Part Four: The Path to Restoring Relationships
Chapter 19: Questions about Restoring Relationships
Chapter 20: Disclosure: Why? How? When?
Why?
How?
When?
Post-Disclosure
Chapter 21: Questions about Disclosure
Chapter 22: Questions about Polygraph Exams
Chapter 23: Rebuilding Intimacy
Making Amends
Emotional Intimacy
Spiritual Intimacy
Sexual Intimacy
Chapter 24: Healthy Sexuality
Guy Talk
For Partners
Restarting Your Sexual Relationship
Touch and Oxytocin
Foreplay
Questions about Healthy Sexuality
Part Five: Detour into Relapse
Chapter 25: General Questions about Slips and Relapse
Chapter 26: Recovery from Slips and Relapses
Chapter 27: Preventing Relapse
Additional Relapse Prevention Tools
Adjust Your Expectations
Mindfulness in Relapse Prevention
Part Six: The Journey Home
Success Stories
Kangaroos and Emus
Appendix A: Finding Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Answers at a Glance
Appendix B: Recovery Programs at Hope & Freedom Counseling Services
Appendix C: Recovery Programs and Resources at a Circle of Joy
Appendix D: Additional Sex Addiction Resources
Twelve-Step Programs for Sex Addicts
Twelve-Step Programs for Partners of Sex Addicts
Twelve-Step Programs for Couples
Christian-Based Twelve-Step Meetings
Websites to Locate Therapists That Specialize in Sex Addiction
Intensive Outpatient Sex Addiction Treatment Programs
Inpatient Sex Addiction Treatment Centers
Christian-Based Workshops
Sex Addiction Recovery-Related Websites
Other Web-Based Resources
Inspirational Audio Messages for Sex Addiction Recovery
Twelve-Step Fellowships for Other Forms of Addiction/Compulsive Behaviors
The Twelve Steps of Sex Addicts Anonymous
When people ask me what kind of work I do, I’m never quite sure how to respond. And when I do (always as briefly as possible), they often squirm in discomfort. On occasion when a man has asked me follow–up questions, I’ve simply handed him my card and suggested he look at my website. Then, if after looking, he’s still interested, he can give me a call. As you may have guessed, those calls never come. The term sex addiction makes them uncomfortable.
The topic of sex addiction makes us all uncomfortable. Especially if we don’t understand what it means (and does not mean), how it starts in one’s life, how it impacts the lives it touches, and how to heal the wounds that usually fostered it in the first place.
Maybe I should simply introduce myself as a story bearer. We’ve all seen torchbearers for the Olympic Games on TV. But instead of a flame, I carry women’s stories tucked in the recesses of my heart. Hearing these stories and carrying them in my heart has taught me many things. I’ll share some of those lessons as I answer the many questions women have submitted for this book. But I want to share three of them here.
Pain Does Not Bow to Psychological Criteria
Women’s stories have taught me that the psychological criteria used to diagnose sex addiction do not matter to the heart. When your life is shattered because the one to whom you’ve entrusted your heart has sought emotional or physical gratification outside your relationship, you really don’t care whether a professional would label him a “real sex addict.” Fairly regularly, a new woman will say to me: “The counselor gave him a test and told him he is not a sex addict; does that mean I shouldn’t hurt? Is there something wrong with me for feeling this way?”
No, there is not something wrong with you. When vows, commitments, and treasured connections are violated between a man and his partner, it hurts. It makes no difference to a broken heart whether or not his behavior meets the required diagnostic criteria for sex addiction. Loss is loss. Pain is pain. And it’s all experienced as trauma, with or without a professional’s blessing.
There Are Treasures in the Trauma Chest
Treasures in the trauma chest? Are you crazy? I can almost hear women thinking these words as we approach this topic in groups. Granted, it’s an idea that may come further along the healing path for some than for others. Yet, many women realize fairly early on that buried beneath all the heartache, loss, and change their partner’s addiction brought to their lives, there are buried treasures.
What might those treasures be? Most gain a new understanding of themselves, their gifts, their strength, their courage, their tenacity, as well as their ability to love, to forgive, and to dust themselves off and begin again. They gain the ability to allow others to have their own feelings without losing their own peace. They gain the ability to grow healthy boundaries. And they gain empathy they could never have known without this shattering experience. Strikingly, couples who make it to the other side, still together, all say they have gained a relationship they would never have known if they’d been spared this challenging journey.
An Opportunity for Adventurous Growth
While
