I am on topic, and I don't wish to "build up" your affair. I will focus on the same thing that Dr Harley focuses on, which is the inherent weakness of affair relationships and why they almost always fail. You left your wife for this woman, and that makes it an affair. It was born out of acts of selfishness that will carry through in the future. You will both act selfishly in this relationship because that is acceptable behaviour to you both.

You might think it's better for me not to post, but I don't.

SugarCane, let me start over. I don't desire any hostility and it seems I have said things that have brought about this rigid stance you are taking. Listen, let me apologize and provide some more information. All I am asking is that you be flexible and open minded and think the best about me and this situation before you jump to conclusions. I have nothing to hide and I will be forthcoming if that will benefit the conversation. You make a number of statements that just quite simply arent true, and if you will be patient and open-minded, I will explain so that you can be better informed, and in turn, provide more valuable advice/insight. Sound good to you?

You get that that's not going to happen, right? Pretty much everything you are saying is lecturing everybody here telling them what to do - and they are not going to do what you want. Nearly nobody here is going to support your relationship, and nearly everybody here is going to consider it an affair.

If you want help for this relationship it isn't going to happen on this forum. Nearly everybody here would rather you have used Marriage Builders to try to fix your marriage. The site is not about relationships, it is about marriages. We take a very broad view about what constitutes an affair and are pretty set in our opinions and ways.

I encourage you to check out Marriage Builders Radio (you can listen for free with an app on your phone) to learn more about what we think here.

Fair enough, I will do that. Just know, as a parting comment, that my desire was to gather information/advice for my future marriage...Since it is true that the majority of affair-birthed relationships fail, I would have thought you guys would have jumped at the opportunity to help me since the deck is stacked against me. At least statistically.

Dr. Harley is somewhat controversial in his stance that if your spouse could meet your emotional needs and chooses not to, he believes you have a right to divorce them. But Dr. Harley is also adamant that when you allow other women to meet your emotional needs during marriage, as you did, the contrast effect makes it impossible for your wife to meet your emotional needs. So that puts her in the category of "not able" to meet your emotional needs, which is not the kind of case where Dr. Harley would support divorce.

Moreover Dr. Harley rarely advises divorce or separation for men anyway, because men have so much more potential for winning their wife over if they get on board with the techniques of this program, something you never tried.

We do follow Dr. Harley's opinions and advice here, which probably makes us a "cult" in most people's eyes when really we are just a bunch of people who have voluntarily chosen to trust an expert in the field, and had good results. We aren't interested in hearing your own personal anecdotal opinion, because we aren't here to benefit from your expertise but instead are here to help other people benefit from learning how to apply Dr. Harley's expertise. Nobody is interested in hearing your opinion about why your current relationship is not an affair or reevaluating our opinions. That probably makes us closed-minded, or whatever, but we don't care! We are quite happy and content with the results we have gotten following this program.

Yes because we all so enjoy helping people destroy themselves and their families.

The "deck isn't stacked against you", rather it's completely impossible for two selfish, hurtful, immoral, disrespectful, untrustworthy, immature, narcissistic, personality disordered, etc, etc. etc., etc., adulterers to make an affairage work. Therefore, our "HELPFUL" advice is to end your affair and go back to your God given wife.

In the alternative, leave her alone and save her the abuse but never marry again. Some people, unbeknownst to themselves, just aren't marriage material. You and your paramour are two such persons.

Sir,
Dr. Harley has explained on his radio show that he has tried to help affairages stay together but has always been unsuccessful.
The only advice to offer would be that you read Dr. Harley's books, and listen to his daily Radio Show. You can listen from the website (I do this while doing my housechores), or listen from your smartphone using the Marriage Builders app. It is free of charge and very educational.

Why don't you write to Dr. Harley at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com? Explain your situation. Include your phone number and snail mail address. The address is necessary to send a free book. Joyce uses the phone number to contact you about being on the radio show. If I were you, I would take them up on that if offered. You need to have a real time conversation with Dr. Harley to address the issues you are raising.

Sounds like this affair started the same way most affairs do - IC and complaining about your M to each other.

Nothing special about this "connection". Same thing we see on the SAA boards every day!

Exactly, selfishness and dishonesty.

I have to state here whenever people post for help with their affair-marriage/relationship...a few things stand out to me just about EVERY TIME.

1) These folk have an incredible sense of entitlement. They seem to think they DESERVE help from forum members.

2) Despite claiming to want help learning MB, they don't seem to have read/understand the FREE materials available on the site and want to be SPOONFED help. And yet they don't seem to acknowledge that a lack of effort ie laziness was a problem in their last marriage.

3) An amazing lack of empathy for forum members whose marriages/lives have been DESTROYED by an affair. Nope, they don't seem to get how INSENSITIVE receiving help for an affair relationship would affect others. This is the one that I really cannot wrap my head around at all.

The Newcreations poster comes to mind as a perfect example.

Susie, I so agree with every point. I laughed out loud at this point:


Imagine feeling so entitled that one could believe that folks whose lives had been wrecked by an affair would want to help HIM save his affair?

I do actually feel quite sorry for people in affairages. But your affair hasn't turned into a marriage yet so you have the chance to escape without it becoming a ghastly mess and expensive divorce - you don't think that's helpful?

Dr Harley always tries to help those in affair-marriages - there are often children involved too. No matter how hard he tries he cannot compensate for how the relationship began.

With years of experience he has saved countless marriages but just cannot do the same for affairages.

People in affairs are mentally drunk when they choose each other. Often they have nothing in common and their conversations are simply complaints about their marriage! To a desperado who accepts you can date a married person. When the marriage is over there is nothing for the affair-partners to talk about. Plus they both know the other person is a cheat!

How is it not helpful to point this out?

I hate to be pessimistic, but I don't believe that marriage from affairs rarely work out. I know too many people who divorced and have been with their affair partner for many years now. It's sad and depressing, but that's what I see. Men don't usually leave the marriage and children, unless he is pretty damn sure of his relationship with the OW. Th OW is probably someone he knows for a long time and has a deep bond and an emotional connection. It's not usually a casual fling which is why these men can't let go. I don't believe statistics unless it's proven out by several unbiased sources.

I suggest you read Surviving an Affair by Dr. Harley, in which he discusses the three types of affairs.

Well, you're wrong.

Anecdotal evidence is not evidence.

I wish I was wrong. I really do. I did read all of Dr Harley's books, many times. I even looked up the updates regarding this issue on the Dr. Phil show and, unfortunately, the marriage counseling didn't work and they men chose their affair partners.
If the affair is long and the men know these women quite well, and then chose their affair partner, it is probable they will stay with the affair partner. They have no other choice. They destroyed their marriage, respect, connection with their children, friends, etc. They must make it work or they will look like fools.

Well, Dr. Harley has counseled more than 50,000 people and disagrees with you.

Is this guy for real? Makes me sick to my stomach, just reading the insensitivity of the entire thing. This has to be some sort of a joke.

I thought I would respond, just since there was so much talk continuing on after my last post. My desire is not to reengage in this discussion, as much as I want to offer a little more data so that peoples' understanding can be shaped a little more accurately.

I am not promoting affairs/affairages. My entire life has been focused on meeting the needs of others, namely my ex-wife, and walking in self-less love with others.

It was the book "His Needs, Her Needs" that began the waking up period for me and my ex-wife, and I can remember her telling her family, "I wish he would have never found that damn book."

I have read Dr. Hurley and I greatly admire him and consider him the foremost authority on educating people on what really makes relationships work. I recognize the part I played in the demise of my marriage, primarily my fear of rejection and my need for validation. However, my behavior is very consistent with the results of emotional abuse, which I suffered horrifically for 16 years, the first 13 mixed with a lot of verbal abuse.

Even after our divorce her destructive and abusive behavior has continued, and I realized the only chance of help for me or my ex-wife was for me to get away from her. Many of you may disagree with this path, and that's OK. Many of you may disagree with my choices on the woman I am with now, and that's OK, too. But regardless of Dr. Hurley's expertise, he doesn't know everything, and every relationship is unique.

Many of the things said here about me or my motives or the nature of my current relationship are simply not true. We spend very little time talking about our past relationships, we are both well versed in Dr. Hurley's books and teachings, as well as other incredibly valuable research such as the Myers-Briggs temperament science. As bad as you want my relationship to fail, the truth is it is incredibly healthy and honest and we are both motivated to move forward happy and whole.

The last thing I will add is that there is a tremendous amount of destruction and immorality inside marriages. We like to setup adultery as the pinnacle of immorality, but I beg to differ. To have someone whom you would give your life, whom you sacrifice everything for every day, and someone whom you are begging to love you, and they look you in the eyes and say, "i love you" and yet are unwilling to do or say the things that would communicate that truth, is extremely heartbreaking and immoral and abusive.

Just as Dr. Hurley has explained, affairs are a symptom, not the problem. I just happened to be married to a woman without any desire to do or say the things that would cause a man like me to feel loved and appreciated, although she herself had never known anything less.

I am willing to live with my actions, my conscience is clear, and God is not mad at me. I am living inside a wonderfully loving and healthy relationship, and YES it started as an affair. I am OK with that, and I willing to move on and build a life worthy of ministry and one my children can be proud of.

If you don't agree, that's quite alright.