One of the tasks that you have taken on is constructing a timeline for the affair. Your timeline may be in your
head, with mental notes regarding times and places of the affair, or it may be an elaborate well-documented project. Whether in your head, or mapped out, you have constructed a timeline.
You may have even used the timeline as reality check. Each new revelation is compared to the timeline to see how it fits or if it even fits. The timeline helps you organize and make sense of who, what, where and when. Like a program or a playbill, it helps you start making sense of the drama and spectacle happening in front of you.
One of the problems with this production is that you are not there to be entertained by it. Instead, you were victimized by it. You are picking up the pieces and working like Sherlock Holmes to make sense of what you do know.
The cheater has likely left out some key pieces of information. By withholding information, they make you more suspicious. When they do not give you the facts, it leaves your mind to make up things and fill in the blank spaces.
Filling in the blank spaces and connecting the dots are both unsettling when you do not have the whole picture. In all likelihood, you will not ever have all the pieces. This means that you will never have the complete story. If you are one of those people that wants every piece accounted for, this will frustrate you to no end.
What this means is that you will often have to make choices and take action based on the limited information you have. You will not only have to make your choices based on inadequate information, you will have to be okay with that.
The longer you obsess over the timeline, the more frustrated you will become. The timeline will always be incomplete. It will expand to accommodate all the time and energy you put into it. Although you use it to help pull your life together, it has a shelf life. A day will come when you have to put it away.
What will matter is the story you construct from your timelines. I address the importance of the story and how it changes with more depth in “Why He Cheats“.
Bear in mind that the timeline will rarely answer “why” questions. You will be frustrated if you use a timeline to give you a why.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
2 Responses
Sadly the time line for a long time liar and expert deceiver only reveals as you have pointed out that one may never know the truth other than the person who has a lengthy lifetime lifestyle of deceiving others will not likely change without a serious wake up call and a lengthy effort toward living a transparent life
Not unlike the recovering drug user or alcoholic…there is a need for the cheater to want to change by way of a reality check
Jesus Christ …and a real authentic love for Him and appreciation for His offer made possible by a real sacrifice for our sin is one of those sobering things that may cause enough concern for a cessation of activities which cause everyone so much pain and sorry
Sadly with today’s consistent society pushing the encore further and further for acceptance and participation in sinful things and rejecting outright any call for repentance people who want to go along to get along will not standup for what is morally right
Truly the scriptures say there is a tsunami world wide push to define what is “evil” as good and what The God of the Bible calls good as “evil”…..anyone speaking out for moral laws is labeled as the “trouble maker” while the creation of the one world community being set up to receive and worship the coming antichrist is getting more and more visible
The demand by the ungodly to be accepted and endorsed is upon us
Zaza,
It is always good hearing from you.
In my mind, the time line helps the betrayed keep their sanity and make sense of what is going on. Once they regain who they are, and have made sense of things, they can begin moving forward. The problem is that some betrayed spouses become obsessed with the time line. One of the brain principles at work here is that “the more you focus on it, the more it expands”. When this is applied to the time line, the more you focus on it, the more it will expand. It will expand to take up all the time, focus and emotional energy you put into it. At this point, it can become detrimental.
I agree with you that the cheater has to want to change. They have to rediscover their love for their spouse. That is critical for the next phase of healing to begin.
Today’s society is indeed pushing the encore further and further for acceptance along with a mainstreaming of sin. There is a push to call evil good and good evil. This is why you need moral absolutes. Modern society often fights against moral absolutes, since it exposes evil and sin for what they are. The emperor has no clothes, and modern society wants no one to speak out about that.