I was wrong. Sometimes you can fix stupid. You just told me how.

Thank you.

Larry

What stood out to me is that this is a person who has never recovered. This would be like the rapist who extols the virtue of the "sex" he had while raping. That is someone who is very sick and has never repented. A repentant, recovered person feels grief and sorrow about their crime, they don't glamorize it.

What is the issue with this, Mark? How do you handle it differently?

We did complete the PHQ at the MB weekend and exchanged them. We were told to hold nothing back.

SugarCane:

I am not sure Mark answered all of your questions. I am holding to the concept that guys have a bigger problem for several reasons:

1. We know our memory system has large holes.
2. We fear leaving something out that is important.
3. We are not sure what level of detail to give.

Once we understand how it works, no problem.

And of course the issue that can'tfigure raised. As a rhetorical question, how the heck do you deal with that?

While I didn't appreciate the personal attacks, I do appreciate the learning process and now I think I have a handle on Historical Honesty, and the why, the result, the detail, and the pitfalls.

As it turns out, the naive question I asked turned out to be a bigger hair ball than I would have imagined.

Thank you.

Larry

Larry,

I thought that Mark answered all my questions. I had to read carefully as he did not number the answers, but they were all there.

For example, he said that he did not note a gender difference in understanding or answering the questionnaire, among the groups of churchgoers that he has worked with. He also thought that Dr Harley's writings on HH were clear.

Is there anything in his answers that you disagreed with?

This might be so, Larry, but I can only say that number 1, upon which a large part of your argument has rested so far, does not match my observations.

I don't think that men cannot remember, for example, whether they have ever been unfaithful to a girlfriend or previous wife, or have been an OM, or have had an STD or have fathered a child. I don't think that they can forget that they visited prostitutes or were wildly promiscuous when in the military.

As Mark said, they might not be able to remember the name of every prostitute but they do remember that they have been with them, and whether with two or three, or with dozens. The holes in their memory systems are not large enough to blank out those experiences altogether, in my experience.

Indeed, you seemed to be saying that when you looked at the questionnaire you knew it could take you a long time (and lots of spare paper!) to fill it. That suggests that you DO remember the facts of your past. You seem to not want to give them to a spouse, for reasons that are not clear to me.

I think cantfigureitout's post deserves a separate answer, and I will try to give one tomorrow, as I will a response to Mark.

Briefly on cantfigureitout's question, however, I think that an ENQ must be filled in with honesty. This must be impressed upon both parties. Lying, covering, omitting or otherwise deceiving when filling in a MB questionnaire is silly and self-defeating.

You cannot make a girlfriend or a wife tell the truth. You can only act in good faith. Your faith might turn out to be misplaced, and that will result in a crisis later on, but faith in their honesty is all you have, surely.

Mel,

As a nonprofessional, untrained layman, I have found a couple of instances where something came out on the PHQ that caught the spouse totally off guard and even made them question the validity of the relationship.

Even though the rest of the program made rapid improvements in their interactions with each other as they learned to meet each other's ENs and dealt with Love Busters once identified as well as started actually giving each other enough time to make the whole thing work, in at least one case the issue is still a sticking point between them and at least for now a source of unhappiness.

I guess it is really just the consequence of lying for your entire life to the one who thought they knew you better than anyone else.

I still think it is important, but I tell couples that when you do the PHQ, make every effort to avoid reacting to anything that occurred in the distant past. I am fortunate that no affairs have been revealed yet, or at least none that I am aware of since I don't look at the results myself and do not encourage the people to share everything that they found out about their spouse. I just don't seem to get myself in a position to do that face to face with folks in a group setting where not everyone is necessarily on the same page when it comes to confidentiality.

That answer your question?

Mark

I did understand what Mark had to say and agree in total, no reservations. He basically provided an instruction manual. It was detailed and complete. He also succeeded in attaching the concept to my honor system, which solved that for me as well.

That said, I had already learned a lot from your posts and others who chimed in, to include that it is a serious hot button for many. And should be for all.


Until I understood the concept, I was unable to correctly envision the level of detailed response that was needed. Think me waffling between my previous ignorance and what I know now. I do clearly remember giving my X every single gross detail I could remember in a series of conversations that lasted over six months. AND I remember pulling similar details from her until she got used to it and volunteered. Since that time, she has done nothing that I couldn't have predicted based on what she told me. Eyes wide open.

What I did intuitively then and what I wanted to know now is two different things.

Let me paraphrase something that Dr. Harley said that will clarify what I meant by memory. It was in one of his books or on the site, but I can't find it at the moment. He said that he had just learned that estrogen helped women have a better memory than men. Then he jokingly lamented that Joyce would thus have a better memory for all his past transgressions.

At the same time, I understand that memory cannot be used as a cop out. Of course I remember the gross details of the stuff I have done in my life, if not all of the exact details. And I of course know why I did what I did at the time with 20/20 hindsight. Heck I can even tell you why I adopted an honor system that I have lived by for decades.

What I didn't understand at the time of my initial expression of ignorance and think I do now, is the level of detail required. I think I got it SC about as well as I am going to get it even though saying that might expose me to more character assassination attempts. Actually, what I do understand is the end result and from there, the instruction manual becomes more obvious.

Thank you.

Larry

I can see how that could have the potential for major fireworks if a spouse has lied for years and years about something and may even cause some to want to end the marriage. I know that there are some things that would cause me to end the marriage. I would rather know the truth, of course.

Larry,

I have to tell you that whether a guy can remember all the details of something or not I don't think really has any bearing on this. The mandate is not to explain or recall all details of every event of your entire life or even the silly young and dumb parts of it. Rather I think that what it says, that we should share with our spouse whatever we know about ourselves pretty much only applies to what we remember. If we don't know it, we can't share it.

I do think that anything that might be a life changer or a character modifier would be significant enough that it should be quite memorable. I remember the first girl I took to the prom. I remember the color of her dress. I don't remember her friend's name who went with us or her friend's boyfriend's name who drove the car. I do remember the car breaking down and the old woman with the drunken husband who let us use a phone to call my date's parents for help. I also know the car was a white Caddy rag top but can't tell you what year. To me the night wasn't about the car...

Where a problem might occur is if our wife doesn't believe we don't recall or can't remember a name or a date or some such.

I can still remember the phone number for my grandmother from when I was about 4 or 5 (both grandmothers actually) and one of them has been dead for almost 30 years and changed her phone number four times after the one I remember. On the other hand, I can't for the life of me remember the address of the house we lived in when our son was born or the number of the apartment we lived in when we got married, though it is only a two minute drive from where we live now.

I think in both cases here I recall some details and not others because the house we lived in when my son was born we only lived in for about three months and the only significant event of that period was his birth. I recall vividly holding him in my arms as he stared through the window at the dog running through the snow with our daughter. The event was about him and not the house. In the case our first apartment, we lived in it from August until November and then spent our fist Christmas together at another apartment in a different town. Soon after our daughter was born and I recall a lot of details about her but can't remember if we moved again before or after her first birthday. Again, the year she was born wasn't about where we lived, it was about her coming into our lives.

I know during an affair seldom does the WS always recall the same kind of details that the BS remembers with clarity. I'm talking here about things like whether or not the affair partners met on a certain date or what movie was shown at the theater where they met one afternoon at the height of the affair. The fog doesn't just effect the interactions with the BS but even causes a significant amount of life to be lost for the WS. I don't know if men are more prone to this phenomenon or not but I have seen it around here enough to know that it happens.

And to assuage the the fears of those who might misunderstand me, I am not talking about a WS who trickles out the truth spread over month after month of agonizing torture for the BS who is working so hard to attempt recovery in the face of getting another new "worst case scenario" type of revelation on a daily basis; all while claiming lack of ability to recall the details. I am talking about how months or even years into recovery something might cause the BS to trigger and the FWS is oblivious to why it is a problem. Might be something like how the WS blew off the birthday of the BS in order to have a rendezvous with the AP at a free concert in the park. The WS might recall the concert, even the songs that were played or who was in the front row but has no recollection of having done such a thing on the BS's birthday. The truth is, they weren't thinking about the BS at all that day...

So in this instance the WS might see a concert or a free concert or even a song or artist as a problem since that was the experience part that they had themselves. They did not realize they had left the BS alone at home on the day of his or her birthday since they did not experience the pain of that themselves in any way. The birthday is not a logical trigger for them since they did not even think of the BS's birthday that day or at least during the rendezvous with the AP.

To the WS it wasn't about the birthday, it was about the rendezvous in the park that afternoon.

But I would say that the idea that we must have perfect recall or even not have significant memory loss to tell the truth about the past is a false assumption at best. It isn't in the details that we can recall that the truth lies but in the sequence of events that have shaped, defined and identified our lives.

Mark

Mark

After considerable reading and reflecting, I can say that I understand the point you make. And it makes sense to me.


Thank you. That I can do and have done. And more importantly, I have learned how to discuss with someone at a cordial level when needed on this forum. I have a couple of threads to get back to on the subject.

Larry

Honesty should be practiced in all relationships whenever possible not just to show our strenghths but also to understand if we are loved in spite of our weaknesses. There is also when is it the right time to get into our pasts and why? What is the nature and expectation of the relationship?

If you can't talk about everything with your prospective soul-mate with an expectation of being loved even if you had made very poor judgements in the past then there must be a reason why you don't trust them. So the relationship is stunted in a place that you need understanding and forgiveness in, a deep dark secret that you know was wrong.

..But what if you were abducted by aliens? Ok so you know what I am saying right? What if someone as a young person went to jail, does time and after they have been out for ten years and rehabilitated so completly that they cringe when they think of the past they escaped. Should they wear the scarlet letter so they would only be accepted by thier own "kind"? Or should it be possible that they have a relationship with someone based on now and not the past?

Also ppl tend to rewrite history as we all know and few of us want to be honest when we screw up and take the blame. If we are blessed enough to be forced to see where we were wrong its possible we made right decisions and remain forever vigilant to never hurt ourselves or others again.

Are we willing to completly open up and re-live old past decisions all over again and should we have to without good reason? Again it depends on the nature and expectations of the relationship. With a soul-mate anything should be open for discussion in time.


I would love to say that ppl are forgiving and strong enough to love each other without judgement but its not true. We all learn here that betrayal of someone you trusted with your life is one of the most painful and destructive and traumatic experiances anyone can endure and it takes years to buy back what is sold in a second. Forgiveness might come fast but forgetting takes time and not without help from sources outside ourselves. We just are not strong enough to take that pain and we need to protect who we are and our value God places on us before we trust someone else to love us, and in that order. If we believe in a just God who loves us not because he needs us but because thats why he created us to begin with is the only way this makes sense. It only makes sense to those who know they are alone and responsible for thier actions.

The point is that there are some out there that have so much baggage that to even start a relationship they had to leave it all at the train platform. If they are diciplined to follow the rules that relationships require to thrive and throw themselves fully and honestly into the new relationship it might just be painful to dig up bones that have no reason to be dug up.

But again anyone not able to discuss any subject with thier soul-mate has a problem that should be addressed if the subject is relative to the present state. Relationships are our greatest gifts we have and require tending to above all else.

My H thinks that whatever he did before our marriage is his business and none of mine.

He knows EVERYTHING about me!

About 4 year ago, we were on vacation with our best couple friends. I don't drink beer at all, but H and the other husband and wife do. They had already been into the beer for quite a bit, which tends to loosen my H's tongue at times.

Well, the H friend was worried about their son, who was having difficulty with recovering from his girlfriend breaking up with him.

My H offered to talk with the son, and the H friend said, "I think he needs to talk with somebody who had a relationship that suddenly ended."

H says, "I had a relationship that ended suddenly when she got killed in a car wreck."

??????!!!!!!!!!!!

I immediately recalled that a girl my husband had known was killed in a car accident shortly after our marriage (exactly 3 months after our wedding, as it turned out!). I also remembered that he was incredibly upset, and I was upset because HE was upset, even though I had never met the girl.

Anyway, I confronted him over this. He, of course, insisted that when he was talking about a "relationship", he meant that they were just really good "friends". Hmmm...well, if they were such GOOD FRIENDS, why did I never meet her? If they were such GOOD FRIENDS, why didn't she attend our wedding?

I really don't think they were together after our marriage, but I AM thinking that he may have had a massive crush on her, even after we were married. I don't know if they ever had a physical relationship (he says not), but from what I understand, she was the sort of girl to hang out with a bunch of guys...and pair off with whichever one took her fancy. Basically, it seems like being her "friend" came with "benefits". I don't think my H would have ever turned down a benefit.

THIS revelation has done more damage to my desire to recover our marriage than all the cheating that went on before.

I most certainly had a right to know about it BEFORE I said, "I do".

SSO


I am not sure what you mean in the part I underlined.

As I understand it, historical honesty means you expose it all, warts and all, to the level of detail that your partner wants or to the honest extent of memory. More baggage just means it takes longer to get it all out.

Larry

Quote:
What do you say to your wife when she asks "Do I look fat in this?" Do we apply radical honesty?

Answer
Of course.

Melodylane, I do not entirely agree with you here. Generally we give friends and family compliments. If we think they look ugly we tend not to remind them of this. It is simply not necessary.
My point is we are all selective with our comments and for good reason. Such negative comments would just cause hurt for no benifit.

Quote: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.

Answer
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.

Melodylane, the first scenaro maybe true, the marriage is not held together by a lie. The point here is, I believe and he believes, that it is not necessary to grade past experiences and then make comparisons of which past experiences were better than the present one. This is sure to be a disaster.
All that is really needed to know is you rock her world.

Originally Posted By: Jackblack

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.

Answer
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.

Melodylane
From what I read on this site I have come to see just how powerfully an affair can affect people emotionally.
I believe a womens sexual response is very closely connected to her emotional state at the time. To me it is not a big leap to imagine that many women (possibly most women) that engauge in an affair are likely to have their most intense sexual response at this time.
We can judge and condem the affair but their sexual response will still be what it is. They can not change that.

My point here is, how useful is this knowledge to a potential long term partner?? If he loves the women and wants to marry her.
I believe the knowledge of the affair is enough.

Jack.

Since you addressed others I will not comment.

Look just below Dr. Harley's welcome message on this page. Note the FAQ button. Click on it and scroll down to where it says:

What UBBCode can I use in my posts?

Hit the plus sign and read. That section of the FAQ will tell you all you need to know about the tricks on here. You can learn to type the codes in yourself.

Also, you can hit the quote button at the bottom of any post and see the codes in action.

Larry

Thanks again Larry

My reason for being here is to gain knowledge and refine/modify my thoughts etc. Hopefully to help in my own relationship.
To advise on someones elses marriage is way beyond my scope.

I fly a few kites and are more than happy for anyone to shoot them down. It helps me learn.

Of course. [/quote]

Melodylane, I do not entirely agree with you here. Generally we give friends and family compliments. If we think they look ugly we tend not to remind them of this. It is simply not necessary.
My point is we are all selective with our comments and for good reason. Such negative comments would just cause hurt for no benifit.

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.

Melodylane, the first scenaro maybe true, the marriage is not held together by a lie. The point here is, I believe and he believes, that it is not necessary to grade past experiences and then make comparisons of which past experiences were better than the present one. This is sure to be a disaster.
All that is really needed to know is You rock her world.