Yes, you have been relentless, I agree with that!

• I did not lie to myself about it being ok to day while married; it wasn't smart, but it was not lying.
• My relationship with her was not foundationless.
• I am not trying to fix the relationship I had with my girlfriend.
• I have already figured out what went wrong with my marriage.
• I am not at all focused on my relationship with my ex-GF.
• The relationship with her was not damaged; it ended because of blended-family issues.
• I agree about Lovebusters; I have yet to read that.
• My ex-GF was extremely good dating material because she and I were very compatible, and I'm talking MB compatibility; she would be able to offer me all I need in a relationship.
• I told myself zero lies because I didn't have to convince myself she had my best interest at heart. I know she did.

Do you have difficulty believing that it's possible to meet someone fantastic before taking the time to heal from a previous relationship? It is possible. It may not be likely, but it is possible.

This is quite intense navel-gazing though and imo a waste of time. He just has to follow MB from here on out. If he had folowed MB in his first marriage it would have worked out.

Not following MB is what went wrong with his first marriage. Job done.

We are ALL in that same boat.

Saying he has some deep rooted defect or is prone to deception is ..... disrespectful and completely baffling

Plus it's unhelpful unless he is doing something in the PRESENT that is deceptive or non-MB.

The past... well we could all stand to have done better there.

I didnt follow MB in my marriage either. I had AOs, I allowed my spose to do IB without implementing POJA.

Did I lie to myself and tell myself I was muddling through OK? You betcha.

But we're all here now. So lets get on with MB.

People on this board take back cheaters every day of the week and build good relationships with them. So I don't buy that this woman is irredeemable. I'm not saying KL should try to fix things - I think there are other issues - but I find the repeated slam of this woman's character baffling. Why doesn't this apply equally to KL? On this theory, isn't HE also unworthy, of her and of ANYONE else he might meet?

Pure bunk IMO.

Yes ... because your original thread with her had so many red flags it was shocking.

Naval - gazing how Indie? His original posts had massive amounts of red flags with his ex-GF and yet he repeatedly is discussing how he is mourning this great relationship.

I have simply pointed out to him countless times this isn't the relationship he should be mourning. He should be mourning his 20 year marriage that he never mourned because he used ex-GF to rebound with.

I am simply pointing out to him the relationship with ex-GF was built off the back of his first marriage ... a marriage he never healed from.

If he wants to better himself then better himself from that starting point, not ex-GF.

He may be following MB, but his multiple threads suggest he is still doing quite a bit of self-deception, hence my advice was to read and truly understand Lovebusters.

I guess read his original thread and you will see all the red flags with ex-GF ... and this site never ever advocates dating while married. I will stand my ground that dating anyone while married usually means the person isn't good dating or marriage material.

He is mourning his "dating while married" girlfriend, a woman who wasn't good for him to begin with.

Indiegirl, you make me laugh "Intense navel-gazing" I love it!

GodGiveMeStrength, how about if we take Indiegirl's advice and drop this conversation. I agree with her that it's becoming unproductive. I have made mistakes in the past. I'll undoubtedly make some more in the future. I'm working on correcting my behavior so I make as few of them as possible. MB principles are attractive to me as the best way to work on myself. Truce?

It has nothing to do with truce.

If you read the beginning of this thread one month ago (only) and to see where you are today ... I am simply trying to point out that there are still concerns with your thoughts about the relationship with your ex-GF.

I never suggested navel-gazing. You stated one month ago you spent 4 years in withdrawal from your wife. You filed for divorce and then you moved on with your ex-GF.

I simply suggested you concentrate on building better habits from your first marriage ... not the relationship from ex-GF.

Your bad habits were formed in your 20 year marriage ... not in this 2.5 year relationship.

I simply suggested understanding what those bad habits are and then build better habits.

KL ... on 1 August you posted the above ... when I questioned you a couple weeks ago on how you are correcting the bad habits of your first marriage ... you are replying you have already worked through everything.

My thought was you are trying to build better habits based on your plan above.

On 10 August I posted this to you


The previous posts concerning your son and your ex-GF's relationship is what prompted me to bring you back again to the goal you stated above and to the fact the ex-GF relationship was not the one that needs healing. Your first marriage and its mistakes are where the new habits should stem.

Are we really going to harp on about the past to this extent? Is everyone's original thread up for being bashed? Don't read my first post, I beg you. I simply couldn't defend all the non-MB nonsense I spouted.

KL will only get a distanced perspective on the relationship when he is distanced. Which is what he is working towards TODAY.



Feelings folllow actions. He is doing the MB actions. The necessary feelings will follow.I don't see how encouraging everyone to read old posts will help us move him forawrd.

Indie it was only one month ago .... seriously!!!! Geez

So when is your deadline for letting it go?
Two months? Three?


Personally when people are taking the advice I let it go as soon as they start walking the walk.

No one can do more than what they have been asked to do!

He can't go back one month and change his posts/actions any more than you or I can.

Yes it IS soon, that's precisely why it is important to get moving in a FORWARDLY direction.

He isn't going to reach great MB heights of insight less than one month doing MB actions.

Has anyone?

So I think its unrealistic, unfair and unhelpful to expect it, while asking him to regress and focus on the past.

Let's march on, shall we?

I guess seek Dr. Harley on this ... this is the issue that brings me to your self deception. You took a marriage vow to forsake all others while married. How is that not one of your core values? That has nothing to do with religion, morals, or anything.

How can one take a vow and yet not recognize it as a core value? For all you who think I am simply trying to beat up on the man, how does one take a vow, and then not hold that vow as a value?

That is why I ask you to fully understand the mistake of your first marriage. Not naval gaze or harp on what went wrong, but who you are as a person.

If you goal is to be married again, then how can you say "a vow" is not your core value?

This is why I am continuously asking you to study Lovebusters and what "real honesty is to you" ... because until you understand how you deceived yourself here ... how can you take a step towards a future with another vow?

How will POJA and PORH be beneficial to you in any relationship if you do not understand what your core values are in terms of who you are?

Just three weeks ago you discussed the old verbiage that every single wayward says, "we were emotionally divorced" concerning your ex-wife. Have you truly worked through this logic to understand how that is flawed? Have you worked through your own understanding of why when you believe this ... you are truly deceiving yourself?

Those questions asked of you three weeks ago have not been answered.

So ... maybe I am wrong here ... Just three weeks ago you were fully defending this ... so I have relentlessly been trying to get you to see how when you fully read Lovebusters and grasp his PORH section... you will then see exactly how you can justify and rationalize your bad habits built from previous relationships.

There is a section in there on historical honesty, so I question how honest you are being with yourself when you tell me your core values do not contain "Your vow" which becomes nothing more than "emotional divorce" when things in a marriage get bad.

That isn't what I am doing...if you follow my posts you can see clearly ... that isn't what I am doing. Indie ... do we just let posters carry on then when they have the logic "we were emotionally divorced", or "it was just a piece of paper?" Maybe I have read Lovebusters a little too much lately. What I took from Dr. Harley is you choose honesty in all decisions you make ... this is why PORH is a must have concept when doing POJA. You cannot have either without the other.


I have been trying to point out for KL and for anyone reading this thread that radical honesty starts with historical honesty as in Lovebusters. His relationship with ex-GF was built on dishonesty ... no matter how you look at it ... it was not based on a foundation of marriage building. I have been pointing this out to KL for one month now.

I have been advising him to read Lovebusters to fully grasp PORH ... what it really means to be radically honest. KL has his heart in the relationship with ex-GF ... I have diligently been pointing out that his heart has deceived him because that relationship already started based on lies ... if you go back and read you will see his ex-GF had a goal of making KL the father to these children (her hidden agenda).

If KL pulls himself out of this relationship and looks radically at his historical honesty (as stated in Lovebusters) he can see where his problems first began ... by lying to himself he was "emotionally divorced"!

Ya know, no matter how many "red flags" you claim to see, they all come down to the one above. You take that point and drag it into having core values issues, the ex-GF being defective, KL being a bad father to his children, etc etc. But the reality is, this is the real issue you have, KL dating before the divorce was granted.

Now, I agree that it is usually a bad idea to do so, but to make this into moral terpitude is silly (and I know you keep saying that morals have nothing to do, but yet that is the only thing you are basing your argument on, that his ex-GF was defective because she has no morals because she dated a man who was not legally divorced - so your argument is inconsistent, it is all about morality for you). KL was separated and papers filed towards divorce, so it's not like they were trying to save the marriage, they were simply legally required to wait another 4 months. Had the legal waiting requirement in his area been shorter than 1 year (like it is where I am, which is zero), he would have been divorced much sooner and you would not have had the argument that you keep bringing up.

I agree that it always helps to spend some more time alone and heal, but please, your badgering of KL is bordering on obsessive. As indiegirl says, most of us here have been guilty of making mistakes, the key is to move on, not to keep rubbing people's noses into their past mistakes, especially ones they have learned from. The "beatings will continue until morale improves" approach you are taking is not productive, IMO.

AGG

It has nothing to do with morality ... it has to do with fundamental principles of "what we stand for"

Why should this poster or any poster ever be trusted if we allow for the breaking of our promises to be easily forgiven?

Isn't this site about earned trust ... not blind trust?

Why would any woman ever believe KL when he makes the promise to forsake all others ... he said three weeks ago "he was emotionally divorced?"

What is marriage building all about if one cannot see how "the vow" isn't part of a core value? What makes a marriage then? What is "the vow"?

There is no morality in this ... this is me simply trying to ask him ... why he should be trusted when he has yet to answer questions concerning his belief in "emotional divorce"?

Are we going to allow posters on this board to use that as a way to justify breaking their vow?


If I am off base for wanting KL to answer these questions and use Dr. Harley's Lovebusters to get him to see how radical honesty (historical) begins with himself, then how is one supposed to use Lovebusters?

I think it is dishonest for anyone to not look at their inability to uphold a promise(morals or not). I think one is doing a disservice to this thread to allow "emotional divorce" to be a legitimate answer when this forum is about marriage building.

If KL wants "to vow" to another ... isn't it our ability to advise him that this promise begins with himself first ... otherwise we accept blind trust from him. I don't think Dr. Harley is about blind trust.

Easy there GGMS... there are plenty of posters on this forum who have done far far worse than date before divorce papers were signed by a judge (e.g. former WS, plenty of those here), and guess what? We forgive them and don't keep bringing it up post after post after post...

KL has said numerous times that he should not have dated when he did, so I think you can give it a rest. I don't know why you keep trying to make his ex-GF sound like some tramp, or that KL has failed his children, and all the other stuff you are throwing at KL, without knowing a thing about them other than KL dated before divorce papers being signed.. I don't understand your agenda, but I don't believe that you are trying to help the poster, you are just trying to badger him...

AGG

HOw does your line of thinking above fall in line with Dr. Harley? YOur assumption of me that this is only about morality is false and a DJ, because it has nothing to do with morality.

How can this poster make another "vow" if he cannot understand why he broke the first vow? Isn't that marriage building? Isn't "the vow" the foundation?

Isn't that what KL said his goal was ... originally it was to marry his exGF.

HOw can we at a marriage building website support his decision to heal himself in order to make another "vow" if he cannot see how dishonesty is playing/played a role in his life.

He said he was in withdrawal from his first wife for "FOUR YEARS" ... what keeps a man in withdrawal for four years, conflict avoidance, laziness, dishonesty, pride, fear? I do not know ... so here is a man who was in withdrawal for four years ... then meets Ms. Ex-GF and now he is high as a kite. Wow ... betcha he was pulled out of his withdrawal pretty darn quick.

He has been with ex-GF 2.5 years and his first post several months ago was "6 months ago I lost the romantic feeling for my girlfriend and I want to know how to use Dr. Harley's methods to get it back." BINGO ... wow could KL be on Dr. Harley's 2 year analysis plan that most of these kinds of relationships die after two years? ... Better yet this relationship started while still married.

PUtting two and two together ... what does the good Doc say happens in these kinds of relationships? They die because they fail to keep building romantic love ... Hey KL now knows this is what he has to do. So he has part one down ... use EN's to build romantic love.

What does the good Doc's plan also include ... do not drain the bank using Lovebusters ... so I am back to my again question with Mr. KL ... What are you doing to address your Lovebuster issues?

What I see is a man who stayed in withdrawal for 4 years ... then found himself his HIGH ... now he is without his HIGH ... so we are back to the original issue ... what kept him in a state of withdrawal for four years, and what is he going to do to build better habits so he never gets into the state of withdrawal in his next relationship?

Again...maybe I am really far off here ... but I have simply been trying to get him to see how he cannot do EN's if he will not implement Lovebusters ... the Lovebusters have and still are this man's ability to stay in withdrawal for four years with his first wife.

This has been KL's past three years (Withdrawal ... HIGH ... Withdrawal (now from exGF)) ... yet he still hasn't dealt with the demise of his first marriage because he needs to detox from ex-GF ... anyone else see how this mirrors something else here? If I am treating Mr. KL unfairly because his behavior is mimicking what goes on in this forum every single day ... In all realty maybe SAA is really the book he should be reading.

To make a long long winded story longer ... what better habits are you building to safeguard yourself from this

"...what keeps a man in withdrawal for four years, conflict avoidance, laziness, dishonesty, pride, fear? " Until you realize this and protect yourself by building better habits... you are likely to fall victim to the "HIGH" that was given to you by ex-GF ... clearly noted was not the best match for you.

You are all correct ... I need a cold drink after this one!!!!

AGain AGG ... there is no agenda and I am not badgering him. It is about earned trust not blind trust. Usually formers have to go through extensive posts to prove their logic is sound with marriage building. KL has yet to address his "emotional divorce". When his posts reflect a change in logic here ... then maybe I will give him some trust. As to this date he feels he was "emotionally divorced" ... we don't let anyone on these forums get away with that logic, do we?

I fail to see any dishonesty in KL's behavior, past or present. Speaking of DJ's, calling someone dishonest without having supporting evidence (other than your feelings) takes the cake of DJs...

As for breaking vows, heck, anyone who divorced a spouse did that, so are you telling me none of those folks are welcome here until they cleanse themselves of some "vow breaking" stain that you make up?

AGG