**edit**


for anyone else who wants to listen, my baby's dad says he is ready to step up and get married. i just don't know if i want to. before, i did not think it was that important. i felt a commitment could be made that was like a marriage without a legal and social marriage. maybe i was wrong. i have admitted that repeatedly. but i don't deserve the abuse. not from anyone. not from you. i understand you are just people like me with your limitations. you are hurt and come here and vent on people. specific types of people mayber even, not just individuals.

i came here to tell my story in a safe and supportive place. this may not be it

and a lot of changes have been made since d-day. i was getting to that part. as soon as it all came out he apologized, he stopped the affair, he wrote a no-contact letter(2 years before i even heard of marriagebuilders) that i approved and we sent. he quit the adderols, and began sleeping the same hours as us. he stopped working with the enabling friend. he was transparent with his passwords and changed his phone.

the problem i am having is i can not get over it because he will not talk about it. how can i fully believe him when i know there are things he will not talk about with me. also, he sometimes uses angry outbursts and disrespectful judgements to avoid dealing with conversations he doesn't want to have. this has decreased but still exists. i made a deadline for him to get help with this. i will not live with the abuse.

what advice have i been given other than to buy a book. can some one help me see what i missed. i feel i was just soundly dismissed by not everyone but the people who post the most here. i feel you8 are a discredit to the valuable information given here. it's not your site. you didn't write the books. i have every right to be here and you are not getting rid of me .

the only thing i wish to defend is that my family is real, my feelings are real, my pain is real. i am a real person. iam a good person. i do not know where you get off going on about my pity party. would you do that to other bs's too?

some people in other cultures get married in different ways. i think that would count too. who are you to tell me my feelings on this don't count. i considered myself married and my partner will tell you he did too. he just thought he could get away with it and thought i would not find out and i avoided conflict. now we are ready to heal and move on. i want to improve.

i did buy the book-waiting for delivery. i have read everything on this site. i am trying to get my ws to read this too. it is an excellent starting place on how to create a realationship that works for both of us- whether we marry or no.

now he wants to get married- but i don't want to if he can't be truthful about our past. i don't think he had a free pass to cheat regardless. i feel i had the right to expect honesty and faithfulness all along from him. i treated him like my spouse and he lied inorder to cheat. if it wasn't cheating, why did he lie. ihave asked this before. will someone answer? promises were made commitments were broken. actions have helped, but i cannot fully heal without the truth.

in jury duty today today they referred to a person's live in partner as their spouse. it is not so concrete. we share a home, children, and our lives

Society has put there stamp of aproval on live in relationships and quick divorces. They have romanticized affairs and are trying to legitimize homosexual M. That does not make any of it moral or right in any way and it does not make any of those relationships work or any of those people hurt any less when they don't or any of the children involved any less likly to suffer from the moral experiments of their parents. MB celebrates traditional M and teaches people to do the things that keep love in their Ms and make them work. Dr Harley does not encourage live in relationships.

Stick around and learn what you can from "reading a book" and from other posters but please don't whine about not being accepted on a site that was started and perpetuated for M. Call it whatever you want but you do not have a M, Mama. How can you ever expect to encourage honesty?

God's Blessings,

Say

mamasita

Its me again. . .


And. . .then you said. . .


Now you say:



Uh, which is it mamasita.


Sure I do, when they need it. Some even listen, like 26. See her thread.


You are correct. There are several on here who will tell you that I tend to get in the face of hammer heads and you qualify. I am bigoted against those want help but ignore the help that is offered and who offer up a temper tantrum instead of listening.

If you won't listen to me, listen to your partner. He has his head screwed way more straight than you.


Dozens have tried. You are not listening.


Good. And you did even more good. See the next one.


Go read the rest of it. You blew off the only first time post I have ever seen that might qualify as a notable post.

And the sad part is that you have no idea just how great that post was.

Now I will honor your wishes and my gut instinct that you will just keep trying to justify your attitude. I will go away.

All the best anyway.

Larry

Ok delurking again just to address this.

A while back I was watching Whoopi Goldberg in a comedy special and she was talking about Childrearing and living through the sexual revolution of the 60s. The point she made was that 'in her day' they were going to change everything. They were going to be different with their kids, they were going to be friends with their kids. Her punchline: "What happened?! We raised a bunch of barbarians" Meaning kids now don't have the same kinds of manners and respect that they once did- often they're downright rude and obnoxious. I find that sad.

The parallel here is that though there were always outliers, institutions like marriage exist for society as a whole to be better. Then a whole generation came along and decided they wouldn't play by the rules. So marriage has become devalued. That doesn't change the fact that it is a valuable tool that has relevance today. Right now our generations are reaping the effects of the social devolution that resulted with that 'revolution'. Increased divorce rates, entitlement, a 'what's in it for me' attitude. People not willing to change, be better and become what it takes to be a husband or a wife. Rather we should all be accepted as we are.

I'm sorry but if I were perfect as I was before I got married I wouldn't have needed a relationship - I was perfect. Relationships and Marriage are SUPPOSED to change us an make us grow.

To address what I quoted above, just because society is slowly devolving to the point where a live in partner is a spouse does not make it right or good. Because all those societal changes have hurt more than they helped us (and you are living proof!). But you can help change that by respecting the institution of marriage.

The reason people are struggling to help you is because they don't know how. You're right, it isn't so concrete - it's quicksand and you're slowly slipping under. You say that your husband is willing to consider marriage. This is an EXCELLENT step!

But you both need to change - into what it takes to be a husband and wife. Let me quote an excellent post by Pepperband:


The tools are here. Get some pre-marital counseling. Eliminate Love Busters, put into place some Extraordinary Precautions. Lose the independent attitude, implement Undivided Attention, fill emotional needs. Plan to get married! Involve your kids so they see how important it is. Just do it! Don't waste any more time quibbling over the past. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

If the personal attacks don't stop, this thread will be locked. It is ok to disagree, it is NOT OK to attack posters!

Any questions, send me an email.

quibbling over the past? just forget it? how i am supposed to do that? i feel betrayed. he lied. why does he not have to talk about it just because we are not actually married.

**edit**

moderators note: this thread will be locked if this does not stop. Please refer to our TOS.

i take a lot of time and care in my children and they are far from brats. i think alot of kids suffer from attention deficit diorder these days and need more attention from the adults in their life. i think it would be just as easy to blame the fact that most kids grow up in ahome where both parents work and have a social life that doesn't include them. parents may try to be their friend for three hours a night after they get home and on the weekend but most of the time they are not there.
i feel i raise my kids diffferently too. i don't believe in punishment and i believe in honesty. i try to be there to listen to my kids and not shut them down. i am teaching them the vslue of commitment staying with their dad thru our troubles.

I think I may not have explained myself well. By quibbling over the past I meant your decision to marry or not marry. Obviously your way hasn't worked and your partner has expressed an interest in getting married. Overwhelmingly, the evidence is that you'd be better off married. By quibbling I meant the constant defensive attitude of your decision NOT to marry - it isn't productive.

I did NOT mean ignore his past infidelities. There is a reason, if you had no children, we'd say break up. When dating, cheating is a very valid reason to break up. If you can't stay true with little commitment there's not much chance you can with a major commitment. But you have kids, it's not that easy. He has shown he has trouble being faithful. I wasn't saying forget about that. Unfortunately you've chosen a mate that has weak boundaries. That's where the Extraordinary Precautions comes in. He has to set them and live by them. If you are to stay with him a condition needs to be that EPs are firmly in place. Transparency, honesty and opennes: these are vital.

And I think you missed my point with the Whoopi story. I wasn't saying your kids are brats, I don't care about the way you parent in this conversation - it's irrelevant right now. I was saying that with the changes that occurred in society in her generation there have been a lot of things lost that shouldn't have been. Values have been thrown by the wayside that society desperately needs. Respect and the value of family and marriage are two of them.

Also, I'm really sad Larry is gone, his help could be valuable to you if you'd just listen instead of getting defensive.

No one here is telling you your family isn't real, your relationship isn't real.

I said "GET REAL" because you're arguing with the wind here. It is WHAT it IS. That means it's a real live-in relationship that IS NOT a marriage. It is a real renter relationship. Not a Buyer relationship.

I don't blame you for NOT wanting to get married.

You deserve answers. He should be talking openly and honestly. And if your relationship is going to survive as a live-in relationship or a marriage, he'd better start talking.

Honesty is what you are asking for. And you have every right to ask for it and expect it. You have to start by being honest with yourself. You are not ready to go from renting in this relationship to a buyer now partly because he's damaged the relationship property. You don't want to buy a broken marriage.

I would suggest reading the book as soon as it comes. Both of you. Then get honest - follow the principles that Harley teaches - Policy of Joint Agreement, Radical Honesty, Extraordinary Precautions, etc. Because I think if the two of you implement those, and become willing to both become buyers in this relationship to protect it further, then go to the Marriage Builder Weekend, you have have the buyer relationship you crave so much that you rant at us for not acknowledging it as such.

You've been demanding that we acknowledge your relationship as real. It's not us that has to acknowledge it; it's you. And you have every reason to not buy right now. Not until he and you do what makes it safe for you to buy.

TJ/

Vibrissa, your posts are excellent and on point as to the issues on this thread. Don't stay in lurkedom, you have a lot to offer!

/TJ

Well. Whoo! You need to come out of lurkdom more often, Vibrissa! Well said.

They misspoke, probably through thoughtless ignorance. A live-in partner is a still a live-in partner. Not a spouse.

TJ/

Meggy and Bliss - aw thanks guys I have been hesitant to poke my head in here but I love this community. I might go introduce myself in 101.

/TJ

Thank you all for helping with this.

Contrary to what it seems, I think this is positive and helpful for the struggles we have been having. A lot of the anger I see here that mamasita has been expressing is misdirected. She is still very angry with me. Talking about this has been very hard. I dont want anyone to assume I am apologizing for her, I am just trying to bring down the level of anger on this, and highlight the reasons I see for the sort of personal attacks, and so on that she has been doing.

When she came here, and posted, she was looking for help sincerely. When there was resistance to her, based on the lack of a formal marriage agreement, there was some VERY hurt feelings. I have experienced this outside of these forums. I can say for certain that she didnt expect to get so much trouble for our unconventional marriage(or lack thereof).

I am hoping that this thread doesnt get locked. I am also hoping that my coming and posting, will help her open up a bit to the help everyone is offering.

I will say more later, perhaps I will even post in her original thread since I feel like it has a much better tone overall. This thread really has suffered when it comes to the way people have been treated.

WE have been seriously discussing marriage over the last week, and I believe that is the right direction. She has serious concerns, and reservations... and I respect that, although I have to say its hard to hear and feels a little like rejection based on the fact that we were supposed to "already be married". There has been serious discussion without fighting about the subject, and some less serious with fighting.


Thanks again for all of your attempts to help.

Hey, papasita, it is really good to see you here! I believe there is a good chance that you and mamasita can have a great loving relationship for life if both of you are listening and working.

Mamasita says she has ordered a copy of Dr. Harley's book Buyers, Renters, and Freeloaders. Will you commit to reading this book when it arrives? (And it should be pretty quick.) Either reading it with her, or reading it by yourself?

And in the meantime, can you read through every word of this site's basic concepts section? (http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3000_intro.html) These are the tools you need to build a good marriage, but you have to understand the parts of the tools and how to operate them, before you can use them, or even have a discussion about how to use them.

I ordered the book. I dont think she would have, she had planned on getting it from the library or something. I plan on reading it, hopefully it will have some stuff that will give us a good way to talk about some of the complexities of living together without having a formalized marriage, because it really has been hard.

I have been through the basic concepts several times. However, I am going to go through them again now. Its been a year or so since the last time I read them. Although they get quoted a lot.

Believe me when I tell you. This site already has changed my life, and my relationship with mamasite. We so need help with sorting this out. Its so complex, and so many years of just accepting failure... its very hard to change.

I do have high hopes though.