Right, MB solves this with the policy of joint agreement which in this case would require that your husband not engage in this behavior because you are not enthusiastic about it.

Is your husband on board with doing the program, including the policy of joint agreement?

It is, and none of this program is going to work if he hangs onto independent behavior like this. Any area that a couple carves out as an exemption to the policy of joint agreement will wreck a marriage.

I didn't say a word about your relationship with your kids, prisca, nor would I. And response I used "hypocritical" in was to markos, not you. Even then, I wasn't calling Markos a hypocrite, if anything I'm questioning if this MB policy is hypocritical. Eating dinner counts as quality time with my kids but not my spouse. It sounds like my husband need 25 hours alone with each other but my kids should be content to just always be a part of the hustle and bustle, existing as part of a whole.

Yes, I do. I got little to no attention as a child, and absolutely never one on one time, and I don't want to do that to my kids.

As for the multitasking comment, it just feels like everyone is saying whenever the kids are around, it's quality time spent with them, regardless if you're doing basic life upkeep like brushing teeth or doing dishes. They don't need ANY individualized or focused attention, but our marriage needs 25 hours a week.

I can't find where anyone said that. Who said that?

Most people seem to feel that family meals are important; Dr. Harley doesn't stand out of the mainstream here in suggesting them as quality family time. Is that what you meant by "multitasking"?

Likewise for church.


Our 8 kids get 15 hours of focused attention as a group per week and they are shaping up to be fantastic kids if I do say so myself.

Saturday I was able to take 7 kids aged 2-11 out to see Star Wars together and they behaved like perfect angels (except the 2 yo the last 30 minutes). That's not quality family time but I mention it to say they seem to be learning how to behave decently and they are very happy and well adjusted.

By the way, our oldest five children have all come to Christ in the last 2 years.

How sure are you about this individualized attention thing?

I guess I wouldn't have such a hard time with it if the 25 hours a week were spent meeting all of our emotional needs in general, but they're only for the intimate emotional needs. Helping around the house, spending time with the kids, being a great dad, tackling projects around our home, getting involved in homework-- these all meet my emotional needs, but they don't count towards this 25 hour threshold. Even though they are high on my emotional needs priority list, this policy basically says that I have to take what is super important to me and just jam it in with everything else like cleaning up after dinner and bathtime, but still squeeze in the 25 hours a week.

I'm not sure why you mention this, except that you and Prisca keep taking everything I say as some sort of indictment of your parenting. It's not. I don't know your life. I don't know your kids, I don't know you. Nothing I have said or will say is about being critical of how you do things. I'm sure you're wonderful parents and that your children are great.

Having said that, many parenting experts, and research in the field, suggest that individualized attention actually is very important. If you are making it work without it, I am not judging you. I promise I am not judging you.

Okay, so markos and I aren't hypocritical (he's my husband, btw. What you say to him, you say to me. We are one), but the program we follow is hypocritical ...?

The program doesn't teach to "multi-task children away." It does treat the marriage relationship differently than it treats the parent/child relationship. I don't see how that is hypocritical, seeing as how a husband/wife relationship IS different than a parent/child relationship.

It also doesn't teach to just take your kids and jam them into cleaning up after dinner ... nobody has said that. Wouldn't work for me, considering I also have a VERY HIGH emotional need for family commitment.

You get FIFTEEN HOURS to commit to meeting the need for family committment. Considering that UA is divided into meeting four emotional needs all at once, you actually get MORE time for family commitment. How is that "jamming" the kids into cleaning?

Anyway, nobody is forcing you to do it. I think you'd have a great life if both you and your husband decided to commit yourself to UA and family commitment, but nobody here is forcing you. It's up to you what you want to do.

How sure are you that those experts actually know what they are talking about? I'd call Dr. Harley an expert, and his recommendations seem to be working great for our children.

I promise I'm not feeling judged, I really want to submit to you the idea that you don't need to do what those experts are recommending.

I think the real problem here is you have a husband who isn't on board, and you are trying to figure all this out for him when it is really his job to figure it out, and if he doesn't, you're not going to be happy and your marriage is not going to work.

I didn't see an answer to this question I asked:

When I was trying to actually do the math before and asking how EVERYTHING ELSE IN LIFE fits into 10 hours a week, I was told, oh mealtime (presumably preparing the meal, eating the meal, and cleaning up from meal-- not just sitting down to eat together) counts as family commitment. So does bedtime (which is more than just reading bedtime stories, it's baths, teeth brushing, jammies, etc). Odd because domestic support is its own thing-- if the 15 hours FC time he recommends is also for DS, why didn't dr h say that like he did for the UA??

Honestly I cannot believe I'm the only person who doesn't see that you guys are playing some funny accounting. PA is an important emotional need, but with this schedule there's no time for exercise. DS is one of my top needs but there's basically no time for anything but survival if you only have 10 hours a week.

It's hard with him, because in THEORY he will agree to anything. If it's all hypothetical, he's the easiest going guy around. In fact, that's one of the biggest issues we have with the faith/no faith issue. When we sit down and talk about it, he says I DO want to be religious, I DO want to take the kids to church and teach them about God. But then every sunday it's a battle. He has a new reason he wants to stay home (I have the sniffles, i didnt get enough sleep, our toddler will misbehave, Ill just keep him home-- seriously he never runs out of reasons) or he will leave in the middle of church and go sit in the car. He won't tell the kids that he's lost faith, and doesn't want me to tell them either.

The same with most things. If I have a calm conversation with him about media, he's like, yeah I shouldnt be watching it, I don't want my boys to watch this kind of thing, but then when I say something when he IS watching it, it's, "Oh this one scene isn't so bad. You saw her nipples?! I didn't notice!! The rest of the show has been good." Blah blah blah

I think it will be the same with MB. Yesterday he was on board, but then when the kids went to bed, he just walked up to bed alone and watched TV for an hour before going to sleep.

If it's just hypothetical, he will move heaven and earth for me. Hahaha

I can't tell you how many topless scenes I have caught him watching (in like major movies and TV shows, not actual porn) and he's always like, "oh i forgot that was in this movie. Thats the only one." or "it's 5 seconds of a 2 hour movie, I'm supposed to not watch the movies I like!?" or "I swear I've watched this whole series and that has NEVER happened before!!" At one point he told me that he doesn't understand my problem with it. At other points he's said he knows he shouldn't watch it. I don't even know how he feels about it deep down.

The swearing in movies and TV shows is an issue because he ALWAYS swears, especially when he's mad. The kids and I HATE it. One of our kids got in trouble for calling someone a B at school and told me that he has trouble not swearing in his head. My husband feels it doesn't matter if he watches stuff with lots swearing or really crude jokes (like certain TV shows or comedians).

13years,Be analytical here. Sarcasm does not help solve problems or open your creativity.
Eating dinner with your husband can count if you are alone together having a pleasant time. Exercising together can count.


Start by finding 15 hours a week (theoretically) to spend pleasantly alone with your husband for intimate needs- undivided conversation and recreating and sex. Once you do that step you can find another 10 hrs much more readily than from where you are now. And once you are available you can see if he will join you or not.
The harsh reality is your lifestyle is going to change either because you choose to do so to create a better marriage or because you have to divorce. I'm pretty sure the experts agree on how taxing divorce is on kids. Have you thought about how much harder and mismatched this is after a divorce? You've simply got to grasp this by the horns and figure out what to change.


I understand the frustrations you face. Mine were similar. I was homeschooling, working part time, barely able to keep up with bills and yes, working until falling into bed exhausted while others had 30-60 minutes on the toilet and time for tv shows.

I now work 40-50 hrs a week, still homeschool my four kids, still keep up with laundry,cooking, and housework. I changed how I run my household, but it's not worse. Math is wonderfully inflexible and I can't exactly explain WHY it goes better with less time on the house, but it does. I still go to all the appointments, and run all the errands. We still go to church and Awana. But I also have more down time, more money. I rarely work past 8 pm. I go out on dates with my husband two nights a week and occasionally on Saturdays.

UA time does not solve all marriage problems, but you've got to try it and give yourself and your family the chance of an intact marriage. If other problems stand in the way of a good marriage you will still need the lifestyle changes and the peace a different schedule will bring you as an individual.

What did you do to spend time together when you were dating?
Did you go to the same church you do now?

Thank you for the encouragement. That sounds do-able. I am confident I can squeeze out 15 hours. Maybe doing that will help me see how / feel motivated to find the other 10. I do appreciate your insight very much.

Oh gosh. What did we do when we were dating? We have such a sad courtship story. We didn't do anything. We didn't really talk or bond or get to know each other. He was looking for someone to help him get out of his addictions and out of his living arrangements which were feeding his drug and alcohol problems. I was having some sort of emotional crisis which I still can't even explain to this day-- but I think I was scared of him rejecting me so I held on even though there were ENORMOUS red flags that he woundn't be a good partner. He did NOTHING to fill my love bank, and in fact pretty openly took advantage of me by lying to me and ignoring me. Yet I married him less than 6 months after we met. I don't know why. He's not nearly as bad as he was then, but I still feel like he's not fully invested in our family or marriage.

I wasn't going to church at that time, but I did prior to that and began going again about 5 years into our marriage. My husband had a VERY brief period where he had some spiritual experiences and he wanted to do the whole church thing. It was VERY short lived, I think in part because it didn't solve all his other problems so he decided what's the point.

He doesn't, and neither do we. You are twisting words and fighting instead of listening.


Okay.

Is there anything you would like help with? Or are you just here to argue?

Dr. Harley recommends four dates, 3-4 hours long each week, outside the house.

You'll need to stop the disrespectful judgments if you want him to get on board. They are a lovebuster.

It's okay if he thinks that. You don't have to prove him wrong, or convince him of what's right -- to do so would be disrespectul. The question is, will he stop if it bothers you.

Has he agreed to live by the policy of joint agreement?