Interesting question. As this is my fifth year post-d-day, I found myself on your thread and wondering why you asked. I will bite, anyway, and hazard a response. I figure you ask for a reason.

People come here initially because they are in a desparate situation in their marriage. They find this place has a program that has concepts that make sense. While at first some of the ideas that are meant to break up affairs might seem counter-intuitive, the fact is these ideas are things they likely haven't tried - and because these are not in their arsenals and they know their wayward spouses are not expecting these responses, they TRY THEM.

Lo and behold, in many cases they WORK!

And for those who stick with the concepts, for those who really work at the concepts and try to employ them, to understand the nature of the concepts and how they work towards building the marital relationship and bond, the MB program stands a good chance of working, too.

So your question goes to those who come here and end up not liking the program, end up complaining about it, end up not using the concepts, and then going elsewhere instead. Yet, they still kind of hang around here, too?


I would venture that they had some limited success with the parts of the program that they did employ. Maybe there were parts of the MB plans that worked for them, but other parts that did not - perhaps their marriages were too far gone when they got here, or they had a wayward spouse who just was never going to get on board. That happens, and that can leave the betrayed spouse with a sense of failure, and loss. Even with the best program in the world, there will be a percentage of marriages that fail - not for the sake of the BS not trying, but for the reason that the WS has made other choices.

Maybe the BS blames MB for the failure of the program. Maybe the BS blames MB for that, and it isn't the failure of MB, but it could be many reasons: the WS was too far gone, the BS did not employ the program in the manner advised by the Harleys, the WS might have been reluctant to use certain aspects of the MB plan, the WS might have been unresponsive to MB ideas, the WS might have been uncooperative with MB ideas, or just that the relationship was not one that would have been salvageable with or without MB. It happens - and there are probably 1,000 or a million other reasons that could be named.

Ultimately, the poster has made "friends" here. Connections to people on the boards who has sustained him or her through a time in life that is difficult at best, traumatic at least. While they are frustrated with the way the board is run, or with the concepts, or with other posters, the reason they return is perhaps those connections to stories of lives that have touched theirs - in one way or another.

They care about someone here, someone whose story has touched their heart in one way or another. They care about someone who has reached out to them in a time of need.

Coming here has been a mixed blessing. They came in a time of strife, found advice that didn't work for them, but somehow found something else that still attracts them.


And the same thing keeps them going to the "other boards" for help.

They seek answers to the problems of their lives. Even answers that for now they do not appear to agree with. Somehow, someday, those answers might someway meld into the "right" answer - for them.


I, for one, hope that somehow they find it. I hope that whatever they seek, they can find peace wherever it is for them.

Having been through this trauma, I too have searched for that peace. It is often hard to find.

Schoolbus