SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hey everyone!

Been reading the boards for a few months but this is the first time posting.

My affair occurred much more than a decade ago and my BH and I managed to white knuckle it without actually dealing with it up to this point. Yes, I did all of the horrible things WS’s do in the beginning to make the healing as difficult as possible and so I am really fighting an uphill battle here to attempt to make this right.

In the interest of moving forward and helping to heal him, myself and our relationship, we are trying to follow some of the great advice given on these forum. One of which is the detailed as possible timeline.

So my question is in regards to the timeline, what did everyone use to organize it? At this point I have some emails with dates but things I remember are not well organized and I know it would be helpful if it was clearer for my BH.

I am open to any suggestions

Perhpas just write out important details on index cards you can try to put the cards in order once they are written out.

You can try and go month by month on pages in a notebook.

Start when you first met the OM.

Can you recall the rough sequence of the events?

How long was the affair? Years, Months etc.

Think about the financial, emotional and sexual events which happened.

Once You write out your timeline can your BH talk with the OM to get his recollections about the details?

Thank you Survrus

I knew the OM for about 5 months with roughly 3 of those being PA, questionable as to how much of the 2 other months were EA.

I have a pretty good handle on what physical things happened but sequencing them has been difficult so the cards might be helpful.

I doubt either BH or OM would be open to conversing as BH did inform the OBS which pretty much blew up OMs marriage. But I can certainly bring it up as an option.

Hi ChampionRugsweeper, Welcome to SI. Good for you for embarking on this in order to provide your spouse with some level of understanding. Better late than never.

My husband did it in a word document, which made it easier for him to add things in as he remembered new things/details and edit when he was able to verify dates. He started with important events and the rough timeline. When he did it he had access to calendars, photos, emails, phone records, bank records, social media posts, etc etc from the time period that he was able to use to help flesh out dates/details - I imagine that could be harder for you given the passage of time. Where he could determine specific dates he put them in. When he could not be specific he put in estimates or context clues (things like "it would have been the spring, because I recall it happened shortly after Easter" or "I remember it was during softball season"). Context clues were helpful for me too because they would trigger my own memories and I was able to use them to help him narrow down so I could rewrite my OWN history during that period.

Depending on the circumstances of the A (ie. the length, the amount of time it spanned, the # of physical meetups etc. etc), I suspect that it's more important to get all the events that you remember out rather than nailing out specifically when they occurred. You will probably also find that telling the story Like, if you have a memory, include it even if you can't be sure exactly when it occurred. Again, depending on the level of detail your husband is interested in, include things like how you were feeling during any particular times, specific lies you told your spouse in order to conduct the A (like if you told him you were hanging out with friend X when you were really having dinner with AP), etc etc. You will have a better time understanding what he is interested in, what he wants to know more about, etc. Always air on the side of including something if you remember it, even if it is not obviously A related it may trigger something in your spouse's brain that helps him contextualize. Things like holidays you may have taken together with your spouse that year, things that were going on at work for either of you, etc.

The whole point is that it is a was for him to to understand what happened in context the best he can at this point. I know the context was super important for me to understand and empathize with my husband during that period.

Good luck.

CR,

Just writing it out I think will help in that it will reduce the mental cycling you might be going through reliving what you did, and hopefully will allow other details to bubble up so you can write them out.

Did you also offer to take a polygraph.

I guess you did the usual STD testing and surveilence for bumps or rashes, DNA testing for kids, threw out things the OM gave you and whatever else was contaminated by the affair?

What is your BHs current mental state?

Is he reading other BH stories to get an idea of what he wants to know, perhaps if BH writes out a list of questions it will jog your memory.

Emergent8 all I have are a handful of emails. There was no text messages and I didn’t have Social media 17 years ago. We are several phones out from pictures and I’ve lost access to my email account I used. I would not suggest waiting this long

Survrus I did 2 rounds of STD testing at the time. I was not cake eating so BH wasn’t tested at the time but we were both tested 7 years later for fertility treatments. The kids came much after the affair and 2/3 were made in a lab so if they aren’t his it’s someone else’s bad decisions. I offered to have our miracle baby paternity tested as part of a larger conversation where we spoke about the effects of the affair without actually addressing any of it. BH does not want to and doesn’t seem concerned.
I gave him the contact for a polygraph tester and he is currently working on scheduling and questions with him.
As for how he’s doing? Pretty typical I would say? He had a bad cycle going in August which is what brought this to the forefront again so we’re treating it like he is 4 months post d-day. Some days he’s good, others he’s triggered. He found this forum first and has been reading a lot here. He pointed me in this direction

If you are tech savvy, you can build a timeline in Microsoft Visio. We do things like that for my work all the time, search online for videos on how to do that. It’s a bit fancy, the old school way is index cards and a white board.

Is your BS open to creating your TL together?

We did it that way, because my W organizes experience in ways that I can't comprehend. She just doesn't do time and sequence. She'd mention an even that she remembered. I'd ask questions about what she thought, felt, said or did and what came before and after. I was able to fill in lots of blanks with the back and forth.

I would not suggest waiting this long.

Me neither, but I imagine that will resonate to new WS more coming from you.

How's it going? Hope you'll keep us updated.

Hey Emergent
Bit of a roller coaster over here for obvious reasons.
I’m at 17 pages single spaced 10 font. I did end up using Word because then I could embed the email screenshots into it. (The emails are so old they can’t even be imbedded) BH remembers other incidents that were not included in the timeline, so there is more work to do here plus I’m trying to match up some of the emails to the events I’ve put in.

Unfortunately I had a brain injury about 10 years ago so it’s been hard trying to put it all together. I tried to include things that I am only reasonably sure occurred but may have actually just been fantasies I had. Again would not suggest waiting this long it has definitely made things harder.

I started IC this week to work on some of the issue around the trauma I’ve experienced and trying to piece together some memories on things BH remembers occurring. Working on a better why as I understand from reading here just chalking it up to FOO trauma doesn’t really cut it. BH has put the Polygraph on hold as he wasn’t happy with the changes the operator wanted to make to the questions and wants a more complete timeline first

So long story short we’re in a bit of a holding pattern

My DDay was so long ago that timelines weren't even a recommendation on SI. I had Q&A sessions with my H.

I second sisoon's suggestion to do the timeline together. Is your BS open to that? The back and forth of another person's input can help shake loose some of those buried memories.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 11:34 PM, Thursday, December 14th]

CR,

The important part is you are doing the work, as it says in the Gita, You have the right to your labor, but not to the fruit of your labor.

Many WWs only do the bare minimum and trickle truth forever.

BH here. I am trying to find old documents and pictures from that time that will spark memories of this clearly less than memorable time in our lives. My hope is that CR can remember her work schedule and habits and we can line it up to the work schedule I found that covers part of that period and date stamps I know about to make a more coherent timeline. I think understanding how it went down, how long it took etc will help with the "why".

I found some old work schedules and work emails from that time. So far I have noticed I was struggling with trust issues in my other relationships (I think I blamed my unease about us on other people) a couple of months before discovery and also that a long held narrative that I screwed up and made no time for her birthday that year are inaccurate*

* I was home from work by 8:30pm on the actual BDay and had the next three days off, a short shift of neccessity and two more days off.

I really did not want to post but I wanted to follow up that I am and have been timeline building, originally for myself and then I shared when CR seemed motivated to get this old issue behind us finally.

Usedandneverloved,

Does your user name describe how you felt during the years after the affair took place.

I mean your username really hits like a sledge hammer.

I'll keep it short hoping not to threadjack.

I had a realization that made me sick: every woman I was ever intimate with used me as a sidepiece, typically to hurt or get back at another man. I was never anyone's first and only choice.

That's why I chose this handle.

Used,

Perhaps start your own thread, Reconciliation perhaps,your circumstances are actually common so you are not alone.

A persons history can magnify the effects of an affair.

[This message edited by survrus at 6:24 PM, Wednesday, December 20th]