Take a look at Esther31's post in this thread. She has the bare bones of a really good communications structure shown there. The additional part is that I'm willing to bet her and her SO came up with, and agreed to, certain guidelines or rules for these conversations. The purpose of setting up this time is to put that issue out there to be resolved, meaning that every time you come to the table for that talk then you need to bring the right mindset along. This is the harder part...if you can't resolve it in one sitting then you need to do your best to leave it until the next time you and your partner are ready to discuss it. It never helps going to bed angry. However, the whole thing really doesn't work if both partners aren't willing to be completely open to what the other one is saying. Maybe you and your DH need to come up with some rules that you would like to have in place for when you have these discussions, and then you both really need to agree to them and hold each other accountable to them. Oh, its also best to keep these talks in someplace neutral. You don't want to do them in the bedroom if you can help it as it builds up an association with the talk.

Keeping things bottled up is, 9 times out of 10, what ruins a marriage.

ok so here is my STICKY subject, Jesse the hub is still on the unemployment line.....it's been about a month. So he on the computer all day and I know we are in the pc era and you can find almost everythig on line but my brain still says get up an GO look for a job. So this would be one of those "this is going to cause a fight" subjects. He says he wants to owrk, but on the fmaily feedback line I am getting the total opposite on his typical ways of doing things. Sooooo yea rock and a hard place here I stand. Any suggestions ?