Quipper
My W and I talked quite a bit the other night and it was actually her that said that it was OUR house. She doesn't even feel right staying there without me. We worked a long time to buy it together and she feels that it would be best if we sell.
I'll read up on the love diet but It may be tough being that my wife is not too receptive of the meals or snacks right now. Being appart is going to leave me with hope of 1 or 2 meals a week, forget 3 a day.
I like to believe that I am making some deposits and I think I'm doing good at avoiding the withdraws, however, I also think I am still working against a negative balance from all of the past overdraft fees.
The link that I posted, I just coppied from a thread that I started here about DB. It was actually Carol herself that posted the link as a reply to my thread.

Dear Wishing for Home,

The way I apply the love diet, is that I contact my wife with a pleasant thought if I have not talked to her for several hours. I just phoned my wife, at lunch time, and said, "Happy Lunch Time." When her work day is finished, at quitting time, I will check in, with , "This is your time now." Then we will just exchange a few pleasantries. Maybe I will say how much I enjoyed this or that. Or how good she is about this or that. Or I will make a wish, and ask her to think about how we can make my wish come true.

One book I read, said to know your wife's personal problems map. Know what her struggles are, and who is important to her, and who is giving her trouble.

Define for yourself, what problems your wife faces, and who is giving her problems, and what support you can give her for her problems.

You need to make more deposits before you can bring up your needs. If your wife asks about yur needs, then go for it. Otherwise focus on your wife's problems. Any of her problems you can post? Any help you have offered? Any help been effective? Just an acknowlegement of a problem, is a deposit. A follow up question on the problem, shows you remember he problems, and should get you another deposit.

To recap your situation, you have 4 daughters, oldest is 10. Your wife has decided she wants a divorce, and you have not strayed, to the knowledge of your wife. You are in individual counseling. You were in marriage counseling, but your wife stopped. Your wife wants to get some things fixed up on the house, so you can sell the house. No proceedings for the divorce have yet been filed. Ther is no order of child support.


Blessings

Quipper,
Husband of 28 years, raised 2 challenging kids, still struggling

<small>[ November 19, 2003, 11:41 AM: Message edited by: Quipper ]</small>

Quipper
My wife told me the other day that she doesn't feel like she has anything to talk about at this time. She has even postponed her IC appointments because she said she has nothing to say. I still ask questions when I talk to her. About kids, her health, issues with her family. Sometimes I hit something that she will talk about but I usually get very short answers. If I start talking about D she show interest because that is the only thing she sees right now.
As of last night, I will not be seing her for a week. This is the longest since we seperated. I am not calling her or anything for this week. I am going to do my best to give her the space she has been asking for. Hopefully we will have a good holiday, Going to Macy's parade with Kids.

Dear Wishing for Home,

Make a list of what questions work, which ones don't. According to The Love Diet, and my experience, a short conversation is fine. The goal of the phone call is to communicate good spirits, and caring to your wife. Short answers or long answers are irrelevant to the purpose of the call. The purpose is not to get info. The purpose is to express caring. Caring can be expressed an perceived in a second or two.

Getting info is nice. It gives you more to go on to ask more caring questions next time. A successful phone call can be just giving a little information about the kids. I try to recognize accomplishments of my wife. Even just daily, getting through a morning or an afternoon at work. Post back with a list of your wife's daily accomplishments that you can give her recognition for.

It seems that the root of the situation is either depression, or the idea of another man. Either way, your approach can be the same. More frequesnt attention, and more caring questions, and more caring ideas and info.

Could you explain more details about your plans for Thanksgiving? Is there some way to include your wife in your plans? Is the Macy's parade more important than expressing caring for your wife?

You should be able to ask your wife if anyone had any interesting stories in her group. Your wife should be able to go on for hours about their stories. Just don't ask any particular names, or get too personal; respect the anonymous nature of the groups right to privacy.

You have told me that your wife has a short temper, and has difficulty with intimacy. What you need is a ready list of her good qualities, so you can point these out to give her caring and support. What is your response to your wife's angry outbursts?

My latest strategy of responding to a nasty remark, is, "Could you rephrase the wording of that idea, and use a tone of voice that is more considerate to my self-esteem and feelings of self-worth?"

You are saying that talking of divorce is the only thing that gets her happy. I say keep trying. Show me your list of what does not work, and I wil give you more ideas to try. If she answers about the kids, then stick primariy to the kids.

Qhipper
Husband of 28 years, raised 2 challenging kids, stil struggling

<small>[ November 19, 2003, 12:21 PM: Message edited by: Quipper ]</small>

Quipper
We are all going to Parade together.W included. We do things with kids as a family, not seperate. She doesn't have angry outbursts, she just shuts down when she's mad and closes me out. If she shows any anger with me, I just stay pleasant and try to move on to a different topic.
The problem that I have with calling to show care, is that she feels that I am always checking up on her and have to know everthing that she is doing. I can't just call her to say Hi, because I don't want her to feel that I am checking on her. I think it will be best for now if I wait for her to call me.

Dear Wishing for Home,

If your wife would be irritated by phone calls, then I withdraw that suggestion. Is there another mechanism by which you can demonstrate caring? Does she pick up the mail? Have you ever mailed a card to her? What about an E-mail?

What are her concerns? What has worked to get her talking besides divorce? Does she work? Does your wife ask you questions about your work? Could you share some tidbit of what happened at work, with her, then be silent, to give her the chance to say some tidbit of her concerns?

What do you feel is at the base of her actions? You have not disclosed what your counselor suggests or thinks.

You can spend years in counseling, but if you identify where you can grow, you can take a targeted self-improvment course, and make faster progress sometimes. Have you ever taken an evaluation test? How much do you have to spend? Do you know whre free evauation tests are given?

I suggested courses and books to improve your
Communicaton Skills, but you did not respond to my suggestions:

I have taken the Dale Carnegie course
($1600.00), the Silva Method ($350.00), and the Scientology Communications Course ($110.00). The Basics course from Science of Mind church,($350.00). I have taken the Parent Effectiveness Training Course, and two other parenting courses. I have the Grades 0 to 4 Scientology Grade Charts of counseling questions, 4 volumes, ($80.00 apiece). I have taken Legal Negotiation seminars, ($250.00)

If I am having trouble communicating with my wife, I first think to blame her, but then I realize I could probably do better, and I look to upgrading my communication skills. I look over my books, and make a list of questions to try out to get things going.

There are a number of communication drills, or role playing skits.

How do you evaluate your communication skills, and where do you see you could make improvement?

Blessings,

Quipper
Husband of 28 years, raised 2 challenging kids, still struggling

<small>[ November 19, 2003, 03:51 PM: Message edited by: Quipper ]</small>

I'm afraid that anything I do to show her how much I care for her, she takes as an attempt to change her mind. This is when she withdraws from me. I want to write to her, I would like to try to open that line of comunication but I don't think she will write back and, The more I write to her the more she will take it in a defensive mannor.
I have sent her e-mail and virtual greetings, but she is not big on e-mail.

Dear Wishing for Home,

Let me withdraw suggestions of showing you care for right now. Let me stick with your getting her to talk to you, by your asking her questions acknolwding her response, and asking another question.

What training have you had in this? What books of questions do you own? What are the list of questions you have to get her talking about the kids or things other than divorce? What are your back-up questions? How far are you from self-help training centers? How much time can you devote to improving your quesioning skills?

Even if backing off is the right action for now, I do not see you are ready for when the time is right.

Quipper
Husband of 28 years, raised 2 cahllenging kids, stil struggling

<small>[ November 19, 2003, 05:38 PM: Message edited by: Quipper ]</small>

Quipper
I ask questions that pertain to anything I can think of other than those related to us or her feelings. I ask about her health because she has been feeling sick, I ask about her school and kids school. I Ask about relationship w/ her mom that was rocky for a while. Most are met with "Ok's" and "pretty goods".
I bring up topics like Parade next week and Xmas gifts for kids. Most of this is met with "We don't have time to do that" or We can't afford that"
If we start talking about anything related to D, we end up talking for extended periods of time, all tension in her goes away and we have a pleasant time together.
I have still been thinking of writing to her. There are so many things that I want to tell her about how I feel about her that I can't when we are together. If I talk to her about these things, she backs away. I think it may make her feel a little guilty. I already started writing, specifically about what she means to me, but I don't know if it would be a good Idea to give her this letter or not. At least I am getting to say the things that I feel I need to. I just don't know if she will ever get to hear it.

Dear Wishing for Home,

Your last post was highly informative. The details of the interchage of words with your wife is key to making things go better.

You are leaving out a key step in communication. Acknowlegement. After she says, "We can't afford that." You need to paraphrase her answer back to her.

Like, "It would be nice if our unexpected expense of A had not hit last month."

W: "We don't have time to talk about that now."

H: "It's true that we need to get #2 daughter to her piano lesson"

The drill, is to find a person to be your patner in the exercise, and find a front page section of any newspaper. Take a news article, and have your practice partner read a sentence or two, or paraphrase an idea from the article. Then you paraphrase the idea back to your partenr, giving him the idea that you fully understood the point to which the article was driving. This is called a flow. The direction of an idea is a flow. Certainly you can switch with your partner, back and forth. Can you find a partner at work for 15 minutes a day, once in a while? Where else could you find a partner?

There are more fundamental exercises that are important to learn first. There are more advanced communicaton exercises. For $110.00 the Dianetics Center will provide you a partner, if you make an appointment. How close is the nearest Dianetics Center? What is their phone number?

If you want to increase Affection, Love, the rule is to increase communication and cooperation. Am I correct that you are desiring to increase affection from your wife?

For an addrees, Click here:
Dianetics Center Address Locator


Quipper
Husband of 28 years, raised two challenging kids, still struggling

<small>[ November 20, 2003, 07:20 PM: Message edited by: Quipper ]</small>

Thanks Quipper
I will look into more communication exercises but for now, I will pay close attention to our conversations so I can be more specific with you. I see that you are trying hard to help me so I will try to make it easier for you. I will pay attention to both my W and my acknowledgements as well as what type of things we can talk about.

Dear Wishing for Home,

I believe you are a caring person, and I am flabergasted that your wife can't see it.

Quipper

Quipper,
The funny thing is that she says she does see it. She has said to me that she knows that nobody will ever be able to care for her the way I do and that I deserve a chance to find someone who can care for me the same way. What she doesn't get is that I want that someone to be her and only her.
I called yesterday to talk to the kids. W was busy and couldn't talk much so she said she would try to call back.
She Did !
She called back and her and I actually talked for a while. About the kids, school,Holidays.
I know it wasn't much but we actually had a conversation without having to talk about D

<small>[ November 24, 2003, 07:55 AM: Message edited by: WishI WereHome ]</small>