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#2315803 02/01/10 09:12 AM
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Haven't seen you around here in a while...good to see you stopping by.

I had wanted to catch up with you for a while now, but lost your phone number. Give me a call if you still have mine.

LoBoy


"You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one." Thoreau
LostBoy68 #2315807 02/01/10 09:17 AM
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Larry, so good to see you back! Dr Harley has been doing alot of writing the past 12 months and has churned out some amazing newsletters [Exposure and Unconditional love newsletters are awesome!] that have been posted on the Newsletter forum. here

Additionally, he has just published a new book titled Effective Marriage Counseling that I am reading now. Mark started a thread about it here.

How is the weather in your neck of the woods? My mother in Amarillo was snowed in last week.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


MelodyLane #2315831 02/01/10 09:38 AM
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LB - drop me an email. I lost your number when I changed phones.

Mel: Thanks for helping bring me up to date. I probably spent 30 hours reading Harley before I ever posted. And I do want to see what is new and read again the basics, which I am now doing.

I took a quick look at Mark's thread. Wow! I will invest in the book.

I went away for good reason and I am back because I got jealous of a long time shrink buddy of mine who is active on the ADHD forums giving out his professional advice for free now that he is retired. It gives him something worthwhile he can do. He suggested that part of my character was helping others when I could. So here I be in all my inflamed glory smile

We got some snow, not much, but enough to make a few snowballs. It has been cold, see name of my town for full reference.

Oh, and LB, think Karma

Larry

_Larry_ #2319871 02/08/10 05:19 AM
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Hi Larry,

You mentioned on another thread that you divorced your FWW. Is this the wife you were married to during your previous time on MB?

If so, I'm sorry to hear about the divorce. I know, though, that you took a long time to get to that decision and it was the right one in the circumstances.


BW
Married 1989
His PA 2003-2006
2 kids.
SugarCane #2319897 02/08/10 08:25 AM
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Hey SugarCane:

Yes, same woman. There were a lot of dynamics at play. She wanted another child. We both have a recessive gene that points to Hirschsprung's disease, which our boy has. Look it up on the net, it is not fun. It involves part or all of the colon not developing properly. Our kid has half a colon. And the inner ring of the anus doesn't work right.

Secondly, I am way older than my FWW. The generational difference finally began to be an issue. Plus, she got her BSN and at that point, became able to support herself for the first time in her life. She is a hellofa Nurse, if I do say so, me and myself. smile

The cloud of the past affair hung over us like the smoke of doom. I didn't trust her and apparently she didn't trust herself. We moved locations, then moved back after the divorce. The move was to allow her to help take care of her father, who died. We then moved back to get the kids where they needed to be and put her back to work where her skills were more appreciated.

I am kinda miserable right now and apparently so is she. As it turns out, the last guy she started dating moved in and after a real smart campaign to get her into infatuation mode, turned one day and found reason he thought appropriate to cut me more or less out of their lives. That hasn't worked too well since as time has moved on, he has turned into a somewhat controlling jerk. In my opinion, the only thing stopping her from kicking his [censored] under the bus is ego and pride.

We shall see where the Karma bus goes as time moves on. I tried to move into the role of Grandfather and got denied that privilege. But I have my son every weekend and sometimes during the week with full cooperation from FWW. I like that part.

Her affair was with someone totally inappropriate in ever way that has a measure. If not for that, we might have made it for a longer time. She got infatuated and did what the infatuated do who do not have a good moral compass. We recovered pretty well, but with all the other stuff overhanging our relationship added to the affair, our marriage was doomed.

Life goes on.

Larry

_Larry_ #2319901 02/08/10 08:33 AM
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Larry, I'm so sorry.


BW
Married 1989
His PA 2003-2006
2 kids.
_Larry_ #2319902 02/08/10 08:36 AM
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Larry, I am sorry to hear about your divorce. Sometimes the definition of success is divorce, IMO.

Am very glad you are back here helping. smile


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


MelodyLane #2319912 02/08/10 08:56 AM
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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
Am very glad you are back here helping. smile

Ditto!

Mark1952 #2319925 02/08/10 09:33 AM
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Mark, are you finding this book as fascinating as I am?? [Effective Marriage Counseling] I was up late last night reading and re-reading it. I will be interested in hearing your thoughts on it.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


MelodyLane #2319950 02/08/10 10:39 AM
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Mel,

Definitely some "aha" moments. It's helping clarify a lot of the "why" type stuff for me.

I've been putting off reading the application section so that I can read more smoothly through the sections rather than get a few minutes now and a few more later. I would like to follow the case study start to finish if possible.

Have you modified anything about the advice you give here or the way you approach advice you give? One thing that struck me in the book was that Dr H says that he doesn't give advice during the first visit. He gather's data first, builds a connection to the couple and then, from what I can tell, delves into his plan which I believe varies very little from couple to couple from what I can tell.

I wonder if maybe sometimes some of the conflict we have around here isn't more the result of the way we rapid fire advice to newbies and end up putting them on the defensive rather than explaining what they should do and trying to listen to them first. A lot of them haven't even made up their mind whether or not they want to save their marriage and when they get here all they really want is someone to have empathy and commiserate a bit.

I just see Dr Harley's style as being supportive and suggestive rather than confrontational and demanding, toe the line or go away. I think sometimes we miss an opportunity to help someone by being too in-your-face from the get-go. We can tell them what to do, but first we have to get them to want to hear what we are telling them. I see the doctor's description of his process as one that while it is filled with motivational techniques and absolutes it also strives to create a connection with the couple seeking help so that they are more likely to do what he tells them to do when the time comes. I guess it comes down to people not caring what we know until they know that we care.

Like I said, I'm just beginning the application part of the book so I'll probably get some more insight from that. I just don't want to have to jump in and out of the case studies since I think getting the flow of that section will show more about the process than just gathering information. I just don't have a lot of time to give it right now.

At the moment my wife and I are in the midst of start up of a NFP and we're trying to beat a deadline of one month from this past weekend in order to make an event. It's taking a bit more time right now than we'd like, but we are working on it together rather than each doing our own thing.

The NFP coupled with work is consuming most of my waking hours right now and we're still doing our MB class on Wednesday nights and I'm still on the church board in the midst of a major remodeling project and...

I need three days added to every week that nobody else knows about.


Mark

Mark1952 #2320002 02/08/10 11:47 AM
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Quote
I wonder if maybe sometimes some of the conflict we have around here isn't more the result of the way we rapid fire advice to newbies and end up putting them on the defensive rather than explaining what they should do and trying to listen to them first. A lot of them haven't even made up their mind whether or not they want to save their marriage and when they get here all they really want is someone to have empathy and commiserate a bit.



I agree Mark.
When I was working, if I started giving advice without letting the patient tell their story, the chances of them listening to me was small.

Only occasionally is there enough of a danger to warrant "You must do this immediately" advice.

Pepperband #2320008 02/08/10 11:54 AM
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Larry,

Good to see ya back!!!!....I am sorry to hear about the divorce though.....even IF it is the right thing for you....

{{{{Mark}}}}}...poor you... stickout

I agree with everything you wrote about firing off instructions...especially, when the newbies that come here haven't even picked up one of the books....

not2fun

Pepperband #2320024 02/08/10 12:07 PM
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AWWWWW! PeP!

My East Texas buddy in Lovelady liked it too. He is the ex-shrink who just retired. I told him that the trained monkey in my head found a banana. He then went on to explain what he thought being a man was all about, especially in these days of sitcoms and other influences which had sorta, maybe, probably, muddled up the role model.

Larry

_Larry_ #2320031 02/08/10 12:14 PM
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I totally agree with going slow . . . at first. The stage has to be set before sharing personal perspectives based on life experience. None of us are clinically trained, at least I ain't.

Every once in a while though, I smell a rat and I kinda, sorta, pick up the pace a bit, even to the extent of doing a rant or two or three. When I woke up from my induced stupor, a guy used a two by four on me and it worked. But it doesn't always.

The book isn't here, yet. I look forward to reading some wisdom from the guy who knows.

And again, thank you to all who have welcomed me back. I got a warm fuzzy smile

Larry

_Larry_ #2320054 02/08/10 12:32 PM
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The Socratic Method: teaching by asking instead of by telling

It takes longer, and not every newbie is able to dig deep enough, for various reasons.
But, this is my favorite way to determine if a newbie and I will be able to communicate effectively.
I can usually tell within a few posts if I am a poor fit for a particular newbie.

After all these years, I can no longer tolerate trying to be effective with a newbie who seems incapable of self inventory by answering simple introspective questions ... Usually MrRollieEyes I will lose my temper with them too easily, and that helps no one.




Mark1952 #2320111 02/08/10 01:14 PM
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Originally Posted by Mark1952
Have you modified anything about the advice you give here or the way you approach advice you give? One thing that struck me in the book was that Dr H says that he doesn't give advice during the first visit. He gather's data first, builds a connection to the couple and then, from what I can tell, delves into his plan which I believe varies very little from couple to couple from what I can tell.

I haven't modified anything because the difference is that he is doing this so he can gather data, ie: questionaires, etc, which takes up the whole first session. Then he said they come back and he spends 3 hours reviewing this with them. We don't do that here. And even if we did, we wouldn't be qualified to discern the meaning of the questionaires. [I am sure not!] Dr Harley has both people, we just have one side. And one of his biggest guides is the Love Bank Inventory.

Quote
I just see Dr Harley's style as being supportive and suggestive rather than confrontational and demanding, toe the line or go away

I don't know, Mark, Dr Harley is confrontational and is "toe the line or go away." Remember what he says about folks who don't do their homework and follow his instructions? If they don't do their homework and they don't follow his instructions, he tells them he can't help them. When a couple doesn't do their homework, he says he spends the ENTIRE next session discussing WHY they didn't do their homework, because he is not going onto the next step until that is resolved.

That sounds very toe the line to me.

This is something I noted in his radio show too. He would ask people sometimes, "are you going to listen to what I say? Because if you aren't, then I am not going to waste my time." I tend to be the same way. I will answer someone's questions, lay out the program and then it is up to them to take it or leave it. If they don't want to take it, that is fine with me. I just move onto the next person.

I am not to the case studies yet, but this is one of the most fascinating books of his I have read. Those passages you wrote over on the MB101 forum to cantwemakeit just blew me away, because that is SO TRUE. I can look back at the progression in my marriage and see that meeting RC and SF in my marriage is what pushed us over the top. Then with the addition of the POJA and PORH, it was gravy.

I so wish you would post that post as its own thread over here on SAA. I think that would be so beneficial to posters on this board who are trying so hard to find the fastest horse.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


MelodyLane #2320128 02/08/10 01:30 PM
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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
This is something I noted in his radio show too. He would ask people sometimes, "are you going to listen to what I say? Because if you aren't, then I am not going to waste my time." I tend to be the same way. I will answer someone's questions, lay out the program and then it is up to them to take it or leave it. If they don't want to take it, that is fine with me. I just move onto the next person.

Yes. My real life experience working in a chronic pain clinic taught me the same thing. In that environment, I was constrained by a bunch of rules/laws in just how I could phrase my returning them to their primary physician ... and I charted my words very carefully ...

I was dealing, in large part, with people overusing prescription and non prescription analgesics. I always told the patient that the first time they lie to me is the day they have made the decision I cannot help them. grin



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Pep,

Them old Greek geeks knew some things, me thinks...

I have found that people tend to remember and implement those changes that they feel they have discovered for themselves. Sometimes that isn't possible to do, especially on an on-line forum like this one.

But I know that I read a few threads when I got here before I ever tried to post anything and they caused me to see several things right off the bat. First of all, I saw that my situation was not so unique and that there were many, way too many, that had been right where I was. I also realized that my own fog was clouding my perspective and struggled to see past the fog to look at the circumstances I found myself in.

I do realize that this is seldom (read that as almost never) the case. Most often people find themselves here as the result of a web search and arrive feeling as if their entire life is out of control, devoid of hope and unaware that all the things they might have heard in the last 24 hours or so will one day mean very little if anything at all.

One bit of advice I got nearly caused me to throw in the towel before I ever got here. It was being told that I was the cause of the affair. That I now know is the explanation used to justify the affair from the wayward POV. AT the time, it reinforced the notion that if I had somehow been a better man, my wife would not have fallen for OM. Most web sites I visited and other forums I posted on seemed to suggest that this was always the case. Close friends were telling me the same things.

I did a lot of self examination in the early days. I did however realize, without having learned about ENs, UA time, POJA, Love Busters, that the fact that my wife and I were leading totally separate lives and were not actively working at sustaining our relationship were at the heart of our problems.

I got the "If you were the man God said you should be" speech from many. So why was the missionary or the preacher caught up in the same situation I found myself in? Did they not really know what it was that God asked of them?

I got the "If you really loved her you'd want her to be happy" speech from others. I DID want her to be happy. But I wanted to be happy as well, and more to the point, I wanted us to be happy together.

To be honest, my turning point was when I realized that I was going to be OK no matter what happened to my marriage.

As you can tell from this missive, I am not a big fan of rapid fire, one line, IM style of communication with folks. If I think I have something to say, I am willing to say it more than once, in more than one way, and in words that will try to get my point across. If someone refuses my advice, I realize that they are not attacking me personally and that I can either try again or attempt a different analogy or line of logic to arrive at the same point without having to get angry myself. I also know that the people who can get under my skin the quickest and make me question my own resolve to "play nice" are the ones who trigger me somehow, either by being too much like me or my wife and reminding me of all the crap I went through (thinking Soren Kierkegaard here - the further we get from our former ignorance the less tolerant we become of that ignorance) or they are the kinds of people who are trying to remain aloof in an effort to avoid giving away too much information that they may not be able to take back later in an effort to remain anonymous.

When I was sick and off work, I sat on the computer all day long, read, posted, answered one line questions with one line answers and held people's hands. I don't have the time for hand holding right now and would rather try to get my point across and not have to play 20 questions all afternoon. That is why I have been confining myself to threads of people who have been here for a while, those who have decided to try to save their marriage and aren't floundering about so much or to those who are working at recovery already.

Maybe I'll post some of my thoughts about the book on the thread I began about it later if I get time. It really is a manual for counselors or those mentoring in a one on one situation rather than some DIY book but it also has some stuff I think could be applied here as well that would make some of the wailing, weeping and gnashing of teeth stuff less common.

I guess I'm just one of those who is more likely to say, "You know not from whence you speak" rather than, "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

But if you wanna be a cowboy, you gotta deal with the manure at some point.

This from the guy who had as UA time with his wife for a couple of years the pleasure of muckin' stalls every night.

Mark

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Hi all,

Interesting conversation. Mark I like your explanation of Harley's approach. Being a scientist collecting data is how I live and work. You cannot solve the problem unless you really know what it is and while we dont' solve anyones problems on this site, it is our attempts to "guide" them to information, or how we see things that sets the tone for many newbie's approach to solving their own problem.

I also agree with Pep, I have found over the years that there are folks that just don't fit with me or don't "get" what I am saying and I just move on.

Mel does point out that some people won't help themselves and apparently Harley has a low tolerance for folks "doing it their way" as clearly "their way" didn't work or they wouldn't be here or talking to Harley. I must admit and my children will tell you that I have NO TOLERANCE for folks that ask for advice and then won't even consider it. I particularly dislike the "Yes but..." response.

I tell all of the post-docs who work for me and colleaques that I work with that my life is governed by some simple rules.

1. There are no experts on unsolved problems (note the problems on this site have been solved over, and over, and over again.)

2. Credit is not a conserved quantity give it freely.

3. Life is a team sport.

4. There is nothing wrong with being wrong. Staying wrong is unacceptable.

I find folks that don't see these things hard to work with and, since I pick and choose who I work with, I don't spend much time around them.

I'm guessing Harley has a similar set of thoughts. Actually it seems that many of us have similar thoughts.

Regards,

JL

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Originally Posted by Just Learning
Interesting conversation. Mark I like your explanation of Harley's approach. Being a scientist collecting data is how I live and work. You cannot solve the problem unless you really know what it is and while we dont' solve anyones problems on this site, it is our attempts to "guide" them to information, or how we see things that sets the tone for many newbie's approach to solving their own problem.

JL, I think you would especially enjoy his book because you are a scientist. You will be amazed at the process he uses and WHY he uses it. Nothing is left to chance. He is very methodical and his every step is well thought out and backed up by surveys, studies, etc. He first sets a goal, assesses the couple, and then very carefully develops a plan for that couple. He checks his progress all along the way, and makes course corrections when warranted. He says that an effective course of treatment should not exceed 8 sessions.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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