I have been reading a lot of old posts back 1999-2003 and such to continue my education on MB principles and such.

When did the board change and really start posting Dr. Harley's concepts?

I hardly ever see much advise on Dr. H's concepts mostly just everyone's own opinions.

The issue that shocked me the most was something they called "fence sitting". They would tell BS to sit on the fence and wait for their WS to end the affair. They weren't supposed to say anything about the affair and wait at home when their WS went over to OP house.

Really? I only saw very little, advice to kill the affair. Just a lot of "fence sitting" for up to 6 months. A lot of cake eating for the waywards. I wonder how many BS suffered from PTSD?

When a wayward came on the board and would talk about how their OP called them there were so many saying "good job that you answered the phone and just said ok"

I didn't mean to hit the submit.

I was just wondering if something really changed to get posters to learn and post MB concepts?

It really has changed, hasn't it?

For the first several years of our marriage I looked in on Marriage Builders, and the message board, and I always avoided the message board because it didn't look like it was saying anything that lined up with the books!

I think one thing that changed was the radio show: once that was out there the people that listened regularly were able to get a grasp on Dr. Harley's concepts much better and explain how it differed from all the other ideas out there. Before that it seemed easy for people to assume that Dr. Harley was probably just saying the same thing they'd read in other marriage books, but of course, he wasn't.

Then at some point the board policy at the top of the page changed, and specifically explained that the purpose of the board was to discuss and learn Marriage Builders concepts. i.e., not to post whatever you personally believed would save a marriage, but to function as a school to learn how to apply Dr. Harley's concepts to save your marriage.

This really alienated a lot of long-timers who had been posting their own opinions and conflicting marriage advice for years, and many of them found it disrespectful, and for awhile there were a lot of board fights by people who felt entitled to continue to use Dr. Harley's forum to air their own views in conflict with his and to actually persuade people not to follow Marriage Builders. I guess the feeling was they'd always done this so Dr. Harley didn't have the right to rein things in. And of course there was the disrespectful charge that Dr. Harley is just seeking to maximize his own profits.

Of course, Dr. Harley owns the board, and there's nothing wrong with anyone maximizing profits! I'm not sure how much income he makes off the board, though, as the advice is all free. Like I said on another thread, he must make it all up in volume.

Beyond that, of course, many of us really did believe that Dr. Harley's advice was different from other marriage advice, and actually works. So many of us felt the best way to save marriages was to quit allowing all those conflicting opinions to be aired on the threads of those seeking help. You can find me expressing this on the board a couple years ago.

Thankfully most of the troublemakers have moved on. It's a big internet.

Part of the change was people like you who listen to the radio show and tirelessly post Dr. Harley's advice, making this a valuable forum for anyone with a marriage in trouble, instead of just a place where people sound off their own unprofessional and likely unhelpful opinions!

Thanks and that does clear up a lot.

Had you heard of this "fence sitting"?

I hadn't heard of it by that name. But I do know I heard of people announcing that they were going to "Plan A for life" and other such dangerous misunderstandings. Usually I've only heard "fence sitting" applied to waywards.

I haven't scanned a whole lot from the time period you are looking at; I mostly started digging through what my favorite posters had to say in years past, and most of them didn't show up till 2003-2007. (With several obvious exceptions. )

At 2,634,660 it's hard to imagine ever getting to read everything on this board. I wish I could. Although I'm sure much of it would be the same story, over and over.

Dang what a crazy time. To think the Gall of people thinking Dr. Harley couldn't have rules on his board and how he just wants to make money, on free stuff, really?

I remember yours and Prisca's were one of the first stories I followed back in I think 2010 and there was one particular poster that would tell all the husbands to divorce their wives and she was female. I couldn't believe the non MB advice she would post.

Prisca called her out straight away and said "xyz I know you've already told my DH to divorce me so I'd appreciate you not posting to me with your advice". I knew from that point on that I like Prisca and I knew you two were learning/living MB.

I think that the concept of "fence sitting" might be a Divorce Busters strategy. I think that DB is against any kind of confrontation towards the affair.

My lurking began here in 2007, and I have researched back histories of many people who were posting then back to about 2004. You are right, Brainy and markos; the concept of this being a school for learning and applying MB was very lightly taken, or not at all.

When you look back, you can read about a BW who allowed OW to phone the family home DAILY if she wanted to speak to WH, as part of "Plan A". She objected if it happened during dinner, but apparently not at other times. There was a couple both posting here who refused to expose to anybody, so that OM was freely able regularly to visit the parents and even befriend the teenaged daughters of the couple. There were affair partners who continued to work together, go to conferences with OP, keep mementos of the affair in the house, have closure visits, and all manner of things with the reluctant agreement of the BS who was posting and gaining support for this action on MB!

There was a couple that was posting here in the past year, WW had a long history of serial cheating. They had both posted here many many years ago and were back after yet another dday for the BH.

They were a little upset when they were told the changes that needed to be made to affair-proof the M. And I believe the BH referenced 'how much this place has changed'. I went back and read the WW's posts from years ago and nothing was said to her regarding EPs, etc. It really highlighted for me how different the boards were before.

I will try to find the threads & link.

Thanks Sugar and Susie.
I think I recall that Susie but if you can find the links I'd appreciate it.

I was going to link some of the shocking threads until I saw one of the old posters on "who's online". I was reading some her threads and then I would see a poster whom had like over 11,000 posts. I would go and check some of her posts and she was really teaching the "fence sitting".

She would say "oh no do not confront your WH just keep fence sitting. When he leaves to see OW make sure you are really sweet to him"

Occasionally I'd see a post from Pep or Mel trying to teach MB concepts and all these posters would tell them they "were DJing the OP and waywards".

Oh and when WW would get a call from her OM there was no discussion on EP's or why didn't you change your number?

Just good job and you handled it correctly about only giving one word responses.

What really shocked me was a male poster did a call out to a female poster and said I was in your area.

She replied "oh my gosh you were across the street and I'm so upset because I would've taken you to lunch". I couldn't even keep reading because it was like an EA in front of my eyes. She threw a lot of "wink, winks and pouts because she couldn't take him to lunch".

I guess that was before they understood about OS friendships?

Are you sure that posting links is a good idea? I think it is okay to discuss this without identifying specific posters, but if someone has come back here, as in Susie's example, that might be upsetting.

Today's Marriage Builders would have nailed them to the wall!

That's a good point, SC.

I will identify the poster so BH can go check it out...then edit it out later today. Hopefully that's OK.

**edit**

To think the Gaul of people thinking...
BH, what do you have against the French?

Definition of GAUL

1: a Celt of ancient Gaul
2: frenchman

Definition of GALL

1a : bile; especially : bile obtained from an animal and used in the arts or medicine
1b : something bitter to endure
1c : bitterness of spirit : rancor
2: brazen boldness coupled with impudent assurance and insolence

Since you are notably pristine in your grammar, I wanted to reveal to others that you were assuredly making a brilliant riposte, given the high consumption of fermented grape juice in France, that like the Gauls, the earlier posters you despised had a excess of.......whine!

Sugar,

France 1 :: 1 England

Milner should have scored that first chance. Awful!

NG - we are delighted here. We were expecting to get slaughtered!

By the way - what are they doing showing the Euro championship in the USA? I hope you are being heavily charged for the privilege of watching our fine game!

I told that poster off because I was incensed that anyone would tell my husband to divorce me without having ever talked to me. But it wasn't because I was living MB. I was just doing what I had to do to get Markos to shut up and leave me alone. I didn't think MB would work, and I was not willing to invest that much into it. It would be less than a year later before I had an EA.

I was no saint!