Preventing a form from submitting in jQuery Validate plugin's submitHandler function

I do it like this and it works exactly how you want it to work:

$("#myform").submit(function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
}).validate({
    rules: {...},
    submitHandler: function(form) { 
        alert("Do some stuff...");
        //submit via ajax
        return false;  //This doesn't prevent the form from submitting.
    }
});

$("#myform").validate({
   rules: {...},
   submitHandler: function(form, event) { 
      event.preventDefault();
      alert("Do some stuff...");
      //submit via ajax
   }
});

Hope this help.

Maybe you can validate externally without using a submit button:

if($("#myform").valid()){
    alert("Do some stuff...");
}