Got it working with the below code! Had to move my validation to the top of the pre submit calls so it would validate first then do the rest of the ajax submit I think. Hopefully this works for me!
Again Gustavo thanx for the help! John var options = { //meta: "validate", beforeSubmit: showRequest, // pre-submit callback success: showResponse, // post-submit callback }; function showRequest(formData, jqForm, options) { // pre-submit callback $("#myForm").validate({meta: "validate"}) var formElement = jqForm[0]; return true; //alert('About to submit'); } $('#myForm').ajaxForm(options); function showResponse(responseText, statusText) { // post-submit callback $.get('tasks.cfm',{},function(data){ $('#newTasks').html(data); $('ul:last').fadeIn("slow"); }) //alert('Submitted and should have worked'); }