My wife (40 years old) and I (44 years old) are both Christians. We have four children ranging in age from 1 to 14. After 15 years of struggling with our relationship, we tried the Marriage Builders Counseling Center. We counseled with Steve Harley for 6 months. My wife was always a little skeptical, but even she admitted that those 6 months were probably the best half-year of our marriage. Here's the problem: Two pastors in our town, including the one from our own church, have convinced my wife that the Marriage Builders approach is both dangerous and unScriptural. They say love in marriage MUST be unconditional. My wife believes them, and now ridicules Marriage Builders. She has almost totally given up on our marriage, and we are now more miserable than ever. I can't believe she is throwing away what we gained. She told me we were focusing way too much on each other, and it was too much work for her to maintain. I thought it was fun inventing new ways to meet her emotional needs, and was falling deeper in love with her. My wife is very close (TOO close) to her parents, and I believe she is afraid of becoming too close to me. She has told me several times that her parents and our children come before me. How's that for trying to build a marriage! Is the Marriage Builders approach in conflict with the Bible (conditional vs. unconditional love)? I'd really like to hear from some pastors on this one. In the meantime, we are both drifting further apart, although this is not what I desire.

You ask a very good question here. I'd like to see you post this on the Emotional Needs or General Questions sections of the forum because there is more "traffic" there.<p>By the way, I also believe in unconditional love -- but I'm sure you'll find some very interesting responses that refute it.<p>I'm sorry that you seem to have moved backwards with your wife.

The "commitment" part of love should be an unconditional love. When one marries, you make an unconditional covenant to love the other. OTOH, the "feeling" of being in-love is definitely conditional. IMHO, this is where folks get confused.<p>MB is quite scriptural in my opinion. Concepts like treating your spouse as yourself (ie, that you two are one, cannot hurt spouse w/o hurting yourself), honesty, care for the other's feelings and needs, etc...all fit very well.