Did you ever email Dr Harley as you said you would earlier in this thread?

The coaching is different than writing into Dr Harley on the radio show. ITA agree with Prisca that you should talk to Dr Harley about your plan, especially given the fact that your children are not happy with this man and it sounds like you rushed and introduced them to each other early in the relationship. I can tell you right now that my ex H did that with my children and his new M has been riddled with problems and tensions involving the kids. Blended family nightmares are COMMON on this forum. I wouldn't play around - email Dr Harley.

Additionally, I am puzzled by your comments about being "happy" with just forum members advice because you have a history of disappearing when you get MB advice and coming back and not addressing the posts that you ignored. I will be back with an example.

Are you still in contact with your ex H and allowing him into your home and allowing interaction to take place in front your children?

Your daughters might have been fine with the "idea" of you dating (gee, maybe she will be happy) but now they are confronted with the reality of it, and realization that it is hard on them. They are not mature adults and please do not forget that. It sounds like these children are being exposed to a lot of mature issues and drama.

I think all the advice from the first page of this thread is still applicable.

Shortly after the referenced post, Steubenville saw how his drama was affecting the kids, specifically DD17. She nearly had an emotional break down.

Since that time Steubenville has been very cordial in person and in front of the kids. I do not believe he dwells on his issues with me to them very much anymore. Although I was surprised to hear that the affair suggestion had made it to DS15.

DS15 is very pragmatic and sees through a lot about his father. He deduced and stated (without ANY suggestion from me) that his dad's drama was all about the money; that his dad wanted to pay less. DS15 was exactly right on. Soon afterwards my xH asked for me to voluntarily accept $600 less in monthly CS because he couldn't service his debts (most of them post divorce), pay me and eat from his income. There was a provision in the divorce decree that I was interested in trading for that, so I agreed to do so.

Our interaction is now cordial and provides no drama with the kids.

I have one last pending action item regarding the drama and that will be to address the nasty things that I learned he was just making up and saying around to everyone (although seemingly not as much to the kids). I have some thoughts on that .... and told him that I would give some thought as to how I would resolve it when it came to light....so he is expecting an action from me regarding it, but continues to be cordial and friendly in the meantime. Almost to the level of cordiality during the good times as when we were married absent the abuse (which he recognizes I no longer need to tolerate).

So, had the situation not dramatically changed I would have gone into Plan B. Since it had changed, it seemed unnecessary and to this day I think the kids are happier with the working cordiality we share than they would be with a Plan B situation.

To clarify, we are not social buddies by any stretch.

However, sometimes I'm at DS24's home and xH will also happen to drop by.

Or, the kids really enjoy that we both attend their traditional birthday dinners, so we have had no problems being cordial at those. The kids comment very happily about how much they enjoy those occasions.

Once I'm married, my husband will attend as well or I will not. it will be the new husband's choice entirely and I will have NO resentment or reservations regarding his choice. Currently he does not mind my attendance at these extended family events (he lives too far away to attend them also). The minute he minds, I will stop attending and be pleased that he has allowed me know about it so I can avoid an action that will bother him.

When the xH drops the kids off, he is always pleasant now and we exchange a few cordial paragraphs in front of the kids.

Other than that and logistical phone calls about car exchanges, taxi duties and such, we have no social interaction.

That's exactly what happened; they were happy with the idea but then when they saw the reality they realized they had some grieving left.



They are no longer being exposed to drama, per the update above. Right now all of the minor children still home are abiding in a pleasant attitude and routine, and are not subjected to adult drama.

They are no longer rude to my fiance and they are showing a very respectful attitude towards me. They seem to be quite happy.

Some days I almost have to pinch myself and ask if this wonderful day really happened!

The girls are just sad that they couldn't see their own dad as the other partner in my very happy relationship.

The only unfinished business from forum recommendations is exposing the situation which occurred in 2001, and the email to Dr. Harley surrounding that.

Shortly after that advice, when Steubenville was still venting at long length about me to the kids, I did expose this situation to my adult children, but not to the minor children.

I exposed to the adult children because Steubenville seemed to be really indulging in venting conversations with them that were ugly and simply not true.

I told them in the vein of "Well, first of all that whole story is not true. While it is true that I fell out of love with him, the reasons for that are his terrible, mean anger, his frequent threats to leave the marriage and finally a compromising act he committed with a minor female shortly after DS15 was born which destroyed my respect for him, and for which he almost went to jail."

However, in this recent email thread Steubenville sent (mentioned in above posts) that I was later copied on, Steubenville makes an allegation that I will answer by exposing to all who I can determine have received this message with the information that it's because he engaged in compromising behavior with a teenager.

At that time I will likely finish up exposure with the kids to now include the minor children.

While it was usually not easy to implement the forum's advice, particularly initially when I was shocked to receive the strong and fervent urgings to separate (something which I had never considered!), I have eventually come around to implement it. 25 years was a long time to dwell in an abusive marriage without understanding how to place boundaries to protect myself from abuse. I didn't have a switch to flip where suddenly I "saw the light"!

Coming around to forum advice was very very hard, but eventually I finally had no choice. At that point, I informed Steubenville that we would be separating and I paid $1,000 for coaching so we could be guided through the separation, UA efforts and reconciliation behaviors, but received advice NOT to separate contrary to the forum.

As the forum knew (and I knew) the LBs would take far more work and time to stop than I had left in me, so not separating was the final death knell of an already dead relationship. When I began asserting myself per MB for the multiple daily LBs ("that bothers me") or not tolerating the abuse, the xH quickly realized he wanted none of that and moved to initiate a divorce. I couldn't be happier. I appreciate the effort the forum took to work me over!

You guys were persistent and every day I'm grateful to Melody, markos, prisca, Mr. Alias and every single one of you for hanging in there and showing me how to change my life.

That is too much for me to go through and try to pick apart. The big picture is: You are doing a lot of things not the way that Dr Harley would advise you.

~Not exposing your WH's affairs/molestation

~Interacting with your ex WH when you have already told us he is bitter and has confronted you about adult issues (taking you back to court) in front of your children and you have already told us your children are not doing well

~Marrying but living separately with tensions involving your kids, not to mention Dr Harley general advice is for single moms to stay single until kids are grown

Again, I would advise you to email Dr Harley but if you have convinced yourself otherwise for whatever reason, that's OK by me.

If this is true, and you respect our opinions that much, I hope you will take our advice and email Dr. Harley and ask him to look over your plan.

Partially done (to adult children). I will finish with the minor children in the next month when I deal with the email he initiated.



Several weeks after that he changed his behavior radically and the children are doing very well now regarding how xH and I cooperate together.



There are no tensions involving the kids. We each accept the general status quo of how each other's children behave and are disciplined, each by our own acknowledgement and choice.

If something specific occurs that bothers him, he lets me know about it along the lines of "this situation bothered me; how can we fix it for the betterment of the child?" His perspective on discipline is that it's not to punish a deed, it's to assist them towards a productive and Godly maturity (it's for their "profit").

This has worked very well for us for several months.


My minor children are DS15, DD16 and DD17. They are all but grown and are rarely home. They are busy with school activities and their jobs. They function as miniature adults with my house as a home-base.

My job of "raising" them is all but done; at their ages I am more mentor than authority, although I do have to pull the authority card sometimes. Thankfully they are overall respectful and caring children.

DS15 is completely comfortable with the blending, and looking forward to our wedding occasion.

The girls still grieve that their I didn't have this beautiful relationship they're witnessing today with their dad. That is the only reason for the measured/slower integration into the blending.

I do not believe the integration will drag on for 18 months. We are planning to slowly ramp it up. However, because my children are used to being home alone for long stretches of time, are trustworthy (and are left with cars and credit cards for gas/groceries), and because DS21 also lives in my home, I am comfortable being gone to visit him several nights a week, regularly.

His spending Thurs/Fri/Sat nights at my house my spending Wed at his (4 nights per week together) is the worst case scenario at the start, if even. I may well be able to spend Tues/Wed at his house.

He is not able to move down to my home until he finds another job anyway, which could be weeks or months after our wedding. The job he has right now is not conducive to telecommuting.

This does not sound like a situation in which you two need to live apart.

I would agree. I started reading his needs her needs for parents recently and the chapter on mixed families warns that it is hard, but doable as long as POJA is followed. it sounds like you have POJA'ed this living apart situation; however, there is risk whenever you live apart, especially in a new situation. So, I would contact Dr. H.

Ok, Prisca.

I just sent the email to Dr. & Joyce Harley regarding exposure of 2001 event and the transitional integration on the new marriage.


Thank you and all the other forum contributors that cared enough to "hound" me into doing this.

I will let you know when I hear back.

I would love to agree with you!

But the girls have said if we get married they will move out? Do you see another angle that I don't see?

Why do they want to move out? Where would they go?

They have said they would move in with their dad (my xH) if my fiance comes to live in our house full time.

What are you planning to do after your wedding in the fall? Be married but live in different houses?

That isn't exposure Sunny! That's telling a few key people a secret. Where is the public exposure?

If he were jailed or a known pedophile the girls wouldn't be able to live there ever. And other girls would be safe. I know that weighs on you.

I don't think Dr H can recommend a separation-marriage,but I think he may have some alternatives for you.

Kind of. He would stay with me 3 nights a week, and I would stay with him at least 1 night a week.

We would gradually increase his presence in my home as the girls acclimate, and after he could find a job in my area. His job is 110 miles away from my home.

He is staying with me already 3 nights a week (chaperoned by my adult children who live here and we don't sleep together)and the girls have become OK with that.

The kids are also OK if I am away for a night. Sometimes I visit family out of state and they choose not to come, or sometimes I have business travel and leave the kids home alone by themselves for up to a week at a time.

I wouldn't choose to just live away from them all week every week and leave them to an parent-free home because they are still kids, even if they are pretty grown up.

Pushing the integration beyond what it is now will upset the girls, but we may be able to do it gradually. They have nothing against my fiance personally; what they have expressed sounds more like grieving/loyalty to their dad.

We could just put off the wedding for 18 months until DD16 graduates from high school, but we are ready for it now. We would rather have this schedule as husband/wife than fiance/fiancee.