Fanpalm hows it going with using the meter daily? That would probably be the most effective thing you can do to eliminate love busters

Thank you for checking in with me on this. I'm practicing for 30 minutes every day and I've done that successfully since starting the plan. I think I'm making progress but I'd be interested to hear your evaluation of that. When I'm on my own, I can get reliably make the reading on the meter drop at a steady rate, and within a few minutes of that I can get the meter reading down to a low value (about the lowest I've ever gotten it to), basically every time. So if I have a few minutes and I'm alone, I can get to a relaxed state. In a relative sense, that's a lot better than I could do when I started with the meter. I'm not sure if a few minutes is a long time or a short time in an absolute sense, compared to what should be achievable.

Dr. Harley recommends practicing with finding stressful thoughts that cause the meter to rise, and my success rate at that is low. Once I am relaxed, I am having trouble finding triggering thoughts that cause much of a response on the feedback meter. I relax and then I try to think of a painful experience or remember a scenario that was difficult and stressful, and occasionally I'll see a reaction on the meter, but mostly there is little or no impact on the meter reading. Sometimes when I'm trying to relax, the meter reading will randomly start going up a bit (probably I got distracted or something), and then I notice that and the meter reading starts shooting up more rapidly (probably I get anxious after seeing the meter reading going up or judge it as a failure), but now I've learned how to stop that within a second or two if I'm looking at the meter and see it happening.

Dr. Harley also recommends practicing relaxing while thinking stressful thoughts, but because I'm having difficulty finding stressful thoughts that cause a visible response on the meter, I don't know how to make progress on this right now. I might have an idea, though: I think I have a recording of an argument with my wife where she says some things that I found very stressful, and practicing relaxing with the meter while re-listening to that recording might be a challenging test.

I have not tried using the meter while talking to my wife.

I haven't observed any obvious payoff in interactions with my wife yet. I had an interaction with her this weekend that was difficult and painful, where I failed to manage my stress in the moment. She asked what was different about my current plan compared to what I'd been trying before, and instead of answering I responded that I'd be happy to tell her about my current plan. She then repeated her question several times and I repeated my answer several times, without ever answering her question directly. Sigh. That was not good. She was very upset about my response. She said I was being passive aggressive, controlling, and engaging in a power play. Then things devolved and she said several things that I found painful. The interaction was one of the most painful experiences I can remember having in a while. I wish I had responded differently to her question; I'm frustrated and upset with myself that I responded in that way, and that I keep screwing up and our interactions keep ending so badly. I was stressed and scared and that's exactly the kind of situation I'm practicing for, yet I failed to successfully apply any of those skills in the moment and catch myself and respond in a reasonable way. I'm pretty down about that.

I'd welcome any thoughts or reactions you might have on this. And if you have any advice or see any adjustments that might be helpful, I'd be interested to hear that, too. Thank you for stopping by my thread.

Why did you do this?

Do you agree with her assessment?

What were you stressed and scared about? What was there in her question that meant that you could not simply answer it?

I'm not sure how to think about why I do these dumb things. I am not defending it. I wasn't thinking straight. I think I was afraid the discussion would lead to an argument. I somehow got it in my mind that it'd be better to offer to describe the plan and let her decide whether she considered it different or not. So, avoidance of pain? Arrogance? Selfishness? My brain shut off and I responded out of instinct rather than wisdom?


Not really. But I don't have any great confidence in my judgement on these matters. I don't see it as passive aggressive (but I've been wrong about that many times before). It was an attempt to control the direction of the conversation, but I don't think it was an attempt to control her. I don't know if that's a meaningful distinction or just an attempt to let myself off. I can understand her view of it as a power play, as an attempt to control the framing of the conversation. I don't know if I'm fooling myself or blind to my own bad behavior. I could have answered in any number of ways that would have been constructive, but I didn't.

What's your assessment?


It's not rational. I am frequently stressed and scared in my interactions with her. What I do feel pretty confident about is that my stress level was high; my thoughts at the cause for that are guessing and speculation. I think I was scared that things were going to go badly. I think I was scared that I would say the wrong thing. I think I was scared it was going to lead to an argument over what elements were truly different vs not. I've seen our interactions go south many times and I am skittish about that and I was not thinking clearly. The stakes are high -- I really want the marriage to succeed; when the interactions go badly I suffer a lot. Her comments immediately before asking the question seemed disparaging to me and I may have been scared they would escalate. I am sensitive to disrespectful judgements. The energy in the room is one that I associate with a precursor to painful experiences. I think I was scared of feeling hurt. I don't know, some or all of those.

In my fear I created a situation that was worse than what I had feared; a self-fulfilling prophecy.


Absolutely nothing. There was nothing in the question preventing me from answering it. I simply didn't. That was not the right response.

Fan I haven’t done the meter myself but it sounds like a great help. I encourage you to start listening to the radio show daily, it was really effective at helping me treat people thoughtfully. I also used to read that Conversation Is Boring article daily before my ex got home so I could remember my purpose in talking with him. It helps my relationships with my mom and my daughters too.

As I understand it, your wife has made it clear that she wants a divorce and does not want to reconcile with you.

You are trying to prevent a divorce and to this end you've created a detailed plan to improve yourself while you continue to reach out to your wife, in the hope of changing her mind.

I've no idea whether your wife will ever change her mind, given the history of your own behaviour that you've described here, but she won't change it if your behaviour in her presence does not change. All the written plans in the world, and all the posting here for feedback on the plans, will have no effect if you continue to behave towards your wife in ways that upset her.

It's that simple.

Thank you for your analysis, SugarCane. That makes sense.

I thought I'd report on my progress on the plan:

1. I've been doing the bio-feedback daily for 30 minutes, until the past few days. I think it's time to change this to 15 minutes per day; I'm not seeing a clear benefit from this level of time on bio-feedback.
2. I've been writing daily to my wife. I think I'm doing ok at sharing information about myself and trying to seek connection, but struggling to provide affection or admiration.
3. I think I'm doing better at radical honesty and sharing what's going on with me during my daily email. I have one substantial email to write to her, to explain what I think has gone on with me in the past and try to put it all together in one place, which I haven't done yet.
4. I've continued to abstain from porn. I had a slip with masturbation.
5. I don't think I've committed any lovebusters, but we've had no contact.
6. I've hit a dead end on snooping. I assume there's no further contact but I have no way to verify it.
7. I've reduced my workload for the coming year, though I took on a modest consulting job to give us more income safety as my wife's job is at risk.
8. I've been talking to members of my family about my failures and history, and have completed that with 5 of 7 of them. 2 more to go.

I had a conversation with Dr Harley. He explained to me his hypothesis about what is going on with me; he suspects that I stopped liking my wife, and then my instincts try to do things to push her away and try to make me (my non-verbal signs, etc.) repulsive to her. He said my intellect is fighting my instincts and emotions. He asked why I wanted to remain married to her, and when I answered, said that's not a good enough reason. I'm not sure what to do about that. He said my focus needs to be on committing to care for my wife for the rest of my life, and that one can make the choice to care for someone even when you don't like them. He encouraged me to ask her if she'd be willing to speak to him; I did, and she refused and stated her strong opposition to speaking to Dr Harley.

Over the past month or so there's been little or no dialog or communication. She communicates briefly about logistical issues and to forward me articles and little else. She asked me once why I am emailing her; when I responded, she told me that she doesn't find my plan satisfactory and it doesn't address her concerns about safety. I'm discouraged. I go on, but I have little hope for success at saving the marriage. My wife asked for a phone call to tell me why she thinks I have bipolar disorder, and I've scheduled a time to listen to her about that. I don't think I have bipolar disorder, but I will hear her out, reflect on it, and write back to her with my perspective. We've selected a divorce mediator and I am gathering documents on our financial situation.

Thanks for the update, FanPalm. What articles is she sending you?

What Dr Harley apparently said confirms the impression I got when you first posted here and described how badly you had treated your wife. It seemed as if you actively disliked her and were never particularly bothered that you were making her unhappy. It was never clear why her filing for divorce made you want to save the marriage since you seemed to continue to dislike her. I can't see any reason why a woman who has already plucked up courage to separate and file for divorce would ever go back to a husband who treated her as you did.

These:

https://www.bphope.com/4-things-about-bipolar-anger-you-might-not-know/
https://www.bipolaruk.org/blog/seeing-red-a-look-at-bipolar-anger
https://www.bphope.com/bipolar-anger-unravel-your-wrath/
https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/prechter-program/bipolar-anger-unravel-your-wrath
https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...add29f9755abf64f42a8a2e3&oe=5F546C82

SugarCane, thank you for posting on this thread and sharing your impression of me, and letting me know that you also had the same impression. I find it painful to read what you've wrote. I hope all of this will help me change somehow. Perhaps reading your words will help me appreciate better what I've put my wife through and her perspective. I don't think of myself exactly that way, but that might mean it is what I need to hear.

I'm ashamed of how I've treated my wife and sick of myself. I come to this forum because I admire the Marriage Builders program, though I know I fall far short. I guess maybe I hope to get advice, get independent perspective, be accountable, be inspired, refresh my determination, learn, or something. If a rebuke is appropriate I will take that. Or maybe it's that I look up to folks here and wish I could get it right.

I know that you have a lot of experience and wisdom, and I appreciate your willingness to share it with folks here. If you have any advice for me in my position, or any advice on how to determine whether your description is accurate and what implications I ought to take away if it is, I would be glad to hear it.

I need to correct you: I don't have any wisdom at all about marriage, and the only experience I have is in my own marriage, and that is not a basis on which I would advise anybody else. The advice that I give is only ever based on what I have heard or read from Dr Harley.

When I read his concept of the love bank, it was the clearest and the only logical description I had ever read about love and marriage. It boils down to doing things that make the other person fall and stay in love with you, and not doing things that make the love disappear. The only way to "determine whether my description is accurate" is to do as I did and add up the things you described about your treatment of your wife, that led her to where she is now, separated from you and wanting a divorce. I could see a number of truly horrible things that you did over a sustained period of time that drained her love for you and made her close your account. Is there anything contrary to this that one could conclude from what you wrote? Have I missed something?

You say that you gave Dr Harley a reason why you wanted to be married, and he said that this wasn't a good enough reason. I might have forgotten where you wrote it, but I don't remember seeing anything about your loving your wife, really badly, as of now, and your wanting to be with her because you love her so much that you can't live without her. I would guess that if you felt like that, this would be coming across in the emails and updates that you send her daily. You'd be sending her love letters, not updates and accountability statements, and she wouldn't be asking what the point of the letters was. If you felt a passionate love for her, you wouldn't be failing to provide affection and admiration in your emails, as you say. Affection and admiration would be pouring out.

I'm not saying that you should now start to fake passionate love in your letters. I suppose I'm asking you the same question Dr Harley asked: why do you want to be married? Why do you want her to get back with you? If the reason isn't because of romantic love, then it isn't a good enough reason and you should leave the poor woman to sort out her life and have the chance find the love that she wants and needs.

Thank you, SugarCane. Why do I want to be married to her? I want to create a great marriage where we are romantically in love with each other. I want to do what I think is right, and be right with God. I want to make this marriage work. I think she's a pretty great person in a bunch of ways. I care about her and would like her to be happy. I'd like to make amends.

Dr. Harley's advice to me was to focus on a commitment to a lifetime of care to her. He reminded me that it is possible to act with care and love towards someone no matter how you feel about them. He also suggested I study his letter to couple #3 (I assume he was talking about this one: https://www.marriagebuilders.com/dating-is-not-always-a-good-idea.htm). He also recommended that I see if she would be willing to talk to him.

Yes, my assessment is that the things I've done have drained her love for me and made her close her account. It's a wonder that she's held on this long; it speaks to her strength or perserverance. Of the three states Dr. Harley mentions (Intimacy, Conflict, and Withdrawal), I assume she is in Withdrawal and her love bank is sharply in the negative. I'd guess that I am also in Withdrawal and my love bank is in the negative as well, to whatever extent that's relevant.

I hope that I am not being difficult. I had the impression of a somewhat different message from Dr. Harley than I perceive in your message. I don't know if that's a failure to understand on my part. I'm interested in understanding that better.

SugarCane, I realized I should have asked more questions. Can you elaborate on what concretely would be involved in leaving my wife to sort out her life? What actions would I take? Stop writing to her? Something else?

Surely nobody needs advice on how to leave someone alone. But the thing is, I'm not telling you to leave her alone. Rather, I was exploring Dr Harley's assessment that you have not cited a good reason for wanting to be married to her.

You're on the private forum, and therefore receiving advice directly from Dr Harley. I would never knowingly say anything to contradict his advice. Have you asked him how you can make Plan A deposits while you are separated, with sparse and reluctant communication from your wife who is pursuing a divorce?

That's a good idea. I will ask in the private forum.

I asked about that on my phone call with Dr. Harley and he gave me some advice. His advice was that I focus on a commitment to providing care to her and "planting a seed" of that in my communications with her. He talked to me about why my instincts may be leading me in the wrong direction. However, it wasn't the primary focus of what he talked about with me, so I will ask more specifically about that. I've also asked Sandy, my coach.