She didn't say that at all.
The point is not to date someone for 5 years or 15 years (although I've known good people who have done just that). The point is to date AROUND. Date 30 people.

He can date her for a few months or a few years, then move on when he is ready to get married.

This is a strawman.

When dr harley did that he was a teenager.
The reason why he advocas dating around is to find someone that meets your emotional needs.
I have never heard him advocate dating for the purpose of finding friends. That is something that has evolved on this forum, not from his books or radio show.

A reminder that the purpose of this forum is to discuss Marriage Builders concepts and Dr. Harley's views. This is not a platform for personal philosophies and folk wisdom. If you are going to post here, you must abide by those rules, or kindly refrain from posting. If you disagree with Dr. Harley's views, feel free to email him directly at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com.

Another strawman.

Dr. Harley does not tell people to only date placeholders if they are teenagers.

Dr. Harley does not say to date only when you are trying to find a mate. That goes against his placeholder advice.

For clarification:
People have emotional needs. One of them is sex.
After divorce, Harley is cautious in recommending remarriage because of the high failure rate. He often advises women to gain independence after divorce and receive an education if needed so they can support themselves and their children. He has observed that women seem to do well on their own when not in a relationship.
He has often advised women to not remarry until after the kids are out of the house because of the high divorce rate. However, many women refuse to wait that long. One recent poster (a divorced woman with kids)contacted Dr Harley and said she was in love with her new boyfriend and he encouraged her to marry him.
Harleys main focus is on preaching the Policy of Joint Agreement. Everything revolves around that. As he explained on my radio call, remarriages can be very successful if the POJA is followed.
One thing he would never recommend is cohabitation before marriage. Over the years, some posters will invite their boyfriends to spend the night on the couch or go on trips. Harley would not advocate that with children.

Much of the focus on dating for friendships seemed to start a couple years ago when he recommended to a few callers to date and develop friends with the opposite sex. One of these callers was a man that was admittedly scared of women. Harley advocating developing female friends, not as the end but rather as the means to the end which would be ability to have a romantic relationship.

Personally,i think there is nothing wrong with dating to find friends but if i was dating a woman to be friends it would be 50/50 and not a date. Many men follow guides of traditional dating and ** EDIT ** has been mentioned on other forums which advocates men keep dates as dates and friends as friends.

Oh btw the poster that Harley recommended get married: She started dating after divorce for "casual dating" and fell in love. If an individual is going on dates with the mindset of "i will not fall in love and this is for fun" they may have a great time but the so called "friendships" will quickly end once the "friend" finds a person that wants to pursue romance. I dont see much ROI on such friendships.

Since your son lives with you 50% of the time, i dont know what harley would advise. As markos suggested you should write to him and ask him to answer your question on the air. But remember everything he saya revolves around the POJA so it would be imperative that it would be followed in any future marriage.

The only person I've seen that has said anything about dating for friendship on this thread has been you, Jedi.

Casually dating placeholders for years until you are ready for marriage does not equal "dating for friendship."

I think that's pretty much a given.

Many people do see a benefit to this casual type of relationship, including Dr. Harley. The people dating casually do not think of it as a "friendship," and neither does Dr. Harley. His term is "placeholder."

Well then i guess this poster should post an ad on internet dating that she is looking for placeholders and see who responds

Jedi, you just sound anti-dating to me.

Why do you care so much if people like to date but don't plan to remarry until their children are grown?

Or perhaps she can follow the advice of those who have successfully dated placeholders, such as Susie.

If you have a problem with Dr. Harley's placeholder advice, maybe you should contact him to discuss it.

I have heard Dr Harley say that he would even advocate dating to help someone move on from a bad break up. I doubt he would advocate advertising that.

I have no problem with that.
th point i am making is that this is not a "rule" of dr. Harley.

There's no rules for dating, there's just advice.

Dr. Harley often strongly advises women to not remarry before the children are grown, but also to casually date placeholders with no plans to marry.

This is Dr. Harley's advice, not just the forum's.

Why do you feel the need to contradict that advice?

So he's ok with dating with some conditions/precautions.

Did he say anything about remarriage?

Ok, I was just wondering because like I said earlier, I remember you posting negative stuff about online dating and people only wanting sex. The reason I specifically remember that was because you scared me!

He said ideally to wait until she was out of the house, but to take it "year by year." There was an acknowledgement that waiting 15 years to to have your needs met may not be realistically possible, so he encouraged me to wait as long as possible--but at least a year. At that time, reevaluate. If I do decided to date, try to date men without kids if possible to lessen the risks.

I think this is pretty much caution and hedging your bets kind of advice. The longer you wait to date with kids, the easier it is to just not date and you may decide you don't want to. Also, the standards get higher if you are not trying to rush and rebound because you miss the trappings of getting married. He basically said, "if you fall in love and want to marry, you need to weigh that against the risks of a blended family," which is true.

Do i win a prize?

Here is the issue with this--and I also think what Dr. Harley was saying to me as well. With dating ALWAYS comes the risk of falling in love. It just does. When that happens, as we know, all bets are off. That is why he encouraged me to WAIT as long as possible to date at all. OS friendships lead to love, we all know that.

One cannot say in one breath, "affairs are caused by OS friendships" and then say, "I can have OS friendships as a divorced person and it won't lead to falling in love or having sex or getting married for years and years" in another. It can and it may very well lead to falling in love and then we know it's extremely hard to control.

So go ahead and date, but don't pretend like it can't lead to a love affair. It can. And then, you might have sex. Or might want to risk a blended family.

If you want to stay single, the best thing to do is not to date.

This has been quite an interesting discussion to follow.

My position would be on Jedi's side of the argument.

Maybe dating vs courting would be a more precise way to distinguish what we're talking about here?

I agree. Its a definition of the word.
** EDIT **
The American Heritage Dictionary defines date as "An appointment to meet socially at a particular time; especially with a member of the opposite sex."

So I was incorrect considering the definition of the word. Of course men and women can have dates.