Next weekend, MrsBT starts a job that she applied for while sorting out how she was going to divorce me. It is a part time night shift warehouse job, Sat, Sun and Mon 8pm to 4am. While she was talking about potential schedule adjustments and all the things that need to be considered, after listening to her bring up child care, church, dinner/house work and a couple other things, I mentioned, 'I would like to consider how to adjust our UA time as well.'

Her response was that it is unfair of me to expect 15 hours of UA time, that we have more important priorities and that we can't just check out of our lives. She said she doesn't like that I bring up UA time when she is tired and try to make her feel bad for not meeting it.

I asked if she would like to set up a UA schedule or when we could talk about it. I said I am not trying to make you feel bad, and not trying to bring up the subject when you are tired.

We have read the first of the Dating Your Spouse articles together. When we finished the first one, she didn't seem super enthusiastic about continuing so I asked her how she felt about reading another. She said it's fine. I said I don't want to do things that you are fine with, I want to only do things we enthusiastically want to do and I want to show you that you are safe to tell me if you aren't enthusiastic. 'Its just review of stuff we know.'. OK, do you want to do something else? 'Its fine.'

So I pulled out the personal history questionnaire and we talked about each other and shared and it was nice and she was obviously very enthusiastic about doing that.

I do not feel safe to talk to her about my concerns, and I don't feel confident in my ability to complain respectfully.

One morning she asked how much I had to work. I said I need 3 more hours this week. It was ~10am.
Her: So you could be done by 1 and we could go workout before kids are out of school at 3.
Me: We could, I have meetings at 1100, 1300 and 1400-3pm and it's Thursday, the day I normally run with Greg.
Her: You said you only need 3 hours. That's way more than 3.
Me: I need 3, I am scheduled for more, but we can figure this out (interrupted)
Her: Well, just drive yourself then, I didn't know you had other priorities. I just wanted to maybe do the workout today before kids got done with school that you said you wanted to do with me. I will just drive myself to Costco.
Me: Hold on, I am not telling you what I am doing, I am just laying out what is in the schedule. We can move stuff around, let's figure this (interrupted)
Her: Don't worry about it, just do what you want and I will work around it like I always do
Me: I don't want to do anything that we both don't enthusiastically agree to, so right now I don't even want to go to work until we figure this out. We just need to talk. Those are just scheduled meetings, I may not need to be physically present or can maybe miss them, I just need time to check, but if you said right now you didn't want me to go to them, I wouldn't. Let's just talk about (interrupted)
Her: I don't have time to talk to you, you figure it out, we are leaving. (walks out and gets in car and starts to leave)

So I just got in with them and flexed around it on the fly, but this kind of response is not negotiation. It is also pretty typical of how a 'discussion' gos if I don't 100% jump on board with whatever was suggested. The SD/DJs are hard to eat, the desire to retaliate in kind is there, but I havent yet. Additionally, the statement 'trying to make me feel bad for not making 15 hrs of UA' hits me hard because it's the first I had heard about it, which means she is being dishonest still and hiding her frustration from me and not allowing me the opportunity to care for her. There was also some 'we don't need to do all of Marriage Builders, it's just one way to do it, we should just do the needs questionaires' which isn't very encouraging. I think love busters on both our ends have been far more damaging over the years of our marriage.

Also, I am struggling with a question:

Where in the Love Busters does interrupting fit?

2 different kinds of interrupting that I am talking about.

1) When, as an example, you say, 'I just read something neat, can I share my thoughts on it with you?' After reading a sentence or two and start saying a thought, you hear, 'Hey cool, the town square is going to do Oktoberfest and have vendors and a live band,' making it clear that while you were sharing, they were reading something else.

The one I see there is Dishonesty (said you would listen/expressed interest, but didn't), but IDK what else it would be if anything other than that it is very hurtful

2) 'Regular' interrupting where you are speaking and just get cut off as if the rest of what you have to say doesn't matter. 'Maybe we should find out if his teacher'(interrupted) 'I don't care what his teacher says... (etc.)'

I think this one is DJ, but idk, there is a demand to listen to them only, as well as independent behavior of not considering the other person in deciding to talk. This is of course ignoring the Angry Outburst when it's delivered as a shout.

So far I have been just removing myself from conversations when these things happen, but at several times a day I want to address them because they are hurting her account in Bank immensely. However, I am unwilling to reciprocate, so I have to learn how to address these respectfully.

If anyone can point me at a good article on this or something, I would appreciate it. Otherwise I will just keep combing through them until I find something.

I think I found my answer to:

Where in the Love Busters does interrupting fit?

I think it is a selfish demand (for immediate attention) and a disrespectful judgement (I don't care what you are about to say).

More importantly, I think that worrying about what it is at that moment is just me looking for something to lecture. I think it is sufficient for me to express the truth:

"When you do that, it hurts."

So at the end, it doesn't really matter where in Love Buster's it fits.

No Angry Outbursts from me since last posts. I have been asking every other day, "What is the last thing I have done that made you feel hurt, upset, or otherwise bad?"

I got a good response 5 days ago, "Not happy about you talking to brother's wife about their issues." I agreed that if she doesn't like it, I shouldn't do it, so I stopped talking to her outside of 2 specific responses we agreed on (write an email to mbradio and the phone number to anger management counseling in their area). When I asked 2 days ago, "I don't remember, I am sure there was something."

I am trying to use the Love Buster's questionare and Dr. Harley's approach of trying to get clean sheets. I am going for answers of 'Nothing.'

Does this sound good? Could I tweak it to be better? Is the question safe?

We will have had 1 date (by the Dr.s definition) this week, primarily because the weekends are now shot with her working 8pm to 5am Sat, Sun, Mon.

I printed off all the questionaires that she expressed a desire to fill out, but we haven't done them. I still do not feel safe to freely express myself, and we don't have PORH online. She has all my passwords and ability to access my phone, I don't have access to her phone or her passwords. I also am concerned that she only seems to tell me if something is bugging her if I ask. I will keep asking, but it always leaves me wondering if there is something i am missing.