One of the tools I find helpful when going through tough challenges are timelines. Most recently, I’ve used a timeline of Alzheimer’s in dealing with my mother going through that condition.
The timeline gives me a rough idea of what to prepare for. By knowing what comes next, I have some idea what to prepare for. It also gives me reference points when talking to others dealing with similar situations.
It also gives me time frames so I know when things will likely happen.
One area where timelines lose their effectiveness is when it comes to infidelity and affair recovery. To some degree, you can plot out some of the stages related to anger, grief and reactions to trauma. Those kind of timelines help you know what’s coming next.
Where affair recovery timelines falter is predicting and managing how long it’s going to take in recovering your marriage. It’s true that most affairs last 6-18 months, yet that figure can’t be regularly counted on.
One long term affair and those numbers are meaningless. Likewise, your cheater may be the outlier who defies the patterns. They’ve already defied you, so what’s keeping them from defying other.
You may expect the affair to end by the time frame from the timeline, but there are no guarantees that it will. There are no guarantees that your spouse will come back to you either.
With that in mind, you need to accept that there are no guarantees when it comes to affair recovery timelines. If you think there are, then your own expectations will deceive you.
Those expectations are tricky things. They lead you to believe in the mirage of fully returning to the marriage you had.
They deceive you into thinking that by a specified date, all will be ‘back to normal’.
My own experience is that affair recovery goes through stages. The time it takes in working through those stages varies from couple to couple.
Some couples want the recovery without making any changes in their marriage or doing any hard work. They love timelines since they think that all problems go away with enough time.
When you do nothing but give time to the affair, it only acts as fertilizer encouraging further growth. Recovery requires making changes. What makes a difference is knowing what changes to make and when to make them.
It also helps knowing the right order of what to do. Many people sabotage their recovery by doing things in a haphazard order. There are many changes needed, yet doing them out of order reduces the effectiveness of your efforts.
This is where the Affair Recovery Workshop helps you know what needs changing in your marriage. There’s more to recovery than just giving the cheater another chance.
Rather than just hoping you’re moving in the right direction, you can know with confidence that the changes being made are ones that make the difference between setting up for a relapse and successful affair recovery.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
