Hey everyone,
first time posting here, been following radio show now for a month and following the dr harley's program since discovering my fiance of 9 years was having an affair the past 3 years and my youngest daughter might not be mine. She has moved out while we wait for the results of dna test. I believe she is living with the other guy but is lieing about it, says she with a friend. I've been following plan a so far & since she moved out we have stopped fighting & our communication has been much better. So hard to know what to believe when she tells me anything. have caught her in so many lies. Says she wants to be with me no matter what the outcome of results but still staying away. I think she doesn't know what she wants. this is just a taste I will give more info as we progress on here.

Look forward to all the good advice
Thanks, ***EDIT***

Fiance = Not an affair

What can we do for you?

***EDIT*** I'm going to notify the mods to move this thread over to Dating & Relationships. You're not married, therefore by definition there is no infidelity. Your girlfriend is free to play the field, and she may well be doing just that. You aren't married. You're dating. I'm sorry.

Welcome to MB.

Why haven't you married her?

Yes, that's exactly what I was wondering.

When the romantic love is there consistently, people typically feel like they want to be together forever.

According to Dr. Harley, if a relationship hasn't progressed toward marriage in about two years, it will typically (but not always) decline from that point. i.e., the love bank withdrawals will increase, the deposits will decrease, the couple will fall out of love, and things will get rocky.

It sounds like they got pretty rocky here. If the two of you did not have a child together, my suggestion would be that you go ahead and separate and start planning a new life without her. But because there is a child, the best outcome would be for the other relationship to end, and the two of you two fall in love and get married.

What is your desired outcome?

Sorry for putting original post in wrong forum still learning. We both never but alot of pressure on getting married, we have fully done everything like a married couple without the papers. We have been dealing with major health issues in her life for the whole 10 years together. We have 4 kids. I have heard dr harley talk about when not married your some what free to rome. So does this mean according to this program that someone in my shoes just has to except that she is cheating or is there a seperate plan that I have missed? If we can get through this I would like to marry her. My view on marriage has changed since following marriage builders

Have you read this?
Living Together Before Marriage: Compatibility Test or Curse?

Also this.
Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders

**EDIT**

He's been cheated on, bottom line.

Sorry, but there is a HUGE difference between being married and not being married. The reasons he did not get married are very important in helping him solve his issues. Please don't come here and preach to others who are in the trenches doing the heavy lifting when you ARE NOT.

Respectfully disagree.

That's like a patient coming to doctor's office, saying "I've got cancer." And the doctor's reply is "Let's look at the reasons you chose to start smoking 25 years ago..."

Can't change his past...just needs assistance / guidance on how to move forward.

Apparently my comments are not in line with what the moderators believe is proper conduct, hence the "**EDIT**"

Sorry, but you are dead wrong. That's like the patient coming into the office and saying he has cancer when he really has heart disease. The treatment for one is not the treatment for the other. You don't understand the underlying dynamics. The dynamics of his situation are radically different because he is not married.

When callers in this same situation call up Dr Harley on the radio why do you think his first question is "why didn't you get married?" Do you know why that is such an important question?

You are chastising posters for asking him the SAME QUESTION that Dr Harley asks callers in the same situation. You don't understand the difference and as such, are disrupting this thread by injecting your own personal philosophy. That is not helpful to this guy.

Canuck, your relationship is going to have to change if you want to stay together.
Since you are not married, but have been living together, you are both Renters. Technically, she is a free agent and it is not surprising that she would go out and find someone else to meet her needs.

That's what Renters do.

If you want to stay together, you are going to have to become Buyers.

Have you read the articles posted above? I also suggest you get the book "Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders." If you are interested in marrying this girl and becoming Buyers, I suggest the book "I Promise You," in preparation for marriage.

You have 4 very good reasons to stay together -- your kids. It is good that she moved out. Start this relationship over. Start dating her, then marry her.

Through sheer coincidence, I happened to hear this radio segment from Dr. Harley this morning, in which he makes this comment:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=03267

When a couple makes the decision to live together and to not marry, and especially so when they decide to have kids together and still to not marry, they are making as much of a public statement, and a decision, as is the decision to marry.

By saying "we don't need the piece of paper", they are saying that they do not respect or recognise the social (and often religious) obligations and benefits that are bound up in the commitment of marriage. They are saying that they don't need the public, legal (and Godly, if appropriate) sanctioning of their relationship. They are saying that they reject the state's regulation and validation of, and even interference in, their private relationship. They are rejecting the legal obligations. They are rejecting the notion of the contract that can only be undone by use of the law, as in divorce, or by death. They are rejecting the entire notion of public commitment.

They are reserving the right to walk away from the relationship whenever they want to, without the social and legal (and religious) difficulties that go along with abandoning a marriage. In not wanting the "piece of paper", they do not want what marriage means. That dynamic makes a living together arrangement very different from a marriage, and since Dr Harley has devised his plans for marriage, with all its commitments and obligations, they are not expected to work in cohabitations. There is no obligation in cohabitation. It's set up to be an arrangement that the couple will stick to for as long as it makes them happy, and the expectation is that when it ceases to make one or both happy, they can walk away with no ties. They can and will still be parents to their children, but they kept their freedom as unmarried people for a reason.

That doesn't mean it isn't painful to be cheated on, and that it won't be painful for those children to stop living full-time with both parents, but the affairs advice wasn't created with living-together, walk-away relationships as the model. A marriage is a very different entity from a cohabitation arrangement, as this poster has himself come to see.

I'm rather surprised that you don't see it that way yourself, given that you made the commitment of marriage.

Exactly. It also doesn't mean that the poster can't turn this around somehow, but the advice we will give for that needs to be different, and needs to take into account pieces of information like "Why did you decide not to get married?"

Not to beat a dead horse but this is also a 'fiance of 9 years', not a 'girlfriend of 9 years'. It seems our OP has proposed marriage to her but for some reason, 9 years later, nothing has come of that. so, while our OP can tell us that it is "just a piece of paper", I'm curious to know why bother getting engaged. Assuming he proposed (which may be wrong), one wonders if she actually had her heart in this anyways (renter-freeloader mentality).

Of course he's hurt. He has been a father to a 3 year old that he doesn't know is biologically his or not, I cannot imagine the cruelty of that. But it gives us insight into how this woman has viewed this the whole time....?

They're both Renters. To save this, they need to become Buyers.

It's amazing that we can understand this man's dynamics and give advice after reading just a few paragraphs.