Well, Marriage Builders is the result of studying how to keep infatuation going in marriage permanently so that it's not a "stage." Usually when Dr. Harley discusses what people call "stages" in a relationship, he refers to them as the stages of a dying relationship!

Sunny, have you asked him if, once married, if you told him you weren't enthusiastic about something he wanted to do, if he would refrain from doing it and look for an alternative?

I can understand why.

At some point a parent is programmed to turn into a mamma grizz in defense of her children. I experienced the knowledge that this could be an eventual situation in the future IF a stepfather would complain and nit pick about them a lot, for example.

I know I would. As Dr. Harley inferred, it's hard to POJA mamma grizz away.

We both have our eyes open to this; he knows he could possibly be turned to that defense as well.

I have purposefully chosen to make no comments to him about his children that aren't positive. I have no reason to make negative comments - and that's easier for me than for him because he is not the parent they are residing with.

He has seen the wisdom of this and has joined me in that with respect to comments about my children.

If something were to happen that would affect me in such a way I'd want it dealt with, we would just productively POJA it. And vice versa. We have already experienced a situation like this and very nicely came to a quick resolution which has been nicely agreeable to both of us.

He likes to say "in a feast of egos, everyone goes home hungry." I like that thought and agree!

We both acknowledge neither of our sets of children are perfect - and can actually be aggravating at times! - but we both acknowledge it could be a lovebuster to hear about that from each other frequently.

I think you need to run your plan by Dr. Harley.

The advice to live separately for awhile is not really intended to be the starting point in a new marriage. It is really a last resort thing, when nothing else will work. There are very big risks in living separately.

He may very well tell you it is the best thing in your case. But get his guidance on it -- he'll talk to you for free.

But if the children start to do something that bothers one of you, you guys would need to be radically honest about that, and the parent of the child would need to act on it. Of course you would need to talk about it respectfully, but you would have to deal with the negative rather than avoiding the conflict.

Yes, markos.

In fact we have already had situations where it became very clear that he sincerely desired to put our relationship and my love for him ahead of his desires or preferences His character is strongly driven to find mutual preferences.

To follow that, he is a natural POJA-er. He has a very humble nature and instinctively seeks solutions for others as well as himself. We both share this trait, and have really worked beautifully together in POJA situations where we both found resolutions we were enthusiastic about.

POJA and conflict resolution is a HUGE deal to me - and something I've carefully watched for - since that is one reason for the break down of my prior M. I suffered for a long time under abusive conflict resolution and I am NOT up for seconds!

I agree that blending families is very difficult. It is good to go in with your eyes open and a Plan to deal with conflict. And Prisca is right, it can happen at any age. The best case scenarios I have seen come when only one person in the relationship has kids and the ex is either totally out of the picture or only tangentially involved (visitation, but not a lot of involvement).

Honestly , it's even hard when the kids are our of the house. My dad's second wife did not like me at all and it caused drama even when I was an adult because I was not really welcome in their home (I was allowed there because my father insisted, but new wife made me feel uncomfortable). They have sicnr divorced (you can imagine why).

Yes, agreed.

We are aware of the overall routines and cadence of how the children live/are disciplined/individual parental expectations. We have both chosen to accept this on a general level.

He has brought specific things up about my children, but he presents them in a building-up way, i.e. this is affecting me, how can we resolve it for the betterment of the child?

He believes discipline is for their future profit, not to get even or really even punish what they already did. This verse really convicted him when his children were young so he focused his own disciplinary mentality accordingly.

Hebrews 12:9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
Hebrews 12:10For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

Following Marriage Builders will keep the PEA flowing? Do you have a study to reference on this?

Following Marriage Builders will cause a husband and wife to stay in love for a lifetime. Dr. Harley mentions this all the time. Even mentions that the brains can and have been scanned with MRIs to demonstrate this.

Dr. Harley doesn't separate out an infatuation stage. That's not a Marriage Builders concept that I've ever seen.

I'm curious about what you think is the reason why. You are hinting that it had to do with her dislike of you, and I wonder how that would have led to the divorce.

I have not seen Dr Harley refer to PEA. I know that this is something that other sites refer to a lot. Dr Harley refers to romantic love, and I'm sure you know that his goal is to create and maintain romantic love throughout the marriage.

nmw, I bumped a thread in Other Topics for you. It discussed the scientific evidence that romantic love can easily be sustained in long marriages. Please have a look at it.

Hi SC, yes, I did. Thank you. I don't want to thread jack, but really quick, is infatuation the same as romantic love? I'm still new to this, and I personally never saw a transition from "infatuation" to "long-term love" or whatever in my 16-year marriage. I was still madly in love with my wife, even if I didn't always show it. Being with her still made my heart skip a beat.

Well, the divorce actually had to do with her wanting to move and my dad not wanting to move and them not being able to come to agreement on that. She ended up moving to another state and filing for divorce. The fact she didn't like me probably didn't help, but it wasn't the final straw or anything. I wasn't enough of a factor to completely end it as I was already out of the house.

BTW--the reason she didn't like me: When I was in college, I asked my dad for financial help with a plan ticket so I could do an internship overseas. I was planning on paying him back, I just didn't have the cash upfront and didn't want to use a credit card. I was fine if he had said, "no." I sent an email about it and got a reply from her where she went ballistic for even asking. She just attacked me directly before even talking to my dad. After that, she just hated me and I just wanted to avoid her. In MB world, she would have talked to my dad and could have come to an agreement and then told me whatever the decision was.


In general, they never had an integrated lifestyle. It was always very much, "that's your stuff. those are your kids. this is my house." It was a study in how not to be married. I think because they were older and their kids were adults, they thought they could kind of be independent but married, but as we all know, it doesn't work that way.

I know. But since my girls are 16 and 17 there are practical reasons behind this, too. He doesn't want to be alone with them for extended times just for the common sense reasons of not having the appearance of anything unacceptable, or the opportunity to be accused of such by my xH.

My xH has NO problems with just making stuff up and spreading it around the country. When confronted, he thinks that saying things like that with the caveat that he just thinks it might be the case exonerates him from any accusation of gossip or lying.

I came into possession of a long email thread where he made up just gross lies, one of many being that he believes this man and I were having an affair and that's why I couldn't be pleased in the M! I can document that I met this man on a dating site several weeks after our divorce, and that we met for the very first time on Nov 5 - AFTER our divorce. When I heard rumors of such (including a DIL who heard it directly from him) I asked xH why he would say such a thing and he vigorously denounced that he said any such thing - anyone who said he would is lying!

Several months later an email thread was forwarded courtesy of someone he was trashing me to so I could understand what he was saying and address it with the kids if necessary. I really appreciated it and found that my xH had also told our son (15) this affair speculation so I set the record straight with each of our children in case they should hear such a thing.

We just feel that for this short temporary season we can avoid a lot of problems by continuing in this fashion.

The main problem to avoid is really not xH fantasies or "appearances", it's that the girls have expressed him moving in would make them sad enough they would move to their father's house.



I know.

We are however in touch in some way almost constantly and would get more than our 15 hours of UA under this plan.

I know we are all wired for affairs, but his account in my lovebank is so overwhelmingly full that I have NO thought or interest in another man's conversation. His is geared the same way. He never allowed himself to think of affairs when his prior M was so difficult for so many years, and I'm confident that we will be fine.

By the time we are married (Sept/Oct) it will only be for 18 months at the longest; possibly shorter if the girls acclimate to the transition sooner. We plan to try pushing this along with an extra night here or there to see if any effect, and then incorporate that extra night into the routine, etc.

Also, my children are old enough I could also gradually transition to spending more than one night at his house during this 18 months.

I am open for complete electronic transparency and all other precautions, etc.

Why not wait? We just don't want to. Waiting has no appeal whatsoever. We're ready now for the next step of commitment.

I will consider emailing Dr. Harley. Thank you for recommending it. However, you, markos and the "regulars" here are so insightful with your in-depth knowledge/experience of Dr. Harley's methods that I've found the MB community advice to be far more helpful than the coaching I paid $1,000 for, which contradicted your urgent, spot-on advice and didn't help at all. I am quite comfortable with listening to the regular posters for advice.

While my initial threads were taken down prior to my inviting Stuebenville on board so they can't be referenced now, you guys were so amazingly, wonderfully perceptive and precise - and prescient - that I appreciate every day the new perspective you gave me on abuse being unacceptable and how to deal with it such that it is resolved and eliminated. In my case, via divorce. And I couldn't be happier.

Thanks for the clarification, Markos. As someone who is recently divorced, this topic is very interesting to me. I'm not ready to start dating yet, but I'm trying to learn as much as I can if that's where life leads.

I think it probably varies depending on who is using the term. Dr. Harley just seems to say "in love" or "not in love." I saw someone here once using the word "limerence" and had to look it up and it basically meant "being in love" the way Dr. Harley defines it, but the people who invented the word seemed to be treating it like it was some sort of personality disorder!

Lol...I remember that one!

Yeah, a lot of the "standers" who buy into the mid-life crisis stuff use the word limerance, as though it excuses the affair. As in, "oh no! limerance has gripped him!" Instead of "he's having an affair and fell in love with her and our real marriage doesn't compare with his lala fantasy of her." Its one of the many things people do to kind of make affairs seem like "external disorders" which people have to control over instead of a conscience decision to get involved with someone else.

That was because you introduced them to him too early. Dr Harley says to wait till you have been dating for six months and are at the serious conversation stage. That way you are presenting a decision not a question. I do not know how you undo this mistake or if you even can. Ask Dr Harley for advice, be honest about what happened.