My wife suddenly renewed her interest in Landmark over the weekend, and has decided to go back to the weekly sessions post-Forum. After having read all of the LGAT material I could throw at her, testimonials from former LE participants, and media reports, she's dismissed them all. Her reasoning? She feels that she has obtained positive tools to help her with her life.

She has dismissed the experiences and reports of others as rare events that aren't indicative of the normal Landmark experience. She assumes that she is smart enough to dismiss any of the "programming" they might throw at her - which they won't do anyway. The people at Landmark really just want to help those around them - they're not bad even if some of their ideas (like the constant sales pitch) are a bit misplaced.

In essence, she's in total denial. After all the information I've given her as warning, I could have no better proof of it than the fact that she turned around and invited me to attend a session with her. Again, her reasoning? She's experienced "something" very positive in her life and she wants to share it with me. By this logic she goes on to say that if I'm not willing to share such a powerful and meaningful part of her life, then I don't love her. Further, I am the one obsessed with Landmark. If I would just go I would see that they're not really bad. My refusal to go just underscores how stubborn and ignorant I am. She resents my "lack of trust in her" - meaning that my lack of faith in Landmark indicates a lack of faith in her.

In the end, I've told her that "no" means "no." All communication has shut down at this point. I'm back to square one. I need some way to get through to her.

Wow, I feel for you.
The thing that has helped me the most, that you might try, is people who post here realize after a while that they only thought Landmark was helping them, but it actually doesn't.
My friend says Landmark helped him get "IT". Landmark gave him a "breakthrough" he couldn't have gotten anywhere else and he's so grateful Landmark is there to give others a breakthrough too.
I ask him "what exactly was IT, what was the breakthrough". I ask for details. He says "I saw my identity in operation, I saw my rackets!" and he thinks this is an insight.
I ask him "how has this helped in your life?" and point out that his relationship with his own wife is strained, he doesn't have a job, etc.
The others here may have had more success than I have trying to get someone (or themselves) to see that Landmark makes you feel that you are getting insight but you actually aren't but rather you are getting more confused.
What happens when you ask your wife for details. What concrete benefit has she gotten? If she says, "I have more integrity" or something vague, how has that actually benefitted, where does the rubber hit the road in the real world?
(In a way, I'm really asking, wanting datapoints trying to get my own Landmark friend to see that it actually hasn't helped him.)

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Ether Dragon
My wife suddenly renewed her interest in Landmark over the weekend, and has decided to go back to the weekly sessions post-Forum. After having read all of the LGAT material I could throw at her, testimonials from former LE participants, and media reports, she's dismissed them all. Her reasoning? She feels that she has obtained positive tools to help her with her life.

She has dismissed the experiences and reports of others as rare events that aren't indicative of the normal Landmark experience. She assumes that she is smart enough to dismiss any of the "programming" they might throw at her - which they won't do anyway. The people at Landmark really just want to help those around them - they're not bad even if some of their ideas (like the constant sales pitch) are a bit misplaced.

In essence, she's in total denial. After all the information I've given her as warning, I could have no better proof of it than the fact that she turned around and invited me to attend a session with her. Again, her reasoning? She's experienced "something" very positive in her life and she wants to share it with me. By this logic she goes on to say that if I'm not willing to share such a powerful and meaningful part of her life, then I don't love her. Further, I am the one obsessed with Landmark. If I would just go I would see that they're not really bad. My refusal to go just underscores how stubborn and ignorant I am. She resents my "lack of trust in her" - meaning that my lack of faith in Landmark indicates a lack of faith in her.

In the end, I've told her that "no" means "no." All communication has shut down at this point. I'm back to square one. I need some way to get through to her.

This is very sad. Certainly, she got "coached" to come up with this level of denial. Everything she says I heard before. This is how they break people who resist. Those people at Landmark have no moral and they are breaking apart the relationship between you and your wife intentionally to serve their own agenda. Sorry I can't help any further. I feel very sorry for you. This is outrageous.

Why don't you seek help from a professional conselor, you and your wife?
Tell her you are prepared to talk about all of this but only with the help of a professional conselor (psychologist or psychotherapist). I can bet a fortune that she will get "coached" again following your request and that she will propose to you to sit down with the Center manager instead to work things out (that also I heard before). But ask her, what are the professional qualifications of that manager? Chances are he has none. His main goal is to meet quotas and to break people who resist.

I think a professional psychologist and family therapy is your only hope. You must be furious against your wife's coach. If I were you, I would definitely be. Someday, a drama will occur (like it has occured in the past I must say ... suicide and murder cases are documented!). They are just pushing things to the limit of human resistance don't you think?

Gook luck.

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She's experienced "something" very positive in her life and she wants to share it with me. By this logic she goes on to say that if I'm not willing to share such a powerful and meaningful part of her life, then I don't love her.

I concur. EST and its' spawn, LEC absolutely thrives on generalizations... big, grandiose, hard to pin down, "you just had to be there" generalizations.... often sprinkled with their favorite word phrase "the possibility of"... ESTholes as the formerly referred to, massively dislike being held accountable for their overblown claims (you wonder why no recording, note taking is permitted or why they have never published and written material about their work ?), they are experts at avoiding intellectual confrontation (and past masters at turning an intellectual debate into an emotionally charged shootout at the OK Corral), and they have a masturbatory fascination with circular logic...

Request of your wife that she make a laundry list of each specific benefit that she believes she's obtained, it is very important that she write it out, and then ask her also to write out what specific things happened in her life to make her believe that she genuinely believes she obtained these benefits. If she uses any braod conceptual language ask her to refine it into clear, specific plain English... like, what, exactly does she mean by the term Racket, how would she make a dictionary definition of this word ?

You get the idea. Plug up the ratholes. Make her define her terms. Make her specify her experiences. Ask her what led her to believe that her claims are true, that she had such a powerful change.. in what way ?, what was different afterwards ?

At the bottom of all this, you might have to prepare yourself for the idea that you've outgrown her, and this is only an external symptom of core changes you have been going through without being fully aware of them. Maybe you've matured, gained in wisdom and perspective. Maybe she hasn't , or lacks the emotional resources to see things from your point of view. She may be fleeing into arms of what appears to be solid, trustworthy, and emotionally supportive because she isn't prepared to take the next authentic step in her personal maturation. That may be "the heart of the matter", to use their phrase.

I don't know about direct confrontation at this stage, you may just drive her further into it.

Make sure that you understand that you are a worthwhile person and that Landmark doesn't get a two for one deal as far as ruining lives go. I also think that treating her like the sick person she is may be a tactic you'll have to fall back on. By that I mean try to be kind and loving even when she isn't.

If you love her unconditionally, let her know that and act accordingly. You may lose her for now, but try to make sure that when the BS is over; you'll still be there for her.

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Ether Dragon
She assumes that she is smart enough to dismiss any of the "programming" they might throw at her . . . .

She resents my "lack of trust in her" - meaning that my lack of faith in Landmark indicates a lack of faith in her.

I spent some time with my friend this weekend and heard this same thing as I brought up some of the dangers I see in the New Age activies her Landmark experience led her into. I should just "trust" her and "honor her discernment." Damn this is sad. I'm sorry to hear they got to your wife again.

Midonov's advice on getting third party [b:e2ac43f576]professional[/b:e2ac43f576] help is a good play. I think making her play on your turf, rational thought, will keep exercising her rational thinking abilities, and that's the only hope of her at some point realizing the con at some point. Where she's at she probably is justifying everthing by her "experience." This subjective defense is much harder to confront than the objective. If she balks at the professional help, ask her what's she's afraid of -- that seems to be something they teach Lekkies to say to us. I'm labeled "afraid" or "fearful" whenever I object to the philosophy, and that's something they don't want to be portrayed as themselves, since now they are "powerful." I'm learning to use their language to [b:e2ac43f576]my[/b:e2ac43f576] advantage, and I can see it causing her to think.

There is hope. Stay in the game. Remember she has to see the need before she will listen. The counselor/psychologist may help her see the need.

-lightwolf

I can understand that you are very disappointed that she "went back". However all the information you have shown her will stay with her. It is natural for her to dismiss everything she has read. That is a mind working to protect itself. It would be very hard to keep both ways of looking at landmark at the same time.

What you can ask her is this; if this is so wonderful - how come that we now have this crisis in our marriage? If it would be a good thing wouldn't it mean that we would have a better marriage after you have done this course? How can it be that you have to make me see it your way for you to be able to love me? I do love you but there has come something between us now that seems to fix all our problems - now I seem to be the problem. Are you really willing to risk our marriage for this? Let's think 10 years ahead. How will you look at this then? The people that have had second thoughts about landmark have found out years later that they did major mistakes while doing these courses. There are many people that have testified to that. You are in a controlled environment where all people seem to agree that this is the best thing that happened to them.
Would you be willing to take a break from landmark? Say 3 months?

This is just something that you could try. I think now is the time to go softly ahead. Don't feed her too much information. That is done already.

This is of course only an idea.

nettie

Ether - I got my girlfriend out of it after 3 months and she recovered from all the denial and magical / false thinking after a further 15 months. Do a search on my posts for details if needed.

What worked in our case was presenting the philosophy of LE (perverted existentialism) with her religion and letting her see the stark contrast. Then i presented the evidence of the thought reform processes.

Finally, by challenging the irrational beliefs loaded during the seminars with reality, the trance was broken - The temptation is to do this step first.

If your wife has a formalised set of beliefs prior to LE, it may help to draw the comparisons, particularly in the area of the sacredness of human life as opposed to humans being meaning making machines.

Oz

Thanks for all of the replies. I tried to respond to the first few last night, but as is my typical luck, I didn't bother to save what I wrote before posting and "poof" it was gone. :)

You've all provided some wonderful insights, and I'm going to try to answer as many of your responses as I can.

I have tried asking her to clarify just how LE has helped her. Her only replies have been vague. Any attempt to push for more detail makes her defensive and indignant that I won't simply accept her word on the matter. This is a regular conversation ending experience.

As for seeing a counselor, that's been tried as well. We were actually going to a relationship counselor prior to her discovery of LE. LE was not the initial cause of our interruption in attendance, that was simply scheduling conflicts. Since LE, however, she has refused to return to the relationship couseling. Instead, she has made it conditional on my attending her meetings. She does see an individual conselor, but my guess is that LE never comes up in conversation. Even then, I get the feeling that her individual sessions have lessened.

I have asked her about the qualifications of her manager and group leader. She doesn't know - she doesn't care. She's getting benefits from LE, and that's all that matters.

Furious? Yes, but not such that I'm going to do something rash. I couldn't very well help her if I was stuck in jail, afterall. ;)

The idea about generating a list is a good one. I asked her to do so during one of her more lucid/engaged moments. She balked about not having the time right that moment, so I clarified that she could work on it throughout the week. That was acceptable at first, but as the night wore on, she fell back on her tried and true excuse of above - I should simply accept her word.

Have I outgrown her? No. She's an extremely smart person. She has her stubborn streaks, as do we all, but she is highly educated and normally objective. If she is prone to make rash decisions, she's objective enough to at least recognize it after the fact and act reasonably. LE has been the exception to this rule, which makes me feel that I have not outgrown her, but rather she is being manipulated.

LE has no hold on me. My wife has tried numerous ways of getting me to attend meetings with her. Inviting, pleading, demanding, guilt trips, threats, and ransoming our marriage. I will not go. It has become the wedge issue in our relationship - the surest means of ending any dialog we may be having. I've told her as much as that I would sooner accept her offer of divorce than go. She has, so far, backed down each time. In doing so, I think she has finally realized that unlike her, I am not bluffing.

I have asked her the question, "if LE is so great, how come our marriage has taken such a negative turn because of it?" Her response is simple - because I am so fanatical about LE that I can't accept that it may actually have merits. Nice twist, eh? There wouldn't be any problem if I just accepted LE and quit making an issue of it. By accepting LE, of course, I would have to attend the meetings with her. Circular logic. You do offer some very good advice, Nettie. I'm going to submit your arguments about our relationship to her. I'm again thankful we have your insight in our community.

My wife is not overly religious. She's agnostic at best. As such, I have no other belief system that I can leverage against her.

Again, thanks to all of you for the advice and for listening.

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I spent some time with my friend this weekend and heard this same thing as I brought up some of the dangers I see in the New Age activies her Landmark experience led her into. I should just "trust" her and "honor her discernment." Damn this is sad. I'm sorry to hear they got to your wife again.

From an NLP perspective (as if that should have any special qualifications in these precincts) the Forum's trainers have fused concepts loaded with high self image, high idealism, good standing in the world (concepts like "trust", "integrity", "truth") with their specific agenda. Even though these concepts are elastic, they can mean a wide range of things to many different people, they are superb hooks. NLP often speaks of "chaining"... this is a most interesting hypnotic phenomenon, and rest assured, the EST/Landmark people were intensely interested in Eriksonian Hypnosis and NLP... anyway, chaining works like this, the trainer tells a compelling story about some distressing life problem that many in the audience can identify with (this works much better when the group is stressed, tired, and anxious to some degree and wants psychological and physical relief)... "so there this kid was, covered with tumors, and his folks had just lost their house to a tornado, and the dog ate rat poison, and lightning struck the church..." "and he was sitting there in this very room, just like you are sitting there right now..." (drum roll......) "and he's lost all hope...." (gasp!) "then he GOT the TRUTH of the matter...", which means that "he needed to ENROLL everybody in the POSSIBILITY of a CONVERSATION".... so there you have a nice chain, or lever actually, that the paleo-lmbic mind stores in simple code as "abject misery-TRUTH- enrollment=relief" ... so, on a the level of hypnotic suggestion, the brain is playing these tapes of misery and suffering which it is incessantly trying to relieve itself from by the simple TRUTH that enrolling people is the solution to this obsessive thought loop... clever, innit ?