Once again, I have shown in this clip how EnlightenedEx bastardizes the quoted statistic to mean something that it clearly does not mean.


But your statistic does not say that at all. It says that "10% of all married couples have separated and reconciled." That does nothing to address marriages that a) experience adultery and b) do not separate. Most of the affairs we see here don't ever separate. In fact, I have seen statistics that show that 65% of marriages DO NOT divorce over adultery. That being said, Dr Harley has cited the statistic that only 20% of marriages ever recover from adultery. [general population] They stay together, but they are a crippled version of the pre-affair marriage.

HHH,

Isn't this an observation? Out of the millions of failed marriages and likely over a million affairs going on today. (I think a number like a million in a nation with over 300M people is a pretty conservative estimate of the total number of currently on-going affairs) it has been brought to our attention that Melody has seen 4 or 5 RECENT killed affairs.

Melody, I'm glad they are on their way.

I'm not trying to spread hopelessness. I simply want the truth to be presented and not just anecdotes.

Recovery is not easy, and I have yet to see anything that indicates it's a typical outcome when an affair occurs. The divorce may be delayed, but I have yet to see where recovery is the typical outcome.

Let's look at thread counts:

In the Surviving an Affair section, there are approximately 50K threads.

In the recovery section, there are 21K threads.

That suggests that on the order of 40% move from affair to recovery. Certainly not a majority.

It's a good number, but still not the typical outcome.

I've been through a WW cheating (EA) and ultimately a divorce. It was 16 years ago and I did not know about MB then. Had I known about MB, I'm relativity sure our marriage could have been saved. She was the minister of a large christian church. She developed an EA with the OM while she doing marriage counseling for him and his wife. Had I known about exposure it would have had a nuclear effect on the A.

I did find a website with statistic about infidelity. They are based on research. It does not have statistics on the success of MB. But MB would have saved my marriage.

http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/cheating-and-infidelity/stats-about-infidelity.html

You are saying the same thing I am, so why are you telling me I'm wrong.

Only 20% recover to a standard Dr H would call recovered, a "Marriage for a lifetime." The other 45% of the 65% total limp along. I didn't put the number 45 on it, but I did say more than 20% limp along.

Thanks for putting a number on it. Sixty five percent don't divorce. Forty-five percent have a miserable marriage, twenty percent have a recovered marriage.

Therefore 80% either end up divorced, or probably wish they were.

Right?

How many of the "wish they were" end up divorced later, because it happens again, or the BS can't take it and pulls the plug, or what not.

Would you not agree that couples in that 45% of those who experience affairs are more at risk for divorce down the road due to the incomplete recovery?

Do you think half of them make it until "death do us part?" I don't. But I'll give the benefit that half hang in there, the other half eventually join the 35% who just went straight to divorce, wishing they had chosen that sooner.

Therefore, you end up with about 20% who recover, 20% who suffer and the other 60% who either immediately or some time after end up divorced.

I disputed your interpretation of the facts in a post above, where I said that the people who make up the statistics are not the subset of people who come here or go to Dr Harley for help.

We are talking about the effectiveness of Plan A here (which was not what the thread was originally about!), and it makes no sense to use statistics from cases that did not use Plan A.

1. 2/3 to 3/4 of all divorces are initiated by women and the reason cited is...?

Dr Harley says that women he works with do not leave for adultery or abuse. That does not clarify the grounds cited in the official statistics. What are the grounds for divorce that women cite, according to the official statistics?

2. 10% of all filings are dropped and some form of recovery ensues.

We do not know how many of the filings or the withdrawals involved adultery (from what you have posted here).

We can assume that the vast majority of the 90% that proceded to divorce did not use Plan A even where an affair was involved (which figure we do not know), because the vast majority of cases in the real world do not use Dr Harley or Plan A.

3. Dr Harley has said that only 20% of marriages recover after an affair

He is not speaking of marriages where both spouses use Dr Harley's rebuilding programme. For them, he gives a figure of over 90%. To back this, he offers a money-back guarantee of success, and I have not heard him file for bankruptcy yet.

I see a great deal of success on this forum, EE. I do not see a replication of the official statistics and no wonder: most of those cases do not use Dr Harley or this forum.

SugarCane,

I understand what you are saying. But I take issue with the 90% figure. If I recall correctly, that's not cases involving infidelity. I may be wrong, but I believe even MelodyLane said in another thread that the 90% success rate is not measuring cases of infidelity.

But even if it is, it involves something else, BOTH spouses on board.

How many come here to the infidelity forum as a couple?

What is the normal case presented to Dr Harley, Steve or Jennifer? Is it both husband and wife saying someone had an affair and we want to recover? Or is the majority presenting the BS, and wanting to address the affair.

Given that we are talking about plan A, and plan A is about ending the affair, shouldn't we be looking at how effective the program is when only one is an active participant. When the only active participant is the betrayed spouse?

Oh, and to be complete, there is a third scenario, the WS seeks MB help because he/she knows they messed up and want to recover their marriage. I suppose that sometimes that's the lone spouse here.

So you have both who present (no necessarily to the forums, but how about just to coaching by MB pros) You have the BS presenting alone, and you have the WS presenting alone.

The case I believe we are discussing here is the BS presenting alone, correct?

How often does that result in a recovered marriage?

Nope, that is not what I said at all. Another example of you twisting statistics.

Nope, never said it.

One more thing.

What outcome does Pepperband's description of the "run-of-the-mill" WW lead you to believe is more common in cases of a WW? Let's go back and look at her description:


That doesn't sound like someone who is likely to end the affair, say I'm sorry, what I did was wrong, forgive me and let's build a better marriage.

Not saying that doesn't happen. What I'm saying is most of those factors work against this variety of WW returning to her marriage. She is trapped on possibly three fronts, shame with respect to how she's treated her husband, her pride, she doesn't want to admit she's done wrong, and her deep in singular emotional connection with the other man.

Seems to me a WW has to face losing more by staying in the affair that her perceived losses returning to the marriage.

This is where I agree with Melody, that exposure and the other "stick" parts of plan A can be highly effective on this type of WW.

It's been my contention that changing divorce laws would help too, but that's out of the scope of this discussion. But I do believe that if the one leaving or cheating faced credible concerns over losing their children and marital assets there would be more incentive to return.

Now if that's an incentive that would lead to a better marriage is certainly debatable. But I do believe it would provide a much needed speed bump in many cases the BH (or BW) could capitalize upon by working the MB plan.

This debate has become a distraction to this forum and needs to end now. Let's get back to Marriage Building and stop the quibbling! Otherwise this thread will be locked.

Count me in with that 'satistic', Mel?

Man, was I stubborn, reluctant....doing a "PLan A" w/ out exposure, which ws really Plan Doormat...

And then I exposed -- I know it's only been a few weeks, but I know my W and I wouldn't even be sniffing recovery w/ out exposure, which forced her to take a stand: our M or out, OM or me, a family or single mom, etc.

I wrote an earlier post asking if there were statistics on WWs:

*% who are one-and-done w/ an A
*% who exit the M immediately after an A
*% who are simply repeat cheaters

I can attest that I couldn't come close to ever believing the M could be saved at all if it wasn't for exposure. Many more posters than I believe that killed my W's affair that day (especially when OMs mom called me up)...but atleast I knew that exposure plus a great Plan A for awhile is/was sure to kill the A once and for all...

After a session w/ Steve, reading SAA, coompleting ENQs, I think I'm getting confident enough to say we are atleast ON the path to recovery (still holding off on the FWW label for now...awaiting some vets' 'blessings')

Just my 2 cents...

**EDIT**

Understand, I just read this, so I'll not continue.

I'm still waiting for Dr Harley's answers to the similar questions I presented weeks ago. I hope he is writing a newsletter on this topic as has been suggested.

I think it would address questions on both sides of this debate.

**edit**

**edit**

Ya hear that guilt knocking at your door, Drama Queen?

How does this work in adultery and the fog? Many many times the betrayed spouse comes on here and their wayward was a great person before they entered into adultery. We have had quite a few church affairs lately.

The wayward clearly knows right from wrong ... do we help the betrayed by simply stating ... "Your Wayturd is deep in addiction and even though they know it is wrong ... they will not stop because the HIGH is just that powerful?"

Do we just automatically put all waywards in the "Bad person" category until they are repentant? I think there was a discussion a while back on this topic ... "When the fog lifts and the wayward is still wayward then it is their character and they are inherently horrible marriage material and will likely not reform."

I think that partly relates to Dr. Harley's Buyer/Freeloader relationship ... where Dr. Harley discusses the Freeloader can become a buyer when the adultery stops, but if they were never a buyer then they will likely never be buyer material.

Does this make sense?

Is there a "bad person" category? LOL

I'm not at all sure what you are asking.

I do remember asking my H right after D day how he felt when he drove hundreds of miles to become physical with OW for the first time .... ON FATHER'S DAY.
He said:
"I felt terribly guilty."
I asked:
"Why didn't you turn the car around?"
He said:
"I don't know."
This made me at the time. But now I understand what was happening.
Pleasure vs guilt.
Sometimes pleasure is victorious over guilt.
I know this from experience when I eat too many sweets.

Does this make the wayward a good person who is choosing their addiction over their guilt?

I apologize I am not sure how to hone my question exactly.

I would like to know when is it inherently a character flaw versus just addiction?

The entrenched wayward will keep giving in to pleasure until their conscience is so far stuffed they no longer can stop themselves from it?