Well what matters is what Paul thinks about it. He has proposed and we are engaged. His parents have been asking me to do this for a while "for your son's sake" and sister-in-law will be delighted to plan a winter wedding.

I'm glad you are getting married. But please don't fool yourself.

To be successful, you need to be together every night.

Have you read the Basic Concepts?

yes. I have read the Love Busters and His Needs Her Needs in detail in particular and I have been following them meticulously.

He hasn't, though.

I would seriously reconsider marrying a man who will not cut off contact with all of his former lovers.

It's not the best consolation prize in the world though is it? Another woman is free to marry the man you love whenever the mood takes them, but at least she won't pay less tax than you did?

Slice it any way you want: if you choose not to marry, you are both still available to marry others. Your bf was eligible, rich and going off to work with women who considered him unmarried. Because he was!

Besides I thought you avoided marriage to avoid rights? You wanted to avoid rights to his money? Though if you were planning a lifetime together the money would obviously have been used to support your old age. The only way to have avoided the money is to have had plans to leave, or allow him to leave with the money whenever he chose.

A man who wants to spend his life with you and support you is going to think very little of such dismissiveness and division. What's the point in having money and opportunities if your partner wants none of it?



An emotional affair is just as damaging if not more so. Would you want to watch your spouse continually pine for someone else?

You can't spend nights apart and have a successful marriage. Dr H has tried for ages to help the military with this problem and it doesn't work. You have to see each other nightly to retain a bond and exclude competition.

He doesn't even advise separate bedrooms for snorers!

>An emotional affair is just as damaging if not more so. Would you want to watch your spouse continually pine for someone else?

Yes, this is my concern. If he is receiving texts would he be in an emotional affair? How would he feel abut her and me while receiving messages from her? Does he love her or me?

No, it's not in her mind. It's a fact. Until you have the ceremony, you are not married.

Because you ran to him and asked him to marry you and he said OK, doesn't mean the level of your commitment has changed and you can apply the "married" concepts from the site to your situation. It doesn't work like that.

Big red flag.

I wouldn't touch this with a 10' pole. I have told people many times the red flags I saw with my exH before marriage was a SSL (dishonesty).

He has failed the interview for marriage. Not sure why you see the fact that he was receptive when you asked him about marriage as good news.

The fact that you didn't marry for so many years already is a red flag. I am certain Dr Harley would say the same. I have heard him say so when a couple isn't engaged to be married/married w/n a few years. Regardless of the reason.

Civil partnership is only available to same sex couples in the UK. Are you in a same sex relationship?

Don't really care. I know about our marriage/relationship and I am confident about it. We both are. it is different when you are the one who didn't think it was necessary only as a gesture of trust.

Just worried about the OW's contact. How would that affect him? What goes through his mind when he receives a love note in his email?

Women cannot compete with each other means that if the OW is on the scene he will love her and not you. Getting rid of her for good forever with no possibility of of any chance with her is the only way he will love you?

That means you are the second choice now anyway. He is with you only because the possibility with her has been cut off. He will settle for you in her absence.

It meets an EN. On top of the ones you meet, so it's like a cherry on a cake. We all like to be admired and any kind of message - just a 'how're you?' - meets an affection need. Which is one of the top four intimate ENs.

That is why opposite sex friends are a danger in marriage. It's impossible to have a friendship without being affectionate.

Dr Harley says:"I believe that we can trust our spouse to avoid an affair under some conditions, and cannot trust them under other conditions. Of course, those conditions vary from person to person, but one condition that makes most people very vulnerable to an affair is the feeling of romantic love for someone other than their spouse. And unless a person understands how romantic love is created, they are usually blind-sided when they experience it.

Your wife's relationship with her co-worker probably began with ordinary conversation about work-related issues that developed into intimate conversation when they talked about their personal problems. It was probably very innocent at first, because neither understood that they were making massive deposits into each other's Love Banks. But before long, those deposits triggered intense feelings of love."

It's not sex that causes affairs, it's friendship.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8119_friends.html

This thread seems to be going in circles and only serves to be a distraction on this forum. The same question has been asked and answered numerous times. Advice about the nature of this relationship has been ignored and dismissed. If the advice is ignored I see no reason to leave this thread open.

That is very helpful. Thank you. Trying to figure out what I can do about this.

I don't think it has been ignored. I've taken steps to take my relationship into marriage, which I had been dismissive of as unnecessary before, because of some comments. That's a positive thing for us.