he can't live in a situation in which every time he raises his voice, it's an angry outburst. But I never once said he was wrong, and he wasn't just raising his voice. He was yelling obscenities. I don't know if he actually believes what he's saying.

It doesn't matter if he agrees. The fact that you call it an AO, is all that he needs to know. Extraordinary care does not include raised voice swearing. He needs a good anger management class.

He's not coming home tonight and won't tell me where he's staying (but did say it was with a "he"). He's acting like it was his choice to leave. He keeps saying that it's because of MY behavior. He's characterizing it as him getting upset, and then me refusing to "back off". In reality, he was being abusive and I kept trying to defend myself, but I never raised my voice and was respectful. I know I should have walked away, but I didn't realize that until too late.

Were you badgering him again? What happened?