Friends

Forgive my intrusion in your day, but I am sure you have seen there is a somewhat divisive issue on these boards lately - that of affair marriges getting support from marriage problems they experience.

I believe there is proof that such is very disheartening to BS and FWS of good heart, and ENCOURAGING to active waywards.

Others believe either that it does not cause hurt, or encouragement OR that a religious viewpoint should be adopted or imposed.

In order to gauge the opinions of the wider forum users I will try to post a poll.

Now these can be hard to accommodate all attitudes in a few simple questions, so I apologise in advance if someone feels misrepresented.

I have included all the proposals I have seen on these boards. if I have missed any , please vote OTHER and add it below by adding a post to the thread.

If you feel able, please answer the questions from the heart. It will be anonymous unless you also leave a post on this thread.

Many thanks and God Bless you.

* edit to include some definitions requested by togetheralone


Define 'supporting' . " lending support to " "abetting"

Define 'A-marriage' " An affair that results in the ending of at least one marriage as a result, and the infidels subsequently marrying each other"

Define 'vulnerable'. " Those readers who are highly likely to becoming downcast and lose the will continue the difficult fight against an affair if they see an affair marriage presented as being acceptable for marriagebuilding support"

Define 'hurt' . "a reduction in hope or happiness and/or an increase in fear regarding their life or marriage"

i just totally think some of this stuff has gone far enough.

this man came to these boards for help and i am surprised he is still around.

upon initial reading of his points do i understand why some feathers got ruffled? yes. HOWEVER, here is my view:

at some point there HAS TO BE FORGIVENESS. it is not up to us to judge, but our maker to do the judging. if we don't like zogs stance or the fact that he is here asking for help of what was initially an affair marriage, than DON'T READ HIS POSTS OR THREADS. pretty simple.

my dad and my stepmother's marriage is an affair marriage. they have been married over 20 years now. there have been MANY ROCKY TIMES in that marriage. my step mother has gone through ****** with my father. he was a drinker and a controller. i think number one, my mother and i were much better off without my father during those years he had these issues, and i think number 2 that my step mother got a good taste for many years of unhappiness with my father. however, believe it or not, once she was married to my dad she believed in it being forever and she stuck it out with him. maybe she did it because she felt she deserved what she was living with. i dunno. i know she has apologized to me many years ago for any pain it might have caused. i just know my parents were better off NOT together. my mom remarried and it is a much healthier and happier marriage. if my dad or step had come on here after 20 plus years of marriage, affair marriage or not, i would hope someone would have advised them. after 20 plus years does it really matter anymore how the marriage started? the affair part is done and over with and water under the bridge for the ex at this point.

and, it seems to me that zog is remorseful for what happened 20 years ago and wants to make THIS marriage right. it is too late for his first one.

now, my ex lives with (one of his many) ow. if he were to marry her how would i feel? well, i don't give a rats a** anymore what he does, but initially would i want them to be happy. ****** no. BUT, for me, this is something i have turned over to God and know he will tend to. not my issue anymore. if my ex came here 28 years later after marrying ow and wanted help with the marriage because she was cheating what would my reaction be? probably would depend why he was here. initially i would probably be like "oh, boohoohoo, you made your bed now lie in it" but if he was here because he was truly remorseful for effing up his first marriage (the one to me) and for having the affair to begin with and didn't want to go through another divorce and really wanted to make THIS marriage work, i would offer what i could for advice.

doesn't mean that i don't think he should be initially shown the error of his ways. i would imagine a few "well, what do you expect of an affair marriage" to be said or "are you kidding me coming to this board after what you have done!" but after that i would hope people would get to know him and see WHY he was here, his true feelings and feel him out for remorse.

zog seems truly remorseful to me. his first marriage is done dead and over. it has been almost thirty years. i think he wants to make THIS marriage, be it an affair one, right. i think we should help him as such.

there comes a time for forgiveness and for not judging folks. if the threads bother you, don't read them. christ even says we can forgive a person but it doesn't mean we have to have them be our friend or that we have to hang around them. so, don't hang around those threads if it bothers you. those of us whom it doesn't bother, or who can look at the WHOLE PICTURE can do the best we can to advise zog.

jmho

mlhb

and, just to add. if this was an affair marriage that was only maybe 2 years old or something, i think i may feel differently. but 28 years? i think the issue of this being an affair marriage is not number one on my list for a marriage that old. again, just my opinion

I think the biggest difference between my husband and me is he believes in remarriage and I don't. He was willing to have an affair on me and said he was open to marrying her if things didn't work out with me.

There's a reason why the marriage vows say "forsake all others." I think that acceptance of remarriage, especially acceptance of marriage from an affair, is an affront to the meaning of marriage.

If my husband hadn't been open to remarriage, I think our marriage would have been different. He never really thought in terms of trying to figure out what would work for both of us. Instead, I was the obstacle to his happiness.

As a side note, I heard Harley on the radio saying that a couple from an affair did attend his seminar. He said that commitment in these marriages is based on the passion that they had during the affair, and it can be difficult to sustain without the commitment to care and work through conflict. Affairs are based on deceit and disregard for the feelings of a person to whom you made a life-long commitment to care. People who break marriage vows to have affairs and then remarry their affair partners have chosen passion over commitment. If someone else comes along, the commitment to the affair partner, now spouse, can be tossed aside once again.

I recognize that I hold an extreme view. I don't think remarriage is appropriate except in the case of deceit or some other factor at the time of the wedding vows. My marriage is not one that I would want to be a model for our children. If it ends, I won't remarry unless my husband dies. In the end, I hold commitment to my wedding vows as paramount even in the face of abuse, infidelity, and neglect. Separation -- yes; divorce -- yes; remarriage -- no.

I don't think support of affair marriages is consistent with MB principles that you make a commitment to care for a specific person for life and then create a mutually enjoyable life by meeting each other's needs in a way that works for both and resolving conflict in a way that works for both.

Cherished

Perhaps I am biased since I'm still in the early stages of grief over my WH who will be moving in with the OW next weekend. But definitely supporting A-marriages hurts me. In fact, I can't imagine ever coming to accept my WH's relationship with OW. I've already told him that she doesn't EVER come to anything that's mine - DS's graduation/wedding or whatever. Now, if they break up and he finds somebody else, I could handle seeing her with him. But the A-OW - no way. And I can't accept anything that will promote this relationship either. What they did was wrong. The whole foundation of their relationship is wrong. While they are both in the "addiction" stage, neither one understands this, but the rest of society does (or should). Undermining this just paves the way for general acceptance of this cheating behavoir.

Bob, until Harley sets up MB as a 'first marriage' or 'subsequent marriage that didn't start as an affair' forum, I feel people can come here for support for any kind of marriage. I think if there was a special category place within MB for affair marriages, then people could choose to view/post there as they please. If Harley counsels people who are in affair marriages as part of his business, then I think it is his call.

I believe that our response to someone else's marital situation helps us gauge our own degree of healing.

If my husband and I were to divorce because of his unfaithful heart - I still love him enough to want his happiness and I know he would carry his problems to the next marriage - whether that was the person he cheated on me with or not. I would want him to get that help and it doesn't come at my expense, just because I was the one he betrayed.

On the other hand, if the OW came here, I would go away. It's my own boundary for myself - not that I am hurt by her presence, but I simply won't have contact with her. If things had gone that far (and that is a huge leap, because Harley helped Kasey break this off all on his own), and Kasey had actually married her, I still wouldn't have contact with her - it wouldn't matter the years. So if they both came here, I'd leave.

But it would have to be the characters in MY PERSONAL SITUATION that would have to be here. And NOT because I'm hurt by them - but because of my no-contact boundaries. And I WOULD leave.

If OW in my situation came to this board now to work on her own marriage that ISN'T an affair marriage, I would still leave - because I've promised myself no contact. I'm not giving up the ground I've gained in my recovery to go back to that dark place where I wanted to help her or support her and she didn't need or want my help - (we met on a recovery board for addicts/spouses of addicts - and she wasn't there to gain support for herself as much as she was there to help others recover - there were issues and problems there that couldn't be addressed from that place - and I'd hate to see that come to this board)

Bob - you've worried me a few times. How is your own personal healing process going. When it hurts you like this after two years or more of healing, it's like the surgeon left a piece behind and it's festering. If you're open, I'd be happy to share some of the resources I've used to work on myself so that I was clear what was at the bottom of my pain.

if someone has the callousness of character to enter a marriage by commiting the cruelty of an affair

that very callousness indicates a notable lack of concern for the well-being of others

when (not if), years later, the affair marriage hits the excreta fan

that very same callousness toward the feeling of others provides a predictable shield of indifference to the pain/horror their marriage may cause others on the forum

they are a fountainhead of hurt

the betrayed's feelings are of no concern, unless they themselves are the betrayed

Bob Pure - I personally have stayed off of Zog's thread for reasons that are my own.

But your poll would seem to be "meaningless" on at least three fronts.

First, as the Zog thread should have shown, there ARE many others who feel that helping even an "affair marriage" person is sometimes justified, and with the number of posts, your poll has already been answered.

Second, your poll is, imho, just another attempt to "impose" the "anti help at any time anyone who may be married to someone they had an affair with" regardless of past circumstances, "age" of the first divorce and "age" of the current marriage, etc.

Many who want to call "it" an "affair marriage" and then go on to say that it is "illegitimate" are missing the "salient point," even in their protest of "affair marriages." They ARE marriages, "legitimate," "illegitimate," "affair," "2nd-3rd-4th-however many."

Third, your poll seeks a definitive and concrete "always" bias and/or conclusion. If the questions were phrased "CAN" instead of "DOES," I would vote "yes they CAN." But not in all cases and not for everyone.

Once again, we all have opinions, and we sometimes have diametrically opposed opinions. But this system remains OPEN to all to post and everyone has the individual right to read or not to read, to post or not to post, to not have someone else(other than the system owner, administrators, and moderators) decide who can and cannot post and what can and cannot be posted.

You all, the same group as before, are at it again, it would seem. Trying your best to "punt" someone off the system or "banish" them to some dark corner of the system where no one visits (or would even be aware that someone had a need).

I UNDERSTAND you, and the others with you in your "not post" camp ARE offended. I understand that you think you are "protecting" others by your actions. But the last time I checked, everyone on MB is an adult and quite capable of making choices for themselves, especially if what someone posts "offends" or "hurts" them.

Would you care to see the arrows in my back from MEDC? And those from a brother in Christ.

Some like to continue to use the Scripture (even while taking me to task for doing the very same thing). The most common refrain is "go and LEAVE your life of sin" as somehow meaning DIVORCE your "illegitmate marriage." I see it differently. It is not a "physical change" that is being spoken of but a "mental and heart change." "Go and sin no more" applies to everyone, and especially to believers. But NO ONE is capable of not sinning anymore. So that is extrapolated to a "affair marriage" being continued "adultery." Differences of opinion CAN be held on this point, but I personally take my lead from the Scripture where a BELIEVER has ALL of their sins forgiven and becomes a new creation in Christ. For unbelievers, none of their sins are forgiven, so the issue no longer becomes "just" one of an "affair marriage," or any other sin for that matter. It becomes an issue of Forgiveness of Sin that comes with acceptance of Christ or the fact that NO sins are forgiven apart from Christ.




I have tried to do that many times in the past on this very topic. I am doing so yet again. Risky, I know, but there it is for me.....forgiven in Christ or not forgiven in Christ. Some have disagreed with me, and have taken their disagreement to the level of a virtual vendetta against me or anything that I might post in yet another attempt to "silence" someone they disagree with.

Bob, I think you are very sincere in your opinion on this topic and you feel it intensely. I do NOT "check my morality" at some "moral relativism" door. I, as with all who I post to, evaluate each situation and decide to post or not post, to attempt to offer help or leave helping up to others.

I would be curious, though, as to whether or not some "types" of "post first marriage" marriages should even be allowed to post because of some potential feelings others might have, even including feelings of "entitlement" in their own lives.

For example. Suppose someone was a serial cheater, someone who had more than one affair, especially more than one "Class II" emotionally involved affairs, and wound up divorcing their first spouse. They continued to "play around" and then married someone who was not one of the many "affairees" when they WERE married. Now it's a few years down the road and they come here seeking help because their current spouse has now cheated on them (the "Karma" thing, I guess). They "illegitimately" divorced their first spouse and ARE living in a marriage that some would call an "adulterous marriage" that, even though their spouse is not an affair partner from when they were previously married, but is nonetheless a partner "made available" through their ongoing "affair mentality" that resulted in the divorce from the 1st marriage. As the Bible teaches, they have "committed adultery" in so remarrying, and, according to some, are continuing to commit adultery every time they make love to their current spouse. Do they "merit" help?

What if they did all the "bad stuff" when they were unbelievers? Maybe they even remarried while still an unbeliever, and subsequently surrendered their life to Christ. Accepting Christ would make them intimately aware of their past sins. Should we help them or shun them?

This is NOT an "easy" subject or an "easy" decision. But is a decision that each individual should have the right to make, to help or not to help, to post or not to post. But NOT, imho, to "impose" my will or feelings on others. Be sensitive to "newbies" who might feel hurt, to talk with them too, but not to exclude someone based on "feelings."

Yes, I understand that some might want to try to turn that around and say, "but you are trying to impose your feeling that they should be allowed to post everywhere on MB." My response to such a statement would be simple. It is not up to me, as a MEMBER of MB, to decide who can and cannot post, or where on the system they can and cannot post. That right belongs to those in charge of the system. My right starts and ends with who I choose to engage in posting with and who I choose not to. That is the extent of my "right to choose" in this instance.

Just my opinion, of course. But it is as you asked, from my heart.

God bless.

Bob

I do not think YOUR poll meaningless unless YOU declare it so

obviously, it has meaning to YOU
or you would not have bothered

Bob, I recognize and respect that everyone has their own opinions and a right to that.

However, for me, it is personal value, moral, condition, whatever label you put on it. I do not feel that this is a matter of forgiveness at all. Forgiveness implies, (for me) that there is an admission of guilt and repentance.

And while it is not up to me to 'forgive' a WS as that is the BS's right to do so. To stand by MY own personal beelifs and values, I cannot and will not condone, enable, assist or in any way recognize an A marriage as legitimate.

imvho, to stand silently by and assist in any way, is a further betrayal of the BS. And for me, it has little to do with whether the BS has or has not forgive, accepted or moved on or whatever place they are in.

If Adultery is wrong, time does not change that betrayal. So an A marriage does not change the intial wrong.

That is my principle, my boundary, my value.

I do not beleive that the WS and OW are evil through and through. But their CHOICES to be such selfish, cruel creatures is changed only by the amends and the repentance.

NOT by time or apathy of others.

MY pet peeve is the folks that say, it's not my business. It's time to get over it. Whatever. It's an excuse and just is the atmosphere that adultery flourishes in. No cconsequences and apathetic acceptance of the wrong is a breeding ground for Adultery.

Of course that is not a popular or easy way to live. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> BUT I would rather live hard than live wrong or betray my own values.

and that does not change over the passing of years

repercussions from adultery may last a lifetime

like the physics of a bolder being tossed into a still motionless lake

the displaced energy causes a disturbance for a very long time

I posted this article a few days ago. scripturally free to marry?I think it is relevent to the topic of A marriages. This topic pains me. Why? First if my H had m'd the OW I would have cut off direct contact with him for life. I would have done everything in my power to keep my children away from the homewrecker and ensure my own peace of mind by not coming in contact with her as well. Anything else IMHO would seem as though I was "accepting" what they had done as ok. XOW had written me a "why can't we be friends" letter a while back, yet another attempt at getting me to normalize the betrayl and that fact that not only did she have my husbands child but she took my IL's away from me and my children as well. My mother m'd her OM 30 years ago. It has always been an uncomfortable situation. My father still hates him and I understand why. He bears no ill will toward my mother though. Now, ironically I find myself in the postion of supporting my mothers OMH because she has been diagnosed with Alzheimers and he needs support. I forgave my mother years ago for abandoning me, not quite sure what to do about my R with her H.

a fountainhead of hurt

BP,

Before you shun me on this I just want you to know I have pre-emptive shun measures in place just in case. I agree with you much more than I don't. I appreciate your meaning here. I'm glad you lay it out there. I liked FH's post. It was a good defensive move. It was meant to self-justify his own ramblings. He can always look back and say "see what I said?".

Oh and if you ever think what a good idea it would be to get rid of certain people on MB, just think of me and realize what a useless cause it is.

For the poll, yes MFZ is still and always be an idiot. Yes there are posters who cannot paint themselves out of a corner (they prefer to crawl on their shuns - I mean shins). Yes I can always (unlike KiwiJ) refuse to read a thread.

So, for my money, stay strong and stay after it.

Plan B = a form of shunning

I fully approve

I rarely respond to polls unless they're obviously for fun, or are genuinely trying to canvas opinion. I haven't responded to this one.

I'm far from clear that this poll is 'genuinely trying to canvas opinion', rather than 'finding a way to claim affirmation for a personal position'.

Asking people to respond to questions like 'Does supporting A-marriages on GQ2 hurt vulnerable readers' is an exercise is funnelling people down a tunnel.

Define 'supporting'.

Define 'A-marriage'

Define 'vulnerable'.

Define 'hurt'.

Assuming that everyone concurs on the meaning of these terms strikes me as something of a salesman's trick.

A better question to explore is why it hurts to think that an a-marriage (defined as a marriage arising from a relationship initiated while still married to one or more unknowing spouses), might survive for many years before running into trouble?

The a-marriages (see definition above) that arrive here are by definition the schadenfreudal failed ones. Are we actually bothered by the idea that out there may be many a-marriages that last fairly comfortably for a long time?

For very newly hurt BSs, this may be too painful to think about. For those who feel they have reached a place of relative serenity, isn't it a question worth exploring?

If we face the fear, we might find something worth learning.

TA

Sigh. Pep, of course it has meaning to Bob. That's why I put the word in quotations. Perhaps you'd find more comfort or acceptability in "non-binding opinion" as an alternative phrase?

I am very comfortable, thank you for your concern for my wellbeing.

piojitos - a long time ago you requested that I not post to you, about you, or on any of your threads. I have honored that request.

Don't you think it's about time you honored the same and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you?"

In addition, you can stop trying to put words into my mouth. I am quite capable of speaking for myself. We have divergent opinions, don't you think it's about time you stopped attacking the person rather than simply stating your opinion on a given topic?

You're quite welcome Pepperband.

TA I have tried to add the definitions you suggest for clarity. You won't believe me but I plan no salesman's trick here.

I wish to find the opinions of the board users regarding this topic as only the same dozen protagonists seem to bump heads over this otherwise.

If we face the fear, we might find something worth learning.

And this lesson cannot be learned in a quiet place devoid of forum bun-fights and where those that even YOU admit may be hurt by such discussion are unlikely to be demotivated by such ?

I agree that for some it may be interesting to explore A-marriage dynamics, but to do so in a place where it is likely to hurt the vulnerable is not conscionable for me.

I state again it is not my proposal that A-marriages should not be helped here, I would just avoid a repeat of the encouragement of the wayward and the hurt of the BS as demonstrated in the old Jilly threads. It is others turning this into a religious debate. It is barrier nursing - no more than that.

FH

Are barrier-nursed patients being shunned, denied their rights or unforgiven ?

Or are they just kept apart practically so that the consquences of their situation affects as few bystanders as possible ?

My Dad used to say that
FH, it seems that the only tools you have is your dogma and faith so you are incapable of seeing this is a practical humanitarian marriagebuilding issue, not one of salvation or forgiveness or dogma.

The debate you desire to have about sin & forgiveness can and probably should take place, but I would contend not here in GQ2 where WS like spectacles take huge encouragement from such and many many BS and FWS are hurt by it.

Well said Pep and for the record I completely agree with you on this.

Consider the elitism of those who think they have a right to control who gets help and who doesn't. In their arrogance, it appears some people have forgotten this is a privately owned board. MB belongs to the Harley's and only they, through their appointed moderators, have legitimate votes. If the owners, or their moderators, care to impose a barrier against someone who comes here asking for help, it is their absolute right to do so. To date, so far as I know, they have “voted” not to restrict posting here, save on a case-by-case basis. Everyone else’s opinion is immaterial, including… <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thank you, Pep.

I myself would be horrified to find my ex-H and his OW (now wife) welcomed here and given support to fix a marriage born of infidelity.

But moreover, I'd be profoundly saddened to realize their acceptance here further promotes degradation of what marriage once stood for. Just one more nail in the grass roots PREMISE OF MARRIAGE coffin.

Exactly.

How would such a situation be handled?

How long before an affair marriage is no longer an "affair marriage"?

My own recommendation for this: If someone comes here for help with an affair marriage, they should be told the following:

1) Buy *Surviving an Affair.*

2) Read it.

3) Try a short Plan A.

4) When that doesn't work (and it won't) try a LONG Plan B.

5) Divorce your affair partner after no longer being surprised that affair marriages don't work.

6) Try starting over with someone new in a legitimate relationship - or, if possible, go back to the BS you dumped for the affair and try making it right with *them*.

Mulan

As a not-newly BS, I'll weigh-in.

I have explored this issue introspectively and faced those fears yet arrived at the same conclusion.

To knowingly support A-marriages is in direct contradiction to what MARRIAGE stands for and furthers deterioration of its meaning.

This is what I've learned and this is what I stand for.

God Bless,
Jo

You are correct!

I fully embrace and 100% acknowledge my elitism when it comes to deciding which posters I choose to assist/help.

I am an elitist when it comes to helping unmarried, live-in relationships. I consider them NOT MARRIED. I do not offer assistance for "adultery", because there is no adultery. There is cheating, which is different.

I am an elitist when it comes to multiple partner polygamy marriages. I consider an agreement to have others in the marriage a license to cheat. No whining about adultery after a polygamy agreement has been made.

I am an elitist when it comes to same-sex partnerships. That partnering does not get equivalent weight as a husband-wife marriage from me.

I am an elitist when it comes to marriages that occured after it was known going in that someone had already cheated. You don't get to complain bitterly about your own eyes-wide-open choices after the fact.

I am an elitist when I perceive the betrayed spouse to be too lazy to read any of the Marriage Builders books. If someone refuses to get serious, I quit trying.

I am an elitist when I consider which authority/professional makes a great marriage coach. I choose not to refer anyone to seek traditional marriage help from someone who was never in a man-woman marriage, from someone who has married their adultery partner, or someone who is inclusive of polygamy marriages.

[i]I am an elitist, no doubt!

Jo is from

"Texas blows!"

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I am going to mapquest immediately

Bob - "barrier-nursed" patients might be a British term I am unfamiliar with, but unless you tell me differently I am going to assume you mean an analogy of an "isolation ward" or "infectious disease" sort of room or unit in a hospital to mimimize the risk of other patients being "infected."

If that is a correct understanding of what you mean by "barrier-nursed patients," then I think your analogy supports the position that I have been stating.

They are all in the same hospital, "barrier-nursed" patients and "regular, normal" patients. People who have the training and the willingness to help those "infected" people are doing so, even though everyone else in the hospital KNOWS the "infected ones" are there and that they are being helped even though there will always remain some risk that others could be hurt or infected. Those who can't, don't have the training, or don't want to work with "infected" people, choose not to work with them.

There are also, of course, some other places to put people, i.e., the old Tuberculosis Sanitariums, private clinics, etc. where people could go and be "separated" from the general population. In the "biblical days" there were Leper colonies also. The population KNEW they were there, where the colony was, and they chose to stay away to not potentially expose themselves to the risk of infection.

It would seem to be a little bit of a stretch, to equate "affair marriages" with being "infectious." People might not like, or be "uncomfortable" with clinics or hospitals that treat people who "acquired" syphillis, etc., because it indicated a lifestyle that they don't like or that they think the treatment of such who "got what their actions deserved or exposed themselves willingly to" "condones" a promisicous lifestyle. But there are those that will treat them anyway, even knowing that in some cases they themselves might even be "at risk" of contamination. I used to send my nurses out to treat Aids patients, as an example.





Bob, with all due respect to your Dad, I have more at my disposal that just a "hammer."

But you seemingly want to "cut out" the "tool" of faith and forgiveness in one's life for sins and errors in judgment that they have made. I understand your opinion and that you think you are "protecting the innocent" from being "exposed" to someone who DID have an affair AND left their spouse for the affair partner, and as I have stated before, anyone who is NOT the original spouse.

I understand the "sensitivity" of feelings, even that someone who is lost in "fogland" might (as they do with almost everything) choose to use someone seeking help for their "affair marriage," their 2nd marriage, their 3rd marriage, etc., as a "rationalization" and/or "justification" for THEIR continuing in their own adultery. You don't really think that I would tell such a person, "it's okay, go ahead and continue your affair," do you?

But I AM a Christian, and as such, when a fellow believer who has a "sin-laden" past of their own comes seeking help, and KNOWS what they did wrong in the past and have repented of it, I who have been forgiven a huge debt of my own by God CANNOT turn around and demand "payment" from that person when God has already forgiven them THEIR debt to Him.

I am constrained by the biblical command to "comfort others with the same comfort that you have received."

I DO choose to "shun" some people too. But I don't demand that they don't post on MB or that others should not post to them. It is an individual choice that we all make on a "case by case" basis.

A hospital is in the "practical, humanitarian, healing people of all types" sort of place, including patients who other patients might see as being "offensive" to them. MB is just that sort of "hospital" for people with marital and infidelity "diseases." If you don't think that faith, salvation, and forgiveness are "part of the process" and "part of the treatment regime" for some people, then think of it like the same "antibiotic" doesn't work on all patients. The same "cancer protocol" doesn't work on every patient. But there ARE different medicines and protocols that can be attempted to try to help each individual case that presents itself in need. If someone ISN'T a believer, then the "faith" treatment, medicine, regime" isn't appropriate or useful. But if they ARE a believer, you cannot withhold that regime, because it has proven effective in MANY cases, even when the patient struggles against the "faith in God pill" initially.

Many tools. Many different people treating many different problems. Each case is similar in some respects and individual in others. Not everyone can help all the people all the time, but no one should be denied help when there are those who CAN help and who are willing to help. But we don't blow up clinics, isolated or in a hospital, just because we find what goes on in there to be "offensive" to us and may lead others to think that fetal life is just as "meaningless" and use it to justify their own "poor choices."

God bless.

Maybe we should ask ourselves "has the meaning of marriage changed for us". For me it hasn't.

Last I recall there wasn't a newly added disclaimer clause to the standard vows where it states [color:"blue"]"Until I find someone else I like better"[/color].

FH

Barrier nursing is a step before isolation.

Barrier nursed patients aren't bad people, they don;t intend to infect anyone else. Its an unfortunate attribute of their situation that they can cause problems in others lives if they mingle in certain circumstances.

ANYBODY'S marriage, saved, Hindu, Welsh baptist ,Atheist, occultist, pumpum or zoroastrian , if it is a affair marriage will serve as an example that affairs can lead to marriage. Very rarely even long ones.

This has been shown to encourage WS and OPs (see the old Jilly threads with "spectacles" etc) and has been shown to dishearten many FWS and BS who are still in the vulnerable stage of their infidelity & recovery journey.

It doesn't matter if the A-marriage folks would rather DIE than encourage an affair or downheart a recovering spouse: its an impersonal attribute of their marriage.

See all that mitigating stuff you argue that salvation removes the attributes of A marriage is not visible to non Christians, and not visble unless you dig deep in a thread to discover that.

This I believe is the core of your argument.

I would only remind you that not everyone who will be affected negatively by seeing an A-marriage supported here will be Christian, and even some of those Christians do not agree with your dogma on this topic.

I cannot lay out my position any more clearly than this FH. I seem to have lost my articulacy in describing my feeling son this topic for some reason. Else you and several others are just blind to the thrust of my argument for whatever reason.

If I have not conveyed to you my thoughts more clearly than before in this post, then FH I can't be clearer. I am not smart enough to make this any simpler. Sorry.

That's great Pepper. You've taken the word and shifted its meaning in a way that reads quite well. I wasn't even thinking of you, btw, when I wrote that word. It would not even occur to me to do so.

But ma'am, I think I've been a pretty good champion of Dr. Harley's principles here too. I haven't been here as long, but I think I learned the important points pretty well, partly from your posts. You may disagree. I respect your right to do that. Will you accord me the right to have an opinion that differs from yours in remarkably few particulars? Will you, who I respect above almost everyone else out here, not stoop to mocking a slightly different opinion as others have done?

How very odd. If a person comes here for support and their A-marriage has lasted X number of years, then of course it cancels out how it began. And it MUST be considered "meant to be".

Complacency is the very reason why so many bad things in this world are not only accepted but viewed as the norm. Unfortunately, its a rarity when one takes a stand despite their fear peers will not agree and be viewed as an outsider (aka not complacent).

I too deal with this fear but have decided it serves me better to be true to myself for what I feel is right and wrong, and stand by that.

I'm a newbie who has been helped tremendously by BP, FH, and Pep (and others too numerous to mention).

For whatever reason, the Harleys choose to keep the boards and rules as they are.

As participants, we choose how we operate within those rules.

When Bob P's thread linked to something that I misinterpreted (which led to my being 2x4'd in my first week on MB) I had a choice.

When FH suggested that I send him a personal email for links to articles he thought would help me, I had a choice.

When I asked "Is there anything I can do to rebuild trust or is time the only answer?" on my first post and Pep challenged me, asking why I was seeking answers to a question I obviously already had the answer to, I had a chioice.

In fact, when I posted on a Saturday of a 3 day weekend and watched in dismay as my first looooong post goose-egged off the front page because 'friendly banter' threads were also on GQII, I had a choice.

When I wrote to the Mods and even Dr. Harley to ask if a special forum could be created for friendly banter threads, which I think are important, but not on GQ II, and they said they were not going to change things, I had a choice.

I'm only a newbie, but I choose to take the parts of MB that have helped me, use it as best as I can, try to give back when it seems I might be able to contribute, and expect others to make choices based on their own situations.

IMHO, with all respect to both sides of this issue....because we are guests, it seems that we should all abide by the wishes of the hosts until things change.

And if things don't change, then we still have the privilege of making our own choices.

Ace

P.S. Personally I would appreciate a new forum for friendly banter threads and maybe even another forum or at least a designation of sorts so that those who choose to post to AM hurting people can and those choosing not to can avoid by knowing in advance. The Harley's must have a good reason for not doing that and it's my choice to abide by their judgement.

Mulan,

How would you feel and what would you think in being told you are legitimizing A-marriages by your post?

LA

My opinion without having read this entire thread is that I am opposed to them whether they are five minutes in duration or five decades even if one of the affairees get's knocked up.

As for any individual who finds themselves at the short end of the stick they insisted on ...well what can I say?

I'm sorry you made such bad choices with your life.

I'm sorry you refused to turn away from those choices sooner.

I'm really really sorry that you brought children into it.

I'm sorry that seeing your choices manifest from a BS perspective is painfull.

I'm sorry that you were wrong and it is a costly loss.

None of these things I feel sympathy or even empathy about will reverse my position that affair marriages are socially unacceptable to me.

I want that line enforced even if it means excluding people who defied it and now regret that defiance [except of course they really don't..what they really want is for the line to be wrong...the defiance to be right...and for our help in accomplishing that end by putting the affair on life support].

People who genuinely turn away from the affair have my 100% support.

It's not a salvation issue, it's not a snobbery issue, it's not an issue of your worth as a human being.

It's an issue of bringing affair marriages into the norm and embracing them "under certain circumstances" which unsuprisingly just keep ketting broader and broader.

All you have to do is break the seal before you may as well remove the boundary entirely.

The minute you compromise your standard because you felt sorry for someones pain is the minute you just supported BSs losing their homes, children exposed to the affair brazenly and corrupted with the enforcement of the law via custody [how much does it warm the heart of BSs for an OP to be called "mom" or "dad" and undermine your authority?]...BS being removed from their own home and OP setting up camp there...WS abandonment of COM for months at a time...financial loss...irretrievable damage done to children including OCs just purely by virtue of exposure to that environment AS an acceptable option...the list goes on and on.

Supporting affair marriages as a viable option allows the sickness to spread. As harsh a reality as that is there is no disputing it. Social validation nurtures behavior.

When you open the door the bad comes inside along with the good. So "compassion" is and has been abused to result in the very sort of quagmire so many people find themselves slogging through today.


So my position is that I will continue to speak in opposition until the time that I am told to stop or leave, and then I will leave and presumably everyone else who shares my opinion will be escorted out as well and there will be NO opposition and this can be another place of support and refuge for affair marriages and line up nicely with mainstream society.

Maybe then the BSs will get a clue and just scootch over, pick their lower lip up off the ground and turn to their own gratification dragging their children behind them.

It sounds like an ideal to the people who support that behavior and like h*ll to me so I'll be more than happy to take my leave should MB sink so low.

A hypothetical involving a BS here that has garnered a lot of attention... over 50000 reads of her sitch.

Lilsis' WH follows through on his divorce filing and then subsequently marries the OW. 6 months down the road he shows up here looking for guidance because his new "wife" is cheating. Should he be counseled in this setting or moved to a quieter place. For those of you that use time as a factor in this equation... when is the cut off date in your mind??? 6 months, a year, 5 years, 10 years??? What happened in the course of time that made it more acceptable? Personally, I don't trust many FWS... they just haven't seemed to get it yet... and for sure, I do not trust anyone that married their A partner...but that being said.... BobP hits the nail on the head with this issue. Others here have made this about things it is not since their position has no real merit.
If MFZ "got it" he would happily get his help in a quieter place on this forum. He doesn't and neither do many of you.

Very, very well said Noodle. Your unwavering integrity is refreshing.

Well, I emailed the moderators a couple hours ago, asking them to determine what the owners of this website want to do about this issue. I urge anyone who feels strongly about this to do the same. Give the owners a look at both sides. Whatever the owners decide, I'm committed to abiding with their judgment. As Ace noted, we’re all guests here and we are indebted to the owners just for its existence.

Probably the same thing they determined in the other instances where affair marriages created conflict on the board.

That's their privilege, right? But if memory serves, all the other occasions were with a wayward one spewing venom and deriding betrayed spouses. This one isn’t.

Nope, incorrect.

There have been several A marriages..usually the former [coughformercough] OP is now BS and wants to do what BSs do.

Then MFZ's thread won't be out here much longer, will it? Again, that's the owner's choice.

Yes it is.

Speaking in opposition to affair marriages is *my* choice.

Provided the language isn't deemed so offensive that the mods are willing to "take steps" to put a gag order on me on pain of disfellowship [read banned camp] I think it highly unlikely that my mere objection will result in much sound and fury on the part of management.

What is being asked for is undisputed acceptance and support whether you think it's a good idea or not.

I don't think that's likely to come about without some serious enforcement measures.

Okay, but Noodle...if the moderators do NOT banish MFZ from GQII...will you join me in abiding by their decision?

Nope.

Their decision will be to allow him to continue to post. Not to demand that everyone agree with his choices.

That has always been the case. They will neither forcibly remove him or forcibly support him.

I am free to disagree provided I do not cross a boundary with regard to personal attacks and specific language that would be deemed in defiance of board protocal.

I will continue to speak out against it even if it is not expressly prohibited.

Oh, no one is attempting to stifle free speech. That's a Constitutional Right very dear to my heart. But, I hope you will understand when I show MFZ how to put users on “Ignore” who don’t feel they can be constructive in his case. Can you agree with me that, while you retain your right to criticize even the owners of this site, MFZ has a right to not listen to some speech?

He doesn't need my permission to ignore me Longhorn. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Incidentally..you might want to change your post above for accuracy and consistency..

You said "But, I hope you will understand when I show MFZ how to put users on “Ignore” who don’t feel they can be constructive in his case"

Since I consider my advice and opinion completely constructive why not own your "help" in the name of free speech and just SAY...

"But, I hope you will understand when I show MFZ how to put users on “Ignore” who *I* don’t feel can be constructive in his case or at least contructive by my definition."

That belief of yours must really get in the way when you just really want someone to either agree with you or shut it.

Understood, and that's not what I was asking. I was asking for your understanding of my actions. I give you respect. I ask for a small portion of it in return. Is it too much to ask?

Longhorn,

I am not sure which situation Noodle is referring to but if it is mine... here was the official final word from JustUss after I emailed and corresponded with both JustUss and Dr. Harley.



After much debate over whether or not I had a right to post here or not... I asked Dr. Harley and JustUss for help making a decision about it. I chose to move off of GQ and post on less travelled forums of MB... however I was NOT told by either Dr. Harley or JustUss that I couldn't or shouldn't post of GQ.

I came to the choice in the end to move off of GQ because the fighting about it became non productive. If Zog stays here ... which he can and won't be told by administration or owners of this site that he can't he will have to go toe to toe again and again with those who don't want him posting on GQ. In the end where I didn't have it in me to fight that battle anymore.

Dr. Harley did share with me that he doesn't POST at all to this part of the message board but does in the private area where people can only post after attending an MB weekend. He shared that there are people in situations like Zog's and mine and that although the road to recovery is much more difficult that most infidelity affected marriages... it isn't impossible.

I don't think he chooses to help them because he is PRO AFFAIR either. I think he chooses to help them in the hope that he can help them break the cycle of infidelity. A marriages are more likely to suffer further infidelity because the whole affair fantasy continues. Replacing your spouse in the hopes that then you will be happy shows where your beliefs are flawed. I falsey believed that if I was with a new partner miraculously I would be better. It was an utterly ridiculous belief because when I married my affair partner I was still me... as was my H. We carried all the prior baggage into this marriage.

The fantasy doesn't continue... it does end at some point and this is the point where both of the people in the affair marriage are left with the false assumption that it was their partners job to fix them and when they don't... they go back to the fantasy that if they just find the right person again... replace with someone new then all will be okay. Guess what... it won't. You will still be the unhealthy baggage filled person until you get off that fantasy bus... step back into reality and start owning your stuff.

If those of us that find ourselves on this self destructive path eventually catch a clue... and there are some very remarkable people here who are able to bring reality again and again to those of us who still have a wayward mentality (even though I I never again committed adultery, cheated, slept with someone else's husband and behaved in all the despicable behaviors that I once did... my belief that I wasn't in control of myself or that I could control or change others) left me in a still waywardesque state of mind.

People CAN change... they can learn from others here... who have a lot to offer whether it be in recovering a marraige or just yourself from living in a self destructive mindset.

Whether they should move off GQ was an issue for some of them and for others it was that we shouldn't be here anywhere at all. They are entitled to their opinions and I choose to no longer be offended by what they believe. I will not deny their pain.

Nor do I think it is a fair statement that just because someone drove their life so far off in the ditch that they are hopeless.

Fine I got what I deserved... BS and WS that want to derive some joy from that... fine by me. If they want to deny that just because you once cheated that becoming a BS is somehow less painful for that person because they SHOULD have EXPECTED it... well sorry I disagree with that one. Maybe I should have been able to predict that it was likely to happen again (I didn't... I am a slow learner) however to deny that the pain was any less real to me is a false statement.

No one that has not walked in those shoes can honestly answer that as TRUTH... they can assume to know what it might feel like... feel free but only someone who has been a betrayed spouse knows what it feels like. You just don't.

So while my choice to stop posting my situation in GQ (yes I realize I am right now posting here regarding this)came not from JustUss telling me that I shouldn't or Dr.Harley telling me I shouldn't because neither of them told me that. I made that choice because in the end the posters who pointed out the debate itself distracted from me focusing on my real issues were the ones that got through to me.

If my posting here this time helps Zog move his thread out of GQ and back to Emotional Needs where perhaps he can get some support then this post will be worth it.

There will always be those that believe the only solution for these marriages is divorce... their choice... their beliefs. Same goes for those that believe that any OC born should be given up for adoption... their choice and their belief. Doesn't make it the TRUTH... just their truth.

IMVHO Zog has a choice... stay here on GQ and try to defend himself in this debate or move back to EN forum and focus on his stuff. His choice... others choice if he moves back to EN to stay off his thread unless they think they think they might be able to help him.

If the debate is over where on this board we should post... and it isn't on GQ then we honor that request... seems like we hold up our end of the boundary. Like MEDC stated... when I left GQ... he left me alone. His boundary was for me to get off GQ and when I did he held up his end of that boundary. I thank you for that MEDC because I did notice that you have.

So if Zog leaves and goes to EN then I hear MEDC stating that he will back off. Big K and BobPure also seem to support this boundary as well. If I misunderstood any of the above mentioned posters boundaries then I apologize.

If this is the boundary enforcement for us then I highly urge Zog to go back to EN forum and those that think they might be able to help him do it there so that 10 more months are spent debating this whole thing again.

To answer question one...I do not condone your choice to enable an affair.

To answer question two...whether it is too much to ask depends entirely on what qualifies as respectfull treatment by your measure.

It may BE too much to ask. I guess we'll have to take it on a case by case basis as per usual.

Well, thanks for being honest and courteous, Noodle. The latter has been a scarce commodity here lately.

Thanks for the insight into Dr. Harley's thoughts in such things as this, Jilly. Like you, I believe Dr. Harley works to end the cycle of infidelity with his best advice. I don't see that a failed third marriage would contribute to anyone’s benefit.

The problem I see with confining certain people to EN is that they won't get the varied advice from multiple users as they would here in GQII. However, that problem may have been solved with the recent debate here. Certainly, if MFZ decides to return to his thread in EN, I'll follow him over, as I hope the pros on this board will also do. It'll be my first time on EN, which is my way of illustrating the fact that EN has fewer viewers than GQII. It's MFZ's decision though. I’ll conform to what he desires.

Thanks for sharing the email from the moderator, Jilly. I think it’s very illuminating.

You're very welcome.

It is indeed very illuminating.

Eventually this board will probably succumb entirely and I'll have to bid it adieu having no choices left but to support the corruption of long term affairs or leave.

After seeing the movie Walk the Line, about Johnny Cash's affair and then second marriage to his affair partner, my husband said that he thought Johnny had been able to redeem himself.

That's not how I saw it. My husband didn't ask, so I didn't say anything.

There is a whole different mentality from mine that would result in someone thinking a successful second marriage with an affair partner somehow justified the affair. Harley's principles are solidly behind trying to make the first marriage work by treating your wife as if she were your lover.

The problem with leaving a first wife for a more compatible second wife is that wife number three may be out there somewhere. Commitment is only for the amount of time that you see the current spouse as your best choice. Posts from people struggling in marriages which began as affairs can be useful reminders to us BSs that people in affair marriages have a different understanding of commitment, an understanding that can lead to a spouse being told you just have to put up with my lover.

Cherished

Cherished...

I saw the movie, but since when is a fictionalized account of an affair marriage from the perspective of the affairees reliable as a source?

Longhorn,

Along the same lines, if the moderators (and you can refer to Justuss's post where in she/he/they specifically said he/she/they had no problem with ANY of the posters posting, including us in the compassionate majority <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ) do not banish me, then will you join me in abiding that I have the same right to post any opinion about the situation I want as well???

There is one cautionary tale that I can perhaps imply that I think bears repeating and repeating on AM threads that show up on the infidelity section of MB and that is: Your very wrong choice to run off and marry your OP will follow you for the rest of your life. It will NEVER become OK. Neither time nor kids will make it right...IMO. I can only hope other hurting BS's and even WS's that show up here hoping to find encouragement for their poor decisions can get that lesson. Even 28 years later...people will still be judgmental of these AM's. Consequences are a bitcccch. Such consistent message might balance out the fact that others are lending support.

Are we agreed??

Mr. Wondering

You bet, MrW.


But, sir, and very respectfully...isn't that a statement that can also be made to each and every WS that comes here?

Noodle,

What matters to me is my husband's perspective, not the reality of Johnny Cash's second marriage.

I think his views are what got him into an affair in the first place -- what matters is not your commitment to care for your spouse; what matters is the feeling of love and care that you might develop for someone, regardless of whether you have made a vow to "forsake all others", regardless of the impact of your affair on your wife or her husband.

People who get into affair marriages run the risk of spouses having feelings of love and care for others, feeling justified in having an affair just like they did the last time, and so it's on to the next one. That's why stories from affair marraiges can be a sobering reminder to us BSs of the importance of commitment in marriage, even if it involves recovery from an affair with a spouse who is remorseful and now chooses to be committed to you.

There's a little boy in my daughter's second grade class whose mother had an affair and divorced her husband. The father accepted the divorce gracefully, has a cordial relationship with his ex-wife, went on to marry another woman with a child by her first husband, and now the father of this little boy and his new wife have a baby together. That little boy in my daughter's class is now passed between his mother, who is still in a relationship with her lover, and his father, who is now occupied with a wife, a stepdaughter, and a new baby.

I had hoped that the father and mother would remarry at some point because that little boy is special -- a bundle of energy and very, very bright. I wonder if that would have been possible had the father waited, since the mother told me that her lover is wanting to live together before marriage and she doesn't want that. Her affair doesn't seem to be working out too well for her.

I saw that little 2nd grade boy once when I was picking up my children after school. Someone -- mother or father -- forgot to pick him up. It seemed routine. This had happened before.

The biggest consequences of affair marriages and remarriages are for children. It's why I'm still trying. It's why I won't ever remarry, no matter what my husband does.

It's time for me to go play a game of Uno.

Cherished

Not Mr. W but I'll chime in with my .02.

In terms of actual results? No.

In fact the AM threads did result in emboldened WS's and OPs and other AMs.

A stalking OP was in fact successfull in breaching NC and the pair moved in together.

When asking a FORMER WS [very former in fact] this person replied that AS a person in the fog their reaction would have been to pursue that dream of being in the lucky nil percent.

They actually said that if they had seen AMs supported here when they arrived befogged it would have fed their addiction by suggesting that it might work out.

People saying that affairs were destructive would have lost cred for them.

Several completely unremorsefull AMs crawled out of the woodwork and off of TOW to huddle around the fire of validation.

Well Longhorn. You'll make your decision and you'll live with the results like everyone else.

Cherished,

I agree with you that children may as well be called "leftovers" when this situation happens.

Honestly it'd be kinder to abandon them in truth than to try and pretend you haven't abandoned them by applying minimal care starkly contrasted with your REAL families portion.

It'd be KINDER to take them out back and shoot them than to drag them through this and demand they smile so you can feel better about yourself and your selfish immature choices.

Your H's attitudes would have me in anus clenching anxiety and one eyelid twitch away from insanity if I had to live with it day in and day out.

Yes, Noodle. I shall indeed live with my choices, but I'll be taking my cue from Dr. Harley. He's been right with everything else dealing with matters of infidelity. I think I'll trust him on this matter also.

LH,

You do realise that this is a moral/ethics issue and NOT something that Dr Harley has volunteered to accept responsibility for...right?

He's a marriage coach not a guru.

I guess I should have added #7 to my list: "Do not expect anyone on the MB boards to help you with or be supportive of your Plan A or your Plan B."

I only listed what I did because those are things anyone can do on their own, so sure, someone is an Affair Marriage is free to try them, too - even though there is practically zero chance it will work for them. Just a bit of "Well, this is what everyone else does, so feel free to try it yourself since you're here at MB and asking what to do."

It seemed slightly less rude than "go jump in the lake". And it's not that those in an Arriage deserve such courtesy, just more that I prefer not to be rude myself unless it's purely intentional. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

It's nothing anyone couldn't figure out by reading through the site for a bit, so I guess I thought I was stating the obvious.

Sorry I neglected #7.
Mulan

Yes, I do understand the issues, Noodle. For morality and ethics, I rely on the word of God as expressed in the Bible. I hope you don’t disagree with that. Frankly, that God forgave David of his adultery when David lusted after Bathsheba and had her husband killed, tells me I should also be forgiving of the imperfect human beings around me. If I do not keep charity in my heart...if I deny the words of God and will not forgive, am I not placing my judgment above that of my God? Similarly, I think I must also understand the lesson Jesus taught us when He saved the prostitute from the angry crowd in the village, refusing to condemn her.

But I don't understand your other point. I agree, Dr. Harley has not, to my knowledge, commented on, nor taken any responsibility whatsoever for MFZ. Why does that preclude me from validating my position from his action and opinions with Jilly, for instance?

Longhorn Hunny,

you read my intent incorrectly if you read it to cast suspicions concerning your support of Harley's methods

I AM taking ownership of MY elitism

I am not mocking anyone but myself

MY elitism DOES exist

I had not thought to put it in writing until you came up with that idea

I am not advising anyone to adopt my personal bias list as their own

I am simply, and truely, owning mine

What exactly is the aim of this discussion? To establish some kind of group ethic with regard to giving advice where marriages were conceived in adultery? Or to protect the 'vulnerable' from any sense that such marriages are in some way condoned by MB?

If it's about protecting the vulnerable, well, frankly...how? There's nothing to stop anyone on the planet from posting wherever they like here on MB. Even if we petition for, and get, some kind of 'Cheater Cheated' board, there's no onus on a cheated cheater to post on that board. The post may well appear on GQII, the raw newbie will read, and be triggered...before anyone can get to the 'report post' link and alert a moderator.

Establishing a group ethic is equally hopeless. We're not a group, we're a collection of individuals free to post as we please, and the only real restriction on us is that we adhere to MB principles...and often not even that. Even if every poster on this thread decided not to post to AM supplicants, that would not reduce the post count to 0 on AM threads. There will always be new arrivals who don't know the unwritten law (because there is little advice re. affair marriages in the MB literature), and who will post anyway.

The population of this board changes all the time - most of the people posting when I joined are no longer here. The only static fixed point are the Harley articles and the books. If these don't specifically discuss affair marriages, then there is little chance that the posting population in two years time (when most of you will not be posting, from my experience), will have any idea what was discussed today. (There have been some superb, rational, intelligent discussions in the past, which few today will have read - because it was before their time, on the old board, and probably before the Dustkitty incident that robbed the board of some of its wisest posters.)

It seems to me that the best each of us could do is to develop our own individual boundary vis-a-vis our unique triggering situations on this board - and frankly there are several which are much more difficult for me than a-marriages - and stick to it. Expressing our own view and being willing to discuss it is beneficial to all. Fighting to alter/enforce the boundaries of a shifting population seems to me like getting a swarm of bees to sign a contract. That is, hopeless.

TA

You have not lost any articulacy, Bob. And you have laid out your position clearly. It might surprise you to know that in MOST situations of this sort, I would be in agreement with you. It is ONLY when the particulars of a given situation are considered in total that I choose on rare occasions to "make an exception." It is in THAT context that I reject the dogmatic statement "once a sinner, always a sinner."

I fully understand that many, perhaps even most (though I really don't know the statistical breakdown), are not Christians, and that even within the Christian brotherhood there can be disagreement (sort of like when the disciples complained to Jesus about others who were "evangelising" in Jesus' name but who were not "the apostles"). Jesus told them to let them "do their thing" and not to stomp on them.

The fact is that there have been very few members who are in an affair marriage (or at least who have admitted to it in open honesty to the forum), and there has been only one that felt I could, or should, attempt to provide some help. This is not, despite the fears of some, an "everyday occurrance."

I understand fully what you have been saying, and I hope that I have been equally clear in my "objection" to a blanket banishment of all regardless of any reasons. Each individual is just that, an individual.

I also understand that for some, NO amount of repentance short of divorcing their current spouse would suffice. Obviously, since I do view things from a Christian perspective, no sin, including an affair marriage (a subset of adultery), is forgiven by God and there is no "new creation in Christ" for unbelievers. There is no repentance to God for any sin, including adultery, without accepting the only way that God has provide whereby ALL sins are forgiven.

I also understand that there are others on the system who would have no problem helping someone who is NOT a Christian, but I personally have a difficulty with that since I believe so strongly in the need for forgiveness in response to repentance. In those cases, I choose to let them provide whatever help they think they can provide and I "stay out of it."

It would be good to also have an answer the question that I have posed several times about whether or not someone "should be" helped who is experiencing infidelity in their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. marriage, especially when they divorced their 1st spouse for any reason other than adultery. If someone is divorced, NOT for reasons of adultery, then they are still "married" to their 1st spouse, as long as that ex-spouse is living, imho. At what point does someone who is NOT in their 1st marriage become "eligible" for assistance? Anyone that such a person married is an "affair partner" if the "yardstick" is a nonbiblical reason for divorcing the 1st spouse, regardless of the civil "legality" of the divorce.

At what point does a person have the humanitarian right to seek assistance for their current situation, understanding that the past cannot be "undone" and that the first spouse is not interested in any sort of reconcilition? Strictly speaking from a biblical standpoint, second marriages are problematic on many levels, but then again, so is a "nefarious past" of many kinds.

Where does a second marriage, even to an "affair partner," that HAS survived and that has attempted to not repeat the mistake of the past, "fit" into the humanitarian need to assist someone? Yes, there IS an "impersonal attribute" of such a marriage as you stated. Yes, some people can be bothered or hurt during the time when they are "raw" emotionally. By the same token, they can see the "impersonal attribute" that also attends affair marriages, that problems and consequences of sin DO continue as "baggage" of poor past choices.

I guess the ultimate question would be "is anyone beyond redemption?" For some the answer, I believe, is yes. For others, the answer is no. God is in the "redeeming business" and when HE does so, He works a miracle in the hearts and souls of the redeemed. He creates a "new creation, behold the old has gone, the new has come." But the one who really decides if someone is "beyond redemption" is God. For the rest of us, God tells us that we are supposed to treat others as Jesus would. And Jesus went out of His way to talk to an "untouchable," and worse yet, an "untouchable woman." Through THAT person, who the others Jews would not be in the same room with, much less speak to, MANY others believed in Christ and were saved.

So I DO think that faith in Christ IS a vital component of repentance, forgiveness of ALL sins, for reconciliation and restoration. It is not a "hammer," and it is evaluated on a "case by case" basis. Again, I understand the objections and the sincerity of your feelings on this subject. I also understand that many are "offended" by Christ, especially those to whom God is NOT the God of Christianity. But we don't, or shouldn't, try to limit others to what we "feel" emotionally doesn't offend us and try to banish the rest, or consign them to some dark and dreary corner so dusty no one is likely to find them there.

Again, sincere differences of opinion, but it isn't the first "subject" to have stress and tension from those different opinions "colliding" in a public forum.

God bless.

[b]I think this is a very good discussion .... about the chance that this board might become the next step for some infidel graduates from some affair-support board .... who then *pop* over to MB to learn how to hold their marriage together

how to erase the consequences they might face because of the tainted birth of their union

spitting on other people's marriage, and then using MB to spiff up their own

the disrespect for the institution of marriage is not attractive to me

Well, won't the moderators police that? When trolls violate the TOS, don't moderators take action to turn them away?

Longhorn, are you asking me that question?

Yes, ma'am

Police what ? Affair marriages bouncing from an affair-supportive board to a marriage-supportive board if they do marry their adultery partner???

How could that ever be policed?

Well, if they say nothing, no one will ever know. There are probably a number of such folks on the board right now. But if they come here acting like cross posters from TOW, they're going to expose themselves, right?

Right!

K, then won't the board still be protected from the ones you object to?

DustKitty???? What the heck was Dustkitty?

Larry

I think for those of us in recovery, this is more a consideration for new people- people that are still feeling like their heart has been ripped from their chest and trampled on.

I'm not saying they should not be able to get help, but at whose expense?

What I don't want is for someone who is in fresh pain of an affair- their spouse has moved out and is living with the op, the divorce has been filed, etc - to see people they respect helping someone who is in a marriage that started with another person's devastation.

Yes, as has been said on this thread and others I can avoid posting to these people, ignore the thread, etc.

When I first came, I didn’t even want to look at the divorced and divorcing section. I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the pregnancy section of the site. If there had been a forum for those in affair marriages, I would not have looked at it either.

What about the person who clicks on a thread that the title sounds like another hurting person, someone in a similar situation- then they read oh yeah by the way, we started as an affair- imagine the pain.

What is wrong with asking folks in AMs to post elsewhere?


I know that this is a hard subject

My father and FIL are both married to their affair partners. One for 25 years, one for 20.

They both moved out of the family home and directly into the home of the OW.

Neither of our mothers fought for their marriage. My mother I think was actually relieved when he left. My mother has moved on and remarried. My MIL has not.

Until my H's A, I had issues with the fact that they were married to the OW. Now, I have MAJOR issues with it. There is not much I can do about it. My kids think of the steps as grandmothers as they have always been in their lives.


When I was 17 and 21 and they left our moms, we thought we were doing what we should in maintaining relationships with our fathers. Now, I see that us maintaining a relationship was in fact accepting of the fact they were with the ow. Now, being a BS, it really smacks me hard that we did that.

Honestly, this is so very hard for me and something I struggle with because of our parents. There are probably people that think I shouldn’t be around them or allow my children to be around them. Thankfully we only see them once or twice a year if that.

Infidelity – the gift that keeps giving.

Another thing that bothers me is that sometimes when so many people get tied up in discussions like this hurting people are not helped. That is very sad to me.

Do you mean my elitist list folks?

nope

anyone may post

it's up to us to run the varmints off *spits in spittoon*

a fountainhead of pain
goes for generations

A former member who was, in reality, several college students "gaming" everyone on MB for a college class project paper.

If you are really curious, do a search on the name for about 3 years ago.

A really bad incident of true abuse of the system and the helping nature of so many who tried to help the "made up" situation.

I don't know what the question was anymore, Pep. Call it too much interference from taking the clothes out of the washer, watching Cops, cooking & eating dinner, re-reading Starship Troopers, posting here, reading email, posting on other boards, closing windows because the severe thunderstorm watch just went to a warning, etc., etc. I apologize. The decision's been made anyway.

me too

cooking
talking to kids
giving H the stink-eye

Just Jilly,
I vehemently disagree you "found" yourself on this path. I strongly suggest you "PLACED" yourself there of free will as a CHOICE.

Your choice of words in the sentence above regarding your affair implies you still haven't taken responsibility. "Found oneself there" like a force of nature where one has no choices, claiming no ownership for one's behavior or actions.

Jo

ETA: So this is one of the members who MB is supporting to fix her affair marriage? And she claims she is no longer in the fog but states she "found herself in an affair". Lord .... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/teary.gif" alt="" />

How very sad, a small taste of MB's future.

Why does that NOT surprise me. Do you remember how they were found out? If not, I will go take a look.

And thank you for the reply.

Larry

People began to question the vary differing posting styles, etc., all under the name of one supposed person, Dustkitty. Finally they "confessed" and the "doo-doo" hit the fan for a while. As I recall, even the professor of the class was involved, but my "old timers disease" could be playing with my recollection.

Jo,

You are absolutely correct that is what I wrote.

Here is the whole paragraph so the context of what I said can be seen in its entirety... not that that will really make a difference to you. I already know where you stand in regards to me. You have made you posistion very clear. I respect that you feel that way.

What I did state there is that waywardness is a STATE of mind and it isn't limited to "rutting" with someone else's husband. I know what a vile act I CHOSE. No one else chose that for me but ME. Yes I made some vile choices. I can't go back and change that now. I OWN every bit of that choice and my position on that is that it was WRONG.

My statement was to clarify that I BELIEVE that waywardness is a state of mind NOT limited to cheating. I have not cheated again... my point was that just because I CHOSE not to cheat again did NOT mean that I didn't still have waywardness that led to me making other self destructive choices. I own that too.

If you want to believe that I still think that my affair was something that just happened ... that I just fell into fine that is your choice to believe that is what I think. I can assure you though from my end that is NOT my belief about what happened.

I posted on this thread to try to see if maybe Zog could get some help off of GQ away from the BS in the trenches which is what I was told was the deeper issue of my posting here to GQ. I CHOSE to go elsewhere on this board to a much less frequented section of MB. Am I wrong to suggest to Zog that he do the same? I thought that was point.


____________________________________________________________
Zog, I apologize for posting to your thread. I meant no disrespect to you... you can choose for yourself if you want to stay here on GQ. I believe there are some very remarkable posters here who can and will choose to help you. There will also be those here that won't like you or your situation and I am sure you can and do understand that.

There will also be those that won't like it if anyone here chooses to help you and will state that those that do try to help you change your mindset so that you can CHOOSE to get off the wayward insanity bus.... are PRO AFFAIR. Be clear that just because someone chooses to help you doesn't make them pro affair or that they APPROVED that you made the choice you did. They don't. Trying to help you change now does not mean they condone what you did.... just that perhaps they believe that people can change. I am not the same person I was 12 years ago and I doubt you are the same person you were 30 years ago.

I will not post to this thread again.

Hokay, for posterity, here is what I found. I didn't read all of dustkitty posts. The one I did read started out with a classic arese chewing by a long time poster. This was in 2003. I was sad to see that poster eventually stopped posting in 2004 because recovery didn't take and the marriage failed.

I will repost the classic just for the heck of it and because it contains information about the ethics of university level research in human behavior. The thread was heavily edited by justuss, whose final post was for dustkitty to email her.

++++++

DrCu said:

OK, I took the "5 post-grad students" line as a poor joke. If that is in fact true, I'd like to know about it. I'd also like to know at what institution you are studying. Further, I would like to know whether you are conducting research here, and whether your research plan has been approved by the human subjects committee, or equivalent organization, at your institution. I want to see your research protocol and your approved application to your human subjects committee. Please remember that such an organization, and approval of research plans involving research into human behavior, is a requirement of federal law for all academic institutions receiving federal funding. Remember that violation of the informed consent policies of your institution or the federal government may result in disciplinary action against your institution. Furthermore, you may be liable to civil penalties for violating the informed consent policies of your institution or the federal government.

Do not think that this is a threat. I promise you, if you have been f**king with this group of people, I will do everything in my power to see that the penalties imposed upon you and your institution are as severe as I can make them. I have been in the human subjects research business for 21 years and I know of what I speak.

Immediately after I post this note, I will point out your post to the moderators. If you have not responded to this post to my satisfaction by 10:00 AM tomorrow, Wednesday, September 24, I will ask them to provide me with as much detail as they can with regard to your institution, e-mail addresses, etc. With that in hand, I will do my best to contact your institution, your major professors, and the ombudsman or ethics office at your institution. I will post whatever details I am able to discover on this board so that members who choose to do so can pursue civil action against you or your institution as they see fit.

____

Larry

PS Oddly enough, after a couple of posts that justuss edited, dustkitty went to the dustbin and I saw no more posts at least that I could find.

Hi BobPure.

I haven’t voted yet. I’m still thinking.

I can tell you that I know a man that has been in an A-marriage for 25 years.

They don’t want anyone to know that their oldest son isn’t his legitimate offspring.

They don’t want anyone to know that he was the OM and his W left her then H to shack up with this guy who was the H’s “best friend” previously.

25 years later they still own the shame and disgrace of their contaminated marital history.

They do have children out of their legal union.

Their marriage is plagued with deception, mistrust, and selfishness. I guess they are some of the few 3% successful long term affair marriage folks.

When my cohort last asked me about his W’s manic behavior, I asked him “what do you know now about her that you didn’t know the day you ran off with her?”

I know it sounds cold, but since I see no hope for either of them with happiness, I had to ask him.

He said, “you are right, I knew all of this when I married her, but it would cost me too much to divorce her now, she’ll get half the house”.

Nature has interesting ways of making sure that there is someone for everyone out there.

Until people like these can stand on the mountain top and shout to all the world, “We are affairees! or We destroyed a marriage to have this one! or We want our kids to know that they have different fathers! or God will not punish us for our sin, as we can do anything we want and he will be cool with it! or Damnit it felt good at the time!”……

I will continue to do like the rest of society that I am a part of and view their actions as those of immature, cowardly, selfish people. I don’t much care for helping them at all really.

But I will say that somewhere along the line, if they are the .001% of the 3% that make it and find true remorse and repent that they deserve a chance. If God would give the repentant man a chance then who am I to say they shall find no grace in me to forgive them.

If they have children involved, then sorry, I believe that the children become the focal point of the universe and should suffer not for their idiotic parents poor judgments.

I don’t like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Kids don’t ask to be brought into this crazy world nor do they get to pick their parents. I’m very black and white about my views on self sacrifice for the childrens’ sake, that being “do whatever it takes”.

I believe I would support people finding resolutions to marital issues in long term marriages that involve children; as that may be the best case for the poor kids born into this crap sitch.

I don’t see a one size fits all here.

These cases may simply be beyond the scope of MB'rs and I don't believe they will get a fair shake on the forum anyhow.

I think someone would have to be crazy as an outhouse rat to seek help on a forum like this in the first place.

Hey Plank:

Where the cat hair have you been? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Larry

And you personally are here exactly because?....

Personally I'm glad I came here and eternally grateful for all those who helped me.

I think Plank meant people from A Marriages would have to be crazy for seeking help on a forum like this.

At least, that's how I took it, knowing Plank. Plank can answer for himself when he's back.

Plank needs to write a book on funny sayings.

Larry

Plank needs to write a book period.

Dustkitty's last signature line:
"Dustkitty" is 5 post grad students. Thanks to all of you that spend so much time here. We have the material for our thesis. To find and do the case histories on those 10 we selected to "follow"...would have taken away from our "pub" time. Thanks, ****, ****, ******, ******??, ******* (our favorite because we think you are a man!), and a few others that we selected because you are so darn funny. We thank ******, *****, ******, and ******...we like you, you won't be on the cover of Time Mag. Mr. Harley and your phantom moderators....we thank you for investing in this technology...and then letting the inmates run the "forum"

Eric, Jason, Neil, Jen and Jill...Eric wrote the mean posts and our Prof wrote H&F...that is a cute baby...we all love you."

This still makes me mad. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> It's also a salutory lesson. You can try and filter and control all you/we like but it's still the internet.

You know, they might not have even been grad students, just trolls. Or maybe even one troll.

A ton of their posts was over on the emotional needs forum. And you may be right APH. To register with this site, you have to supply an email address. Yet Justuss asked dustkitty to email her. Who knows...

Larry

Just throwing my 2c support to Bob, Noodle, Pep, Mulan, Faithful, Resilient, MEDC on this issue.

Many apologies to anyone I forgot.

Very pleased to see such people taking a stand against this evil.

Plank, friend

Myheart sinks as I read your post.

because it is clear from it that I have clearly failed to convey the main thrust of my petition.

I might agree with every word you say Plank but the rightness or wrongness of A-marriages , and the saved ness or not-ness of th eprotagonists is neither here nor there.

Such discussion needs to be had for sure.

My petition is only that however well or ill intentioned A-marriage folks are who come here, and how well or ill intentioned are the folks who help them out is is demonstrably ENCOURAGING to many WS and OPs and DEMOTIVATING to many BS and FWS ( see proof from jilly threads as I have pointed out ad nauseum) and so "pour encourager les autres" I propose taking A-marriage support to a quieter place where such discussions and help can be had without these anti-marriagebuilding effects.

See ?

I understand your story. Let me tell you one now :

I was in Paris this week for work. I met with an old friend and colleague who told me he has left his wife and tiny children for another colleague who has left her husband.

I know and care for them both. You can imagine how I felt.
However, I did not " kick @ss". Instead I found some seemingly God gien convicting words which started to make a difference.

They both told me that they had true love for the first time in their lives Blah Blech... I gave them the stats of affairs and affair marriages and it stopped them short for a moment.

What do you think would happen if I sent them, or their BS' to MB right now to widen their knowledge and get wider assistance than me ?

Ste and Lou CRAVE encouragement that A's and marriages are "ok" and can last.

Enter Zog and the folks who want to help them publicly because their sits don't hurt or discourage them personally.....

For the first time I can't send hurting people here in good conscience because the message the forum sends is not conducive to affair busting and marriagebuilding IMO.

Folks will argue that religion demands they be hosted on page one, others that its an interesting academic exercise to discuss , because they are far enough from d-day to not be hurt by such. Meanwhile Abby (2yo) and May's(4 yo) dad gets convinced his A marriage can be a 10 year or 30 year "love" story against all odds......

Bob, that is what hit me yesterday when I took a stand against A marriages.

I went through months of he** and months of reconciliation to do the right thing because I love my H. As I said on the other thread, if I'd married the OM, it would have been a farce and wrong and immoral and evil. No amount of time would ever make it suddenly all right. All that unforgivable pain that would have occurred for EVERYONE concerned probably forever.

I just can't accept giving help to people in A marriages. I didn't even know how strongly I felt about it until the implications really hit me yesterday.

Jen,

I can see you mean that.

I'd have trouble not helping anybody who could use a resource within my gift, but I sure wouldn't help ONE publicly to the detriment of MANY if there was a practcal alternative.

I really think that the clarity that you see, and I see over the implications of this issue is a "get it or not" thing.

Some smart people have posted and they just can't conceive of how very unhelpful is the message sent by abetting affair marriages on GQ 2 here.

For me it is absolutely black and white. I pray for better powers of expression so I people can at least understand what I am saying before rejecting it.

Its not a shunning issue.
Its not a religious issue
Its not a judgement issue
Its not a "holier than thou" issue

It is a practical compassionate marrigebuilding issue. No more than that IMO.

All the rights and wrongs arguments can take place calmly in a place where the vulnerable many are less likely to be hurt by it.


I really hope all is well with you by the way.

Bob, I feel for you with the situation with your work friends. Have you offered any assistance to his BS?

Plank, I 100 percent agree however, this forum is full of people hurting over this very issue and the whole idea of supporting A marriages openly is the problem, at least for me.

BTW, I voted for the A marriage warning in the thread title.

Bob wrote:

"They both told me that they had true love for the first time in their lives Blah Blech... I gave them the stats of affairs and affair marriages and it stopped them short for a moment.

What do you think would happen if I sent them, or their BS' to MB right now to widen their knowledge and get wider assistance than me ?

Ste and Lou CRAVE encouragement that A's and marriages are "ok" and can last."

Bob, I have posted my views on this subject enough times over the past few months, so don't need to do it now. What you wrote above is exactly to the point of what the problem is here.When H began telling me the very mild version of the truth at the beginning of d-month, "I have feelings for OW, but haven't told her", he also told me this. He used his brother, who was a WS who left his W for the OW, as an example. He told me how is B told him how much happier he is now since leaving his W. (BTW he ended up dumping oW after 2 yrs). He also related a conversation he had with his uncle who left his BW and 2 teenage sons for OW. The uncle WS told H how his boys are doing great and they are really well adjusted. (Turns out the ex-BW had a totally different version of how her sons were effected).

My point is H was just looking for any example of A Rs to support his difficult choice of leaving me and our boys. What began to break his bubble was reading Dr. Harley's descriptions on this site of As, which showed him that what he was going through was very common. Also our MC and his IC who laid out the stats on A Rs. WSs are looking for anything to support their addiction and bad choices. BSs are looking for any encouragement to keep them in the fight of their lifetime to save their Ms. Reading about A Ms here just doesn't help either the BS or WS IMHO!

Sorry Guys.

What this thread really points out is how little MOST of the people on this thread DON'T help and DON'T CARE.

Case in point:

The first two pages of GQ II at 5/27/07 at 9:23 CST.

There are about 50 posts per page. So that is 100.

There are a Whole bunch of joke threads and things like that. There are a number of long running Plan A/B threads.

And I ignored the threads of folks who have been here for a while and wanted clarifications/additional info

But there were 12 Threads of NEW posters asking for help. BS's. EACH ONE Asking for HELP.

This BP thread is now 7 pages with 105 posts. (not including mine)

The ZOG Thread has 11 Pages, 153 posts. The vast majority having nothing to do with Zog. Just everyone spouting about who MIGHT get Hurt.

On those 12 threads:

MISHES: Started 5/26, 1 Page 8 Replies
DEWARO Started 5/24, 2 Page 18 Replies
SKIRMISHER: Started 5/22, 6 Pages 77 Replies
NOWHERETOTURN: Started 5/24 3 Pages 34 replies
Chris1004: Started 5/26 1 Pages 13 replies
Independent: Started 5/25 1 Pages 7 replies
JALYNNSPROUTS: Started 5/25 1 Pages 4 replies
DEEPINLIVE4LIFE: Started 5/23 5 Pages 64 replies
IIWIDEOPEN: Started 5/25 1 Pages 6 replies
JUSTINLIU: Started 5/24 1 Pages 2 replies
FULLOFDOUBT Started 5/24 1 Pages 12 replies
JASHLEY16: Started 5/23 1 Pages 4 replies

And GUESS WHO WAS JOHNNY ON THE SPOT WITH HELP FOR THESE FOLKS?

NOT THE ONES crying all over this thread and the ZOG thread.

SORRY, PROBABLY THE SAME ONES WHO WOULD SAY THAT THE SKIN COLOR OF THAT ONE WAS THE WRONG COLOR FOR US TO HELP THEM.

HYPOCRITES.

VOTE?

What, now it's SURVIVOR on MARRIAGEBUILDERS Island?

HYPOCRITES.

Thanks for HELPING.

Thanks for NOTHING.

And when Dr. Harley says that some one isn't allowed here, I will accept it.

And Yes, I AM a FWS.

And NO, I am Not Wayward in my thinking.

I Yes, I understand the pain I put my spouse thru.

I also learned how to ignore threads that I could not help or were offensive to me.

LG

***EDIT****

LG wrote...


****EDIT***

Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have beliefs, virtues and feelings that one does not truly possess.

Every single one of the 44 (out of 50) people that posted their thoughts about A marriages not being supported here has just been called a fraud by LG. He doesn't believe that you are genuine and even likens it to being prejudiced against people of other races. No, LG... that's not screwed up thinking... ******EDIT***********

so, let me get this straight Justuss.... LG can namecall and call people hypocrites when they are expressing their honest beliefs... yet you want to edit the word [censored] out of my post. That is ridiculous. He in fact was and is a [censored] for calling all these people frauds.

Okay... more PC... LG is a FWS (if he is in fact a former WS... he may be active and not telling the truth on these threads.... perhaps he is being hypocritical in his statements regarding his remorse for what he has done in the past) that feels that he has the right to tell a BS what they may or may not be offended by....

Lately we have had a couple of posters on MB GQII seeking help for their marriages that were the result of an affair. Each time the poster reveals this information, the thread takes on a life of it's own. Some members do NOT want to allow affair based marriages to post on GQII where so many Newbies may be reading and/or lurking.

This Marriage Builders site was created, funded, and owned by Dr Harley. Dr Harley has written many books, conducted many lectures, has a talk radio program and offers phone counseling and weekend seminars for those in need of his expertise. He has offered the Marriage Builders web site as a way for us to discuss our marital problems and apply his concepts and principles to solve them. We, as MB members, are HIS GUESTS.

To MY knowledge Dr Harley does not discriminate against anyone seeking help saving their marriage. If someone calls his radio program and wants help saving a marriage that was the result of an affair, he does not ask them to wait til the end of the program and caution other listeners to tune out. If an affair resulted in a pregnancy, either by the husband & OW or the wife & OM, he does not ask the H & W to sit in the rear of the room at the seminar. If the marriage is bi-racial, May-Dec, or a same-sex union he does not ask them to take only the left-over open counseling appts at 3am. All are treated equally.

There is nothing about an affair that is NOT hurtful. To read about a marriage that was not saved and resulted in a divorce is hurtful. To learn about the complications added when an "other child" occurs is very painful. To witness the struggle of a BS or FWS trying unsuccessfully to save their marriage is painful & frustrating. Once on this rollercoaster, we can't escape the hurt. But we do not "forbid" these posters to post in certain forums. They are free to post & seek help wherever they choose. We can "suggest" forums that may better suit their needs but we can not and do not bannish them to a place we have deemed "more appropriate" or less hurtful to other posters.

If you feel you can help these posters..PLEASE do so!! And if you feel their situation is so inappropriate you can not in good conscience help them,, PLEASE SKIP THAT POST and move on. Your condemnation is not necessary.

**edited to add*** Bob, I am NOT finding fault with your poll. There is nothing wrong with asking the membership their feelings about ANY subject and acquiring positive input. However we do have to remember this is Harley's forum and it has to be run by his standards. All I am asking is respond to these posters if you have constructive advice or suggestions OR don't respond at all.

and Justuss... what was the reason for editing out my comments regarding my foster child. LG brought up race and I responded.... guess having a black foster child is in some way offensive to the board?????????????????

**********************************************
MEDC,
Absolutley Not!! However I have no idea what color your foster child is,,NOR does it matter.
JustUss

So, an opinion that does not agree with yours or the Harley's is condemnation???? No one here has the ability to abnish someone... if we did it would happen... this has been an expression of opinion and your censoring that is out of line IMO when you ALLOW the majority of the posters on this thread to be called phonies by another poster.

You usually have my respect and cooperation... but you are dropping the ball here IMO.

*****************************************************
MEDC<
Sorry. Maybe I can earn it back another day....another way!
JustUss

Bob:

Well, it would appear that justuss is keeping a very close eye on this thread, as well she might. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hard, strong feelings on all sides. Affairs truly ARE the gift that keeps on giving.

I have a few questons. I almost never get in trouble asking questions, "almost never" being the operative words.

Please correct me if I am wrong. Bob, you have correctly presented ONE of the issues at hand. And you have stated your solution. So bear with me while I seek clarification.

What are the enemies of affairs? I suggest that the enemies of any affair are: truth, reality, consequences and time. Did I miss something?

What are the friends of an affair? I suggest that the friends are: lies, fantasy, secrecy, emotional overload and a temporary or permanent lack of ethics and loss of one's moral compass. Again, did I miss something?

How would the presentation of affair marriage problems as in one of the partners betraying the other down the road be a friend to an active, current affairee? How would the presentation of affair marriage problems down the road as inevitable be a friend to an active, current affairee?

How would active, fogged out affairees be helped by this site even if affair marriages were banned?

I completely understand issue TWO, which is the effect that an active affair marriage has on those whose marriage failed or almost failed because of an affair. Given that I am a BS and my marriage almost failed as a result of an affair, I am completely in tune with those emotions. I am also more than willing to help drive the Karma bus on that one with the observation, "What did you expect and What Were You Thinking?" I must confess a more private, smug sort of nasty little feeling inside of myself, which is to say, "Glad it hasn't worked out, you moron!"

My emotions tell me to grab a stone. My intellect tells me that breaking the cycle of affairs is important especially if there are kids involved. I am at war within myself over this issue.

Larry

LG,

You've touched on my only concern for posting on this thread....how divisiveness detracts from helping hurting people.

I was one who goose-egged for 6 hours (but I blamed the joke threads, which I still think should have their own forum where those who WANT to CHOOSE to participate can still do so, but their posts won't push legitimate calls for help down and off the page.)



She errored by posting on the Recovery forum but now that we've finally convinced her to post on the GQII forum, she may still not get help she needs for a variety of reasons.

Can't these discussions (and possibly AM posters) and joke threads be placed somewhere else other than on GQII?

EDITED TO ADD: [color:"red"]I wrote and hit submit while Justuss was posting simultaneously. I humbly choose to abide by the decisions announced and am grateful for this site.) [/color]

OR

In the meantime, or while the transition is taking place, could those really wanting to help commit to going over to the JUST FOUND OUT forum to help like many did for Marriedfor30years...and not have to tell them to Go to GQII where the real traffic is?

EDITED TO ADD: [color:"red"] I still would love to see more MB veterans posting on JFO for three reasons primarily:

1) Hurting newbies usually check that forum out first....at least I did.
2) There are no friendly banter or joke threads to push their threads off the page quickly.
3) It will encourage future newbies to post and stay on the JFO forum where most AM betrayed or wayward spouses do NOT initially post.

I am one of the few newbies to post on this thread. Four months ago, while I was lurking for two weeks, I saw the dynamics of the forums and chose GQII to try to get the quickest response. I'm persistent so I stuck around in spite of my long wait. My life has changed as a result thanks to those who chose to help me.

I usually try to find solutions in the midst of turmoil.....so now that this issue has been addressed, CAN WE CONCENTRATE OF WHAT WAYS WE CAN HELP NEWBIES WITHIN THE GUIDELINES SET FORTH BY THE HARLEYS AND THEIR VOLUNTEER MODERATORS?
[/color]

LG, you've make the biggest difference in our M by your style and I appreciate you....don't always agree, but I respect your choices like you respect mine.

Thanks for your perspective.

EDITED TO ADD: [color:"red"] LG, my H's grandma would not come to our wedding b/c in her eyes I had the wrong color skin. Your comment did not offend me but I would use a different analogy to make your point as others might be offended....also, I'm not sure what BP meant by saying that you 'busted him'. [/color]

Ace

EDITED TO ADD: [color:"red"]BP, thanks for your poll and for posting this thread. If it results in newbies getting help faster, one way or the other, it was a helpful thread..... IMVHO. I appreciate your commitment as I was one who benefited directly from your giving generously of your time, thoughts and prayers. [/color]

Justuss;

Thank you.

Larry

Reading these posts, I find myself agreeing with both sides. However, I also keep thinking...

Once an affair becomes a marriage, the old marriage(s) are already broken. I would tend to think an affair becoming a marriage ends all hope of reconciliation of the former marriages. If I'm wrong in this, please feel free to correct me.

But if I'm right, the damage is done and can't be undone. But a new marriage could be saved by helping to turn waywards into former waywards.

Also, something else to consider. When an affair marriage results in more wayward behavior, the new affair could be with someone who is in a non-affair marriage, thus turning yet another spouse into a BS.

hmmm.... MEDC - Is that anything like the number of times you have called me a "dope" and a "church of one" all because I dare to rely on Scripture for guidance and for answers to the problems we get faced with here in "groupie land" for those engaging infidelity and hoping to not only save our marriages, but to have newer and better marriages than what existed before?

Perhaps it's just a case of "whose ox is being gored" today?

Emotional responses often lead to "engaging mouth before brain," I know, I've been there and done that too. Perhaps what you consider "okay" for you to do or say is not always the same thing others might think is "okay," and Justuss DOES have the power and the right to edit ANY post that she feels is in need of editing or in violation of TOS. That is the role given to her by those who DO "make the rules." We don't have to "like it," but the AUTHORITY rests outside of ourselves and they don't have to explain anything if they don't want to. The system is open to all by CHOICE. We post or refrain from posting by CHOICE. We help where we think we can be helpful and refrain from posting, or end posting, where it becomes obvious to us that our "opinions" are not wanted or needed. Not one of us can help everyone. Not one of us should try to help everyone. Not one of us should determine who is worthy of help and not worthy of help and then use that determination as an excuse to turn an opinion into a vendetta or jihad against someone we find objectionable or "not worthy of help."

That really is what Justuss was saying. The system IS open to all even though there will always be some who are offended, hurt, or angered by someone else's post or situation in life.

Once we've been here "long enough," there are few of us that have not had a post or 2 "edited for content," especially when the tempers flare and emotional responses take over. That is also WHY the system has Moderators who are independent from the active discussions and who perform a "referee-like" role.

If a marriage that results from an affair is very likely to fail, or to limp on with limited satisfaction for both, then what exactly is there to get worked up about?

Whem this issue generates a lot of emotion several years down the line from d-day and recovery, then perhaps those triggered posters need to ask themselves whether they secretly fear that the OP was a better match for their WS, and that the WS would have been happier with the affair partner than with them.

The awful truth is that that might be true. They might get married and be happy as pigs in mud for decades. Thirty miles north of where I'm sitting, Charles and Camilla show no signs of being miserable. Do I think they're happy in their affair marriage? Yup, I do. All it takes is a colossal selfishness, limited sensitivity to the feelings of others, and the ruthless determination to take what you want no matter who gets hurt.

Some BSs are married to exactly that kind of person.

Personally, I get mad when a newbie is assured that 'hardly any WSs marry their affair partner', and 'the relationship won't last'. This might be comforting to someone in the inital throes of agony, but the brutal fact is that their WS might not come back, and might well marry the OP, and might well live with the OP spouse for the rest of their days. Why avoid that reality, hideous though it is?

Whether we like it or not, there have been many cases here on MB where the WS has left, and married the OP, and shows no signs of breaking up with them by the time the BS recovers themselves and leaves MB. It happens.

If we honestly believe what we preach here, then we have to believe that such marriages have limitations and inbuilt structural weaknesses. We have to believe that, even if the marriage does not suffer new infidelities and betrayals, it is not a union which can be spiritually nurturing or support more than intermittent, shallow happiness.

If that's the case, then what is our fear?

If a WS is looking for reassurance that an affair marriage can more or less last, then they'll find it anywhere they look. Julia Roberts, Anthea Turner (UK), Charles and Camilla. If they come here and find hope in the tale of someone whose AM lasted 30 years before imploding, and fail to notice that the marriage has in fact existed with low levels of intimacy and enjoyment and with increasingly blunted sensitivity to each other, then they are not going to be educated by anything, and will just have to learn the hard way.

Affair marriages that come here almost always show us the poverty of such an existence, the lack of depth and the incapacity for true joy.

If our own marriages seem not much better than that...perhaps we need to ask ourselves some searching questions.

And, as Justuss pointed out, if we feel strongly about affair marriages, then we can exercise free will and self-discipline, and avoid those threads. We don't have to keep reading them and keep being triggered. If we haven't got the self-restraint to to do that, that's a problem for us, not the board.

And acting abusively towards someone, whether in cyberland or not, lessens our own self-esteem in the long run and diminishes us. That minor hit of self-righteous anger has a very high price.

TA

PLEASE SKIP THAT POST

Justuss

I do not know your history, I'm afraid. If by any chance you share my history, that is you were once a BS perhaps you can recall if you were able to intelligently avoid those posts which were demotivating to you when you were at your most low and vulnerable ?

I know that for myself and many of the many tens of folks I have assisted to recovery via these forums and elsewhere, it was NOT possible. Such requires a logic and a sentience that is lacking when the very floor of our world has been ripped away leaving us hanging.

I remember in "the bad days" voraciously reading every thread, every "notable post" every reply , mentally "refixing the odds" on our recovery as I saw examples of entangled affairs fall and recovery ensure, then dropping them back when I saw NC breaks or false recoveries.

ANY sign ,ANYTHING , good or ill, engendered wild optimism or suicidal pessimism for a good while after d-day and finding these wonderful boards.

It has been a successful part of the approach I have used to such folks that I will calmly point out Dr Harley's statistics: that MOST affairs end; that affair marriages older than 5 years are rarer than chicken teeth etc etc. This serves to provide a reliable, calming statistical backdrop as myself and others soothe and encourage folks to study and apply Dr Harleys proven methods as the numbers tell them the affair will end.

Imagine then the situation I wrote above - my work colleage arrives here in affair fog after I have delivered him the stats , explained about "surviving an affair" and that most WS become FWS and regret their affairs however viable they may seem at the time.

He reads here - sees a 30 year A marriage - encouraging of his affair in itself - and then sees wise folks lending it support, considering it a legitimate target for marrigebuilding.

It makes the EXCELLENT Dr Harleys' stats and methods appear "foolish", and renders impotent my efforts so far in trying to bring a realistic view of the consequences of his decisions to his consciousness.

And then imagine I send his BW here. Or his OWs BH, both of whom I am trying to contact and help....

As I have stated so many times I would not "banish" anyone nor force anyone to post anywhere. But those of us who work these boards, policed by YOU Justuss , do have an unspoken code as to how to process petitioners.

We send some folks from JFO to GQ2, some from GQ2 to EN, Pregnancy or Recovery etc etc as appropriate. We call out aiders with proven skills in a certain area: 2x4's, exposure, reverse babble ( thanks Orchid ;0 ) for example.

We are a ramshackle team for sure, but using Dr Harleys resources we have SAVED MARRIAGES here and started the process to healing hearts.

None of this is directly sanctioned by the Harleys, Justuss, but from time to time it works pretty well I think.

My effort here is NOT to prevent A-marriages or anyone else in need getting help, Just that THEIR help does not cause other " little ones to stumble".

"Shunning", "banishing" there are all emotive words that do not belong in this discussion IMO.

I would have the board determine a way to handle A-marriage support in a way that removes the controversy and potential for damage and gets the petitioners the help they need, and that is OF COURSE sanctioned by the Harelys and moderatable by you. Zog for example was sent from a quiet place to the maelstom of GQ2. Had he been sent to where Jilly is being helped there would have been NO drama. No board war. No BS and FWS being hurt by this.

Maybe my objective is too lofty , because this issue is too divisive. Already I have had so many words put in my mouth I am choking on them, yet still I persist because I BELIEVE IN THESE BOARDS. Dr Harley's methods ,through his books and with interpretation and comfort from the fine folks on these boards saved my marriage and in all probability my very life.

I owe it to Dr Harley, these boards and the folks that take time to help me and others to try to get a resolution to this controversial issue.

If Dr Harley, or the consensus of the boards view is that it is wrong to support A-marriage in a quieter place than GQ2, I will abide by that, and withdraw from this wonderful resource. Not through any "sulk" but because I cannot imagine how I can help anyone end an affair while we are counselling what they fear most in our midst. I could no longer add any value.

I fully understand your postion Justuss. You have responded quickly to me over the years and I do appreciate your hard job.

All blessings

Bob

DON'T help and DON'T CARE.

You Busted me LG !

I don't help. In fact I didn't spend my Sunday morning today writing email responses to MB questioners. I haven't called people overseas at my expense when they seemed scarily depressed. I haven't worked the small hours night after night virtually holding the hands of broken people, praying with them: offering Dr Harley's methods to apply to their situations.

Nor have I offered 2 X 4s to people who haven't yet realised that the [email]cr@p[/email] of an affair is only deep enough to drown you if you cringe in it.

I haven't opened up my most vulnerable soul to scared folks who needed to see that they were not alone. I have never cried in prayer asking that God gives me wisdom to talk down a broken BS or WS when I was fresh out of my own wisdom.

I don't care at all, LG. That I have become vilified by my attempt to raise this issue for resolution surely means just that I am entitled, not that I care PASSIONATELY for the boards and the vulnerable people on it more than I do for my own reputation.

Busted at last as the entitled, prejudiced, unhelpful windbag I truly am.

D'oh!

I feel ashamed for you LousyGolfer <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

lousy thing to say

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!

Look out folks...if you are considering an affair be warned that marrying your OP has the power to change your RACE.

This is catastrophic! Just THINK of what this is goping to do with regard to current minority status laws...the chaos! The paperwork!

If indeed the decision of mods is to actively SUPPORT and DEFEND affair marriages...giving them protected status...that's my cue to exit.


So long folks, it's been real.

LG,

I edited my most previous post but decided to add this here, too:

My H's grandmother refused to come to our wedding b/c in her eyes I had the wrong color skin. (We didn't find out for 10 years.)

Your comment did not offend me, but I would use a different analogy to make your point.......and possibly offer an apology to those who might have been offended.

Ace

I read LG's comparison this way...

When Zog and Jilly came here, they were 12 years, 28 years into their A marriages...which is saying this is where I am right now...I can't go back and change anything...this is where I am.

Close to the color of their skin...that reference. What they cannot change now.

I realize that skin color is for life and the wayward mindset is not...however, as Jilly said, you can experience it for your life to this point...as I did...and others here. Until we do change.

I cannot change the past anymore than I could change my skin color. The rejection of the posters who reject helping long-term A marriages felt the same to me, for they rejected my posting to these people, and I took it as a rejection of me.

I've experienced prejudice on both sides...for my skin, my gender, my beliefs...one of those things for me to work through. So the other thing I found in LG's post was the group against anyone in an A marriage...and not treating the individual, case by case.

Not mentioned were all the times I've told A marriages in their beginnings, their first year, second or third year to stop, divorce, do not have children...and to redeem themselves through their choices in the present, to have a thriving life, NOT in an A marriage.

What I wonder is that not only did MFZ come onto MB at this time, so recent from the JJBA thread...so did vicker. She came here while having an A with her XH, who was in an A marriage--and his OWW was on her sixth marriage.

Where were all these same posters advising her? I asked her to move over to GQII and she did. And I didn't see any of these same folks posting to her. I'm talking about the ones who may have advised her to fight for her real marriage...she divorced quickly and then regretted it...as a BS...and she's struggling right now.

Been wanting to ask that of BobPure, Noodle, MEDC and the others. Now I have.

LG, lemme know if I'm close to your reasoning. I appreciate your feedback.

LA

People don't choose their skin color

If I could, I'd choose a coppery bronze, like my daughter ... not freckly pasty pale

People do choose who they marry

They choose who they betray

Our skin color is God-given
Affair marriages are not a very good comparison to something God-given, in my opinion

Pep, I agree with you.

My intent was to break down what LG's point was to parts...because I don't doubt for a second LG is a strong MB member and did not make that comparison frivilously.

The very wayward mindset has that ingredient "Not my fault. This is how I am. I was born this way." Doesn't mean it's real...or is in reality. Means that's the mindset. They do not for a second recognize they are choosing...and they are, as you said.

No excuse here. Just going again for what may be beneficial in LG's comparison.

I'll wait for LG now...because I'm getting defensive, which signals me that I'm taking attack where it very well might not be at all.

Guess I'm asking LG to clarify or confirm...before I get all reactive, eh?

(Freckly pasty pale, eh? My first mother was like that...I used to think God had painted secret pictures on her skin...loved to trace them and wonder. Quite a gift to me, her skin. She called them God kisses.)

LA

<BIG SIGH> Just WOW LG.

Whatever you do don't take into account how many of us have been here for YEARS paying it forward (6000+ posts and then some) supporting BS and FWS through this life altering experience.

Very unfair and uniformed assessment of yours. Not to mention dissappointing.

I've come to expect that stuff from LG...but for Justuss to edit me call him a donkey butt (nice way of putting it)for his references to race and calling others here hypocrites and then to leave LG's name calling intact is beyond comprehension at this point.

I for one will not recommend this site to anyone going through infidelity until I have seen a clear reply from the owners of this site on this particular issue. Just from a purely business perspective, I am left to wonder of the Harley's would not do well to address this issue themselves as there are some long time posters here that are quite upset over this issue. The last I checked, 86% of those that responded to BobP's question have a problem with A marriages being suppported here.
Anyone that has an appointment scheduled with the Harley's should be sure to mention their displeasure with this issue. I am certain that if they were to hear about how this issue impacts some BS on this site they might decide to make some modifications here.
When a poster like BobP is ready to walk away because of this issue, I would think that the powers that run this board better take a hard look at their "business" plan and how it is impacted by the situational ethics that are running rampant here these days.

MEDC

Noodle,

I don't read Justuss's words that way at all. Justuss is not drawing any lines and is clearing saying that he/she/they won't get into moderating out affair marriages posting on this board. The moderator decision is to maintain little moderation. These threads are not getting locked and nothing we have said to Zog or Justjilly has gotten edited. They aren't protected any more than you and I are.

It's a discussion board. Sick Adulterous Marriages can come here and discuss...get knocked around and then leave just as any of us can. Justuss is asking "them" to withhold from commenting about "our" compassionate majority opinions (calling them unchristianlike or not nice) as much as she/he/they are saying we should avoid the thread if they hurt us.

In the end, I think that if the moderators get TOO involved..it would be worse up in here.

Now...if my opinions to Zog were to begin to be edited. That may be a different story.

Mr. Wondering

LA, Pep & other posters re: LG's comment who may hit 'submit' before I get this done,

As one who might have taken offense to LG's comments, I choose to believe the reasoning LA gives whether LG meant it that way or not. Thanks for clarifying for me, as least, why I was not offended.

Maybe using another inherent (sp?) trait might have been better.....naturally brown eyed, naturally right-handed or having an innie or outie <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />.....anything else that might not detract from the point he was trying to make.

Ace

EDITED TO DELETE: Jo from salutation due to error

Where were all these same posters advising her?

I was probably helping other posters and / or living my life, just as you were when I have helped people that you haven't LA.

Who knows what draws us to certain posters and situations ?

I took Justuss words exactly as Noodle has.

AiB,

Its the above and the name calling (i.e., Hypocrites x2) I'm referring to in my earlier response to LG.

Although it's quite obvious LG's post is emotionally charged, there is no excuse for his inaccurate accusations of members who've invested themselves and their time to support the MB membership for literally years.

Jo

Ok, here's my little unheard voice again.

Here's a hypothetical for you. Most of you know me well. I've been around a long time. Now, say I completely lapsed and came on the board to tell you that OM and I were SO happy, we'd finally got together and were going to get married. Our spouses were devastated and our kids hated us and would never speak to us again, but we were SO happy and our A marriage was going to be fantastic.

Then I would say to everyone I still want to be on MB because it had given me so much in the past and people here are my friends.

Come on guys, what to do you think you'd say to me. Would you say, we know Jen well, we want her to be happy, MB principles and concepts can make her new marriage really great.

Do you see what I'm saying?

I heard you Jen. In fact I LISTENED for you.

If we were really your friends (even in a virtual sense), we'd slap you silly for being the fog, then ask if you wanted help being pulled out. We would risk you getting angry as we all work hard trying to bring you back to reality.

If you insisted on being a WS for life, then we'd have to let our friendship go. If you were able to change your life around, acknowledge and repent, not be a WS or OP anymore, then we would be there to support and help you.

There was a another poster many years ago who was an Xws, divorced her H and later each remarried. She married for the 2nd time but not to the OM. It was another man which she is (I believe) still happily married to. This poster has been a great help to many and helped many a BS to understand the Xws POV so that they in turn could help their Xws'.

The point is who is the WS here? WS' who marry the OP run the risk of becoming the BS. Visa versa on the OP as well. Their risk is greater but when they become the BS, they fall into the same sick cycle. What most realize is that being a BS is more painful. Knowing both sides may help but not reduce the pain. The current WS' still is out to hurt any BS in their path. That is just their way.

So when an Xws turned BS comes here....what are we suppose t/d? ...... you all know the answer. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

L.

Jo,

I agree with you and apologize for including your post when I commented to LA. (Note I have edited that post.)

Speaking for myself, if I say I want to help others, but I spend more of my posting time trying to change things beyond my control instead of helping others (and abiding by the hosts choices regarding guest guidelines), might I be a hypocrite for saying I want to help but not following through at that particular time?

Yes, based on the previous definitions of the word on this thread.

That does not negate my 700+ posts in 4+ months that may have helped a few, but more might have been helped if I did not concentrate on hot issues during what little time I may have to post.

I'm not defending or accusing LG...merely making a point of my own choices.

Thanks for your response and for caring enough to point out my error.

Ace

PS Unless I am tubed, I'll refrain from this thread from now on so I will no longer be a hypocrite....my choice. (I seldom participate on hot issue threads anyhow.)

Amen JEN.

I think I get what Jen is saying.

IOWs, MB will support a FWS in rebuilding their marriage after an affair. But hey, if that fails and they end up marrying the OP we'll be more than happy and willing to support you with that one too.

We're an equal-affair opportunity support group NOT

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

I feel like saying that very trite "Can't we just agree to disagree?" Sheesh! Diversity is part of life. Difference of opinions if opinion is an opprotunity to grow.

FOr crying out loud. WHat the heck is name calling going to accomplish? Peopl learn by asking question. SOmeitme they are comfortable and easy to answer. ANd sometimes they are hard and hurt to work through.

BUt Bob, (correct me if I misintepreted) ASKED OPINIONS!!!! And in "What would you do? WHat do you THINK? HOw would YOU react? NOWHERE did I hear condemnation or ANY attempt to FORCE anyone to change.

MOST of the posters on this thread stated their own beliefs. Some of which I agree with some make me nuts. Some have me shaking my had very sadly. But the big question is SO WHAT?????

It is MY opinion and MY thoughts. And MY actions that I have to look at. If I don't LIKE or AGREE or actively CONDEMN words or lifestyle, or dogma, or beliefs, I have a CHOICE. If it affects me directly I can walk away, turn the other cheek, attempt to persuade someone that there are alternatives. BUT it is MY choice. And if I can't help, or it HURTS me, I WALK AWAY. WHEN I act out of anger or FEAR, then it is something that perhaps I need to work on within myself.
The questions that need to be asked is WHY?

WHY does it make me angry?
WHY does it make me scared?

THEN,

Can I change it constructively?
Is it WORTH it to attempt?
WIll it hurt me to do so?
WIll it help someone if I do?

THe problem ALWAYS begins when the namecalling and the condemnation of one's beelifs is attacked. I can only state what I can and will do. And that is the part about growing spritually, intelectualy and emtoionally. Challenges are good for us. But it needs to be SAFE to do so, correct? How can one discard the pre-conceived or prejudiced opinions and beliefs if we cannot examine ourselves FIRST?

I DON'T post to AMs. It is just not in me to do so. FOr the folks that can and do. That is their choice to do so and their choice to live with the consequences. JUST LIKE EVERYONE else.

Pep said it best or at least it rang the truest for me and only me. I am an elitist. I choose my friends and I choose hwo to post to. I CHOOSE who I have in my life. I CHOOSE to stand by my beliefs. BUT I am not so inflexible as to believe that there is only ONE way to be a contributor to society.

ACE in Bucket honey ....

No worries and no need to apologize. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Jo

For my part, I find it quite illuminating watching who supports affair marriages. Most helpful.

I sincerely hope everyone will accept this in the conciliatory spirit it is offered.


********

I hope this community heals after this episode. As a marriage heals after the obscenity of adultery and is made stronger, I hope we come together on this forum and redouble our commitment to giving comfort and purpose to the lives of the troubled ones who come here.

To everyone I say this. I know to an absolute certainty that the people who disagree with Dr. Harley in this matter are honest people who are genuinely concerned at the implications of allowing MFZ to be here. Those people have provided invaluable assistance to many, many devastated betrayed spouses who have come here seeking aid. There are many other betrayed spouses on this board right now they are providing invaluable help, and they will extend themselves to help hundreds, if not thousands of people will come in the future. These kind MB regulars have been here for a quite a while, years in many instances, and they have never once asked for a reward of any kind.

I salute every one of them.

There are others here on MB too. There are some who have felt throughout this issue that the forum should be open to all. They also have given help to newly betrayed ones; they also are working with troubled ones here today, and they will be here for those yet to find this place. They’ve been here for years too, and have not asked for a reward either.

They deserve salutes also.

We are one.

Emotions have run high this past week. It’s a deeply emotional issue. People have defended their points of view passionately. But sometimes the passion has run too hot. Opinions have been mocked; ideas and people have been ridiculed. The manipulative tactic of gaslighting has been practiced in a number of threads and is currently being used on MFZ’s thread and can be seen in recent posts on this one.

I am guilty of some of these things. I regret each and every instance both intellectually and morally. I sincerely apologize to anyone who feels I have attempted to influence him or her unfairly and I hope you can accept my apology. It is given without reservation.

I think all this must stop. This is not who we are. It is beneath us.

(I personally had a crisis in my faith during all of this, wondering if my religion is valid any longer. For the folks who knew and were concerned; for those who emailed me with kind words, I assure you the crisis was corrected with a long chat this morning with a Chaplain at the chapel on base where I attend nondenominational services. I’m at peace with my faith and with other Christians.)

On a Memorial Day weekend here in the United States, I urge everyone to take a step back and let the blazing emotions give way to consideration and moderation. Keep your faith in Dr. Harley’s principles. Give Dr. Harley the benefit of the doubt in this and please don’t lambaste the moderators. It just isn’t right in any context.

Look, can we not get back to helping the nearly-destroyed ones who come here not knowing what to do next, okay? If you can’t help some of those who come here because of your beliefs, so be it. Let others do that, okay? They’ll respect you while you aid the ones you can and only ask for enough respect to do what they can also.

Let’s get back to business, okay?

I've been reading this thread with interest.

I am a newly betrayed wife, and really appreciate the stance some of you are taking about this subject.

But, we must remember, the people that have come here, whether as a BS or a WBS (makes sense?) need guidance. That is why we are here.

My marriage seems to have crumbled due to an affair. I am scared, lonely, and in need of support. Those WBS's are feeling the same way. I may not necessarily like their situation, but I can understand it.

Don't leave us hanging. We really do need you.

I can tell you why I will not treat him like a pariah.

Luke 18:9-14
9. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10.‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. 11. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. 12. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” 13 But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” 14. I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’

Please note, I am not calling anyone a Pharasee, I am only pointing out why I make the choice I do.

About three years ago, I tape-recorded a Harley radio show. I kept the tape because of a person who called in about an affair marriage, but then I loaned it to a neighor whose husband left her for another woman, and I never got the tape back.

As a result, I am just recalling what Dr. Harley said, but I think the content is very appropros to this this discussion. A man called in who had been in AA, had developed a relationship with another member of AA, and married the woman 10 years before. He felt called to a joint ministry in AA with this woman.

Now she was having a lesbian affair, and he was devastated.

Dr. Harley asked about this man's first wife. The man said the first wife had been bitter all these years and he had four children by his first wife who were not on good terms with him.

Harley's advice was to let his second wife go and try to reconcile with the first wife. He said the whole basis for his relationship with his second wife was on faulty assumptions -- that he could have had a terrific relationship with his first wife if he had focused on building a compatible relationship with her and that the second wife shared with him the "soulmate" view which results in revolving-door romance.

I think that the posting of people who are in affair marriages can be very informative to us BSs. As MFZ himself said, he's not exactly in a wonderful position right now.

The emails that I saw between the affair-marriage couple and Dr. Harley on the private forum also underscore the incredible difficulty of keeping an affair marriage on track, especially if stepchildren are involved. It's just a mess. You are trying to continue a passionate relationship with this love of your life, but the practical aspects of life are now part of your relationship -- getting sick, paying the mortgage, doing the dishes -- and the practical aspects are really difficult if you've got bitter ex-spouses, underage children being transported back and forth between spouses, etc.

I know I've heard the saying that natural law is about God wanting for us what makes us happy, and there's a reason why affair marriages are generally disasterous.

As for me, I compared myself unfavorably to my husband's affair partner, except in the case of morality. She was taller, thinner, younger, and better educated. What I had to realize is that my husband should not have been comparing me with any other woman and should have been guarding his heart against the flattery of her or any other woman. It took me a long, long time to realize that, and reading about affair marriages helped me to appreciate that there's a big difference between a marriage that was between two single people and a marriage that started with at least one betraying marriage vows in deceit and selfishness.

Cherished

Ummm, I am still looking for someting, I dunno exactly what.

In an earlier post, I said:
_____

The first issue is affairees:

What are the enemies of affairs? I suggest that the enemies of any affair are: truth, reality, consequences and time. Did I miss something?

What are the friends of an affair? I suggest that the friends are: lies, fantasy, secrecy, emotional overload and a temporary or permanent lack of ethics and loss of one's moral compass. Again, did I miss something?

How would the presentation of affair marriage problems as in one of the partners betraying the other down the road be a friend to an active, current affairee?

How would the presentation of affair marriage problems down the road as inevitable be a friend to an active, current affairee?

How would active, fogged out affairees be helped by this site even if affair marriages were banned?

I completely understand issue TWO, which is the effect that an active affair marriage has on those whose marriage failed or almost failed because of an affair. Given that I am a BS and my marriage almost failed as a result of an affair, I am completely in tune with those emotions.

I am also more than willing to help drive the Karma bus on that one with the observation, "What did you expect and What Were You Thinking?" I must confess a more private, smug sort of nasty little feeling inside of myself, which is to say, "Glad it hasn't worked out, you moron!"

My emotions tell me to grab a stone. My intellect tells me that breaking the cycle of affairs is important especially if there are kids involved. I am at war within myself over this issue. I suspect I am not the only one.

Larry

I just wanted to say it again. I haven't posted to Zog or to Justlilly. I did try to help this one woman who seems to be married to a critter.

Where do we go from here? Does this just die down and some folks leave? I hope nobody leaves. Does this just keep on being a divisive issue? I hope not.

Larry

I am sure it will continue to be divisive Larry whilever affair marriages are enabled or legitimised. I for one am grateful some people stand up and say it's wrong.

Bob has posted SPECIFIC examples or affairees who have taken GREAT comfort from such on the JJ thread.

good post KiwiJen

and this issue still is
and will remain
a fountainhead of pain

right here

amongst ourselves

I think he was speaking hypothetically. Which is why I asked the questions I asked, not for the purpose of arguing with him, but seeking clarification from another point of view.

For any number of reasons, affair marriages are wrong. Heck fire, affairs are wrong. Affair marriages in trouble are prime evidence that affairs are a dead end, no joy. I clearly remember telling my wife that if she went with that [email]jack@ss[/email], she deserved what she got, which would be even more heartache down the road than she was passing out to me and the kids at the time.

No joy.

However it turns out, I am hanging around. This place means a lot to me even if it isn't perfect. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Larry

Bob was not speaking hypothetically Larry. I am sure he could give you exact links to posts on the JJ thread where The New Pink Paige and others posted their "joy" at seeing affair marriages "prosper".

Guess I read the wrong reference. Would like to see that. Or maybe not. I am not in a mood to get frothing mad tonight. I don't want to hurl.

Larry

Thank you for sharing this Cherished.

It's nearly what I just posted today on Zog's thread. I think the best advice we can give Zog is Plan A, Plan B won't work for him. Affair marriages are unsavable using marriage builder techniques DESIGNED to repair and rebuild real marriages between a man and a woman with at least the notion of the meaning of commitment.

I believe Zog's best off following a course of action of damage control. Divorce is inevitable; thus, protect his financial interests and dissipate some of the household finances on getting the children/young adults counselling so they can put a finger on the otherwise hidden FOO issues in their lives...lest they repeat the cycle.

I think offering such support is consistent with my beliefs. Affairs are wrong. Affair marriage...no matter how long, never become right. Just end them...ASAP and; if possible, go back to your God given spouse. If not possible, clean up your individual act and move on. Find a and build a REAL relationship for yourself.

Points to ponder:

How can any adulterous affair marriage partner deny their now wayward spouse their happiness??? How hypocritical.

How can any of us ever tell them that their now wayward spouses feelings for OP aren't real, are a fantasy, an addiction when they are the exact same "feelings" that have held the affair marriage together for how ever long?

Isn't any affair marriage now wayward spouse a serial cheater and what advice do we typically give BS's when they are married to serial cheaters???

Again, I don't NEED or DEMAND affair marriages gone from GQII (though I wish they'd just leave, upon SUGGESTION, when they first realize how distasteful it really is). However, the same right that they use to post here is the same right I rely upon to state my strong objection to them.

No worries,
Mr. Wondering

I used to ignore the affair marriage threads ... not offering any of my thoughts/ideas/experience ....

but

now that I am aware that this shunning practice of mine makes me a hypocrite as well as a racist

I have a new idea how to make this right....
(wickedly scratching my witch-chin-wart)
I think I may choose to post to the A-marriage folks

yeah ......

remember what happened when Jerry Seinfeld or Superman entered BIZARRO WORLD ???

I will advise these situations using twisted logic that is the opposite of Marriage Building.

I will become [color:"red"] BIZARRO PEP [/color] ... advise that screaming matches will show the offending spouse who's boss!

yeah ... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

and BIZARRO PEP will share how to get away with lies and deception without getting caught AND (added bonus) gasslighting the other spouse by making them think ~they~ are the cause of every marriage problem

BIZARRO PEP will pontificate and advocate for each spouse to grab onto their personal TAKER and "never give an inch"

I will speak the opposite of what is really meant in a situation. Thus, "This am great" would mean that the thing isn't great but actually sucketh.

Up is down, down is up

this seems like a good plan <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

hold onto your shoes

PS

I AM on drugs

in case anyone had doubts

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Lets teach them to "lay down the LAW," PEP!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

[color:"blue"]"Evil flourishes when good men do nothing" [/color]

So I WILL continue to protest and voice my opinion regarding supporting AFFAIR MARRIAGES on MB.

WE already knew that about you leftcoasters. Buncha dopers.. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

You OD on chocolate again Pep?

Larry

steroids/antibiotics/and *slurp* cough suppressants

I *laugh* at chocolate

"Ha Ha"

I thought Pep was just being her authentic self.

The questions.

I’m gonna take another stab at this.

[color:"blue"]Does supporting A-marriages on GQ2 hurt Vulnerable readers?[/color]

It may or may not depending on the fragility of that reader and their emotional state.

Personally, I read on these boards that this thing (my M at the time) might have been so far in the ditch that it was irretrievably gone forever. But that there was still hope… that echoed in my minds eye.

I’m GLAD that I had the awareness that it could be forever over and that the draw to the OM might have been so compelling that my FWW could have left me for him; for good.

I’m GLAD that people here slapped me around a little bit and coached me into the realization that I WAS MAKING A CHOICE, and that it was based upon a complete awareness of the whole gambit of possible outcomes.

But, my reality at the time was such that I had to come to terms with the fact that my WW was having sex with another man and that she didn’t love me anymore; or at least didn’t love me in any way that I could comprehend.

So my answer is yes it likely does hurt them, but it can be a good kind of hurt that will hopefully result in them applying Harley’s program with maximum effort while protecting themselves from a friggen crazy person.

[color:"blue"]Does supporting A-marriages on GQ2 encourage wayward spouses and OP’s? [/color]

Any maniac that would look at statistics like a 3% success rate and take that on gets an A in my book for fortitude and an E for sanity.

They are going to cull all the bad out of their situation anyhow and I don’t believe that reading a few sentences out of context in all the MB forums catalogs will make or break the spirit that the infidels have one bit. They would get more motivation by searching the Sunday paper for “pay by the hour” uhem, hotels.

TOW would be a much better place for them to practice better slutdom.

[color:"blue"]If affair marriages are to be supported on these boards they should: [/color]

My pick is – other.

It’s up to the contributor. I can see that clearly now.

If it’s against your (or my) moral capabilities then I agree with Justus and think that you/me should refrain from posting.

People that are in a LTA marriage have likely got a whole bunch of issues to deal with and Harley’s principles are likely not going to be applied for the long haul.

For instance, I don’t see how you can have radical honesty with a person that has committed one of the most atrocious social crimes possible while being a party in FULL KNOWLEDGE of exactly how they pulled it off and have any respect for them. Remember, they saw nearly every lie unfold and every instance of deceit that was dealt by the co-adulterer.

Personally, if I saw all that going down while I was the OM, I would never trust the woman again.

Trust is hard enough to live through truths in our daily lives when it’s based upon something that was once upon a time legitimate and based on goodness. Anything based on [censored], is going to be [censored].

Sorry to have been the cause for your heavy heart there Bobpure. You, like always, very handily described your questions with the precision of an expert fencer.

I just got so caught up in all the drama that I became Plank the Emotional.

Still, I have very rarely seen a long term affair seeded marriage BS take over another persons thread or impose themselves on someone elses ride. They usually post there own thread and ask for the fast food style answers that they want to hear, those that choose to help can help.

BTW, for what it's worth, I never stayed in any of the areas of fair play in the forums; I read EVERYTHING. Every nook and cranny thinking that there would be some gold nugget that was hidden somewhere.

But now I know that all you folks are the golden nuggets!

I appreciate each and every one of you, even if you piss me off from time to time.

Now back to Plank the Neanderthal!!

"You ran over your first family to get married to this soulmeat? Man, that's DOPE bro. That took courage and huevos. YOU 'da man! let me show you how to hide money so you can skip that stoopid child suport that is costing you so much you can hardly make your boat payments."

[color:"red"]BP [/color]

Bwhahahahaha

Hello Piojitos.

I guess I have my own language. I'll try country boy dialect on ya and see what happens.

[color:"blue"]I think someone would have to be crazy as an outhouse rat to seek help on a forum like this in the first place.[/color]

When I said that, I meant people in A's or in A marriages that were trying to further their ends here on the MB forum. Kookoo, to come here and work on the Harley program. Maybe my last above post will help. Particularly with all the antagonism that is reasonable to expect from the majority audience that this sordid subject draws... that being mainly BS's.

Jen you were right!

wanna step outside Plank?

I think I could take you

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

[color:"red"] BP [/color]

Actually I am not that personally offended by being called crazy as an outhouse rat. I grew up in Arkansas.

Larry

There are very real examples sadly, even from only the Jilly situation of WS an dOPs being encouraged by teh support of A-marriages.

Click here if your stomach can stand it then read the whole thread for the other OWs who purr and take support from this.

So you know the background, "Spectacles" was an active OW whose "BS" had returned to his BW to try to recover his marriage.

Spectacles pursued him mercilessly both on and off these boards until around this time Scott left his BW to be with Spectacles.

Read this single post , then read the many other posts that reinforce this on that thread and tell me its good marriagebuilding to abet affair marriages on these boards.

FH defended his position vociferously as you will read, but how can dogma be important when it encourages affairs ? Bearing in mind that MANY posters are not religious so couldn't care less about anyones religious dogma.

IWRA is another A-spouse that took great strength from this thread.

Then if you still have the stomach for it search on TheNewPinkPaige and see her purring at the legitimisation of a-marriages in related threads. then read the responses of BS and FWS to these folks embracing of A-marriage.

If my words had EVER been used to encourage the ending of a potentially rescuable non-affair marriage , whatever my dogma I would be devastated.

I tried to avoid dragging this up again as it will likely stir up more shouting, but several have considered my position to be opinion not supported by evidence.

Well, here's the evidence.

FH

You said :
You don't really think that I would tell such a person, "it's okay, go ahead and continue your affair," do you?

You don't need to. Your words here, clearly unintended to encourage active affairs have already done so.

Click here to see wher an active OW took encouragement from your words to Jilly

Although you may not have intended to encourage affairs, this is the effect that any affirmation of A-marriages, religious or otherwise always has on these boards IME.

Spectacles was / is an aggressive OW who pursued her OM / BS on these boards at around the time of your post.

I would seek to avoid this in future. That's all.

Bob, once again you seem to miss the entire point in your blanket condemnation of ANY adulterous marriage, including one to a former affair partner.

The thread in question that you keep referring to was specifically FOR JustJilly. She had accepted Christ since her affair just as you and I accepted Christ at some point in our lives. The POINT of Christian forgiveness of sin is that God forgives ALL of our sins, makes a new creation of believers, and "wipes the slate clean." The person is given a new heart that seeks after God DESPITE all their past sins (that they are painfully aware now were FIRST and foremost a sin against God).

There is NOTHING in any of my posts that "encourages an affair." Brother, as a fellow formerly Betrayed Spouse, I KNOW the pain of infidelity and I also know that not all "MB" advice is applicable to EVERY situation, especially when the application of that advice is based upon the OPINION of the person posting the advice.

I give you this simple testimony...my marriage would NOT have survived and my wife would not now be in love with me and deeply ashamed of her past poor choice of infidelity if it were not for God. It was HIS intervention and the willingness of both of us to surrender our emotions and reactions to HIM, trusting in His ability to resurrect something that was dead.

If you consider my belief and trust in God to be some sort of "misguided dogma," then I can't help your interpretation. All I can say is that I think you are wrong and that the person that I am most interested in concerning His opinion of me is God.

If you don't believe that a person has all of their sins forgiven when they accept Jesus Christ and that God, in His grace and mercy, creates a "new person" who seeks after God, then we do have differing views about God and what He provides for believers. If you DO believe those things, then why do you persist in trying to paint me as some "uncaring, unfeeling," person? As I have told you many times, I make decisions on who I may or may not be able to offer some help to on an INDIVIDUAL basis, not on some "set in concrete" set of Boundaries that denies the reality of God in someone's life, regardless of their past sins. You may well have a personal Boundary that is "set in concrete" concerning helping anyone who is in a marriage that began in adultery. You can even have a Boundary that parses that "adulterous marriage" to just the specific subset of an "adulerous affair partner marriage." You are completely entitled to have whatever Boundary you choose. But you are not, anymore than I am, to "free" to "impose" your Boundary on someone else, or on the entire system for that matter. State your position, but don't carry it over into a "dogmatic imposition of your Boundary" on someone else simply because you believe EVERYONE else should have the very same Boundary.

What IS "encouraged" in my posting is NOT affairs, but the forgiveness and new life that available to ALL who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

There have even been many Betrayed Spouses that I have "advised" to not "toss in the towel" despite their very tough situtations, including you. The "human worldview" might well be to end a marriage when the WS is so mean and resistant to reconciliation, or when the pain for the BS seems so overwhelming and the "strike back in anger" emotional reaction is so tempting, and for those without God, there may be no other choice that they can accept. But for believers, NOTHING is impossible for God and I encourage them to put their trust in God, no matter what the WS may eventually do, and let God help them recover their marriage if that is His will. It is one of the primary reasons why I lean so heavily upon God's promise to believers, and to believers only, that He gave us in Philippians 4:13. "I CAN do everything THROUGH Him (Jesus) who GIVES me (His unlimited) strength." (emphasis added)

I don't care who the Betrayed Spouse is, believer or unbeliever, infidelity will most often EXCEED our own limited human strength, and it is WITH God that we are able to endure. It is with God that we are able to forgive AS He has forgiven us for our own sins. It is with God that a "new creation" can rise from the ashes of sin against God.

It is HOPE, not support for affairs, that is the message I have tried to consistently make clear that is available to all IN Christ Jesus.

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." I am a sinner, Bob. But I am a sinner who's sins have been forgiven by and for Christ based upon what HE did and NOT based upon anything that I did, or could do.

It would seem from you post that you think that because there ARE people on MB who do not accept Christ that support for a fellow believer should not be offered simply because others might find that support to be "offensive" in their interpretation. I, obviously, disagree if that is really what you are trying to say. If it isn't, then the forgiveness of sins found in Christ and helping a fellow believer is not only right, but is the responsibility of fellow believer. Case by case, Bob. Individual by individual. It really can't be any other way, imho, as a fellow forgiven believer.

God bless.

Ok, I read carefully.

I asked:



Then I read Plank's comment:

"Crazy as an outhouse rat."

So there you go, those two affairees are crazy as an outhouse rat. My attempt to be logical failed to consider the brain warped, emotionally stupid and their ability to read what they want to read.

Thank you Bob for answering my questions.

Larry

FH:

I read Bob's references. It didn't take me long. I had avoided those threads for my own personal reasons.

I do not think he is attacking you or challenging your God given point of view. I will not either. In terms of forgiveness, I am with you.

The point is this, certain people out there who would appear to be crazy as an outhouse rat will twist your words to justify their insanity. You are not responsible for this. There is no fault attached to your position as I see it. It was not your intention to give aid and comfort to the enemy.

They choose to find aid and comfort from your words. As it now appears to me, they would read the following sentence:

Affair marriages almost never work. The dynamics of the affair itself insures this unhappy consequence.

They see only the bold words.

Larry

I would also point out that the starter of that thread was a notorious and shameless OW who trolled this board for years attacking regular members and promoting affairs under about 10 aliases. [I was attacked under every name for my anti-affair comments] The support of affair marriages suited her agenda very well. She was downright GLEEFUL about JustJilly and was even in email contact with her encouraging her on. IWRA/SARIE/BlessedTime, etc was banned from this board. BobPure is very correct when he states that the accommodation of affair marriages here encourages, enlivens and emboldens the sick minds of OP's.

LG Here:

JustUss, Are you out there? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Let me be clear in what my point is:

Is this site overrun with Affair Marriages seeking support?

No. I don't think so.

But there are alot of others seeking support that get ignored while we all beat each other up on this thread and Zog's thread.

Should someone in an AM be shunned/banished? That is why I had my reference to race. They are to be immediately shunned/banished because they are in a AM. Because once you start with this, then it isn't long until we start classifying others to go elsewhere.

Rather harsh, on it face, and against the TOS of this site.

And bias against another strictly for one part of thier being is discrimination. That is the reference. (Skin color is not a choice, but waywardness IS, True)

Can there be another forum on this site for them. Sure. JustUss can ask for that to happen. You can too. The site has changed in the past, and it will again.

Did I say that everyone around here didn't help, ever? No, I said that this thread and the ZOG thread were getting action and the people who were coming here for HELP for the first time, were getting ignored.

And I backed it up with the activity for the past four-five days.

GQII gets the most activity and the greatest number of members logged on at any time on this site. Close to 50% at any one time are on this forum on this site. At this time 75 out of 165 are on this forum.

So, let the AM threads die because they are ignored. Don't keep them alive arguing about whether they should be there or not.

JMHO

LG

It was a dreadful analogy, LG, and I am embarrassed for you. To equate RACE discrimination is ludicrous and to imply that others on this thread don't help others is outrageous. Many of us have been here doing the heavy lifting FOR YEARS while you were out having your affair.

And of course we are all "biased" here. We very discriminately select who to help and who not to help based on what we think have to offer. If I think I have nothing to offer, I don't post. I wasn't posting here and still had nothing to offer those posters you mentioned.

Perhaps you should take your own advice and quit posting here?

back in from the field, huh?

not bad at all larry

for a Texan, you're allright

Thankfully not yet.

However, as long as people remain quiet in real life and otherwise, one day it very well may be the case.

Would it help to make a distinction between:

1) Affair marriages in which the spouses do not have remorse for their past mistakes.

2) Affair marriages in which the spouse says well duh I should have known a cheater would cheat on me too, but it's too late for those past marriages to be reconciled, so what do I do now to save THIS marriage?

My previous comments had couple #2 in mind. It did not occur to me that anyone from couple #1 would visit these boards, but I haven't been here very long.

[color:"red"] LG [/color]



What ?????????

Are you suggesting that adultery is a part of someone's being, like eye color, and NOT a bad choice?

Is there something wrong with discriminating against bad choices?

Pep, mebbe it is in their GENES? **snort** <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

*raises hand*

NOW Lousy Golfer back peddals and writes:


Hmm ... And here's what he's trying to back peddal out of:

[/color]

[color:"black"] I'd like to point out that in that point in time when you wrote the above in Blue, MOST of the people that were posting on this thread were vets. People (hypocrites according to you) that have been supporting MB for YEARS.[/color]

Pep, mebbe it is in their GENES? **snort**

No...the problem is that they took it OUT of their jeans...

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

committed

MEDC:

Please refain from commenting on the status of my M. When you have been in a long-term relationship that survives, I will be able to accept your comments.

Mel's, Pep's and others, if they wish to comment, those I can respect.

So, please, leave it alone.

LG

Resilent:

Valid point, I was rather broad in my earlier brush, and you pointed that out.

My second post was more to the point I was trying to make.

LG

for reference

I am UNmedicated so far today

about to go take my DRUGS

BEWARE !!!!!!

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for fixing consequences when you quoted <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Larry

and when YOU have been a BS I will accept your having anything to say about how the matters at hand impact a BS. And the only reason you have a long term relationship, is that your wife chose to forgive your transgressions.

Mel:


I am gonna go hide. Mel is in guilt trip mode today. Be afraid people, be very afraid. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Larry

Naw, Mel is in REALITY CHECK MODE directed towards a certain FWS who implied that others are not helping around here. If he feels "guilty" about that true statement, then the shoe must fit. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

hopefully she has her britches on today! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well said ML... and I owe a lot to those people.

Pep:

This was the entire quote:



I am not saying that waywardness is in the genes, (however, it is out of the jeans.. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />.) But if we start excluding others for whatever one thing we might find offensive, pretty soon alot of us will be excluded here.

And needless to say, considering my status, I would be next in line, wouldn't I?

And as for this:



That's true. And when Flamingo found this website and directed me here, it destroyed my A. (Harley's info, not the discussion board, however!)
AND if I/we had found it earlier, it would have destroyed the A earlier.

Sorry to be late for the party. But I didn't get an invitation. And Flamingo certainly didn't like hers.....

Sir,

There is a BIG difference between a FWS and an Affair Marriage couple. The difference is within the F

Jo

MEDC - you should know better than to resort to the same things you object to.

BTW, the last time I checked, I am a former BS and have a recovered marriage following my wife's very long term, very involved, affair. But I'm a "dope" and a "church of one" according to you, so where exactly is your ability to accept comments? Is it only with those who agree with your position and/or opinion? I am NOT defending LG, but I am curious about your criteria for "acceptance of someone's comments" who you might even disagree with. Consistancy and walking the talk is what I am having trouble sorting out from your various comments.

fh... I see from the re: mkeverydaycnt that you have responded to a few of my posts... as I have told you before, it is my choice to ignore your posts at this time. There has been too much "stuff" between us and frankly I was not willing to allow it to continue.

Good luck with avoiding this in the future, Bob. I truly wish it could be avoided. It's been my experience that active Other Women and active Wayward Spouses don't need any encouragement from anyone, they have all of it that they need in themselves and are NOT supported or encouraged by anyone here on MB, or by any comments of someone to another member that they can twist to their own use. That they CAN use anything to support, justify, or rationalize their behavior is "normal operating mode" for the alien personality and the evil minded.

So lets all just be complacent. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Only the MODS have the power to "exclude" anyone from this board so this is a moot point. Otherwise, I have a choice about whom I will or won't post to. As does every other poster here. I will usually ignore someone who offends me; that is my prerogative. I am very discriminate about who I post to based upon whether or not I can or WANT TO help them. I won't help someone save an affair marriage, for example, because saving the marriage is not the issue, IMO.

FH you said

There is NOTHING in any of my posts that "encourages an affair."

I agree with you and explained that in my post FH. I do not accuse you of deliberately abetting affairs.
But it is incontrovertably true and factual as demonstrated by the link I gave you that your innocent words in defence of certain A marriages ENCOURAGED OWs IN THEIR AFFAIRS.

This is why I think A-marriages should be counselled in a place away from where this consequence is less likely to down heart others.

I do not argue with your biblical assertions. I don't really care about that to be honest at this time.

I care that provably ANY words said in apparrent defence of A-marriages under any circunstances does serve to encourage WS and OPs and discourage BS vulnerable BS and FWS.

This is why I said you have "only" your dogma , FH. it was not a slating from me but it is SO IMPORTANT to you that you just cannot see the wood for the scriptural trees.

Can you see that from the evidence I posted, just discussing your view of the forgivability of some A marriages in GQ2 ENCOURAGED at least three WS / OWs ?

This is why I would have such discussions, holy or secular, in a quieter place. No shunning. No denial of forgiveness.

Just practical marriagebuilding for all faiths.

Do you see this FH ? By preaching regarding A-marriages in this place, however innocently, you provably hurt the vulnerable and aid the wicked ( or misguided) as do aother no doubt well intentioned aiders.

I am not arguing with your theology at this time. That the venue is clearly anti-marrigebuilding is my immediate worry.

* edited in response to your "good luck" post

When I have need of discussing something that may dishearten the mass of MB poster, or have a question that may appear to encourage waywards I take it offline by email, to friends and associates ( as I have with yourself in the past FH) or I study.

I see the prime reason for contributing to the MB boards as being marrigebuilding by spreading hope and restored fidelity using Dr. Harleys methods allied with my experiences.

I see no reason to "speak a discouraging word".

I think it is clear that almost any discussion of affair marriges OTHER than their extreme non-viability is discouraging to the righteous and encouraging to waywards.

Resilent:

This is true:



But NOT that big a difference when it becomes time to start excluding people.


Someone else posted this: but I could not find it, so I will again:

FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE COMMUNISTS AND I DID NOT SPEAK OUT BECAUSE I WAS NOT A COMMUNIST

THEN THEY CAME FOR THE TRADE UNIONS AND I DID NOT SPEAK OUT BECAUSE I WAS NOT A TRADE UNIONIST

THEN THEY CAME FOR THE JEWS AND I DID NOT SPEAK OUT BECAUSE I WAS NOT A JEW

THEN THEY CAME FOR ME AND THERE WAS NO ONE LEFT TO SPEAK OUT FOR ME

~ Pastor Niemoeller

Within our own little community here, I think that folks are speaking out on both sides, and for good and fair reasons.

But threads die here because the poster never returns, or the community does not feel like helping that poster.

But to pre-empt a poster and exclude them is scary to me.

Ignore it, and it dies. There is a reason why there are over 49,000 threads in this forum alone.

So, with this, I will exit this thread. So that it may die, along with the ZOG thread.

If the MODS decide to follow up on BP's Poll and start a new forum, so be it.

LG

oh brother. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Affair marriages are now being compared to REAL VICTIMS such as the Jews in the holocaust. Now I have heard everything. Good grief...

Aphrodite

A good point !

Most A-marriage folks say contrite words while staying in their a-marriages. Some folks would say that its OK if the A-marriges are many years old, some would say its OK if either or both the a-spouses have become Christian ssince their A-marriage and still others think if the original BS' have moved on and don;t care anymore its OK. And then there are folks who do not think Amarriages are EVER legitimate.

My point is not that this forum takes an "official" stance on the legitimacy of an A-marriage, just that to discuss them in GQ2 demonstrably encourages waywards and OPS ( who want nothing more than a legitimate A-marriage with their OP) and disheartens BS and FWS who are trying the hard hards of recovery.

I would have the points you raise made and discussed somewhere quieter on MB than GQ2 so that interested parties could help m learn and contribute without inadvertently encouraging wayward thinking.

Unfortunately ANY apparrent legitimisation of an A marriage gives solace to the wayward mind, it seems, they don;t get to read the small print regarding the differentiating attributes you state in your post.

Thanks for this view ! Interesting indeed.

LG

But threads die here because the poster never returns, or the community does not feel like helping that poster.

With hundreds of posters joining these boards each week, and thousands of posts each day, I guess even YOU apply some selection critera to whom you help else you'd have whole lot more than 1100 posts. Care to share YOUR triage algorithm with us ?

But to pre-empt a poster and exclude them is scary to me.

So what would you do to prevent the PROVEN encouragement of waywards that occurs when A-marriages are supported on GQ2 ?

I've seen lost of venom from you towards me and others, little in the way of ideas.

Or would you have marriagebuilders disheartened and waywards encouraged by continuing to support A-marriages on GQ2 ?

Bob ~ how do we see the results of the poll?

Good lord. I guess it was bound to happen once ones position becomes desperate. Now the AFFAIR MARRIAGE couples are VICTIMS and being compared to Holocaust survivors.

Amazing, and yet sadly predictable considering the source.

Time to send him back out to the field. The horses need the company.

I think you have to vote then you can see the results MF

Being an avid equestrian, please don't inflict that on them. They are innocent.

you're right...okay...I will spare the horses.

I apologize for my comment above. It was disrespectful and uncalled for. <thanks inner voice>

Sincerely,
Jo

Oh don't be ridiculous Resilient. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

No one said anything about being complacent.

Intolerant and abusive of others with differing opinions, yes, that has happened. Sometimes justified and sometimes just a given poster's Taker run amok.

Thanks, b0b. I didn't realize this affected only one board and not the entire forum. (Or it it one forum on the entire board? Don't know if I have my terminology straight.)

Golfer, your analogy to race is bad but did you mean to say that one's past (much like one's race) can't be changed and that once the damage is done it only makes sense to focus on the present and future? It is true that there is no time machine or rewind button, unfortunately <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Aphrodite

There are MANY wildly differing "rooms" in Dr Harley's house that offer community help in MANY different areas of life and relationships !

"General Questions 2" has become the "de facto" affairs help town square. Its where folks are most likely to get quickest help, though it may be less thoughful and prolonged than in other places.

Other boards have less, more specialised traffic.

I propose to have A-marriges worked out in one of those quieter, more specialized places so that any folks hitting the "town square" might not be given a non marrigebuilding message inadvertently.

Other folks, as you can see by the poll results, have different opinions.

Does support hurt vulnerable readers? yes 79%

Does support encourage WS and OPs? yes 68%

If support:

1. On GQII just like any other 17%
2. With a thread warning: 13%
3. Somewhere else on MB 31%
4. Not at all: 38%

I do see a bit of conflict in that 62% believe in some sort of help, yet 70-80% see that help as hurting or encouraging. Interesting...

APH - Recovery is historically where you see the longer, more reflective help sessions. I hung out there exclusively for a very long time because frankly, I was taken aback by some of the more, uh, angry threads that always seem to have their day on GQII. Of late I do not see the level of postings on recovery that was there a short year or so ago.

Larry

So what would be the 'received' position on a poster who is advised and helped for a good long time, before it slowly dawns on that poster that theirs is an affair-marriage?

Not all people are aware of what an EA is; nor how damaging it is to existing marriages to breach non-sexual boundaries. It's only after a while here that they grasp the nature of what they did.

I'm thinking specifically of Alphin, who was devastated when she grew to feel that hers counted as an AM. (She hadn't been quite married to her BF, but had cheated on him with his best friend, and dumped him pretty callously). She didn't hang round long after that.

There must be many more cases here who don't own up quite so openly as Alphin. Presumably we have innocently helped to recover a fair few AMs? How many are we aiding and abetting right now?


TA

Bob, I understand that is how your bias on this subject colors your interpretation.

However, Spectacles was an OW LONG before the JJ thread. Several times she was called out, and called to task by many members for her stance, including being asked WHY she was bothering to post on MB. I, for one, never even wrote her one post to my recollection. Can you hazard a guess as to why I didn't? That she chose to say "amen" to a post I made to someone else regarding forgiveness IN CHRIST is immaterial. I have no idea if she is a believer, though I doubt it. I have no recollection of her ever even stating what she believed in.

ANYONE who is in that sort of mindset can, and usually will, find anything they can to CONTINUE justifying in their minds what they have already chosen to do. It had, and has, nothing to do with the JJ thread or any of my posts. They certainly don't need any "help" from any post on MB to a completely different person in a completely different situation (i.e., truly repentant of their past poor choices and seeking to more surrendered to their Lord), and such comments DO NOT cause them to be OW, or Wayward Spouse for that matter.

One more time, Bob, I UNDERSTAND your position and your argument. I disagree with it on a CASE-BY-CASE basis.




I have to admit that I don't recall 3 OW's, but I'm sure you are correct. If you could reference them I could do a little research, or you could provide links to the specific threads you are referring to. I'm assuming that Spectacles is one of the 3, but I don't recall the other three Other Women.

TA

Alphin wasn't married when she quit on her BF. Thats cheating not adultery. Cheating is bad, but its not adultery uness you are married.

If a fiance cheats Dr Harley advises to quit while the betrayed person is ahead. No recovery attempt. I would agree with that. He states in the basic concepts part of this site that "trying out" many potential spouses before you choose one to marry is a good thing ( although not promiscuously obviously !). It os marrige that is the big commitment not living together.

I have no doubt that many posters have marriages that began in affairs - but if they do not disclose this :

1) We can't know cos they haven't told us
2) it does not have the demonstrable anti-marriagebuilding effect on bystanders just by its situation.

As for me , It takes a lot out of me to invest in those cases where I do. It is information hard earned and offered in prayer. If a petitioner lies to me about their circumstances it invalidates my advice AND , frankly, insults me.

I would withdraw my support at once and suggest that the cas ebe moved to a quieter place so as to avoid any potential anti-marrigebuilding effects.

ne more time, Bob, I UNDERSTAND your position and your argument.

Sir forgive me, but it is not aparrent from your replies to me that you do understand my position else you would not advocate assisting ANY a-marriages on GQ 2. You would differentiate by case ( saved or not for example).

I say that evidence sugests that ANY a-marriage encourages wayward behaviour just by it being suppoted on GQ2. I have written ad nauseum on this now FH.

And to abet only saved A-marriges is to select to hurt only those BS and FWS who are not Christians or those who quite credibly believe a competing theological dogma on their status.

That is quite unnacceptable to me.

We will never agree with each other over this issue of supporting A-marriages on GQ2.

TA,

Please note that my above quote includes "knowingly".

If a poster I had been supporting eventually disclosed their marriage is an AFFAIR MARRIAGE, I would end all support of them. Pretty simple really.

Jo

I doubt very much I have helped save, truly save, any affair marriages during my time posting here at MB.

Affair Marriages aren't savable using MB principles.

Sure we may help the lying BS save their affair relationship for a bit. But the techniques won't have much staying power. The best they can hope to achieve is a quick jump back into their romantic fantasy by adding drama and excitement to it trying to do these plans.

But in the end...they quite nearly all end and, if not, they continue on in misery.

I doubt very much any affair marriages are going to recovery properly from a affair. No way are both spouses going to buy into the MB program. It's not possible.

If they come here and lie...it is only them that will suffer [more] in the long run.

I'm reminded of a friend whose wife had an affair with the male counterpart of their best couple friends. They had hung out for years, oblivious and complacent to the fact that these couple friends, seeming so in love, were, in fact, an affair marriage. Their kids hung out together as well and they lived quite nearby. So after the affair is revelled and exposed and busted up. What happens a year later. The OM's affair wife is apologizing for her husband, they've "recovered" though they did absolutely nothing to really recover except deny it was that bad and bury their heads in the sand. Repeated requests for NO CONTACT are denied by both OM and his wife. OM stalks out BH's kids, OM stalks WW (now very FWW) in grocery stores and around town. OM even calls my BH friend asking to be friends again. OM misses him and the affair is apparently water under the bridge. They are flabergasted how they can be so mean as to not resume their friendship.

Time does not clear fog. At some point, when you stay in the fog too long, you can never again reclear your thinking without a LONG HARD ONEROUS INDIVIDUAL JOURNEY. Divorce is the BEST option.

Simply...affair marriages do not need to be banished at all. They need to be referred to the divorced/divorcing board. They need to be referred to the Harleys for professional help. Compassion calls for them to be told MB won't work for them. It just won't, whether they lie about their status or not.

Mr. Wondering

[b] [color:"purple"] THE solution of choice in my opinion! [/color]

This is almost verbatim my exact situation. Down to the last detail.

At the end, here, and will probably kill the thread, but here's my thoughts:

Does supporting A-marriages on GQ 2 hurt Vulnerable readers?
Yes.

*Caveat: Even though my current marriage did not break up marriages in the traditional sense (both divorces filed, then-spouses had moved on to others before we met each other)... I feel that to glorify how my relationship began, before the divorces were final, is unethical and *may be harmful* to some here. The chance of harm is enough that I mostly don't participate anymore unless it is a specific and/or unique situation and will be helpful, not harmful.

Does supporting A-marriages on GQ2 encourage wayward spouses and OPs ?

No, if what you mean is "Does it encourage AP's to marry?" Nobody in their right mind would use MB as a yardstick to measure whether or not to marry the AP.

If you mean "Does it encourage AP's already IN marriages that they can receive help here?"... then yes, it does encourage, obviously.

If affair marriages are to be supported on these boards they should:
Other ( please add your suggestion in a post)

Here's my suggestion:

Nobody should be forced to contribute in (or worse, embrace) something they ethically do NOT believe in.

It's up to the Harley's to decide what they want on their forum... and then to let us know.

FWIW: I had occasion to communicate with Steve Harley years ago, and he told me I was a welcomed, valuable member here. Again, my situation is not exactly the same as some mentioned in this thread, but I have always accepted responsibility for the fact that I rushed into a relationship that I was not legally, emotionally or ethically ready to get into... therefore, it is what I consider to be an A-marriage. Others disagree, as I have stated previously.

Thanks NB 2. Useful to have a protagonist's view.

NB_II - personally I consider your situation to be an error of judgement but not an AM. You are a valuable contributer here.

agree 100%

Oh come on Bob. I said I understand your position, I did not say that I agree with it on a 100% basis.

There, are for example, a lot of Muslims (as we discussed once before) who believe that it's okay to kill lots of people who don't agree with them. I understand their position and what they base it upon, but I don't agree with them or their chosen means to implement their position.

Neither do I agree with a blanket refusal to help someone who is in what is termed an "affair marriage." I would agree in some cases and disagree in others. It is "case by case, individual by individual.

CAN some others potentially have their feelings hurt if someone is offered help? Yes. Is that potential restricted to just "affair marriages?" No. I've had people get "offended" and "hurt" by mentioning God and God's plan for marriage. So it is NOT limited to just "affair marriages." I have been offended and hurt by comments from others sometimes, especially from some who themselves claim to be forgiven sinners in Christ Jesus.
If "offensiveness" and the potential that "Someone" might (because we can always find examples of someone who HAS been hurt or offended) be hurt by a given topic becomes the "measure of whether or not someone should post on GQ II, or any other forum for that matter, then it is time to include in the Rules of the System, what subjects can and cannot be disgussed "for the good of all." THAT list might be longer than you think.




Yes you have, and I have repeatedly said that I understand what you are saying and that I disagree with your conclusion, especially as it relates to covering ALL circumstances.

As for the "evidence" that renders your definitive conclusion, I have not seen that evidence. I have seen opinion. I have even seen the occasional post from some who agree with your contention and who are "new," or at least relatively "new." I have also seen posts from "new" or relatively "new" posters who have disagreed with your contention. Both sides on the same issue.

I contend that your conclusion is better supported by societal acceptance in general and NOT just because it happens to be seen on MB's GQ II forum. It is society, not MB or anyone trying to help someone in a current marriage that began as an adulterous marriage, that "encourages wayward behavior."




Bob, think about what you are saying. I am NOT "selecting" to hurt anyone. To those who have not accepted Christ I have the same message I always have had, "Seek ye FIRST the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you." As much as anyone can "object" to a Christian message, I can "object" to their attempts to limit even the discussion of what God has said about any subject.

I am NOT responsible for their feelings anymore than you are. By the same token, I am NOT responsible for the reactions of people who are opposed to God and Jesus Christ as the ONLY way in which God has provided for our sins to be forgiven and for us to go to Heaven instead of our current destination without Christ, He11.

Your point that to tell someone that ALL of their sins are forgiven when they truly accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior MAY be perceived as "offensive" to some, perhaps even to many, is no excuse for NOT proclaiming the Gospel Message to anyone who sincerely is seeking answers. If others don't like that, that is their problem, not mine, for "eavesdropping" on a conversation between two other people. To the believers, their sins ARE forgiven by God, and we can do no less since God also forgave all of our sins. All Christians BEGIN living their lives for God from that point of acceptance forward. There is NO "undoing" the past, just repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, and a "changed worldview" of how one should live their remaining days on this earth.




I tend to agree with your statements, though I will "waffle" a little on the absolute of "never." I put that word choice of "never" up there along with statements like "if you cheat on me, I am 'outta here' immediately, no chance for remaining married." Circumstances and people CAN change. It is by no means a certainty, but it IS a possibility because others HAVE done so.

God bless.

FH - I'd be pretty interested in knowing what your criteria for deciding to help or not is.

I rest my case. Case-by-Case, Individual by Individual, and NOT a blanket application of the "rule" that ANYONE who marries a person they were involved with WHILE still married IS committing adultery, having an affair, and is by definition NOW in an "affair marriage."

NB II - You ARE a valuable member of MB and just as worthy of help, and of helping others you see in need, as any other member of MB. Thank you for your bravery in putting your own situation out there for potential comments, favorable and unfavorable. You are one brave lady!

God bless.

BK - why? Why would you be interested now? I have my criteria, you have yours (as you have vehemently stated on several occasions). Although I have to admit you seemingly have gone against your stated criteria in your post to NB II, so I am genuinely interested in why you seem to be at all interested in my criteria after so many denunciations of one application of my criteria.

FH I am genuinely interested in why you would support say JJ and not support MFZ. I am INTERESTED in your criteria - it's not a slam.

I have not gone against anything in my post to NBII - that would be your interpretation of my criteria for an affair marriage, not my actual criteria.

I personally do not feel that a person waiting on a decree of divorce... awaiting just the paperwork that has been filed by a cheating spouse is in fact cheating if they date. Never did... never will.

Interesting MEDC, how you choose to parse things. Dating while legally married is...what?

Marrying the person you dated while still legally married...creates what?

Very illuminating.

FH... you really have a thick head huh? You have responded to me yet again and you are and shall remain on ignore. All I see from you is... you are ignoring this user. And that's the way I like it.
Thanks for what I know were compliments though.

It's a gray area FH - particularly given the requirements for divorce vary so much from juristiction. In bible days all a husband had to do was write out a certificate of divorce.

It certainly isn't the smartest thing to do but it seems a different situation to me.

One very good rule of thumb...

You are either married or you are not married! There is no "grey" area.

If a person can pull themselves aside and say "If I ran off today to Vegas and got married, would it be legal?" and the answer is "no"...then any relationship outside of their marriage is an affair.

It is that simple!

It is the height of the fog-bound to try to find a grey area. There really is none. None Biblically. And none legally. At least not in the great Commonwealth of Virginia!

You can separate from your spouse here (not legally!), spend 8 months apart while waiting for the minimum year...and then hook up with someone new. And guess what? Your spouse can have you charged with adultery!!

And they would be correct.

If we can individually decide when our marriage is over...then my wife never committed adultery! Because she said all along to everyone that she had decided the marriage is over...that she was done with the marriage.

Problem was, the marriage wasnt done with her!

On affair marriages...I again get caught in a situation where no one here can adequately define it. They cut NBII a break (and by the way I agree NBII should be here!!) but not JJ. All off a set of arbitrary rules.

The point is...this website should be about marriage. Since no one here can adequately show what an affair marriage is...and even if they can, they cant explain fully why they are not legitimate in at least some cases (as I and others have outlined before)...then why does this argument continue.

I can guarantee this...

There will be more "affair marriages" come here. MB will not stop them from being here. It isnt against the rules, nor the intent of these boards.

So, it may be time for many here on all sides to just agree to disagree. Because these arguments arent going to change the situation.

Thanks for your opinion MM. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hey MM... every state is not like Virginia regarding dating while legally separated... and sorry, I don't agree with your take on things anyway.

And as far as agreeing to disagree, not on this topic. Sorry... but this battle will be fought with the keyboard IMO.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

heck, in PA you can't be charged with adultery for giving or receiving oral or anal sex. According to statute, it has to be vaginal intercourse....and that's while MARRIED and living together.... freaky huh!

see, the laws don't make any sense. I follow what I believe to be right...

Thinking further MM, I understand where you are coming from. I would not date until my divorce was final either.

But I see this in a whole different ballpark to someone who divorced specifically to marry their affair partner. It's not the same IMO.

Doesnt matter what the law says, MEDC! At least not if you are Christian. And even with the law...in states with liberal separation laws...am I allowed to remarry while separated? I am sure the answer to my question is NO. Which means I am still married. Which means I am still committing adultery. It's like being pregnant...you either are or you are not.

On the battle...all I can say is that you are working against MB and the reason it is here. Your "battle" is your own. Sure, it is okay to express your opinion. But, when it becomes a battle that is really not in keeping with the principles of this website nor the authors of the website, then I wonder why this "battle" continues???

Again, I respect the differences in opinion. Much of the opinions held that are opposite of mine now, I did hold before. I understand the argument.

But, the mods and the powers that be here havent weighed in. Ever wonder why?

Agreed! The intent is entirely different. I do agree with you.

The result is the same, though. Both are relationships born out of adultery.

dating is not adultery.
having sex is adultery.

It's funny MM because I used to hold your view till I fully understood the argument.



I note they haven't weighed in on either side yes.

.

Of course you do! So does everyone else here. Again, the law says we can kill humans at the earliest stages of life. Dont make much sense. But it is the law.

Doesnt change the fact that a human being is being killed.

The law may say we can hold people as slaves. Still doesnt make it right. Still makes it immoral.

The law may say we can sleep around on our spouses. Still doesnt mean when we do that we arent committing adultery.

The law is NOT the end-all-be-all arbiter of what is!!

What??? So, even though I am happily married...it is okay if I date?? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

That was kinda my point MM - especially given the differences in "law" from one jurisdiction to another. In the bible, the man only had to give his wife a certificate or say I divorce you 3 times. Poof. All gone.

hey MM... look up the definition of adultery in every state... DID I SAY IT WAS OKAY TO DATE IN YOUR SITUATION??? NO.

I laughed at this...because I said the same thing about the other position. That I held it until I fully understood the situation!


RIGHT! And they wont. Which was the reason I said what I said. Those that want to push these folks off of the boards here do so on their own.

Which is why there has to be a higher law...someone above it all...that defines adultery, etc. Otherwise, then there really is o such thing as adultery...because we can just make up the definition as we go along!

As are those who insist on their presence here. The position is quite clear that anyone from either side of the debate is free to express their opinion.

BINGO. I agree <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Who cares what the law says, MEDC? The law is not the end-all-be-all arbiter of the definition of marriage or divorce or adultery. It isnt.

Some states say it is okay to marry two people of the same gender. And just because the law says that it is a marriage does NOT make it a marriage!!

Dont get stuck on the law, MEDC!

But, if you do want to stay with the law...I again ask the question...no matter what state you are in...if you are separated, can you marry? If you cannot...why not?

The answer? You cant because you are STILL MARRIED! And if yo uare still married...and you have sex with a person who is not your spouse...then that IS the definition of adultery. No matter what the law says!!

Absolutely! But there are some here that dont believe that!

Personally, I don't think ANYONE should have sex with anyone they are not married to.

And in today's society, that is a radical idea! Go figure!

We are in total agreement BK!

There are many here who believe their presence here is hurtful and they could choose to get help in a less harmful venue yes. The poll results would support that interpretation.

And that may be. But do the Harley's agree?

And in the end, does the poll really matter? will it change the way things are done here?

My answer would be "no." There will be those that think a particular poster is in an affair marriage and will want them to go anywhere else than here. There are others that believe differently, and will engage that individual.

It will always be this way. The issue is...will this argument continue?

The results were predictable MM.

It will always be this way.

I have no doubt the arguement will continue. I certainly will continue to post if for no other reason than to show new posters who will undoubtedly be horrified by affair marriage legitimisation that not only do not all posters sanction AM's but that those that do are in a small minority.

Anyone ever ask the Harleys what they think?

And I agree that the poll turned out as expected.

But just because there is a majority doesnt mean they are correct!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well it's their board MM. If they want to make a comment about this issue I am sure they will but given they have chosen not to do that, I can only assume they don't mind the debate.

Um Really. WOW. The majority can be wrong? WOW. Who knew. LOL. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

doesn't mean the majority isn't correct either.

They dont!! Agreed! Just interested, since they are the experts on this and as you said, this is their board, what their call might be on so called "affair marriages."

Agreed.

Well we already know that they do counsel people in affair marriages don't we. But they don't do it in full view of a forum do they? They do it privately.

To be fair, they dont counsel ANYONE in full view of a forum. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

True. LOL

I have been following this thread with great interest. I think there are several different questions being discussed. Bob’s original point was asking the board their opinion on what should be done with A marriages on the board but I think, like someone said a while ago, that it’s a moot point since posters do not have a say in how the board is set up. Still, I think the discussion had to happen sometime and I think it is a very important subject for everyone to have an opinion on.

I have listened to Dr. Harley every day (since the show is rebroadcast at least) and he has mentioned the board a couple of times. He always says that it is a space where people can get together and discuss things, but that he himself does not participate or even read it. It’s a space he provides on the website. I haven’t ever heard him recommend the discussion board to callers, although they always recommend the web site.
On the other hand, although he will counsel all sorts, it IS HIS JOB. And not his personal preference. What I’ve heard him say about what he prefers is that he likes “the worst cases”.

Another thing that he always says is that the first thing that he asks when a couple affected by infidelity comes to him, is whether the BS WANTS to save the marriage, and this he has explained many times. He has said he would divorce if his wife were unfaithful. He always says that infidelity is the worse thing your spouse can do to you, and yet, because people asked him to help them save their marriages in spite of the infidelity, and because he saw that it could be done, he has specialized in this area.

I have noticed he is not as optimistic with A marriages as with normal marriages.
Another thing Dr. Harley is consistent about is that whatever happened in the past may explain the present, but should not be dwelt upon and the steps to achieving a good marriage are basically the same. What does make a difference is that he predicts which people will be more likely to follow those steps based on their past. A marriages are based on dishonesty, approved and enabled by both spouses, so I guess that applying radical honesty and transparency is more difficult in thee cases, and that’s why they have worse prognosis.

When there are no children, and there is cheating or infidelity, Dr. Harley seems to lean towards divorce.

This what I have understood from the radio show.

When there is a very hot topic on the board he eventually finds out and I’ve heard him give his opinion on the show too. But we’ll have to wait for that, because he’s away at this moment.

I have got time now to try and express my personal position. Noodle said it better than I ever could.

The following is unrelated to the topic of this thread, but I want to share it here anyway for what it's worth:

Hubby and I are friends with a Christian couple (both psychologists) who are in an AM for 12 years now… They are much older than us. We always knew it was the 2nd marriage for both of them, but only found out last year that their M was the result of an A (we didn’t found it out from themselves and we’re not sure if they know that we know.)

We became friends with this couple after I received IC from the woman more than 5 years ago. She became my “mentor” and also helped me and my H to deal with our infertility issues emotionally. Especially after my H lost his job, we received tremendous emotional & moral support from both her and her H during that 3 year period.

But...learning about the way their M started was a big disappointment to me...especially since we have become so close friends with them...and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around this... I just look at them totally differently now... I will not judge or condemn them (it’s not my place) and they are still friends we value, love and care about, but we simply don’t view them anymore as this “perfect” couple and people we used to admire so much... I used to view her as my “role model”...but not anymore... That was a big loss to me.

So I guess in the end an A (and AM) can indirectly hurt a lot more people than just the people who’re victims and have been affected by the A or AM themselves...even if it’s years later.

You know, I read the first few pages of replies and just couldn't continue as it was starting to sicken me. Y'all can be just as judgmental, arrogant, self-righteous and bossy as you want, but you have no right at all to decide who posts to MB. That is the job of the Harleys and the moderators.

Some of you think you are "permanent" members and should have some say in the operation of this board. As far as that goes, once you start paying some of the monthly costs for operation, then you have that right, but until then we have TOS for use and moderators to enforce. You all are *users*.

Once you've succeeded in pulling off this stupid prank, how long will it be before you decide non-Christian marriages aren't valid either and try to force non-believers off the site?

Are any of you adults? Even moderately-functioning people know how to avoid threads that offend them. Most of you can't seem to do that. You have some kind of overriding urge to jump into every situation and demonstrate your superiority of morals. If you burn your hand on the stove enough times, you avoid putting your hand on the stove. You don't start a campaign to ban stoves.

If one is spending so much time here that they've run out of people to help and need to start "administering" things, maybe it's time to get off the board once in a while and get back to real life.

Fine, thanks, and you ?

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

MEDC has spoken. He has given all of us his opinion. It is HIS opinion and he is entitled to hold whatever opinions he wishes. But I am fairly certain that a LOT of MB members would disagree with his opinion. Furthermore, he makes it clear that he bases his opinions and judgments on his FEELINGS. He is entitled to do so, as so many (such as Wayward Spouses) have done in order to rationalize and justify their decisions and choices. In his judgment, "married" doesn't MEAN married if someone is in the process of getting a divorce. An interesting viewpoint, but why go through the process of getting a divorce if it really "never mattered and never will" so that someone IS "free" to date and/or marry someone else?

So what is it that might be driving MEDC's vendetta against certain "Affair Marriage" members posting on GQ II and MB in general? He reveals this "difference" of opinion, that is decidedly against MB positions in his following posts.




Civil laws are NOT what we have been discussing, and MEDC knows that. Perhaps that is WHY he is so adamantly against a biblically based position, he wants to make up his own rules as he goes along. As long as MEDC agrees with it, "it's" right, if he disagrees with "it," it's wrong. End of discussion, MEDC is the highest authority and the only arbiter of what is correct and what is incorrect.




And here we have your definitive judgment MEDC. Nevermind that this position, this criteria that you apply, is decidedly OPPOSED to both the Scripture (God's position) and to MB (ever hear of Emotional Affairs MEDC?).

Adultery, as most of us know or have learned, includes far more that just sex, or vaginal sex if he wants to put forth the Pennsylvania "standard" as THE standard of what constitutes adultery, and thereby an Affair.

He can continue to use ad hominem attacks on me because of my belief in Christians following God regardless of our personal "feelings." But it is interesting to see the real MEDC and WHY he chooses to harass others who hold a differing opinion on this very difficult and very sensitive subject.

Double standard? Not even close. Adultery is ONLY having sex and dating while still married is NOT adultery or an affair. MEDC has spoken
Perhaps a few others may also disagree with him. Perhaps not. Each member will have to choose for himself or herself.

Are you really hearing what you are saying MEDC, or is your emotional fog so think it filters out all but your own opinion?

Mind you, although heartpain may have ticked the poll option marked " didn't read or understand the question but ranted anyway" he / she is certainly right by inference - this hasn't evolved into the most mature and progressive discussion has it ? Lots of shouting. Lots of not bothering to read the basic premises on either side.

Perhaps this issue is too emotive to discuss ? And again as HP reminded us unless we agree a process between us, that Dr H doesn't disagree with, Dr H and the mods aren't going to impose a new procedure on us.

So we're left with many folks being avoidably hurt and some folks not caring about that or about the majority of voters against that and posting to A-marriages in GQ2 anyway because they want to.

Not good really.But what to do ? Its a standoff and it is actually encouraging support for the A-marriages posters despite the quite surprising antipathy towards that shown by the poll respondents.

hmm. A strange happenstance for sure.

If the above are true it means that I have never committed infidelity… <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> Especially since I’ve never “dated” the XOM – not even for a cup of coffee. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Dating while married (even if the couple is separated and in the process of divorce) is adultery…emotional adultery at least.

Suzet

You identify the underlying problem here.
Everybody is hitting each other with their opinions. backup up by state legislature, one bible dogma or another, life epxerience or conflict avoidance.
The temptation to hit and counter hit each other with these has overshadowed the issue I tried to raise.

If Christians of one flavour decide one sort of a-marriage is OK to help as its legitimised by their preferred dogma they're happy but the other flavour of christians, other faiths and atheists are likely to not be as they'll have their own agenda.

The "mb-liberals" want to help all comers, inter species and intergalactic marriages probably and the "mb-conservatives" want A-apouses flogged weekly and thrown out of this house.

And quietly, while all this d1ck-stetching happens , broken hearted people who fear an A-marriage as their worst nightmare and who are too broken after d-day to discriminate in what they read just see that names they respect are helping a "marriage" that is like their worst nightmare and are disheartened. Also entitled WS and OPs see ten year, thirty year a-marriages being legitimised by the same respected posters and purr and cluck at their course of action.

This is actually proved if you read the links I provided earlier. Its not opinion.

* sigh *

We as a board are not mature enough to fix this, as i had hoped we were. It takes only one poster to help an a-marriage in GQ2 for the disheartening message to be sent. Just ONE. and there will always be ONE , unless there is a a directive from Dr H.

And we will certainly not get such a directive.

So my words have been twisted and my message lost or misunderstood. Either that or some folks value helping the few A-marriages in public more than they value protecting the hearts of the many broken folks who will be hurt by their actions.

I genuinely don't know what to do now.

Typical self-righteous egotism...I read the topic subject, your initial post *and* the poll questions...I found the entire lot smacking of censorship and megalomania. There wasn't a poll option for that.

Since your limited perception blocked any understanding of my post, here it is in a nutshell...It really doesn't matter whether you or some majority of posters here approve of affair marriages or not. You certainly have the right to believe in whatever you want, but unless you are an administrator, moderator or in some way have a financial stake in the board, you have no right to say who belongs and who doesn't.


I certainly didn't remind you or anyone else of *that*!! You know how the board currently operates. This thread has already been noticed by "powers that be*. If they decide they want to change policy, they will.

As far as I am concerned, the various people running this board have done a wonderful job keeping everything on an even keel with no preferential treatment.

I still maintain that success in this will result in more "exclusion". Make sure that all of the requisite qualifications are on the registration form so that "undesirables" will be discouraged from joining/reading the boards.

Some dialogue from Frank Herbert's "Children of Dune" should give you, BP, and some others here, something to reflect on:

yes Suzet.... I realize this. I was speaking of the LEGAL definition of adultery. Legally speaking, you did not commit adultery and every state has their LEGAL definition of this act.

I recognize the chasm between what is legal here and what is moral.

HP

It really doesn't matter whether you or some majority of posters here approve of affair marriages or not.

I already knew that

You certainly have the right to believe in whatever you want
Thanks
but unless you are an administrator, moderator or in some way have a financial stake in the board, you have no right to say who belongs and who doesn't.

I already knew that too. Which is why I haven't suggested who should or should not belong on the boards. Not once. Be angry at me for many things including my "typical self-righteous egotism" if you wish, but please not for things I have not said, done, inferred or claimed.

Why do you think divirced posters have their own board HP ? Do you think perhaps it was a recognition that it might not be the most marrigebuilding or encouraging thing to discuss on GQ2 ?

I would have A-marriages discussd in a less trafficked place than GQ2 for the same reason. No more. No histrionics. No banning. No shunning.

Everything else is what you assume I said not what I said.

There is evidence ( posted as a link in page zillion of this thread) of WS taking great comfort from innocent support of A-marriages and also of BS and FWS being downhearted.

I thought it might be a good idea to discuss and help a-marriges in a quieter place but wanted to find out what people thought so I did a poll.

Everything else has beenplaced in my mouth from other people's prejudices.

Hate me for the truth, not you half-read version of it.

I'm wondering why you thought the board would reach consensus on this. We haven't really reached consensus on anything else. This is too diverse a group of people to really expect such consensus.


The moderators (Justuss) have made that clear. People who want to engage in that type of discussion are welcome to do so on this board as far as the administration is concerned. And, people who want to try to achieve consensus (such as yourself ) are welcome to do that, as well.


It seems you've twisted a few things around, yourself, if you're honest. I don't know why, exactly, but inter-species marriage always seems to come up as what "liberals" want whenever there's a disagreement on where lines should be drawn. I fully understand the concept of a slippery slope argument, but I've never even once seen an advocacy group for inter-species marriage. Has anyone on this thread actually lamented the lack of discussion of marriage between man and dog?


I think this is probably true. I understand your arguments and I'll be honest, I'm thinking about them. I haven't weighed in on this thread because I have a slightly different take on the subject which might actually draw me to the same conclusion that you have reached (via a different path).

This is a discussion board. It's annoying when you're trying to have a discussion (about whatever) which has been ruled appropriate by the moderators and people keep threadjacking that discussion. So, on the one hand, since the moderators have spoken and said "These threads belong here please allow unfettered discussion to take place" then it seems to me that people should respect that to be a good netizen. This thread, bob_pure, is exactly where I think the discussion ABOUT the discussion should take place - so kudos to you for providing it.

One might think, once Justuss posted the moderators position on that thread (this thread, and the other thread), their decision would have rendered the rest of the disagreement moot. Apparently not.

I do wish the discussion would remain about opinions on the topic rather than personal attacks and conflating agreement or opinion about one thing with the opinion or agreement about something entirely different (ie. the logical fallacy: guilt by association) wouldn't take place. Just because someone wants to help out an 28 year old affair marriage which produced children, doesn't mean that person doesn't care about BS's and doesn't care about affairs and society. They obviously just don't care the same way YOU care. It reminds me of the arguments thrown around that anyone who wants the war in Iraq to end do not support military troops - it's a vacuous argument. The two conditions are not, in any way, mutually exclusive.

However, it does seem to be a disruptive topic. I haven't felt I have anything constructive to contribute to MFZ's thread. I didn't feel EN was a good board for it but I also knew what would happen here - though a good argument can be definitely be made that this board is the best equipped to handle affairs. That does not mean this is the best board to handle affair marriages, though - if for no other reason, than the pure disruption they cause. And yes, Bob, I will also acknowledge your point - for the pain or encouragement they might cause people who are fogged out and might hope their affair marraige will go the distance.


Perhaps, since so many people feel so strongly about this, it is time for the board collective to request that moderators make a new forum - or convert an existing, little used one. While they're doing that, perhaps we can also make it a safe place for WS's to go - another hotly debated topic. That way there is a place for them where they can have thier discussions unthreadjacked by freshly wounded BS's. It can be a place for people who would like to help with MB principles but aren't still reeling from open wounds can triage some of the more disturbing cases - as has been mentioned here, perhaps an ICU type environment.

My argument lies along less emotive paths than yours does, Bob (which doesn't make it better or worse imho). My argument is that discussion is the purpose of this board. That which makes the discussions impossible (constant threadjacking or "calling out" other posters and chastising them because they participate where one would not) does not further discussion and disrupts the purpose of the message board. I think your idea of separating out the two discussion areas is a good one.

Mys

P.S. To be clear, just because my argument for separation is different from yours does not mean that I lack compassion for the hurt for BS's. I just happen to feel empathy for all sides of this -- MFZ and jj who obviously do need help and support AND also the BS's who may be bothered by such discussion. I think that may be part of your point, as well.

Bob,

I agree with you that the underlying message of this thread had been missed. I can totally see the value and purpose of this thread and what you had in mind with starting it.

My opinion on this:

Although I DO believe that people in AM’s are worthy of help, guidance, compassion and empathy IF they truly repent and take responsibility for their past actions…and although I also believe the cycle of infidelity and a wayward mindset can end without necessarily divorcing the AM spouse (I’ve posted my opinion about this on another thread last year), I do however agree with you that this board is probably not the right and appropriate place for such people to seek help and advice…simply because (as you and others have pointed out) it can be hurtful to new vulnerable BS and FWS and give false hope and justification for WS’s and OP’s who are in a wayward mindset and want to continue their A… And although I truly belief that the posters who give help and advice to people in AM’s have pure and good intentions by doing so (I don’t doubt that for ONE minute), I can also see how such attempts can potentially hurt vulnerable posters and lurkers and send out a wrong message (although it is not intended that way).

Therefore, I think the best solution for such people (as you has suggested) is to post on a quieter forum on MB where it have less chance to hurt new vulnerable posters, but where pro’s can still follow and continue to post to them. This will also help the people in need for advice and help in an AM to receive it without all the interruptions, debates etc. I think this will be a win/win situation for all.

Take care.

A level headed post myschae. Thank you.

My inter-species comment is a piece of hyperbole that is now ebedded in the middle of one of these long argument threads. I asked what " marriages " would NOT be considered viable to support on GQ2 : same sex, underage,Paedo, interspecies in a rising rate of ludicrousness.

My point was a line has to be drawn somewhere.

By using that without the full context does look like twisting, I'll give you that.

I predict that nothing will change. Some valued posters will leave the boards. People will smugly continue to help A-mariages having " won" wherever they like and vulnerable people will be needlessly discouraged from working towards recovery.

* sigh *

A little busy right now, BK, but I wanted you to know that I have read your post. I have tried many times previously to give you my reasonings and my criteria, but I'll promise to do this for right now: I will consider your latest request in the sincerity you state and seriously consider taking the time to respond again. I don't see this as a "frivolous" thing or yet another "set up" that is looking to use whatever I might say (as has been done by some, for example, by totally twisting the response I gave once to Bob Pure's hypothetical situation of when and/or where a FORMER rapist might be "counseled"), I believe you when you say you are sincerely seeking to understand what you may perceive as a "different" opinion of someone.

So I will give it consideration as it will undoubtedly take a fair amount of time to address your question.

Mys,

Thank you so much for your post. You have expressed my thoughts exactly on every point. You have a talent for reaching the heart of an argument without invalidating anyone else's views. I appreciate your diplomacy and wisdom.

Bob:

Yes it is somewhat of a standoff.

And unless the owners of the forum choose to get involved and set an exact standard, it will continue to be. Perhaps they have chosen to stay out of it is because this whole issue doesn't really have, at the end of the day, two sides, for and against. It is hard to have a standard, black and white, set in stone, if there are exceptions.

Even some of those who are most against affair marriage help here have made at least one exception. I saw this with my very own eyeballs. Once there is an exception, then there is room for further exception by individual choice. Yes, exceptions prove the rule, but who is to say what the exception is? Oh, I know that plenty of us are more than willing to set a standard, but reality is that we don't have that power. And I am not at all sure that I want anyone but the Harleys to set that standard.

I asked questions before I made up my mind because your initial post led me to asking questions. You answered my questions with practical proof I could see, touch and feel, thank you. So I modified my initial, gut opinion and here I am based on what I see, not what I guess or what I feel. I have learned from this site that feelings are subject to individual variations except the broad brush that affairs are emotional train wrecks for everyone and anyone with almost no exceptions.

Here is what I can see and read with my very own eyeballs:

By doing nothing save for Justuss' post, the Harleys allow those in Affair marriages to post here for help.

By doing nothing save for Justuss' post, the Harleys allow those who oppose Affair marriages to post their opinion of that Affair marriage so long as they refrain from name calling and such. Opinions, in my opinion (lol) DO mitigate harm. Maybe not the best way to so mitigate but there you go.

Even some of those who are the most vociferous in opposition to Affair marriage make exception(s). Everyone KNOWS what their standard is, but not everyone appears to have the SAME standard.

The next thing I see is that people who come here for help get referred to the Harleys or they get help or they don't get help, all as the case may be. I also know by personal experience that people sometimes get their feelings hurt, their shaky marriages damaged, or not helped at all and there is NO Affair marriage as part of the dynamics. It isn't just Affair marriages and affairees that could be the source of pain here. One case in particular sticks in my mind and that is Heartsore's but I know of others including my own situation at one point in time. So I conclude that people cannot be shielded 100% from hurt or harm. Yet I agree we should not do things that make it worse.

On balance, more people get helped than hurt (very tiny minority I hope) and that is the way it is in life and in here.

I believe that your original post and subsequent debate has made a difference. It did for me. I believe that your post underscores that this is a site that is pro marriage and that active affairees will only be welcome under very exacting standards. And that exacting standard is as it always has been; you won't get much of anything here that really encourages active affairs, period, end of discussion. Well maybe not the end of discussion, but you know what I mean. It is no surprise that this is Harley's standard and we follow it. I think there is near universal agreement that following Harley's standard is a good thing, the right thing to do.

I believe that "Some" affair marriages will continue to be helped here through individual choice.

I believe that this debate has served to mitigate some of the rock throwing because the debate provided an opportunity for all to air out their positions and differences. I am disappointed but not surprised that people took this opportunity to yet one more time debate old differences that really have nothing to do with the subject of the thread.

The first subject of this post, lest we forget it, is whether supporting affair marriage could hurt the betrayed or encourage the betrayers. The vast majority (70-80%) said yes.

The second subject of this thread is what to do with Affair marriages. A somewhat majority (68%) said help them here, there, but do help them. This seems to me to be contradictory, unless you consider that even some of those most opposed to helping affair marriages seemingly allow exceptions.

Bob, you said:


I am going to politely disagree with you. First of all, I hope nobody will leave, but that is a hope not a disagreement.

Where I disagree with you is that if I choose to make an exception (seemingly allowed by many), then I will not do so smugly. Maybe some will, but not me. So that was a broad brush and thus a DJ. And I don't think anyone has really "Won" anything. Given that by inference from this thread that those of us who so choose to be against Affair marriages may post our own opinions right alongside those attempting to help a given Affair marriage, will serve to mitigate the potential damage to those who are working towards recovery. That is a good thing, in my opinion (sorry MYS). And I think your thread and poll has served to underline that both types of posts are acceptable within the general TOS of this forum and board.

So I do think a positive has come from this thread and I thank you.


This is probably the best overall solution from my point of view, yours and others, but unless the Harley's choose to go that route, it isn't going to happen. And frankly, I am not willing to seek to impose my standards on the Harleys or walk away because they choose to do nothing. They are the pros, not me. And so far, for me, their solutions work.

Larry

Larry

You make several good points. Everyone has a criterion for what consider to be a helpable a-amarriage and an unhelpable one.

We can never get consensus because hardly any two folks will have the same criteria as to what is going to send the wrong message to the boards.

I mean you could have "actual" A marriages - where affairees end their previous marriage(s) to marry each other , and "technical" a marriages where protagonists were undergoing divorce proceedings when they met and eventually married, but as you say , then EVERYONE is somebody's "technical" exception to the rule. Folks didn't see my point as clearly as I did because there is no commonly agreed description of what is an "affair mariage".

This didn't occur to me until you pointed it out. I was wondering why people couldn't see what was obvious to me. It just wasn't and isn't obvious to them.

Thanks again. I fear that means there can be no "democratic" solution. Even if a huge majority agree that a-marriages on GQ2 is a bad thing, it doesn't matter if we can't agree what an A-marriage actually IS let alone how we should help them.

When I first came here as a new BS more than anything I needed hope my marriage meant something more than just "until someone better comes along".

I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt if I had come across a thread trying to help strengthen an arraige I would have been hurt even more. I would have dismissed MB as just another secular marriage-is-not-for-life site.

I would have learned, while in my very hurt and confused state, that this site speaks out of both sides of it's mouth and actually whisperers support for the fruit of successful affairs. I tell you truly, in my early BS fog I would have recoiled from this site as if from OM himself.

Even now, if MB does indeed intend to openly support affair marriages then I cannot in conscience remain here. No more than I could participate in TOW.

with prayers,

I would have thought that this entire debate would have ended with Justuss's comments way back on page 8:


This was the clearest guidance I've seen on this site yet.

Constructive advice, or no response at all.

They're not making another place for people to post...

They're not telling people that they need to go somewhere else...

I don't understand the need for further debate...a moderator has provided guidance on policy, and how we should deal with the situation.

What's left to debate?

Owl,

I agree...Justuss is awesome.

"constuctive advice and suggestions"

EXACTLY what Zog needs and is getting from me.

Mr. Wondering

Up top on this site it reads:

"MARRIAGE BUILDERS
Building Marriages to Last a Lifetime"

Which one is the question.

[color:"red"] Myschae [/color]

I smiled reading this. Thank you !



<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I have to agree with you, MrW...

At first when I read your advice, it seemed like a lot of the other judgemental stuff I've been watching...

...then I went back and read it a second time.

While I don't agree with all that you say, I can agree that what you provided was constructive, and potentially useful for him. Maybe not pleasant...but this ISN'T a pleasant situation. Good points.

Owl,

Thanks for posting this...it is what I have been trying to say all along!

And Bob...your conclusion is exactly why I have come down the way I have. Without consensus, it is futile to try to come up with guidelines. Thus, Dr. Harley's guidelines as outlined above in Owl's post are what we must follow.

This board, as we all know, is about pain...hurt...betrayal. And much more. There is no way we will go thru this without disagreeing about something or without someone possibly getting hurt.

I have had no problem with people such as JJ VOLUNTEERING to go to a quieter spot, as I am all about Scripture's guidance concerning not offending a brother.

What I have questioned is those that would want to hound and "banish" the folks like JJ to another part of the boards. Or, as some have stated...completely from the website.

As has been shown, that is not Dr. Harley's guidance, nor his intent. If some here want to start a website called "Anti Affair Marriage.com," then I think they should. And then those rules should apply.

In the meantime, we should all heed Justuss' admonition. I know I have on many occasions bowed out, or stopped from even posting, knowing that nothing I was gonna say would be helpful.

As was said above...nothing wrong with getting a sense of where people are on the issue. Also nothing wrong with expressing our views on the issue or even having a thread that discusses the issue.

But I believe there is something wrong if any of us jump on a thread that concerns an individual that is clearly within the bounds of the rules and Dr. Harley's intent, and we hound that person because we dont like how they got into their marriage. If it is wrong, then say so. But many have gone well past the just getting out their view.

Many of the folks that take an opposite position on this, I consider friends. I have no problem with us disagreeing. I just want to protect these boards, as they are a lifeline to so many. Including all of us. And if we start going out of bounds from the rules and intent of this board (and the MB principles), then we may destroy what we think we are trying to save.

Just my two cents there.

Okay, BK, let me "clear the air" a bit before getting to a more direct response to your inquiry. Why do I hesitate? Because things have been said previously and words DO have meanings. Hence I am very skeptical of current questions when virtually the same questions have been asked and answered previously. The general response has NOT been one of acceptance of a differing opinion, it has been, on occasion, one of twisting (in some cases the old sort of "quote mining") what was said, and even resorting to not addressing the issues but attacking me personally for my beliefs.

So what sort of things have been said in the past that "frame" the current question/response? Let's look at a few and then consider MY opinions and/or criteria on this topic of helping someone on MB who is in what many consider to be an "affair marriage."



I have repeatedly said that my understanding of Scripture is MY understanding of Scripture. I post my understanding and my interpretations and my opinions, and I "own" them. I stand ready to explain my belief and why I think the Scripture supports it so that it is clear that it is not "just some randomly chosen or self-serving opinion arrived at for my own purposes." I do NOT "require" anyone else to accept or adopt them, they can choose for themselves. But just as I do not have to accept someone else's opinion, I have many times suggested that believers, in particular, go directly to the Word of God when there are areas of disagreement, in order to see what the Word of God says or doesn’t say, and then discuss what we think it means or what it clearly says about something. That is the whole point of 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

But then there has been a limiting restraint put on such a discussion that effectively negates any opportunity for reaching a "conclusion" that might reach agreement or at least an accepting understanding of WHY someone may hold a differing belief on a given issue, for example:


I agree that MB is intended for discussion aimed at marriage building. The issue currently under discussion is WHAT marriages are MB intended to help build and which ones should not receive help because of perceptions of, or even some real, hurt that others might feel (as in be "triggered").

There also IS a difference between a formal debate and in discussing and examining Scripture. You even rejected such a discussion via private email on one occasion, so by extension, it has seemed that you have not been interested in any discussion that brings in God and what the Word of God says. So I am hesitant to respond to your current questions, as sincere as they may be, simply because I CANNOT answer it completely without reference to Scripture. That very reference to Scripture may be met with a similar response of not being "interested" in discussing religious based opinions.

However, you have also referenced "religious" interpretations before, so you may well be willing to discuss these sorts of things at this time, hence my willingness to try responding and see what happens.


Now this raised the biblical stance on these issues, yet when discussion was engaged, it was shut down immediately with phrases such as "that's not how I interpret it." Answers to these questions ARE important and should be discussed, at least among believers, especially when those believers may have differing opinions. But if avoidance of a "religious debate" is the rule that is enforced, then the questions can be posted, can even be posed rhetorically, but they cannot be discussed and the reasoning of the opposing viewpoints cannot be examined.


IF you really don't want to talk about WHY a criteria or opinion is "in play" that is based upon Scripture, then tell me so and I will abide by that decision. If you are willing to discuss these things, then I will do so also. We may or may not arrive at any "agreement," but it could help with understanding why someone might have a differing viewpoint on something, such as helping someone who is in a marriage to a former partner in adultery.





Okay, this area could get a little "sticky," so please bear with me if you can. I DO think you have gone against your own previously stated criteria and will offer some quotes as to WHY I think thusly. Since the issue is "affair marriages" and whether or not to offer any help to, or to "tolerate" their presence and posting on GQ II, I quote these previous postings for context, NOT to accuse or condemn a valid opinion that you may or may not hold.










Okay, you make two distinctions here that are intended to parse an adulterous relationship into two classes; one that a WS engaged in adultery and then subsequently married the OP; and the other where someone was separated pending a divorce and began dating(also adultery) while they were still married, formed an attachment to that person (and obviously had no reason to "fight" a divorce), and then married that person. Obviously there are other scenarios that could be thrown in there, but let's stick with just these two for now since they refer specifically to the two situations of JJ/MFZ and NB II.

The Scripture is quite clear that adultery begins with "lust" for someone other than one's spouse. It often far precedes any verbal or physical declarations. It is also clear that adultery of any kind is forbidden by Scripture and equally clear that many who don't think they've committed adultery have, in fact, committed adultery "in their heart" by lusting after someone other than their spouse even though "no action may have come from it."

Therefore anyone who gets "involved" with someone while they are married HAS committed adultery.

You raised the issue of the old Jewish laws concerning divorce, and as you know, Jesus "set the Pharisees straight" on the "certificate of divorce for any reason" error. A Betrayed Spouse CAN divorce and NOT commit adultery if they marry again, but only if they are very careful about who they marry that second time. Anyone else other than the Betrayed Spouse, WILL be, or IS, guilty of adultery upon getting involved with someone else or continuing an involvement with someone. In the case of someone who begins dating, falling in love, etc. BEFORE they are divorced, they are committing adultery. That IS a definition an "affair" even though it is not what most people think of as an affair, i.e., one that was initiated by a WS with callous disregard for their spouse. Yet it is still an affair.

As such, when someone marries the person they became involved with WHILE still married, they are then entering an "affair marriage."

When you said to Mortarman; " Thinking further MM, I understand where you are coming from. I would not date until my divorce was final either," it was evident that you were recognizing this problem as a real issue and would yourself, therefore, err on the side of caution and wait until AFTER a divorce to begin activities that could turn into a potential second marriage.

You did also, however, clearly set aside this sort of affair, an "affair marriage," as clearly different from one where a WS was involved in an affair, divorced their spouse for the OP (even if the reason for the divorce also included other issues), and then married the OP. They ARE different, but they are different types of affairs and affair marriages and are still, thus, affairs and "affair marriages." Do I see a difference between them? Yes, in much the same way that there are differences between One Night Stands, Serial Adultery(multiple affairs), Class II involved Physical Affairs, and Emotional Affairs. They DO differ, but they are all "Affairs," and by definition, Adultery.

So when you said further to Mortarman; " But I see this in a whole different ballpark to someone who divorced specifically to marry their affair partner. It's not the same IMO," I agree. It IS a "whole different ballpark," but it's still "baseball" whether it's single A, double A, triple A, or the "Big Leagues." It may differ in "degree," but it's still adultery and still an "Affair Marriage."

From a biblical perspective, it's still a sin against God and still in need of forgiveness by God. Big sins, little sins, etc., are different "classes" of sins, but in God's eyes, ANY sin is anathema and WRONG.

For the record, there have been many posts on MB where separated people have been strongly advised by many members to NOT date while separated BECAUSE they are still married and dating IS a type of adultery in that situation. You saw that too, that is why you agreed with Mortarman.

Now, when NB II posted her story your responded; " NB_II - personally I consider your situation to be an error of judgement but not an AM. You are a valuable contributer here." I AGREE that NB II is a valuable member and a valuable contributor of MB. But here is precisely where your "criteria" for what is and what is not an "affair marriage" changes to JUST the first scenario stated above and excludes one that began while the person was separated prior to their actual divorce from their first spouse. You clearly state that scenario two is NOT an affair marriage, even though you have agreed that dating should be put off until after a divorce is finalized in order to avoid committing adultery (and the potential for marrying a partner in adultery and a creating, thereby, an "affair marriage").

I contend that they are both "affair marriages," but obviously of differing types. The point being that both types cause people to sin against God by committing adultery and both would be in need of forgiveness from God. Granted, one has to believe in God first in order to make the assessment of what is a sin. But that IS what you and I have been discussing, the "affair marriage" by God's definition whereby "adultery" is committed.

So the "issue" becomes, for me anyway, the repentance of a mindset that allowed adultery to be committed and forgiveness of that sin by God ON BEHALF of Jesus Christ, who died to take away ALL the sins of anyone who accepts Him as their Lord and Savior.

So you see my "criteria" is first and foremost an individual's relationship with Christ. In that situation, ALL of their sins are forgiven and they become a "new creation" in Christ. God works a miracle in their hearts and changes them to one that seeks after God. Recognizing the wrong choices we have made in our lives and seeking to not repeat those mistakes is part of that "new creation" that changes our worldview from "human centric" to "God centric."

In the case of JJ, she became a believer after her divorce and remarriage. I am not sure about NB II, but I think the same was true in her case. With respect to MFZ, I have read nothing about faith, so I suspect he is not a believer.

You previously stated (quoted above); "One thing I am sure of is the illegitimacy of affair marriages for believers. For unbelievers I am currently undecided. (However my current thinking is that they would not have to divorce and could stay married.)"

Given your statement, JJ was an unbeliever when she divorced her first husband and married her OP. So you state an apparent contradiction when you say on the one hand "my current thinking is that they would not have to divorce and could stay married" and on the other hand you said to Jilly; " Jilly,

For the record, while I DO think repentance of your adultery would mean a divorce, I don't say that you would have to re-marry your first husband. You could choose to marry anyone you haven't had an affair with IMO."

Putting aside for the moment that your advice would likely result in a marriage to anyone other than her OP that WOULD BE committing adultery (according to Jesus' definition as stated to the Pharisees), your stance vies-a-vie the "affair marriage" was that the only "answer" would be to divorce their current spouse. Nothing short of divorce would satisfy the "work" that was needed in order for repentance of sin to be real, and thereby forgiveness of the sin to be truly forgiven by God. Again, if the "issue" is an "affair marriage" and that is defined as marriage to anyone they had an adulterous relationship WHILE STILL MARRIED to their first spouse, then it includes ALL "types" of affair marriages.

My "criteria" regarding the forgiveness of sin is that ALL sins are forgiven a believer with NO requirement of any "work" to prove the sincerity of the repentance or to merit the complete forgiveness of God. In both JJ and NB II's cases, they have "right standing" before God because their sins were forgiven on the basis of what Jesus did for them, not on the basis of what they did to "earn" God's forgiveness from their own efforts. That is a "fundamental" belief of mine that is squarely founded on the Word of God that I take to heart in my own life and in how I "evaluate" the "worthiness" of a fellow believer to receive help or which ones to help that I can spend what time I have available for helping. "It is by grace you have been saved, not of works, so that no one can boast." Somewhere in here is also the biblical promise of Eternal Security. In reference to that, God tells us plainly that we can never lose our salvation (and therefore our forgiveness) once we have truly accepted Jesus Christ. The idea that one CAN lose their salvation logically leads to the NECESSITY of "works" on the part of the one who "lost" their salvation, in order to "merit" God's "re-forgiveness and re-salvation." But we are clearly told in Scripture that "all our works are as filthy rags." In other words, nothing we can do can MERIT (as in requires that God must do something for us in "return") God's forgiveness and our being saved.

In the case of MFZ, were I to participate in his thread I WOULD be looking to determine his position with Christ. I also know that there are many members on MB who do NOT believe in Christ, and if they are willing to attempt to help him for whatever reason they feel is justified, I will stay out of the way and let them help as they see fit. That's not really that much different in other threads I decide to "stay out of" because the participants don't want "God brought into it."

Having said all that, let me reiterate that I understand the potential for triggers for some members, especially newly Betrayed Spouses. I also stated on JJ's thread that I didn't care if she posted on GQ II or on any other forum, I would seek to answer her faith-based questions as best I could. I also would not hesitate to tell an "offended" new BS who happened across the thread (though not many would given the usual focus on their own thread and their own needs for the "newbie"), that JJ's situation is one of the rarities where the "affair marriage" lasted AND that the primary difference in her life TODAY is Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, not all marriages survive, not even those that employ the "MB principles." Society, much more than a thread on MB, tells people that divorce is "okay," that "playing around" or "getting some strange" is normal and a "part of life." I reject the societal relativism concerning marriage and it being a "disposable commodity" that one can put on and take off like a suit of clothes. Sin is sin, as one saying goes. But "sin" needs a "sinless one" who has determined what "sin" is in order for there to BE sin. Otherwise all that we have is "moral relativism" that is a forever changing "target" based upon the "criteria" of individuals, usually designed to allow them to do whatever they want. For me, that authority, that "sinless one," is God the Creator, and HE established the MEANS by which our sins are forgiven in their entirety. Once HIS "criteria" is met, then there no longer exists an "affair marriage" and there is no need for a divorce as a "work" of repentance.

That does NOT change the fact the fact that the marriage BEGAN as an "affair marriage." It changes what it is IN CHRIST. For someone who is "in Christ," it also means that further adultery is highly unlikely(though certainly not impossible given our innate sin nature) because the believer now has a very intimate knowledge of the TRUTH of God's command; "Thou shalt NOT commit adultery." God cannot simultaneously forgive all sins, cast them as far as the "east is from the west, create a "new birth" and a "new creation," AND declare the marriage to also be illegitimate and in need of yet another divorce (also considering how God hates all divorce) That is also one of the "messages" of David and Bathsheba.

When you reference "go and leave your life of sin" you interpret that as requiring a divorce. I don't. I interpret that as leaving a mindset that thinks sinning is "okay." It means leaving a "secular worldview" and embracing a "God's worldview" of being "in the world, but not of the world." It is first and foremost a "heart change", and God does NOT require, not want, anyone to think that they must DO something to "earn" His forgiveness, and that includes yet another divorce. The past divorce cannot be undone in this instance. The previous spouse is unavailable for remarriage even if he were willing, which he is not, because of God's prohibition on remarrying a former spouse who had remarried.

God says, in effect, "Come to me TODAY, come as you are, and begin a "new life in Christ" from this day forward. All of your past sins are forgiven and you are now "white as snow" in my eyes solely because of what Jesus did for you."

That's my criteria, BK, for MY attempts to help someone in need who finds themselves in the situation of being in an "affair marriage" of any type. I DO think that one's relationship with Christ is of paramount importance first. As you know, I also have tried to help others who are NOT believers but who are suffering from infidelity in their marriage, and I do so on the basis of the biblical instruction about being a Good Samaritan and on the basis of God's command to believers to "love your enemies as yourself." It IS hard sometimes, but it still is a command of God and should be attempted to be followed. The daily struggle against the flesh remains for believers and I, as have most others, have sometimes "lost" the battle of spirit versus flesh. There are no "perfect" humans, only forgiven and un-forgiven sinners.

I hope that has answered, at least in part, your inquiry into my "criteria."

If you have further questions, feel free to post them.

God bless.

FH - I will read and respond to this later - not ignoring you.

I've thought about this and thought about this but, nope, I still can't support anyone in an A marriage.

It made me think of one of our ex Prime Ministers. He died recently and his A marriage wife (of 20 years) wrote a piece for the paper on her "love" for him. She said they were "soulmates" and his exwife and kids were still bitter and she just "couldn't understand that". She then proceeded to tell the country how she'd tried to fight her attraction to him but it was "meant to be". 20 freaking years and I still saw it as nothing but an A marriage.

Jen, yep, doesn't sound at all repentant or remorseful for any damage she may have done. Not one that I would care to offer support to either.

God bless.

Hope you don't mind but I am going to reply to this piecemeal.

I completely agree with what you have posted here.

However (damn - does that negate completely?) LOL. However, my perception, if not your outright statement, is that anyone who doesn't agree with you is not interpreting the bible correctly. You posted as much to Jilly for her not to listen to anyone else because it was the words of men. Now that is so but at the end of the day, it is YOUR opinion (your words) that you are giving, just as I give my opinion based on my interpretation of scripture.

My perception is that if I don't agree with you, and I don't, then you don't accept my opinion could be valid and you then want to go raking through the scriptures to try and prove me wrong - a game that I am not interested in.

Your whole tone at times is that you are right and everyone who disagrees with you is just speaking the words of men whereas YOU alone are speaking the truth of God. My perception.

And I don't think MB is a good venue for religious dogma - I would prefer to help people.

Actually, I was really asking YOU for YOUR view of what marriages you would help. Not MB. YOU. For example you said you were not posting to Zog for undisclosed reasons. That is actually why I asked you the question what your criteria was.


I think you have misinterpreted what I have said.

I have no problem with your Christian perspective OR your use of scripture. None at all. I applaud it.

I don't have the TIME it would require to go into a debate with you about different interpretations of scripture via email or any other means and not only because I think you are more interested in being right than you are in having a discussion. Most of our points of difference FH are WELL DOCUMENTED in Christian literature so really what is to be gained? MB is for Marriage Building.

I don't believe I ever shut down any debate FH. Am I not allowed to post how I interpret something?

OK I agree with that.


OK FH- I quoted the OT example merely as an example of the DIFFERENCES in divorce law. In that culture at that time separation WAS divorce. In some jurisdictions, 3 months spearated and a divorce can be granted.

So something in one place may be adultery whereas the exact same thing in a different place or time isn't.

I was really only saying that I view differently someone who commences a new relationship (note NEW not pre-existing) as being DIFFERENT to someone who divorces their spouse so they can marry an affair partner. TOTALLY different kettle of fish.

I don't know if it is sin FH frankly. Who is to say when GOD considers a couple divorced? It may well be different to the "state" definition in one jurisdiction or another. As long as the marriage didn't end because of the new relationship I don't necessarily consider it an affair.


I agree with that of course but not all people hold to my standards. Personally I do believe no dating until legally divorced buy I'm not going to hang someone who believes differently.

I also believe in 1 year free of relationships for every 5 year married as Harley says as well but I'm not going to hang anyone who doesn't abide by that standard either.

OK let me make it clear, when I asked your criteria, I was asking for YOUR criteria wether or not you would help a poster. Not sin, not forgiveness - I was asking HOW you decide who you will help because you said you would not help Zog but you did help Jilly.


OK - it's not an inconsistency as such. It is me after prayer and contemplation changing my position OK? I have infact offered Jilly assistance on the new thread MM started. Shocking I know. BUT that does not mean that I believe she should be here on GQII.

I would also, in cases like Jilly, need to be convinced her "conversion" is not just a convenient way of "legitimising her affair" and I do think even with Jilly the jury is out on that point but I am prepared to offer her the benefit of the doubt.

Well I agree with some of that at least. But FH - this is not about forgiveness.

But I don't see repentance as works.

Neither do I think anyone can earn their way "back into God's favour" by works. That would be your interpretation of my words.

and FWIW, at least Jilly had the decency to move to the quiet place. See, if an AM spouse is really repentant, don't you think the thought they might be offending victims of the same crime would lead them to show some compassion and do likewise. It's real easy to claim to be conveniently converted. Works follow and prove faith.

I don't mind at all, it's often easier to do that way.




Obviously I can't help how anyone perceives anything. There are also some things that are fundamental to the Christian faith that are not, obviously ihmo, open to varying "interpretations." They CAN be "interpreted" differently, but, again in my humble opinion, those "variances" in interpretation are most often founded in the desire of "men" to make the Scripture support what they want it to support so they can do whatever they want to do. Generally, in those sorts of cases, it is very important to go to the Word of God and consider the issue not only in light of a given passage, but in light of the entirety of Scripture. That is also part of what we have been discussing here, differences of opinion.

It also IS my opinion that some "opinions" held by some are NOT supported by Scripture despite any traditions. In that respect, it's not much different than the traditions of the Jews of Jesus' day that you referenced with respect to the "laws of Moses" concerning divorce. As Jesus said, those "methods and reasons" for being able to divorce were accepted by virtually all of the Jews, but it was nonetheless wrong, and Jesus "set the record straight" that the traditions founded in the desires or "hardness of the human heart" were wrong and NOT what God had set up when He established marriage.

So in some respects I understand your perception and in some cases it would be a correct perception and in others it would be an incorrect perception. If my "stance" on a given issue is NOT supported by Scripture, then I SHOULD be called on it and Scripture should be used for correction, rebuking, training, etc. It IS, imho as a believer, the Word of God that is the "final authority" on the basic fundamentals of Christianity and the commands and teachings of God to HIS people everywhere.

My "point" on those areas of disagreement is that "opinions" don't count where the Scripture has clearly spoken. That was my point with MEDC, for example. He prefers to state his opinion of Scripture but will not "support," "explain," or "defend" his opinion with Scripture. He prefers to attack an opposing view, or at least me when I have a differing opinion from his, by attacking the individual. Hence it is an attempt to not just "marginalize" a differing opinion, but to seek the de facto dismissal of ANY opinion by ad hominem attacks, such as calling me a "dope" or a "church of one." That, too, is HIS perception and his right, but I hardly think it's "academic honesty" or a "valid defense" of his opinion of what Scripture is, or is not, saying.

There IS room for differences of opinion in areas where God has chosen to NOT fully reveal His will or what will happen. The second coming of Christ is, for example, one of those areas where differences of opinion as to when it will happen and what will happen to believers alive at that time can be held and NO opinion about it is "clearly and definitively" expounded by Scripture. The "imminent return" of Christ IS beyond debate, but the WHEN is known only to God, as another example.




I may have well said something like that, or even exactly like that, though I can't recall the "when and where." Without a specific reference point where I would have said something like that, all I can say is that I DO believe that some things said as "Christian" are incorrect and are the product of "men" and not God. Most often those are in areas where I have spent time examining all the arguments "pro and con" on a given issue and arrived at a "conclusion" as to which position is consistent with Scripture and what seems to be "of men."

Eternal Security and the concept that someone who is a believer CAN lose their salvation is one of those sorts of areas, for example. Many of the beliefs and tenets of the RCC, as a church institution, also fall into that sort of category, in my opinion arrived at by studying the divergent viewpoints and what the Scripture does reveal. I understand that others can, and certainly have, gone on the attack when I have stated an "opposing" opinion. That is their right, but once again, when believers "differ" in opinion it is the Word of God that SHOULD be turned to and not just a "dig in the heels" approach of "I'm right, you're wrong!" and I don't care what the Scripture says because my "church" says it's this way. NO human or church is "immune" from error, but it is also true that when some ideas become "institutionalized," and they are contrary to what Scripture teaches, they become very hard, if not impossible, to surrender to God the error. That is, after all, what happened in the Reformation, including the very serious attempts by the RCC to quash and squash Martin Luther and others who had the "temerity" to oppose established traditions of the church. Yet as much as people may perceive MY opinion or beliefs as "not interpreting the bible correctly," it is equally interesting that they don't see their own dogmatic acceptance of some "church" positions in the same light. This is ESPECIALLY true when the "area of disagreement" is about a subject or subjects that the Word of God IS very clear and definitive about. "Works" versus "Grace" is just one of those areas, but it is a very important area, as I hope you would agree.



I have said many times that my "tone," sans voice and inflection, etc., MAY be perceived by someone that way, especially when they disagree with something. I can't help that perception, but I have also said that I keep trying to work on the "tone" perception issue. Unfortunately, as you have correctly stated, we all have "limited time" occasionally with which to discuss things and sometimes I admit to not taking the time to more "softly" make a point.
So I stand "convicted" of that "tone" perception.

I would also state that "tone" really shouldn't be the "important thing" when discussing differing opinions of Scripture. It once again should require that fellow believers "go to the source" for clarification when there are areas of disagreement, especially when those areas could be contentious.




I understand. But by the same token, Believers CANNOT separate obedience to God in "helping" people because all believers are no longer "their own." They are "bought and paid for" by Christ and are God's children, no longer the "children of men" only, because they have undergone the second birth and been created anew as part of the family of God and no longer part of the family of Man.

So "religious dogma," or instruction, admonishment, etc., IS necessary for those who profess a belief in Christ. It is NOT appropriate for unbelievers, and again, that is part of the "case by case" decisions of who to invest limited time in helping. Unbelievers would, for example, view advice to "be humbly obedient to God no matter what you are feeling" as being "foolishness." We CAN'T help everyone, nor would everyone want help from all people all of the time either. So we DO have to make some choices regarding who to help and what help may be most beneficial. For me, there are PLENTY of people willing and able to offer "secular" help. I choose, most of the time, to try to help fellow believers who have found themselves either involved in or harmed by sin and sinful choices. This is especially true for believing Betrayed Spouses of WS's who have also claimed to be believers but who have been "caught up" in the enticement of sin, if that makes any sense to you.

The "Good Samaritan" approach to helping others is a very good approach, too, in my humble opinion. That is what you are doing and is commendable.

That is also part of my choosing to help JJ despite "prevailing opinion" that her situation was "too bad" for help where others might see that help and arrive at erroneous perceptions. The Jews of the day would not help someone bleeding on the side of the road and would not even touch or talk to someone who was not a Jew, especially not a Samaritan. They considered doing so to be highly "offensive" to them and would not want someone else to be "offended" by choosing to help the "untouchables," so they would refuse to attempt to help.

God bless.

It seems pretty clear to me that a "don't ask, don't tell" or at least "don't tell" policy is going to end up the defacto answer. It gets rid of rubbing people's nose in potential success of post affair participants and it requires only that the people in the affair marriage keep a secret -- presumably something they are practiced at.

The drawback is that people who would not want to support such a relationship may do so unknowingly -- that said, those seem to be the same folks who think that AM is doomed regardless how much support due to the flawed character of the AM spouses.

For the record, I do think that the MB principles help any relationship. Medicate, Plan A, Plan B is the Tao of Steve on prozac. Radical honestly, meeting ENs, and joint agreement are just all good ideas.

Edited to correct bad grammar.

Count me as one who believes that an AM is doomed regardless of support IF the participants never engage in self-reflection and fix what was broken within themselves. However, I believe the same of regular marriages.

MB techniques are great but only if both parties in the marriage engage in self examination and work to improve themselves.

I agree Eagle, only I think Affair Marriages come up to bat with two strikes on them before the first pitch is thrown and a normal marriage has all three strikes before being sent to the pine.

Good analogy!

BP shows amazing patience on this thread. In spite of attempted sidetracks, I think his message has been pretty simple. And I do understand it.

I remember the events after Dday as if they were yesterday. I remember that I loved my WW. I wanted her to be happy. I was confused because my world had crumbled around me. I had already given up to the A and OM before Bigger pushed me onto this site. I was posting on SI before. What a pity party that group is.

Bigger sent me here. I realized that Affairages don't normally work out. I slowly began to see things as they really were. I gained courage to fight. Both BS and FWS quickened my steel. Now I chew OM's and piss their blood.

But there was a time, early on, when I had given up. I was willing to die so my DDs could have a better life.

So I now what BP is talking about here. Most of you are not even in the same solar system as this point he has consistently tried to make.

Maybe you all need to spend some time on TOW or SI. Many of you need a serious reality check.

I get BP's message. I simply don't agree with all that he's got to say.

I don't need to spend time on TOW or SI...I came here using yet another web forum where I saw all I needed to about that side of things.

I don't need a reality check either...I know right where I'm at.

Again...debating about whether we should or shouldn't provide assistance to someone coming here asking for help with their marriage is useless...that ruling was already provided by the moderators. The bottom line is, if you find that thread offensive, don't go on that thread. Simple enough. If you don't like that person's situation, don't post to them. That's the guidance Justuss gave...how's that still open for debate?

I don't believe I have yet seen where BP has said MFZ should not be allowed help on MB. So yes OWL, as wise as he must think he is for the screen name, is missing the point.

And I don't post to MFZ and never will. He is apparently a person who doesn't like to get what he gives. It was okay for him to do it to someone but not fair when someone else did it to him. I learned not to respect that in the 3rd grade. Never needed a refresher.

Good for you, Pio...some people however DO need a refresher.

BTW...if you ever bother to look up the 'name' thread...take a look at my list in there.

If I ever claimed to be 'wise'...I would have been 'wise' enough to avoid having to have come here in the first place, wouldn't I? It means something entirely different in my case...nice assumption tho. Good attempt at a personal shot. Better luck next time.

More effort than I am willing to expend. You aren't that interesting to me. Don't be offended. I'm sure you are to someone. Good for you.

BTW, have you spent 6 months on SI as I have? Have you been asschewed by moderators for telling BS's to stop acting like babies as I have? Have you spent time in TOW as I have? Or do you just dismiss it out of hand? If you can't be bothered to go there and do your time, I can't be bothered to search a thread.

And, for the record, and I only say this because I have said it to him, I have little tolerance for BP. I generally find him offensive in spite of his best efforts. But I cannot criticize him here.

BTW, I will say that I find BP offensive in the same way I find FH offensive. It is not in their message, it is in their delivery. I make no further comment on their content. I think BP is more right than wrong. Can't say about FH because I've never actually been able to finish one of his posts. Poor internet connection.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Pio-

Again, I came from yet ANOTHER forum. I posted for about a year on LS and came here sometime during then...indeed, posted to both for quite some time. But have indeed been to TOW and SI in the past. As I said...I don't see any need to RETURN there. I already know what's said and done...that trip wouldn't educate me any further. I'm not sure what further learning you expect I would get from those sites...

It doesn't matter to me whether you look at another thread or not...I simply wanted to ensure you understood that your interpretation of what my name meant was incorrect.

And as far as Bob's (or anyone else's) opinions on affair marriages...how can I possibly be upset that their opinion doesn't match mine? THAT isn't the real bottom line issue...what IS the bottom line issue is that they're insisting that anyone that doesn't meet their criteria not be allowed to post to this forum...and that anyone who responds to those posts is suggesting that people advocate affair marriages. Its the people who are trying to say that those of us that DO choose to respond are condoning infidelity.

If people truly are offended by those threads...don't go to them.

If they're truly offended by the people who respond to those threads and posters...place those of us who do try to assist them on ignore if they wish.

But the bottom line is...follow the guidance given by the moderators of this site, and realize that this site is open to ANYONE coming here seeking help for their marriage.

hey Owl... when you find out that MFZ is nothing but a troll with a made up story... remember that you will have once again been duped by someone here that is only seeking to cause division.

Yep, again.

So what's the point of your comment, MEDC? Trying to discredit me based on being duped once by a troll? Hmmm...interesting...and how many OTHERS were duped by that same troll? If I recall, weren't you posting on her threads too? Granted, you weren't trying to do anything to HELP anyone, but still...

yeah, Owl, that's all that happened... you were just duped by the troll...not much else to your interactions on that thread huh? And your help is very often misapplied. If you don't like me pointing out some things that I think are obvious... next time keep your opinions as to how I should post to yourself. And no one... not BP or me has said that MFZ shouldn't be allowed to post here....he can do as he pleases...bottom line is all I am doing is expressing how I feel...if you don't like, try the ignore function.

What did I say...IN THIS THREAD...about how you post, MEDC? In the 'troll' thread, I commented a lot about how you post. I still don't think much about your 'method'...but I haven't directly addressed you about your 'method' in quite some time. Why are you raising it now?

You're not 'expressing how you feel'...you're attempting to insult me and associate me with a troll.

BTW...that ignore feature? It works both ways. Give it some thought.

PIO


I lasted a whole week on SI. I am a total hard nose when it comes to male BS sucking it up and acting like a man instead of a doormat. I have never posted on TOW, but I have read it extensively. What a pity party.

OWL

What is LS?

Larry

Owl... since you want to lie and say you haven't posted about my methods in quite some time see below from MFZ's thread.



I don't need YOU owl to remind me of anything. Thanks for the input though but I prefer to get my input on these boards from people that are not two faced and manipulative. Owl....when I say something, people know where I am coming from... good and bad... you are a bit too passive agressive for my tastes...

At least be honest about your posts to me in the future...we don't agree with one another... I am very okay with that.

OWL - if I may be so bold as to suggest just ignoring(you don't have to put him on "ignore" to do that) what MEDC has to say, it may save you some time and possibly some personal aggravation with his use of personal attacks to try to beat someone into submission. He is "fine" with someone as long as he happens to agree with a given position, but he brings out the "verbal knives" whenever he does not agree with someone's position and goes on the ad hominem attack.



MEDC has spoken. He has given all of us his opinion. It is HIS opinion and he is entitled to hold whatever opinions he wishes. But I am fairly certain that a LOT of MB members would disagree with his opinion. Furthermore, he makes it clear that he bases his opinions and judgments on his FEELINGS. He is entitled to do so, as so many (such as Wayward Spouses) have done in order to rationalize and justify their decisions and choices. In his judgment, "married" doesn't MEAN married if someone is in the process of getting a divorce. And interesting viewpoint, but why go through the process of getting a divorce if it really "never mattered and never will" so that someone IS "free" to date and/or marry someone else?

So what is it that might be driving MEDC's vendetta against certain "Affair Marriage" members posting on GQ II and MB in general? He reveals this "difference" of opinion, that is decidedly against MB positions in his following posts.




Civil laws are NOT what we have been discussing, and MEDC knows that. Perhaps that is WHY he is so adamantly against a biblically based position, he wants to make up his own rules as he goes along. As long as MEDC agrees with it, "it's" right, if he disagrees with "it," it's wrong. End of discussion, MEDC is the highest authority and the only arbiter of what is correct and what is incorrect.




And here we have the definitive judgment MEDC. Nevermind that this position, this criteria that he applies, is decidedly OPPOSED to both the Scripture (God's position) and to MB (ever hear of Emotional Affairs MEDC?).

Adultery, as most of us know or have learned, includes far more that just sex, or vaginal sex if he wants to put forth the Pennsylvania "standard" as THE standard of what constitutes adultery, and thereby an Affair.

He can continue to use ad hominem attacks on me because of my belief in Christians following God regardless of our personal "feelings." But it is interesting to see the real MEDC and WHY he chooses to harass others who hold a differing opinion on this very difficult and very sensitive subject.

Double standard? Not even close. Adultery is ONLY having sex and dating while still married is NOT adultery or an affair. MEDC has spoken
Perhaps a few others may also disagree with him. Perhaps not. Each member will have to choose for himself or herself.

Are you really hearing what you are saying MEDC, or is your emotional fog so think it filters out all but your own opinion?




Owl - MEDC has already stated definitively that he WILL NOT stop harassing anyone who does not agree with him on this "topic." That includes both a person seeking advice and anyone who has the temerity to choose to offer some help. Arguing with this person is pointless and attempting to discuss this issue with him is an exercise in futility. MEDC is not interested in discussing anything and he is not interested in the rights of anyone else REGARDLESS of what the system "powers that be" have said.

It is not enough to state an opposing opinion. It is not enough to state it even two or three times. It is a "jihad" and a "vendetta" in his mind and he will NOT tolerate or allow others the same right he claims for himself, to make a choice to post on a controversial subject. MEDC falls into the "camp" of "not on my MB you don't!" HIS answer to someone who does have the "stones" to "take him on" in disagreement with his OPINION is to put that person on "ignore" so he doesn't have to read or be "upset" by an opposing position.

Make your choices, post to whomever you decide to post to, offer advice to anyone you think is worthy of your time and help, and simply let MEDC post whatever personal attacks and spew whatever personal venom he wants to spew. He is behaving no differently than the Muslim Jihadists are doing, he is engaged in his own "holy war" and will "kill" anyone who does not accept "his line" or who supports a "freedom of expression" position even when what someone says may be "offensive" to some.

His words quoted above (some from a previous post on this thread and now this latest one for your benefit) are all that is needed to see the blinding effects of his jihad on himself.

1. Dating while married is not "cheating," and therefore, not a form of adultery. "Never did, never will."

2. " dating is not adultery. having sex is adultery."

And he will try to "excuse" his position by saying he was "just" talking about secular State laws. Rubbish. He claims to be a Christian, and as such, he KNOWS that marriage, adultery, and sin are first defined by God, not by the State. And for Christians, God's law supercedes "State Law" when they are in conflict, as, for example, the State condoning abortion and the slaughter of millions of innocents who are truly innocent. His "selectivity" in his reasoning is amazing to watch.

3. "Sorry... but this battle will be fought with the keyboard IMO."

That IS his OPINION ("IMO"). It IS a "jihad" and a "battle" that he will fight because his opinion "trumps" everyone else's opinion. There is no discussion or negotiation with such a zealot anymore than there is any possibility of negotiation with anyone seeking to impose their will on everyone else.

4. "the laws don't make any sense. I follow what I believe to be right"

That is precisely the point. MEDC decides what is "right" for everyone else and then goes to "war" to impose his opinion of "right" on everyone else, and "heaven help" anyone who might exercise his/her own self-granted right of self-determination of what is right and who they post to or what topics they choose to engage in with discussion or help for an individual.

MEDC has made himself the "self appointed" guardian and protector of the entire MB system, just so long as it agrees with his opinion of "right and wrong." He does not care that the "law" of MB is open and available to all. He sees this as "he will do what he thinks is right in his own mind" and "forget the 'law of this land of MB." He wants us all to believe that ANY person is forever banned from posting because their mere presence MAY offend some others. The fact that anyone's presence may well offend someone else has NEVER been the "measuring stick" of who should be allowed to post or WHERE they should be allowed to post on MB.

He thinks a couple of people who fit HIS definition of having committed adultery and married a person they were committing adultery with is a "veritable floodgate" that will swamp MB and change it into a haven of support for adultery, divorce, marriage to anyone for any reason and no concern or remorse for past "bad choices." Forget forgiveness for past sins and forget helping any "offensive" person(that HE personally finds offensive). Other potentially "offensive" people he will "give a pass" to because he has decided that "their adultery" doesn't make it into his own "defintion" of what adultery and/or an "affair marriage" is.

We've all seen this sort of thinking before. Someone who wants to blame the "ills" of society on someone else, some "minority," and then seeks with all diligence to wipe them out. Some scapegoat that can be used to support megalomania. He "sets the rules" in his mind, and "Katie bar the door" if anyone "gets in his way.

It IS sad, and I hope one day that MEDC will begin to discuss this difficult topic with Jesus. But I'm not holding out much hope that he might do so within my lifetime.

Case by case, individual by individual, the same way that Jesus deals with each of us.

God bless.