I'm new here. I have much to learn. I have two questions hoping someone can answer.

1. As anyone been to the Marriage Builders Weekend Seminar and if so, how did it work out for you ?

2. If anyone has read "Stop Your Divoce" by H. McDonald, what do you think of it and did it help you ?

Welcome. I didn’t do a MB weekend because my STBX refused to go. But I did counsel for over two years with Steve Harley. How did it work out? Well, I’m filing for divorce. But then, my spouse didn’t follow the plan. In fact, he refused to help develop a plan. But I learned a lot.

Ric

I am also a fairly new member here. I read a lot, but this is my first-ever post, I think.

We went to the weekend last fall. I had read HNHN before we were married, and again right before the weekend. He browsed through the book just before the weekend. I told him I would not go if he didn't read the book, and as always -- he swore he would do it, and then half-did it. But was on my case every day -- was I reading it?

Anyhow, I was threatening divorce because he is deceptive, financially irresponsible and is not fiathful in paying child support to his first child -- from before I met him. Also, he was disrespectful to me, frequently unaccounted for, and I also answered his cell phone one time, and a woman whose name showed onscreen (that means she is in his saved phone numbers), hemmed, hawed, and then said it was a wrong number.

We attended the weekend. I refused to work ANY MORE on the marriage unless he admitted his EA's and entered into waht I think they call Plan A -- no contact with the other women (remember these are women in other states and I am confident there was no sexual contact with them -- but there are unexplained absences that I'm not too sure about).

He agreed. We started working on the lessons as soon as we got home. Dr Harley recommended we work on Love Busters first, since we were both in a state of withdrawal -- meaning we didn't want each other to meet our emotional needs.

After five weeks of him coming home from work or at least letting me know exactly where he was, always answering his cell phone if I called, paying bills on time, and promising me that he was being completely honest with me about everything, I was SHOCKED to discover that I had loving feelings again. If I had filled out a follow-up survey THAT WEEK, I would have said I had happy feelings associated with him, found him sexually attractive, admired him, wanted to spend time with him, etc etc etc. Then I found out the following:

Not only had ne not paid child suport since before we had attended the seminar (five months), he had before that been defrauding his company into paying it FOR him for seven months, by claiming a stress ailment, and taking a partially compensated medical leave. Since he was being garnished for child support, it was simply taken out of those checks, and we received the balance (I did not know since he is very secretive about the mail and bank balance and everything else -- I live on a cash budget paid to me every two weeks). At that point, I called the church, which had announced there had been a 'dip' in giving. I asked for a year to date summary of our tithing, and the bookkeeper said, unfortunately, there isn't anything to tell (he had not tithed in over a year!!!).

The point I'm making here, laboriously, is that before you invest the cash in the seminar, which for us was a bottom line of about $2000 (airfare, hotel, seminar, rental car, meals, babysitting), make sure you really intend to save this marriage. Honestly, other than having a few twisted thoughts straightened out by Dr and Mrs Harley, I found the seminar to be a repitition of what I had already learned and put into practice formany years -- I learned it from the book. Being at the seminar FINALLY FORCED my husband to listen to it, and that's when he finally started.

The reason my marriage is ending in spite of our attending the seminar -- and it WORKING EXACTLY AS DR HARLEY SAID IT WOULD -- that is because my husband is a liar and a cheat. I have stopped participating in any of the follow up from the weekend, because it DOES work. Once again, I found myself falling back in love with a very bad man, and THAT's what I have to avoid.

When you are deciding whether to save your marriage, don't worry about whether you love your wife. Think about whether she and the marriage are of any inherent value to you. Falling back in love, as it turns out, is very easy. Double check your choice of woman.

My two cents

Haven't been to an MB weekend, would take her if she would go. The "How To Stop Your Divorce" is basically the same as doing the 180. Save your money, and print the list out here. You don't need the storybook that goes along with it.

<small>[ February 09, 2004, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: Itsmylife ]</small>

RicVH,
I have just recently attended the seminar and I disagree with some of the others who have posted. Yes the seminar is based on the books, but since ws and I had never read the books together (at the same time) this gave us a chance to hear the same information and then discuss it. The weekend also brought out some information that reading the books and filling out the questions had not shown us. I think the biggest thing to making the seminar worth your money (and, in fact, the plan work) is both spouses must want the marriage to work and be looking for a way to repair or fix the problems.
If your wife isn't interested in fixing the marriage it will be a waste of money, if she is interested and wants to work on filling your needs and you filling hers, spend the money, it will be worth it.
J1