SugarCane

I think I do. I am going to think about it some more. I may have a few questions after I process it. I have to unload the personal attack before I can really put a bottom line on it in my mind.

I do remember the first time I ever saw that questionnaire, "My God, I could write a novel!" How many weeks will it take me just to cover the highlights? In other words, I was a bit overwhelmed by the job. No fear, just no direction that would simplify the task so I could understand it.

Larry

It was my pleasure, Pep.

I'd be interested if you want to discuss it.

I think it might be something that you cannot be "once". I have a feeling that it changes a man's future for good.

Since some of us have to work for a living (if you call this work and if you call it a living) I will have to either look at this later or skip it all together. I just need to see what everyone has said before I reply in full.

As part of my MB class at church, I hand out the PHQ to couples. I tell them that I strongly suggest that they fill them out and that they share what they write with each other. I also suggest that they not simply try to unload everything that might be a serious enough problem to cause a conflict going forward until they have had time to process a good bit of the rest of MB and ensure that the marriage is the best possible road to begin with since suddenly finding out certain things about each other could be a problem if something has been hidden for a long time during the marriage, especially something that would explain why a certain way of handling something or some dynamic in the relationship.

Example: Suppose you had a brief affair with an older sibling's spouse or BF/GF. The family is estranged and no mention of is is ever made at family gatherings. Perhaps the sibling does not know it happened and so you avoid him or her entirely and your spouse doesn't understand why.

Or maybe the wife had an abortion when she was 14 or 15 years old and the father would have been the 22 year old neighbor who later died in Vietnam. These things not only effect the current spouse who is withholding the information but can effect decisions about things that come along in the marriage as well.

I think that Dr Harley is not talking here about sharing details of what you did in the backseat of a 1963 Dodge when you were 17 years old but the fact that you did in fact do it when you were 17 and that was your first time or whatever. The minutia that might be forgotten over time isn't significant to the discussion of being honest about our history. What matters is our willingness to be honest and to not withhold information we do know.

How much should we share with our spouse? The answer, I think, is "How much ya got?" What you remember isn't the issue as much as sharing what you remember. And also realize that it really only becomes a serious problem if information was withheld in the past. Generally, if a person purposely withholds information about their history before marriage they usually continue to withhold information after they are married.

I'll be back...

Mark

I agree with this completely. I was very clear from the beginning that I wanted NOTHING to do with any woman who had been involved in an affair. I didn't believe in their character and had no faith that they wouldn't do it again. I was agreed with time and again. Then a year and a half later, I find that she HAD been involved as the OW in an affair. This was long after I had fallen in love with both her and her daughters...

THEN you are left holding the bag. LEAVING your family... or at least how you think about them at that time... or sucking it up and taking the chance. I took the chance... and lost DRAMATICALLY.

God Bless ya Mark!!!!!

You said it EXACTLY how I always took RH to mean.....

It just isn't rocket science.....cuz if it were, I'd be in a world of hurt...

Mark,

What do you understand HH to mean?

Do you think that Dr Harley is clear about the kinds of events it covers?

Do you think he is clear about the level of detail required?

Have you found that the gender of the respondents at your church sessions affects their understanding of the questionnaire?

Just how much of our past is relavent is such an interesting subject.
I do think males and females process these things differently.

Recently I was talking to a friend about how much we know of our wives sexual past and how much we want to know.
His immediate reply was that he wanted to "know" he was the best that she had ever had and that was it, definately no other details.
They are a happy couple.

Another couple I know have just recently separated. The woman had had an affair in a previous marriage. The guy knew about this and I think was ok about it, we all have a past.
The devil came in the detail. She was not backward in telling how the affair had "openned" her up sexually. The defining moment in her sexual life. I believe this added information ate away at their relationship and was a big factor causing them to eventually split up.

The first scenario may technically be a lie but it would save a lot of relationships compared to the "full" disclosure of the second couple.

Maybe it depends on the spin we put on it?
What do you say to your wife when she asks "Do I look fat in this?" Do we apply radical honesty?

note - every time i see this thread i read it as "hysterical honesty"...not sure why

You can click on "Edit" and fix stuff.

Larry

This is the hard lesson right here. And though you are focusing on sexual history, the other stuff can be just as damaging. Lies do nothing but cause harm. Adopt a policy of honesty for your whole life and every aspect of it. Never utter a word that isn't true and you'll save yourself a lot of grief down the road. Most importantly, you will ultimately feel good about yourself. Really, because it is a heck of a lot less painful to end a relationship before marriage than it is to find out all this stuff afterwards.

Cheers Larry.

Im new to all this and sometimes need all the help I can get.:)

I am not sure why you view this as a problem. Her H has a right to know that is her attitude about adultery. That history told the man something about the woman that caused him to NOT want to stay married to her. That is HIS RIGHT. I would be utterly disgusted and appalled if a partner told me that a filthy affair was beneficial. That would demonstrate a distinct lack of remorse that reflects a lack of respect for marriage. The woman is a pig. Obviously that so appalled him that he chose to end the marriage. He had to have known he was not safe with such a skank.

It sounds like he either made a mistake in choosing to marry her or perhaps she withheld some things. Either way, he had a RIGHT to know that history and he had a right to end the marriage over that history.


I disagree that it is a virtue to try and keep a marriage together based on a lie. A good marriage has a foundation of honesty, not lies.


Of course.

Someone that glorified the "benefits" of adultery would be a knock out factor for most people. Most folks would recognize such a person has little respect for fidelity and would pose a dangerous risk as a marriage partner. I know I sure would take a pass.

Or course Tabby. I live by a code: Duty, honor, country and have since roughly when I was in mid-twenties. I feel very good about myself in those arenas, and Duty covers honesty. Can't you tell? I am not smart enough to keep up with lies.

The other stuff is at least as important to display character as the sexual stuff. In between one marriage and another, I was well off. But I told all prospects that I was barely hanging by a thread. And in fact most small businessmen can say that without a trace of a lie. I have had three businesses, all under capitalized and all subject to going down the tubes if left unattended for very long. Most applicants did a fast exit.

But not the lady who I eventually married. And when it happened for real, she worked as hard as I did to restore some level of prosperity to the family. She had no trace of bailing, period. I respect her for that to this day among many other reasons. I think, from the male POV, that what she did when disaster struck, has filled a love bank that can never be depleted. I do think that guys have multiple love banks, but that is a subject for another day.

I do see the guys starting to stick their toes in this water. Be interesting what they have to say, like Pep's husband.

There a few on here who have tried to figure me out. And the one who got it right, said the two words, "Innate Decency." I have had friends who have known me for years who have said the same thing. It is who I am and how I have lived and how I will die.

Larry

The first thing I thought of is a woman who is in love with infatuation feelings. You can't fix stupid.

Larry

Well - no you can.

I was stupid.

Stupid to not realize my H loved me
Stupid to go out alone in las vegas
stupid to get drunk alone
stupid to go with a strange man alone to his room
stupid to cheat on my husband with the man and put my marriage and life at risk
stupid to not go get the cops after the OM and his friends raped me
stupid to tell my husband I cheated on him and not tell him I was raped because i felt so guilty about it all..and now he doesnt believe me and thinks I am covering up for the ONS and not trying to take responsibility for my actions.

You CAN fix stupid...its just a very painful process.

My BH believe people dont change...that also isnt true

People do change...but that to...is a very painful process

AND


Before someone else tries to put me in the dog house, infatuation feelings are great if both parties are available and NOT married. I have already detailed how MB concepts mimic the natural things we do during an infatuation, which allows one to have all the good stuff by having those feelings for someone real instead of someone we just think is real

I firmly believe this is the secret behind how Dr. Harley was able to construct something that, for those who do what he says do, takes one to a different place most never find.

Larry

Along the same lines... but DIFFERENT none-the-less...

When do you talk about what is IMPORTANT to you as far as ENs?

SHOULD you talk about ENs while dating... or merely see if your SO 'fits the bill' so to speak?

I ask this.. because I have done alot of thinking over the last week.

One reason I am in the position I am in is because I actually TOLD my wife (then GF) what I was looking for... and she then BECAME what I was looking for... at least for a short time. Long enough for be to love her, but not long enough to BECOME that within herself.

So I have thought long and hard about this, maybe prematurely, but none-the-less...

When/DO????? you talk about ENs...

and my main example would be SF... or whatever YOUR number 1 EN would be.

For example... MY #1 EN IS Honesty... however, it is so ubiquitous, as to almost NOT be an EN because EVERYTHING rests upon it being in place. Therefore if it isn't there, then nothing else matters, in my book, because I can't believe in SF, affection, conversation, rec, etc etc if HONESTY isn't in ALL of them. That is just for me.

However, when do you talk about your ENs? Like SF? SF is a BIG thing to me, too big to 'dabble' in early on as I have found with my current wife. I put TOO MUCH LOVE into my SF. I FEEL too much love via SF, perhaps where none or little exists in reality on the other side.

So... when do you get the stones to say "BTW... SF is a big thing for me. Too big to simply ignore. I don't want to sound like a pervert, however, I would like to understand what you feel about SF in a relationship/marriage and what your views are on the subject from YOUR point?"

For me this is a HUGE thing. Because, I don't want to be with a woman who doesn't think SF is significant. I also don't want to FIND OUT what she thinks through trial and error, because I don't want emeshment NOR infatuation NOR her desire to 'please' rather than be 'true' to get in the way. I don't want to say "I like XYZ this often, in this way" because I don't want her to think I am controlling, nor simply give it because she 'likes' me but resent it later. I believe my wife did this, and not only did it NOT continue, but it worsened EVERYTHING between us.

SO... what are your thoughts?

When do/DO YOU talk about ENs? First date? 6th date?

IF you DO talk about them... how do you know that they aren't simply USING what you say to 'catch you' rather than using what you say to "LEARN what you LIKE"? For instance, If I LIKED a woman, and she said "I like XYZ" I would work to do 'XYZ' as often as possible. I would work to incorporate it into who I was... so it would be a 'good' thing. However, if I said I like 'XYZ' and all of the sudden she 'did' it... I would worry about whether she was being honest or merely trying to 'catch' me.

Sounds kinda self centered... doesn't it... but real to me none-the-less.

SC,

I have not found men or women to be more likely to fail to understand the questionnaire nor less likely to understand it as the case might be.

I do know that women have a memory that is more suited to recalling specific details about emotional events than do men. This might be in large part to the fact that women have a lot more interconnections between the left and right sides of the brain than do men. This might be in part at least the explanation of why men seem to be able to (generally) have a knock-down drag-out brawl with a friend where they beat each other silly till neither can stand up and then crawl to the corner pub for a pint.

I think Dr Harley is very clear that anything and everything that effects our character or might shed some light on how we react in a given situation is something that our spouse should be made aware of in order to know when the marriage relationship might be at risk and ideally this information should be made available before the marriage starts.

The minutia of what happened in the back seat of that 63 Dodge (or 74 Ford or 82 Audi) doesn't matter as much as the fact that it happened and even who it happened with. The details of what the hooker and the sailor on leave did that night in Bangkok is not as important as the fact that while serving a tour that lasted 6 months away from home the sailor fell for the trap of "sowing some wild oats" and then pretending that it doesn't matter to our wife ten years later when she gets sick and can't meet our EN of SF for six months and the guys at work are all going on a fishing trip that has a stop in Rio.

There is a valid difference between saying "I slept around when I was in college" and saying "I worked my way through school by spending weekends with various business men having sex with them and their friends so that they would buy me stuff like clothes so I could afford to stay in school." On the other hand if I slept around when I was in college I'm not even sure if the name of every single person I had sex with matters nearly as much as the number that I consider constitutes sleeping my way around.

Q: How many women did you have sex with in your life before meeting your wife?

A: A lot...

Ok. 10 IS A LOT.

10 per month for 10 months is 100 and THAT is a LOT.

1 per week for ten years...

Are we talking serial monogamy with 5 women spread over ten years or are we talking about a different bar pickup every Friday Saturday and Sunday nights continuing over that same ten years?

And men remember those kinds of details just as well as women do, IMO. THOSE are the details that count.

The real issue that I run into with the PHQ is when something has happened since the marriage began and one spouse has been hiding it from the other, perhaps for 30 years.

The thing I think historical honesty is pointing to is questions of character. Having had one or 5 sex partners in a monogamous relationship over a period of ten or more years worries me a lot less than having chased everything in a skirt (or pants) from the time you were twelve until you were 33 and then suddenly claiming ignorance. The things that shape our character or point to our character defects and weaknesses I think are important enough that even us men can remember them. Maybe we don't know the name of every hooker we ever paid for sex if we were really wild and crazy for a while but we certainly know if it was a one time thing on leave or if it was a lifestyle that might put us or our spouse at risk in the future.

I believe historical honesty is of primary importance for another reason beyond just our spouse's right to know. It can in fact be our former weaknesses and sins that we have overcome and no longer participate in that can show our true current nature and how much better we are at controlling our impulses. If I am an alcoholic who has been ten years sober my soon to be bride might not decide to not marry me but might decide on the toast at the reception being made with sparkling apple juice rather than champagne.

What I think it really comes down to is honesty in general. How honest do we need to be to be honest? How many lies can we tell and still be honest? How many secrets do we have to be hiding from our spouse to be hiding too many secrets? How unfaithful do I have to be in order to be called unfaithful? How many times do I have to meet an affair partner in the motel down the block in order to be a cheater?

Even issues of health might come up as a result of withholding information. If my father died when I was 17 of a heart attack brought on by reaction to a drug used to treat him after an accident that left him unable to communicate, my wife might need to know that in case I have the same reaction when I am pulled from the wreckage of my car on the freeway.

I also think it comes down to this. What is important to our spouse is what our spouse feels is important. If I share everything I know about myself and it doesn't matter to my wife and she still wants to be married to me forever, then I am a lucky man. If I hold back something that she feels is important then maybe she won't be so willing to spend her life with me. I don't get to decide what she thinks is important; she does. If she wants to know, it is my responsibility to tell her the truth within the bounds of my ability to recall details she wants to know. If I tell her everything she can decide if it is something she needs to react to or make changes in her life. It just isn't my call to filter the truth for any reason.

Time to go home to my wife...

Mark