OK, name calling means the argument has become FUTILE!! I'm in:
Melancholy Lane

Ummmm....I know ML personally and she is anything BUT Melancholy, I can tellyouthatrightnow.

Yes, I am being futile today. Back to work!

rprynne: My XWH thought all of MB was just fine except for that part about POJA. He HATED that part and refused to consider it, but thought that should be okay because he'd go along with the rest of it.

He was furious that I insisted on POJA, and that POJA just meant I was just trying to "control" him.

Of course, the real reason for his refusal to POJA is that you can't POJA girlfriends and he had NO intention of giving up the office skanks, strippers, porn, waitresses, Roller Derby girls and no doubt Shanghai prostitutes.

When I refused to back down on this, he rammed a divorce down my throat. It was final in January 2009.

Still think you can pick and choose?
Mulan

How about for DUDE...Just_A_Fire?

BuriedForever

CarriedForever

SCARRYFOREVER

hehe DUDE

I don't want anyone else other than my wife. I never will. I don't want to say a vow publicly again and have all the contractual obligations associated w/ it. DUDE [/quote]

Put this in Hallmark and send it to your XW. She deserves this info.

Put this in Hallmark and send it to your XW. She deserves this info. [/quote]

BerberCAT

Didn't mean for this get into a name calling session.

Anyway, thanks for the responses. I understand what people are saying, but I'm still also curious about people's thoughts on a more fundamental level.

I look at the MB methods/principles as highly entrenched in cognitive behavioral therapy, where people have needs that can be identified and how they go about getting those needs met is a function of the interrelationship between thoughts, actions and beliefs. Understanding this and "optimizing" it is the path to success in a M.

However, the population at large tends to see the key to good relationships as a sort/find process where people are as they are, they are static, and the key is to find another that complements you.

I don't see how one can believe the later, and expect a process based on the former to produce successful results.

And, at least in my time here, it doesn't seem to be limited to just EP's or something like that. At one time or another people have seemed to object to what I see as foundational concepts to the MB approach. Concepts like people can change, like a committed M will be your greatest source of happiness, like sacrifice is bad for a M, like various EN's are legitimate, etc.

I'm certainly not the poster child for advocating a full "buy in", but I'm comfortable with what kind of ceiling that may put on the upper limit of the quality of my M. And I posed the question because I was curious if the others who don't/didn't buy in completely realized it causes a limitation or expected it not to matter.

The thing is there is a world of difference between the population at large and two people who are/have been married to each other. For example, our very own Dude comes across here as someone who many of us would not consider a "compatible" partner - had any of us met him in real life while in a stage of life we were looking for a potential husband. Mrs. Dude obviously thought he was compatible enough to marry him and did. Compatibility, or any other excuse the wayward may have thought up, is not the issue. We're talking about 2 people who, at one time, were compatible enough and complemented each other enough to make serious vows to each other.

This is an interesting question. It is a real paradigm shift for some, myself included. I love the church I grew up in and all that, but the idea is that God has just one person for you, you need to rely on Him to show you that one person, then you need to love them as you love yourself - but even further, you should consider that spouse above you in some ways, sacrifice is selfless and virtuous. A truly spiritual only expects God to meet their needs, so expectations of a spouse are misplaced dependency. You can see how these seemingly upright ideas can get stretched until you feel guilty for having needs at all.

I should have never had an affair. Raised in a CHristian home with two in-love parents. Dated selectively. Lived a spiritual and upright life. Saved myself for marriage. Prayed about who I married. Tried to do all I was supposed to do. Blah blah blah. So how did I end up cheating? Did everyone who had ever known me miss the egregious disfiguring character flaw I carried with me from birth? Yes, I was manic and selfish and hard hearted and STUPID. But was I always that way and just unknowingly putting up some good front? These questions plague me at times. I mean, I believe I am repented and changed now, but if I was so good at fooling myself then...

Anyway, MB has been like a burden lifted for me. It just makes so much sense in a world that seems to just ride on meotion most of the time. It is actually in line with the Biblical-ness of what I was taught. It's just that the teachers took an extreme slant to it. MB seems, well, SANE to me.

EVERYONE is vulnerable to an affair? Nonsense, and I take offense to that.

An affair isn't some predator, or a disease. It is a conscious choice.

EVERYONE is vulnerable to heroin addiction, too...assuming EVERYONE is stupid enough to shoot up the first time.

I don't know.
But that does not change the facts.
You did not follow Harleys plan, and you are not married.

You do not have a wife.

You have a girlfreind/Ex-wife

I think that for the most part the majority of the MB principles are like the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) and they were "no brainers" to me personally and when i read them i thought well who doesn't do that until i read more and more and begun to see that a lot of people do not follow the golden rule.

However i think that once a spouse has had an A they HAVE to apply these principles in order for the BS to heal.

Watch out or ML will call you KRAZYO!!! DUDE

I was vulnerable BIGTIME...I wanted all kinds of strange booty and I'll be the first to admit it. DUDE

WRONGO!

Ok, I take extreme offense to my locked thread. People start threads all the time about "FUNNY THINGS YOUR WS SAID". I said some of this is funny and it is, and I've learned alot on this board and I like everyone on this forum. Some that give me the hardest time. THAT IS NOT A TOS VIOLATION, regardless of the replies.