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Anyone have any ideas on things WH and I can do to help R? Like exercises we can do together, etc.? I know some of you read together and discuss, etc. Looking for ideas like that. Maybe telling eachother every day 5 things we're thankful for...along those lines?

We pray together out loud over coffee in the morning. This was never our thing, together or individually. We read in a book that couples who pray together have less than a 1% divorce rate. We figured what the hell let's try it. Very awkward at first. Now its really nice.

We answer a set of questions at night to review our day.

1. What did I do today for healing?

2. What feeling did I have today and why?

3a. How did I see you honor me today?

b. How did you honor me that I did not see?

c. How could you have honored me?

4. What am I grateful for today?

We have weekly meetings on Sunday to discuss:

Finances

Grocery list

Household tasks

Work schedule

Kids needs

Weekend entertainment

How R is going and what to focus on over the next week

Long term planning

Our 12 step meeting schedules

These are the more structured things we do. Generally we try to make sure we have some us time every day.

WOW, thank you Chicho, that is very helpful. We are not religious, but the questions and weekly talks idea is exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you so much.

Thanks Chico. Great advice!

Have you looked into Retrouvaille? We aren't religious either, but the program is helpful regardless.

Early on we started reading/discussing books or threads on SI together and we still do that. As a way to reconnect and have fun along with the parts of R that are not as much fun, we made 'bucket lists' of things we'd each like to do and see and we would then do them together and cross stuff off the lists and add to those lists. It was a good starting point for us.

Chicho has a lot of good ideas and suggestions.

Someone posted this a little while ago and I saved it. I didn't save who said it, unfortunately. I've assumed it's Chico - because it sounds like something he would say

-- I apologize in advance for not being able to give the proper person credit. --

We sat down and made a chart of areas that needed work. We broke it down into 3 columns: Heal from the past, maintain the present, build a future. We wrote everything we could think of that we needed to do for each of those catagories, from paying the cable bill to reading "not just friends" to planning date nights. Then we took those and divided them up into: What I need to do for me, What she needed to do for her, and What we needed to do for us.

Someone sent me this recently.

When we go to bed share we each tell each other the best thing that happened that day to us personally and how it made me feel, (can be between us, with the kids, work or anywhere). Then we tell each other the worst thing that happened to me that day, and how it made me feel (this can be between us or another situation etc.). If necessary we ask and receive forgiveness from each other.

Hope that helps

Yea that was me. I am glad it stuck.

My fWH and I are using a suggestion from my IC (it may be in "Not Just Friends" as well.)

Every week we write down 10 things that we like/love/respect about each other and then we discuss each thing listed throughout the week. It really helped us open up the lines of communication.

Thanks everyone, great stuff...exactly what I'm looking for

We have decided we need to support each others interests. I have taken up golf, a sport my husband lives and breaths for and he in turn has started biking in the mountains with me.

We have also decided that we need to have a pause button on the hurt. When one or the other, or both need a break from the R work we ask the other for a few days of peace where we don't discuss any bad stuff. It is nice to know we can both appreciate when enough is enough without hurting the other person.

T