Love Busters: the Other Half of the Program

Dr. Harley’s first and best selling book is His Needs, Her Needs.  Many couples buy just this book and are able to save their marriage.  But in our case, and in the case of many couples that I have seen, His Needs, Her Needs is not enough.  Meeting emotional needs is only one half of the equation.  Your balance in your spouse’s Love Bank can’t reach the romantic love threshold if you are making withdrawals, and so most marriages need to learn to avoid Love Busters.

Many people grew up in households where disrespect and angry outbursts were unacceptable.  Their parents didn’t treat each other that way and did not allow the children to treat each other that way.  But a lot of us come from families and a culture that believes that everyone has an angry outburst now and then, and that disrespect is sometimes a great way (perhaps even the only way) to get a point across.  Without any examples or teaching to the contrary, some of us took our natural instinct to be disrespectful or angry and turned it into a very well-practiced habit.

Likewise, some people have a philosophy that it is okay for a wife to boss a husband around, or a husband to boss a wife around.  I can think of many marriages I’ve known where one or the other spouse was the boss, or where both husband and wife constantly competed to be boss (what Dr. Harley calls “dueling dictators”).

So selfish demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts come very naturally to many people in marriage, and an awful lot of people feel that these behaviors are justified, at least some of the time.  It’s a real shock to see someone like Dr. Harley labeling these behaviors as abuse, and many people want to argue with that definition.  But these behaviors destroy marriages.  They make people as miserable as they can possibly be, from the relationship that should make them happier than any other.  How fair is that, to the victim of the demands, disrespect, and anger?

The other Love Busters are also common and tolerated in many families.  The idea that a husband (or a wife) should give up any behaviors that their spouse is not enthusiastic about will usually get you laughed at.  Dr. Harley’s Policy of Radical Honesty is only called “radical” because most people don’t believe you should reveal to your spouse everything you know about yourself – most people think there are some things that you should hold back.  And if you suggest that husbands and wives should make an effort to eliminate habits that their mate finds annoying, prepare to be told by the “experts” how wrong you are.

Selfish demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts all lead to an abusive marriage.  And dishonesty, independent behavior, and annoying habits all lead to an incompatible marriage.  Most people (and counselors) believe that some or all of these behaviors should be tolerated, at least some of the time.  But most people (and counselors) don’t have a good marriage, and don’t know how to teach people how to have a good marriage!

If you want to have a good marriage, the only way I know to do it is to draw a firm line and decide that these behaviors are unacceptable and you are not going to tolerate them.  They are called “Love Busters” for a reason – they bust love, like a bubble or balloon shot with a gun.

I have seen a lot of people look at this program and proclaim that the problem is that their spouse will not meet their emotional needs, but do so in a way that demonstrates that they are very disrespectful toward their spouse.  Let me advise you that if you are engaging in Love Busters, your spouse is not the cause.  Dr. Harley’s position is that you need to refrain from Love Busters even if your spouse doesn’t meet your emotional needs, and even if they engage in Love Busters themselves!  Dr. Harley and his wife Joyce frequently comment that “there are reasons for an affair, but no excuses.”  Well, there are also reasons for angry outbursts, but there are no excuses.  There are reasons for disrespectful judgments, but there are no excuses.  There are reasons for independent behavior, but there are no excuses.

The marriages that I have seen recover are the ones where somebody decided that they weren’t going to engage in Love Busters, no matter what their spouse did.  If all you want to do is talk about the intolerable situation your spouse is causing and why you are so upset, don’t expect anything to ever get better.  Instead of talking about your justifications for your love busters, do something – learn to stop love busting, and if your spouse doesn’t follow suit, look into your additional options like separation or getting professional help.  But whatever you do, don’t fall back on Love Busters.  Otherwise you are as much to blame for the failure of your marriage as your spouse.

What if she’s wrong about me?

“My wife says I’m making Disrespectful Judgments.  But she doesn’t understand.  I’m not really being disrespectful, and here’s why …”

I have seen this common pattern repeated in many marriages – including my own!  The wife identifies the husband’s Disrespectful Judgments (or Selfish Demands, or Angry Outbursts) as a serious issue.  But when the husband and the wife start trying to follow the plan and exchanging weekly worksheets listing each instance of a Disrespectful Judgment, the things the wife says are disrespectful aren’t things that the husband feels are disrespectful at all.  Who’s right and who’s wrong?

Dr. Harley has a very clear rule about this, and when he was working with me and Prisca he applied it every time I came to him with this problem.  Here’s how he words it in Love Busters:

How can you know if you’re a perpetrator of disrespectful judgments?  Ask your spouse.  You may not realize how you come across.  But you are disrespectful if your spouse thinks you’re disrespectful.  That’s the deciding factor….

Believe me, in this situation your spouse is the best judge by a long shot.

It may be frustrating to let your spouse be the judge of whether you are being disrespectful or not.  (Or demanding, or having an angry outburst.)  But if you want to fix what’s wrong with your marriage, it’s the only way that works.  If you are saying or doing anything that your spouse feels is disrespectful, it’s a love bank withdrawal.  It will also make it impossible to negotiate solutions to any problems that you face.  Your problems will remain unresolved, and the things you are saying or doing about it that make your spouse feel disrespected will only make the problem worse.

So encourage your spouse to be fully honest with you about your disrespectful judgments.  You may not know what to say or do differently at first, but the very first step is to find out what your spouse feels is disrespectful.

If you can’t figure out what to do different after that, send me an email at MarkosOnMarriage@gmail.com, and I’ll give you a few pointers.

No fighting!

One of the most important things that has to happen for a marriage to recover and for a couple to be in love is that there has to be no fighting.  If you want to be happily married, then you need to have a high balance in your account in your spouse’s love bank.  If your marriage has been in a bad place, you can’t afford to be making any withdrawals from that account at all.

Fighting is like nuclear war in marriage.  Everybody loses; everybody gets hurt horribly; and the radioactive fallout lasts for years.  Avoid fighting in marriage at all costs.  Even if your spouse wants to fight with you, avoid fighting with them.  Even if your spouse breaks all the rules, don’t go breaking the rules yourself, because you will simply make the problem worse.  If you thought they didn’t like you before, just wait till you make several more withdrawals from your account in your husband or wife’s love bank.

To a great extent, it is true that it takes two to fight.  To a great extent, one person can make sure there are no fights in a marriage, by simply refusing to fight!

How do you avoid fights?  You’ve got to avoid three specific behaviors:

• Selfish demands
• Disrespectful judgments
• Angry outbursts

These three behaviors form a continuum of abuse and control.  A selfish demand is anything you do or say that makes your spouse feel that they have no choice but to comply with your wishes, or else there will be consequences.  A disrespectful judgment is anything you do or say that makes your spouse feel you are devaluing their feelings and opinions.  And an angry outburst is anything you do or say that makes your spouse feel punished.  There are hundreds of examples of each of these kinds of behavior.  If your spouse is upset with you, there is a good chance you are engaging in one of these without realizing it.

Typically when somebody wants something from their spouse and the spouse is not willing, they issue a demand to their spouse.  If that does not work, they escalate: they move to a disrespectful judgment by telling their spouse why they “should” do this, why it’s wrong not to do this, calling them names if they don’t do it, etc.  Finally, if the disrespectful judgment doesn’t motivate their spouse to give them what they want, they punish them with an angry outburst to try to make them comply.

It all starts with feeling like you’ve got to have something from your spouse, like you are entitled to it, and like it would be right to do whatever it takes to make your spouse give it to you.

If you want to have a recovered marriage, you must stop fighting.  You’ve got to commit yourself to never doing or saying anything that your spouse finds demanding, disrespectful, or angry – even if your spouse becomes demanding, disrespectful, or angry!  That can be difficult to do: a person in an abusive marriage tends to become abusive themselves.  But those of us who have recovered marriages can testify that you can and must break the cycle and eliminate these three behaviors.

If your spouse frequently withdraws from your conversations or is combative, it is possible that you are doing or saying something that they feel is demanding, disrespectful, or angry.  Your intent doesn’t matter as much as the effect on your spouse’s feelings.  If they feel you are demanding, disrespectful, or angry, you need to change something.  Personally I had a lot of trouble figuring out how I was being disrespectful and why my wife saw me as disrespectful.  I’d be happy to help you if you don’t understand why your spouse is upset.  Send me an email at MarkosOnMarriage@gmail.com, and I will answer in this space.