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#3005517 07/30/18 11:37 PM
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My wife and I has a number of issues from our past that we can't seem to resolve. I understand that talking about mistakes of the past is a love buster but my wife insists that we can't move forward without resolving these things. I agree with her but don't see how we can resolve an issue without talking about it (mistakes of the past). How do we move forward without talking about those issues?


I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest
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I�ve heard Dr. H talk about this on the radio show a number of times. You�re thinking about it in the present because some present LBs are reminding you of it. Eliminate the LBs in the present and you won�t keep getting triggered to the past. What do you think?


Me 40, OD 18 and YD 13
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You know, I'm sure that eliminating the LB's will definitely help. Just as an example, I took a new job without making the decision together with my wife (this happened before I discovered marriage builders). I gave her very generic information and promised to talk about the job with her and then I went ahead and accepted the job without talking to her. That one decision on my part has been extremely difficult on our marriage. I undermined her trust in me, we've talked about the job decision many times since and each time we discover things about me that I have to change. At a very top level, I have a dishonesty problem and a controlling problem. I'm sure that changing the LB's for dishonesty and controlling behavior will help the problem. Most of our problems for years now have been centered around me not talking to my wife about these kinds of events that have taken place. I tend to hide things that I believe will be uncomfortable to deal with hoping that they will go away. They never do! She feels that we cannot move forward until the "elephant in the room" has been dealt with. The job is one of those elephants. I don't know why its so hard for me to bring these situations up and discuss them but I hesitate and procrastinate and him and haw and finally my wife will say something but because I didn't raise the issue myself, whatever we discuss doesn't count in her mind.


I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest
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Dr. Harley often says that when a spouse has engaged in independent behavior the couple needs to go back to how things were before the independent decision was made. The independent behavior has to be undone. You need to get out of that job!

Years ago Dr. Harley moved to Minnesota with his wife Joyce. Joyce wasn't completely sure how she would feel as Minnesota was a much colder climate than she was used to, growing up in California, and they were leaving their family and friends behind. So they moved with the agreement that if Joyce decided she didn't like it, they would move back. Years have passed and the Harleys are still in Minnesota, but you can bet that Joyce would not have been enthusiastic if she had felt trapped there and felt like this was a decision she could not get out of.

I'm sure your wife feels trapped by the job and by the consequences of these independent decisions you have made. I'd go for broke, quit the job ASAP, and tell her you'll get a new job that she feels enthusiastic about.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Markos, that is a really good point that you make. We are in a position of selling our company of which we have an equity stake. The close should be in the Feb '19 timeframe. We have a significant investment in this and its important for our retirement. That said, once the sale is complete, changing jobs and making the decision together is certainly an option. My independent behavior is a huge part of this and I've learned so much about who I am and why my wife is so disappointed and disillusioned with me. I've tried multiple times to talk with my wife about the MB principles and she believes wholeheartedly everything that I've ever talked with her about but anytime that the words "marriage builders" come up, she goes flat and wants nothing to do with it. I've taken the position that the proof is in the pudding and that if I change, its because of the principles taught by MB's. I have hope but it is really difficult when you've hurt your sweetheart for so many years.

Last edited by dividejim; 07/31/18 02:34 PM.

I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest
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Originally Posted by dividejim
Markos, that is a really good point that you make. We are in a position of selling our company of which we have an equity stake. The close should be in the Feb '19 timeframe. We have a significant investment in this and its important for our retirement.

And how does your wife feel about this?


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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My wife is in agreement that I need to stay until the company is sold. After that we will discuss our options.


I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest
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Originally Posted by dividejim
My wife is in agreement that I need to stay until the company is sold. After that we will discuss our options.
Is she enthusiastic about this?


FWW/BW (me)
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Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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No but we both feel that it�s necessary until we get our investment out of the company.


I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest
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Originally Posted by dividejim
No but we both feel that it�s necessary until we get our investment out of the company.

So - the thing you need to understand is that she feels trapped, and she feels like there are no options here, and it was your decisions that were made without even consulting her that have put her here.

So this is not problems of the past - it is problems of the present for her, and it will be until this decision is undone.

My advice is I would look for a way to undo it sooner rather than later. Defer figuring out retirement later, get this thing sold sooner and out of that job faster. Ask her how she would feel about that.

This sounds a lot like you've educated her / lectured her about how it has to be done this way because of your investment and retirement in an attempt to make her go along with this even though she's not enthusiastic.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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This is a reluctant agreement for your wife. As such, it is very much a problem of the present, not a past mistake. It is not resolved.
Since it is a reluctant agreement, it is understandable that her resentment is brewing. She is right that you can't move forward until the issue is resolved.

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My advice is I would look for a way to undo it sooner rather than later. Defer figuring out retirement later, get this thing sold sooner and out of that job faster. Ask her how she would feel about that.
Do this.


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What to do with an Angry Husband

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I used to be in a situation very similar to your wife's. My husband had taken a job without consulting me. The job was not a positive thing for me in many ways. Later on we discovered this program and adopted POJA. While he was still in that job, I carried a lot of resentment...every single day he was there was a reminder of his previous disregard for my feelings. We had discovered MB and were making a lot of improvements in our marriage. But every time a weekend, evening, vacation, etc... was interrupted by a call from his boss, it was a trigger...I was instantly reminded of the independent decision he had made and how much I resented that.

With POJA, the default position is "do nothing". We both agreed that he needed to get out of the job. I wanted him out NOW. He had an exit plan that was a year or two out. He argued that "do nothing" meant to continue the status quo...that quitting the job was "doing something". I posted to this board and was told that "do nothing" meant he should not report to work until the issue was resolved. We brainstormed and found a way to get him out of that job sooner (it was a few months, which still felt like an eternity, but at least I knew he was really trying to make things right). In hindsight, I don't think our marriage really started recovering until he was GONE from that job. At that point it truly became an issue of the past. Until he left that job, every work day was a trigger and made me question if he truly cared about my feelings and viewpoint or not.

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Originally Posted by markos
Originally Posted by dividejim
No but we both feel that it�s necessary until we get our investment out of the company.

So - the thing you need to understand is that she feels trapped, and she feels like there are no options here, and it was your decisions that were made without even consulting her that have put her here.

So this is not problems of the past - it is problems of the present for her, and it will be until this decision is undone.

My advice is I would look for a way to undo it sooner rather than later. Defer figuring out retirement later, get this thing sold sooner and out of that job faster. Ask her how she would feel about that.

This sounds a lot like you've educated her / lectured her about how it has to be done this way because of your investment and retirement in an attempt to make her go along with this even though she's not enthusiastic.


Markos, at this point, neither of us are enthusiastic about this job that I'm in but for different reasons. My wife, as you say, is feeling trapped and we've had that discussion. She's trapped based on my decision to move forward with taking this job. I'm not enthusiastic because of the damage that I've done to our marriage. I see that and it does pain me. I don't really control the timing of the sale of our company; I am one of many stockholders and there is no way that I can influence the timing. It will happen in a natural way based on our marketing efforts. My wife and I have talked about this in great detail and we've talked about me leaving. She doesn't feel that it would be prudent for me to leave just as I don't until the sale is done. She has told me on numerous occasions that just having a new owner of the company after we get our equity payout will help her to deal with the situation; especially if the payout is substantial and will help us.

Your comment about this being a problem of the present as opposed to the past is like a pie in the face to me. You're absolutely right about that. I haven't really seen it that way until now. As far as educating my wife on the investment situation that we are in, we have had lengthy and detailed discussions about this. I've not been lecturing about this but rather informative. I understand your point but we really have tried to figure this out together and have made the decision that I need to stay put until the company sells even though neither of us are too jazzed about that.


I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest
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Originally Posted by JenDee
I used to be in a situation very similar to your wife's. My husband had taken a job without consulting me. The job was not a positive thing for me in many ways. Later on we discovered this program and adopted POJA. While he was still in that job, I carried a lot of resentment...every single day he was there was a reminder of his previous disregard for my feelings. We had discovered MB and were making a lot of improvements in our marriage. But every time a weekend, evening, vacation, etc... was interrupted by a call from his boss, it was a trigger...I was instantly reminded of the independent decision he had made and how much I resented that.

With POJA, the default position is "do nothing". We both agreed that he needed to get out of the job. I wanted him out NOW. He had an exit plan that was a year or two out. He argued that "do nothing" meant to continue the status quo...that quitting the job was "doing something". I posted to this board and was told that "do nothing" meant he should not report to work until the issue was resolved. We brainstormed and found a way to get him out of that job sooner (it was a few months, which still felt like an eternity, but at least I knew he was really trying to make things right). In hindsight, I don't think our marriage really started recovering until he was GONE from that job. At that point it truly became an issue of the past. Until he left that job, every work day was a trigger and made me question if he truly cared about my feelings and viewpoint or not.

JanDee, I appreciate your sharing with me how it felt for you. I think that most of the time, I don't truly understand the impact that I'm having on my wife for various things that I do or traits that I have. I was raised to ignore emotions and sweep them under the rug, be a nice person, don't raise your voice, let things roll off of your back. My wife was raised to be very open and not hide anything. Its been a roller coaster of a marriage for us! 34 years later I'm now discovering how I've taken advantage and hurt her in so many ways. Its so overwhelming to me that I sometimes feel just paralyzed and end up not dong anything. The MB principles have certainly opened my eyes to how things can be. I fear that it may be too late for us. My wife is so full of resentment that every day is almost unbearable.


I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest
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Jim hang in there friend. She�s going to forgive you too soon, that�s how it goes. But that�s okay, you�ll keep checking in and listening to the show and stay on track.


Me 40, OD 18 and YD 13
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I have an extremely difficult time listening to the barage of insults and bitterness that my wife tells me every day. I�m stupid, worthless, not worth the skin that I�m in, I�m lazy, I wish I never met you, you�re ugly, you disgust me and on and on and on. I would never dream of saying the kinds of things that she seems to easily say to me with no hesitation or regret. She has to push my buttons in order to get me to be honest and open with her. Honestly, I�m scared to death to say anything honest and open to her for fear that she will have an angry outburst and hurl insults and foulness at me. It�s happened so many times over our married life that I honestly believe that this is the reason that I have such a hard time talking to her. It�s fine when she isnt angry but when she is, the last thing in the world that I want to do is to talk to her about anything. I usually just shut down and avoid her and just don�t say anything. I am struggling more than ever before and I don�t know how to get through this. My wife insists that we have to work through our issues by talking about them and I just can�t right now...I�m looking for some advice from some who may have been through this that can help me to understand what is going on...


I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest
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I have an appointment to speak with a counselor to try to work through this situation but I�m not very hopeful. With all of the hurt that has been done on both sides, I just don�t know how this ends up being repaired....


I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest
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The verbal abuse you describe is very isolating and I encourage you to write to Dr. H to get his counsel.


Me 40, OD 18 and YD 13
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Originally Posted by NewEveryDay
The verbal abuse you describe is very isolating and I encourage you to write to Dr. H to get his counsel.

Yes I think that I will email Dr Harley...thank you for the suggestion.


I'm 64 yrs old; married to my wife for almost 40 yrs. Started having marriage troubles 10 years ago. I have lived independently for all of these years. 10 yrs ago wife announced she did not love me anymore. Wife has had angry outbursts our whole married life. I now understand that this is a symptom of my independent behavior. No infidelity from either of us. Active members of our church. 4 children, 1 son, 3 daughters. All out of the house now. Adjusting to the empty nest

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