Why I Heart Marriage Builders

When my husband and I met, we fell so madly in love, that I felt like a whole new world had opened up for me. I wanted to learn more about love and commitment...I was inspired to find out how I could be the best possible partner for him. Very quickly I found that there was a general idea that romantic love dies off after years of marriage...and then passion goes after that usually. I thought "well, that sucks", but I refused to believe it. I knew in my heart this "in love" feeling could be sustained, I just had to figure out how. Eventually I found Marriage Builders, where their main premise is that in order to stay happily married, couples need to stay romantically in love. So how do you stay romantically in love? They studied the couples who had achieved long term romantic love (and happy marriages) and found their secrets and now they can teach you the principals. I ate that up! Just the hopeful idea that it is possible to stay in love! And also the part that made so much sense to me...was that their plan on how to stay in love was also the way that affairs begin...so in other words, (my words, not necessarily theirs), to stay romantically in love, have a life long love and sex affair with your spouse. Made perfect sense to me! But there was so much more to it. So many deeper principals and good practices. Their program solved basically all of my marriage issues, ALL of them. And we had some doozies (although not as doozy as infidelity or addictions...for marriages with those issues, Marriage Builders has some other principals and plans). I never paid a dime for anything MB related except two hard cover books I bought. Everything I got from them, I got by downloading stuff, reading it, doing the exercises with my husband, and implementing the principals. I visit their website sometimes but I never join because they are very strict in their application of the MB program, and I am not. They say you cannot piecemeal it, but I have done just that and it works perfect for me. I don't consider the website people over there to be "right" in their strict application of the program and I even bet if I talked to Dr. Harley himself about how successful his stuff has been for us, he would NOT shake his finger in my face and say "but you didn't do it 100% by my book therefore you have failed!" like they seem to want to do. Also, there are religious principals sprinkled here and there in the MB stuff, and I am not religious. This doesn't bother me at all, but it is just another reason I would not join their board over there. They get kinda religious-snooty. The MB plan has many very challenging facets to it. My H and I had to really stretch and grow to implement it. BUT...I love stretching and growing. I love learning and expanding and improving. I love being in love and this is really working for us...even on marriage problems I didn't think were problems but they could have been, but they got solved anyway, without me even having to put any thought to it. I now feel I have the skills to stay in love with my husband forever, have boundaries around our marriage to affair proof it (as much as possible), and that I will be able to face slumps or downtimes in my life much easier because I don't have to battle the depression that comes with marital issues. I know that having a great marriage shouldn't be your "whole life"...you need to retain your autonomy, no matter who you are. But I have found that when the romantic love is flowing freely day after day, I am over all a happier and healthier person. Thank you Marriage Builders, for the improvements to my health, happiness, and love life! :smthumbup:

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