I am here as my marriage is falling apart. I am not meeting my wife's needs and my wife is not meeting my emotional needs. I am seeking out specific help in rebuilding my marriage using the principles on this site by Dr. Harley.

A Christian life coach, who is a licensed counselor, recommended the HNHN book to me among other faith based resources, and I feel that it describes my situation quite well. [side note: my wife has convinced our couple's therapist that I had an emotional affair with this life coach, and I have since discontinued my coaching relationship with this person. This life coach also has admitted to being a BPD person and has a nearly identical personality to my wife having nearly identical marital issues as my wife and I have].

After reading the HNHN book, I agree almost completely with what Dr. Harley says. It is one of the few, if not only books on marriage therapy that is very structured in what to do in a very analytical kind of way which I find very attractive as both myself, and my wife are very analytical which resonates completely with me - it makes perfect sense.

There is a tremendous backstory to my marriage - so I will do a really quick version of how screwed up my relationship is, ask me for more information if you want more details. I am highlighting the key details in this post. From what I have read on this forum this is generally 'above the pay grade' of material that is dealt with on this site; however, please hear me out to the end...

I am Christian, and believe in the sanctity of marriage, and will be there for my wife in both [mental] SICKNESS and in health. So, I have not left, even though everything I have read and hear in the secular world indicates that I should leave as I strongly suspect my wife has a very high-functioning version of undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder [BPD a.k.a. EUPD / EID]. So, I am one of the 20% of whom is miserable in a loveless marriage and won't leave due to my moral compass and obligations.

I have two gifted children, D/16, S/11, one is valedictorian, and the other one is straight A's. My wife was also valedictorian, and I am the 'dumb' one with a B+ average and an IQ of 138.

I've been together with my wife for 22 years, and will be married for 20 years next month. She is my first wife. Prior to meeting my wife, I had two previous romantic relationships. Both of these relationship were also with other disordered women, one with diagnosed ADD, and the other undiagnosed BPD/NPD/+more that made front page news of the 2nd largest newspaper in the state related to her disorders a year and a half after I left her - literally the stuff of horror movies - I left that woman because she cheated on me not once, but twice. In essence, I attract women with mental health disorders as I have a caretaker type personality, that attracts the 'crazy' personalities like moths to a flame.

My wife is very active in our Church, she has ingratiated herself with my family, church, kids, colleagues - everyone. She has also manipulated the situation where I have been accused of f***ing the other moms and having affairs - all 'not true', but it has effectively isolated me from friends and support networks, and has convinced both of our last two couple's therapists to support her version of her narrative. She has carefully crafted her self-image as the 'perfect church lady'. Whereas, I am a service academy graduate, and was away on deployment overseas for a good portion of the marriage and has painted me as an absentee father/husband, prior to my early retirement in 2019.

With myself being absent for much of the marriage while on missions for our government while she held down the fort. It wasn't until 2019, when I came back from a mission, and our then 12 year old daughter was near death, starving to death, with full blown anorexia nervosa [AN] (diagnosed) did I realize that my wife couldn't handle this lifestyle. In one week's time, I had buried my father, and put my daughter, against her will, into a mental health hospital to address her AN. The official cause of my D's AN was my father's death; however, going back into my D's medical history it started at least 3 months prior to my father having any issues - while my father might have been a contributing factor, he was not the cause. I later came to learn, it was due to the emotional stress my wife was placing on our D with my wife's undiagnosed BPD after having a heart to heart conversation with my D two months ago.

Shortly after my D was discharged from the hospital for AN, my wife decided we needed 'marriage counseling' to 'fix me' as she perceived me being absent was the cause or contributing factor of our D's AN [blame game]. I let my wife say her narrative, even though I objected to my wife's version of events, which I feel fell on deaf ears of the therapist. The therapist believed her, not me. This went on for three years, about year ago, while doing a homework assignment for this T, my wife attempted her 6th suicide attempt as I indicated I was going to throttle back the 16 hour x 7 hour days of meeting my wife's emotional need for domestic help/servitude, I told her I would throttle it back to 12 hours x 5 days + 16 hours X 2 days, both of these sets of numbers are well in excess of the HNHN books suggestion of 15 hours per week.

Shortly after my wife's most recent suicide attempt I was given an ultimatum by her therapist which was reinforced by the couple's therapist to get individual therapy for myself as I had likely been pegged as a narcissist by them.

Well, I lucked out, my therapist had a PhD in psychology, and when I described the relationship I had with my wife, he all but blurted out to me, as he asked me the question if my wife has been assessed for Bipolar or BPD in our first session. I went home, researched both BPD and Bipolar, and as I have basic medical training in my job, and I am qualified to be MPIC (medical person in charge), I knew where to look, and quickly determined my wife's symptoms were a very good match for BPD. However, as I am not an expert in mental health issues I asked about BPD in my next session. My therapist gave me a book from his personal library on BPD. I read the book in a few hours, and realized, my wife was only half as crazy as the woman described in the book, that's the good news. The bad news, is that she was half as crazy as the woman in the book.

This started me down the rabbit hole of BPD and mental health. Due to the excessive amount of emotional abuse I received from my wife, I had to make sure I wasn't the issue, so I spent the next three months looking at myself with the therapist. After I had verified I was not the issue, I then looked at my wife, and I read several more books which validated me in the 3rd person, I contacted one of the author's who further validated me in the 1st person, another reached out to me and also validated me in the 1st person when I was posting on the other forum in a group therapy type setting. So, I approached the couple's T on my suspicions, she categorically rejected that my wife was BPD. So, I took it upon myself, to highlight a major pressing symptom every week thereafter starting in August, and by mid September, the therapist said 'maybe' and promptly ghosted us after accusing me of being a bully as I 'kept piling it [symptom after symptom] on', and gave me a couple parting gifts - one was to talk to her therapist, I did, and the major issues of suicide and 0-100% violent rages have just about stopped. Still working on the emotional abuse, even though this has been substantially reduced; however, it is still way too high.

At this time, my individual T, indicated he was in 'above his head' as he was not a specialist in borderline relationships and referred me to his supervisor and trainer who is my current therapist. Meanwhile my wife chose another couple's therapist, and she too, after consulting her individual therapist said she was not a BPD. This was this past October. I repeated the self-exam with my individual T supervisor, with the same results.

Currently I am managing my wife's BPD for her as I have set boundaries on the abuse directed towards me and our children, and using a variety of communication tools after studying BPD for several hundred hours and I can now accurately predict my wife's irrational behavior based on what I have learned.

Recently, my wife has come to the realization that she is interested in the marriage builders program. Currently we are halfway through the free videos on this site. I have reserved paper copies of the HNHN and Love Buster books for her to read at her request; however, I want to get her into a structured program as borderlines deal best with a structured program, and HNHN is the most structured one I have found [making lists, most thought provoking, etc.].

I am stuck, as I am perceived to be the 'absentee father' vs the perceived 'perfect church lady' who is my wife and the mother of my children. I am genuinely concerned for the safety of my children, as I found one of them near death under my wife's immediate care, so I am morally obligated to stay in this marriage to protect my children, and hopefully take care of my mentally ill wife as well whom the experts say is not mentally ill in spite of apparently outwardly showing 8/9 'textbook' symptoms [5 required for diagnosis]. So, in addition to scriptural teachings, I am compelled to stay in this loveless marriage, Plan B will not be implemented until both children are out of the house which will occur at the earliest in the summer of 2030 barring any unforeseen circumstances.

My wife is partially self-aware, and has stopped all physical violence [last episode was three months ago in December], and the majority of her all-out rages/rants have been significantly reduced. So, there has been substantial improvement.

11 days ago, my wife told our couple's T [therapist] she wanted a separation and told her how terrible I was, 6 days ago, she told our couple's therapist I was the most wonderful husband to take care of her and wanted to rebuild our marriage. My wife has a good moral compass, as she is the [not-so] 'perfect church lady' and wants to make this work.

My question to you guys, has anyone had experience with a borderline and implementing the HNHN principles.

Does anyone have any additional tips not contained in Dr. Harley's books that may be helpful?

Any suggestions?

Any related archived posts that I can reference?

Additional resources?

Any in-person seminars/retreats?

A list of approved marriage therapists that use the HNHN/Love Buster principles?

Any interactive online courses/conferences?

Any other helpful suggestions, no matter how 'outside the box' it is would be very welcome, as I am desperate for a workable solution?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Welcome to MB. I'm sorry to hear about the problems in your marriage.

I will agree with you that this is above my pay grade. I can't advise you on how to implement Dr Harley's principles with a spouse that you believe has a personality disorder. I advise you to write to Dr Harley at his radio show. It would be great for us posters if you would agree to talk to him on the radio show, or to have your letter read out and answered, because we would be able to hear his advice. However, if you don't want to do either of those things, he will write to you privately, without charge.

I don't think he would approve of your diagnosing your wife. I also think he would sympathise with your wife for feeling that you were an absent husband and father, and that this had a bad impact on her feelings for you.

You talked about your wife playing the blame game, but I think that this entire post blames her and is designed to show what a selfless, heroic husband you have been and are. I don't think that this attitude will help if you try to build a new marriage.

But rather than pick your post apart, I will reiterate my advice to write to Dr Harley.

I agree with SugarCane. Please write Dr. Harley.


Email your questions to Joyce Harley at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com. When your email question is chosen to be answered on the radio show, you will be notified by email directing you to listen to the broadcast. If you would like to consider being a caller, include your telephone number. You will receive a call to explain the procedure.

TRIGGER WARNING - Graphic descriptions of attempted self murders & other violent/abusive behaviors


SugarCane & BrainHurts,

Thank you for responding. I would definitely like to hear from Dr. Harley's advice on the matter. Please confirm that the e-mail address to his wife from 'BrainHurts' gave will get to Dr. Harley?



I agree, only a professional should make a formal diagnosis, and I have specifically requested that we do a psychological evaluation with a qualified individual, specifically a psychiatrist, and my wife has refused [citing the reason that 'she doesn't want to lose the children' as given to her by our matchmaker's partner who is a family court judge and echoed by her individual therapist]. I am willing to go, and I have been evaluated, as I indicated in my original post, I looked inward not once, but twice with two different professionals with the same answer, as I didn't believe my wife's assessment of me and her therapists assessment too.

However, and that is a huge HOWEVER, I do recognize that I am in an abusive relationship and needed to figure out why, and how to stop it. Since links to other relationship books are not allowed, I will not reference them here; however, these books have been vetted and are immensely popular sources with millions of copies sold, and some are mandatory reading for new licensed therapists. I used every resource I could find to try and figure out what was going on since my request for a formal assessment was denied repeatedly by my wife and her therapists.

I had to follow my 'gut' on this, and I found a plethora of resources to make an independent assessment, approved by a PhD in psychology, and is mandatory reading in my state of residence for all new licensed therapists. Once this assessment was completed, which was well beyond the 'maybe there is a problem' but was 'definitely a problem', I implemented emotional tools designed to manage it, and these tools were very effective, which only reinforced the results of this assessment.

So, using the analogy of comparing BPD to a Duck... If it looks like a duck, has feathers like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, swims like a duck, flies like a duck, has all the mannerisms of a duck, it does not take a zoologist to tell you a duck is a duck.

Likewise, if you see a guy passed out in a park, reeks of alcohol, has a pile of empty bottles of alcohol next to him, it doesn't take a doctor to tell you that this person has at a minimum, a drinking problem, and is likely a diagnosable alcoholic, especially if you see the same person with the same behaviors year after year. Alcoholism & BPD have comorbid pathologies [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2676679/].

The scientific study that I just referenced was from a population sample of 34,653 adults indicates that 5.9% (5.4-6.4%) of the general population with a 99% confidence index have diagnosable BPD even though the number that are actually diagnosed is about 1/4 of that, leaving 3/4 of the diagnosable population undiagnosed. In essence 1 in 20 persons has diagnosable BPD. If one were to put two people together in a marriage, you double the odds, so 1 in every 10 couples one of the persons is likely to have BPD. Keeping in mind if someone is in a healthy marriage, they would not be visiting a site like this, so assuming an arbitrary number of 50% who seek help with their marriages, it is likely a much higher number than 10% of the couple's seeking help possibly somewhere in the vicinity of 20% of all couples who seek couple's therapy. That's a big number.

If one were to expand to all diagnosable disorders this number is triple what I just stated if you include NPD and other disorders...

Keep in mind mental health disorders were not covered by most insurance until just recently, a bit more than a decade ago under Obamacare, and the treatment of mental health issues is still in its nascent stages and continues to evolve rapidly. However, mental health issues have been present for thousands of years as the scriptures have described a BPD/HPD type relationship with one of the minor prophets in the old testament. Of course there are the proverbs that are repeated regarding the 'quarrelsome wife'.

What I am trying to say is that BPD and other PD's are much more prevalent in marriages than most people think, and statistically speaking of your 71,757 members on this forum (as of today), between 3,865 and 4,580 members and/or spouses have diagnosable BPD -- I am very surprised to find only one topic vaguely referencing a non-specific PD here considering how prevalent it is. Perhaps, most are just as oblivious to this as I was before I even heard of BPD this past June, even though the diagnoses has been around for quite some time.



Not true. However, I do see your point, and how I come off sounding quite arrogant shining a spotlight on the abuse happening in my marital dynamic. My primary emotion is 'frustration' where I am doing everything I think I am supposed to, and I am spinning my wheels in the sand going nowhere fast.

I would like to point out and to clarify that I specifically said, "I am not meeting my wife's needs" in the opening paragraph of my first post. I do take responsibility for my actions, as I have specifically done a form of abusive stonewalling in the form of grey rocking, reactive verbal abuse, and having been an absentee partner due to my chosen career which had a financial need to provide a living for my family. Being absent for that portion strongly implied that I was neglectful in my marital duties by not being there for my family when they needed me the most - I acknowledge this fact, and I am ashamed of it, especially as I did not see, hear, or recognize the needs of my family. I am sorry for only alluding to this instead of taking direct responsibility for it.

I am also going to point out, that I looked to myself for blame first, not once, but twice with two different professionals to see where I failed as a parent and lover to find myself in my current family dynamic.

As soon as I realized that I was neglectful to the point of nearly losing my daughter to AN, at that time I took immediate corrective action once I was made aware of the initial issue even though I was totally oblivious as to the cause. Hindsight, which is nearly always 20/20, which I only recently acquired in January of this year, I should have seen what was happening psychologically almost two decades ago when my wife's first suicide attempt occurred. Now that I recognize the issues, the traits, otherwise known as 'red flags' were there all along, I just did not know about them, so I didn't recognize them, even though I knew something was 'off' all along in my gut. While I cannot forget what has happened in the past, and that shapes my actions in the present; however, I should not ruminate too much on what has happened in the past as that cannot be changed; however, I must focus on the present in order to make the future for my family a better place with self-examination to grow as a person to make myself a better father, and a better husband to my wife while avoiding the repetitious and cyclic behavior from the past.

Now I am going to talk a little bit about trauma bonding - I have it. Even though I have had formal training in 'Stockholm Syndrome' in the context of being hijacked - Stockholm Syndrome literally defined 'trauma bond,' which is very similar to the trauma bond that I have with my wife. This formal training was for external enemies, which I have faced, in person, on a handful of occasions in my work.

I was not prepared to become trauma bonded to someone I am supposed to trust. Let me explain, how this has happened...

While I have come face to face with what our nation considers terrorists is relatively easy in comparison to what I have experienced in my own marriage at the hand of my wife who has held 10" kitchen knife to her wrist twice, a pair of 12" old-school metal scissors fashioned as a dagger to her chest threatening to impale herself, or attempted to swallowing a bottle of pills to kill herself, in essence attempted self-murder in front of my eyes - that really messed with my head. My reaction to my wife's action has been identified by my therapist as cPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder) which was not caused by real-life terrorists, nor by being in a war zone, nor by having been a primary responder to two major natural catastrophes, all of which I was able to handle without issue; however, it was my wife's behaviors towards herself and me which has emotionally terrorized me more than actual terrorists and other traumatic events in extremis that have that I have come face to face with.

Additionally, over the years, my wife has punched me, kicked me, or threatened physical violence as well. While not as impactful as her suicide attempts, it still messed with my mind too. Granted, no permanent physical injury was sustained, and most of the attacks really didn't hurt me physically; however, the mere fact that a woman who performs domestic violence, according to a different study indicates a 50% probability is diagnosable with BPD. I, myself, have participated in a study with several hundred individuals, which indicates this number is closer to 66% - this is definitely some food for thought.

Furthermore, my wife has threatened me with more than a dozen ultimatums, and countless number of divorce threats including the most recent 'separation' that I mentioned in my initial post. This is considered by many as emotional nuclear war. Not cool.

A combination of all of my wife's actions has created this trauma bond in my marriage which is exacerbated by my codependent tendencies keeping me in a relationship that really should not exist with the amount of abuse that has occurred without a healthy boundary in place until recently. Until the boundary was put in place, In essence I have been my wife's enabler in her abusive behaviors, and some of those behaviors have been transferred to me and reflected back to her in the form of reactive abuse. Unfortunately my children have also suffered without these healthy boundaries.

That said, I too have been abusive; however, not in the magnitude my wife has been, nor in the manner it was done to me...

I have not tried, nor threatened to commit suicide at any point in my life.

I have not been violent with my wife, (or anyone else for that matter in my adult life). Not even a push to get her out of my way, or to actually deflect a kick/punch (many happened while I was sleeping and snoring too loud). However, I did pick up a yoga ball one time, to use as a shield when she was acting really irrational to prevent myself from being physically attacked immediately after she smacked the wall that I previously mentioned in this post.

I have never threatened divorce directly; however, when I was asked the question by the previous couple's therapist, immediately after my wife threatened divorce, I did admit to 'considering divorcing my wife' to which the therapist told my wife that I was definitely going to divorce her, and that put my wife in a tail spin. Immediately after that session my wife wound up begging me not to divorce her after she just threatened to divorce me. This makes no sense to me.

I have reactively yelled back for a few minutes after she had been yelling only inches from my face for up to 7 hours (typically 1 to 3 hours), almost non-stop with only a water break or bathroom break for a minute or two. Most of the time, I just close my eyes, and detach emotionally from her by meditating when she does this, even though I was listening to her every word. The only boundary I had was no physical violence and if she hit me, she knew I would escalate it to 911 if I had bruises on me.

I have deliberately stonewalled my wife when she would fly into rages, and be deliberately non-reactive.

I have been accused of being a 'bully' by highlighting abuses being directed at me. I can see this perspective, and I acknowledged it and have minimized it to bring it up only when the actual abuse is being done, instead of ruminating on it in a therapy session. However, the alternative to not calling my wife out on this bad behavior is far worse. For this I must pick the lesser of two evils.

I have been accused of 'needling' or being deliberately triggering by making sarcastic comments on past perceived transgressions. Once this was brought to my attention, I immediately stopped this behavior, as it was generally reactive in nature; however, I must admit, when I was irritated at my wife, I would occasionally initiate this behavior until it was pointed out to me as I was doing it subconsciously. If I am not aware of my behavior(s), I cannot correct it (them), unless I am self-aware of doing this kind of behavior. Once I am self-aware, I will consciously make an effort to correct it. This is the only legitimate complaint my wife has been able to come up with - I own it.

I am much calmer than most people, as I have had specific training to do so - homeland security related - as my work-related activities often fell under watchful eye of intelligence agencies, news media both domestic and foreign, and my unit needed to be on 'best behavior' at all times as there was a potential to be in a high-conflict scenarios and I was the responsible person to ensure that my unit was in compliance with what our government wanted to project in these high profile missions - I applied those same skills sets to my home life as well. I can understand how this could be misinterpreted as me being "selfless and heroic" when it was a muscle memory reaction to my training.

Regarding being 'selfless and heroic'. I definitely do not feel like a hero, if anything, I am negligent for not seeing what was happening in my family sooner [I was oblivious], and right now I am making up for lost time. While I have felt selfless in the past; however, with self-care, I do feel a bit selfish; however, I do find I have more energy to do more for the family when I have taken care of myself first. It is kind of like the analogy of putting your own oxygen mask on first in a distressed aircraft [marriage] before putting ones on your loved ones around you. If you don't you will pass out trying to save those around you first.

I feel that I do have valid complaints of my wife's irrationally abusive behaviors, after I have learned about them, how my wife's behaviors are inappropriate, and I am shining a spotlight on them, so they can be addressed and corrected as no one should have to endure abusive behaviors. This is the only thing that I am shining a light on, as it is wrong, in any form. The physical abuse has been addressed (her punching and kicking me, and smacking the wall so hard that debri in the nearby vents resonated like a bell), emotional terrorism in the form of attempted self-murder [911 will be called the next time my wife attempts to commit suicide, 988 if she has severe suicidal ideations] has been addressed. All of these are boundaries that have been erected to ensure civilized behavior which was not present before.

I am predominately also guilty of limited and measured reactive abuse, where I would yell back for a few minutes after being yelled at for hours just to get her to end her ranting inches away from my face for hours. I also have to resort to grey rocking, a form of stonewalling, to defuse an all out rage. So, I am not entirely without blame either. These are probably love buster type behaviors that I am committed to reducing, if not eliminating.

After my faith, these are my priorities regarding my family:
1. Establish healthy boundaries with regards to abuse of any kind - abuse of any kind will no longer be tolerated.
2. Ensure the safety and wellbeing of my children.
3. Ensure my own safety with adequate self-care to allow for enough energy to do other items on this list [see original post above on why this is so important].
4. Ensure my wife becomes fully self-aware of her abusive nature, and to emotionally support her recovery effort.
5. Reconnect with my wife, if possible.
6. Everything else.

My wife has indicated she is ready for #5, and I personally believe the HNHN is the way to go as it is clear and precise in its instructions leaving little to no room for dysregulated thinking processes as it is all spelled out, which is more useful than other systems out there.

While I have just painted my wife mostly bad, she is bad only about 2% of the time, the other 98% of the time she is normal, has a good moral compass, and is not dysregulated. Even though I have highlighted physical violence, it has only occurred a dozen times on 11 days out of 8117 days since we started dating each other; however, each one of those days something really bad almost happened and could have resulted in death -- rejecting physical violence is very important. Emotional abuse is a different story where it was present on a vast majority of the days, as I had no boundaries on this until this past November; however, it is getting to the point of being tolerable, and is improving, after setting healthy boundaries (in therapy) so I have chosen to stay and be supportive as long as there is improvement.

For the moment, my marriage is "too bad to stay in; however, it is also too good to leave". I am hoping to turn this around while maintaining the healthy boundary of NOT tolerating abuse of any kind.

While my situation is worse than most here, it is far from being 'severe'. Like all mental health issues, they exist on a spectrum and range from severe to mild, I would categorize my wife's transitioning from an occasional severe & mostly moderate borderline heading to the mild end with a possible remission [first time since 2006 where it has been this calm]. The goal is to put this into 'remission' just like my daughter's AN, and an alcoholics alcoholism which finally looks promising for the past week, and I am ready to proceed on step 5.



Actually, I would like more constructive criticism, please 'pick apart' my post, and don't sugar coat it [pun intended], similar to what I have just done for you on your post. Even though I stated 'not true' and defended my position citing facts, I do like your comment about how you perceived me placing all of the blame on my wife. I want to receive feedback (or pushback) on things like this, so I can reflect on it, and modify my behavior, so I don't come off as too arrogant as I did to you, as that was not my intention while I was venting my frustrations then and now.

I am no longer afraid to push back, as it took me three years of 'no progress or regression' to learn to do this with the couple's therapist, who was gaslighting me herself. I pushed back at my job all of the time, and it was very effective there in getting things done. I have done that for a misdiagnosed physical injury I sustained, pushing back allowed me to regain mobility and avoid a knee replacement. From my perspective, unless there is pushback, there is stagnation in the progress. So, please push me, so I can grow as a person and in my marriage to my wife.

I will also write to Dr. Harley, for his opinion on this matter, please confirm his e-mail address please.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

Once again, thank you for your time.

Take care with self-care.

I'm sorry. but you're asking far too much of someone who has no medical or psychology training. I have never come across a post as disturbing as yours in my entire time on this forum. What you describe sounds like a serious, frightening, medically diagnosable condition, and it would be irresponsible for an untrained person to suggest solutions to two people - both you and your wife - who display complex needs.

Dr Harley is trained and licensed to deal with complex mental health issues.

Yes this email address mbradio@marriagebuilders.com will reach to Dr. Harley.

SugarCane,

I must apologize for possibly making you upset with the description of my reality of a very disturbing marital relationship. My relationship didn't start off that way, here is an article that describes how my relationship started with my wife and how it transformed into what I described above, let me know if links to these kinds are articles are allowed, as I am only trying to impart knowledge that is related to this site and my 'kind' of relationship, but often not spoken of directly as most are too embarrassed and/or ashamed to talk about it openly (I am speaking anonymously behind an Avatar name), nor addressed in Dr. Harley's books [at least the ones that I have read].

Since links aren't allowed, I will quote it instead:


For me, it started off 'perfect' and 'too good to be true', and it was until two weeks after the honeymoon ended [almost 2-1/2 years after we first met], and then it began, slowly at first, which eventually wound up to the 'train wreck' that I described above. The bad part is, my relationship horrors are rather mild in comparison to others I have communicated with in group therapy type settings - I would strongly recommend not researching beyond what I have just shared if you find my circumstances too disturbing.


BrainHurts (& SugarCane),

I e-mailed Dr. Harley yesterday at that e-mail address, and requested that he post his response on this thread so the tens of thousands that visit this site so that the few thousand here [there are several million nationwide] that have experience with a marriage with someone with borderline traits (and/or narcissistic and/or psychopathy, and/or other Cluster B PD's) may benefit from it.

Thank you (both) for responding.

Take care.

Sailor Photo welcome to MB and thanks for your service. I grew up in domestic violence and some of the scenes you describe are very familiar. I’m glad you two are getting help to make a different life for your children. I would encourage you to consider letting your wife know you will remove yourself in any AO even those yelling ones because someone in an AO is out of control at that moment. I used to take the kids for a walk. My ex h didn’t like it but our safety is first and he learned to regulate himself. More importantly it reinforced for me that I am safe in the present and helped me manage my ptsd from my childhood.

Dr. H would encourage you all to get out of the house for UA and FC time. This will be especially good for you all because she will act right around others. Unless he recommends you separate due to the domestic violence. Most relationships don’t escalate to that.

Glad you wrote Dr. Harley. Do you think you will go on the radio show to discuss it with Dr. Harley?

NewEveryDay,

Thank you for responding.

I am curious as to your back story as you indicate in your signature block that you are divorced with no mention of an affair - did you leave him because of his personality of abusive behaviors? Or did he leave you after he abused you?

I agree that 'safety' is a first priority, and that is how I have been establishing the boundaries with my wife with regards to abusive behavior.

Fortunately for the children, the AO's were predominately directed at me when I am home, very few have been directed towards the children. Since my D has AN in remission, she is the 'golden child' and my wife doesn't want to trigger her, so my S is her secondary target of the AO's if I am not able to intercept those AO's. My wife has only done DV on me, not the children, none were injurious, however, i did feel some of the punches and kicks for a couple of days afterwards. A 'nuclear' boundary has been established by our previous couple's T for DV - 911 gets called the next time it happens, she has already been reported for two other incidents last year by that couple's T, a mandated reporter - I am not really worried about the DV as it has happened very little, except for past year when I started to pushback on her abuses by setting boundaries on those abuses, which resulted in her 'testing' those boundaries which made it worse initially. I have stood by those boundaries, and they are finally being respected for the moment.

I have developed an extensive plan with my individual T(herapist), family T and group T to mitigate the AO's with the children. Prior to me setting up boundaries with our couple's T, my wife's AO's were indeed out of control. I don't know what my wife's individual T has done specifically, but amazingly enough the majority of the AO's have been mitigated / mostly regulated recently; however, they are still emotionally dysregulated where she disassociates by unintentionally gaslighting me with her perceived version of the truth where some of the time where I am painted black (and can do nothing right) or all white where I do less (being painted white is a break for me) but I am idolized and can do no wrong, but she is now at a white leaning baseline. We are heading in a good direction right now, making rapid progress, to the point where she has expressed an interest in reconnecting; hence the reason for choosing Dr. Harley's method. Just getting started with it, and my wife seems very open to the concepts, even though we have not yet implemented any of them yet on a formal basis.

I definitely want to keep the positive momentum going and reconnect with my wife using Dr. Harley's techniques as they are more analytical and specific than most others I have seen.

With regards to UA - undivided attention, when my children are at school, for a good portion of the day I do give my spouse my undivided attention in the form of domestic support - the only thing she really demanded in the past at an excessive amount where she wanted me to do about 30 hours worth of work around the house in a day, something impossible to do - see my comments above on how I carved out some self-care - she really doesn't see or acknowledge it - I am looking forward to shifting the DS to the other of her needs that we can mutually enjoy like we did when we first met - DS is the only one of the ten needs that I do not enjoy doing as it is at an abusive level - it should be done together as a team and not as a spiteful revenge tactic for all the time I missed. When my wife is AO, or she is out of the house with her girl friends or doing volunteer work, I do give my children UA. My UA for wife and children are pretty evenly divided to about 30-40 hours per week each now that I am home and retired well in excess of the HNHN book's recommendation. My wife has complained often that this level of DS was not enough - this has changed in the past month, so this too has been improving after I gave her and her T an accounting of my time in a typical week - me 75 hours, her 1 hour this was almost two months ago, for the past week she has jumped to about 5 hours while we have watched the videos together as I am counting that her love bank deposits of intimate conversation and/or family commitment towards me.

I'm guessing that FC is (family commitment)? I do that too, take my children to/from their activities while my wife does her thing. Since my D has her own job, and keeps busy at school too and is finally becoming social things have progressed a lot, and hopefully some of the psychological damage has been reversed. However, the FC is skewed towards my son's activities which include baseball, boy scouts, etc. I've taken both children one on one out for 'dates' to restaurants and shopping and stuff each of them likes in addition to ensuring they spend a larger than normal amount of time outside of the house socializing so the toxic home environment is.

Any other suggestions would be welcome, also if you can point me to old threads that have this topic, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for taking time to answer my post.

Take Care.

I haven't received a response, yet, from him or his wife. So, I don't know.

Still no reply from Dr. Harley or his wife regarding my question that I sent last week. How long does it take them to typically reply?

I did subscribe and pay for the radio program, downloaded the app, and I am having issues.

The app for Android does not work, it cannot find any radio shows, nor can I properly log in to my account from the app. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated as I would love to listen to his shows while exercising.

Also, I scanned for radio shows for the past week on my desktop, I only found one radio show on my desktop for a daily radio show, where can I find a complete listing of the daily radio shows?

I am the guy that originally wrote the mobile apps. The apps only are only useful for listening to the daily program. Archives can be accessed by using your device's web browser and the website interface for selecting and listening to archive programs. We had archive access through the app many years ago, but we stopped supporting it when it became clear that the web interface had superior features, and that continued support for the app would require changes in the server that were not supported by our provider.

I has been awhile since I revised the app. Some changes are needed, but archive support is unlikely to be added again.

Try accessing the archives though your device browser. If you have any problems, come back here and I will try to answer them.

They usually answer with in a couple of days. Could you try resending them another email? Sometimes their emails go to spam.

Well, I cannot even listen to the daily program with it. As soon as I depress the 'listen' button, it immediately exits. Do you have any older APK's that I can side load and roll back the version to see if it will work.

Other than coming up with the initial screen, I cannot play anything back at all, current or archive.

I am using an LG V60 ThinQ with Android version 11.

It also has an 'archive button', which I understand from your post is not functional at all.

Also, how do I log into my account via the app? I don't see or I cannot find an option to do this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Is there an ftp file server with the archived radio shows (without commercials) that I can log into with my account to transfer them to my phone and use VLC or some other media player to play them? I would use "file x-plore' to do the heavy lifting and selecting via ftp or any number of other protocols it supports.

Thank you for responding.

Due to the severity of my situation as alluded to by SugarCane I will give it a few more days. I will send another message again, this upcoming Thursday, if I don't hear from them by then.

Sailor, you asked about my divorce, the AOs improved with me using MB principles on my side, but there was still work travel and other issues where we could not reconnect and get back to meeting ENs the way Dr. Harley describes.

Thanks for making the effort to get to the radio program, that’s helped me so much in changing my mindset to where I could never fall into behavior like that again. It helped my parenting too as my kids became teenagers and now adults. That’s great that you get individual FC time with them. In HNHN for Parents to talks about together time with the kids. This is without AOs of course which is why I mentioned getting outside. I used to take the kids out back to play soccer and ex h would come out and join us and get the football. Some good memories! This would probably make much more love bank deposits than the DS because anyone can clean the house but only you can do these things with the kids like this.

New Every Day,

If I were to understand you correctly, it was you who had the AO's and reduced them? My wife's AOs have improved dramatically with her too. So, I have 'hope' for my relationship, but I also have continued concern for my relationship as your relationship still wound up being 'divorced' even though I do have fond memories of doing stuff outside with both my Children throughout the COVID lockdowns - to me it was actually a blessing in disguise from that perspective for me, occasionally my wife would join us on our outdoor adventures - like you we have fond memories of that. However, my D is now 16 and I am encouraging accelerated independence to remove her from the toxic situation at home; therefore, this one on one FC has become less with her. However, my S-11 is all about baseball and I am working with him outdoors a lot on this one which he is enjoying, even though, he wants 'mom' to do more of what I am doing, my wife has been somewhat receptive to his requests on this - progress being made here too.

My wife and I are restarting long dormant ENs for now, I am the one initiating, I would like for her to also initiate too (any suggestions?), 'Intimate Conversation', which she specified in couple's therapy, AND 'Recreational Companionship' in limited quantities. I am circling back to when we first met and doing some of the things we did back then that are being constrained by her voluntary workaholism (OCPD-like, [different from OCD which is similar in name only]). My wife has issues wrapping her head around the 30 hour per week commitment for EN & FC she just learned about the additional 15-hour commitment FC several hours ago which double's the time commitment, from her perspective, with children, and her body language was quite contorted when she heard that in the free videos on this site - she will need several days to process this.

Since you mentioned work travel - I have eliminated that component for my circumstances with my early retirement a few years ago; however, with the other issues I have previously alluded to, we have not yet reconnected at an emotional nor physical level. However, only if you are comfortable sharing, in the interest of learning from other's experiences, including yours, can you address or allude to some of the 'other issues' you and the husband you divorced were having with regards to each of the 10 ENs (sorted alphabetically) so I might be able recognise them in order to avoid them?

1. Admiration
2. Affection
3. Conversation
4. Domestic support
5. Family commitment
6. Financial support
7. Honesty and openness
8. Physical attractiveness
9. Recreational companionship
10. Sexual fulfillment

Thank you for your time and attention to my issues, it is greatly appreciated.

Take care.

I don’t want to speak ill of my ex H but his AOs were the ones I had to get away from. I kept shoes in the car for me and the kids. As it talks about in the controlling spouses articles it created an environment where I could not negotiate to get my needs met and I felt controlled and resentful. The other issues were his drinking and my overeating, it resulted in a complete halt from his side of SF for many years. So sorry to dump all that on you because your issues seem different. But the silence also left you wondering.

But I see the similarities. The resentment from the work travel and independent decisions doesn’t dissolve overnight. But DS is the least depositing EN so when you get with Dr. H I think he will suggest you cut that back, of course 30 hours a day is beyond excessive, 30 hours a week did you mean? There may be some number you are enthusiastic about, maybe 10 hours a week I don’t know.

And from his side he would tell me that he was so upset at my drop in physical attractiveness and not keeping house at the expected level kept him from reconnecting.

I’m glad you two are working on your marriage at the same time, that’s how you will see the benefits. I would not focus on coaxing her to initiate EN meeting, the easiest way to take the burden down is to make it routine, Mondays and Wednesdays we go to the gym, Sundays we go to church and the park or mall, Fridays is pizza and movie, whatever it is for your family. We used to trade off with our best friends so our kids would sleep over their house one Friday and their kids would sleep over ours the next. Another win win for the kids. My daughter is getting married this year and these lifelong friends will be her bridesmaids.

New Every Day,

Thank you for sharing. Your issues while having some similarities are a bit different than mine. I do appreciate that you 'dumped' on me as it gives me a better perspective of your relationship dynamic with your exH - I am here to figure out what makes relationships 'work' - that is part of the process. I 'get' the shoes in the car, I also had old towels, an extensive first aid kit, snacks, and some other clutter too when I was being 'Mr. Mom' to my children, my wife doesn't mind the additional things (other than the trash it generates), as the snack part is her enjoyment too when on longish trips and if they were going to play in the local river, and an extra set of clothes too.

I equate drinking as having the potential for substance abuse. Moderation is okay, like one or two drinks with a meal; however, if it is more than that, there is potential for a bad outcome. On rare occasions my wife binges alcohol (when she is really upset), but not often, I can count the number of times on one hand in the past two decades. I can see if the AOs were linked to his drinking where this would be a very difficult situation for you.

I too am guilty of overeating myself, my wife also has emotional eating. While I would like to be in better shape, as would my wife. The need for physical attractiveness is not really a high level need for me, nor for her from what I can observe. It is 10th place out of 10 Dr. Harley lists for me, as I have 'no room to talk' and I accept her appearance no matter what it might be.

I know how you feel when you feel 'controlled and resentful' as I feel that too, the word 'contempt' comes to mind for me. I wasn't kidding with regards to those 30 hours in a day, my wife's expectation back then was for me to do an impossible 30 hours worth of work every day, and when these weren't met, ENs were withheld by her. I later came to learn that 'unrealistic expectations' is a form of emotional abuse / control issues. I have throttled that back on my efforts; however, I don't mind doing up to 30 hours of domestic support in a week (I'm retired) in addition to meeting other emotional needs, even though doing as little as 10 hours as you suggest would be a fantasy for me as things do need to get done around the home [laundry, dishes, cleaning, yardwork, repairs and maintenance].

There is some good news is that I can finally see the results that my wife is working hard on severely reducing her 'expectations' for the past two weeks with her own individual therapist and her stated expectations have dramatically shifted for me - for right now it seems 'too good to be true'. I strongly suspect, her and her T are going over my journal entries that I e-mailed to her T where I documented 75-1/4 hours of DS in a given week with up to 16 hours per day - when I did the 16 hour days she seemed somewhat satisfied; however, the ones where I did less than 11 (per day) she wasn't. This has changed, I can tell she is still very irritated by my throttling back in this area, I can tell she it biting her tongue very hard on this, but it needs to change as I have directly said it generates 3 of the 4 horsemen of Gottman - our couple's T uses Gottman, but is open to Dr. Harley's methods - I use whatever works, and I think Dr. Harley's methods have the best chance of success based on my research for my wife's personality type. I am thankful this is happening; however, I am not sure if this is sustainable for her.

Less than a year ago, my stating that I was going to be throttling back my hours in order to do some 'me time' or 'self-care', was the apparent cause of her most recent suicide attempt this past May when I first understood that I was in a predominately emotionally abusive relationship. So, I am proceeding down this new path with the utmost of caution.



I can see your husband's perspective, even if it would seem on the surface to be superficial. Personally, I am within 10 pounds (3%) where I married her almost two decades ago. Whereas my wife is a bit more than that. Her physical appearance is the least of my complaints, in fact, I think it affects her more than it does me - so it is a non-issue for me.

With regards to keeping a house, it is next to impossible to keep it at museum quality levels of neatness (that is my wife's expectation of me, to be like her mother), especially with children in the mix; however, to me some clutter is okay with me. I have built many storage areas, my wife occupies those with 90% of her stuff [which she calls half it 'family property' like holiday decorations, her cooking toys, etc], so my stuff, and the kids stuff do not have home on the shelving systems I built, so I am accused of not being as neat as I should be. If I look at her parents and her brother, my level of mess is fractional to her brother and her father (both are hoarders), but her mother (my MIL) keeps her area of the house neater than most museums with nothing out of place - more of the all or nothing type thinking. My level of clutter is comparable to my wife's yet, I am held to her mother's standards. My daughter has compensated by becoming a minimalist (getting rid of everything except the absolute minimum amount of clothing and things that she absolutely needs) to meet my wife's expectation of my MIL's standard, which is another emotionally unhealthy issue altogether.

I too am glad my wife is *finally* working on our marriage at the 'same time' - together - it feels like the first time ever even though we have seen at least 7 couple's T's over the years totalling more than 4 years of therapy with the majority happening since 2019. I suggested doing Dr. Harley's program two months ago in 'couple's therapy', and it was outright rejected by her. I am currently 'cautiously optimistic' about this. While I will voice my request that she initiate some ENs, I won't dwell on it, or 'coaxing' as you put it. We have come a long way to almost get to the starting line of Dr. Harley's program, I still don't have a full 'buy in' from her. We have one more video to watch "Program 5 - The Plan (Part 2 of 2)" before I broach that topic.

The only video other video that my wife has not watched, that might be triggering for her is the "Infidelity: What every couple should know" based on what she has done with casual acquaintances who are the parents of my children's friends and a life coach who befriended me in a online group therapy type setting. This one I will pre-watch before watching it with her. What is your opinion on this video if you have seen it? Should I encourage her to watch this video or not prior to actually starting Dr. Harley's program in earnest?

Once again, thank you for your time on this matter.

Take care.

Have you heard back from Dr. Harley? Are you going to resend the email?

Brain Hurts,

Yes, I did follow up with an additional e-mail, and included the 'office' address.

Within a few hours of the 2nd e-mail, I got a personal response from Dr. Bill Harley. He apologized indicating that he had not seen my first e-mail.

He offered up for me to do the following questionnaires with my wife that is available on the website:

• The Emotional Needs Questionnaire, the
• Love Busters Questionnaire, and the
• Marital Problem Analysis

Which he indicated that once this is completed that it should help guide me to a resolution in my marital issues.

Additionally he said the following books will guide me as well:

• His Needs, Her Needs,
• Love Busters, and
• Five Steps to Romantic Love

=====

This is where I am in the process, my wife and I need to finish the introductory video series at https://www.marriagebuilders.com/videos.htm, we still need to view "Program 5 - The Plan (Part 2 of 2)". I will purchase the Five Steps to Romantic Love (workbook version from Amazon since the marriage builders bookstore doesn't have this version). What version do you recommend?

I will then download and print the three questionnaires from above and do them with my wife. Once this is completed, I will contact Dr. Harley again with a list of questions that I will generate based on both my answers and my wife's answers.

Do you have any other suggestions and/or comments?

Sailor

Sailor thanks for the link, I’ve been here since 2005 and never saw those videos before. I’ll listen today while I work from home. It sounds like you have a great plan there, as well as getting the workbook. To get on the path of making the most love bank deposits.

I was sorry to read about your daughter not being able to keep things in her room, I hope this changes soon as you makes changes in your home.

The videos are a simplified version of the books going over the basic concepts and applying them. My wife says a lot of the stuff resonates with her - I am interpreting this as a 'good thing'.

Regarding my daughter's minimalist tendencies... or 'not being able to keep things in her room' - that is a 'catch-22' type scenario for her. She has AN - and likes to be 'in control'. She controlled her weight in a very bad way - she is now in full remission on this, and has discovered her 'sweet tooth' but still eats healthily. She controls her grades and is an 'over achiever' on the opposite end of the spectrum and by societal standards she is a tremendous success - but at an emotional cost. Both my wife and I have encouraged her to keep her things, especially with sentimental value, and that is an issue. The catch-22, my wife wants to have a spotlessly clean house without clutter, only my daughter can meet my wife's impossibly perfect demands (my wife can't even meet her own demands, even though my wife was doing that when we first met 22 years ago) and the only way to do that is to minimize the amount of 'stuff' one owns. My daughter consciously made the choice to be minimalist citing her primary reason was to leave when she is finished with HS and could take all of her stuff with her. So, I am quietly monitoring the situation, and only taking action(s) when warranted - for the most part I am encouraging my daughter with her methods of minimizing her exposure to toxic behaviors from me and my wife.

My daughter wants to leave the house as soon as she is able to at 18 yo (upon completion of HS degree + simultaneous two year college degree), I am encouraging this independent behavior (a 'love buster') against my wife's wishes, as it will remove my daughter from the 'toxic' home environment. My daughter initially indicated her intent was to go 'no contact'; however, my goal is to modify her desire, by my actions, in managing the situation to at least 'limited contact' if not something closer when she actually leaves.

This month, she has had two major milestones towards normalization - she has been invited as a HS prom date, and she has felt comfortable enough to invite her friends over to our house for the first time since she was 4 yo. - this happened today (she is on spring break). I am very happy over these developments as the behavioral boundaries are indeed working and things are becoming more 'normal'.

I will update once again, after we have finished our questionnaires, or other significant developments.

I am really happy to hear your daughter is comfortable having friends over again. Great opportunity for FC time as well and sounds like it makes a deposit for you too.

I hope you’re having better luck getting to the radio program, that was a great help too in motivation and encouragement. Looking forward to hearing your updates!

Update:

I too am very happy for my D. My D's recovery is part of the multi-pronged approach with regards to rebuilding emotionally healthy behaviors within my family's dynamic.

My wife has been stressed out this week with a tremendous amount of anxiety. So, when my wife is 'being this way' with her anxiety issues, progress has temporarily halted, we still have one more video to watch together.

Side note: my wife has been [mis?]* diagnosed with anxiety issues, and is medicated for it along with depression.

Due to my wife's current anxiety levels, I am no longer painted white, but painted black. I will raise the issue in our next couple's session this upcoming Tuesday in addition to what my wife brings to the T's attention.

Upon the suggestion of our couple's therapist, my wife has made two major movements in addressing her volunteer workaholism (just one of multiple significant sources of her anxiety) in the past few days due to what our couple's therapist had recommended after I made an observation as to the cause of my wife's anxiousness, and was exceptionally impulsive in nature (she tendered a notice of resignation within hours, in person, of the session from being our church's treasurer after being in that position for better part of a decade). While I personally approve of the changes; however, I don't approve of the impulsivity of it, as I fear the radical change at the same time as my wife may blame me for removing something she is passionate about from her life due to her current mental state, as I was the one who correlated the link of her current, in the moment stress levels to her volunteer work, and the couple's therapists asked my wife several questions prior to making this recommendation in addition to bringing this up with her individual therapist [she did not do this prior to her impulsive decisions].

It sucks having to be walking on eggshells hand-grenades / land mines all of the time (one wrong move and the situation explodes), but that is where my marriage is at.

Regarding 'Marriage Builders' program... As soon as my wife and I watch the next video, I will tactfully ask my wife if she wants to commit to Dr. Harley's process [I need her 'buy in' or 'permission' to do this with her together] I will then reveal to my wife I have been in contact with Dr. Harley via e-mail, and ask her to fill out the questionnaires Dr. Harley requested, and get those submitted to him for feedback with a recommendation on how to proceed. My forms have already been filled out; however, like an ocean-going convoy, we can only travel as fast as the least fast partner, and she doesn't seem too interested in being held accountable for her part of the marriage dynamic.

I would like more positive movement in reconnecting with my wife; however, I do not want to be coercive in nature as there is a fine line of making a reasonable request to being perceived as emotionally abusive with being coercive as it requires change of both partners and in my opinion also requires the consent of both partners, myself included.

I wish I had something better to update you with; however, that is where it stands at the moment.


*According to book "Stop Walking on Eggshells" [mandated reading for new therapists in my state of residence], 3rd Edition, indicates a misdiagnosis of anxiety and depression is the most common misdiagnosis for BPD

Minor update:

As of Monday, my wife and I have finished watching the video series (except the infidelity one at the top of the page), and my wife gave a 'green light' for filling out the questionnaires on Monday. I e-mailed them to my wife and she has printed them out and also shared the blank forms with our couple's therapist yesterday -- who is Gottman trained and describes her method as "Emotionally Focused Therapy" (EFT) and is interested in "Marriage Builders" even though it is more of a "Logic" focused system in my opinion. My wife has her individual therapy later on today -- hopefully that goes well too.

I feel that we finally made our way over to the 'starting line' of our adventure with Marriage Builders (it took just over a month to get this far) and my wife indicated she hopes to have these forms ready by next week.

I just hope and pray my forms do not overwhelm her as they cover all of the things that I mentioned in this thread and then some that we haven't even talked about* - I have already verbally indicated that the AOs (all the different forms of AOs including suicide attempts, divorce/separation threats, false accusations, yellings, etc.) will be listed along with acknowledgments of recent improvements with setbacks.

* My approach for the past year is to tackle one major issue at a time so it isn't overwhelming with her. However, as she is already familiar with most of the topics I listed, I am hoping and praying that it doesn't shut her down emotionally. I have enough material to create at least 24 page single spaced type written pages as described both in the video series than the Marriage Busters book; however, I don't want to do more of a 'blame fest' that I have already done, I am only going to focus on Level 6 issues which are predominantly on the issue of unacceptable levels of 'abuse' and by addressing those major issue; hopefully, the minor issues will also be resolved similar to the 24-page lady after two groups of 3 issues were addressed for her.

The topics that we haven't talked about are minor issues on "Independent Behavior" that I fully support if done in moderation as long as her 'me' time doesn't come at the expense of 'we' time.

Pray for our success if you are a believer, and wish us luck if you aren't for the recovery of our marriage and connected relationships.

Any recommendations and/or suggestions on approaching this would be greatly appreciated considering the level of issues within my marriage? I am predominately interested in avoiding abusive behaviors while simultaneously, constructively and amicably dealing with conflict with enthusiastic agreements? Suggestions? Thoughts?

MAJOR UPDATE - help/suggestions requested

This week, I feel that we finally crossed the 'starting line' on the "Marriage Builder's" program. My wife finished reading the HNHN and LB books last week. My wife finished filling out the forms from nearly a month ago on Monday evening (2-1/2 days ago). Also, on Monday, my wife also apologized for the first time ever on emotional wounds that she has caused in the marriage and towards our children with her AO's - a quantum leap level milestone for becoming 'self-aware'. My wife verbally acknowledged that 'we' need to work on every area, all of the emotional needs and all of the love busters -- and she is willing to address these issues on Tuesday, and she repeated both yesterday on Wednesday - she never before has repeated an apology and taken ownership of an issue in this manner - this is a major breakthrough for my wife in self-awareness.

Yesterday evening we started to share what we had filled out in our respective forms, her perception is in close alignment with my concerns - I hope it is not mirroring of my previously expressed needs and is genuine - I will assume it is genuine unless there are indications otherwise.

A week ago, we celebrated our 20 year wedding anniversary. I took her on a hot air balloon ride, had a nice brunch together at the venue where we spent our 1st night together as a married couple, and then I took her to some Caverns (unplanned spontaneous added activity). So, literally I took her up into the heavens and then down into hell - got a laugh from the couple's therapist on that one. I did this for her when we first met and on our honeymoon, also did this on our 10 year anniversary, and then again last week for our 20th. This is the kicker, she said she loved it, even though she has said that she is terrified of heights and is afraid of being enclosed in an underground cavern. Her actions and behaviors do not match her verbal statements - it is a bit of a conundrum for me since she has enjoyed it from the beginning of our relationship.

Circling back to the Marriage Builder's program, my wife has expressed an inability to meet the 15-hour per week commitment to each other; however, she has expressed that 10 hours is 'doable'. I'll take it, as it is a huge step from her previous levels of engagement towards our marriage which was more often than significantly less than an hour except for the couple's therapy.

Additionally, as soon as we are done sharing our forms with each other I plan on forwarding them to Dr. Harley for his analysis, I am hoping this will happen in the next week.

As I am no longer 'walking on land-mines/hand-grenades'; however, I am still 'walking on eggshells' and I don't want to upset her, while confronting the issues contained within the forms, I am looking for advise from any of the readers on how to proceed while holding each other accountable for meeting each others respective needs with 'enthusiastic agreement' without triggering her on issues that she has been previously triggered on. I plan on using 'radical honesty'; however, I would like to use it as a tool without having the effect of it being a bludgeoning weapon - for me this is a fine line - so I will be rewriting my concerns in SET (support empathy truth) communication which takes about 5x the space before presenting them to my wife (I will keep the original straight to the point version for contrast comparison of the 'Love Buster's Questionnaire'. I am very much aware, that improvement in every area is needed, so I do not want to overwhelm her, yet be firm in expressing the desire for positive progress in recreating our marriage in a positive and healthy way.

Any tips, suggestions, 'lesson's learned' from your own experiences would be greatly appreciated as I feel due to the nature of my marriage, I wish to nurture it in a healthy way instead of doing too much, too fast, which may drown it and wash any progress away. For the most part, I am letting her take it at her own pace, which is not the pace I would like.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening.

P.S. Our couple's therapist indicated that she had recommended the HNHN to several of her other clients too in the past week. I was pleasantly surprised by this remark.

There’s a lot that can be expressed in different language, and I spent a lot of time on this. Do you have the radio app or listen on the web? It comes naturally to them.
I love it when you… instead of a demand
I’d like to … this week. How do you feel about that? instead of walking on eggshells or independent behavior
For the UA time, what are some things you both enjoy doing? Did you two fill out the RC inventory?

NewEveryDay,

Thank you for responding, it is really appreciated.


Yes, I have the radio app; however, it doesn't work on Android, I have complained, and there has been no resolution. So, I am downloading the mp3's, transferring them to my phone and listening to them that way instead, as this is a round about way, I have not listened to as many as I would have liked.

Yes, I am quite familiar with that style of communication and have been practicing that for over half a year, using 'I' pronouns to make my communication less confrontational (critical), and avoiding "you, but, however, except, etc." even before becoming familiar with the Marriage Builder's program. That is a great start for that style of communication, it is the foundation for SET, BIFF, DEARMAN and other more intricate communication styles which emphasize empathy, compassion, validation, etc, and other even less confrontational methods of communications. Depending on the circumstance will determine which method I use, all of which use the "I" pronouns that Dr. Harley & his wife use, the method in the radio program is the foundation for these other methods of communication. Many of these communication styles are just different variations on what Dr. Harley speaks of. For instance the SET - T stands for truth, Dr. Harley's term for that is "radical honesty" - same concepts with different names.

So, instead of "Could you please do ______ for me?" will be reworded to "I really like it when you did ______ for me, I think it would be really nice if I could experience that again."

The problem is that even when using these communication methods, they still have not been responded to [I am thinking that this is 'falling on deaf ears' - a disrespectful judgement on my part which I only am thinking of, but not expressing to my wife, but I am expressing here as an example as it generates contempt on my part], so there is no 'enthusiastic agreement' there. I'm all for it, just waiting for my wife to implement the 'enthusiastic agreement' portion on this. My codependency is so afraid that she will stop this - walking on eggshells - as she is under-responsive.

Here is an example of SET so you can see the similarity:

Instead saying something like "Stop yelling at me, you are making me upset!" SET would be expressed as "I hear you." [Support / validation] "I know you feel upset with me," [Empathy] "and I feel that way too." [Truth / 'radical honesty']

My wife has made great strides with dealing with her 'anger management' issues using some of these methods. I really don't care what the therapists and other mental health professionals call it, as long as it is effective, and they appear to use very similar methods of communication.



Yes, we did that the day after my last update. We have a dozen activities identified (5/6 scores) - now she needs to find the time to do them with me.


Circling back to my own issue where I stated:


In Dr. Harley's book he stated a minimum of 15 hours for a 'healthy' relationship and recommended a minimum of 25-30 hours [for a relationship that is in trouble, such as mine] and occasionally a kid free vacation of 2-3 weeks in certain instances, and not the maximum of 10 hours my wife stated. Right now she is only making her 'spare time' available, and is still not putting our relationship first by her actions in spite of what she professes otherwise.

Since my last post we have done a single 1.5 hour lunch date, and another hour doing the RC inventory since last couple's therapy (I use this as start/stop time for weekly hour counting), and a half hour reviewing the 'marital problems' analysis and the first topic "need for affection" on the emotional needs questionnaire.

So far we have spent 3 hours UA in three different periods on our relationship together (1.5 hours RC & 1.5 hours of IC), and we have 48 hours left in the weekly interval (Tuesday's therapy session, or 16 hours if we are going Sunday midnight to Sunday midnight) to do another 22-27 hours of work - not going to happen. This is a far cry from the three 4 hour long suggestions in the book for UA.

How do you suggest addressing this issue, as I am frustrated in getting this program moving in a positive direction without being 'demanding' and maintaining the "I" expressive communication styles?

Hello everyone,

It's been a year since I last posted an update on my relationship with my wife.

There has been a tremendous amount of improvement in the past year. While we did some of the exercises that I have described above, my wife eventually tired of it, as it was a bit too triggering for her at that time. She still has lapses (episodes); however, these are becoming further and further apart, and seems to be in initial remission of her symptoms with the last major episode on January 17th of this year. She is now fully aware of each of the symptoms as of a week ago, and is actively working with her individual therapist on them.

***EDIT*** I am still applying Dr. Harley's principles to our relationship (mostly one sided from me) ***EDIT***
***EDIT***

***EDIT***

My wife is now self-aware of all of her symptoms (still hasn't 'connected the dots' and is still in denial), she has apologized for her 'wrongs' that she was previously unaware of, she is actively making corrections - and has become aware of her psychological splitting (cognitive distortions) which is by far the toughest one to become self-aware on as she historically disassociates (cannot remember roughly similar to being 'black out' drunk) after she does this against me, and/or others.

So, once again, we are 'again' at the 'starting line' of starting marriage therapy (even though we have been in weekly couple's therapy since August 2019 - yes, nearly 5 years), it took us this long to just get to another starting line after working through the issues I have previously posted about; hopefully, she will follow through with the new system which should compliment the other systems (tools) that I am using since it is someone else who has chosen it other than me. I will stick with whatever she chooses, and do the homework (workbook) on it.

Circling back to the HNHN program. We are doing 2 per week on a somewhat consistent basis, one a mini-lunch/shopping date, the other an action adventure bike ride with a meal, this has helped a lot, still not quite where it should be, but a significant improvement compared to what it was before. A lot less conflict, more agreements, more needs are being met.

Affection and Sexual fulfillment has improved from none, to once a month, and for the past two weeks, once a week. Recreational Companionship is close to being fully met; however, intimate conversation is not as it seems to be very triggering for my wife, but it is improving too.

If you guys have recommendations on how to continue to improve this situation it would I would really appreciate it and be very grateful.

Thanks for listening. Take care with self-care.

A reminder that only Marriage Builders materials should be promoted on the Marriage Builders Guidance Forum.

SailorPhoto,
It can take a long time to make things work even if dealing with normal personalities. (Whatever normal is)

I came to the marriage builders website, looking to improve my marriage. It took a couple of years before we were both comfortable, and for both of us to be mostly happy, most of the time. And I believe it took five years before we felt like the good results would be permanent, and we relaxed a little bit.

So, not sure what your timeline is going to be using these materials, but I know that it can work for you If both of you are on board and you continue to use the materials as they're intended to be used.

Tell me how you are feeling... because it can take a lot of energy to make this successful if only one is doing most of the work. Are you doing okay from day to day? Mostly OK?

I think you scared a lot of people off when you described some of the troubles you're coping with in your marriage. You probably know that we are just fellow travelers, who came here trying to find information for our own use, and ended up trying to help other people. You describe some of the things your wife is dealing with, and I admit I did not understand some of the terms you used. So though I cannot help you with many things, we may be able to find some common ground talking about recreational activities and spending time with your wife during the week.

I give you a lot of credit for being willing. Do you think you can do this for a couple more years?

I may have missed it, as I only skimmed your earlier posts... is your wife employed outside the home at a full or part time job? Does she have any hobbies that she enjoys spending time doing at this point in time?
Are there hobbies that she once enjoyed, but has not participated in for a time that you both could start doing again?

I had to change my point of view in order to spend the proper amount of time with my wife. I had a friend that was a construction worker, He mentioned one evening that the next day, he was going to go shopping with his wife. I said "i'm sorry for you". He stopped and turned around and looked at me... and he said "you don't understand, It doesn't matter what she is doing, I just want to be with her." That opened my eyes a little bit, I started to apply that in my marriage. It gave me a lot more time to spend with my own wife.

Are there other things that you do apart during the day that you could do together? Most likely you have already looked at all these things. I'm just trying to brainstorm suggestions.
I hope you end up just like me... these days I'm always happy except when I'm not. ;-)