My marriage ended thanks to MB principles. I am forever thankful for the guidance that led me to the Truth about my life which led to me filing for divorce and escaping a cheating husband. ****edit****....but I keep coming back to offer encouragement for those who I think I can help. I also wonder about those whose stories are still unfolding.

I love the vets! Can any of you vets come over to my post and give me the courage to expose to the BH of OW tonight? Please??

SW - I am grateful to so many here, you among them. I listen carefully to what you have to say since you've been through a similar situation to mine. I am curious to know what turns you off?

**edit** I am proud of you estrela for your strong response to your seriel cheating husband. You deserve much better than what he has to offer. I wish you peace in your pursuit of a new life.

What I have learned/what has changed since I posted that;

I have noticed that the posters I post to tend to be at a point where the posters I most admire have walked away because a person will not listen.

How did Mel develop a more gentle style? By refusing to post to people who drive her nuts.

I don't have the time I used to have; my work is different, and when I have time away from work, I spend time with my wife, with my kids, or I continue my studies (school and independent). Because of this, I only post to 3-5 people, with occasional nudges and nods to other folks I have followed.

Professionally, I am in an entirely different setting; that "gentle outside of text" was fitting when my job required very little of me as far as motivating my people to take care of themselves.

In the setting I work in now, my attitude is actually very, very close to what you see here. I can begin gently with some finger wagging, but it progresses. I was very stern with one woman a few weeks ago, and when she finally followed through on what I was telling her, her physician told her had she not got off her duff and done something about what was going on, she would have died. I know this because she told me, and then thanked me for "saving her life."

I didn't save her life. I simply told her if she didn't get off of her wide behind and do something for herself, that she would die. SHE had to decide to act.


I can and do play nicey-nice. Once habits start to develop to stop a marriage to bleeding out on the floor, I'll be someone's best bud. But while a marriage is bleeding, I wanna patch the stump.

The affair killers do their work, and I prefer mop-up. It's where I am the most comfortable.



So, if you want some nicey-nice, Unwritten, here it is - you are one of maybe 3 people I am following right now. I am following you because it looks like a lot of people have thrown their hand sup and walked away. And I will bang my head against the wall until either a) your marriage gets better or, b) you give up. And I do that because I believe that YOU can make your marriage better, when you cut the bull and do what you have to do to stop the LB$ hemorrhage. I don't want or feel I deserve any gratitude or accolades for doing so, I do so because I can.










(side note; BH - you've thanked me several times - you did the work, sister, but you're welcome)

I love that!!

Yes I did brother.

I remember one particular day I wasn't getting any responses and I came on here and was whining about my WH.

You came on and called me out straight away. "Wow how about all those DJs you dropped about your H?" You reminded me "your H isn't here, but you are. So how about getting to work?"

You made me look in the mirror. Which I needed.

I would not be where I am today - as a person or in my marriage - if it weren't for the vets here! I don't know if I could EVER express enough gratitude for that.

I think a progression does occur when you stick around to help others. You gain confidence with time and with going through more of the meat of the MB program. You also learn to spot details easier than in the beginning - of what really is going on in a situation. This is why it doesn't take paragraphs full of details for a vet to understand a poster. (Although, I know it is cathartic for the new poster to write them.)

The biggest thing is, sometimes people look to the longer term vets because they can see the credibility that is there. Nothing wrong with that!

My personal thing is, I try to get a good feeling for a poster and respond in a way that the information is good but also so that he or she will take it to heart and can implement it. Although, I am learning to be more bold than I used to be - when needed.

HHH,

I am honored. And I'm sorry for cussing you out under my breath after reading some of your posts...

But I'm feeling a little guilty from pulling one of the vets away from more worthy posters.

In the last two days I have done both, gotten ready to work on my M in a last ditch effort to giving up. Or something like that. So, the pain (as in, me as a pain in the a$$) should be over shortly one way or another.

I always weird out getting tossed in with all those other posters that I admire.



Anyway, I'm not being pulled anywhere. I choose who I follow.

I'll never forget the feeling of BS fog that filled me when I came here over a year ago.

I quickly felt the pressure of vets who knew EXACTLY how to bust me out of my comfort zone. Out of what I wanted to believe. Out of my long held blind trust of my husband. Complete strangers persuaded me to abandon my long held belief that snooping is wrong.

How? They asked intelligent questions. That I didn't have the answers to. They were relentless! They knew how to keep me coming back for more though. And they cared.

I am so, so grateful for that. To the point that I would not erase the A from history if I could. Because it changed me. I'm a tougher person today. I trust what I know. I have things in perspective. I don't make excuses for people. I don't choose to believe in kind assumptions. When I see warning signs, I pay attention.

I suppose what I'm saying is, an education from the vets is worth having. The 2x4s you get will shape you, make you think and will make the pain of the A worth having to become smarter, tougher and stronger.

Good for you! And you've shown your spine and commitment over and over. Your help to new posters here cannot be underestimated.

There are posters who have refused to look in the mirror and work on their side of the street. Their knowledge of MB is next to non-existent. They tend, instead, to navel-gaze and debate totally irrelevant nonsense, yak about their childhood, whine about their spouse (who, by the way, has probably never even heard of Marriage Builders because there is no communication between those spouses, other than communicating about their children.)They set themselves up for failure, and then cast about, looking for someone to blame.

Your honesty is refreshing.

Thanks MB. I had very good teachers.

When I first came here, I had read every Harley book I could find at my local bookstore. I read over the basic concepts from the website and I read the discussion boards.

I think Harley's program has gone through a remarkable evolution. Phone coaching was available and the Marriage Builder weekends, but not a lot of people here had taken them.

Now there's a radio show, the online program has also evolved into a much more effective program. There's over ten years of experience individually with a number of veteran mentors who post and share here regularly. and those vets who pick up the concepts quickly are ready and wililng to stay on the primary message and content.

No one starts out fully developed in their business model. Change must be par for the course. Harley has used the discussion boards to continue advancing his program and making it more effective, as he's had many people sharing their process and progress, ability to apply the principles, troubles applying principles, and adjusting to make the program much more effective for those coming onto the boards now.

So while the unstructured boards of the past definitely look and feel different, it was probably a necessary process to make the boards more effective at communicating the process of marital recovery now. Newbies benefit tremendously from Harley's willingness to keep paying attention and continue honing the message.

I remember when I spoke with W. Harley over 15 years ago, he laughed when I told him I very nearly tossed his book out the passenger window of the car while driving full speed down the interstate because of the first emotional need he addressed in the HNHN book. But he also mentioned a willingness to change the order of how he addressed EN in the next edition, so of the chapters to not create an obstacle for women to really get his message.

He demonstrated to me then that he wanted the message to reach and benefit the reader, and had no ego attached to how that happened. But he did have clarity about what he felt was the primary attack on marriage and went after addressing it.

I think Dr. Harley is a very bright man, an excellent marriage coach, and an amazing businessman!

I think the radio show was indispensable in the transition. Those of us who've heard him every day can testify how he's worked to make his message as approachable as possible (he used to revise His Needs, Her Needs every year, and he's revised the attractive spouse chapter radically, as that one was never very popular!) and how he retains that clarity about what works to help marriages and what doesn't.

Fortunately for many of the newer people here, Dr Harley caught onto the fact that his board was not being used for Marriage Builders at all. The old "structure" didn't work for anyone because they did not benefit from the intended purpose, which was to learn his program. Once Harley caught wind of the fact that MB was not taught here, it seems he took a more proactive and hands on approach and changed the direction of the board. It wasn't an issue of an undeveloped business model, but a realization that the board was not serving his intended purpose.

That was not a necessary process. Rather, it was a wasted opportunity to help people with their marriages when they came here for help. Some of us eventually were able to figure it out on our own and start helping others with this program. How many thousands of people lost out on that because others were using Dr Harley's forum to promote everything but Marriage Builders? I wonder about that....

While I agree that Dr Harley is an amazing psychologist and a brillant man, I wouldn't call him an amazing business man. I seriously doubt he even knows the term "business model" because he doesn't think like that. Who pays thousands of dollars for an internet forum year after year that doesn't even focus on his program? His personal driver is creating great marriages. That is what drives him. He gives almost everything away for free. A person can get free articles, questionaires, advice on the radio, free books for calling in. A person could completely transform their marriage for nothing by using the resources here.

I know about 5 people right now that he counsels for free and that is not counting all the callers to the radio he gives free counsel. [off the air] Heck, I think I have recieved a full set of books free by calling and writing the radio station over the years. He sends out free books to college professors and counselors so they will know about his program.

I chuckle when I hear people make the false - and scurrilous - assumption that Harley restricts his board to Marriage Builders in order to make money. What a load! If that were true, he wouldn't be giving everything away for FREE. He wouldn't have paid thousands of dollars for years hosting people [some very ungrateful and entitled] who substituted their own "sage" advice for his and made this a chat forum on his dime. He set this forum up for people who couldn't afford counseling or weekend seminars. That is what it is used for now. Anyone who listens to the radio station can hear the passion from him and Joyce and understand that what they want MOST is for people to have great marriages. That is his personal driver. And I hope he makes a crap load of money as a result!

Fortunately for my marriage, I got here after all of that crap got weeded out. I read older posts when I first came here, and they made no sense to me. They didn't jibe with the articles I was reading on the website.

I'm sorry for the older posters who were here and weren't able to recover their marriages with the help of the forums at that time