Your actions speak louder than words.

huh? Your imagination speaks louder than words because you can't point to a single place where I have attributed anything concerning another board. I have no idea what you do elsewhere - and frankly don't care. Do you have an example?

How is telling you to do something for your own good, rejection? Is it better she had said 'Ok, stay outside in a hail of bullets while I sympathise with you'? I mean, come on. Her advice WAS caring, and necessarily tough. She doesnt ask for thanks, but I cannot believe your rant about her.



If you dont care about you, then there isnt anything either 'actionmen' like Mel or handholders can do for you.

Like the very apt metaphor where you described the smoking cancer patient, or the overweight person, recovery (and I mean personal recovery) is your responsibility alone.

You only need one good poster on here. If they say do x, then do Y, then you do it, in the order in which they tell you to, if you want to be an MBer. You cant blame anybody else if you dont. Because no one can make you.

As for the success of your marriage, it sounds like you have now given your WH as much opportunity as possible to help himself out of the mire. If he doesnt, that is his fault, not yours.

Just as your personal recovery is not the fault of posters on here.

You are the only person who can live your life well.

Saying 'god didnt put the capability in me' in nonsense. You do whatever you decide to do - hard or not.

Good luck with the deposition. I think you have a well of strength inside you which you havent discovered yet, simply because you dont believe in its existence enough.

Please do.

Happiness comes from within yourself, no amount of hand holding or support is going to make you happy, if you don't work at yourself. You can only be given the tools to make yourself happy, but if you don't use them then you only have yourself to blame.

We have a saying in Dutch "Soft healers (ie physicians) make stinking wounds". Just like a band aid, rip it off, it hurts less and shorter, then if you try to take it of slowly.

If you rely on others to heal you and support you, then deep inside you are sabotaging yourself. You need to ask yourself why you are doing that.

And this is not directed at anyone specific, there are an abundance of posters that this applies to.

What! Your characterization of the help that you received here truly surprises me, H&G!

I specifically remember ML not only trying her dam#est to get you to Plan B...but she spent a good amount of time arguing with another poster who was encouraging you to stay in Plan A despite how poorly you were doing.

Then, as I recall, when you finally did decide to go to Plan B, she came back and helped you AGAIN!

It is too bad that first thread is gone so that people could see for themselves. Maybe to refresh your memory also.

Anyway, good luck with the depo and stay calm...try not to get emotional, that's when you start making mistakes and saying too much...and ditto to all of Peachy's advice regarding it.

HnG, sometimes no matter the BEST LAID PLANS and even plans followed as closely to perfection, as I stated earlier do not give a perfect outcome. Sometimes a wayward WILL remian a wayward.

I suggest to you now, as a friend, to work on personal recovery and also to work on your self esteem. Your words sound so pain-filled. You can search as many sites as you want, seek as much wisdom as you want, but trust me. If you do what I did during recovery (mine) you plan A yourself. You treat yourself kind, you do things which will meet your own and probably very unmet emotional needs and seek out friends and family who love you and genuinely build you up. You also work on your areas that need work, and work to shore up those areas that need help.

MB even has a place for those who are divorcing or are divorced as a place of help too. It really helped me there. You're not unique or alone. I was in same place too. And a marriage recovery does not make or break you as a MB SUCCESS ok?

My marriage didn't survive, but I had one of those really bad wawyards and he refused to change. He lost everything he had in the end, and his "soul mate" and he divorced early this year.

But my time here also taught me that I could in the future, when and if I met Mr. Right, have a truly wonderful marriage since I learned what a great marriage foundation would be and look like. So from the time my dh and I (when we were dating) became serious with each other, I let him learn about MB and its' principles. We have used it now for sev years and have been married a little over a year now. Works like a charm.

So go wherever you wish to to gain wisdom. Seek personal healing and plan A YOURSELF right now. Recovery is tough but it is a journey you could actually enjoy. 54 is the new 44 ok? Put all your energy into healing you and your children now. You WILL get a return on your energy doing that if you try as hard as you can.

You can't sometimes change a wayward, but you can change yourself. Don't say "God didn't put it in me". God made us all EXCEPTIONAL and we can do all things through HIM b/c he strenghtens us. If we choose personally not to better ourselves or act on opportunities, it is OUR fault, not God's. Be the exceptional woman God created you to be. Claim that, live that. You have a great opportunity to BE an amazing new creation now, so seize that chance. Peace.

A Dutch poem, i have on my desk, which has helped me trough life. (my translations so bare with and forgive me)

Before He sends his children to earth
He gave each a carefully selected
Package of problems.

These, He promised smiling,
are yours and only yours.
Nobody else can experience the blessings
These problems will bring you

And only you,
have the special talents and opportunities,
to make these problems your servants.

Descent now into your birth,
and into forgetfulness,
Know, that I Love you above,
The problems I have given you are a
symbol of this Love.

The monument you make of your life,
with the help of these problems
Will be the symbol of your love for Me.

Your Father-In-Heaven

I was ready to bet that this poster had NO INTENTION of posting a thread. Wish I'd bet!

I used to be responsible to search the internet for negative statements about my employer. I was part of a quality control team working for a company that sincerely wanted to have the very best client experience out there.

There were some pretty nasty things said about the product and service offered by my employer; my experience was completely different. In fact I knew some of those people posting those negative blogs and stuff. We could have spent our time as a team trying to counter those blogs with the "truth" of what they had received, and their part in the program or pin ownership of their issues back on them. But that would not have served to improve perception of our program. In fact, it would have made it worse.

Instead we quietly went about serving those who had legitimate grievances. Even those who had not used the program properly were given a chance to come back and have a better experience with a bit more guidance.

Dr. Harley has a lot to lose by continued slamming of those who go elsewhere for help. It doesn't serve the man you honor, or his work to draw attention that there are other sites.

Some of those sites in question DO honor Dr. Harley and refer people to his program. That is free advertising to Dr. Harley that he doesn't have to pay hosting or any other fees. I see it as a gift of respect, rather than the disrespect referred to here.

I'm a subscriber to the admonition of Paul - seek after things that are good. Anything that seeks to stop infidelity, increase loving marriages is good. Dr. Harley's mission is an honorable mission. Please don't dishonor him by continuing to bashing his detractors.

Speaking from personal professional experience, it will not serve Dr. Harley at all.

MaritalBliss (and everyone else)

I apologize for disrupting another persons thread. I have in fact been lurking here for quite some time and knew that I shouldnt have. However, at the time I made that post, I was very upset about something that happened in my marriage. Since I stated I am in a physically abusive relationship I am sure you guys can guess what. Still no excuse, just trying to relay my state of mind at the moment. I didn't mean to offend anyone and am truly sorry I upset so many people. I do want to start my own thread but as I posted back to you that I am making an exit plan, I am afraid to do so at the moment. That is why I never registered before now. It was kind of an impulse thing as I was reading that thread. I don't want to give out too many details or alert to the fact that I am even on this site since I am on a shared computer.

For what its worth, I believe in MB and all that it represents.

I agree that we shouldn't draw attention to other sites that have been set up in opposition to this one. I think that this forum should be confident in what it provides, as should those other sites.

However, I didn't see any post that "slammed" those who go elsewhere for help. The first post that mentioned other sites was a rant about those who have disparaged MB elsewhere and then who come back here to try and make contact in order to encourage MB members to leave.

I am not too bothered by such conduct, and that was not my rant, but if you are to respond to it I think you should respond to what was actually said. It wasn't "detractors" per se who were "bashed"; it was those detractors who had previously benefitted from hours of other people's time here, and it was "poachers".

Some sites do honour Dr Harley's programme. Some also engage in continuing and frequent disparaging of it. I hope that when you see that taking place on a site where you post, you speak against it as promptly as you have done here.

blueheart,

I am sorry to hear about the abuse that you have suffered in your marriage, and I was glad to read that you have an exit strategy in place. Please follow through with leaving your husband. There are women's shelters that will give you and your children refuge, and in many places (I don't know where you live) you will be given financial support. You should take legal advice on bringing charges against your husband, and seeking a restraining order.

I will give you my perspective on your post and the responses it received.

You chose to make your intervention, not only on another thread, disputing the advice that was being given there, but on the thread of an adulterer who was the other man for SIX YEARS in somebody else's marriage. He was seeking help here, but still justifying his involvement in another family's life by saying that his OW was verbally and mentally abused. She had been told by everybody, including her pastor, that her marriage was unsalvageable but she chose to stay for the children and was only now getting divorced.

Meanwhile, while being verbally and mentally abused by her H, she was shagging this poster for 6 years, and had had at least two other one-night-stands during that time. Now that she was getting divorced, she did not in fact want to be with this poster but was planning to see other men.

Her story of abuse (the one she told our poster) was not credible to people here who know that "abuse" claims are often made to justify infidelity, and regardless of whether it was true, he had no business interfering in her marriage. If he truly wanted to recover his own marriage and pay "just compensation" to his own wife, he needed to see his sordid actions for what they were; unjustifiable.

The response from our posters that "Your OW is a spouse abuser who abused her husband for some time. Adultery is more abusive than physical assault", was meant to point out the abusive nature of his OW's actions towards her own H. The original poster was romanticising what his OW had done to her H, and putting himself in the role of her saviour. He paid lip service to his actions being "absolutely wrong", but he absolved himself of any responsibility for her divorce, saying that "Chances are 99.9% certain they would have" divorced if he had never had a 6-year affair with her.

And it was when this cowardly rationalisation was being challenged that you chose to intervene to state that "I strongly disagree with the above statement. While adultery is abusive, cruel and terrible I don't believe it is worse than physical abuse. Physical abuse can very likely lead to death of the victim whereas adultery, although very painful, rarely leads to death, coma, etc."

You disagree? With whom do you disagree? With those victims who have suffered both adultery and battery, who have said that the adultery was worse for them? How are you in a position to disagree with their experience? And yes indeed, adultery can lead to death and coma. We have a regular poster here whose friend, last year, took an overdose when her H left her for his OW. She was on a life support machine for days (thus in a coma, or something similar) until the decison was taken to switch it off, and she died.

My brother-in-law took his own life when the horror caused by his own affair brought on a mental breakdown. We know of many stories here of death as a result of an affair.

But my point is not really about the facts of death and coma in affairs; it is about your choice to step in when the original poster/WH/OM justified his affair with a married woman on the grounds of her "abuse". Your intervention suggested that what he had done was not as bad as what OW's husband had done to her, and people took objection to that.

The abuse you are suffering must be stopped, and we encourage you to use the law and other forms of support to escape it, but it is utterly unrelated to what that poster, an abusive WH and OM, and his OW, an abusive WW and OW in his marriage, did to the many people affected by his affair.

SugarCane, I didn't post here "promptly", as you say.

PM has brought this rant up before. I have taken months to measure my words because I do not wish to offend Dr. Harley, nor would I want to offend PM, or anyone else who devotes so much time to helping Dr. Harley teach his principles to people going through the crisis of their lives.

I am, in a very measured way, letting PM and others know that this is a big world wide internet. There is no such thing as "poaching" in my book. When I do a google search of marriage, affair, divorce, marital problems, there are many different sites that come up.

The best thing PM and others could do is be a better choice, not by directly calling out a so-called poacher (because you actually might be wrong - but even if you're not, it doesn't help this board), but rather by providing a more consistent and reliable support. We all tend to gravitate toward train wrecks and drama. We do a greater service to Dr. Harley to dial down that tendency within ourselves and focus on what matters most.

I learned through the service to my company regarding negative blogs and websites that some of those sites were actual businesses trying to cash in on our previously less than stellar customer experiences. But we paid attention to the true dissatisfaction, fixed it wherever possible, and focused on our own business. I very much doubt those businesses have experienced the over 400% growth our company has had over the last six years.

I would love to see 400% more people get the benefit of Dr. Harley's principles. I wish there wasn't a need. Contention and drama just doesn't serve that higher good.

blueheart, many posters are protective of new posters who have just started posting. When their thread is hijacked with another topic they sometimes disappear in the shuffle.

I apologize if I came down on you too hard. Please consider posting - now may be the best time for you to do so. You might get some good feedback for where you're at in your situation.

But you didn't say that above. You said that she was "slamming those who go elsewhere for help" and she was "bashing his detractors".

I pointed out what pm actually said, which was not as you represented it.

Does the fact that you would "love to see 400% more people get the benefit of Dr. Harley's principles" mean that you point out that "Contention and drama just doesn't serve that higher good" every time you see it on other sites? I do hope so.

What do we think about maybe starting a 'waywards lie' thread or 'dont beleive anything anything they say' thread or perhaps, If 'they tell you to go left, go right'

When I appeared on this board, I will admit I was deep in BS fog. I didnt know my H was having an affair, even though it was obvious to vets on here when I began describing my m problems.

However when I did find evidence, I stopped putting any credence in anything he said. This was just common sense to me. He had lied to me about his 'friend' so therefore his word was now no good. Like a declined credit card.

However there seems to be a crop of new BSs on here every day, DESPERATE to believe every wayward word.

This happens even when they have discovered an A that they have lied about - and sometimes even when they discover contact is ongoing despite I'll be a good boy/girl promises!

Either its:

He says we dont need exposure - he just needs some space.

or

I dont need her to take a poly, if I just meet more of her ENS, we'll be fine

or

He is going to carry on working with her. He says its just professional between them now

or


ARGGHHHHHHHHHH

If the sentence is prefixed by 'My WS says' then the rest of the sentence is BS.

I may in fact do this thread. Maybe call it, the list of things to not believe from your WS.

Of course that would be everything but specific examples might help people!!!!

Start it, indie!

(UK rules! And rocks!)

It is because they don't understand the addictive nature. That is how I changed my post. I decided to only post about the addiction and EXPOSURE because I cannot get through on anything else.

It has been frustrating lately. If the Betrayed Spouse would fully grasp fog and the brain chemical addiction and then move about as if they are high on crack, then they may get somewhere.

I had an experience this evening. I went to Target to spend too much money. As I walked out we beeped -- I turned around and the cashier waved go ahead.

As I was driving home my six year old son says to me I am going to go up to my room and play with my star cards. I turn around as he was pointing to his pocket.

Me: "Son, did you steal those star cards."
Thief: "Mom, I just want to go home."
Me: "Son, did you steal those star cards, give them to me immediately."
Thief: Starting to cry, "Mom, here -- I just want to go home to my room."

Me: "Nope, we are going back to Target. You know what the consequence is for stealing? Jail!! We will need to see what Target's consequence is for you."

Thief: "Mom, no I can't go to Jail I have school, no mom I just want to go home. No mom!!!!" Bawling his eyes out now.

I drove back to Target - brought him in and made him hand back the cards, tell them sorry, and then ask what consequence do they want for him.

.... Then on the way home my son says to me ...

"Mom, you owe me an apology for hurting my heart."

The exact thing that came to my mind was EXPOSURE. I thought to myself how many waywards want us betrayed to apologize for EXPOSING their sordid adultery?

I told my son, "I am not apologizing, your heart hurts because I held you accountable, and made you pay a consequence. Your stealing caused your heart to hurt. If you didn't steal, then I wouldn't have to turn you into the authorities."

I thought of my MIL who said I was so disrespectful to my WH for exposing and breaking into his email.

I thought - was I just disrespectful to my son for turning him in for stealing? Absolutely not - do the crime - do the time!!!

Okay Rant Over

This is what I am talking about. We are talking to people with jobs and kids, so constructive members of society, you would think.

But its like theyve never heard of the concepts of telling the truth or of consquences before!

I mean, if a couple withdraw from circle of friends because it contains the OP, you have to tel your friends the truth as to why!

When the kids start asking lots of funny q's about mom's male 'friend'....

Its called telling the TRUTH. And the embarrassment to WS and OP is a consequence - one they knew could happen the minute they started sneaking over their boundaries...

I just dont get it.