Does anyone else believe that there are different factors that can effect how long the pain will last? Maybe I'm just dreaming, "hoping" for a faster recovery just so I can get through it - my coping mechanism. I just get so frustrated that there's not a real answer other than - "it could take about 2 years...if you're lucky", that I had to come up with something else - because that's just too dang long. I feel so helpless and want to tell "sad2mycore" exactly when the pain will end so she knows how long it will take to get to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Hope's Unofficial Length of Recovery Calculation:
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS TOTALLY MADE UP.

2 weeks of intense pain for discovery
2 weeks of intense pain with some moments of normalcy after discovery
4 weeks of intense pain with some hours of distraction

1 month of functional pain and/or mixed pain recovery for every week of Affair for the first 12 weeks of the affair.
Affairs longer than 3 months add 1 month for every 3 months up to 2 years long.
Affairs longer than 2 years add 2 months for every year after that.

Multiply X 2 for Marriages over 5 years, X 3 for Marriages over 10 years, X 5 for marriages over 15 years.
Start process over at new Dday.

Once WS is remorseful cut balance of above calculation in half.
Once WS "gets it" and has assumed totally protective, truthful, helpful behavior, cut remaining balance of term in half again.
For each MC visit reduce term by 1 month.

Add to term 1 year for diseases brought home.
Add to term 3 years for pregnancy of OW.
Do not start count of term until after No Contact begins.
Rate self for confidence level before Dday on scale of 1 to 10. 10 being low confidence, 1 being high confidence. Add to term 1 month for each confidence point. That is 10 months more of recovery if BS rates self as a 10 - lowest confidence.

Note: If the calculation provides you with an answer that is too long divide by 10 and recalculate 3 months after Dday. Repeat as often as necessary to survive.
______________________________________________
So here's mine:

Standard 2 months of hell.
6 months for 6 weeks of A = 8 months
no additional term for short A
no additional term for short M
Husband was remorseful immediately upon confession = 50% off term = 4 months
so far no known diseases and no known pregnancy
no contact began immediately, I believe.
Confidence level before 5 so add 5 months = 9 months

Oh, sweet girl! I tried doing the math on this, but for all the credit we should have for the amount of MC appointments we've attended, I should have been done with pain and recovery before the A even happened.

I know you're really frustrated that things aren't going faster. H and I were the same way; we both felt so motivated to get through this, past it, over it...we read the books, did our MC, did our IC, talked, cried, yelled, wrote. And there is still an overflowing amount of pain, sadness, frustration, etc. Not that I'm a runner, but, for us, we have learned this is minimally a 10K run...and a person can't run that at their top speed throughout that event. It requires pacing oneself. It isn't a level course and though there have been downhill sections that went smoother and quicker, there have been the other sides of the hill that are steep and arduous and slow us down to a snail's pace of progress. The faster we tried to get through the course or around it or find the shortcuts, the less progress we seemed to make and we were tapped.

My dad tried very hard to do this same thing in recovery after a triple bypass. He was going to prove something to everyone by being fulled recovered after 3 months. All his wonderful efforts wrought him was depression, because there was no physical way his body could mend and reknit in that short amount of time for the level of damage to his body, and the trauma of the surgery. Remember your own analogy of the broken leg.

Dear Hope, you are a very strong woman, and I honestly believe you will find the healing you so deeply long for...but try and put the calendar and clock away. Watch WS's behavior and your heart. Time will pass. Strength will come. I pray that joy will follow or accompany that strength. (((hugs)))) All things in their time. Be well. BlueIris

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

This suits my way thinking to a tea! Great idea.

We all need our little cruches and I think I'll borrow yours. I think you have been far too generous with the MC bonus though. I'd also like to add some others

I'd suggest
-1 Week for every 2 MC sessions
-1 Week for every 2 IC sessions (WS)
-1 week for every IC session (BS)
For multiple A's compound the amounts (i.e. calculate the first, and add it to the second A, RESTARTING after DD2)
1M for each special thing "stolen" - i.e. things that only you and WS had done together, that WS did with OP.
2M for each "new" special thing - i.e. things that you and WS never did, that WS did with OP, particularly if it was something you had intended/wanted to do together.

With the last two you have to be your own judge of what a significant "thing" is, but the idea is if its something particularly special. (E.g. people who found out it happened in their home might include that)

For me then

ONS:
Standard 2 months
+2 confidence
+1 for stolen
+2 for new
==
7M

A:
Standard 2 months
+4 months for duration
+6 confidence
==
12M

Adjustments
-3 W for MC
-2 W for IC
==
-1M
===> 19M
50% remorseful as of about 8 weeks after Dday
so I've got 8.5 months left to go.

LOL! This is a hoot! Let's see..I'm 55 now, and by these calculations, I'll be celebrating my complete recovery and my 60th birthday at the same time!!! ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




Peace is not just the absence of war; it's an exercise in compassion. -Dalai Lama
Coming to you from JJ

Is that your H on your shoulder? Did I do that?! Jeeps, I'm terribly sorry if I did. I get pretty upset when I read other peoples' stories and sometimes the fairy dust and my wand go a bit crazy! :-o

ff

edited to add icons

Peace is not just the absence of war; it's an exercise in compassion. -Dalai Lama
Coming to you from JJ

OK, math has NEVER been my forte.

My simple formula is that recovery takes as long as it takes (damn!) and if we try to put some kind of time limit on it (other than the general 2 years formula), we may be very upset, disappointed with ourselves, despondent, and feel like a failure if the time limit we set comes and goes and we are not to the stage of healing at which we expected to be.

Better to focus on today and living today well, IMFO.

Anyway you look at it, just having to recover stinks because none of us ever believed we would find ourselves where we are. Thank goodness we have each other to help.

ff

edited to add: JJ, I'm blushing at the tribute! Thank you.

Hope:

When I was first in recovery, the counselor talked to us about how long it was going to take... I don't remember who brought it up. I remember telling him I thought we'd be recovered in about 1 year. I thought we would go quickly because we had such a strong marriage before D-day and I was so willing to forgive her.

I didn't count on her lying to herself and me. I didn't realize she had such big issues that would keep her from even doing a full confession for 7 years. I knew that I struggled with letting go of past hurts from other people, but I had been different with my wife. I didn't expect that in time I would begin to view her like those other people. I didn't realize that she would be paralized with fear and not do her part in recovery. I didn't know she was going to try to keep me from learning what I needed to know for recovery. I didn't know that it would be so hard for me to accept that she had an affair, that there was no excuse for it, that it would hurt so much for so long, and that I couldn't change those facts.

It takes about 45 minutes to bake a cake, IF you have a good recipe, start with good ingredients, mix the ingredients the right way, set the temperature on the oven correctly, and cook it on a nice day. Change any of those factors, and you might cook a lot of bad cakes, but you'll never bake a good cake until you get it right.

-Most of us need to work out our own recovery recipe.
-Most of us don't have good ingredients to start with (at a minimum, the WS must be lacking in some way, for what kind of person has an affair to begin with?)
-Few of us know how to mix the ingredients in such a traumatic situation
-We rarely know how to set the oven. Sometimes we don't even have an oven.
-The days in recovery are rarely sunny.

You put all that together, and you see why recovery is hard, why it takes so long.

I hope this isn't discouraging. You can heal, you WILL heal if you do the work, it just isn't easy. Eventually you learn how to bake the cake.

TomJ

I'm confused!! :O

Jetta

Multiply pi X the number of D-Days, square the # of OP's & add to the total. Add the number of baldfaced lies, excuses and rationalizations to this. If the WS doesn't get it, multiply by 10. If they do get it, divide by 5. This gives you your relative "anguish quotient". Take the estimate of the number of tears you have shed over the A's and add to the anguish quotient. If the total is a prime number, round up to the nearest whole number. If D Day #1 occurred in a month with an "r" in it, add 3.
The grand total is the number, in months, that you can be absolutely assured of complete healing and recovery.

Not to be facetious, but....perhaps this shows the absurdity of anyone trying to measure another's pain, the time it takes for them to heal, or even to try to give a statistical average.....
BB

Hi everyone! I love all of your responses you hit the gamut of laughing with me, being serious with me, and the absurdity of my notion as well as the absurdity of where we are all at! I felt it all as I wrote the post. I feel it all as I process and survive each day. Yesterday was a particularly up beat energetic day. Maybe I'd just crossed into the twilight zone.

Thank you for all of your replies!

thanks