That's a good question for him to write to Dr. Harley on the radio show. Will he?

It's not your job to educate him.

Is this your husband's question? Radio Clip

BH, yes, that was his question. He said that Dr. Harley's response made sense, and that he was better able to understand why DJs should be avoided, and he made a commitment to stop them. They have been reduced but not completely eliminated yet.

I have 2 new questions about how to best handle specific types of situations that we dealt with this past weekend.

First, we were engaging in SF during our UA time, and I respectfully complained about the way he was touching me. He got really upset, and the evening was ruined. What would be the appropriate thing for me to do in such situations?

Second, our daughter was at a friend's house and needed to be picked up. Both of us were busy and running behind schedule, so neither of us wanted to do it, and I was trying to POJA. He tried to guilt me into to doing it even though I didn't want to, and then said that he would just do it (reluctantly). I told him I didn't want him to, but he said somebody had to step in and do it since she needed to be picked up soon, and he had other things to do in the meantime so he didn't have time for negotiation. In other words, the POJA was not followed. Dropping everything to negotiate would have made him resentful too, because it really bothers him when he can't complete the plans he has scheduled for himself. Basically, the only way he wouldn't have been resentful is if I had done it, which would have made me resentful. What is the best way to handle conflicts when something has to be done quickly?

I forgot that I had another question. When we're working with the 5 steps forms to eliminate love busters, do we show all of them to each other, or just the inventories?

Small I'm so confused. Neither of you are enthusiastic to pick up your daughter? Are you sure?

We were both enthusiastic for her to come home, but neither of us felt like going to pick her up right then because we were both busy and running behind. I realize it was bad planning, and maybe the answer is just to plan/communicate better. But I can imagine other situations arising where something has to be done very quickly, neither of us feels like doing it, and we don't have time to negotiate.

When I think of 100 things or so I do a week what I am most enthusiastic about is picking up my daughter!

The other stuff if it's making you too busy and you don't want to do it then don't do it but picking up your daughter is like a safety thing not a POJA thing right?

did he say about that he is resentful of picking up your daughter? I think lots of things would make somebody resentful but picking up your kid?

We were both really stressed out. I don't think we considered picking up our daughter to be a safety issue; it was more like we didn't want to inconvenience her friend's parents by being late to pick her up.

He wasn't resentful about picking up our daughter. He was resentful that I didn't pick her up, because he had to drop something else he'd planned on doing in order to pick her up. I also would have had to drop something I'd planned on doing in order to pick her up. We'd had no discussion or agreement about who would pick her up. I think I'm starting to see now that this and other situations like this could be avoided if we consistently discussed our schedules with each other ahead of time!

This continued line of questioning isn't really helpful.


No. Neither one of them was enthusiastic about picking up their daughter.

Rather than muck about in the mud about why they are not enthusiastic about it, solutions should be sought.

If these visits to a friend's house are disruptive; can she arrange for transportation from the friend's parents? Can visits be done at another time?


Alternatively; when your children are visiting with friends, it is a great time to get in some UA time, and you can arrange for pick up when you are on the return trip home.


While children are certainly very important - their parents having a healthy marriage is the BEST thing we can do for them.

Or, if you didn't have separate plans frequently!

This was kind of a spontaneous trip to her friend's house. Normally trips to her friends' houses aren't a problem; my question was more what to do when there's some kind of immediate deadline so a decision needs to be made quickly.

This was during a time outside of our 15 hours of UA.

Very few deadlines (the type where a decision has to be made NOW or there are dire consequences) actually exist.

The deadline here was that your daughter needed to be picked up. What would have been the consequences if you had been late to pick her up? In the worst case scenario, depending on how late you were to show up, the lateness would have irritated the friend's parents and she may never be invited back to her friends house. But, that is a consequence that could be lived with. It wouldn't be the end of the world. It wasn't a life or death situation. If that consequence were something you or your husband felt was very important for you to avoid, more than what you are currently doing, then one of you would be more than willing to drop what you are doing and go get your daughter. You and your husband could, in reality, take some time out and negotiate a win-win for both of you.

Often times we put an urgency on a "deadline" that doesn't really need to be there. Your marriage is more important than the deadline.

But if you operate from the viewpoint that you want something, and you can demand that your spouse do it for you, then the situation of who picks up your daughter becomes more clouded. You want him to do it because you're busy, and he wants you to do it because he's busy. You both value wanting your daughter home, and you value avoiding the negative consequence of irritating the other parents, but you expect your spouse to pick up the slack to do what you value instead of having to do it yourself. If you can demand that your spouse do something for you that you value, then what's the point of negotiating? They'll just do it for you, AND you are able to just keep on doing whatever you are busy with.

The real problem in your marriage, smallpeace, is your husband's disrespectful judgements and anger. If those are not eliminated, then there really is no hope in ever being able to negotiate a situation like this.

Has your H eliminated AOs and DJs?

One of the things my wife and I do is when one of the kids asks if they can go to a friend's house, she or I will say "let me talk to your mom/dad first." The kiddo can wait a few minutes while you discuss with your husband. This will give you chance to see if he's okay with it. You can also then discuss pick up arrangements by seeing what his schedule looks like and what your schedule looks like. If it's going to be an inconvenience, then you can always tell your child that you need to talk to the other parent to see if they can bring your child home as you are unsure if you two will have time to pick them up.

This is really an issue of both of you feeling like what you needed to do was more important than what the other person needed/had planned to do. Try and get in the habit of keeping each other informed of what your schedules are. "Hon, tomorrow I need to go grocery shopping, pick up the dry cleaning, and go pick out a new lamp for the living room. What do you have planned? Do any of those activities conflict with what you have going on? If not, what would be the best time for me to take care of those items?" You might even suggest consolidating activities to get a little time in together.

A frequent source of conflict for us is household chores. He tends to hear requests for help, and even expressions of appreciation, as judgements of him, no matter how hard I try to be respectful.

For example, today he spontaneously started sweeping the floor, which made me happy, so I said, "Thanks for sweeping the floor! It's nice when someone else besides me notices that it's dirty". I said this out of genuine appreciation, but he referred to it later as a "dig" at him, and asked that I stop saying things like that because (to him) what I'm really saying is that he doesn't help enough. I explained to him that I didn't mean it that way, but that made no difference to him, and he said he still needs me to agree to stop saying things "like that". Now he won't talk to me about it anymore until I agree to "what he needs from me." But I don't even understand what he's asking me to stop doing- I don't know what the "like that" is that I'm supposed to stop. On top of that, I'm really upset that he thought I was criticising him, and that nothing I can say to him changes that impression. I don't feel understood. All I was doing was thanking him!

How can I get him to talk to me about it so we can reach a solution we're both happy with?

He is perfectly entitled to ask you to stop saying that. He does not like it.


If we can understand, you should be able to. He is saying that "Thanks for sweeping the floor! It's nice when someone else besides me notices that it's dirty" bothers him. He feels this is a dig. Perhaps it was just the second sentence, who knows. It does not matter whether you meant it that way or not. You are not permitted to educate him. If he does not like something, you respectfully thank him for bringing this to your attention and immediately change the subject.



Complaints are always uncomfortable things. Nobody wants to hear them. But unless he can complain safely, he will shut down. This is not a POJA situation. You need to learn how to respectfully accept a complaint.

I agree that he's entitled to ask me to stop doing/saying things that he doesn't like. My problem is that I was unclear about what exactly he was asking me to do, and I wanted to make sure I understood what I was agreeing to stop doing. I didn't know what he meant by "things like that".



I understand that what I said bothered him. I meant that I don't understand "things like that" means. I don't think he simply meant that he wanted me to stop saying that exact phrase.

Also, is "you were making a dig at me" respectful? Isn't that a judgement?


But if you're unclear on what bothered him, don't you need to discuss it? Otherwise it's likely that you'll mistakenly keep doing it. I don't mean I'm unclear on WHY it bothered him. That's fine. I mean I'm unclear on what exactly I DID that bothered him.




I know they're uncomfortable, and I don't think I responded disrespectfully to the complaint. I said I would try to stop saying things like that, but was afraid I wouldn't succeed because I didn't understand what he meant by "things like that," and that it would help me if he could try to avoid reacting if I messed up, and instead just point it out to me if something I say is an example of "things like that." He got upset about everything I said after the word "but" and didn't really listen to me.

Also, is the intent behind something that is said completely irrelevant? If he said something that bothered me, I'd want to understand why he said it, especially if I was misinterpreting what was said. To me, it shows a lack of goodwill to assume that someone is attacking you. And like all humans, I have a need to feel understood.