Are you getting good marital advice?

[Lotus]

There is a current on this board to use extreme measures to "affair bust" as opposed to the "divorce busting", the name of Michele Weiner Davis' book. The opinions are those of the people posting. Have those people successfully navigated their own marital problems? Who knows? We're not privy to that information. I have been through infidelity problems in my marriage, and my H and I have successfully reconciled. As a fully reconciled, happily married person, I have some advice for those coming here seeking advice while facing a severe marital crisis. BEWARE of free information. It is worth what you pay for it! (And maybe not that much.)

Marriage is a voluntary relationship. People stay with their spouses because they want to. Just because you say she is "your wife" does not make her your property, like your car, or your dog.

I cannot believe that the advice given on this board, which is devoted to healing marriages, is to use surveillance on spouses, embarrass them publicly, and distrust everything they do and say. And be sure to withhold all kind words and gestures.

The cornerstones of marriage are love, trust, commitment, and forgiveness. Without all four of those attributes, marriages fail. You cannot rebuild your marriage on distrust, grudge holding, and silence.

Consider carefully before taking anyone's advice. You will be the one to live with the consequences, not the anonymous poster on a bulletin board who insisted that you live your life his way!

Lotus

[Drew]

Lotus,

I tend to agree with you, up to a point. I think, and this is just my opinion, that by the time most people end up on this website, their marriages are past the point where some of the "gentler" methods of Divorce Busting are effective. Therefore, most of the advice is geared towards GAL, detaching, and LRT. And most of the situations here involve infidelity.

In my sitch, I was able to use DB once towards reconcilation, and once just to maintain my sanity.

As always, people have to live their own lives with the choices they make.

[Allen A]

Thank you for taking this discussion to its own thread Lotus, this is a very worthwhile discussion.

I will be putting together a comment of my own later on today. I am off to work.

[Drew]

BTW, both times I chose the nonconfrontational approach to the OM. Looking back, and knowing what I know now, I'm not sure I wouldn't chose differently.

[Lotus]

Drew,

I confronted my husband and I did tell my children that he was having an affair. So I am not completely non-confrontational. But that is not the same as showing up at the OP's place of business and confronting publicly, which I have seen advised here.

What bothers me most about the advise is not that it is suggested. It is the insistence. We have different situations. Each person needs to weigh his/her options in light of his own situation. Yet there is browbeating on the boards, insisting that people do it the way of the determined posters. Many times even when the spouse has moved out of the house and filed for divorce already.

And the lack of willingness to move beyond the crisis. People cannot continue to live in crisis mode. But posters on the board insist that the spouse cannot be trusted. Nothing the spouse says can possibly be true. Distrust is a terrible thing and it will erode the marriage making it an unhappy place whether there is active infidelity or not. There are an endless number of OP's out there. If the marriage is unhappy, the spouse can find someone else. Isn't that why there was a crisis in the first place? So you might have successfully busted affair #1. Affair #2 will be right behind it if you don't get busy fixing the marriage.

[newmama]

Lotus, thank you for posting this. I have looked for your story but haven't found it yet! I would love to learn how you reconciled and what you went through, etc.

Now- did you do any kind of checking up on your spouse/ requiring transparency, etc. when you reconciled with him?

and let's remember something...when there are problems in the marriage, IT IS THE JOB OF THE SPOUSE TO TALK ABOUT IT. Problems never justify having affairs. So the LBS can improve their areas of weaknesses but it was never their fault that the spouse cheated on them. If you read the perspective of the wayward spouses (survivinginfidelity.com) 100% say there was something wrong with themselves; NOT their spouse. THEY had the insecurity issue.

So we shouldn't treat our spouses like crap, but I don't think it's fair to say that if we had problems in the marriage then it will CAUSE them to cheat ;-)

[TrentC]

I feel the need to repost this excerpt from MWD on divorce busting, from chapter one of The Divorce Remedy (boldfaced parts are emphasized by me):

Or perhaps you are reading this because a divorce is about the last thing on earth that you want. In the pages that follow, I am going to spell out for you exactly what you need to do to reverse the downward spiral in your marriage. I will share with you everything I know about saving marriages from the brink of divorce. If you follow the seven-step program in this book carefully, it will be just as if you are in my office with me. You'll learn what you need to do to turn things around, how to evaluate your partner's responses and reactions, and what to do next. I will give you lots of examples of people who were in your shoes and how they rejuvenated their love. I will offer you the building blocks for change.

But I'm going to be completely honest with you.

First, you, not your spouse, are going to have to do the lion's share of the work here. Because your spouse is skeptical, at best, you are the one who is going to have to prove that life together with you can be different. You may not like the fact that this feels so one-sided, but for now, I say, "That's too bad." That's just how it is. Get used to this idea, swallow your pride and push up your sleeves.

Second, in Divorce Busting, I gave people the impression that change could happen overnight. It could and sometimes does. But, thanks to the feedback I've gotten from readers and clients, I now know that it usually doesn't. It takes longer. Look, it probably took years for your marriage to reach this point and repairing the damage will take time. If you are an impatient person by nature- when you want something, you want it now- you are going to have to work on yourself to slow down. I can offer you some tips about keeping calm when things seem at a standstill, but in this case, patience is more than a virtue, it's a necessity.

Finally, there are no guarantees. Sometimes, you can seven-step until the cows come home and it might not save your marriage. But I can tell you that unless you follow the steps in this book, you will never know for sure whether or not your marriage could have been saved. Right now, you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. People who follow the Divorce Remedy program felt better about themselves and more optimistic in general no matter what.

A brief synopsis of the seven steps of The Divorce Remedy:

Step Number 1: Start with a Beginner's Mind
Although age and experience can bring wisdom in some areas of our lives, it can also bring narrow-mindedness and shortsightedness -- we no longer question our assumptions and beliefs. We get set in our ways. For any recovery, it is essential that, before you do anything else, you empty your minds of what you think you know about doing marriage right. You don't, so start fresh.

Step Number 2: Know What You Want
Specific goals contain seeds for solution. Writing out your goals makes them more real and offers a baseline to which you can refer to in the days to come. Begin by listing 2 or 3 things you to change or improve about your marriage. Make sure that you list what you want in your marriage, not what's missing. Think action -- describe specific actions people will take to improve things. Think small -- each goal should be able to be accomplished within a week or two.

Step Number 3: Ask for What You Want
Share your thoughts with your spouse. If you think you've done this already, realize that when most people feel like they're requesting change, they're usually complaining, which is often met with resistance. Consider the timing -- make sure they're approachable -- and ask in a constructive way.
Note -- there might be so much tension between you that your spouse isn't about to do anything you ask. If this is the case, don't ask anything right now -- fast forward to step 4.

Step Number 4: Stop Going Down Cheeseless Tunnels
When we're unhappy in our marriages, we try something to fix it. If it works, great. If not, instead of trying something different, we simply keep doing more of the same, and become more emphatic about it. This will not only fail to eliminate the problems in your life, but you will actually make it worse - the very thing you do to solve a problem is what's actually prompting your partner to persist and escalate the annoying behavior. Many people see improvements in their marriage simply by committing to stop doing what hasn't been working.

Step Number 5: Experiment and Monitor Results
Improving your marriage is a trial and error process -- you experiment and watch the results. In order to become better at noticing how your approach to things creates change in your partner, keep a Solution Journal -- write down the challenging situation, how you handled it (solution-oriented approach), your partner's immediate reaction and their reaction several days later. Remember to stop going down Cheeseless Tunnels and continue only what works.

Step Number 6: Take Stock
On a scale of 1 to 10, state where your marriage was prior to starting the program, then do the same for where you are right now. Determine whether you are satisfied with your progression, or if you are not. If not, list one or two things you could do or that could happen that would bring your marriage up a half step on the scale (ie. 4.5 to 5). Remember that no marriage is ever perfect, and change can sometimes take longer than you'd like.

Step Number 7: Keeping the Positive Changes Going
If you want to stay in love with your spouse, you have to continue doing loving things every day -- you never get to the point where you can stop being thoughtful about how you treat your spouse. Realize that everyone gets off track from time to time -- conflict is inevitable. But what separates the winners from the losers in this game of life isn't the amount of failure people experience. It's the way in which winners handle the failure -- pick yourself up, dust off and get back on track.

[newmama]

So when there are problems we need to be informed and then we can work on DBing.

I hope MWD write a book about DBing while there is infidelity because she only had 1-2 pages in the whole book I think--need to go look it up.

[Allen A]

Oh my where to I start. Well, first off, I won't paraphrase Lotus. I will actually quote you to make sure I get my reference correct.

There is a current on this board to use extreme measures to "affair bust" as opposed to the "divorce busting", the name of Michele Weiner Davis' book.

Yes, it is an infidelity subforum. It will have a "current" and that "current" will focus on breaking up an affair. A marriage according to Penny Tuppy and other published infidelity experts cannot be rebuilt during an affair. The affair must be addressed directly. The title of MWD's book is not the subject of this forum.

The opinions are those of the people posting.

Yes, they are. But more to the point, thse are shared opinions of published experts on infidelity. Many of the posters here have been kind enough to offer explicit references to Harley, Tuppy, Glass, Lusterman, and many more. These are not blanket opinions based on only their own experience, that would statistically speaking be only a single sample reference and of little value. We refer to those who research infidelity full time doing actual case studies. These experts deal with hundreds of infidelity cases and then document their findings and publish books on the subject. The opinions posted here are of the people posting AND of people who have dealt with hundreds of these cases as a full time job. LOTS of EXPERIENCE there to support an opinion.

Have those people successfully navigated their own marital problems? Who knows?

Now, I am going to put a bullet on this one, so I am giving you a fair warning.

First, no, not everyone on this forum has successfully fought the affair attacking their home to completion as of yet. Who Knows? The people that read their threads know because they update us regularly on their progress.

But more to the point, what you are implying here is that your experience is worth more than theirs because you have already reached reconcilliation. I have several problems with this :

a. First, its insulting. I would respectfully ask you to apologize to the members of this forum for suggesting that your experience is worth more than their educated experience and that of the authors they have read. This is just downright silly, but more to the point, its offensive.

b. The people on this forum come here often when their lives are at their worst. Instead of falling and wallowing, they do research and find the strength, courage, and commitment to their marriages to post here. The idea that you show up and insult them because you have reached reconciliation and they haven't yet is offensive. The opinions of educated posters who have yet to reconcile is at the least equal to that of yours. I have yet to read a single infidelity reference on your part from any published expert on the subject. Surely you advocate reading before you speak up as having as much value as a hollow opinion tossed out at whim yes?

c. I have yet to read a single post of yours that makes any refernce to any infidelity expert. And no, MWD is not an expert in infidelity. She has yet to publish a single text on the subject while others we reference have in some cases published more than one article or complete book on the topic.

We're not privy to that information.

Actually, if you bothered to read their posts you are privy to it, people publish their stories here regularly. But from my assessment of your posts, you don't read posts very carefully, at best you skim them and improvise a clumsy paraphrase. This act misinforms readers and insults the original posters who are now misrepresented. Cheap tactics like this belong in politics, not on a forum helping people combat infidelity.

I have been through infidelity problems in my marriage, and my H and I have successfully reconciled.

Good for you. Others arne't there yet. This does not make their educated viewpoints of any less value than yours. in fact I could argue that since they have been fighting their affairs LONGER that they have MORE experience than YOU. How long did the affair attack YOUR home Lotus? I am guessing it lasted less than a year. How many affairs have you had to fight Lotus? I am guessing it was only one, since you have only mentioned one. Some posters here have had to fight several. Their experience is considerably more involved than yours. Please offer them the dignity of respecting their opinion as at least equal to the value of your own uneducated and limited expeirence on the topic.

As a fully reconciled, happily married person, I have some advice for those coming here seeking advice while facing a severe marital crisis.

Ibid.

BEWARE of free information. It is worth what you pay for it! (And maybe not that much.)

This applies to YOUR advice then too Lotus... the information you are putting up here in this very thread is worth what we paid for it - nothing. The fact that you suggest this shows how foolish the suggestion is. It's self-contradicting. Free advice DOES have value. The suggestion that becuase it is free it has no value is ludicrous. Furthermore many professionals offer free advice and work all the time Pro-bono work is offered as both an act of conscience, and to help those who cannot AFFORD to PAY for it. The idea that someone offering advice and NOT wanting money makes their advice worthless is terribyly cynical.. And again,.. how much are you charging visitors to read YOUR posts?

But more to the point, educated experienced posters have a lot of value in their posts. They share information that they did indeed pay for when they purchased their text by Glass, Harley, Lusterman, Tuppy, etc. This information was NOT FREE.. it is just out of kindness that this information is being passed on for free. Your information is worth nothing as it isn't based on an infidelity reference, its a single sample rerernece and statistically speaking this is worthless. Your posts are hollow if they aren't backed up by significant experience on the subject.

Marriage is a voluntary relationship. People stay with their spouses because they want to.

People stay with their spouses for a variety of reasons : because they have children, becuase they fear the alternatives, becuase they feel obligated to try even when they don't want to. Do you have a degree in psychology or anything of this sort? Where are you getting this informatiion?

Just because you say she is "your wife" does not make her your property, like your car, or your dog.

No one here has suggested anyone is property, again this is insulting and I suggest you apologize. Furhtermore, dogs aren't property either, they are animals and they have rights.

I cannot believe that the advice given on this board, which is devoted to healing marriages, is to use surveillance on spouses, embarrass them publicly, and distrust everything they do and say.

The advice given on this board by veterans is taken from published experts on the subject. They have not only read a book on infidelity, they have written one.

MWD herself has even advocated using spyware on a PC to protect your marriage from addictional attack by a third party.. or did you skip the Infidelity section in the Divorce Remedy text as well? Yes, MWD has advocated installing software on a PC to protect a marriage.

Exposing an affair is a common tactic as affairs thrive in secrecy. Again if you have read anything on this subject you would find this advice is quite commmon among experts in the field.

Lastly again you don't appear to have read Divorce Remedy well either. MWD herself again advocates and reccomends to not believe anything a wayward spouse says and only half of what they do. I can quote you the page refernece if you need it. This is assuming you own the book.

Sorry Lotus, but this is just silly, it appears you are basing your challenges on absolutely nothing other than your personal preferences. Logic is the way to combat an affair, and your preferences for timidity do not fall in line with published expert advice on this subject at all. Why would you make a post advocating to dismiss professional expert advice on a topic and have others follow your preferences? THAT is free advice worth what's been paid for it.

And be sure to withhold all kind words and gestures.

Cake eating is a common result of this tactic you are advocating here Lotus. And MWD AGAIN would suggest "kind words and gestures" as pursuit which AGAIN in Divorce Remedy she recommends you AVOID. Why are you posting on MWD's forum touting her book, and dismissing her own advice on a subject you don't appear to have read up on? Again the advice you are warning people about appears more to be your own than that of the more educated posts on this forum. And yes, I consider an "educated" post to be one where there was specialized research done on the subject... a single sample case study isn't an educated opinion on its own.

The cornerstones of marriage are love, trust, commitment, and forgiveness. Without all four of those attributes, marriages fail.

The cornerstones of protecting a marriage are different.. and that is what Infidelity is threatening.. a marriage, and protecting a marriage from infidelity is the subject here, not the cornerstones of marriage.

You cannot rebuild your marriage on distrust, grudge holding, and silence.

You can't protect a marriage on love, trust, commitment, and forgiveness during an affair ether. During an affair your spouse offers you none of these, and very often does NOT want them from the abandoned spouse in return either.

Clearly other "cornerstones" are in order when infidelity is in play.

Consider carefully before taking anyone's advice.

Including your own Lotus. Yours is the most dangerous, its got no apparent research to back it up... So I am advocating yours is the one to be of the leasat use here. I am sad to say you have wasted valuable time that could have been put into helping people instead of my having to dismiss hollow challenges to educated posts from veteran forum members.

You will be the one to live with the consequences, not the anonymous poster on a bulletin board who insisted that you live your life his way!

No one is insisting anyone live life their way. Again the advice is coming from educated experts on infidelity. If anyone is insisting that a reader live life their way it would be uneducated posters such as yourself who refuse to make any reference to any experts on this subject of this forum - Infidelity.

[Lotus]

Did I say that some posters browbeat and insist that their advice must be taken?