Thank you so much for sending the MP3 of the show. I got it as Flick was walking in from work and we listened to it while cooking tea. We found it very interesting, particularly the segment on POJA and car purchase as we have bought and sold 6 cars in the lat 2 years. We did good
I have to admit we got a little excited when we heard the opening about the woman who had lived with her fianc�e 9 months before M but alas, it was not us. While we did open a joint account not long after moving in together, it was not part of my email to Dr Harley, nor was there anything about furniture. In fact because I was a solo mum and Flick had been flatting for several years before meeting, we had the opposite problem and had to have a garage sale LOL
Anyway, as per your request, here is the transcript, without umms, errs, repeated words, and only the relevant portions as I am
laaaaazy 
MB show 2/7/2010
JH well good day to you, good news you've been listening, your writing us with your questions and your comments on the various topics that we've addressed. Now on the topic of living together which we did just this week living together before marriage or just living together we got several reactive emails. After this discussion. So we're going to address those during this hour along with other email topics. Also we'll asked the question what happens when your spouse changes over time. Elizabeth Edwards comments on how the man she knew was no longer the man that she married at the very beginning so were going to go into the whole idea of change of your spouse in a marriage situation. We have lots to talk about. We'll also be taking your phone calls, the number to dial is xxxxxx . Joining us now is my husband Dr Bill Harley. Licensed clinical psychologist, author of 16 books on marriage including his best seller HNHN. Well Bill we got a challenge about these living together comments were made in our discussion a few days ago
DRH not really a challenge but a correction.
JH a correction, oh well ok. Ok, you interpreted it that way.
DRH or an expansion
JH expansion, ok, its in the eye of the reader maybe . OK this person lived with her fiance for 9 months before marrying him and it worked out well for her marriage. And she is saying that your warning regarding the negative stats of living together before marriage do not apply to all couples and especially in her situation it didnt turn out that way.
DRH yeah and she makes a good point in that she said that in her case they shared everything, they shared bank accounts they chose their furniture together they , in other words, they blended. You know, in the 9 months they were living together they anticipated being married , you know, so they started out with a buyers mentality. They were going to be live partners from the first day they were there. And it worked out well. Now my problem with that idea is that even thou you may expect to do that sort of thing, when you are living together if something goes wrong in the relationship which often happens in the first 9 months the couple is more likely to break and run. Or another way of looking at it is that they are more likely to become renters they might start out as buyers, but the solution to the problem is not to sit down and work this thing out as buyers but rather to slip back into a renter mentality.
JH I think of purchasing a car, in fact thats going to be in one of the emailers questions so thats very much on my mind but the idea of going out and purchasing a car you are getting into the buyers mentality. And you actually put the down payment down , talk about the finances, and your sign and they there can be buyers remorse. You know, some people even back out of the purchase of that car. Before they actually take possession of the car. So thats they only thing I can liken it to that your getting at here, that you can change your thinking even during engagement , or live together?
DRH yeah, you bought a station wagon once I remember that we had a lot of problems with it when we bought it home. The thing that should have alerted me to the fact that this was going to be a difficult entry, was that the battery was dead when we went to pick it up. He had not prepped the car
JH yeah, it wasnt so much the cars fault as the dealers fault
DRH yeah, so we bought the car so we had to get it to work. And so for a while we had to you know, just be persistent in making sure the thing operated right. As it turned out it was a wonderful car, we enjoyed it for years, it was very, it was essentially problem free in the year s that we had it.
JH and your point is
DRH my point is that by buying it we put up with the initial problems that we faced and we got it to work, if we had rented it, if this had been a one month rental it would have been a whole different story and think that for couples who are living together before marriage, while they might have had this experience that this lady wrote about, wrote in, she would, there are many who dont have that experience and so all we're doing is, we're warning people who think that it might be a good idea to live together for economic reasons or who think it might be good to live together as a way of evaluating whether or not the relationship is a good idea , even thought there are these arguments that can be given the experience that I've seen in talking to many many many many couples and the research that I've seen on the topic has indicated to me that its a risky thing to do, if you want, if you really value your relationship and you want this thing to work for life live together after your married
JH there you go, and of course we say personally we do not condone the choice of living together before marriage and thats just something that we base it on because of our faith. Because of religious reasons. What the bible says to us. But the conversation goes out there to the general audience who is not in the same faith mind as we are
DRH yeah, would I give the same advice to somebody who didnt accept my religious beliefs , I would , I would, I would say regardless of your religious beliefs
JH but your reasons would be a little different for encouraging them not to do it.
DRH yeah,and these are the points that I make, is we know that cigarette smoking tend to cause cancer. Well there are a lot of people who smoke thru out their entire life and never get it, never get cancer
JH I think of George burns and his cigar smoking and how, you know he lived into his 90's and George burns did and what do you attribute to your longevity and he would say oh so many cigars a day and you know its true, there are exceptions to all of these rules you might say that we pass on.
DRH the question is are you taking a risk, an unnecessary risk and we just wanna let people know that these are risks that need to be taken into account that is it worth it? To have 2 or 3 months were you live together before marriage when you could just put it off , wait till your married then live together and you;ll be in a group of people that are far more successful
JH well the idea of financially forming a bank account together purchasing furniture together you know we did all that prior to marriage but we didnt live together so all these things can be accomplished even tho not living under the same roof. And in the same theme here we had a listener that said �just listen to the show today and the segment about living together before marriage produces a renters mentality even if the couple later marry I agree with this but you can have a renters mentality in marriage without having lived together prior to marriage which is my case. I also liked that you said that renters cant or wont have a difficult time accepting or participating in the POJA agreement, this is true in my experience....."
Do you want to post the transcript or shall I? 
] 
no international fame for me today 