I heard.

Me too

I will ask Kiss to listen

Next observation:

Many question if recovery is possible, but in Dr. Harley and Dr. Chalmers' experience, it definitely is!

One unique thing about Dr. Harley is that, with his scientific and engineering minded mind, he wasn't satisfied to just regurgitate what he learned about counseling and then send couples off pronouncing them "cured" only to go back to a miserable marriage or a repeat affair.

Not Dr. Harley - he had to follow up. He felt it was necessary to track couples after he had seen them, sometimes for years. And in his experience, couples who practiced what he taught them did indeed recover, for life.

And that recovery involved creating the marriage that the couple always should have had, but typically did not have even before the affair: the feeling of romantic love for a lifetime, sustained by customized care from husband and wife for each other.

Personally, that's what I got married for.

It wasn't until after we recovered and were/are in love, I mean, crazy in love, with each other, that we realized we had probably never really been in love in our 30 years of marriage.

We had what many people have: a relationship of somewhat decent care...most of the time; committed to our marriage...most of the time. We were okay with travel and long separations; I didn't even cry very much when my H left for his deployment. I wasn't happy to see him go - more resigned. We were already living independent lives anyway, so it didn't feel that different with him gone.

Now we LOVE being with each other. We would live in a studio apartment just about anywhere in order to be together.

We are both amazed at what happened to our marriage and our feelings about each other when we followed the MB principles.

We consider it nothing short of a miracle and are thankful to the Harleys! And we still get the Love Bank Inventory every month to fill out. Yep, Dr. H. continues his follow-up. Not like any other MC we ever went through in the past.

Wonderful.


hehe, yes he does!

I hope everybody has the book now and is reading Chapter 2.

My first observation is the title and theme of this chapter: "It could never happen to me." It's the people who say this who are usually most vulnerable to an affair. They might say they would never have an affair; they might even say it's because they have good "boundaries." But if you start taking a look at their behavior, you find them taking risks. (I find that often the people who make the most noise about "boundaries" are the ones who don't have any. For example, they might say it's okay to go out to lunch with an opposite sex friend because their good "boundaries" would protect them. They don't understand that a real BOUNDARY would be something like "I don't go out to lunch with members of the opposite sex.")

Everyone who is married lives by certain rules. Jon and Sue had a rule that it was okay to have opposite sex friendships. This rule led directly to Sue's affair. Notice how Jon had no problem at all with Sue having a male friend. This is a fantastic example of how not everything that a couple is enthusiastic about together is good for a marriage. (Sometimes people try to say that certain marriage wrecking behaviors are fine if both husband and wife are enthusiastic. The Policy of Joint Agreement, after all! Examples include porn, swinging, opposite sex friendships, drug use, lack of time together, and could go on forever.)

One thing that really stood out to me reading the thought sections showing Jon and Sue's sides of the story is that, while Sue felt guilty, Jon's impression was that Sue did not feel guilty at all and was completely callous. Sue's guilt hadn't translated into any behavioral changes at all, yet. Our impressions of our spouse's empathy for us (or lack of empathy) are formed by our spouse's behavior. I'll bet even if Sue told Jon every day how guilty she felt, his impression still would have been the same: Sue does not feel guilty at all; she doesn't care at all about the pain she is causing me and my children.

Lesson learned: don't debate your spouse's feelings. Don't prescribe your spouse's feelings in recovery. Focus on your spouse's behavior, and how it affects you.

One last interesting thought: as Jon and Sue's relationship declined, Sue saw that her feelings were changing, but she could not analyze why. "She blamed it all on having been in a bad mood that week and tried to assure Jon it wasn't anything he had done to upset her. But she was at a loss to know what was causing the problem or what to do about it. The passion was simply gone." It is amazingly common that people can't tell what is wrong in their marriage or what needs to be done about it. In particular I think husbands querying withdrawn wives are likely to get an "I don't know" response. It can feel pretty hopeless to ask what you need to do to make love bank deposits and get no guidance at all! (After all, how are you ever going to get your emotional needs met if you can't meet the needs of your husband or wife?)

Dr. Harley frequently sees emotional needs questionnaires where the top ranked needs are not intimate needs: domestic support, financial support, attractiveness, etc. This is a sign of withdrawal: the spouse really doesn't want their emotional needs met. It's a perfectly normal thing. But Dr. Harley's approach is always the same: focus on coaching the couple to spend fifteen hours a week meeting the four intimate emotional needs: recreational companionship, conversation, affection, and sexual fulfillment; regardless of what they ranked highly on their ENQ.

If either or both of you don't know what your marriage needs, that's probably it. Take that time, and make it enjoyable for both of you.

Dr. Harley describes the choices, thoughts, and feelings during the breakdown of the marriage before Sue's affair. She didn't know what was missing, so made a logical choice to continue having sex with Jon. However, that didn't help the marriage. It seems to me that although Dr. Harley talks about using logic, he also doesn't say to use it against your own emotional welfare. So, where is the line between meeting the needs of your spouse even if you don't feel like it and sacrifice?

I know that this isn't what this chapter delves into, so I can wait to talk about it later. However, I think it's a question that could help us older posters to help new people who come here.

Your question made me think of this newsletter article, that might be helpful:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/mb2.cfm?recno=9&sublink=586

I have read that article thoroughly at least 5 times. Yes, for me the answer is there, but when in a relationship the question can still remain: is this sacrifice or is it something I'm supposed to do build the marriage? (whatever the behavior or task it might be). It reminds me of something in "His Needs Her Needs" when Dr. Harley writes that one may have 50 reasons why their spouse should give them something, but even so, it shouldn't be demanded. So perhaps even if something is reasonable, once a demand for it is made, to do it is a sacrifice, partly because its rewarding a demand.

I hope it's okay to "think aloud" a little on this thread. I am trying to be careful to not veer too far from the topic at hand. If I do, give me a nudge!

Next observation: early in the chapter, Dr. Harley menions she could overlook the loss of Jon's companionship. So many marriages are built on this premise, that there is no expectation of continued companionship, that you should be able to get along without it. It seems normal to spend a night apart or a week apart. We even know couples who have taken separate vacations. Seeking other friends is the norm: possibly same sex friends, but for some marriages even opposite sex friends seem completely normal.

But normal marriages have affairs. Dr. Harley says it in this chapter: most marriages have affairs.

Don't do what normal people do!

Men: if you and your wife are typical, then at the start of your marriage, your wife has more expectation of blending than you do. If you don't act on that, she may eventually become disillusioned and start to believe that independence from each other is normal or even desirable. Regardless of what she thinks about it right now, if you will take the initiative to PURSUE HER COMPANIONSHIP, regularly invite her to spend time with you, and spend that time in ways that you both enjoy, you will provide some of the insulation that is required to shield a marriage from an affair, or some of the healing that is required to recover a marriage from an affair by transforming it into what marriages should be in the first place. And you will achieve what the vast majority of marriages do not achieve: sustained romantic love.

By the way, religious folks: if your minister, pastor, or priest tells you that in some marriages you just have to overlook the loss of companionship or the loss of love, ask them to show you where in the Bible God says that. They should have no objection to that question.

I've heard this taught from pulpits before. What a tragic shame.

Is there a stat to back that up? I've read this a bunch from Dr Harley, and I know he is not just making up a number, but I wonder where it comes from?

Dr. Harley has reviewed several studies on it and conducted one or two surveys and studies himself. Accurate information is hard to come by, because people are prone to underreport: i.e., if you ask 10 people who had an affair or whose spouse had an affair, you might not get ten "yes"'s back. I think one of the studies Dr. Harley conducted was actually designed to try to get a good estimate of how many people would not accurately report that their marriage had an affair.

The figure Dr. Harley gives is 60%.

Well, I personally know of six marriages that had affairs in them...not including my own. That's a lot, I think!

My wife and I both come from large families. There are 11 marriages in all, of which 8 have had infidelities. A couple of the others I am suspect of, and none of them am I certain had none. There have been 3 divorces.

I think I did read it was an estimate on his part. An educated estimate I might add.

Either way, that is a lot. I'll bet most people don't know this stat, and maybe even if they did, they still might think "Not me or my spouse".

I've read threads in other places where women will defend to the death their need for GNO to a bar or club. Same thing with guys.

My take on that is that single people should never go to bars or clubs - there's too much risk they might pick up a married person!

All the marriage counseling I saw before Dr. Harley emphasized the importance of my wife having strong same sex friendships and lots of activities with those friends. Apparently, having a successful marriage required escaping from each other all of the time! One of those counselors was divorced herself. I guess we were fortunate we didn't hit a counselor who told us we needed strong opposite sex friendships as well.

Hey markos I missed this earlier is it too late to join in?

No, not at all! Please join in! We are covering chapter 2 this week, but feel free to comment about chapter 1 if you like.