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Originally Posted by Hannah36
How does no contact with this OW keep him from having any other ones? As we have already established that he is a serial cheater. NC will not keep him from seeking other sex partners if he wishes to. The way I see it, the only thing to do is to fix out relationship so he wouldn't need or want to.
And how exactly does exposure help? I have a hard time understanding how telling my parents or his would keep him from cheating again.

If he is a serial cheater, he needs MORE extraordinary precautions, not less.


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How does no contact with this OW keep him from having any other ones?
There is a flaw in this question.

No Contact with the OW does not keep him from having any other affairs with other women. That is not the purpose of that extraordinary precaution. What it does is prevent THIS affair from continuing or resparking.

Other extraordinary precautions will prevent other affairs with other women (such as "no opposite sex friendships" or "no nights apart").


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Originally Posted by Hannah36
How does no contact with this OW keep him from having any other ones? As we have already established that he is a serial cheater. NC will not keep him from seeking other sex partners if he wishes to. The way I see it, the only thing to do is to fix out relationship so he wouldn't need or want to.

Hannah, Dr Harley has written about serial cheats. Brainy will come by and post the link, I cannot find it right now but it is far harder to recover with a serial adulterer because they pursue affairs rather than falling into them by accident. They do it for the thrill of the chase and conquest. It has nothing to do with your relationship so do not make this your fault. You could have the perfect marriage and he could still be seeking outside thrills and spills.

The only way to stay married to a serial adulterer is to be in a position where opposite sex contact is impossible. That means no mixed group hobbies, no computer and no smart phone. You will need to work together too. If this is not something he will agree to, you might just as well file for divorce now. It will be less painful for you.


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I think the exposure issue may come from a different cultural background. I am not American, obviously. In our culture (Northern European) it is seen as extremely impolite and even unacceptable to air your dirty laundry in public. It is just not done. And the women who do go around talking about their marital problems are considered rather ridiculous. Our culture is considerably more private and family matters are rarely discussed with a wider circle of friends. Thus the idea of telling everyone we know that my husband cheated on me, AND we are trying to mend things is unheard of. We'd only talk about our WS if we were getting divorced. This is something you only discuss with your best friend. If even...
As for NC, I cannot explain it really. Part of it is also cultural - we don't take up and move as easily as people in the States. We are much less mobile - the countries are smaller and job opportunities tend to be concentrated to particular areas, making it more difficult to find work in a different city. We also tend to live close to our families (eg my kids spend at least one weekend a month with both grandparents, in addition to Sunday dinners etc.). So moving for us is not usually a viable option. As our issue is not work-related, but lifestyle-related, at the risk of being sacrilegious, I'll try to put it in terms some people might be able to understand. Imagine you are deeply religious and belong to a very specific church. You raise your kids in that spirit and spend all weekends going to chucrh or volunteering or doing other church-related activities. There are no other similar churches in the entire country. And your husband happens to have an affair with another congregation member (equally religious). So who should leave the church? Where would you go? What would you do with your life?
Sorry if I offended anyone, but this is exactly how important this 'hobby' is to our entire family.

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It is very surprising to me that when you have now experienced not one but TWO infidelities from the same person, you seem to have no desire to help your own situation. You are arguing against implementing the most common sense, basic precautions to begin recovery. Establishing no contact with the AP is common sense. You are basically saying you want to continue hanging out with a group that includes her. Is your own personal self worth so little that you would want to put yourself through that?

The bottom line is, there is absolutely no hope for you to have an affair proof marriage with your current attitude. You cannot brush this *second* affair under the rug *again* and continue to live life as if you are not married to a serial cheater, and not experience cheating again, and again, and again.

It saddens me to see a young woman with a lifetime ahead of her accept this as her best life.

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Originally Posted by Hannah36
- exposing the affair to everyone we know. It is humiliating for me. If we decide to stay together and work for it, it would be humiliating to have people know about what he did. Humiliating for me.

I've never felt humiliated for people to know about my wife's affair. I've felt a bit humiliated for people to know I was out of our home several weeks due to my abuse, but for the most part people respect us quite a bit more to know this and realize that we have a happy completely recovered marriage today.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

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Oh, and I have indeed read through most of the advice here and am familiar with the terms. I have also read the bits about serial cheaters. I am just not at a place (yet?) where I'm willing to follow all the steps without questioning any of them...


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You can argue your point and try to educate us on why it is in your best interest to follow 'Plan Hannah' and it will not change a thing. Because most of us posting here have seen how this works, and we know that it is absolutely impossible for you to recover and have a great marriage with Plan Hannah.

If you would like Marriage Builders advice we are happy to give it. But if you are looking for us to condone you following your own plan which we know will not work, that is not going to happen.

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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
Hannah, if you can't follow any of those steps, then I would end the marriage, because more affairs will be in your future.

It would be better to go ahead and get a divorce and start recovering on your own now than to go through additional years of agony and then go through divorce later on.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
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If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Originally Posted by Hannah36
Oh, and I have indeed read through most of the advice here and am familiar with the terms. I have also read the bits about serial cheaters. I am just not at a place (yet?) where I'm willing to follow all the steps without questioning any of them...

Ok, well, then there is a deeper issue here.

You either don't believe that Dr Harley knows what he is talking about or you believe that you can do "some" of the comfortable parts of his program and skip over the parts that you don't like.

Of course you are free to do whatever you like, but cherry picking MB will not work and nobody here will tell you that it can (because we've never seen that happen).

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Originally Posted by markos
Originally Posted by MelodyLane
Hannah, if you can't follow any of those steps, then I would end the marriage, because more affairs will be in your future.

It would be better to go ahead and get a divorce and start recovering on your own now than to go through additional years of agony and then go through divorce later on.

Agree x 100.

Ask me how I know...


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I think the exposure issue may come from a different cultural background. I am not American, obviously. In our culture (Northern European) it is seen as extremely impolite and even unacceptable to air your dirty laundry in public. It is just not done. And the women who do go around talking about their marital problems are considered rather ridiculous. Our culture is considerably more private and family matters are rarely discussed with a wider circle of friends. Thus the idea of telling everyone we know that my husband cheated on me, AND we are trying to mend things is unheard of. We'd only talk about our WS if we were getting divorced. This is something you only discuss with your best friend. If even...
It's the same here, in America.

The problem is that the majority of the world is part of a bad marriage culture. In order to have a good marriage, you are going to have to change your lifestyle and join the good marriage culture (which is in the minority worldwide).

We're not telling you to expose just because we are American. Americans balk at exposure at first, too. We are telling you to expose because it is what will be good for your marriage.

Affairs thrive on secrecy, regardless of where you live.


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As for NC, I cannot explain it really. Part of it is also cultural - we don't take up and move as easily as people in the States. We are much less mobile - the countries are smaller and job opportunities tend to be concentrated to particular areas, making it more difficult to find work in a different city. We also tend to live close to our families (eg my kids spend at least one weekend a month with both grandparents, in addition to Sunday dinners etc.). So moving for us is not usually a viable option.
You realize that Americans say the same thing, right?

Quote
As our issue is not work-related, but lifestyle-related, at the risk of being sacrilegious, I'll try to put it in terms some people might be able to understand. Imagine you are deeply religious and belong to a very specific church. You raise your kids in that spirit and spend all weekends going to chucrh or volunteering or doing other church-related activities. There are no other similar churches in the entire country. And your husband happens to have an affair with another congregation member (equally religious). So who should leave the church? Where would you go? What would you do with your life?
Sorry if I offended anyone, but this is exactly how important this 'hobby' is to our entire family.
We tell people to leave that church. It does happen, btw.


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Originally Posted by Hannah36
How does no contact with this OW keep him from having any other ones?


We didn't say it keeps him from other ones. We said it keeps him from THIS ONE. You will have to take even more radical steps to keep him from new affairs. We have told you this.

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As we have already established that he is a serial cheater. NC will not keep him from seeking other sex partners if he wishes to. The way I see it, the only thing to do is to fix out relationship so he wouldn't need or want to.

That is right, we will fix your relationship. But your marriage will never be fixed unless you AFFAIR PROOF IT and make radical changes in your lifestyles.

The purpose is to prevent repeat affairs.

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And how exactly does exposure help? I have a hard time understanding how telling my parents or his would keep him from cheating again.

The more people who know, the more people to hold him accountable. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so getting it out into the open helps your H see it for what it is and motivates him to take the necessary steps to change.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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Originally Posted by Hannah36
I think the exposure issue may come from a different cultural background. I am not American, obviously. In our culture (Northern European) it is seen as extremely impolite and even unacceptable to air your dirty laundry in public. It is just not done. And the women who do go around talking about their marital problems are considered rather ridiculous. Our culture is considerably more private and family matters are rarely discussed with a wider circle of friends. Thus the idea of telling everyone we know that my husband cheated on me, AND we are trying to mend things is unheard of. We'd only talk about our WS if we were getting divorced. This is something you only discuss with your best friend. If even...

It is the same in America. We are not asking you to go along with destructive cultural norms, but to save your marriage. Cultural norms in the US is 65% of marriages experience infidelity. Cultural norms in US are 50% divorce rate. Do you want to be married or do you want to appease destructive cultural norms?

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Sorry if I offended anyone, but this is exactly how important this 'hobby' is to our entire family.

This is very irrational because you are basically choosing a little hobby over your marriage. That lifestyle and environment has proven toxic to your marriage. You can't have the same lifestyle and sustain your marriage.

And this ok, you are perfectly within your rights to end your marriage. We will support you in that regard.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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Hannah, I was on the boards several years ago, when the focus was less strict. Like you, I didn't want to air my dirty laundry, and didn't follow the narrow path to recovery. It is true that Dr. Harley's methods are the best way to recover your marriage. I picked the parts of the program that weren't too uncomfortable, it was a long painful slide to failure, and ended up filing for divorce. Our son is still affected by it; the OW is still my ex's "friend", and it still hurts me sometimes.
Honestly, more marriages recover when the couples follow the method he advocates. Please don't think you can design your own recovery.


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Originally Posted by Hannah36
I think the exposure issue may come from a different cultural background. I am not American, obviously. In our culture (Northern European) it is seen as extremely impolite and even unacceptable to air your dirty laundry in public. It is just not done.

It's the same here in America.

What Dr. Harley found is that the betrayed spouses who expose are the ones most likely to recover. Most of his recommendations go against our culture and against our instincts. But most marriages fail (80%). And most go through affairs (60%). Most people don't do what it takes to have a good marriage or to recover from infidelity. Most people don't know anything about it.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Originally Posted by Hannah36
we don't take up and move as easily as people in the States.

We don't do that easily here, either.

We have the same difficulties convincing an American to do these things that we have convincing you to do these things.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Originally Posted by Hannah36
Imagine you are deeply religious and belong to a very specific church. You raise your kids in that spirit and spend all weekends going to chucrh or volunteering or doing other church-related activities. There are no other similar churches in the entire country. And your husband happens to have an affair with another congregation member (equally religious). So who should leave the church? Where would you go? What would you do with your life?

My wife and I are deeply religious and we belong to a very specific church, to which her family belongs. If she or I had an affair with a church member we would have to leave the church and find another or go churchless - there's no way we could recover our marriage in such a situation.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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Originally Posted by Hannah36
Oh, and I have indeed read through most of the advice here and am familiar with the terms. I have also read the bits about serial cheaters. I am just not at a place (yet?) where I'm willing to follow all the steps without questioning any of them...

We will be happy to help you understand why following these steps is a very good idea, and why and how not following these steps is going to make recovery impossible. There are even some Europeans here who can let you know what it is like to follow or not follow the plan.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
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