I am glad to hear that, Shmoopy. Hopefully we'll hear you talk to Dr. Harley some time next week, or at least he'll be able to point you to some information to help.

Did you get to read that article by Dr. Chalmers?

Umm, who said that, exactly?

Yes.

I'd be interested in seeing where you got this, as well. I went through your thread and didn't see it. You've been told that the genesis of your current marriage was formed on a shaky foundation. You've had some very blunt questions asked of you. Is that the problem? What did you expect? Less than the truth? Wasn't that what you were looking for?

What you are receiving is unvarnished advice on how to try repair your marriage. Yet I see a great deal of reluctance from you and some downright obstinance.

You are proving the truth what Dr. Harley has said: It is very difficult to help spouses in an affairage. They don't want to do the work.

I am looking for reassurance that it is possible to have a marriage this doesn't suck. I do not see them out in the street, no matter how spiritually devout the participants or how long the duration. They can go to church three times a week and be married for forty years and still be suffocatingly indifferent to each other, at best.

If these are the people who scorn me and my marriage, I would hate to have their approval.

And I sense a lot of outright hostility from people who've been cheated on. I understand it, I am sympathetic. But I did not cheat on any of you.

Some of them do not strike me as sane people you can get sensible advice from, just angry, dogmatic people with a particular axe to grind. Fine, but I am not interested in begging their forgiveness. I have not wronged THEM.

Questions are fine, even blunt ones. Rude assumptions are not.

I have not been cheated on.

Really, where are the answers to the blunt questions? Where is the validation of those who've taken the time to write to you?

I spent considerable time building on your analogy. Not one response. Not a, oh, I see how that might be, not a you are as messed up as a soup sandwich. Nada!

So please understand why folks are skeptical. We've seen people with the attitudes you display here before, for years.

So you can accept that we might know what we are talking about, due to the collective experiences and the objective view we hold. Or not.

Yes, I said objective. We believe in the program, that is true. But we don't have a horse in your race. It's like the sports announcer. We can see the game and comment on the game because we may have played the game ourselves, or we've watched a few thousand and have learned what works, what doesn't and what behaviors and responses are predictors to success or failure.

So you can accept that, or tell us that we are all wrong, and that you are different from the masses who've been here before in your very shoes.

It's your choice.

You can try to turn this around on posters as much as you want and we'll keep pointing you back to the facts.

You were told what Dr Harley has posted about people in affairages is a lack of POJA (considering your spouse's feelings in every decision that you make, NO EXCUSES) and a lack of honesty.

You don't even seem to acknowledge that what he says is EXACTLY why you are dealing with the problem you originally posted about.

You were the one who scorned your M when you were stalking this man's FB page and continued to develop an obsessive crush. Not us. YOU.

Shmoopy, I just brought up the way the circumstances surrounding the formation of your marriage stack the odds against you because I wanted you to understand the urgency of getting professional help. Dr. Harley really is interested in such situations, and you really need it!

No intent to force you to feel bad, drag your name through the mud, shriek whore at you, etc.


It is possible to have a marriage that doesn't suck! Like I said, there are literally two cultures about this in America. But 20% of the marriages out there succeed in establishing romantic love for life.

You are right that there are many unhappy marriages in church. Unfortunately it's not church that makes the difference between a happy and an unhappy marriage, and most churches the culture is pretty much identical to the culture outside the church doors. Now, I would like it if churches would establish a pro-good-marriage culture, and I personally agitate for that in my own church, but that is a subject for another thread. Suffice it to say that when I hear preachers in the pulpit explaining that romantic love dies after 2 years, I know that they do not belong to the culture that produces good marriages.

For good marriages, I look to people who do belong to that culture, and Dr. Harley and his two children both belong to that culture, and he has studied it extensively for forty some odd years to find out what works and what does not. Enough to be able to tell us what a narrow path it is to success and how crucial it is to stay on it if we want success.

PS, to use your statement, there are many here looking for assurance that you are going to adopt the program and not just find fault with what Dr Harley has said.

Just like you are looking for assurance that marriage doesn't suck, folks responding to you are looking for some assurance from you that you are not going to follow a downward spiral path.

So where is our assurance from you? What actions can you cite that would present convincing evidence to the folks responding to you that you are willing to embrace the program, challenges and all?

Are you serious?

As is outlined in the articles linked to you and the basic concepts that we are assuming you agree with when you post here, a marriage without honesty will suck.

You have been told you need to get honest with your H and you continue to make excuses about this.

No, posters here won't get reassurance (whether they are in an affairage or not) when they are being dishonest with their spouse about stalking another man's FB page that they have an "obsessive crush" on.

The least of your problems is "lack of reassurance" from posters here... Why am I not surprised that you are wasting your time posting about that when you could be doing many more productive things that might actually help your M???

Why are you interested in their approval? I don't look for approval outside of my own marriage. I also don't compare my marriage to other ones. It is in a class by itself. No one has required that of you. Where did you get the idea that we're looking for you to beg us for forgiveness? Okey-doke. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE A MARRIAGE THAT DOESN'T SUCK. How's that.

My question to you is: why settle for just that?? Don't you want more?