Nobody has advocated that you don't properly vet any babysitter that you are going to leave your kids with. That's YOUR responsibility and your husband's. Not the forum's.

A. I am not arguing with whether or not it is a tenant of the program. I am not even complaining about it. I have stated OVER and OVER and OVER that I do not understand how to make it reality. I have tried to explain that it feels like you're asking me to grow a third arm, I wouldn't even know how to begin, and you saying, but OTHERS grew a third arm isn't useful.
**EDIT**

What others are saying is that you and your Husband need to come up with a schedule and get Creative. Have you discussed this with your husband?
UA time with kids

I understand. But what I'm asking for is not what you linked to. The examples in that thread are what people did on their dates and which days they did them for how many hours. What I mean is how do you handle the logistics of leaving your children for 25 hours a week in 4 chunks. Someone suggested getting a babysitter to come to my home after my children are out of school and do homework with them and make dinner for them and put them to bed multiple nights a week. She didn't say this is what SHE does, so what does she do?? It looks like on that thread Prisca said she uses the gym and her mom primarily for her UA time. That's actually a helpful suggestion, although I don't have family near us and I know the family gym in my area has a MAX 3 hour childcare limit and the gym is not an interest of either of us. So although it's not an option for me, it's still a helpful suggestion of exactly HOW someone makes it work. Even then I would love more details addressing what are clearly common concerns, though. Like, "we have time for homework before the gym and get home at 9, so my kids go to bed later than most," for example.

He just walked in the door ( he's home much later than normal tonight because he had to run a couple of errands after work) so I will talk to him tonight about this specifically.

This is our last warning that this thread will be locked if the arguing and disrespect does not stop. If you wish to get help on this forum from the volunteers, we insist you show respect or you will no longer be welcome. If you have any questions, send me an email.

Page 9 I say how I found safe, reliable, affordable babysitters.I was very frustrated like you are now. I truly understand how valid your experience is. My point is to stop spending time on disagreeing and saying can't and start searching for how you can. I did it and you can too.

I was desperate when I came here and I knew MB was my last chance for my kids to grow up in a happy, intact home. So I could not give Up and say it was impossible. Remember I don't have family to use either... did I say that? And my friends don't need to trade. They all have two sets of grandparents vying for the chance to give free babysitting all the time. It was and is frustrating that life throws us these difficult problems to solve. I couldn't afford the first babysitters I found through regular advertising. I had to try many avenues. Many. Lots dead ended, but you keep brainstorming. The best I found have not been on sites I can screenshot link. (page 9 has details.)

We did do the gym idea for a year. 2 hrs there,listen to the radio show on the road, with ear buds and a splitter then home to talk awhile and have sex. It wasn't perfect but we did it because it's what we could do then and kept looking.

Now two times a week on week nights (usually Tuesday and Friday) I come straight home from work, shower, and go straight back out of the house with my husband. We come home to kids already in bed. (Bedtime for them is 8.) Little ones are asleep, big ones are reading. House cleaned up. Depending which gal was in she's also baked and cleaned a bathroom. Baby sitter leaves, I lock up and go to bed with my husband. On Saturdays as often as possible we try to get some daytime dates 6-8 hours. My kids love our sitters. Babysitters are happy. I'm happy.
We still do some at home dates.Still looking for more ways to make more dates work. 15 hrs looked impossible. Even ONE date a week looked impossible. I get it. Just start gathering ideas and trying them out until you find what works. Start with 15. Do that every week. And then keep adjusting.

Hope that gives you help. I already understand how hard it is and how impossible it seems. Just start. And keep working at it. Eventually you will find that third arm grew after all.

Creating UA time doesn't guarantee all marriage problems disappear, it's important to recognize that. I'd agree with the other posters that coaching and an agreement to the POJA is a good idea for you and your situation.
But just the lifestyle changes in the process of problem solving this area of UA time have truly defied the impossible in my life and led to so many other personal successes.

I think you really need to follow up on one of these suggestions. I am getting the impression you reply and then this part of the thread is forgotten.

Please reread my suggestions and put one of them on your todo list. I don't think you will make any progress any other way.

Thank you, builds, for your patience with me and for your advice and insight. I am going to try and be more positive.

Small update: My husband is super enthusiastic about UA and very willing to be creative and problem solve. He also encouraged me to be more optimistic about making it happen instead of feeling like it's impossible. But he also felt like there was more wiggle room, perhaps because he hasn't read the boards. He felt like the 4 4 hour dates would totally be possible and was helping me brainstorm about that. Actually, he came up with something I hadn't considered that I think would probably work for at least those 4 4 hour dates so that was super helpful. Neither of us are sure yet how we will get to 25 hours weekly, but he was very upbeat about figuring it out.

He didn't seem to understand how legalistic this is supposed to be, because he would insist on how doable it was but then give ideas that wouldn't "count," like a 2 hour date outside the house, coming home for bedtime with the kids, and then having 2 hours at home after they were in bed. But bottom line is that he's eager to make it work and excited about "dating".

I brought up the idea of coaching, as has been recommended, and he was open to discussing it, but didn't know if we could swing it financially at this time. I wish there was like a monthly payment option, because I think we could do that.

**EDIT**

I didn't mean to ignore your suggestions. I meant to clarify that you didn't feel in our situation that the home study program would be sufficient?

So I'm clear, your suggestions are

1. Ultimatum with possible separation
2. Write the radio program to see if Dr. H can convince him directly
3. Purchase the coaching program

correct?

I would be happy to write the radio program. Does it change things for you that he was so enthusiastic about the POUA?

Without searching now for writer1's thread, I believe I made that suggestion, and I find your comment about it really rude. I was trying to help her just as people have spent hours here trying to help you, and I do not appreciate being told that my suggestion was "terrible".

Do you really think I was telling her to put up adverts, and then accept the help of a teenaged boy, or a single man? Are you being deliberately obtuse?

I live in London, which is a huge and often dangerous city. At the primary school that my kids attended, people often put up posters asking for, and offering, babysitting and childminding. Nobody would have been stupid enough to accept an offer from childless people or teenaged boys. They were looking for mothers who were minding their own children, who were broke, and who would appreciate the opportunity to have a playmate for their kid while working from home, babysitting another kid. There were many mothers that had given up jobs to mind their own babies, and who were waiting for the day their kids started school and they could return to the labour market, but who, meanwhile, would be glad to earn money while their own kids were at home. That is the kind of person that I was suggesting that writer1 could look for.

My own daughter, when she was 15, developed a lucrative career babysitting. She did this by putting leaflets through the doors of people we knew from the school, with small children. They in turn knew that I had been a parent at the school for over 10 years, that I helped on the PTA, and that my kids were well brought up and lived in a clean, tidy home. They knew that I was at home, standing by to help out, should my daughter ever face an emergency with their kids that she could not cope with by herself - and that I lived only a walk away. They did not leave their kids with someone who had a high chance of turning out to be a child molester; they left them with a studious, sweet, sensible, well-mannered girl whose mother they had known on sight for years, and who was standing by at home.

When my children were very young, I knew nothing about Marriage Builders, so therefore I never sought a solution to how to get out of the house for 15 hours or more per week. However, I was in a babysitting circle that formed through our local mother and baby group, and we traded babysitting for free. We had an official system of tokens, so that anyone could trade with anyone else. I also had a childminder, as I was working part time. She picked my kids up from school, and on the odd occasion she did that, then kept them overnight, and took them to school next morning. As the kids started school they enjoyed having sleepovers with friends; sometimes they would both go to the same family, sometimes separately to different friends, and, as they got older still, the younger one would sleepover while the older one stayed at home. We were also able to use things like their gymnastics classes and Scouts meetings (both of these grew to 3 hours per session, at one stage), to go out together.

We used a whole mixture of things, but some of those won't be available to you, while you might have other things that we did not have. The point is that you need to brainstorm and explore (to the death) things that you and your husband can make work for you.

Well, of course, you don't have to do anything, but UA time is what Dr Harley prescribes for all marriages. If you absolutely cannot do UA time, your unhappy marriage will continue to be unhappy - so we suggest that you FIND A WAY.

I don't understand why the good posters here have not lost patience with you and given up entirely. Your main purpose here seems to be to argue, and to dish out the odd bit of faint praise to one poster that you find helpful, as a way of insulting all the others that have not answered to your satisfaction. (I have never even replied to you on this thread and yet I've been insulted for the advice I gave to someone else.) That is a sure way to find yourself with no help at all.

Now you're arguing about whether you're arguing? Wow.

The thread speaks for itself, you've argued about the math that Dr Harley uses, about the role of babysitters (not cleaning or helping with bedtime etc), about how it's not right to suggest babysitters in a certain manner (from another thread no less) about how the forum is too rigid, the list goes on and on. You called someone hypocritical at some point.

I find this behavior really shocking in all honesty. When I came to MB, and over the years, I was HAPPY and so grateful for any help anyone was willing to offer me, even if it was something I "had a hard time wrapping my head around." You seem to think you are entitled to help. You're not. You've been told over and over there are some things that we cannot help you with, such as figuring out the childcare.

Please stop. Enough is enough.

13yearsdown-

Bear with me here, okay? And try not to get discouraged with the feedback you are getting.

What we are calling arguing, is the habit you have of hearing our advice, and then verbalizing the obstacles you see. And then you throw a little dig the poster's way, to explain why the poster just doesn't get your impossible plight. That type of problem solving is exasperating and negative.

In order to implement a plan for a happier marriage, you have to challenge each one of your presupposed obtacles, to see if they are true obstacles, or maybe just a hurdle. If something is truly an obstacle, the move on to another idea. But spitting out the "why you can't" is a form of arguing.

When you want to be productive and constructive, ask "How can I" questions. Don't say "But I can't because" and expect us to give you help by debating you or proving your obstacle wrong. This is why you don't think you are arguing, but you really are.

If you ask your kids to do something and they tell you why they cant, then even if they have a true hurdle, they are still arguing. Wouldn't you tell them to "Please do it anyway? Find a way?

Don't say that you can't. You CAN, but you just haven't worked out the solutions yet, and you haven't shifted things around. You have set you life up revolving around the kids, not your marriage. It is very possible to change this. But it will never be different if you are unwilling to let go of good things to implement something better. You are unhappy!! What you are doing can't be that good. Good, better, best.

Ask questions, don't respond with bstacles. Mention your hurdles. Ask for help with overcoming hurdles. Appreciate the suggestions and be willing to try them out.

Am I reaching you?

13years,

The feedback people are giving you here in how you interact with others is valuable, if you will take a deep breath and listen. You have spoken to nearly everybody on this thread with disrespect and hostility.

I suspect, since you do not seem aware that you are doing this, that you also treat your husband this way.

Here's a challenge, and I hope you will accept it: your relationship with your husband is far more important than your relationship with us. BUT, use this forum as an opportunity to discuss problems WITHOUT disrespect or sarcasm. Practice here, and accept feedback when people tell you that you are slipping.

Disrespectful Judgements are a difficult lovebuster to overcome, because most of us have a hard time seeing them in ourselves. You've got a great opportunity to learn here.

I am interested in learning. I actually do agree with Prisca that DJ are a problem for me in my marriage. They are not, generally, anything I struggle with in any other relationships, including online. I don't belong to any other forums, but I use social media and other websites regularly. But if I am doing that, I would like to stop and turn things around in this forum.

Can you help me understand what I have said here that is a DJ? I can see how "terrible advice" was probably one. If I had said "unsafe advice," would that have made it not a DJ?

Was calling me rude, disrespectful, and saying I had a snotty attitude a DJ? If not, why not?

See, this isn't seeking advice. This is using an innocent tone, under the guise of appearing to ask a genuine question, with the intention of repeating the insult you made before.

It wasn't terrible advice, and neither was it unsafe advice, because I wasn't telling the poster to let anyone and everyone look after her kid, without using any element of judgement. I spent quite some time composing that post, explaining how advertising for childcare could be done responsibly. However, my effort was wasted on you. I don't think it was worth my time.

A Disrespectful Judgement places a negative value judgement on someone else. There is no difference between calling Sugarcane's advice "terrible" or "unsafe."

Since you claim to use sarcasm to "lighten the mood," I have a hard time believing this. Sarcasm is a Disrespectful Judgement. And, as you can see by how people have reacted to you on this thread, it isn't well received. It doesn't lighten the mood. It makes people want to avoid you.

My last post was sincere. I don't know what else to say.

What I would suggest is that you take a day to calm down. When you come back, come back with an open mind and a willingness to practice these things:

1. Listen to ideas without mocking them.
2. Don't hyperbolize.
3. Don't lecture or "straighten out."
4. Don't place a negative value judgement on someone else's idea; you may not like the idea, and it may not work for you, but don't devalue it (such as calling it "unsafe" or "terrible" or "hypocritical" or "multi-tasking away"). That person's beliefs are simply different than your own.

These are skills you will need in your marriage. Practice them here.

A major problem has been that when people make suggestions for things you might do, they give them as examples. They are trying to show you how brainstorming will eventually provide a shortlist of potential solutions, out of which you and your husband could then pick one or two.

They are not necessarily holding your hand and saying "do this: literally, this". They are brainstorming. Possibly something they have suggested will be the right thing for you, but if not, you should at least get the idea that there are lots of potential solutions to explore, and that if you and your husband put your heads together, you will come up with something, sooner rather than later.

We are not saying that any specific solution is the answer to your specific case. We do not know you, or your children and what will work for them, or your neighbourhood and what sources of help are available. You DO know these things, so we are throwing out ideas to encourage you to get thinking.

The same thing was being done for the poster writer1 on her thread, which I have just re-read. If you read that thread from beginning to end you will see suggestion after suggestion being offered with the utmost patience and goodwill, by a whole stream of posters who were trying to help. There are pages and pages of this. We did not know what writer1's income was, or what her neighbours were like, or what the cost of living in her area was like, or what her teenagers were like, or what her landlord was like, or whether she could walk to the local schools to pick up kids and do paid childcare, or whether she needed a car to do that...

...we did not know all those things, so we kept throwing out suggestions, as posters have been doing with you.

However, instead of your seeing what they are trying to show you, which is that there are many potential solutions, and that if these don't suit you, you and your husband need to do the same kind of brainstorming we have been doing and come up with a shortlist of your own...

...instead of seeing that, you have focused on criticising specific suggestions that will not work for you, or that you'd rather not try. You are still waiting for someone to come up with the perfect suggestion for you; perfectly matched to you, 13yearsdown, and your husband, children, income level and community, none of which we know much about, nor ever will know from a message board like this.

Out of all the posts on writer1's thread, and out of all the kindness that was shown to her (along with some irritation, which was far outweighed by the kindness), all you could find to do was pick on ONE suggestion that you could never follow, and call it "terrible". It was as if this proved that nobody was trying to help you, or if they did, they were all useless at it, because nobody can understand that whatever is suggested will not work for you. That's what you did with the advice on her thread and that's what you have been doing, more or less, on your own thread.

That is one of the ways in which you are disrespectful, and also argumentative, to the posters here.