Mel,

You keep drilling down that it is NC or nothing. NC is certainly the effective way of ending the affair, but it does not mean the WS doesn't have OP in their mind for years, which is why NC is a lifetime sentence.

But, Harley also is not a marriage at all costs person. His own recommendation with an OC is divorce if there are no other children.

I know you have question Pop's thoughts about economics with regard to CS but frankly his thinking is very very good. He had his children foremost in his mind even more than his marriage which was on the ropes. His health would mean that likely there would be more "mouths to feed" with less money if they did not seek CS. CS meant OC was taken care of and his children of marriage would have more as well.

I don't see how you don't see that. I also recall that his W did not want to take CS from the OM and Pop's thinking she was trying to protect OM and his family. He decided he would protect his family first and not worry about OM.

Now please tell me how protecting your children is a violation of MB. Please tell me how CS was a violation of MB. Please tell me how he could oppose a court order for contact if CS was granted.

Sadly the courts don't follow MB and "common sense" isn't very common, but I continue to believe that OC in the mix makes these situation much more difficult than the standard affair and there are fewer "clear" paths to follow.

Whether Pops or anyone else wants it or not, when an OC comes into being families are mixed or a child is left behind. THis saddens me greatly and if I knew the "ironclad" way to address it, I would surely enlighten the world.



God Bless,

JL

PS: Newbies need to adequately appraised of different approaches and the relative effectiveness. MB is the best way, but it is sometimes cannot address all situations...nothing can.

Of course I do. And so does Dr Harley.


I have never questioned his plan to get CS and understand his reasoning. That is not my point of contention. The point of contention is the continued contact with his WW and her OP and his advocacy of same to newcomers on this board. When someone claims to be concerned about his children, and I have no doubt he does care about them very much, then that should lead him to take extra care to PROTECT his marriage. That is the main source of his kid's security. Sure, they need financial support, but more than that they need their parents to have an intact, secure, happy marriage.<----THAT is protecting your children.

But exposing his marriage to his WW's continued contact with her OP is NOT protecting his children, it is putting their well being at risk.

This continued contact between his WW and the OP presents a great risk to the marriage that he doesn't seem to comprehend. I don't think he took that into account when he agreed to allow his WW and OP to continue contact. THAT is the greater threat to his kid's security. He could have easily gone after CS but avoided direct contact with the OP. He didn't do that.

That is all Dr Harley recommends. You and I both know that continued contact with affair partners is a disaster, just as Harley states. We have seen the results of affairs partners who didn't end contact for years on this website. It is a disaster.

It's one thing to ignore Dr Harley's advice about NC yourself [speaking of pops], but its quite another to advise newcomers to take the same foolish risks and then to chastise posters as "myopically arrogant" for recommending Dr Harley's own advice. uuuuuh nooooooo ... That is the crux of my problem, and it is also the problem of Marriage Builders according to Justuss' post in the announcement section and on this very thread.

In pops situation, MB most certainly does address his situation and provide a solution. Dr Harley is very clear about the issue of nc and discussed it yesterday on the radio - nc with an OP in an OC situation.

Newbies come here to be apprised of the Marriage Builders approach, not the personal philosophies of those who have no expertise and have not solved their own marriage problems. Offering up different principles - as in this case - only causes confusion and prevents the newcomer from finding viable solutions in a time of despair. Nor should board members be put in the position of having to DEFEND Marriage Builders on MB when people in crisis come here for help. That is a distraction to everyone.

Dr Harley pays for this board to help people with HIS program, not the unqualified, unprofessional personal opinions of those who only know how to screw up their marriages.

The moderator made a thread at the top of this forum and, as guests on this forum, we have an obligation to respect and abide the board policy:

I have read this from a few posters here, but never from Dr Harley. Can anyone provide a citation for this?

I think that something Dr Harley never said is fast becoming established as fact on here.

This is what I have found from Dr Harley on OC situation with no other children:

There are many important issues to consider in deciding your future together. If your daughter were your only child, and if your wife were still in love with her ex-lover, who happened to be single and wanted to marry her, I would lean toward encouraging you to divorce. But since she is the mother of your two children, no longer loves her ex-lover, and wants to save her marriage, I would encourage you to remain married and raise all three children together.

What to Do When You (or Your Spouse) Becomes Pregnant with a Lover's Child

There are 4 "ifs" there:

If this is the only child AND

If the wife were still in love with OM AND

If he were single AND

If he wanted to marry her

THEN Dr Harley would lean toward encouraging divorce.

He would encourage this if all 4 "ifs" were present and NOT simply if OC was the only child.

What you just described sounds like he overrode his wife's wishes. Was this POJA'd, or did she capitulate?


I agree that people in these situations need to consider the relative worth of different approaches. The Marriage Builders forum is a school for learning the Marriage Builders approach. There are bookstores, libraries, a myriad of counselors, and an entire internet for exploring alternative approaches.

This is why I came to this forum. I wanted to learn Dr. Harley's way to do it and apply it to my marriage. I stayed away from this forum for years because any time I peeked at it it seemed like it was used for airing all kinds of different counseling approaches, many of which were contradictory to the Marriage Builders concepts.

It took me years to GET this program because a) I am slow on the uptake and b) no one on the forum was actually using the program in its entirety because very few people understood it enough to achieve the goal of MB: romantic love. We talked about everything EXCEPT Marriage Builders on the forum. We were usually distracted with endless posts about specific conflicts. The conversation never turned to building the skills necessary to resolve those conflicts, and never to the stated purpose of creating romantic love. The definition of success was little more than just staying married.

That all changed for me in 2006 when the MB radio show began. I was AMAZED at how dramatically different the program was from the general understanding on the board. Now, you see lots of people on the board in truly recovered, happy, romantic marriages. The definition of success evolved from just avoiding divorce to truly happy, romantic marriages. Its sad that so many marriages were lost over the years because of this lack of focus.

Thankfully, the board has evolved into a learning place, rather than an aimless chat forum where personal opinions reign supreme; the personal opinions of those who screwed up their marriages.

>I am right about no contact. Anyone who says that a little contact is right is simply.......wrong.

You are absolutely correct, Mel. NC is the ONLY clear cut path to recovery.

Anything else extends the pain and worry.

We have very limited C with the OW because we have custody of the OCs (of which there would only have been one if there was NC from the beginning).

It has taken YEARS of hard work to even reach a modicum of comfort within my own house because of that teeny bit of contact that we have on the off month (yes, month) that the OW exercises her right to visitation. Even now, I will not look at that person because of the upset she causes when my children come home. She knocks on MY door and I kiss the children and send them out...I've not spoken to her in 3 years or so (when she told me that *I* ruined her life because *I* didn't leave my husband and other gems).

Contact only makes this horrible situation even more nightmarish.

I will not advocate contact with the OC unless there were reasons that the child should not be with the mother (like in my case).

Hi Dealan-de!! Thanks for the great post.

I so love you, Kimmy my friend!

E, I hope things are better in your world.

Wow!!!!

NC..... I heard it first on Oprah. Three days before d-day. It thought it made sense and that it was something I would never have to worry about.... 3 days later I was told by my FWH that he might have a four month old son.

NC is absolutely the way to go to heal the M, to rebuild it into a super fantastic R with romance and love. But, when you add in the OC the damn court system and some peoples needs to parent their children (wherever they came from) gets in the way of NC.

The courts require that you pay your CS that the OP send you bills from the dentist and the drug store, and oh yeah the OC now wants to take ballet and you need to pay that bill too! It isn't the same establishing NC when there is an OC. Fortunately for me, my FWH was willing to put me, COM, and M before all else (wish he had done that before the A!). But the courts will still require his presence, unless he wants to just agree to everything OW wants.

For those WS's that can't/won't walk away from their OC, the BS has to choose, do I stay for me, the M and the COM even with this C with OC, which causes C with OP or do I walk away, destroy the COM's life with D, and the WS gets to expose my COM to the OP when he has visitation with COM? This becomes "out of our control". Does any one advocate it? Hell NO!!! We would like it all to go away. I am sure that E would love the OW to pack her crap and get out of town. But she can't force her FWH to leave, and many cannot afford to pack and go.

While I am all for advocating 100% NC and living it if the courts would allow (by the way we moved 1500 miles away, thank God!), we also need to have compassion and support for those that circumstances force the C (knowing that it is not good) and help in devising ways to mitigate the damage to all involved. The COM suffer tremendously from these A's. NC ever with the OP or anyone associated with OP would be best, absolutely has the best chance of recovery. But, life sucks and we can't change it all, unless we choose to walk away sometimes.

Fled the State

"WOW!!" was exactly my reaction when I came over to this forum and saw old timers telling newcomers that nc is not that big of a deal! WOW!! I asked myself if I entered the twilight zone because I thought I was on Marriage Builders where the posters KNEW BETTER. Apparently not....

I don't know of any situations where a WS is "forced" to see the OP, that has sure not been the case here. I don't even know of any divorces without an OC where a X is "forced" to see his X-spouse. Rather it is a matter of not caring about taking precautions because the participants are ignorant of the risk. Which is fine. Folks are free to take whatever foolish risks they wish with their own marriage. It is their life. They can play chicken all day long if they want. But...they are not free to come here and tell newcomers that ending contact between the OP and the WS is not necessary. ummm no... That is in direct conflict with Dr Harley's clear guidelines about OC situations.

NC is absolutely critical to recovery, which is why we should help those in an OC situation find creative ways to achieve NC [with the OP]. We shouldn't be on here on telling people it is not important or that posters are "myoptically arrogant" for suggesting very basic steps towards recovery of the marriage. A marriage that has been hit by an affair AND an OC is even more vulnerable. Such a couple should take extraordinary precautions to protect the marriage for the sake of the COM!

I would also suggest to those that ignore the nc rule that you are risking a second pregnancy. It happened once and is very likely to happen again because a marriage that does not observe nc is not recovered, it is simply a crippled version of the pre-affair state. Which means it is MORE vulnerable, not less.

My preference is that we show some of that compassion you mention for newcomers on this forum and not mislead them into thinking they can recover their marriage while still in contact with the OP. They can't!! Just because we choose to not recover our own marriages by ignoring simple basic affair proofing tactics, does not mean we should be leading newcomers to a death of a thousand cuts too. That is NOT compassion!

The bottom line is that we need to stick to Dr Harley's principles and not subsitute our own personal opinion for his professional, tried and true expertise. Our best thinking screwed up our marriages, after all.

ML, I am certain that FTS is only meaning C with the OC and never the OP.
I will advocate for NC to the grave but do have a DF with a 16 yo OC, with C,
and with a happily recovered marriage. Plus in our own sessions with JH she firmly agrees with NC with the OP but was on the fence regarding NC with OC so we didn't counsel with her anymore since we are NC with OP and OC.

Go figure......

migs, you may be right. I just reread her post and see what you mean.

If so, Fled, the discussion at hand is NOT about contact with the OC but about contact between the WS and the OP. Some here have dismissed the absolute importance of no contact for life between affair partners. I fully understand and accept that many do choose to associate with the OC. While that is not something I would want for myself, I understand many do choose that for various reasons. And I fully support and respect those that do!

p.s. FledtheState, that was an awesome post you wrote on the newcomers thread!

Road sorry for the delay in answering this question

she was about 20 months when she had her 1st visitattion with her bio

it was her difficulty going for visits along with fh's until about 5 or 6'ish that led me to rethink the nc issue for oc. unfortunately by that time it was to late

so far all she knows is that she has 2 dads. and lots of bro's, sis's, aunt's and uncle's that all love her.

as far as i know she doesn't know or understand that she was conceived while her mom and i were married or that her bio was married to someone else at the time.

she may actually know. but maybe it hasn't sunken in to the point of questioning it

no she does not know what an A is as far as i know. and we have never discussed with her the hurt and pain that an A has on a BS. we feel that at her age telling her that her conception was the sorce of her daddy's great pain would give her enormous feelings of quilt.

here's an example: the other week i took her for a slupee after her soccer game. as always she got out of my door and started to close it. i stupidly reached back in for a paper on the dash and low and behold guess whose arm got smashed in the door.

several days later she saw the large bruise on my arm and asked what happened. when i explained she started crying saying she felt so quilty for hurting daddy

we don't want her to have those feelings about herself

every now and then she will ask a question like "why is my skin darker than her sister's?"

fh or i expalin it by saying she gets that from poppy (om). we don't go into geniology. we feel that deep science explaination would be over a 9 year olds head.

she thinks she is lucky to have 2 dads and more siblings then any other kid in school. i am sure at her age she views it as any other kid whose parents D and remarry.

we are in no rush to explain the hurt part of the A to her at this age. that will come as she grows into her teens and we start talking with her about boyfriends and one on one relationships

i have had that conversation with all of my older kids as they grew into the dating ages.

road i remember posting to you about that before but like youhave no idea where or when. so i will try and re-explain myself

up until oc was about 5 1/2 - 6 1/2 she had a difficult time going for visitations. obviously it was more so when she was younger and tappered of at around 6 1/2. she would often tell us that she was afraid to talk to om about some basic things b/c he would get mad at her.

this bothered fh and myself enormously.

having been thru the same thing (less the geting mad at him for discussing things)i had experienced the same thing with my oldest son and knew that within 5 minutes of leaving for her visits she would relax and have a good time. this was proved true b/c she always returned happy and said she had a good time.

still doesn't relieve the trama of her leaving each time

the other thing that led me to feel that way was that om was taking fh to court seemingly every 4 - 5 months. 19 times in 7 yearswith another date for sometime in january 2011

my w gets so worked up with this type of stuff b/c she hates digging out all the records and filling in new paperwork each time.

her anxietiey over this coupled with the the stress of the visitations is why i rethought nc with om and offered him the chance to just drop cs since that was his reason for taking her back to court every time and walk away forever.

"""""""""'While I am all for advocating 100% NC and living it if the courts would allow (by the way we moved 1500 miles away, thank God!), we also need to have compassion and support for those that circumstances force the C (knowing that it is not good) and help in devising ways to mitigate the damage to all involved. The COM suffer tremendously from these A's. NC ever with the OP or anyone associated with OP would be best, absolutely has the best chance of recovery. But, life sucks and we can't change it all, unless we choose to walk away sometimes.""""""""""""'

i will also say EXACTLY but for different reasons

while nc is most definatey the best way to handle recovery from an A. when an OC is brought into the picture it is not always practical or the only way. as much as some would like to think so

for some finances retsrict them from moving thousands of miles away just as it does with counseling with the Harley's.

some feel they can't afford an attorney and are trying to deal with this situation on their own. again not a wise choice but it happens

Also once cs and "visitation" is established many courts limit or restrict a custodial parent from moving out of normal driving distance.

many others don't have the funds to hire an independant to handle all contact and don't have family and close friends close enough or willings enough to commit to 18 years of minimum twice a week inconveniences from their own personal life to take on that task. remember that many don't even want anyone else (family or friends) to know of their situation let alone be involved

now while their are a great deal of people that come here to specifically learn the MB principles there are also many who come here for support b/c they have heard of a place that deals with their specific problem (A with OC) and they were feeling completely isolated with no place to turn (as in my own personal situation)

when a newbie comes to a "forum" such as this they most certainly need to hear the MB principles but they also need to here that if they feel they can not for any reason follow them completely that there is still hope for recovery

to have anyone post a banging their shoe on the table, demanding it's my way or the highway is exactly that "myopic and arrogant" and does NOT lend support to the newbie in distress who may and is still usually in the fog

another huge part of the A with OC problem vs just an A situation is whether the BS is a H or W. Go figure.

when a member simply states that they are recovered or in recovery and have not or were not able to follow every principle that does NOT mean they are trying to push and agenda.

the ONLY thing that means is they are trying to lend support to someone who is lost and confused and show them that there is always hope

How DARE you come on Dr Harley's board and contradict him and then chastise board members as "myopicaly arrogant" for dispensing proven, effective Marriage Builder's concepts? How arrogant of YOU. Is Dr Harley "myopicaly arrogant" for saying that NC is the only way? That is what he says, pops.

pops, there is no excuse for a WS to continue contact with an OP. NONE. And if you tell any newcomer that there is again, be assured, I will be notifying the moderators that you are violating the board policy by giving out dangerous, misleading advice. Recovery is impossible when there is contac t between the OP and the WS. I am not going to explain AGAIN why one HAS TO observe no contact with an OP, because I have done so over and over again to no avail - you still don't get it. You have been here for 10 years and still don't get it, so I don't think you ever will. Folks just need to look at the state of your marriage to see the result of your corner cutting. You are not in a recovered marriage yourself, so you can't very well help others achieve something you have not.

So I will just point you again to the board policy and warn that I will be reporting you to the moderators if you do it again.

Hopefully, we are clear as a bell on that point...

Bumping this up for pops...