SnL I read your posts with such frustration...your long winded, circular thinking (yes, judgmental) drives me crazy...<P>Love. What is it? How do we stay in it? Does it have to be work? Is love a feeling? an ideal? a myth? If it's a feeling, when I am angry with my spouse or child does it 'go away?' (No.) If it's an ideal, can anyone really be 'in love?' (Yes.) And, if it's a myth, can we separate fact from fiction? (Yes.)<P>Fact...something attracted you to bring you together. Fact...something propelled you to marriage. Fact...you are the sum of your life's experiences and have been poorly socialized to be in relationships. Quite frankly WE EXPECT TOO MUCH. We love people HOW we want to be loved instead of just sharing love with them. We count up our own faults, find ourselves wanting and try to fill ourselves up with love from someone else.<P>We allow ourselves to define each other instead of defining ourselves.<P>Then, when we become unhappy...when we are not fulfilled our marriages/relationships wither and consciously or unconsciously we look for the next person who will 'fill' us up with love. Love that is NOT work.<P>HA. Love is NOT WORK. But love and acceptance of ourselves is. <P>And, yes, I agree that I could not be with just anyone...but I KNOW SOMETHING BROUGHT MY H AND I TOGETHER. I KNOW THERE WAS AN ATTRACTION. I know there was admiration and respect.<P>So, if it was there in the beginning, it can be there again.<P>But you see, this whole infidelity thing can get so one-sided. You WSs 'divorce' us in spirit...say woe is me, I was so unhappy and dead in my marriage and then watch us dance to your tune....just like you said we had done to you. IF IT WASN'T CORRECT BEHAVIOR FOR BS, is it correct behavior for WS?<P>Decision-making is easy, and not...see it takes COURAGE. Courage to use your values and morals as a yardstick. Does your decision fit in with your morals...and don't fall back on the old tune "I must have changed." Bull-pucky...just an easy excuse. Will your decision hurt others? Will your decision disappoint your family? Will your decision HURT more than HELP? Consider everything. Where did this process come from? A curriculum put out by the Lions' Club called Skills for Adolescence. <P>You see we could debate all day. You could ride the fence FOREVER. You can talk in circles (without paragraphs), but NONE of it changes the facts.<P>Marriage is too darn disposable. People are too darn expendable. It is too easy to run away from our feelings, problems and history to start over, start fresh.<P>And, I'm not saying we BSs should look deep into ourselves and also adjust our attitudes.<BR>Again, stop the woe is me tune and start taking stock of our lives. Are we being 'highly effective?' or, 'highly defective?' <I>(7 Habits of Highly Effective People.)</I><P>LIFE IS TOO SHORT. Appreciate and give thanks for what you have. Take your lemons and make lemonade. <P>Okay,<BR>Cali is stepping off her soapbox for now.<BR> [img]images/icons/shocked.gif" border="0[/img]

hmmm....one persons circular is another persons coping mechanism. I acknowledge I am far to the side of the bell curve in needing to understand why I do what I do (or you do what you do) in order to feel grounded and make real choices, not just be blown by the reactive winds of life. Being proactive is actually a lot harder than it seems. Partly cause few people really dig deep to understand what motivates them (or others) and so just live a reactive life. <P>For example....A married B, they should just always be married..... so one works and works and works at the marriage...but ya know what..... few people give more than cursory thought to WHY they should do this, or even what the decision tree is buried deep down in their psyche, what their internal paradigms even are, much less do they WANT to be governed by those paradigms, and if not, how to change them.<P>The kneejerk reactions (and I made the same for 23 years) to why should one stay married it they are not happy about it are annoying superficial, and clicheish. Well because you made vows.....so? Most have no clue to what a vow even is in psychological terms, and whether a marital vow is even possible for a human being to make (it is not). They say, because God says I am supposed to never divorce (He does not say that, at all), folks don't even put in the time to seriously study exactly what God wants for us (but I can assure you, it is not marriage at any cost, to just anyone). <P>Then there are the don't upset the apple cart arguments, you know....you have history (so what?), you have family (again so what, family doesn't chang, they aren't going anywhere). Your community/extended family will be upset.....again so what? They are not spending 24/7 the rest of their life in a complex interpersonal relationship with your spouse, their opinions are irrelevant, not to mention not a single one of them will live their life as YOU tell them do, they all do exactly what they want, and so should you in this regard. The point is cali, marriage is none of these things IMO. I know my struggles over digging deep into this stuff have been unsettling on occassion, and repetritive, but that is how investigation works. Different experiments, repeated over and over, until results start making sense. I am pretty much there, maybe a little more work, but I know what marriage, love, bonding, and such are about now, and actually it is pretty interesting, and a lot more complicated than I use to think in my ignorance. MB has part of the answers (much to their credit), but they do not have them all.<P>Many are content to live reactive lives, I m not going to take them to task, we have freewill, is their choice. But I am not going to live my life that way anymore. I have undergone a paradigm shift, and I am committed to it, I will not go back. I will be proactive, and in regards to my present marriage, it is gone, if it ever existed at all (and I don't think it did). I will either choose my w (and she I), or not, for sound psychological reasons, because that is what is in the best interests of both our mental health. So in essence, IMO reconcilliation is about dating (your spouse), and reevaluating a spouse as a marital partner, based on a better understanding of who you are, and who they are. It is the natural consequence of the incredibly poor job we do in training our youth how to select a marital partner (and so blow it most of the time, cause it is not easy, there are IMO very few percentage wise, people we fit well enough to be married too, in the in-love sense vs the accomodation sense). If one has made a marital error for 10, 20, years, it makes very little sense to live the rest of your life that way, just getting by, might as well be single. But I will explain that more later. The point is this is not a useless exercise, examining the murky depths of marital psychology is very useful IMO. For example, some of the reason I am finding it hard to leave my w is cause I don't want her to become unhappy, I feel something like guilt (but is not guilt exactly, sorta like responsibility for her happiness), and that is no good. I also have a certain amount of inertia, I know her, she is reliable and predictable in many pragmatic ways, and there is risk in losing that, and starting over. But that is also a lousy reason to stay (unless one believes in the laundary list approach to marriage). But there are also gulfs between us that will never be bridged, it is the nature of those gulfs, and what they mean that IMO determine whether one should be married. The cold hard truth (as demanded by radical honesty) is that if I could do it over, I would not marry her. Not cause she is a bad person, but because we do not fit. Nor would I marry her now, if we were both single (spouses died, or divorced us) and met. But everyone reading me will hate me for saying that. And if she reads this, it will make her either angry or miserable, yet all I do is speak the truth, something I am not allowed to do in my marriage if it is distressing. Will that change? Maybe, but only by doing what I am doing here. I don't think too many of you understand that about me. I am not a hypocrit, I am not mean-spirited, I am not selfish. I CAN'T just DO IT. It is not who I am. I have just "done it" for 23 years, it is why I got married, duty and responsibility. But it didn't work, and not only my mental health (but thinkers also) suffered cause of it. That is what duty and sacrifice do in marriage. The only way people have great fullfilling in-love marriages is with passion, and that is something the psychologists do not yet know how to define, or measure, but it is very real. It is not about following rules and principles, is about how you fit. Unfortuneatley that is not easy to specify, or identify, and so we all struggle, we struggle over fit, just not too many really realize that. I will comment on your other points in a different response. Hope all is well with you.

I find it interesting that in all of your circular arguments, (which means there will be no end result, but continued circular patterning), you find no place for change anywhere? You (and your W) are not the same people you were 20 or so years ago. By reading what you are saying, (and I am not as good linguistically), no one should ever marry, because, as we go through life and change, and our needs, wants and desires change, once the person we are with doesn't "fit" the profile any longer, we should then be totally free to switch partners to find someone else. As our levels of passion change and we grow apart, rather than work at the relationship and meet the challenges that change brings about, we should move on to something that is new, magical, passionate, and takes no work. The ONLY constant in life, is Change!! The challenge to long term relationships lies in the dedication of two people, mentally, physically, and emotionally, to fill the changing needs each other has. If guilt plays a part in your life, it YOU who decides that. Guilt is a waste of energy and time. Only YOU can decide if you are guilty of something. <P>Does a relationship take work? Of course...whether it is your marriage, your career, or your children. Each year that I teach or coach, it is work, but it is my passion, my challenge, and I do not give up and go find a job that is less work, or more money, simply because 20 years ago I could have made a different choice. Why throw away all the years I have spent doing something I love, for something that may be less work? The same holds true of a marriage....IMO. The challenges are no different today than they were 20 years ago, when you made the choice. Just as passion has no "clinical" definition, neither does commitment or dedication. If you are going spend the rest of your life seeking the "perfect" relationship, the "perfect fit", and a relationship with no work or effort to succeed, you are going to be sorely disappointed. You may as well be looking for Heaven on earth...something you will only find, after you die. Your search will lead you to another question, and another and another, and before you know it, you will have spent your life in a neverending search...to me, that is as reactive as anything else. Being proactive and finding out who YOU are is one thing, but I believe, IMO, since your situation began, you are now living the reactive life. Instead of knowing who you are, or were, and knowing your mate better, you waited until things got so bad, that your "analytical" side showed up, and reacted (over-reacted, IMO), to the point that you now try to rationalize, in psychological terms, what a successful relationship is. YOU have set your own standards in how to be successful in a relationship, almost like OLG in reverse...she wanted her F and H, as well. You seek that which you do not have to work for and will be a perfect fit from the start? <P>Before you jump on me too hard, I am only stating what I see in your posts, and if I misread them, forgive me. I guess, I too, have difficulty in the circular thinking area. <P>I hope I have not offended or sounded accusatory. It is not my wish.<P>*Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.*<P>Trueheart

snl.<P>If you cannot do it any more, why are you there?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JustPlainCali:<BR><STRONG><P>Okay,<BR>Cali is stepping off her soapbox for now.<BR> [img]images/icons/shocked.gif" border="0[/img]</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I like it when you are on your soapbox. Amen to everything you said.

snl.... just wanted to make sure you saw my thread as well. [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] (A continuation from the one I had the other day that crashed....) Can you tell we missed you while MB was down [img]images/icons/grin.gif" border="0[/img] ?? hehe...<BR> <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=37&t=013003" TARGET=_blank>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=37&t=013003</A>

bummer cali, I had a reply to the rest of your post but I lost it, will try again tonight.

ok trueheart (cali, and any others) if I am to be accused of circular reasoning plz explain how that is so. Perhaps I cannot see it. As I understand circular reasoning it uses the conclusion to prove the premise. Mostly I am just asking questions, and looking for input.

Intesting heading....do you really think thats all it takes? Just change your attitude and everything is fine....lol<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JustPlainCali:<BR>[QB]SnL I read your posts with such frustration...your long winded, circular thinking (yes, judgmental) drives me crazy...<BR>.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I've never seen SnL be judgmental of anyone here. He presents his opinions which often oppose others. But he doesn't deny anyone the right to express their own opinion. In fact I would say he APPRECIATES opposing views. <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JustPlainCali:<BR>[QB]<BR>And, yes, I agree that I could not be with just anyone...but I KNOW SOMETHING BROUGHT MY H AND I TOGETHER. I KNOW THERE WAS AN ATTRACTION. I know there was admiration and respect.<P>So, if it was there in the beginning, it can be there again.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Maybe, Maybe not. Things CHANGE. If you mix milk and chocolate you have chocolate milk. Can you ever have plain milk again just because you had it once? You add in life's experiences and you cannot go back to a place in time. So just because "love" existed once, does NOT mean that it MUST be able to happen again.<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JustPlainCali:<BR>[QB]<P>Decision-making is easy, and not...see it takes COURAGE. Courage to use your values and morals as a yardstick. Does your decision fit in with your morals...and don't fall back on the old tune "I must have changed." Bull-pucky...just an easy excuse. Will your decision hurt others? Will your decision disappoint your family? Will your decision HURT more than HELP? Consider everything. Where did this process come from? A curriculum put out by the Lions' Club called Skills for Adolescence. <BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>This is all very judgmental Cali. How do you know what process any of us WS's use to reach a decision? And why do you get to say whether or not "change" is a valid reason?<P>[ October 12, 2001: Message edited by: Lexxxy ]<p>[ October 12, 2001: Message edited by: Lexxxy ]

Hi lexxy, hope things are at least peaceful for ya. I had an interesting response to rest of cali's post, cause is full of one kind of bias too, and I seek to try and drill through ALL bias (including mine) to the real principles we live under. And I will admit despite the subject matter, I do kinda like the process itself. Somehow I feel safer when everything is on the table. Re cali, she was not calling me judgemental, she was just chastising herself in that first sentence. But it is ok, opinions are a little judgemental when they are about psychological issues anyways. I may be circular (although I don't think so), and calling me on it is ok, but saying I was doing so to be disruptive or hurtful would need some serious proof. Actually what bothers me is just what you alluded to at the end (and often implied, or said outright elsewhwere) that ws are just fence sitting in the fog, and could not possibly be doing any real soul searching or decision making. That of course is not true. Bs and ws are just 2 sides of the same coin, and the fog is the confusion when someone chooses to dive deep, and dig intoo the why's of this stuff, instead of just "doing" it, and that IMO is what being proactive is about, the process of finding a path WITHOUT a preconceived outcome (such as recovery at any cost).

Lexxxy...<BR>a clarification...<BR>I haven't read your whole post, but had to respond to 'judgmental.' I didn't mean SnL was judgmental, but that MY statement about his circular thinking was judgmental.<P>Cali

SNL<BR>Proactive is a concept from the book "Seven Habits of highly effective people". Have you read this book? As I understand it, proactive keeps one from "reacting" long enough to understand the "situation" and the other "persons position". Is this your understanding of this concept and are you learning your wifes side of this marriage?<BR>This is not meant to be confrontive but rather to inquire.

Why? Because everything changes. Everybody changes. If change were a valid reason to divorce or separate...<I>oh wait a minute...<B>that's</B> why we have no-fault divorces...</I><P>Well how do you make decisions? Based on YOUR needs and feelings? Based on YOUR changes? Based on YOUR entitlement? I don't feel I was being judgmental overall and I copped to where I was being judgmental.<P>I must have touched a sore spot. Do that with my H sometimes...especially when I said that he was going back to his MO...<I>running away...hiding...withdrawing</I>. He has done this with every relationship he has had...and there has always been someone else...I WAS EVEN A SOMEONE ELSE...though I didn't know it at the time. I thought he had broken it off with her and didn't find out 'til later that he hadn't.<P>Facts is facts. There is a good way to make decisions...<I>Think about your options...is it against the law, rules or the teachings of my religion or family?...is it harmful to me or to othes?...would it disappoint my family or other important people I know?...is it wrong to do?...would I be sorry afterward?...would I be hurt or upset if someone did this to me?</I> This is straight out of the curriculum I have to teach put out by the Lion's Club.<P>I read something in Harley's new book about having a renter's or a buyer's mentality...I think society has a renter's mentality when it comes to marriage now...and most of us don't fully commit...to fully commit is scary...we have to put our whole heart and soul into it...we put ourselves entirely on the line...<P>We committed the day we got married and we meant it...but life chips away at our commitment...our taker takes over and we feel entitled...we take for granted and are not as appreciative as we could be...and we get afraid...we fear the other may get more than we do...or love us less than we love them...in short, we are humans and we are socialized poorly to be in relationships and cultivate love.<P>Don't let fear make your decisions...whether it is fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the unknown, fear of the known...<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Edmund Hillary<P>Sincerely,<BR>Cali<p>[ October 12, 2001: Message edited by: JustPlainCali ]

Fit?<P>For the first 20 years of my marriage I was not "in love" with with my W. I'm not "in love" with her now. <P>I guess this means that we just don't "fit" and I should bail. There were certainly many times when that was a possibility, but I just had no better place to go.<P>Maybe I just don't know what "in love" is, after all, we somehow got married, had kids, and stayed together for 20 years. <P>I think I do understand what "in love" means now because I was actually "in love" a few months ago, for probably the first time in my life. During recovery from W's EA, we made a conscious effort to meet each other's ENs. It was difficult in the beginning (was work!), but it led to bliss. When we quit meeting ENs the "in love" feeling dissipated. <P>My experience with "in love" in not explained by any aspect of "fit" as I've heard it described. It <B>is explained</B> by pure behaviorism. <P>Certainly the "fit" theory must involve better evidence than just "testimonials" like mine. I would love to see descriptions of the research that produced that theory (even popularized versions). <P>Jeffers

Hey Jeffers!<P>Have you checked out the Retrouvaille program? <A HREF="http://www.retrouvaille.org" TARGET=_blank>http://www.retrouvaille.org</A> <P>Interesting information on marriage skills and people in 'dead' marriages who find their way back to one another. There is disagreement in statistics, what else is new, regarding success rate...but it still looks really good.<P>I am thinking of approaching H with the information...what do we have to lose vs. what do we have to gain?<P>Glad to see you back, BTW, I missed you.<P>Cali

Here's a thought.<P>Wherever you go, there YOU are Snl, and that means you are the one determining you're own psychological needs and fit to another person.<P>I don't know about you, but I change all the time. My needs, my desires, my attractions. All one can do is pick the best partner they can and stick with it!<P>Guess what? Some of the attributes that attracted me to my husband have become some of the greatest contentions. It's all because I have changed and so have my needs.<P>There is no perfect one for you, there is only your brain to choose the best you can. I'm very good at indepth analysis, but sometimes it prevent us from seeing reality.<P>Shaz [img]images/icons/grin.gif" border="0[/img]

gotruth, that is exactly what I mean. Interesting you read it somewhere else as well.

shazam, I havn't changed at all. Been this way my whole life, I live to figure stuff out.<P>shazam...Here's a thought.<BR>Wherever you go, there YOU are Snl, and that means you are the one determining you're own psychological needs and fit to another person.<P><BR>snl..Ya lost me, your psychological profile is not something you turn on and off, it is literally who you are. If it changes, I am no longer me, as with a brain injury, are brain pathologies. People do change, but not by choice, usually by injury (drugs, trauma, etc.). You can adjust a little how you react to stuff, and you can of course make modest behavioural changes, but those are still within the context of who you are. <P>shazam...I don't know about you, but I change all the time. My needs, my desires, my attractions. All one can do is pick the best partner they can and stick with it!<P>snl..You sound like the kiersey temperament profile of an artist. That is what artists do, but you are still you shazam. How you deal with stress, how you motivate yourself, what you are willing to live (and die) for, how you normally cope, how you handle anger, how you communicate, how you conceptualize, what your self-worth is based on, all these things (and 1000's more) are who you are. And irrevocably determine who you fit (and who fits you).<P>shazam...Guess what? Some of the attributes that attracted me to my husband have become some of the greatest contentions. It's all because I have changed and so have my needs.<P>snl..It is because you understood yourself poorly (and probably your H as well). Wanting something that turns out not to work for you is a common failing we all make.<P>shazam...There is no perfect one for you,<P>snl..I wonder about this. I suspect there is a perfect one. If we had access to sophisticated enough psychological tools, and screening methods. But pragmatically speaking you are correct. I do think though there is a enough variation in the human species, that the condition we call in-love can only happen with a pretty small percentage of other human beings. I suspect also this percentage is smaller for some and greater for others, actually kiersey has some fascinating research that supports this.<P>shazam...there is only your brain to choose the best you can. <P>snl...I wish it were that simple (well not really), it will be so one day, maybe a couple thousand years (maybe a lot less), when humans have evolved into a total engineered, self-directed lifeform. Much more efficient doncha know, none of these messy emotions.<P>shazam...I'm very good at indepth analysis, but sometimes it prevent us from seeing reality.<P>snl...Yep, sooner or later ya gots ta make a choice. Would love to discuss sometime what reality really is, what we should do about it, and what paradigms drive us, and what paradigms SHOULD drive us. Why do you do what you do shazam, why be married at all? (leave out arguments about raising kids, they are all dna driven anyways, and hardly worth analyzing).

jeffers....Fit? For the first 20 years of my marriage I was not "in love" with with my W. I'm not "in love" with her now. I guess this means that we just don't "fit" and I should bail. <P>snl...Not at all jeffers (although I must confess at one time I did think so, thinking being in-love was the only reason to be married). Everyone fits to one degree or another, we are all human beings afterall, and some needs are very very fundamental, and can be satisified by any warm body. What I did not understand was accomodation type love, caring type love, can be enough reason to marry (or stay married), but it comes at a price, and both parties must be willing to pay it, otherwise someone is really unhappy.<P>jeffers...There were certainly many times when that was a possibility, but I just had no better place to go.<P>snl...There is always a "better" place to go if one is not happy where they are in life (and I don't mean that to say divorce, or even be about a relationship). But it takes risk to change, to challenge and change your internal filters so you can be happy. Many are not willing (or too confused) to do that. Would you describe yourself as a risk taker jeffers? If you settled cause there was no better place, how do you know that? You are already taking steps, simply by being here, and contemplating MB principles, you have changed, and are in a "better" place.<P>jeffers...Maybe I just don't know what "in love" is, after all, we somehow got married, had kids, and stayed together for 20 years.<P>snl...I don't know either, but I know thinking a lot about it has helped me understand it better. I know it is important (for reasons I won't go into here). Getting married, and having kids has nothing to do with love, any numnuts can do that (and many do). Staying married for 20 years isn't particularly difficult either, as long as no one has enough motivation to do the work a divorce requires. It is actually as hard IMO (maybe even harder) to divorce, than it is to stay married. It is a psychologically devastating experience for everyone involved, to one degree or another. It involves the two things humans hate most, sudden change, and vulnerability/risk.<P>Jeffers...I think I do understand what "in love" means now because I was actually "in love" a few months ago, for probably the first time in my life. During recovery from W's EA, we made a conscious effort to meet each other's ENs. It was difficult in the beginning (was work!), but it led to bliss. When we quit meeting ENs the "in love" feeling dissipated. <P>snl.... I think the EN model is a good first order approximation of what in-love might look like. What it does not allow for is motivation (the willingness to invest emotional resources long term in someone else, that is what in-love is about I think).<P>jeffers...My experience with "in love" in not explained by any aspect of "fit" as I've heard it described. It is explained by pure behaviorism.<P>snl..That part is, but there is more jeffers, much much more. <P>jeffers....Certainly the "fit" theory must involve better evidence than just "testimonials" like mine. I would love to see descriptions of the research that produced that theory (even popularized versions).<P>snl...I just kinda use the word fit as a useful label, and so do others I think. But there is real psychology at work here, and it should indeed be observable, and predictable, and in fact it is. We are in the still early stages of understanding the concepts, but one of the next generation researchers who has improved on the understanding of temperament is <A HREF="http://www.kiersey.com" TARGET=_blank>www.kiersey.com</A> is fascinating stuff, go take a gander. However, I do think we all know this intuitively as well, no one really thinks they could be married to just anyone. Therefore one must in fact consider, they may have married the wrong person. Instead we try to figure out 40 different ways to keep people together, (which is good, we need such help) but do precious little in helping people determine whether they should even be together, so they can amicably part without all the angst and misery currently experienced. There is no special reason why anyone should stay married, just cause they are, it was a choice once made, and is the only thing humans do that somehow we are not expected to learn from. Obviously there are the religious arguments, but IMO the scripture is seriously distorted to make people think it is impossible to make a marital error (even though we have freewill). This is simply not true, and not what IMO scripture says at all. But even if it did, how can we then excuse people (usually women) who leave abusive marriages? Talk about hypocrisy. If it is ok to leave a given marriage, then it is ok to leave any marriage in principle, and it is the nature of the marriage that counts, not the existence of a legal secular document.<P>How are things going for you jeffers? I have a sort of special interest in the long term marriages (those of us who have been married 20+ years), without a history of abuse, infidelity etc. but just cannot go on like it is, and start unraveling (indidelity or otherwise). I wonder if this is another baby boomer phenomena.

Cali,<P>Yes, I've seen the Retrouvaille web site before. It looks like it might be along the same lines as a Marriage Builders Weekend, which I would love to do someday. <P>My post looks sorta bad, but it's not. Most aspects of our M are improving slowly, but steadily. Being out of love right now is not discouraging me too much -- we've just spent most of the last 6 weeks apart. Like I said, MB principles in action -- without time together you can't maintain romantic love. <P>I really will put this all in a separate, update type post -- I promise.<P>I hadn't realized that I'd been gone, but I searched out my posts and realized that you were right. I've been in the state of withdrawal and wasn't really in the mood to interact with my W at all (I was gone most of that time so it didn't make much difference) but I was embarrassed to come here and admit that. Someone would have given me a (well deserved) kick in the butt. [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]<P>My MB education continues.<P>Jeffers