DITTO!

I'm sheltered!

I haven't experienced any outright hatred of it, but I don't much troll outside of mb.

I'm not saying other programs don't work or anything. I just have no interest in them.

I've heard becoming vegan is great for your health when done properly. Heck, I even know how to do it. No interest.

You'll only take my bacon double cheeseburger from my cold, dead (from coronary artery disease) hand.

I initially signed up at the original forum first way back when. I actually got some great advice from a couple of Christian counsellors that is almost exactly MB. Their plan involved church discpline outlined in Matthew 18:15-17. They speak about exposure, carrot & stick, and going NC. Their website has questionares titled "Love Kindlers" & "Love Extinguishers".

I guess the confusion came when a variety of people started chiming in with different ideas and concepts. I found this site shortly after but still exclusively posted there for a while. It wasn't realty until I'd reached wits end, as my thread title suggests, that I really committed to learning the concepts on this site and following it.

Now, because I've been there so long, I really do nothing but update since so many had been following my story. When I can spare a few minutes, I browse through threads there promoting much of what I've learned here. I promote both HNHN and SAA regularly.

Mark, this forum used to be like that too. It was a Tower of Babel! No one got any help because posters were extolling their own personal opinions instead of Marriage Builders concepts. Almost every thread had no real help on it because posters were DEBATING about what should be done. No one stuck to any real plan. Heck, I think Love Languages and Dances with Anger [neither of which has any plan] were recommended much more than MB books! It just caused mass confusion and endless frustration to the newcomer.

They would come here in a dire situation and have to weed through several different approaches, mostly from board members who had bad marriages themselves. Those of us who recommended Marriage Builders were frequently challenged, put down, argued with. It was infuriating. We had to DEBATE with some crapwit with 5 posts and a personal philosophy in order to help some despairing newcomer.

Thank God Dr Harley changed the TOS to make it against TOS to post opposing programs/personal conflicting opinions to those in need!

I will say that I'm not sure any plan I'd have stuck with would've saved my marriage. Ww was and is too far gone, too stubborn, too prideful to admit her mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes with the biggest being I moved out after the ILYBNILWY speech followed by the request for space. Having never been cheated on before, I was green and naive and didn't understand those to be huge red flags. I balked at the idea of exposure even though I did it months into the process. It was too late I believe. Maybe it would've been more effective at the beginning.

I did briefly try doing the 180 but it was really a half hearted attempt. Its hard to act as if you don't care when you really do. I thought about the "just let them go"and method but I didn't want to let go. I wanted to fight to the end.

We're really not divorced yet but it will probably happen in the next couple of weeks. I still love my ww wife, but I've learned that I can live without her. I've been in plan b (by a combination of choice and a bogus PO). Nonetheless, not having contact with her has helped me greatly. I don't think I would be where I am without it. I firmly believe in the MB concepts and have been using it to help people in my personal life (most recently my wayward brother and his wife) as well as through forums.

I'm definitely sold on it.

Everyone gets to pick their game plan to deal with their spouse betraying them.

I picked this one.

I picked it cause I think its the best plan.

There was 2 years from my first DDay(EA) until I found MB. I did searches and searches on the internet to find help. So much of the stuff I read were things I didn't agree with. The 180 for example. I didn't want to have to play that "game" every time I felt I was losing my WH. And after I did get him back, what then? There was no plan for recovery, just plans to get them back. I felt so lost, so alone, and like I was drowning in it.

Then, one fateful day, I googled, "How to survive your husband's affair." And the FIRST site to pop up? Marriage Builders. I started reading that very day, and was HAPPY. I felt HOPE. It made perfect sense because it was the DUH factor. Of course everyone had a Lovebank. Of course we all had ENs. Of course my WH had weak boundaries around women, and that was the cause of his A. Heck, I had weak boundaries around men, and could have fallen down that same trap. I found hope here. And not just for my marriage, but for any future marriage I may have, and the life I could lead after. But most of all, I had hope and faith that my pain would go away. I could not only SURVIVE, but I would THRIVE with these plans.

I was helped by many posters when I first arrived, some of which have moved on to different boards. I have also helped some over the 2 years since I arrived who have also moved to different boards. Heck, even my IM has mostly left MB. They still take much of what DrH and MB has to offer, but they also mix in other programs. Hey, if that's what they want for their lives, so be it. For me, MB feels like home, and it's where I plan on staying.

I am forever grateful to ALL of the people who helped me when I was drowning. I am eternally grateful to DrH, and MB. I am loyal, and I will remain so. I don't visit other boards, because frankly, I don't have the time. There is great need here, and when someone is ready to use ALL of MB, they will. And I will be here to help guide them through it.

I tell my boxing trainer all of the time, it's like shopping at Tiffany's compared to People's. There really is NO comparison. I am an MBer, through and through.

Me too Scotty! I didn't find MB until after we began recovery but while I was going through it I searched for help too. I found one site where they were basically "kick him to the curb and if you don't something must be wrong with you!" Then I found another site that basically just held your hand with no idea what to do. When I finally found MB, it was like Yes! Finally! They get it!

Awhile back my firm installed filters and I couldn't post on MB during the day. I found another site that I thought might be comparable. Oh boy, what a mess! What I found was basically an anti-MB site and I was attacked for defending MB. I feel sorry for any newbies who happen to stumble in over there because the "advice" over there is so willy nilly that a newbie is bound to be worse off than when they started. And that's if they can get past all the snarkiness and in-fighting that goes on.

I thank God for Dr. Harley and the posters here who are dedicated to actually helping people with the best plans out there.

MB rocks!

I Googled "how not to strangle an unfaithful wife."


...

..

.


No, no I didn't. I googled this exact string "overcoming resentment infidelity."

You can guess what article came up.

I started printing them, reading them, annotating and emphasizing.

Plan A? Did that naturally.

NC? Demanded it (simply said if he wasn't gone from the phone and FB that day, I was gone THAT DAY).

Exposure? Not so great. A few key targets, and one unintended.

The benefits came with erasing the fog and getting her to understand and own up... However, this was done in a fashion which was not very MB (all caps: DO NOT JUDGE HER).


I knew how to win my wife back, I just never thought she'd stray. What I needed was the parts of this program which protect the marriage from relapse, though the addiction analogy was tremendously fog-breaking.

Call me Pollyanna. I see good in many places.

I'm a raving fan of Dr. Harley!

I'm also of the opinion that when his books and Plan A Plan B are talked about on another site, it should be perceived here as free advertising, rather than detrimental or taking anything away from Dr. Harley. There are enough positives said about the plans and how they work in other places, that they'll buy his books, and courses. When they google his books, they'll find the content they need and start looking for more. I don't see the negativity about Harley as much as I see the free advertising every time his program is mentioned and there are positive mentions about his programs in those places.

Well - at least except the 180 place. They're pretty ferocious about their editing out Harley's name there. I'll chalk that up to recovery envy!

Free advertising?

Aside from confusing people, that's another reason other programs shouldn't be linked to here. This site is paid for and maintained by Dr. Harley.

Would you go onto a Pepsi forum and link to Coca Cola?

Its frankly disrespectful to a site host to promote "the competition." That would be this site, or any "competing" site.

However, if they allow it under their TOS, that is their mess to deal with.

Well, that is Polyanna-ish in a wilfully blind way.

How can denigrating this site be perceived as "free advertising"? How can saying that the Harley plans are positively harmful in affair situations be "positives about the plans"? How can continually denigrating one specific poster here, repeatedly without challenge (from you, since you are there), be seen as "positive mentions about his programs in those places"?

What blindfold are you wearing that you "don't see the negativity about Harley"?

To focus on the thread title and the first post here, my opinion is that I would not expect any other site to support the MB concepts. If they are not linked to MB in any way, then why would one look to them to support it?

If a site has been set up with its own plans, and has its own expert who has written articles or books, it is to be expected that the site will promote its own products. There is no reason to hope that it will support any other concepts. This site exists to promote Dr Harley's MB programme, and almost everyone who posts here now understands that, and does not look for help with other programmes here.

So, why bemoan the fact that other sites do the same with their programmes, and do not support MB? I find that odd.

Maybe, in an "any publicity is good publicity" sort of way. I agree that it does get the MB name out there, but at what cost? The cost is to the person needing the help.

A new poster hearing MB concepts being trashed might not be in too big a hurry to seek out MB help. That's my concern - unhelpful and confusing advice being given to a vulnerable poster. And when the same new poster reads positive things about MB as part of a mish-mash of positives about other concepts, the confusion mounts.

It's good to see them head here and learn first-hand what MB is about instead of gleaning bits and pieces from other sites in a non-cohesive fashion. Especially when they're reading it from posters who may have a bias against MB for any reason.

I've never heard of a poster really being run off for their beliefs. I have heard of some being banned for their behavior.

I got to talk about Marriage Builders in a discussion class in church last night. I didn't mention Marriage Builders by name, but the text we were reading covered marriage and taught most of the points. I got lots of agreement until suddenly I used a particular example: that a man, in order to please his wife, should not take a job over her objections, but should negotiate a job that she is enthusiastic about.

Suddenly I was teasingly told I was meddling: the lady telling me this had just taken a job, over the objections of her husband! She went on to explain why that was okay.

Dr. Harley has a personality test he gives to people he counsels that indicates how easy they will find it to follow the Policy of Joint Agreement. This test is one of the few pieces of the MB program that is still a big mystery to me, but my understanding is that it shows how prone one is to independent behavior, versus how prone they are to taking others into account when they make decisions. Some people just find it harder to build the habit of being thoughtful. Those people tend to call the Policy of Joint Agreement "controlling" at first brush, and sometimes for quite a long time, until they see what's in it for them.

This is another thing I see that causes some to either reject Marriage Builders, or to modify it but claim they've accepted it. Thought I'd throw that into the mix.

Plan A is completely unfair. The person doing it should not have to do it. And their emotions are going to tell them not to do it, so it is hard. And it can even damage them.

But it is literally the best hope for a marriage that may not have any other. One of the hardest kinds of decisions to make is a decision where there are no options that are really good. In this case, you can try something else and probably lose your marriage, or you can grit your teeth, meet needs without reciprocation and be non-judgmental toward dishonorable behavior, and eventually possibly see results.

I find it interesting that I hear Dr. Harley constantly advising husbands to continue in Plan A. Their Takers are telling them that it is her turn -- and it is!!! But she's not going to do that. There's just no way to get her to do that other than to build a compatible lifestyle that has you involved with her life, meet her emotional needs, and eliminate love busters.

Another problem with Marriage Builders is that it teaches an integrated marriage. There are some religious concepts out there that are opposed to integrated lifestyle in marriage. This is pure blind faith, not science, but people with that fundamental belief want to look for a different way to make marriage "work." And I put work in quotation marks because their definition of a working marriage is going to be very different from mine.

Unfortunately, those concepts are behind a lot of the marriage counseling ideas that are popular today, not to mention behind a lot of the shoddy magazine relationship articles (which are really written by non-experts gathered in a room trying to write something interesting that will sell, not necessarily something accurate or helpful).