Hi Everyone,

You know, I've said it, and I can't count how many other MB members (one's who have experienced infidelity) have expressed the same thing, <paraphrased> "I wished we would have found MB before there was an affair", meaning "I wished we would have been practicing MB principles before the state of our marriage contributed to my spouse seeking their needs elsewhere".

So, my point ... I have several married couple friends from when I was once married. And almost everyone one of them is having serious problems in their marriages. I mean SERIOUS, and being an MB graduate I now know the warning signs.

I have told them about MB and explained the principles to them and they seem very receptive. I've even gone as far to give one of the couples my His Needs/Her Needs book. <sigh>

Deal is, they never follow through. They didn't read the book, they don't come to the web-site to read nor do they attend any counseling. Things wain for awhile in their marriage(s) and then inevitably they start to have problems again, although always worse than before.

I have to believe that this must be human nature, that perhaps people don't get serious about something UNTIL there is a crisis.

Why is this, AND .. is there anything I'm not doing that I could to help them understand they don't want to ever walk in a BS/WS's shoes.

Any advice appreciated, thanks for reading.
Jo

<small>[ May 05, 2004, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: Resilient ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Resilient:
<strong> Hi Everyone,

...So, my point ... I have several married couple friends from when I was once married. And almost everyone one of them is having serious problems in their marriages. I mean SERIOUS, and being an MB graduate I now know the warning signs.

I have told them about MB and explained the principles to them and they seem very receptive. I've even gone as far to give one of the couples my His Needs/Her Needs book. <sigh>

Deal is, they never follow through. They didn't read the book, they don't come to the web-site to read nor do they attend any counseling. Things wain for awhile in their marriage(s) and then inevitably they start to have problems again, although always worse than before.

I have to believe that this must be human nature, that perhaps people don't get serious about something UNTIL there is a crisis.

Why is this, AND .. is there anything I'm not doing that I could to help them understand they don't want to ever walk in a BS/WS's shoes.

Any advice appreciated, thanks for reading.
Jo </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">De'Nial. Plain and simple.

L.

Orchid's right - denial ain't just a big river in Egypt, you know!

I think some of us BSs may ac2ally HAVE 2 be subjected 2 the pain of infidelity before we'll realize just what has 2 be done.

Crisis, what crisis? (Supertramp album title).
-ol' 2long

Before my A I wouldn't even have thought of looking at a marriage help site or reading books on relationships.

I thought we had the best marriage in the world but as our MC said "Everyone has to nurture their marriages. ALL marriages have the potential to go off the rails in one way or another." Our "off the rails" was caused in a lot of ways by three deaths in our family - my father, my father in law and my mother in law all in one year. Our MC pointed out to us that sort of stress tests even the strongest marriages. She said that it can come out as heavy drinking, gambling or affairs.

I half looked at MB when I was in the middle of the A. IF ONLY I had joined the forum then.

Jenny

I know that my reply is going to sound strange, but in a way, I'm kind of glad that my husband had an affair. I really wouldn't have changed a thing. Yes, I wish I would have found this site earlier, but would I really have used the advice that I've found on it before he strayed? I don't think so. I guess some of the best lessons in life are learned the hard way, and this was one of those. His affair was a huge wake up call for me, and we probably would have gone on with our marriage in misery until one of us had filed for divorce.

Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it?

I fully concur with you all. I wish I had visited this site or engaged myself in the Discussion Forum ealier. May be I would not have become WS as I am today.

They say whole life is a constant "Learning Experience", and I would attribute my past philanderings and WS-traits to my inherent preponderence.

As much as I have been trying and changing myself for better, I have not yet been able to regain my BS' confidence. I do not blame her for this. It is me who betrayed her trust and it is upto her whether she wants to rebuild or not. I view her reactions as the "Effects" and my acts as the "Cause". But my BS's constant pain, trauma and sufferings for the past four years does disturb me.

I will keep trying to rebuild as long as it takes. It is only God's Grace which would actually be the guiding factor if the M recovers. I will continue to pray.

I wish all New and Old MBers, my salutations and best wishes.

I've been seeing a lot of commercials on television...'friends help your friends before it's too late'...reminding young people to help their friends get away from drugs...I see commercials with stars reminding adults to mentor...to spend time with their kids...to talk with them about drugs...friendly reminders not to forget about the importance of others...

I would love to see one of these commercials remind us to love our partner...to bring out the statistics of how many of us are truly 'in trouble'...to show the warning signs...to show the impact a failed marriage has on children.

Our worlds are so busy these days...trying to further our careers, trying to keep up with the Jones', trying to do it all for our children...we have forgotten about ourselves...maybe if we took the latest running commercial where the mother and father slam the doors on each other preparing to confront their daughter on drug use...and replaced it with the mother and father slamming the doors on each other...because of their failing marriage it might remind us that we need to do something for ourselves before 'it's too late'.

I can't name one person that I interact with who would honestly say they are happy in their marriage...some are 'content' like I was...look where that got me. Most of my family/friends are simply miserable...it's normal...as normal as affairs <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

Hmm. Great topic. In my case I don't think knowing about MB would have helped.

Although I didn't know about this website, after my D from my 1st H I found a copy of HN, HN and read it. I was hooked! I got my then bf (now my H) to read it and he read the beginning. So we both knew about ENs and the love bank before we were M.

There were problems in the M that didn't seem so big... until the A. Step-parenting, visitation schedules, busy lives... all were "kind of" stressful and a bit of a bother but we had no idea how BIG the problems were. Could MB have helped with that?

Heck, we STILL haven't figured out exactly what the problems were but we're working on it; if we can't easily see them with our 20/20 hindsight, it's no big surprise we didn't recognize them at the time, is it? MB certainly couldn't have helped with that.

Now that ponder this, though, were the problems really that big, or was it more the things underlying the problems? If the underlying things were taken care of the problems wouldn't have had such disastrous fallout and in fact may not have happened at all.

Underlying contributors were:
Failure to be Radically Honest
Failure to POJA
Failure to recognize and avoid LBs
Failure to express our top ENs to our spouse

So, yeah, an understanding of all MB principles (not just EN) would have helped, after all. IF we would have heeded them. I think this is one big reason I prefer FIL,SIL over HN,HN. We were meeting ENs pretty good - it's the LBs and the POJA that got us in trouble!

So maybe MB would have helped, or maybe some of this stuff just can't be internalized if you're only told about it. I think for some it has to be lived or you have to see a close friend or relative go through it. Don't you think it's kind of like trying to explain to someone how critical it is to eat right and exercise? They "kind of" know it's true... but when they have that first heart attack is when they get serious.