My husband of 9 years told me yesterday that he is not sure he wants to stay married. We have been having problems for about 6 months. We talked about 3 weeks ago and agreed to both try to change. We both did nothing to change. Now he says he loves me but is not sure he is "in" love with me. I mada a decision last night to change my ways. I feel very strongly that I can show him the way back to me. I can kind of see what we were doing wrong just by reading through this web site. He will not go to counseling and does not want to read anything. He said he "thinks" he wants to try to work it out but is afraid it is too late. I don't feel it is and I am ready to meet his emotional needs but he himself is not sure what those needs are. Where do I start. I don' t want to smother him but I don't want to back off to far either. What do I do?<br>

JMM, start by finding out what the Love Busters are in your relationship. Print out the Love Busters questionnaires and both of you sit down and fill them out. When you go over them it must be with the understanding that neither of you will get angry or hurt at what the other has identified as problem behavior.<p>Eliminating Love Busters is the first thing you must do to change - and the reason is pretty simple. Meeting Emotional Needs is great, and will make your H feel better, but when you follow it up with a Love Buster, then the need-meeting rings hollow - how can he believe that you care about making him feel loved, when you do things that make him feel bad, also?<p>Elimination of Love Busters is part of Dr. Harley's "Rule of Protection" and is a great starting point for us all. Read more about this here on the website.<p>Hope this helps somewhat.<p>terri

teri<br>Thank you for your reply. It really means a lot to know someone is listening and trying to help. I really did a lot of soul searching today and I feel like I have made a lot of progress in just one day. My H spent the day with friends working on a vehicle. It was probably the best thing we could do to be apart all day long. He came home and admits that he is scared too. That is a big step for him. He absolutly HATES to talk. He did spend some time talking to his father and his friend and I think maybe that helped him. We talked a little about "Love Busters" and he is thinking about answering the questions. He works the night shift so he had to go to bed before work so we did not get a lot talked about. That has been one of our problems all along is that he sleeps all the time.<br>I feel real good about us working things out but I don't want to fall back into the old habits. Any tricks to avoid sliding back down that hill?

edited<p>[This message has been edited by Willis (edited July 20, 2000).]