Over”
How Partners Lose Power
Vanish the Victim
Collaborative Transparency
Your Higher Power
Identify Your Power Center
EXERCISE: Boundary Solution Step 3
CHAPTER SEVEN: BOUNDARY SOLUTION STEP 4: CREATING AND IMPLEMENTING YOUR ACTION PLAN
The Four Possible Actions
Contracts and Expectations
Demands, Ultimatums, and Requests
How to Make Effective Requests
Best Practices for Presenting a Request
Partner’s Challenges to Taking Action
Implementing Your Action Plan
Examples of Requests Made by Partners of Sex Addicts
Your Partner’s Rights when Receiving a Request
EXERCISE: Boundary Solution Step 4
CHAPTER EIGHT: BOUNDARY SOLUTION STEP 5: EVALUATE YOUR RESULTS—MISSION ACCOMPLISHED . . . OR NOT: WHEN BOUNDARIES ARE BROKEN
Celebrate Your Success!
When You Don’t Get the Outcome You Wanted
The Boundary Was Broken . . . What Now?
Your Options for Handling Broken Agreements and Boundary Violations
Self-Care, Consequences, and Punishment
Commit—with Confidence—to Your Consequence
EXERCISE: Boundary Solution Step 5
CHAPTER NINE: SPEED BUMPS, ROADBLOCKS, AND CRASH LANDINGS: HIDDEN BARRIERS TO BOUNDARY WORK AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM
Esteem and Worth
Difficulty with Emotional Regulation
Family and Financial Considerations
Addiction or Untreated Mental Health Concerns
Overvaluing the Relationship or the Addict (Love Addiction)
Family of Origin and Preexisting Adult Trauma
Secrets
Situations of Domestic Abuse
CHAPTER TEN: BURNING IS LEARNING: HOW YOUR NEW BOUNDARY MUSCLE WILL KEEP YOU STRONG AND SERENE FOR A LIFETIME
CHAPTER ELEVEN: PARTNERS BEYOND BETRAYAL: TRUST, GRATITUDE, AND FORGIVENESS
Will I Ever Trust Again?
Gratitude
Forgiveness
APPENDIX
5-Step Boundary Solution Clarifier
Boundary Evaluation
How to Take a Relational Time-Out in Six Steps
Talking Format and Request
Listening Format
Needs Inventory
Overview of the Boundary System
Stages of Healing for Partners of Sex Addicts
Suggested Recovery Check-In Items for Sex Addicts and Their Partners
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Love Addiction Test
RECOMMENDED READING
RESOURCES FOR PARTNERS OF SEX ADDICTS
Addiction in all its forms does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or spiritual beliefs—and sex addiction is no exception. There are female sex addicts as well as gay and lesbian sex addicts. There are female partners of sex addicts and there are male partners of sex addicts. While it’s true that the majority of people who seek help for sexually compulsive behavior are men, women also suffer from the devastating effects of sex addiction.
When speaking and writing about sex addicts and their partners, the sex addict is almost always referred to as a man, and his partner, wife, or spouse is referred to as a woman. Unfortunately, this heterocentric bias has the unintended consequence of excluding many—female sex addicts, same-sex couples, and others—who don’t fit the “norm.”
I remember a day in early August 2015 listening to one of my clients in session telling me a story about a friend of hers. She referred to the friend as “married . . . to a man.” It was the first time I had ever heard someone specifically state the gender of the person a woman was married to. The June 26, 2015 United States Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage has forever altered the way we think, and talk, about marriage and partnering.
In an effort to honor the diversity of marriage and the many faces of intimate partnerships, I originally attempted to vary the pronouns throughout the book by referring to the sex addict as “him” in some chapters while using “her” in others (and vice versa for partners). However, this method led to incongruent or confusing examples of behaviors and scenarios, and generally seemed to do little but distract from the subject at hand. Adding “or her” to every mention of “him,” and “or his” to every instance of “hers,” seemed just as convoluted. In the end I resolved, for the sake of simplicity, to simply keep with “him” and “his” throughout when referring to the sex addict and to “her” and “hers” when speaking of the partner. I ask the reader to stay cognizant of the fact that what is being said of male sex addicts of course also applies to female ones, and that what is true of female partners is equally applicable to their male counterparts.
No creative endeavor is born from the efforts of its creator alone. There are innumerable events and encounters that form the foundation and impulse to bring a book into being, and Moving Beyond Betrayal is no exception.
I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Pia Mellody for her practical yet profound teaching on boundaries. Her work has significantly informed my understanding of how boundaries operate in relationships. Pia’s persistent appeal to her students to be part of the solution, rather than the problem, has been a guiding principle in my life—both personally and professionally.
I
