Guys,

I know i have my own thread, but i consider that as more my personal journal and journey and wanted to post this as something that has recently come up but i feel is not specific to my situation.

So during a recent councilling session one of the things my wife said was that she likes it when i do something without been asked for example hovering. Now in the past this is something i had always taken for granted and never appreciated her doing etc and now i have started doing things like this more often. The issue is that one of my top EN's is that of admiration. So whilst i have been doing the hovering etc without comment from my wife i have expereicned what she has for so long and i admit i dont like it and want it to change. The issue is that i don't want it to stay like this going forward in our marriage either, i want things to become shared and equal.

I want to feel needed and wanted and would like her to start asking me to do things as well as me just doing things as well. The problem is that she is saying that she doesn't want to have to ask me to do things etc. and likes me just doign them. So how do we resolve this issue, where she doesnt want to ask so that she can feel that i am doing things naturally etc, and i want her to ask so that i can feel wanted and needed. Either one of us has to concede or we end up back where things were in that she would do it and then feels like i am not helping or i am doing and not feeling wanted.

It almost feels like a situation where for her to fufill my EN it would feel like a LB on her side and for me to fufill her EN it would feel like a LB on my side. At the end of the day it still has to be done but how can things like this be best resvoled ideally where each of us could feel EN's fufilled and no LB's

thoughts?

Off the top of my head, you could try saying something like, "Would you like me to hover today?" Would that work for you?

What do you mean by "hovering?" I don't understand your post because I don't understand the use of that word.

ok, I don't understand what it means to hover but I can answer this part. You should first understand that you should not do things that make you unhappy. That is called sacrifice and leads to resentment. If you don't enjoy doing it, you should stop doing it. In this situation, you and your wife should negotiate a solution that makes you both happy. No capitulation, no compromise, but find a solution that makes you both happy.

It's vacuuming, Melody.

how did you know that??

Let me see if I have this right; you need to feel that you are hoovering 'for her' and she sees the activity as general domestic support. Nice but it does not give her 'wanted and needed' feelings towards you. Does not really matter why.

When you POJA this, ask her for some things you can do that will make her feel you are wanted and needed and that she feels comfortable asking for as you love to be asked.

Keep looking for things until you find one that works for you both. Never make assumptions!

We are English

Sorry British term but yes it's vacuuming, regarding it making your happy etc its does make either if us happy or unhappy it's a basic chore n necessary. The point I was trying to talk about n illustrate is where doing something fulfills one persons en but creates LB in ther n vice versa so something has to give as its something that has to be done

Dave, a good way to avoid this issue altogether is to divide up the chores in a way that pleases you both. That way you are not left to read her mind and she is not left unhappy because you didn't help. Take out the guesswork. For example, in my home we have a cleaning lady and all the other day to day stuff is split up according to who doesn't mind doing it. If you don't like vacuuming, how would you feel about doing it on just certain days and she does it on other days? Or she does it all and you do another chore that you like better?

I think Steve Harley helped CWMI and her husband split up chores so she might be able to help you do this.

CWMI is an AMERICAN.

tried that but that would be me asking which she doesn't like and becomes a LB to her also I don't get my EN fulfilled of feeling wanted n needed

But it's not creating a double lovebuster, though. A lovebuster is doing something annoying, it isn't a lovebuster if she doesn't DO something. Needs should be met enthusiastically. For example, if your wife says she "needs" you to stand on your head and you don't like doing it, it is not a lovebuster for you to decline. For you to do that would be sacrifice, which is how incompatibility is created.

I would stop asking and sit down with her and work out a housework schedule. Negotiate the housework with her. The division of housework should be done in a way that pleases you BOTH.

Yes sort of right, knew this was going to be hard to explain lol basically I want to feel wanted n needed (EN fufulled) by been asked to do things etc she feels her EN fulfilled when's she doesn't have to ask me to do things and I just do them. If she asks then it becomes a LB to her if I ask her or just do it it is a LB for me as I don't feel wanted/needed

I think this is a valuable topic applicable to any couple

Melody in part I agree with you but I didn't want this to become specific on housework I was just using it as an example but say we did sit down an agree to she does X and I do Y etc. even then she is getting her EN met of me doing Y without been asked but I lose out as I don't get my EN fulfilled or feeling wanted/needed

I agree it's not a double LB so how about this then

I have a need to feel wanted/needed/useful my wife can fufill this by asking me to do things. She has a need to feel supported and helped by me doing things without been asked to go them. So if she fulfills my needs her own go unfulfilled if fufill hers my own go unfulfilled.

I know this all might sound silly etc but I feel it's a valid topic

That is not the ONLY way to meet your need of admiration. You find a way to meet needs that makes you BOTH happy.

I explained how you avoid asking her, you make out a housework schedule that makes you both happy. There are several other ways to meet your need of admiration. If you like being asked to help out, then find a way that suits you BOTH.

Are you learning the POJA out of the books? Which book do you have?

Ah, I meant Dave and I are English. Post overlap.

gotcha! I was really scratching my head on that one!

Melody thanks for your great insight on this and suggestions as well I definitely think this is a great topic on situations where fufulling an EN for one becomes a LB for the other and then vice versa

I was using the POJA on the website really rather than specific book.

That is a pretty simple one to answer if you understand the basic principles of the POJA. You don't commit lovebusters, period. If it is a lovebuster, it is off the table.


Do you have His Needs, Her Needs and Lovebusters?

LoveBusters is on order as my some recommended on my thread I can read it alone to help with my AO and some of the subtleties I have in AO which I don't see

So basically from what I understand you don't fufill your spouses EN if it causes a LB in yourself and vice versa

Right! You find a way to meet that need that makes you both happy. Sacrifice is off the table...

Ok taking this a step further suppose I dont do the vacuuming so I will not fufill her EN and not cause a LB in myself. So now she does the vacuuming as I don't she is pissed off with and feels I am not helping/giving support etc so I am in a no win situation.

So do I do it knowing that she won't ask but I am fufulling her EN and I don't get any EN's met but I am not unhappy doing this and look for other ways to get EN's met

This is where you negotiate the chores until you find WIN/WIN solutions. Sit down and list out the chores and decide who does what. Hopefully CWMI comes along and helps out with this exercise, she has gone through it. I will look for an article on it.

Oddly, the division of the house work has been the EASIEST thing for my H and I.. We will have fistfights over lettuce in the grocery store but have never had a minutes trouble over division of labor.

That is because we agreed early on that he is responsible for all outside chores and I am responsible for inside chores. I am happy with that because he is HOPELESS with housework. Unless our house looked like an episode of hoarders, he would think it looked just fine! That means I am FREE to keep the house just like I like it.

ok, I found a good article about it: How to Divide Domestic Responsibilities (Part 1)

I don't think the solution Steve gave to us would apply in this case, because I feel like dotnetdave is more after admiration for what he does than to simply not do it, right?

With us, my H is OCD, and felt like I should keep the house at an OCD level. Steve had us each make a list of the chores we felt were important to be done, how often they should be done, and estimate the amount of time each chore would take. My H's list was waaaaay more extensive than my own. The next time we got with Steve, he said, "Okay, now each of you is responsible for the things on your own list." bwahaha. I love Steve. He's so smart.

Anyway, one of the things was daily vacuuming--I didn't want to do it everyday, H thought I should do it anyway because it fulfills and EN of his, so we bought a Roomba and now IT vacuums every day while I do other things that don't fill me with resentment.

That is too funny! Thanks for the explanation.

I love my NEATO!! My house has scads of wood floors and they get so dirty so fast. It was driving me crazy. But this neato does a super job keeping things clean.

dotnetdave,

I offer a three-part solution that works for my marriage:

1. POJA a division of responsibilities (per MelodyLane's suggestion). This relieves your wife of the annoyance of asking you to do something, and so protects her lovebank balance.

2. Make it a habit to review with her what you've done. This gives her an opportunity to throw in a few "attaboys" and "thank yous" to help meet your admiration need. When you do a particularly stellar job, bring her over by the hand and ask her specifically to admire your fine job and reward you with a kiss.

3. Make it a habit to thank your wife and show admiration for the things she does -- every single time. If she does the dishes every night, thank her for it every night. Express admiration for the things she does. This normalizes the language of admiration in your house and gets both of you used to it, so that expressing admiration won't be so much of a hurdle.

Curious and melody between you have seen the solution now curis hit the nails on the head about admiration as well the kiss would be wonderful but if you read my blog thread you will know its going to bd a while before that happens

I would still love her to ask me to do things as well, maybe something I can talk about with her like a previous response mentioned to find out what she would be comfortable asking me to do etc, then woud be all good and I get to feel wanted/needed its amazing how much different it will feel to be asked to do something rather than continually offering to do it

Curious's #3 works remarkably well with children, also. Just use the language of please and thank you with kids, and they'll use it, too.

There have been a couple of times here where my H unloaded/reloaded the dishwasher on days when I am away from home for 11-12 hours. Usually, I notice if I've left the kitchen a bit of a wreck and come home expecting to clean it before making dinner, and on those days I'll walk in and text him a thank-you. One day I hadn't noticed, so he texted me, Did you notice I did the dishes? lol. I am perfectly fine with him bringing me to things he wants admiration for when I've missed them. I can be a bit oblivious at times to my surroundings, and my H notices everything.

Dr. Harley has a very specific plan for meeting the emotional need of Domestic Support, and I think that plan would give you what you are looking for. The plan is in several articles on this site and is also in His Needs Her Needs for Parents. (I think it is also in the original HNHN, but I think the presentation in HNHNFP made more sense to me.)

Hmmmm interesting I have been showing lots n lots of admiration to my wife but getting very little if any back from her despite everything I have started doing.

I'm not sure if Steve gave you Dr. Harley's full plan, but returning admiration (or other EN and signs of appreciation) is part of the plan. On the radio Dr. Harley says that if you try to do something on your spouse's list and it doesn't seem to have an effect on them, you get to quit doing it!

Oh, also, there is a plan for meeting the need for admiration. That's in His Needs Her Needs. It's best to inform her straight out of your need and ask if she'd be willing to follow the plan with you.

Where does she put admiration on her list? I don't have a great need for admiration, so I don't really notice when it's being paid to me. It's love-bank neutral for me. It's nice, but doesn't really 'do it' for me, you know? My H has a much greater need for it (as many men do), so I'm good with him asking for it when I forget and/or don't notice. If she doesn't have a high need for admiration, she might not notice, like me.

Somewhere in the middle is where it comes I also think cause I haven't shown it in the past either showing it now to her she may feel it is patronising as its fit things she has always done

Markos thanks for the advice on telling her my need but if you read my thread you will find the situation I am in and are a lot slower and more delicate. The fact we have even just taken done tiny tiny steps into recovery has taken s lot of ting n patience. So right now throwing the whole EN list at her would send her running so I have to work with thf counciller very slowly n slyly as well to introduce things to my wife, at the moment we are trying to get admiration going both ways, but we digress any comments regarding my specific situation feel free to read n post on my thread

Dave, in that case I would suggest you keep doing housework for her until comes out of withdrawal. Dr Harley has told other men to do this as a way of showing they CARE. IT would annoy me terribly but apparently your wife likes that you do this stuff so you should continue to do it for now.

Melody thanks fog the advice and that's what I have been doing in planA and my wife has said she does like me doing thinks without been asked but since we are moving slowly into recovery and starting to get admiration both waysi thought this could have been something simple n ideal as well

Could I ask you melody to cone back to my thread please, I know we fell out early on because of my attitude but s lot has changed since then

I don't have a specific suggestion for this, but perhaps it would help if you thought about it a little more from your wife's perspective? I don't know your wife, but I know a lot of women who really dislike asking their husbands to do things around the house. The reason is that they want a PARTNERSHIP. And if they have to be the ones to instigate every task, then it doesn't feels like a partnership. Instead, it feels to the wife like she is the manager, and the husband is the employee. Or worse, like she is the parent, and the husband is the child.

So it looks like your challenge is to figure out how to achieve a dynamic where your wife feels like she is one half of a functioning partnership, and you still get what you are looking for.

I don't have a problem asking DH to do stuff around the house. But, we're both domestically challenged.

You do always have the option of hiring a domestic. They're not expensive and I really miss mine.

Thanks for pointing it out and is something i had though about as well and she has certainly mentioned it sometimes feels like the parent\child situation as well in our councilling session.

Please would you come to my thread and join me there to discuss things more ?

Here is a small update, this mornign when i got up for work at 6:15am i went downstairs and was making my coffee ready to leave. I noticed that the dishwasher was finished and still full from the night before so i just unloaded and put everything away before leaving.

on my way to the office i sent my wife a txt just asking if she needed anything from the stationary cabinet and let me know (slight tangent but she had asked for a few bits). Now i didnt expect a reponse or at best just a "no" etc.

But i got a response back saying "cant think of anything. Thank you for emptying the dishwasher" i nearly fell over lol felt so nice to hear it unpromoted as well. I just sent a response back saying "thats ok have a good day"

FYI it should be "hoovering" as in Hoover Vacuum Cleaner, not Hovering. :-)

It seems as though you have "respectfully requested" her to provide Admiration for your Domestic Support that she has respectfully requested of you.

The best way to "train" someone into that new behavio(u)r is to provide positive feedback when they do it. She thanks you for vacuuming/hoovering and you thank her for thanking you.

That's exactly what I did we the txt from this morning she said thank you for unloading the dishwasher n this afternoon I sent her a txt as I was about to leave from the office and also said "thank you for what you said this morning" at last I did something right

Dave just a thought, but I think this DS need of hers crosses over into an affection need.

When we 'notice' our spouse needs help and do things to help them, its meeting the need for affection. Whereas if we agree to do a fair portion or all of the chores, its a DS need.

If you negotiate a division of DS chores, you will make some tasks hers, and some yours, meeting the DS need.

Dr H says you should then go for bonus points and do some of your spouse's tasks for them if they're tired/long day/home late/just cause you care. By making a chore hers and then doing it for her, you're meeting affection.

For now, you might just want to keep Plan Aing with all your might, but dividing chores is something to consider long term.

indie right now its a case of she has complained in the past of me not help or doing any DS things so i have been doing all sorts of things now hoovering, wasing, ironsing etc etc

we havent come up with a division of chores yet so i guess everything i do is showing signs of support and affection. I was suprised to get the "thank you" txt yesterday and that made me feel useful and that she appreciated what i had done so i keep doing thigns. I also sent her a message as well like i say thanking her for thanking me

dave, do you think this is a temporary thing, getting admiration met through texts and stuff instead of 15+ hours UA time a week? Because it sounds like that to me. I thought Plan A is supposed to feel kinda yucky if you're doing t right.

Why not?

To be honest I don't really know, as I am in plan a I was just trying to do as much as I can

Here is what my husband and I do, and it works for us:

1. Division of Labor: These are the specific rules we have for who does what when. In our house, the rule is that one person cooks, and the other cleans the kitchen up afterward. On weekdays, my husband handles kitty litter and feeds the cats in the evening, while I make coffee and feed the cats in the morning. On the weekends, it is reversed.

Rules like this depend entirely on your circumstances. My husband works from home, so it makes sense for him to handle kitty litter on weekdays -- he's the one who has to smell it!

2. Management Areas: These are specific things that one or the other of us is in charge of and will always be in charge of, unless we re-negotiate. "In charge of" means the person who owns that management area is in charge of seeing that stuff gets done -- no matter how. That person can do it himself, delegate some of it, contract it out, whatever. My management areas are: rooms that hold my stuff only; our yard, deck, houseplants, etc.; home decor; laundry. My husband's management areas are: managing household bills and dealing with contractors; cat care; trash and recycling; home maintenance, appliances, electronics, entertainment systems, and network; basement; grilling, baking bread, and making sausage.

When I say that laundry is my management area, I mean that I see that the laundry gets done. Sometimes that entails handing him a basket stuff to fold. Sometimes it means I ask him outright to take care of a certain load because I won't be able to. In our last house, laundry was my husband's management area, but we switched it because our circumstances changes. Likewise, if I have to deal with a contractor, I do. But usually that is because my husband is traveling and can't be around.

Based on your description, it sounds like currently everything is your wife's management area. Why don't you take her to dinner and talk over what you both think are the big management areas in your home, and agree on which ones you can take over?

And I'll let you in on a little secret: since our management areas align with our interests and strengths, most of the time we each feel like we are bearing less than half of the household work. I know that doesn't sound logical, but it seems to work very well.

Edited to address HTML fail.

That might actually fit in very well with your Plan A, Dave.

Although she has been refusing dates/dinners with you, she might agree to go out and discuss household chores. Just say you're hungry and want to go somewhere without distractions.

The offer to adress her chores concerns alone will be worth brownie points.

What a brilliant idea first part i will come up with wold be the list of "management" areas and chores. Give me a little time and i will post it up on here along with who has been doing what in the past and currently.