Normalize therapy.

You installed Covenant Eyes because you wanted out. For a few weeks, maybe a few months, the screenshots and the reports made it feel like something was finally changing. The frequency dropped. The late-night slide into the phone got harder. And then something odd happened. The behavior slowed, but the pull didn’t. The fantasy kept running. The ogling kept happening. You started wondering, quietly at first, is Covenant Eyes enough for porn addiction, or is there something it was never going to touch? https://youtu.be/BRX1DdvO9xk If you’re asking that question, I want to say something up front. Covenant Eyes is not the problem. In my clinical work with men and women caught in pornography addiction, I’ve seen accountability software do real, legitimate work. It creates friction. It interrupts the automatic pattern. It gives you a moment of pause before the next click. And in the earliest, most volatile stage of trying to stop, that pause has protected marriages, jobs, and faith lives. But the question you’re sitting with is the right one. The software is a fence. A good fence. It is not, by itself, recovery. And if the fence has been up for a year or three and the addiction is still running on the inside of your head, you are not doing Covenant Eyes wrong. You are running into the one thing a fence cannot do. What Covenant Eyes Actually Does Well Before I name the limits, I want to honor what the tool is for. Covenant Eyes and similar products (Accountable2You, Ever Accountable, Canopy, Bark, and others) were built around a legitimate insight: the internet made pornography private, instant, and always available, which stripped away a lot of the old friction that used to slow people down. So the tool reintroduces friction. It puts eyes on the screen. It notifies someone you’ve asked to walk with you. When someone is not fully committed to stopping yet, the visibility alone can still change behavior. For people already in recovery, it removes the easy slip at 1 a.m. when willpower is always weakest. For parents, it does legitimate work keeping early exposure out of a ten-year-old’s phone. None of that is small. I routinely encourage clients to keep accountability software installed through the full length of their recovery work. I do not think of it as a temporary measure you graduate from. I think of it as a fence that stays on the property. The question is never whether to have the fence. The question is what to do about why you keep walking up to it. The Pattern I See in Session Many clients who sit down in my office with Covenant Eyes already running on their phone have some version of the same story. The software is working. The behavior has slowed. Real white-knuckle sobriety is happening, sometimes for months. And yet they are not better. They are often worse. This is where accountability software alone stops being enough for porn addiction, and where the real clinical work begins. If you recognize yourself in any of what follows, you are not failing at Covenant Eyes. You are running into its natural limits. The behavior stops but the fantasy doesn’t This is the most common one. The blocker catches the websites. It cannot stop the scenes already stored in your mind. Clients describe replaying pornography they watched years ago. They describe noticing someone at the grocery store and running a scene in their head on the drive home. The tool stopped the screen. The regulation strategy moved inside the skull, where no software will ever reach. You are finding workarounds, or thinking about them Many clients I sit with tell me they either find a way around the blocker or spend a lot of energy thinking about how to. A second device. An incognito window on a friend’s laptop. A business trip. A forgotten tablet in a drawer. This is not because the person is uniquely dishonest. It is because the underlying drive has not been addressed, so the nervous system keeps sending the signal, and the signal eventually finds a route. The accountability report has become routine The report still goes out. The partner or friend still sees it. The conversations, if they are happening, have become mechanical. Both people are going through the motions of accountability while the actual problem goes unaddressed. The fence is up. Nobody is talking about why the climber keeps coming back. The shame is worse than it used to be This one is counterintuitive. Over months and years, the shame can quietly intensify rather than relax. Because the behavior slowed but the interior state didn’t change, you now have proof, every week, that the thing inside you is still there. The report is no longer reassuring. It has become a scoreboard for a game you aren’t actually winning. Each of these is a sign, not of tool failure, but of something the tool was never designed to treat. What Porn Has Been Regulating All Along Here is the clinical truth almost no porn recovery product wants to say out loud: pornography use, for most people who come to me, is not fundamentally about sex. It is about regulation. Pornography is one of the most efficient nervous-system regulators available. It provides a quick dopamine shift, a shutdown of anxious activation, a brief experience of control when life feels out of control, and a counterfeit sense of connection when attachment is scarce. The brain was not designed to find that cocktail in a phone. When it does, it learns that pathway quickly, and it returns to it under specific conditions: loneliness, stress, shame, conflict, rejection, boredom, unresolved pain. Our clinical experience backs this up. A 2024 study in Archives of Sexual Behavior of over 1,000 adults found that attachment insecurity, both anxious and avoidant, predicts compulsive sexual behavior and problematic pornography use, and that emotion regulation difficulties mediate that relationship. In plain English: if a person struggles to feel safely connected, and if they lack the internal tools to regulate hard emotions, pornography becomes an increasingly strong pull. The porn use is downstream. The attachment and regulation deficits are upstream. We see the same pattern in other data. A 2022 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine identified difficulties in emotion regulation and loneliness as the strongest independent predictors of problematic pornography use. Not moral failure. Not a willpower defect. A specific, describable clinical pattern that treatment can actually address. Researcher Jay Stringer, studying nearly 4,000 people with unwanted sexual behavior, concluded that the behavior is never random. It is always pointing, like a signpost, toward something underneath: early attachment wounds, unmet needs for validation, unresolved trauma, sustained loneliness, chronic self-contempt. Now ask yourself what a blocker can do with any of that. It can stop the screen. It cannot repair an attachment rupture. It cannot metabolize a childhood wound. It cannot teach a nervous system to regulate something other than a dopamine hit. It was never supposed to. Why Accountability Without Interior Work Can Amplify the Shame Cycle I want to name one more dynamic carefully, because it is often misunderstood. Surveillance without clinical work can quietly turn up the shame dial over time. In a violent or coercive relationship, we would say something entirely different about monitoring. We are speaking here about a marriage or a friendship where safety is not the issue, and both people are trying, in good faith, to help. Here is the mechanism. Accountability software is built to make behavior visible. When the interior driver of that behavior is attachment rupture, trauma, or shame itself, making the behavior more visible without addressing the driver can create a feedback loop. The person sees, every week, a report of what their interior life just did. If the interior life has not changed, the report becomes proof that they are what they fear they are. A 2018 meta-analysis in Archives of Sexual Behavior found that moral incongruence, the distress of believing one thing and behaving another way, is one of the strongest predictors of self-perceived pornography addiction and the shame that attaches to it. More recent research links this shame spiral to worse outcomes, including depression, suicidal ideation, and increased likelihood of the relationship ending over the porn use itself. This does not mean Covenant Eyes is dangerous. It means visibility exposes whatever is underneath, and without care, that exposure can turn into shame. Shame is one of the most reliable fuels for the next relapse. You did not install Covenant Eyes to build a shame generator. If it has become one, the tool is not broken. The tool is missing its partner. How to Use the Fence the Way It Was Meant to Be Used Let me give you the frame I use with clients, because it changes how the tool works inside the therapy. Covenant Eyes is a fence. It is a good fence. Its job is not to make you holy. Its job is to slow you down long enough to ask a specific question when you feel the pull: why am I trying to climb over this right now? Not: why did I fail. Not: how do I hide better. Just: what am I actually reaching for, underneath the behavior, in this specific moment? If you are pulled toward the fence after a fight with your spouse, the answer might be about attachment threat. If it’s after a shame spike at work, it’s probably about self-worth and regulation. If it’s after a long stretch of loneliness, the driver is right there in the name. The fence doesn’t answer the question for you. It just buys you three seconds, a minute sometimes, to ask it. That pause is the tool’s real gift. Everything else follows from whether you use that gift. Almost every client I have seen move from managing the behavior to genuinely recovering does two things at once. They keep Covenant Eyes on. And they do the interior work that lets the pause become meaningful. What Covenant Eyes Plus Recovery Actually Looks Like Here is what the “plus” side actually looks like. Trauma-informed porn recovery therapy. Specifically, clinical work that can identify and treat the attachment patterns, early wounds, and nervous-system regulation deficits that are driving the behavior. In our practice this often means a combination of approaches rooted in attachment theory, body-based work that helps calm the nervous system, and for many clients, trauma therapies like EMDR or Internal Family Systems (IFS, which works with the different “parts” of a person that carry shame, protection, or pain). This is what actually changes what your brain is reaching for. Our porn addiction counseling page describes what that process looks like with us. Attachment repair with a partner, where one exists. Porn addiction almost always coexists with attachment rupture. The partner who has been watching the reports is often carrying betrayal trauma, whether that word has been said out loud or not. Couples work runs in parallel with the individual recovery, not instead of it. Women, by the way, struggle with pornography too, and betrayed partners come in every gender configuration. None of what I am writing here is specific to any one marriage shape. Community, as adjunct. Twelve-step groups like SAA, and for partners COSA or S-Anon, are real supports alongside clinical work. They are not a substitute for the therapy part, but they provide something therapy cannot: ongoing, frequent, peer-level community with people walking the same road. A realistic timeline. Recovery usually takes longer than people hope at first. We wrote a full piece on how long it takes to recover from pornography addiction if you want the fuller picture. What I will say here is that the timeline is not about counting days without porn. It is about the slow repair of the interior systems that were using porn in the first place. Awareness of the shame cycle. The shame-relapse loop is one of the most stubborn features of porn addiction, and it has its own dynamic worth understanding. If anything I have written above about shame amplification resonated, our article on the porn addiction, brain, shame, and relapse cycle goes deeper on what that loop is doing in the brain and how therapy addresses it. Keep the fence. Build the inside. That is the shape of actual recovery. The Part I Want You to Hear Covenant Eyes is an ally. It really is. What I hope you hear me saying is not that you have been doing recovery wrong, or that a tool you trusted has been the problem all along. The tool is doing the job it was designed for. The job it was not designed for is the one you came here asking about. Whether porn will finally stop being the thing your brain reaches for when something hurts, or feels lonely, or runs out of other ways to soften. That job is slow, relational, and human. It is what therapy, community, and honest work with a partner do. It is absolutely possible. It is not what software does. If you have been faithfully running accountability software for a year or two or five, and the behavior has shifted but the pull has not, you have not been failing. You have been carrying more of the load than one tool was ever meant to carry. You can keep the fence, and you can invite in the help that does what the fence cannot. Frequently Asked Questions Is Covenant Eyes enough to stop porn addiction on its own? For most people struggling with compulsive pornography use, accountability software alone is not enough for lasting recovery. It effectively interrupts behavior, especially early on, but it cannot treat the attachment patterns, trauma responses, and emotion regulation deficits that typically drive ongoing use. Long-term recovery usually requires pairing the tool with trauma-informed therapy, attachment repair, and community support. Should my partner be my accountability person and receive the Covenant Eyes reports? We generally recommend against this arrangement, even when both partners are willing. The partner of someone struggling with pornography use is almost always carrying their own betrayal trauma, and placing them in the monitor role tends to intensify their hypervigilance and tether their nervous system to the weekly reports instead of their own healing. A better structure is to have reports go to a recovery-aligned friend, pastor, mentor, sponsor, or same-gender accountability group member, while your partner is supported in their own betrayal trauma healing. Transparency with a partner remains essential. Monitoring by a partner is a different thing, and it tends to cost more than it gives. What should I add to Covenant Eyes if I am still relapsing? The most common missing pieces are clinical work that addresses the underlying drivers (trauma-informed therapy with a CSAT-trained or otherwise addiction-informed clinician), partner or couples work where relevant, and sustained community in a recovery group. If the fantasy and ogling are continuing even when the behavior has slowed, that is a strong signal that the regulation function of the behavior has not yet been addressed, which is specifically what therapy treats. What if the behavior has stopped but the fantasy has not? This is one of the most common patterns we see, and it is not a sign that you are failing. It is a sign that the underlying regulation pattern is still active, and the brain is running the pornography internally because the external access has been restricted. This is a clinical issue, not a willpower one, and it tends to resolve as trauma, attachment, and shame-based drivers get treated directly. 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The partner of someone struggling with pornography use is almost always carrying their own betrayal trauma, and placing them in the monitor role tends to intensify their hypervigilance and tether their nervous system to the weekly reports instead of their own healing. A better structure is to have reports go to a recovery-aligned friend, pastor, mentor, sponsor, or same-gender accountability group member, while your partner is supported in their own betrayal trauma healing."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "What should I add to Covenant Eyes if I am still relapsing?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "The most common missing pieces are clinical work that addresses the underlying drivers (trauma-informed therapy with a CSAT-trained or otherwise addiction-informed clinician), partner or couples work where relevant, and sustained community in a recovery group. If the fantasy and ogling are continuing even when the behavior has slowed, that is a strong signal that the regulation function of the behavior has not yet been addressed, which is specifically what therapy treats."}}, {"@type": "Question", "name": "What if the behavior has stopped but the fantasy has not?", "acceptedAnswer": {"@type": "Answer", "text": "This is one of the most common patterns we see, and it is not a sign that you are failing. It is a sign that the underlying regulation pattern is still active, and the brain is running the pornography internally because the external access has been restricted. This is a clinical issue, not a willpower one, and it tends to resolve as trauma, attachment, and shame-based drivers get treated directly."}}]} What to Do Next If you have been doing Covenant Eyes on your own and the addiction has not actually resolved, the work that comes next is not harder software. It is the clinical work that software was never designed to replace. A free consultation is a good place to start, and it costs you nothing to find out what might actually be underneath what you have been fighting. You can reach us here whenever you are ready.

You can learn every phrase. “I hear you.” “That makes sense.” “I’m not going to get defensive right now.” And your partner’s body can still be on guard when you walk into the room. https://youtu.be/s_NhBOl_QWE That gap, between the words you’ve practiced and what her nervous system reads off of you, is the whole problem. A viral Instagram carousel from @threepercent.co named this recently with seven markers of a safe man, and it circulated widely because women recognized the pattern in their own relationships. We want to take those markers seriously, put some clinical weight behind them, and be honest about what they actually ask of a man who wants to be genuinely safe rather than just convincingly safe. We’ve watched guys take the language home from session and deliver it almost perfectly. It doesn’t land the same. Their partners come back the next week still not breathing easier, and they don’t know why. It’s because safety is not something you say. It’s something she feels in her body. Safety Lives in the Body, Not in the Script Here’s what most men miss: safety isn’t a decision your partner makes with her thinking mind. It’s an assessment her nervous system runs continuously, below her conscious awareness. Stephen Porges, the neuroscientist who developed polyvagal theory, calls this neuroception. Porges describes safety as a state that emerges when the nervous system detects cues of genuine connection rather than threat, and those cues are largely physiological before they’re verbal. In practical terms: her body is scanning for congruence. Your tone, your breathing, the micro-expressions you don’t know you’re making, the quality of your attention, the tension in your jaw. Those signals land before your words do. If the signals say “I am here, I am with you, I can handle this moment” and your words say the same thing, her system can start to settle. If the signals and the words disagree, her body believes the signals. Every time. This is why rehearsed responses fail. A man who has memorized “I’m going to listen without getting defensive” while holding a jaw like a closed fist and a voice pitched two notes too high is telling his partner two different things at once. Her nervous system picks the more honest message. The partners we sit with are rarely confused about whether their husband is saying nice things. They’re trying to make sense of why they still don’t feel calm in the same room with him. Safe Is Not the Same as Nice A lot of men conflate being a safe man with being a nice man. They are not the same thing, and the difference matters. Nice is a surface posture. A nice man is easy to be around. He doesn’t start fights. He smooths things over. He’s well liked. He might also be conflict-avoidant, image-managing, quietly resentful, and deeply invested in being seen as one of the good ones. None of that is necessarily wrong. But none of it is safety. Safe is structural. A safe man holds a steady internal state under pressure. He stays present in hard conversations without collapsing or escalating. He tells the truth even when the truth is awkward. He can be disagreed with without retaliating in a hundred small ways over the next three days. You can lean your weight on a safe man and the floor doesn’t give. Nice men often can’t hold that. Nice men often fold or freeze, then make the relationship pay for it later. Partners of nice men describe a particular kind of loneliness: “He never does anything wrong, but I still can’t exhale.” The guys we sit with who are furthest from safe are often the ones most convinced they’re the good ones. Being nice was their whole strategy for avoiding becoming their fathers. It’s not enough. The 7 Markers of a Safe Man (and Their Counterfeits) Every marker below has a counterfeit version that looks similar from the outside and reads completely different inside her body. If you’re wondering whether you’re the real version or the convincing imitation, there’s a good chance her body has been picking up the difference for a long time. 1. He Regulates Himself Before He Engages The real version: he notices he’s activated, slows down, breathes, and comes back to the conversation from a steadier place. He can tolerate his own discomfort long enough to stay available to her. The counterfeit: he’s “calm,” which means he’s detached, withdrawn, or smug. He uses his composure as a weapon. The message is “I’m fine. You’re the emotional one.” Her body reads that as abandonment, not regulation. Regulation is not the absence of feeling. It’s the capacity to feel it and stay connected at the same time. 2. He Doesn’t Weaponize What She’s Told Him The real version: when she’s trusted him with something vulnerable, he treats it as sacred. He doesn’t bring it up in the middle of an argument to win. The counterfeit: ammunition collection disguised as good listening. He seems to be taking it all in. Three weeks later, her words are coming back at her in a fight. Her nervous system files that away: what she shares with him may not actually be safe. If she’s ever said to you “I can’t believe you just used that against me,” take it seriously. That moment costs more trust than most men realize. 3. He’s Genuinely Curious About Her Inner World The real version: he asks, and he actually wants to know. He doesn’t interrupt the answer. He doesn’t correct her interpretation of her own experience. He treats her inner life as its own country that he’s visiting, not a disorder he’s diagnosing. The counterfeit: explaining her to herself. “You’re not really angry. You’re tired.” “You’re overthinking this.” Esther Perel has written about the pull, in every couple, toward one partner defining reality for the other. In the safe version, both people keep the right to name their own experience. 4. He Tells the Truth, Especially About Himself The real version: he says the hard thing when it needs to be said, including about his own mistakes, his own patterns, and his own fears. His partner doesn’t have to be a detective to know what’s going on with him. The counterfeit: strategic disclosure. He tells her what’s useful for her to know. He shades the truth to protect his image. He says “I’m fine” about things he is demonstrably not fine about. She can feel the curation. Living with it is exhausting. 5. He Owns Impact Before He Defends Intent The real version: when she tells him something he did hurt, his first move is to understand the impact. He lets it land before he explains himself. The counterfeit: “I didn’t mean to” as a conversation closer. His intent becomes the whole subject. He makes her manage his guilt about the thing that hurt her. She ends up comforting him about her own wound, which is disorienting and, over time, crazy-making. John Gottman’s research has shown for decades that defensiveness is one of the most reliable predictors of relational breakdown. Owning impact is the antidote. 6. He Stays Connected Through Disagreement The real version: he can disagree with her and still feel close to her. He doesn’t need her to be wrong in order to be with him. The counterfeit: stonewalling dressed up as “keeping the peace.” He goes quiet. He walks away. He comes back hours later as if nothing happened. Her body knows something did happen. Repeated over years, this is one of the most corrosive patterns in a marriage. 7. He Does His Own Work The real version: he’s in therapy, in a men’s group, reading the books, doing the journaling, talking to a mentor, actually changing. His growth is his responsibility, not her project. The counterfeit: he outsources his healing to her patience. She becomes the therapist, the accountability partner, the explainer. She carries the cognitive and emotional labor of his change. Murray Bowen’s work on differentiation of self gives us a clear frame for why this pattern is so costly: when an adult fuses his wellbeing with his partner’s responses, satisfaction tends to drop for both people, not just for her. A man who does his own work creates the space for his partner to exist as a person rather than a resource. Why Defensiveness Is the Quiet Killer If we had to name the single pattern that undoes the most relationships we sit with, it would not be an explosive one. It would be defensiveness. And defensiveness is almost always self-protection. That’s the reframe that cracks things open for a lot of men. Defensiveness feels, from the inside, like a reasonable response to unfair attack. From the outside, from inside her body, it lands as “he’s protecting himself from me.” Self-protection does not make your partner calmer. It activates her more. The shift is from protecting yourself to protecting the bond. Early in our marriage, if Caleb was stressed about something, he wouldn’t bring it to Verlynda. He told himself he didn’t want to burden her. He thought that was care. What he was actually doing was protecting his own feelings of inadequacy, or shame about a mistake, or the discomfort of not knowing how to solve something. The version of Caleb she got in those moments was a wall. She knew she was being blocked, and the wall felt far less safe to her than whatever mess he was hiding. That’s the paradox. Self-protection in a marriage almost always reduces safety for your partner, because what she registers is not your fine language about “giving you space to handle it.” She registers the closed door. There’s a harder layer underneath this for some men. If you grew up inside patriarchal or misogynistic messaging, some of your baseline scripts about masculinity, emotional expression, authority in a relationship, or what women “really want” are running in the background. You don’t need to be ashamed of having inherited them. You do need to actually examine them. This has to come from a real re-examination of your values, your assumptions, and the way you move through the world. Not a vocabulary swap. Your partner’s nervous system can tell the difference between a man who is saying new words and a man who has actually changed his mind about something fundamental. The Reality Check Here’s the part most articles like this leave out. You don’t become a safe man to convince your partner to stay. You don’t do it to earn the lifting of a consequence. You don’t do it because you’ve made a deal with her. You become a safe man because that’s who you want to be. Because the version of you who is regulated, honest, non-defensive, curious, and doing his own work is a better man, full stop. If she feels the shift and her body starts to soften, that’s a good outcome. If she needs time, distance, or has already left, the work is still yours. Emotionally Focused Therapy shows us something important here: the attachment repairs that actually hold in couples are the ones tied to observable shifts in how both partners operate at a gut level, not just the words they use. The changes that stick are the ones rooted in actual growth, not in strategic performance. The women we sit with can often tell when a man is doing the work for her versus doing it because he’s decided he wants to become someone different. Only one of those actually lasts. This is your work. It is not her persuasion project. If you want support on that work, we offer counseling specifically for men who want to do the genuine version of this. You can reach out quietly. Conclusion Seven markers. A dozen counterfeits. One nervous system in your partner’s body that has been running this assessment since long before you knew you needed to take it seriously. The words matter less than you think. A real shift in who you are matters more than you want it to. Her body will know. That is not a threat. That is an invitation to stop performing and start becoming. Frequently Asked Questions How can I tell if I’m actually a safe man or just performing safety? The clearest indicator is not your self-assessment. It’s how your partner’s body responds to you over time. If she can relax in the same room with you without monitoring, if she brings you her hard things rather than hiding them, if she disagrees with you without bracing, those are nervous-system-level signals that the real thing is landing. If she still flinches, filters, or tiptoes, your words may be right while something deeper is still off. What’s the difference between a safe man and a nice guy? Nice is a surface posture focused on being well liked and avoiding conflict. Safe is a structural capacity to stay present, regulated, and honest under pressure. A nice guy often folds and then punishes the relationship later for the cost of folding. A safe man can hold steady through disagreement without retaliation or withdrawal. Can an unsafe man actually change? Yes, and we see it regularly in our practice. The change that sticks is the kind rooted in a real re-examination of a man’s values, defenses, and inherited scripts, usually with clinical or pastoral support. Change driven purely by the fear of losing a partner tends to be performative and collapses under the first real test. How long does it take for my partner to feel safe again? Her nervous system operates on its own timeline and will not be rushed. For partners who have experienced betrayal trauma, the repair window is typically measured in years, not weeks, and depends more on consistency than intensity. Trying to compress that timeline is itself an unsafe move. Is my partner’s lack of trust a sign I haven’t changed enough? Not necessarily. Her lack of trust is information, but it is information about her experience, not a verdict on your work. Sometimes the gap is real and you have more work to do. Sometimes the work is done and her body is still catching up. A therapist who works with both of you can help sort which is which. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "How can I tell if I'm actually a safe man or just performing safety?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The clearest indicator is not your self-assessment. It's how your partner's body responds to you over time. If she can relax in the same room with you without monitoring, if she brings you her hard things rather than hiding them, if she disagrees with you without bracing, those are nervous-system-level signals that the real thing is landing. 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He told you. Or you found out. Either way, you’re standing in the same room and it feels like the ground just opened up underneath you. https://youtu.be/EZTw3clH99g If you’re dealing with a porn addiction relapse right now, whether you’re the one who slipped or the partner who just learned about it, the next 72 hours matter more than you think. Not because this moment defines your entire recovery, but because what you both do right now will determine whether this setback becomes useful data or the beginning of the end. This article is a protocol. Not a lecture, not a pep talk. A step-by-step guide for couples who want to survive a relapse without burning down everything they’ve been building. We’ll walk through what both of you need to do, what to avoid, and why this moment, handled well, can actually make your recovery stronger than it was before. But before any of that, we need to answer a question most people skip entirely. Wait: Is This Actually a Relapse? The word “relapse” gets used loosely, and that’s a problem. Because what you call this moment changes everything about how you respond to it. In Alcoholics Anonymous, there’s a concept called the “dry drunk.” A dry drunk is someone who has stopped drinking but hasn’t actually engaged in recovery. They’re white-knuckling it. No meetings, no sponsor, no internal work. They’re sober in the narrowest technical sense, but the patterns of thinking and relating that fueled the addiction are completely intact. When a dry drunk picks up a drink again, that’s not a relapse. That’s a continuation of the same addiction with a gap in the middle. The Dry Drunk Pattern in Porn Addiction The same pattern shows up in porn addiction recovery, and it’s more common than most people realize. Some men stop viewing pornography for weeks or months, and their partners believe recovery is working. But nothing has actually changed underneath. There’s no therapeutic work, no accountability structure, no honest self-examination. The person has simply extended the period between acting out sessions. When they use pornography again, the spouse experiences it as a devastating relapse. But clinically, this isn’t a relapse in recovery. This is an active addiction running at a lower frequency. That distinction matters. It matters for the person using pornography, because it tells them the truth about where they actually are. And it matters for the partner, because the response to a relapse in genuine recovery looks very different from the response to discovering that recovery was never happening in the first place. The Three-Circle Framework: Naming What Happened In CSAT (Certified Sex Addiction Therapist) treatment, we use the three-circle worksheet to help individuals define their own boundaries with precision. The inner circle (red) contains the behaviors that constitute a full relapse: the specific sexual behaviors the person has committed to abstaining from. The middle circle (yellow) contains the warning signs and boundary behaviors, the slippery slope: lingering on social media, searching for triggering content, isolating. These are slips. The outer circle (green) contains healthy recovery behaviors. A slip is a yellow-circle moment. It’s a warning sign that something in the recovery plan needs attention. A relapse is a red inner-circle event. Both require a response, but the severity, the clinical meaning, and the conversation with your partner are different. If you and your therapist haven’t built a three-circle plan yet, that’s the first conversation to have after you finish reading this. Why You Can Only Relapse If You’re Actually in Recovery This is the reframe most couples miss, and it’s the one that changes the emotional temperature of the room. You cannot relapse from something you were never recovering from. The word “relapse” only applies when a person has been actively engaged in recovery: working with a therapist or group, building accountability, doing the internal work of understanding their triggers and patterns. When someone in that process stumbles, it’s a setback within a genuine effort. It is not a return to square one. Relapses are to be expected in recovery. That is not an excuse to have them. But it is a clinical reality that reshapes how both partners can think about what just happened. If he relapsed, it means he was actually in recovery. If she slipped, it means she had built something real enough to slip from. The addiction didn’t win. The recovery hit a complication. The Neural Reset Fallacy One of the most damaging beliefs couples carry into a relapse is the idea that one slip erases months of brain healing. It doesn’t. Neuroscience research on addiction recovery consistently shows that the neural pathways built during sustained recovery, the strengthened prefrontal cortex, the reduced reactivity in the reward system, do not vanish after a single episode. A 2019 review published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews found that recovery-related brain changes are cumulative, and while a relapse can temporarily reactivate old pathways, it does not eliminate the structural gains made during abstinence. Your brain keeps the progress. The work you put in is still there. What a relapse reveals is not that recovery failed, but that there’s a specific vulnerability in the recovery plan that needs to be addressed. The 72-Hour Relapse Protocol The first three days after a relapse are the highest-risk window for both the person in recovery and the relationship. Emotions are raw. Fear is running the show. This is when couples make the decisions they regret most: ultimatums, moving out, ending therapy, or on the other side, minimizing, lying about the scope, or retreating into silence. What follows is a protocol. It won’t make the pain disappear, but it will keep both of you from making this moment worse than it already is. For the Person in Recovery: Disclose, Don’t Hide If you have a disclosure agreement with your partner, honor it. That means telling them within 24 hours. Not waiting for them to find out. Not testing whether they’ll notice. Not telling yourself you’ll mention it at the next therapy session. The problem we see most often in clinical practice is not the relapse itself. It’s the delay. When a person waits days or weeks to disclose, or when the partner discovers it on their own, the betrayal of the concealment often causes more damage than the relapse. The partner’s internal narrative shifts from “he slipped” to “he’s been lying to me again.” Here is the reframe worth sitting with: proactive disclosure is one of the only moments in early recovery where you can actively earn trust. When you come to your partner before being caught, you are demonstrating that honoring the relationship matters more to you than protecting yourself from shame. That doesn’t obligate your partner to feel better about it right away. But it changes what kind of moment this is. It shifts the story from “I was caught again” to “he came to me.” That distinction is not small. It’s one of the most concrete, visible acts of vulnerability available in recovery, and over time, these moments are what rebuild trust. After disclosure, do two things immediately. First, run a HALT-B audit. HALT-B stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, Bored. These five states are the most common entry points for a slip. Before you do anything else, identify which one (or which combination) was present in the hours leading up to the relapse. This isn’t about making excuses. It’s about identifying the gap in your recovery plan. For example, if the HALT-B audit shows “Bored” every time a slip happens, the data tells you something important: the recovery plan isn’t missing willpower. It’s missing meaningful engagement, connection, or structure in the hours where idle time becomes dangerous. That’s a solvable problem. And you would never have identified it without treating the relapse as information. Second, journal the emotional lead-up. Write down what you were feeling in the hours before the relapse. Not what happened, but what you were feeling. Were you anxious? Resentful? Disconnected from your partner? Overwhelmed at work? This becomes clinical data. Bring it to your next session and let your therapist help you trace the thread. Every relapse that gets worked through this way makes the recovery more watertight, because it reveals the areas that haven’t been addressed deeply enough yet. For the Partner: Feel Everything, Decide Nothing Your pain is real and it deserves to be felt. But the first 24 to 48 hours after learning about a relapse are not the time to make permanent decisions. This is the Power of the Pause. When the nervous system is in fight, flight, or freeze mode, the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for rational decision-making, is significantly impaired. The urge to act immediately, to move out, to end the marriage, to call his mother, to check his phone, is not wisdom. It’s survival response. Those urges make sense. They are your body trying to protect you. But acting on them in this window often creates consequences that outlast the crisis. The rule: no big decisions for 24 to 48 hours. If you’ve already built a boundaries plan with your therapist, now is the time to refer back to it. A prepared list of options is far more reliable than a plan made from panic. If you haven’t built one yet, that becomes the next priority after this crisis stabilizes. When you’re ready to talk (not in the first hour, not when you’re still shaking), use the Softened Startup. This is a technique drawn from the Gottman method, and it follows a simple structure: Observation, then Feeling, then Need. It might sound robotic at first, and you might have to say it through tears or gritted teeth, but try to move from “You lied again” to “I am terrified right now because I feel like the ground has shifted, and I need a clear plan for what tomorrow looks like.” Compare that with the alternative: “You promised me this wouldn’t happen again. You’re never going to change.” The first version expresses the same pain. But it keeps the door open for a response that isn’t pure shame. And that matters, because when the person in recovery gets hit with what John Gottman calls a “harsh startup,” the most common reaction is shutdown. Not because they don’t care, but because shame floods the nervous system and makes honest conversation neurologically impossible. The Softened Startup protects your right to be heard while giving the conversation a chance of actually going somewhere useful. Two Ways Couples Navigate a Relapse In online support communities where couples share their experiences publicly, two patterns emerge repeatedly. One leads to deeper isolation. The other leads to deeper recovery. Poor Navigation (Addict Logic) Successful Navigation (Recovery Protocol) Discovery: The partner has to find out on their own Disclosure: The individual tells proactively Secrecy: “I’m protecting you by lying” Transparency: “I’m honoring you by being honest” Isolation: “I can fix this on my own” Community: Using a CSAT, sponsor, or group Shame-Spiral: “I’m a failure, everything is ruined” Curiosity: “What was the trigger? Let me run HALT-B” The left column is not a character flaw. It’s what addiction logic sounds like: self-protective, isolation-driven, shame-based. Every person in early recovery will default to the left column unless they’ve practiced the right one. That’s what the protocol is for. You don’t rise to the level of your intentions in a crisis. You fall to the level of your preparation. If you recognize your pattern in the left column, that recognition is itself a recovery moment. The question isn’t whether you’ve done it wrong before. The question is whether you’re willing to build the structure that makes the right column possible next time. What Comes After the Protocol Once the first 72 hours have passed and both of you have stabilized, three things need to happen. First, bring the relapse into your next therapy session. Not as a confession, but as clinical material. The journal notes, the HALT-B audit, the emotional lead-up: all of it is data. A skilled CSAT therapist will use that data to identify the gaps in the current recovery plan. Maybe the triggers were emotional and the plan was too behavioral. Maybe the accountability structure had a blind spot. Every relapse, when it’s processed in session, makes the recovery plan more precise. Second, revisit the three-circle worksheet together. Does it still reflect reality? Have any yellow-circle behaviors shifted closer to red? Have new warning signs appeared that weren’t on the original list? The worksheet is a living document. It should evolve as recovery deepens. Third, talk about what the partner needs going forward. Not what the person in recovery thinks they need. What the partner actually says they need. That conversation requires the Softened Startup structure and a therapist in the room if possible. The partner may need increased transparency, more frequent check-ins, a temporary change in living arrangements, or simply to hear, clearly and without defensiveness, that their pain is understood. Recovery from pornography addiction is not a straight line. Research published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions consistently shows that setbacks are a normative part of the recovery process for compulsive sexual behaviors, not an indicator of treatment failure. The couples who make it through are not the ones who never relapse. They are the ones who built a protocol for when it happens, and then they used it. The next 72 hours are about stability, not perfection. Below are the most common questions we hear from couples in this exact moment to help clear the fog. Is it normal to relapse during porn addiction recovery? Yes. Relapse is a recognized and expected part of the recovery process for compulsive sexual behaviors. Research consistently shows that setbacks occur in the majority of addiction recovery trajectories. A relapse does not mean recovery has failed. It means there is a specific vulnerability in the current recovery plan that needs clinical attention. The key factor is how the relapse is handled: whether it’s concealed or disclosed, and whether the emotional lead-up is examined and brought into therapy. What is the difference between a slip and a relapse in porn addiction? In CSAT treatment, a slip refers to a middle-circle (yellow) behavior: a warning sign or boundary behavior like lingering on social media or seeking out triggering content. A relapse is an inner-circle (red) behavior, meaning a return to the specific sexual behaviors the person committed to abstaining from. Both require attention, but the clinical severity and the conversation with a partner are different. A three-circle worksheet, built with a therapist, defines these boundaries for each individual. How do I tell my partner about a porn addiction relapse? Disclose proactively within 24 hours. Do not wait for your partner to discover it on their own. Be direct about what happened without minimizing or over-explaining. Use a calm setting, not in front of children or during an argument. If you have a disclosure agreement from therapy, follow it. Proactive disclosure, while painful, is one of the most concrete trust-building actions available in recovery because it demonstrates that honesty matters more than self-protection. Does a porn addiction relapse erase recovery progress? No. Neuroscience research shows that the brain changes built during sustained recovery, including strengthened prefrontal cortex function and reduced reward-system reactivity, are cumulative and do not disappear after a single episode. A relapse may temporarily reactivate old neural pathways, but the structural gains from months of recovery remain intact. The “reset to zero” belief is a myth that causes unnecessary despair. Should we go back to couples therapy after a relapse? Yes, and ideally with a therapist trained in sex addiction recovery (CSAT) or betrayal trauma. The relapse provides valuable clinical data: the emotional triggers, the HALT-B state, and the gaps in the current recovery plan. Bringing that data into a therapy session allows both partners to process the event together and update the recovery plan. Many couples find that the work done after a relapse is some of the most productive work in their entire recovery. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is it normal to relapse during porn addiction recovery?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. Relapse is a recognized and expected part of the recovery process for compulsive sexual behaviors. Research consistently shows that setbacks occur in the majority of addiction recovery trajectories. A relapse does not mean recovery has failed. It means there is a specific vulnerability in the current recovery plan that needs clinical attention." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the difference between a slip and a relapse in porn addiction?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "In CSAT treatment, a slip refers to a middle-circle (yellow) behavior, such as seeking out triggering content. 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Many couples find that post-relapse therapy work is some of the most productive in their entire recovery." } } ] } A porn addiction relapse is not a verdict on your marriage, your recovery, or your character. It is a moment that reveals where the recovery plan needs to go deeper. If you and your partner are navigating a relapse right now and want clinical support to process it together, a free consultation is a good place to start.

If you’ve asked this question, you’ve probably already lived the argument. You brought it up, and it got dismissed. “It’s just porn.” “You’re being unrealistic.” “Every guy does this.” And somewhere in the middle of that conversation, the focus shifted from what happened to you, to whether you even had the right to call it what it felt like. https://youtu.be/y7cws2if73k Is watching porn cheating? The honest answer is that it depends on how you define fidelity, and that the definitional debate is often exactly where the conversation gets weaponized against the person who was hurt. This article won’t tell you what to call it. What it will do is give you the research, the clinical picture, and a clear framework for understanding what pornography use actually does to a relationship. You can decide what you want to call it after that. The Debate Gets Used Against You There is a particular kind of conversation that happens when a partner brings up pornography use. The person who was hurt asks a legitimate question. The person who used it offers a technical defense. And the conversation moves from “what happened and how do we address it” to “can you even prove this is a real problem.” The Language of Minimizing In our practice, we hear the same phrases repeatedly from partners who use pornography. “It’s not like I slept with anyone.” “You’re the only one I’m with in real life.” “It doesn’t mean anything.” “Every guy does this.” Each of those statements may be technically true. Each of them also redirects attention away from the actual question, which is: what has this done to us? This is what we call minimizing language. It isn’t always calculated or deliberate. Sometimes the person saying it genuinely believes it. But the effect is the same. The focus moves from the harm to the definition, and the partner who was hurt is left carrying the burden of proof. What You Are Actually Asking Most partners who bring this question into our office aren’t asking for a verdict. They’re asking whether their own pain makes sense. They’ve been told, explicitly or implicitly, that their response is excessive. They want to know if there’s a legitimate basis for what they’re feeling. There is. And the research is clear about why. What the Research Actually Shows The evidence on pornography’s impact on relationships has grown substantially over the past two decades. What it consistently shows is that regular pornography use is not neutral for the people in a committed relationship, or for the relationship itself. How It Changes the Way Partners See Each Other A 2016 study by Rasmussen documented something researchers call contrast effects, meaning the brain begins comparing a real partner unfavorably to the people in pornography, which progressively erodes satisfaction with the actual relationship. The person using pornography may not be making these comparisons consciously. But the neural pattern is being built regardless, and it shows up in reduced desire and increasing dissatisfaction with the actual relationship. This isn’t a moral claim. It’s a neurological one. The brain responds to repeated visual stimulation by recalibrating its expectations. A real partner, with a real body and a real life, tends to lose that comparison. What It Does to Her A 2012 study by Stewart and Szymanski found that a partner’s pornography use predicted lower relationship quality and lower self-esteem in female partners. Critically, the research showed that self-esteem was mediated, meaning it was the pathway through which pornography use damaged the relationship, not just a side effect. Her sense of herself as desirable, valuable, and enough was being eroded, and that erosion was the mechanism through which the relationship deteriorated. Crawford and colleagues, in a 2023 grounded theory study (a qualitative research method where patterns emerge directly from participants’ own words rather than from a predetermined hypothesis), interviewed women whose partners had used pornography. What they found was that these women described the experience using language nearly identical to how people describe discovering a physical affair: betrayal, rupture of trust, and a fundamental questioning of the entire relationship. The Attachment Injury Underneath Research by Zitzman and Butler (2009) tracked what happened to relationships over time when pornography use was present. What they found was a progression they described as an attachment fault line. A fault line is a fracture in the relational foundation. Left unaddressed, it develops into a rift (a significant break in the emotional bond) and eventually estrangement (full emotional withdrawal from the relationship). These aren’t just evocative terms. They describe measurable stages in a relational process. Why This Feels Like Betrayal Even Without a Physical Act Intimate partnership is built on emotional availability, responsiveness, and the sense that your partner is orienting toward you. What pornography use often does, even when kept entirely secret, is create a competing source of sexual arousal that bypasses the actual partner. The betrayed partner often senses this before they have language for it. A feeling that something is off. A distance they can’t explain. A sense that their partner is physically present but somewhere else entirely. When they eventually discover the pornography use, they frequently describe it as confirmation of what they already knew, not as new information. That felt sense of absence is real. And it precedes the discovery. For more on how this kind of betrayal registers neurologically and physiologically, how betrayal trauma impacts the brain and body goes deeper on the physical experience of discovering a partner’s hidden behavior. The Secrecy Factor One of the clearest indicators that a behavior has crossed a relational boundary is that it requires concealment to continue. If pornography use were genuinely neutral for a relationship, it wouldn’t need to be hidden from a partner. Most pornography use in committed relationships involves exactly that: deleted browser history, use during times when a partner won’t notice, active denial if asked directly. The secrecy isn’t incidental. It reflects an awareness, however suppressed, that the partner would not consent to the behavior if they knew about it. That awareness matters, because it means one person has been making unilateral decisions about the terms of the relationship. What Fidelity Actually Requires This is where the definitional question is worth engaging directly. Fidelity, in its classical sense, doesn’t mean physical exclusivity alone. It means loyalty, trustworthiness, and the consistent prioritization of the relationship. The Ogling Question There is a meaningful distinction between noticing that someone is attractive and choosing to pursue that attraction. A committed person can find other people attractive. That’s not a failure of fidelity. What changes the relational calculus is intentionality: seeking out content for the purpose of sexual arousal, returning to it repeatedly, and keeping that behavior hidden from a partner. The question we sometimes put to couples in our office is this: Is your sexual attention something your partner would recognize as theirs? Or has a significant portion of it moved somewhere else? That question tends to cut through the definitional debate fairly quickly. What Partners Consistently Name as the Loss When we sit with betrayed partners, what they grieve isn’t usually an abstract principle. They grieve specific things: the feeling that they were enough. The assumption that their partner’s desire was oriented toward them. The belief that what they had was exclusive, even if the specific terms were never formally negotiated. These are legitimate relational expectations in a committed partnership. Their loss is a genuine injury, regardless of what we decide to call the cause. For the Man Who Is Watching If you’ve read this far and you’re the one who has been using pornography, this section isn’t written to condemn you. We work with men in this situation regularly, and what we see is that this behavior rarely started as an act of disregard for a partner. It usually started much earlier, often in adolescence, as a way to manage stress or loneliness or boredom, before any partner existed to be hurt by it. But you’re not in adolescence now. Seeing the Full Picture The research above describes, with some precision, what your use is doing to your partner. The contrast effects quietly reshaping how you perceive her. The self-esteem pathway through which she is being harmed. The attachment fault line opening underneath your relationship, whether you can see it or not. Most men who come into our office didn’t think it was doing that. They had operated on the assumption that what happened on a screen had nothing to do with what happened in the relationship. That assumption, the research is clear, is wrong. And now that you can see it more clearly, the question worth sitting with is this: knowing the pain this is causing her, what would you do to actually protect her? Not just to stop a behavior, but to become someone she can feel safe with again? What Protection Actually Looks Like Stopping the behavior is necessary. It isn’t sufficient. Genuine recovery means developing the capacity to be with the internal states that pornography was previously managing: stress, loneliness, boredom, emotional discomfort. That capacity can be built. It’s the actual work of recovery, and it changes not just the behavior but the person behind it. Pornography use tends to narrow emotional range over time. Recovery tends to expand it. The expanded capacity for presence, attunement, and genuine connection is what healthy intimacy actually requires. And it’s available to you, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now. If you’re ready to figure out what that process looks like in practice, a free consultation is a good starting point. If you and your partner are both trying to find a way forward together, infidelity recovery for couples is built for exactly this kind of breach. It provides a structured framework for rebuilding trust when one partner’s hidden behavior has damaged the foundation. Frequently Asked Questions Is watching pornography considered cheating? Whether pornography use constitutes cheating depends on the agreements within your relationship and how you define fidelity. What the research clearly shows is that regular pornography use causes measurable harm to partners’ self-esteem and relationship satisfaction, and that partners consistently describe the experience using the same language as infidelity. Whether or not you call it cheating, the relational harm is real and worth addressing directly. Why does my partner’s porn use feel like a betrayal even if we never discussed it? Most people in committed relationships carry an implicit expectation of sexual exclusivity, even without explicitly negotiating it. When pornography use is discovered, particularly when it has been kept secret, the breach of that implicit agreement is experienced as a betrayal of trust. Research using participants’ own words consistently finds that the experience closely parallels what people describe after discovering a physical affair. Can a marriage recover from pornography use? Recovery is possible, and we have seen it happen. But it requires more than stopping the behavior. It requires the person who used pornography to develop genuine understanding of the harm caused, to build transparency as a relational practice, and to develop healthier ways of managing the internal states that pornography was previously managing. It also requires real support for the betrayed partner, who has experienced a real injury and needs real recovery, not just reassurance. Should we go to couples counseling if my partner has been using pornography? Couples counseling can be helpful, but the readiness and motivation of both partners matters enormously. If the partner who used pornography is not yet genuinely accountable, couples work can inadvertently become another arena for minimizing. Individual support for the betrayed partner is often the right first step. When both partners are ready to engage honestly, infidelity recovery for couples provides a structured framework for working through the breach together. What is the difference between porn use and cheating? Pornography use and a physical affair differ in their mechanics, but they share a relational structure: a hidden behavior, the diversion of sexual energy away from the partner, and the breach of the implicit or explicit terms of fidelity. Research by Crawford and colleagues (2023) found that partners of pornography users describe their experience using language nearly identical to infidelity. The distinction between “porn use” and “cheating” is less clinically meaningful than the question of what the behavior has done to the trust and the attachment between partners. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is watching pornography considered cheating?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Whether pornography use constitutes cheating depends on the agreements within your relationship and how you define fidelity. What the research clearly shows is that regular pornography use causes measurable harm to partners' self-esteem and relationship satisfaction, and that partners consistently describe the experience using the same language as infidelity. 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It requires the person who used pornography to develop genuine understanding of the harm caused, to build transparency as a relational practice, and to develop healthier ways of managing the internal states that pornography was previously managing. It also requires real support for the betrayed partner, who has experienced a real injury and needs real recovery, not just reassurance." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Should we go to couples counseling if my partner has been using pornography?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Couples counseling can be helpful, but the readiness and motivation of both partners matters enormously. If the partner who used pornography is not yet genuinely accountable, couples work can inadvertently become another arena for minimizing. Individual support for the betrayed partner is often the right first step. When both partners are ready to engage honestly, infidelity recovery for couples provides a structured framework for working through the breach together." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the difference between porn use and cheating?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Pornography use and a physical affair differ in their mechanics, but they share a relational structure: a hidden behavior, the diversion of sexual energy away from the partner, and the breach of the implicit or explicit terms of fidelity. Research by Crawford and colleagues (2023) found that partners of pornography users describe their experience using language nearly identical to infidelity. The distinction between 'porn use' and 'cheating' is less clinically meaningful than the question of what the behavior has done to the trust and the attachment between partners." } } ] }

If you feel “crazy” for missing someone who hurts you, or “addicted” to a person you know is harmful, you are not broken. Your brain is responding the way brains tend to respond to a very specific pattern of fear and affection. A trauma bond is a powerful emotional attachment that forms between a person being abused and their abuser, built through repeated cycles of harm followed by relief, kindness, or apology. The result is a psychological dependency that feels physically impossible to break, even when you can see clearly that the relationship is hurting you. Safety First: If you are in immediate danger, please contact local emergency services or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. https://youtu.be/asszg-U6JB0 This article walks through the neuroscience of trauma bonding, the seven stages that map how these relationships develop, the body and relational signs that you may be in one, and the steps that actually help people break free. We’ve written it for adults who feel stuck in a relationship they know is unhealthy, and who want to understand why leaving feels so much harder than it should. By the end of this article, you will: Understand the brain science behind your emotional attachment Recognize the 7 stages of trauma bonding Identify the body, relational, and cognitive signs of a trauma bond Know the concrete steps to break free and begin healing What Is a Trauma Bond? A trauma bond is the intense emotional connection that develops between a person experiencing abuse and the person inflicting it. Dr. Patrick Carnes first named this pattern in his 1997 book The Betrayal Bond, describing how cycles of fear and relief misuse the brain’s attachment system to trap a person inside an abusive relationship. The most important thing to know up front is this: a trauma bond is a neurobiological survival response, not evidence of weakness, low self-worth, or poor judgment. When you are in danger, your brain is wired to attach to whoever appears to provide safety. In a trauma-bonded relationship, that “safe person” and the source of the threat are the same person. The result is a confusing reality where the one hurting you also feels like the only one who can comfort you. This is why trauma bonds form even in people who are otherwise discerning, capable, and clear-thinking outside the relationship. The brain is doing what brains do. The Neuroscience Behind Trauma Bonds Your brain runs on a system of rewards and threats. In a trauma-bonded relationship, that system gets hijacked through a process called intermittent reinforcement. Here is the mechanism. When abuse occurs, your body floods with stress hormones, especially cortisol and adrenaline. Your nervous system enters survival mode. Then, when the abuser shifts to kindness, an apology, a gift, or even just the absence of abuse, your brain releases dopamine. Dopamine is the same chemical involved in pleasure, reward, and relief. Your nervous system reads the drop in cortisol as “the threat passed,” and the dopamine surge feels like love. During those reconciliation phases, your brain also floods with oxytocin, the same bonding hormone that pairs a mother to her infant. Oxytocin strengthens bonding signals in the brain, which can make the attachment feel unusually hard to loosen. Detaching can feel physically painful, almost like skin being torn. The unpredictability is the engine. Because you cannot tell when the kindness will arrive, your brain becomes hyper-attuned to any small signal of warmth. The cycle of chronic stress followed by intermittent reward can condition the nervous system much like a slot machine conditions a gambler, and many of the same brain pathways are involved. This is why willpower alone rarely works. You are not staying because you are weak. You are staying because your nervous system has built a real, biochemical dependency on the relief that follows the harm. We tend to see this most clearly when clients describe feeling “fine” all day, then experiencing intense physical agitation in the evenings when the no-contact gap stretches longer. The body is asking for its dose. Recognizing the trauma bond as a biochemical pattern rather than a character flaw is the first move that makes breaking it possible. From there, the next thing that helps is being able to see the stages it tends to move through. The 7 Stages of Trauma Bonding Trauma bonds do not form overnight. They develop through a fairly predictable sequence of behaviors that gradually expand the abusive person’s control while eroding the other person’s sense of reality and self-worth. Carnes’ framework is often summarized in seven stages. Stage 1: Love Bombing The first stage is overwhelming positive attention. Constant texting, expensive gifts, fast declarations of love, intense focus that makes you feel uniquely chosen and seen. The intensity feels like fate or soulmate-level connection. Love bombing serves a purpose that becomes clear in hindsight. It establishes a “high” that you will later chase when the abuse begins. It also accelerates emotional commitment before you have had time to observe the other person’s character under stress. Stage 2: Trust and Dependency Once the emotional attachment is in place, the abusive person begins systematically increasing your dependency on them. This often looks like accelerating commitment (moving in fast, marriage pressure), encouraging financial reliance, gradually isolating you from friends and family, and becoming your primary source of emotional support. The isolation is rarely framed as isolation. It usually arrives disguised as love: “I just want you all to myself.” “Your friends don’t get us.” “Your family is toxic.” By the time you notice the social shrinkage, the abuser has become your whole world. Stage 3: Criticism and Devaluation The shift from adoration to criticism is usually gradual. The person who once praised everything begins finding fault with your appearance, decisions, body, ideas, and worth. This stage produces something therapists call cognitive dissonance, the very uncomfortable experience of holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time. You remember the love-bombing phase, so you assume the “real” person is the loving one and the critical version is just a bad day, or stress, or your fault. Because you’ve become dependent on their approval, you work harder to earn back the affection. You internalize the criticism. You begin to doubt your own self-worth and try to fix yourself to fix the relationship. Stage 4: Gaslighting Gaslighting is systematic reality distortion. The abuser denies events you remember clearly, minimizes your feelings, and reframes situations until you doubt your own memory, perception, and sanity. Phrases like “That never happened,” “You’re too sensitive,” and “You’re imagining things” become common. This stage is especially destabilizing because it erodes your ability to trust yourself. Once you cannot trust your own perceptions, you become dependent on the abuser to define what’s real. Stage 5: Resignation After repeated cycles of abuse, criticism, and gaslighting, many people enter a state of learned helplessness. You stop pushing back. You stop expressing needs. You focus entirely on managing the abuser’s mood to avoid the next conflict. This is not weakness. It is a survival adaptation. When fighting back or leaving feels impossible, the nervous system shifts into submission to minimize danger. It is the same mechanism that any mammal uses when escape is not an option. Stage 6: Loss of Self By this stage, your identity has been almost entirely absorbed into the relationship. You may have lost track of your own preferences, your own goals, what you find funny, what you want for dinner. The person you were before the relationship feels distant or unfamiliar. Your whole sense of self orbits the abuser’s needs and moods. Leaving feels not just frightening but unimaginable, because you literally do not know who you would be on the other side of it. Stage 7: Emotional Addiction The final stage is full emotional addiction to the abuse-relief cycle. You recognize the harm clearly, and you still feel unable to leave. The intermittent reinforcement has produced enough neurological conditioning that separation triggers real withdrawal symptoms: anxiety, depression, body pain, intrusive thoughts, and powerful urges to return. This is why people in abusive relationships often leave and come back multiple times. The addiction is real. Breaking it requires more than a decision. Signs You’re in a Trauma Bond Trauma bonds can be hard to identify from the inside, partly because the gaslighting stage trains you to doubt the very perceptions that would tip you off. It can help to look at the signs in three groups: what your body is doing, what the relational pattern looks like, and what your thinking has shifted into. Body signs: You feel hypervigilant around them, scanning their face, mood, and tone before you do anything else You experience physical stress responses (tight stomach, racing heart, shallow breathing, nausea) when they enter a room, even when nothing is happening You sleep poorly and feel exhausted in a way that does not match your workload You have headaches, gut issues, or chronic muscle tension without a medical explanation Relational signs: The relationship runs in extreme highs and lows, with very little middle ground You find yourself rationalizing or minimizing harmful behavior, especially to other people who notice it You have become more isolated from friends, family, hobbies, or work over time You walk on eggshells around their moods and find yourself adjusting your behavior to avoid setting them off Cognitive signs: You fixate on their potential (“They could be so good if they just…”) more than the actual pattern You believe you are the problem, even in situations where you can see clearly that you are not You feel certain you could not handle life without them, even though you handled life before them You replay the good moments often and use them to discount the harmful ones If most of these resonate, you may be in a trauma bond. Naming it is not a failure, and it is not a verdict on you. It is the first piece of accurate information your nervous system has had in a long time. Healthy Bonding vs. Trauma Bonding People in abusive relationships often mistake the intensity of the bond for the depth of love. Intensity and love are not the same thing. The table below names the differences across the parts of a relationship most people notice. Aspect Healthy Bonding Trauma Bonding Foundation Trust and safety Fear and unpredictability Communication Open, honest, and respectful Manipulation, lies, and control Boundaries Respected and encouraged Violated and punished Self-Worth Enhanced and supported Diminished and attacked Independence Encouraged and celebrated Discouraged and punished After Conflict Resolution and growth Relief followed by anxiety Other Relationships Supported and welcomed Isolated and criticized For a fuller picture of what the left column actually feels like from the inside, our piece on secure attachment in a healthy relationship walks through how it shows up in the body and the day-to-day. Trauma Bonding vs. Codependency Trauma bonding and codependency overlap enough that they get used interchangeably, but they are not the same pattern. The simplest way to tell them apart is to look at what’s driving the stuckness. Trauma bonding is driven by the relationship itself, specifically by the intermittent reinforcement cycle of abuse and relief that produces a neurochemical attachment. The pull is toward the person who hurts you, and it tends to persist even when no caretaking is involved. Codependency is driven by your role inside a relationship, usually a learned pattern of finding identity and worth by meeting another person’s needs, often at the expense of your own. It is more typical when the other person has an active addiction, mental health condition, or chronic crisis you are managing. A relationship can involve both at once. Many do. But the distinction matters because the work to address each is different. Trauma bonding work is largely about safety, nervous system regulation, and breaking the addictive cycle. Codependency work is largely about identity, boundaries, and developing a self that can hold its own ground. If the harm pattern in your relationship is infidelity, sex addiction, or chronic deception rather than overt abuse, our companion piece on trauma bonding in betrayal trauma is the closer read. How to Break a Trauma Bond Breaking a trauma bond is one of the harder things a person can do, and the difficulty is not a sign you are doing it wrong. The path below is the same one we walk with clients, and it tends to work best when it is taken in order rather than skipped around. 1. Get an accurate picture. Start documenting what’s actually happening, in writing, in factual language. Dates, behaviors, your emotional response. The gaslighting stage is designed to make you doubt your own memory, and a written record is the antidote. Many people find that just three or four weeks of journal entries make the pattern impossible to miss. 2. Build a safety plan before you do anything visible. If there is any risk of physical retaliation, secure documents, set aside emergency funds, save the numbers of people you can call, and identify safe places to go. Work with a domestic violence advocate or trauma-informed therapist on this step if at all possible. Do not announce your plan to the abuser. 3. Move toward no contact, or the strictest contact possible. When it is safe and possible, cutting contact is often one of the most effective moves for breaking a trauma bond, because it stops feeding the neurochemical cycle. Block phone numbers, mute social media, route shared logistics (kids, finances) through a third party or written communication only. Be ready for “hoovering,” the manipulation tactic where the abuser sweeps back in with promises, gifts, or a manufactured crisis. The urge to respond will be intense and is not evidence that you should. 4. Expect withdrawal, and plan for it. The first few weeks often feel less like freedom and more like a chemical comedown. Anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts about the other person, physical agitation, and overwhelming urges to make contact are all standard. We tend to see two predictable failure points in this phase: the 2 a.m. urge to call, and the social media check that escalates over a few days until contact resumes. Naming these in advance and having a plan for each (a friend to text, a script for what to do instead) helps far more than willpower. 5. Rebuild your support system. Reconnect with the people the relationship pushed away, even when it is awkward. Add a support group of people who have walked this. Add a trauma-informed therapist if you don’t already have one. Isolation is what the bond was built in; connection is what it dissolves in. 6. Address the underlying nervous system pattern. Once the immediate exit is stable, deeper work begins on rewiring the nervous system patterns that the bond hijacked. EMDR, somatic therapies, and IFS-informed trauma therapy are all common parts of that work. A nervous-system-based approach to breaking a trauma bond goes deeper on this part. A note on the “but I love them” feeling that often shows up in this process. Of course you would feel that, the bond was engineered to produce exactly that feeling. The presence of love-feelings is not evidence the relationship is safe, any more than a slot machine’s near-miss is evidence the machine is fair. The feelings can be real and the relationship can still be the thing that’s hurting you. Both can be true at once. Your Path Forward: Healing and Recovery If you’ve recognized yourself in this article, the fact that a trauma bond formed says nothing about your intelligence, your judgment, or your worth. Trauma bonds form because of how the human brain is built. Anyone, in the right combination of vulnerability and tactics, can be caught in one. The neural patterns the bond built can be changed. Your sense of self can be rebuilt. Healthy relationships are available to you on the other side of this. Many people we work with are surprised that the agitation can begin to drop once no contact is stable, even when the grief lingers longer. The immediate next steps look like this: Name the pattern. Reading this article has started that. Keep learning what trauma bonding actually is so the gaslighting voice in your head has less ground to stand on. Tell one safe person. Pick one trusted friend, family member, or professional and break the isolation the abuse built. You do not have to do this in front of an audience. Get a safety plan in place. If you are still in the relationship, work with a domestic violence advocate or trauma therapist to build a safe exit. Consider clearing your browser history so the other person doesn’t see this article. Get trauma-informed support. A therapist who understands the neurobiology of trauma bonds, and does not treat this as a generic relationship problem, makes a real difference. You do not have to do this alone. Our trauma-trained therapists at Therapevo work with people who are still in trauma-bonded relationships and people who are trying to stay out. We understand the neuroscience and the pull-back urges that can make leaving feel so hard. Book a free 20-minute consultation to talk about what support could look like for you. Frequently Asked Questions Can trauma bonds be healed while staying in the relationship? Real healing from a trauma bond requires safety, and safety is rare while the relationship that produced it is still active. The same intermittent reinforcement that created the bond will keep reinforcing it. There are situations where leaving immediately isn’t possible, and harm reduction work matters, but the foundational healing usually requires creating real distance. How long does it take to break a trauma bond? There is no universal timeline. The work depends on how long and how severe the relationship was, your access to support, your therapy resources, and any earlier trauma history that the bond grew on top of. We tend to see the most intense withdrawal in the first two to six weeks of no contact, with meaningful identity reconstruction happening over the months that follow. What are the 7 stages of trauma bonding? The seven stages, drawn from Patrick Carnes’ work, are: love bombing, trust and dependency, criticism and devaluation, gaslighting, resignation, loss of self, and emotional addiction. Relationships do not always move through them in clean order, and not every relationship hits every stage, but the sequence captures how the bond typically deepens. How do you know if you’re in a trauma bond? The clearest signals are: extreme highs and lows with very little middle ground, hypervigilance around the other person’s mood, finding yourself defending or minimizing harmful behavior to people who notice it, progressive isolation from your other relationships, and the feeling that you could not function without the person even when they are the source of most of your distress. If several of those fit, it’s worth talking to a trauma-informed therapist. What’s the difference between trauma bonding and Stockholm syndrome? Stockholm syndrome is a specific form of traumatic bonding originally described in captivity situations, such as kidnappings. Trauma bonding is the broader pattern, and it applies anywhere the abuse-affection cycle creates an unhealthy attachment, including romantic relationships, parent-child relationships, workplaces, and high-control religious or community groups. All Stockholm syndrome involves a trauma bond. Most trauma bonds are not Stockholm syndrome. Is it normal to miss your abuser after leaving? Yes, and intensely. Missing the other person is part of the withdrawal process from a real biochemical attachment. It does not mean you made the wrong choice or that the relationship was actually good. It means your nervous system is recalibrating after losing a substance it became dependent on. The missing tends to drop sharply once no contact has held for several weeks, even when the grief takes longer. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can trauma bonds be healed while staying in the relationship?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Real healing from a trauma bond requires safety, and safety is rare while the relationship that produced it is still active. The same intermittent reinforcement that created the bond will keep reinforcing it. 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If several of those fit, it's worth talking to a trauma-informed therapist." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What's the difference between trauma bonding and Stockholm syndrome?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Stockholm syndrome is a specific form of traumatic bonding originally described in captivity situations, such as kidnappings. Trauma bonding is the broader pattern, and it applies anywhere the abuse-affection cycle creates an unhealthy attachment, including romantic relationships, parent-child relationships, workplaces, and high-control religious or community groups. All Stockholm syndrome involves a trauma bond. Most trauma bonds are not Stockholm syndrome." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is it normal to miss your abuser after leaving?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes, and intensely. Missing the other person is part of the withdrawal process from a real biochemical attachment. It does not mean you made the wrong choice or that the relationship was actually good. It means your nervous system is recalibrating after losing a substance it became dependent on. The missing tends to drop sharply once no contact has held for several weeks, even when the grief takes longer." } } ] } Therapevo Counselling Inc. specializes in trauma therapy and walking with people who are trapped in, or recovering from, abusive relationships. If you are ready to understand what is happening to you and start the work of getting free, we are here to help.

You haven’t been the same since you found out. You read the texts, or sat through the disclosure, or saw the screen, and something inside you broke that you can’t quite name. People keep telling you to “process it” or “give it time,” and you nod, because what else are you supposed to do. But sleep won’t come. Food has no taste. You replay the same sixty seconds of conversation a hundred times a day, and your body shakes for reasons you can’t explain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ssPRmnkbM What you’re experiencing is not weakness. It is not overreaction. The effects of betrayal on the brain are real, measurable, and well-documented, and what’s happening to you is closer to a neurological injury than a bad mood. Understanding that distinction changes everything about what comes next. This article walks through what betrayal trauma actually does to your brain and body, what the symptoms look like, and what genuine recovery requires. We’ve spent years sitting with people in the early weeks after discovery, and the single most stabilizing thing we can offer is this: there is a reason for what you’re feeling, and there is a path through it. What Is Betrayal Trauma? Betrayal trauma was first described by psychologist Dr. Jennifer Freyd in the 1990s. Her research drew a line between general trauma and a specific category: trauma caused by the very person you depended on for safety, attachment, or survival. A car accident is traumatic. A natural disaster is traumatic. But when the source of the harm is the person you trusted to have your back, your brain does something different with it. Freyd’s term for this category is significant. She didn’t call it “infidelity stress” or “relationship distress.” She called it trauma, because the brain processes it as one. The attachment system, which is the part of you wired from infancy to seek closeness with safe others, gets hit at the same time as the threat-detection system. The two are usually opposites. Now they are pointed at the same person. This is why betrayal trauma is so disorienting. Ordinary trauma teaches you to avoid the source. Betrayal trauma asks you to stay in proximity to it, often in the same house, often in the same bed, while every alarm bell in your nervous system is ringing. The Effects of Betrayal on the Brain: What the Neuroscience Shows When your brain registers a betrayal, the threat-response system fires before your conscious mind has caught up. Three regions take the heaviest load. The Amygdala Goes Into Overdrive The amygdala is your brain’s alarm system. After betrayal, it stays switched on. Sometimes for months. A song on the radio, the sight of a phone screen, the wrong cologne in a hallway: any of it can drop you into full-body panic with no warning. Your amygdala has spent the last few weeks tagging ordinary stimuli as dangerous, and now it can’t tell the difference between a memory and a threat. The Prefrontal Cortex Goes Offline The prefrontal cortex is the part of you that reasons, plans, and regulates emotion. Under sustained threat, blood and oxygen get pulled away from it and routed to survival systems. So you can’t think straight. You can’t decide what to make for dinner. You forget what you walked into the kitchen for. Friends say “you don’t seem like yourself,” and they’re right. The part of your brain that runs “yourself” is operating on reduced power. The Hippocampus Can’t File the Memory The hippocampus is what stamps an experience with a time and place so your brain can store it as past. Trauma overwhelms it. The memory gets stored without the “this happened then” tag, which is why intrusive thoughts feel like they’re happening now, every time. Your brain isn’t being dramatic. It hasn’t finished the filing. All of this drives a hormonal cascade. Cortisol and adrenaline stay elevated. The vagus nerve, which connects your brain to your gut, heart, and lungs, registers chronic threat and shifts your body into a sustained sympathetic state. That’s the bridge between brain effects and body symptoms, and it’s why betrayal trauma is never just emotional. Betrayal Trauma Symptoms: What You’re Actually Feeling Betrayal trauma symptoms cluster into four groups: cognitive, emotional, physical, and behavioral. Most people experience some from each category. Reading them in one place often produces the response we hear most often in session: “I thought I was the only one.” Cognitive Symptoms Intrusive thoughts and images that arrive uninvited. Mental replay of the discovery moment. Difficulty concentrating. Forgetfulness. Trouble making small decisions. Hypervigilance, which often shows up as compulsively checking phones, receipts, or location apps. Many people describe a kind of mental static that makes reading or following a conversation almost impossible. Emotional Symptoms Waves of grief, rage, terror, numbness, and sometimes all four in the same hour. A flatness that feels like depression but functions differently. A loss of trust that extends past the partner to the world itself. Shame, often misplaced, often crushing. Many betrayed partners report a particular form of loneliness: the people who would normally comfort them are the people who can’t be told. Physical Symptoms Sleep disruption, particularly waking at 3 or 4 a.m. with a racing mind. Appetite changes, both directions. Chest tightness. Stomach problems. Muscle tension that lodges in the jaw, shoulders, or low back. Headaches. Recurring colds and infections as the immune system takes the hit of sustained cortisol. Some people lose meaningful weight in the first month without trying. Behavioral Symptoms Avoidance of places, songs, or routines. Compulsive information seeking. Withdrawing from friends. Snapping at children. Difficulty being present at work. A sudden inability to tolerate ambiguity, even small ambiguity, because the betrayal taught your nervous system that ambiguity hides danger. If you recognize yourself in this list, what you have is a coherent neurobiological response to a real injury. You are not unstable. You are reacting to something your brain wasn’t designed to absorb. Why Some People Don’t See the Betrayal Coming Jennifer Freyd’s research also produced a concept called betrayal blindness. When the person harming you is also the person you depend on for survival, attachment, or financial stability, your brain can suppress the awareness of harm in order to preserve the relationship. This is not denial in the conscious sense. It is a protective mechanism that keeps the attachment intact when leaving feels impossible. Betrayal blindness is why so many people, looking back, can name a dozen small moments where something felt off. The phone turned face down. The unexplained late nights. The defensiveness when you asked an ordinary question. The brain registered all of it. The brain also filed it where you couldn’t quite reach it, because reaching it would have meant losing the relationship before you were ready to lose it. If you’re now blaming yourself for not seeing what was happening, please take this in: betrayal blindness is a feature of how attachment works, not a flaw in how you do. The same wiring that helps an infant trust a caregiver who isn’t always reliable is the wiring that kept you from seeing what your conscious mind couldn’t yet hold. What We See in Practice In our CSAT-trained work at Therapevo, one pattern shows up almost universally in the first six weeks: clients apologize for their reactions. They apologize for crying. They apologize for asking the same question three times. They apologize for not being able to remember whether they ate lunch. The shame around the response often eclipses the shame around what was done to them. Part of what stabilizes the early weeks is simply naming what’s happening. When someone hears that the brain fog and the 3 a.m. waking and the shaking hands are a documented, expected response to a survival-level threat, something settles. Not all the way. But enough to start. The other thing we see consistently: the people who recover most fully are not the ones who push through fastest. They’re the ones who let the response be what it is, get appropriate support, and resist the cultural pressure to “be okay” before their nervous system has caught up. How Betrayal Trauma Shows Up in the Body Because the vagus nerve runs from the brainstem through the chest and abdomen, sustained nervous-system activation produces real physical pathology. Common physical effects include: Sleep architecture disruption. Even when you do sleep, the deep stages where the body repairs itself are shortened. You can sleep eight hours and still feel exhausted. Digestive distress. The gut has its own dense network of nerves, and chronic threat activation reliably produces nausea, appetite swings, IBS-like symptoms, and food intolerances that weren’t there before. Cardiovascular strain. Elevated resting heart rate, blood pressure changes, and chest tightness are common. Most are reversible once the nervous system stabilizes, but they’re real while they’re happening. Immune suppression. Sustained cortisol blunts immune function. Many betrayed partners catch every bug going around in the first few months. Hormonal disruption. Menstrual cycle changes, libido shifts, and thyroid function changes have all been documented in trauma research. None of these are imagined. None of them mean something is medically wrong with you in a permanent sense. They mean your body is doing exactly what it does under sustained threat, and they typically begin to resolve once safety is reestablished and trauma-informed support is in place. Betrayal Trauma Recovery: What Healing Actually Looks Like Recovery from betrayal trauma is not a straight line, and it is not a checklist. But it does follow a recognizable arc. Most clinicians who work in this area describe three broad phases. Phase One: Stabilization The first phase is not about processing the betrayal. It is about getting your nervous system out of crisis. This means basic regulation: sleep, food, hydration, and predictable routines. It means information, because uncertainty keeps the threat system activated. It often means a structured therapeutic disclosure, where the betrayed partner gets a complete and verifiable account of what actually happened, so the brain stops scanning for new revelations. Stabilization is also where appropriate support enters: a trauma-trained therapist for the betrayed partner, a separate clinician for the partner who acted out, and often a structured peer group. People who try to skip stabilization and move straight to “working on the marriage” almost always regress. Phase Two: Trauma Processing Once the nervous system is regulated enough to tolerate it, the work shifts to processing the trauma itself. Modalities like EMDR, somatic experiencing, and trauma-focused cognitive therapy help the brain finally file the experience as past rather than present. This is the phase where intrusive thoughts begin to subside, where the body releases held tension, and where you start to remember who you were before the betrayal without that memory triggering grief. Phase two often includes grief work that goes beyond the betrayal itself. People grieve the marriage they thought they had, the future they had pictured, the version of their partner that turned out to be partially constructed. Phase Three: Restoration The final phase is about rebuilding a life. For some couples, this is the phase where serious relationship repair becomes possible, anchored in real changes from the partner who acted out. For other people, it’s the phase where they rebuild their life apart. Both are legitimate outcomes. The point of recovery is not to save the marriage at all costs. The point is to get the betrayed partner free of the trauma response and back into their own life, whatever shape that life takes. Across all three phases, two things consistently predict good outcomes: trauma-informed professional support, and the betrayed partner having space to feel what they actually feel without being managed or rushed. Can the Brain Heal from Betrayal Trauma? Yes. The brain has a property called neuroplasticity, which is its capacity to form new neural pathways throughout life. The same brain that learned to scan every interaction for threat can learn to settle again. The amygdala can quiet. The prefrontal cortex can come back online. The hippocampus can finally file the memory as past. This doesn’t happen on its own and it doesn’t happen on a fixed timeline, but it does happen. We’ve watched it happen hundreds of times. The brain is not damaged. It is responding exactly as it was designed to respond to a particular kind of injury, and like other injuries, it heals when given the right conditions. If you’re in the early weeks and reading this through brain fog and exhaustion, the timeline doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that the response you’re having is not who you are. It’s what you’re going through. When to Get Support If any of the following are true for you, working with a therapist trained in betrayal trauma is the most useful next step: You’re more than two weeks past discovery and your sleep, appetite, or daily functioning hasn’t begun to stabilize. You’re having intrusive thoughts that interrupt your ability to work or care for your kids. You’re in the same household as the partner who betrayed you and the proximity is keeping your nervous system in constant alarm. You’re isolated from the people who would normally support you. You’re starting to question your own perception of reality, especially if your partner is minimizing or denying what happened. If trust has been broken and you’re not sure what to do next, our page on when you can’t trust your spouse walks through what’s normal in the early weeks. If you’re feeling pulled back into the relationship in confusing ways even after the betrayal, trauma bonding in betrayal trauma may be part of what’s happening. Our work with betrayed partners is described on the healing for the betrayed page, and a free consultation is a reasonable place to start if you’re not sure where to begin. Frequently Asked Questions What does betrayal trauma do to the brain? It puts your brain into a sustained survival response. The amygdala stays on high alert and starts treating ordinary cues as threats, which is why a song or a phone notification can trigger panic. The prefrontal cortex, which handles reasoning and emotional regulation, runs on reduced power, which is why decision-making and concentration suffer. The hippocampus loses its ability to time-stamp the experience as past, which is why memories of the betrayal feel like they’re happening in real time. These are documented neurobiological changes, not character flaws. Can the brain heal from betrayal trauma? Yes. The brain is neuroplastic, meaning it forms new neural pathways throughout life. With the right support, the alarm settles, the reasoning systems come back online, and the brain finally files the memory as past. Healing is rarely linear. It usually takes between six and eighteen months of consistent work with a trauma-trained therapist, often using approaches like EMDR, somatic therapy, or trauma-focused cognitive therapy. What are the physical symptoms of betrayal trauma? The most common physical symptoms are disrupted sleep, appetite changes, a tight chest, gut problems, jaw and shoulder tension, headaches, and a noticeable drop in immune function. Many betrayed partners also report changes in their menstrual cycle or libido. These show up because the sympathetic nervous system is stuck in a high-output state, and the body wasn’t designed to run on emergency settings indefinitely. Most physical symptoms ease as the nervous system stabilizes. How long does betrayal trauma last? There’s no fixed timeline, but most people move through recognizable phases. The acute crisis usually lasts six to twelve weeks, when sleep and functioning are most affected. Active trauma processing typically takes six to eighteen months. People often feel meaningful relief well before the work is “done,” especially once they understand what’s actually happening in their brain and body and have professional support in place. Is betrayal trauma the same as PTSD? It’s closely related. Betrayal trauma produces symptoms that overlap heavily with PTSD, including hypervigilance, flashbacks, avoidance, and emotional dysregulation. Some clinicians use the term post-infidelity stress disorder for this presentation. The key difference is that an attachment figure caused the harm, which makes recovery more complicated because your nervous system has to navigate threat and attachment toward the same person at the same time. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What does betrayal trauma do to the brain?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It puts your brain into a sustained survival response. The amygdala stays on high alert and starts treating ordinary cues as threats, which is why a song or a phone notification can trigger panic. The prefrontal cortex, which handles reasoning and emotional regulation, runs on reduced power, which is why decision-making and concentration suffer. The hippocampus loses its ability to time-stamp the experience as past, which is why memories of the betrayal feel like they're happening in real time. These are documented neurobiological changes, not character flaws." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can the brain heal from betrayal trauma?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. The brain is neuroplastic, meaning it forms new neural pathways throughout life. With the right support, the alarm settles, the reasoning systems come back online, and the brain finally files the memory as past. Healing is rarely linear. It usually takes between six and eighteen months of consistent work with a trauma-trained therapist, often using approaches like EMDR, somatic therapy, or trauma-focused cognitive therapy." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are the physical symptoms of betrayal trauma?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The most common physical symptoms are disrupted sleep, appetite changes, a tight chest, gut problems, jaw and shoulder tension, headaches, and a noticeable drop in immune function. Many betrayed partners also report changes in their menstrual cycle or libido. These show up because the sympathetic nervous system is stuck in a high-output state, and the body wasn't designed to run on emergency settings indefinitely. Most physical symptoms ease as the nervous system stabilizes." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How long does betrayal trauma last?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "There's no fixed timeline, but most people move through recognizable phases. The acute crisis usually lasts six to twelve weeks, when sleep and functioning are most affected. Active trauma processing typically takes six to eighteen months. People often feel meaningful relief well before the work is 'done,' especially once they understand what's actually happening in their brain and body and have professional support in place." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is betrayal trauma the same as PTSD?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It's closely related. Betrayal trauma produces symptoms that overlap heavily with PTSD, including hypervigilance, flashbacks, avoidance, and emotional dysregulation. Some clinicians use the term post-infidelity stress disorder for this presentation. The key difference is that an attachment figure caused the harm, which makes recovery more complicated because your nervous system has to navigate threat and attachment toward the same person at the same time." } } ] } Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) frequently manifest in adult life through patterns so subtle that many people never connect them to their early years. These hidden signs operate beneath conscious awareness, shaping relationships, health, and self-perception in ways that feel entirely normal to those experiencing them—until they recognize the pattern. The prevalence of child childhood trauma is staggering, with millions of children worldwide experiencing adverse events each year. Many children who experience trauma suffer in silence, unable to articulate their pain or seek help from caregivers who may be unaware of the abuse or neglect occurring within the home. This article covers the 12 most overlooked signs that adults who experienced childhood trauma may not recognize as trauma-related. The information serves adults experiencing unexplained life patterns, mental health professionals seeking to identify complex trauma presentations, and family members supporting trauma survivors through their healing journey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY7X4505Eow The 12 hidden signs include: chronic emptiness, difficulty with emotional intimacy, hypervigilance in relationships, over-responsibility for others’ emotions, persistent imposter syndrome, inability to identify personal needs, normalized self-criticism, feeling fundamentally flawed, unexplained chronic health issues, extreme sensitivity to criticism, compulsive busyness, and constant alertness or startling easily. By the end of this article, you will: Recognize hidden trauma patterns that may have gone unnoticed for years Understand how childhood adversity creates lasting but treatable effects Know when and how to seek appropriate mental health services administration support Gain clarity on the connection between early childhood experiences and current struggles Understanding Childhood Trauma and ACEs Adverse childhood experiences represent traumatic events occurring before age 18 that disrupt a child’s sense of safety and healthy development. These include physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, witnessing violence, domestic violence, substance abuse in the household, mental illness in caregivers, parental separation, and having family members who are incarcerated. Childhood trauma becomes “hidden” through the brain’s protective coping mechanisms. When overwhelming experiences occur at a young age, the developing mind employs strategies like dissociation, repression, and normalization to survive. These same protective responses later prevent adults from connecting current difficulties to past events, creating a disconnect between present symptoms and their original trauma. The cumulative effects of trauma can undermine a child’s sense of self-worth, identity, and resilience. This can have a profound and lasting impact on a person’s life, affecting their overall well-being, mental health, and ability to form healthy relationships. The ACE study, surveying over 17,000 adults, established that negative childhood experiences create measurable, dose-dependent effects on adult functioning. Each additional adverse experience compounds risk for mental health problems, physical health problems, and relationship difficulties—a pattern called biological embedding where early adversity literally alters brain development and stress response systems. How Trauma Hides in Plain Sight Psychological mechanisms protect trauma survivors from overwhelming emotional pain, but these same mechanisms obscure the connection between childhood adversity and adult struggles. Repressed childhood trauma operates through the brain’s capacity to wall off threatening material from conscious access, while dissociative amnesia creates gaps in memory around traumatic experiences. Dissociative episodes can significantly impact an individual’s sense of self and reality, making it difficult to connect present-day feelings and behaviors to past trauma. Brain development during traumatic experiences creates lasting but subtle patterns in neural circuitry. The prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus develop differently under conditions of chronic stress, creating heightened threat sensitivity and emotional dysregulation that feel like personality traits rather than trauma responses. Adults often describe these patterns as “just how I am” rather than recognizing them as adaptations to childhood adversity. The ACEs Study Foundation The landmark ACE research revealed that at least one ACE affects approximately 61% of adults, while multiple ACEs create compounding health risks. Higher ACE scores correlate directly with increased rates of heart disease, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, substance abuse, mental health conditions, and reduced life expectancy. This dose-response relationship means that childhood trauma in adults manifests proportionally to the severity and accumulation of early experiences. The research validates what trauma survivors often sense intuitively—that their struggles have roots extending far beyond current circumstances into the formative experiences that shaped their nervous systems. Types of Childhood Trauma If you’re reading this, you may be wondering how experiences from your childhood continue to shape your life today. Childhood trauma encompasses a wide spectrum of adverse experiences that can profoundly impact your developing sense of self, your emotional world, and the way you navigate relationships. Understanding these experiences—including physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and witnessing violence—is the first step on your healing journey. While these traumatic events may have occurred when you were young, please know that their lasting impact doesn’t define your future. With the right support and understanding, you can heal, build healthy relationships, and reclaim your peace of mind. Physical abuse involves intentional harm like hitting, kicking, or burning—experiences that may have taught you to associate relationships with fear and unpredictability. If this resonates with your story, you’re not alone in carrying both physical and emotional scars. The pain you experienced was real, and so is your capacity to heal from it. Emotional abuse includes name-calling, constant criticism, belittling, or rejection—words and actions that may have eroded your sense of self-worth over time. Perhaps you still hear those critical voices, but with compassionate support, you can learn to quiet them and develop the loving inner voice you deserve. Sexual abuse represents one of the most devastating forms of trauma, potentially leaving you struggling with repressed memories, deep emotional pain, and challenges with trust and intimacy. Your survival shows incredible strength, and healing from these experiences, while challenging, is absolutely possible with specialized care. Neglect—whether your basic needs for food, shelter, medical care, or emotional support weren’t met—can be just as damaging as more obvious forms of abuse. If you’ve carried feelings of emptiness, difficulty understanding your own needs, or a persistent sense that something is fundamentally wrong with you, these feelings make complete sense given what you experienced. You deserved care and attention then, and you deserve healing and support now. Witnessing violence, such as domestic violence or community violence, may have shattered your sense of safety and stability in the world. If you find yourself constantly on guard or struggling with anxiety, depression, or symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), these are natural responses to unnatural circumstances you shouldn’t have had to endure. Your adverse childhood experiences, recognized by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as critical risk factors, may have increased your vulnerability to mental health challenges, substance use struggles, and physical health problems—including chronic pain, autoimmune disorders, and cardiovascular disease. The more adverse experiences you faced, the greater your risk for complex trauma and long-term health consequences. But here’s what’s equally important to understand: recognizing these connections empowers you to take meaningful steps toward healing and breaking these cycles. Your childhood experiences may have disrupted your ability to form secure, trusting relationships, perhaps leaving you with patterns of anxious or avoidant attachment that make intimacy feel overwhelming or impossible. If you find yourself struggling with trust, emotional connection, or believing you’re worthy of love, these challenges stem from what happened to you, not who you are as a person. The beautiful truth is that with the right therapeutic support, you can develop new, healthier patterns of relating to others and to yourself. Evidence-based therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and cognitive processing therapy (CPT) provide safe, supportive environments where you can process your experiences, develop healthy coping strategies, and begin reclaiming your life. Beyond therapy, you can nurture your healing through self-care practices that honor your journey—creative expression that gives voice to your experiences, mindfulness that helps you stay grounded in the present moment, and regular movement that helps your body process and release stored trauma. These aren’t just nice additions to your healing toolkit; they’re powerful ways to regulate your emotions and transform your relationship with the lingering effects of your past. Remember, healing isn’t about forgetting what happened—it’s about reducing its power over your present and future. Understanding childhood trauma in all its forms—physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and witnessing violence—helps you make sense of your adult experiences and gives you a roadmap for healing. If you recognize yourself in these descriptions, please know that your pain is valid, your survival is remarkable, and your healing is possible. With compassionate therapeutic support and the right resources, you can build the healthy relationships you deserve, develop a loving relationship with yourself, and significantly reduce the impact of trauma on your mental and physical wellbeing. Your story doesn’t end with what happened to you—it continues with how you choose to heal and grow from here. The Subtle Nature of Hidden Trauma Signs Hidden trauma signs differ fundamentally from obvious symptoms like flashbacks or nightmares. These subtle manifestations integrate so thoroughly into daily functioning that they appear to be personality characteristics, relationship preferences, or simply “the way life works” rather than trauma responses requiring attention. Adults who experienced adverse childhood experiences often normalize patterns that others would recognize as dysfunctional. When chronic pain, relationship difficulties, or self-criticism have been present since childhood, they establish a baseline that feels unremarkable. The person’s life becomes organized around these patterns without conscious recognition of their traumatic origins. Childhood trauma can influence a person’s behavior in ways that persist into adulthood, even if the trauma is not consciously remembered. Why These Signs Go Unrecognized Cultural factors mask trauma effects through messages that minimize childhood experiences or promote “getting over” the past. Social pressure to appear functional leads many trauma survivors to develop sophisticated compensation strategies that hide internal struggles even from themselves. High-achieving adults frequently present as successful while experiencing profound internal distress—a phenomenon that delays seeking support. Successful professional and social functioning can coexist with significant hidden trauma signs. Adults may excel in structured environments while struggling intensely in intimate relationships, or maintain productive careers while experiencing chronic pain and unexplained physical symptoms. This functional presentation often prevents both the individual and their healthcare providers from recognizing unresolved trauma as the underlying issue. The Cost of Unrecognized Trauma Untreated complex trauma exerts continuous pressure on every domain of a person’s behavior and functioning. Intimate relationships suffer from insecure attachment styles developed in childhood, while professional relationships may be marked by hypervigilance or difficulty accepting appropriate recognition. The emotional support that could facilitate healing often feels threatening or impossible to accept. Physical health consequences of unrecognized trauma include elevated rates of chronic pain, autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular disease, and frequent illness. Mental health problems including anxiety, depression, and substance abuse often represent attempts to manage symptoms of underlying trauma rather than primary conditions. The healing process cannot begin until these connections become visible. The 12 Hidden Signs of Childhood Trauma ACEs These signs organize into three categories reflecting how childhood trauma manifests across emotional, cognitive, and physical domains. Recognizing that multiple signs often occur together helps adults identify patterns that might otherwise seem unrelated. Emotional and Relationship Patterns Sign 1: Chronic Feelings of Emptiness or Disconnection Adults who experience trauma in early childhood often describe a persistent sense of hollowness or emotional numbness that doesn’t respond to positive life circumstances. Achievements, relationships, and pleasurable activities may provide temporary relief but fail to fill an underlying void. This emptiness reflects developmental interruption—the child’s emotional needs went unmet during critical periods, creating a lasting sense that something fundamental is missing. Unlike situational sadness, this chronic disconnection persists regardless of external circumstances. Sign 2: Difficulty with Emotional Intimacy Despite Craving Connection Many trauma survivors experience intense longing for connection alongside profound difficulty allowing closeness. They may initiate relationships enthusiastically, then withdraw when intimacy deepens—or select partners who cannot provide genuine closeness. This pattern reflects attachment relationships formed in childhood, where connection may have been paired with pain, unpredictability, or betrayal. The nervous system learned that vulnerability leads to harm, creating automatic protective responses that override conscious desires for healthy relationships. Sign 3: Hypervigilance in Relationships (Reading Others’ Moods Constantly) Adults with childhood trauma often become experts at monitoring others’ emotional states, scanning faces for signs of disapproval, anger, or withdrawal. This heightened sensitivity developed as a survival strategy in unpredictable environments where detecting caregivers’ moods provided crucial safety information. In adult life, this hypervigilance manifests as exhausting attention to others’ reactions, difficulty relaxing in social situations, and an individual’s sense of being responsible for managing everyone’s emotional state. Sign 4: Assuming Responsibility for Others’ Emotions and Reactions Taking excessive responsibility for how others feel represents a coping mechanism developed in childhood when managing caregivers’ emotions may have been essential for safety. Adults with this pattern apologize excessively, modify their behavior to prevent others’ discomfort, and feel guilty when others experience negative emotions—even when logically uninvolved. This over-responsibility creates relationship dynamics where the individual’s needs consistently rank below others’. Self-Perception and Identity Issues Sign 5: Persistent Imposter Syndrome Regardless of Achievements Chronic feelings of fraudulence despite objective success characterize many adults who experienced childhood trauma. Regardless of accomplishments, they anticipate exposure as fundamentally incompetent or undeserving. This pattern reflects early experiences where their worth was questioned, achievements minimized, or capabilities criticized. The low self esteem established in childhood persists into adulthood, reinterpreting every success as accidental while confirming every difficulty as evidence of inherent inadequacy. Sign 6: Difficulty Identifying Personal Needs, Wants, and Boundaries Many trauma survivors reach adulthood without basic self-knowledge about their preferences, needs, and limits. When asked what they want, they may genuinely not know. This difficulty stems from childhood environments where expressing needs was dangerous, ignored, or actively punished. The child learned to suppress self-awareness as a protective strategy, creating adults who can identify others’ needs precisely while remaining disconnected from their own inner child and authentic desires. Sign 7: Chronic Self-Criticism That Feels “Normal” or Motivating Internal dialogue marked by harsh, punishing criticism often goes unrecognized because it feels like a normal—even productive—part of self-management. Adults may believe their inner critic keeps them performing well, unaware that this voice represents internalized messages from traumatic experiences. The intensity of self-criticism typically far exceeds what circumstances warrant, treating minor mistakes as evidence of fundamental worthlessness. Sign 8: Feeling Fundamentally Different or Flawed Compared to Others A pervasive sense of being essentially unlike others—broken, bad, or defective at the core—reflects the deep shame that childhood trauma instills. This differs from contextual self-doubt; it represents an identity-level conviction that something is constitutionally wrong with the individual. Traumatic events, particularly those involving physical harm, sexual abuse, or emotional abuse, create intense emotional pain that children often interpret as evidence of their own defectiveness rather than recognizing the failure of adult protectors. 4.3 Physical and Behavioral Manifestations and Coping Strategies Sign 9: Unexplained Chronic Health Issues or Frequent Illness Physical symptoms without clear medical explanation frequently accompany unresolved trauma. These include chronic pain, digestive problems, headaches, autoimmune disorders, and susceptibility to illness. Research from the ACE study demonstrates direct connections between childhood adversity and adult health conditions including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. The body literally keeps the score—traumatic memories encode in the nervous system, creating lasting physical manifestations that medical care focused solely on symptoms cannot resolve. Childhood trauma has also been linked to impairments in academic achievement, employment opportunities, and overall quality of life. Sign 10: Extreme Sensitivity to Criticism or Conflict Reactions to criticism or conflict that seem disproportionate often reflect trauma-altered threat detection systems. Minor disagreements may trigger intense emotional responses—defensive rage, dissociation, or total shutdown. This sensitivity developed when criticism from caregivers carried genuine threat of physical abuse, emotional abuse, or abandonment. The adult nervous system continues responding to perceived criticism as if survival were at stake, even in objectively safe contexts. Sign 11: Compulsive Busyness or Inability to Rest Without Guilt Many trauma survivors develop patterns of constant activity, finding stillness intolerable. This compulsive busyness serves as a coping strategy to avoid traumatic memories and the emotions that emerge during quiet moments. Rest may trigger guilt, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts, making productivity feel necessary for emotional regulation. The individual may recognize exhaustion while feeling genuinely unable to stop, caught in a cycle where slowing down feels more threatening than burnout. Unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as self-harm, may also develop as a way to manage emotional dysregulation or to numb psychological pain. Sign 12: Startling Easily or Feeling Constantly “On Edge” Hypervigilance manifests physically as an easily triggered startle response and chronic nervous system activation. Adults may jump at unexpected sounds, feel unable to fully relax, or experience persistent muscle tension. This state developed as protection in environments where danger could emerge suddenly—community violence, domestic violence, or unpredictable caregivers. The nervous system learned to maintain constant alertness, a protective adaptation that becomes exhausting when the original trauma has passed but the body hasn’t received the message that safety has arrived. Common Challenges in Recognition and Solutions Recognizing hidden trauma signs requires overcoming psychological barriers that developed precisely to keep traumatic experiences out of awareness. Understanding these challenges helps adults and their supportive relationships navigate the recognition process. Denial and Minimization Adults frequently dismiss their experiences as “not that bad” or compare themselves to those with more obvious trauma. This minimization represents a coping mechanism rather than accurate assessment. Strategies for overcoming this pattern include journaling about experiences without judgment, working with a qualified professional who can provide external perspective, and reading about others’ experiences to calibrate what constitutes traumatic events versus normal childhood challenges. Fear of Confronting the Past Many adults avoid recognizing trauma signs because they fear what acknowledgment might require—reopening traumatic memories, experiencing intense emotional pain, or disrupting current functioning. However, the healing journey does not require perfect recall or detailed confrontation with every past event. Modern trauma-informed approaches including cognitive processing therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy focus on present-day symptoms and coping strategies rather than extensive re-experiencing of traumatic experiences. 5.3 Lack of Memory or “Proof” in Repressed Childhood Trauma Dissociative amnesia and repressed memories mean many trauma survivors cannot clearly recall what happened to them. Missing memory does not invalidate current symptoms or indicate that trauma didn’t occur. Mental health professionals trained in complex trauma understand that present-day patterns—the 12 signs described above—constitute valid evidence of childhood adversity regardless of explicit recall. Treatment focuses on the person’s current functioning rather than establishing historical proof. Conclusion and Next Steps Hidden trauma signs represent valid, treatable responses to adverse childhood experiences. Recognition marks the beginning of a healing process that can fundamentally improve adult life—relationships become more fulfilling, physical symptoms may decrease, and the chronic sense of being flawed or different can resolve into understanding and self-compassion. Immediate steps for adults recognizing these signs: Complete an ACE assessment to understand your childhood adversity exposure Seek consultation with a mental health professional trained in trauma-informed care Begin establishing self care practices that support nervous system regulation Consider therapeutic interventions specifically designed for trauma, including EMDR or somatic therapy Build supportive relationships and community connections that provide secure attachment experiences Related topics worth exploring include specific trauma therapies, building resilience and protective factors, supporting loved ones through their healing journey, and preventing adverse childhood experiences in the next generation through creating safe and supportive environments for children. Additional Resources Assessment Tools: ACE questionnaire for understanding childhood adversity exposure Trauma symptom inventories for identifying current impacts Attachment style assessments for understanding relationship patterns Therapeutic Approaches: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for processing traumatic memories Somatic experiencing for addressing body-based trauma responses Internal Family Systems for healing the inner child and fragmented self-states Support Networks: Support groups for trauma survivors Online communities providing peer emotional support Organizations specializing in complex trauma recovery Resources for family members seeking to understand and support loved ones

Introduction Understanding and calming hypervigilance through grounding techniques for feeling safe involves learning specific strategies that help regulate your nervous system while maintaining necessary environmental awareness. This guide immediately addresses the importance of grounding techniques for feeling safe, ensuring you have practical tools to manage heightened states of alertness. When you’re stuck in a state of constant alertness, traditional relaxation methods often feel impossible or even dangerous, making specialized grounding approaches essential for finding relief. The basics of grounding techniques involve simple, basic mental exercises that help manage anxiety, reduce negative thoughts, and refocus the mind. This guide provides concrete techniques that work specifically for hypervigilant states—those moments when your brain refuses to stop scanning for threats, even in safe environments. At the first mention, hypervigilance (a state of increased alertness where the brain is constantly looking for perceived dangers) is a key concept for understanding why these techniques are necessary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUBxGhT5fP0 What This Guide Covers You’ll learn evidence-based grounding strategies designed for people whose nervous system stays in high alert mode, practical breathing techniques that calm without creating vulnerability, and daily routines that signal safety to an overactive nervous system that is working hard to detect threats. Specifically, you will discover: How hypervigilance differs from normal alertness and why it persists Nervous system regulation through awareness-maintaining grounding techniques The 5-4-3-2-1 technique adapted for safety-conscious individuals Box breathing methods for calming without vulnerability Building predictable routines that signal safety to your brain Who This Is For This guide is designed for individuals experiencing hypervigilance from trauma, anxiety disorders, PTSD, or chronic stress who need concrete techniques to feel safe in their environment. Whether you’re dealing with constant jumpiness from past trauma or anxiety that keeps you perpetually on edge, you’ll find practical strategies that honor your need for awareness while providing nervous system relief. Fear and feeling anxious are common experiences for people with hypervigilance, and grounding techniques can help manage these emotions and negative thoughts. Why This Matters Hypervigilance keeps your nervous system in constant activation, disrupting sleep, relationships, and daily functioning while creating exhaustion that never seems to resolve. Common symptoms of anxiety include increased heart rate, sweating, and difficulty focusing, and occasionally people experiencing hypervigilance may even develop recurring panic attacks during everyday activities. Grounding techniques offer relief by working with your nervous system’s natural regulation processes rather than against your survival instincts. If you experience persistent hypervigilance or anxiety, consider seeking professional help. Grounding techniques are not a substitute for professional mental health treatment. Next, we’ll explore what hypervigilance is, how it impacts your daily life, and why understanding your nervous system’s role is crucial for effective grounding. Understanding Hypervigilance and Its Impact Hypervigilance is a state of increased alertness where the brain is constantly looking for perceived dangers. This survival mechanism involves your brain’s threat-detection system working overtime, interpreting neutral situations as potentially dangerous and maintaining readiness to respond to perceived threats at any moment. Fear and negative thoughts often drive the brain’s threat-detection system into overdrive, making it difficult to distinguish between real and imagined threats. Unlike normal alertness that you can turn on and off as needed, hypervigilance represents an inability to “power down” your threat detection system. People with hypervigilance tend to develop certain symptoms or behaviors, such as being unable to relax or disconnect from their environment. Your brain stays activated even during activities that should feel relaxing, leading to exhaustion that rest doesn’t seem to fix. The Nervous System in Hypervigilance Your sympathetic nervous system—responsible for fight-or-flight responses—remains chronically activated during hypervigilant states. This means your body produces stress hormones continuously, keeping your heart rate elevated, muscles tense, and mind racing with anxious thoughts about potential dangers. Physical sensations during hypervigilance include jumpiness at unexpected sounds, difficulty concentrating on tasks, muscle tension that won’t release, and feeling overwhelmed by normal environmental stimuli. People in hypervigilant states tend to experience common symptoms of anxiety such as increased heart rate, sweating, and difficulty focusing. Your body maintains this state because your nervous system believes you’re still in danger, even when logic tells you otherwise. Why Traditional Relaxation Techniques May Fall Short Standard advice to “just relax” or “take deep breaths” often fails when you feel constantly unsafe because your threat detection system interprets relaxation as letting your guard down. When feeling anxious, people tend to avoid relaxation techniques that make them feel vulnerable or less aware of their surroundings. Techniques that involve closing your eyes or becoming less aware of your surroundings can actually increase anxiety and make you feel more vulnerable. This explains why you might find meditation difficult or feel more anxious when trying conventional stress management approaches—your nervous system prioritizes survival over calm. Understanding this helps explain why specialized grounding techniques that maintain environmental awareness while providing nervous system relief work better for hypervigilant states. With this understanding of hypervigilance and your nervous system, let’s look at how grounding can offer immediate and long-term relief. Benefits of Grounding Immediate Relief from Anxiety When you’re struggling with emotional overwhelm, anxiety, or carrying the weight of past trauma, grounding techniques offer you a proven path to reclaim your inner peace and stability. By gently guiding your attention back to this present moment, these powerful tools help soothe your nervous system and provide you with immediate relief from panic attacks or that crushing sense of anxiety that can feel impossible to escape. Building Long-Term Resilience When you practice grounding strategies consistently, you’re giving yourself reliable, expert-backed tools to navigate stress and regain that sense of control that trauma and anxiety can steal from you—even when your world feels like it’s spinning out of control. These aren’t just crisis interventions—they’re life-changing practices you can weave into your daily routine to nurture your overall emotional well-being and build lasting resilience. Over time, grounding helps you develop deeper self-awareness, empowering you to recognize the early warning signs when overwhelm begins to creep in and respond with the effective coping strategies that truly work. Whether you’re facing a particularly challenging day at work, navigating a difficult conversation that triggers old wounds, or working through the complex aftermath of trauma, grounding techniques provide you with a reliable anchor to the present moment, helping you reduce emotional distress while building the inner strength and resilience you need to face whatever challenges your healing journey brings. Now that you know the benefits, let’s explore the essential grounding techniques specifically adapted for hypervigilance and how to categorize them for your needs. Essential Grounding Techniques for Hypervigilance Grounding techniques can be categorized into sensory, mental, and physical strategies. Sensory grounding uses your five senses to anchor you in the present moment, mental grounding involves cognitive exercises to redirect your thoughts, and physical grounding focuses on bodily sensations and movements to establish a sense of stability. These categories often overlap and can be combined for a more comprehensive approach, allowing you to tailor your grounding practice to your unique needs and preferences. The basics of grounding techniques often include simple mental exercises, such as reciting familiar facts or basic sequences, to help manage anxiety and refocus your mind. Some grounding techniques use categories to help you choose and organize sensory details or thoughts, making it easier to structure your focus and decision-making. These approaches help shift your focus from internal anxiety and overwhelming thoughts to concrete, observable details in your immediate surroundings. Grounding techniques can create space from distressing feelings in nearly any situation and help control symptoms of trauma by turning your attention away from thoughts, memories, or worries and refocusing on the present moment. Sensory-Based Grounding Methods Visual grounding involves systematically scanning your environment and noting specific details of safe objects around you. Look for things you can see clearly—the texture of fabric on furniture, patterns in wood grain, or the way light hits different surfaces. This technique allows you to practice grounding while maintaining visual awareness of your space. Tactile grounding focuses on physical sensations you can feel right now. Notice the temperature and texture of your clothing against your skin, the feeling of your feet in your shoes, or the texture of objects within reach. You might hold an ice cube and describe how the cold water feels as it melts, or run your fingers along different surfaces to notice varying textures. Auditory grounding involves identifying and categorizing sounds in your environment. Listen for things you can hear—traffic outside, the hum of appliances, or trees blowing in the wind. This helps your brain process environmental information systematically rather than treating all sounds as potential threats. Body Awareness Techniques Progressive muscle awareness helps you notice tension patterns throughout your body without forcing relaxation. For increased mindfulness and body awareness, begin your body scan at the head and move downward, observing sensations in your head, shoulders, legs, and other body parts. Instead of trying to release tension immediately, simply notice where you hold stress and acknowledge these physical sensations without judgment. Feet-on-floor grounding creates connection to a stable surface beneath you. While sitting or standing, focus on the feeling of your feet making contact with the ground. Press down slightly and notice how this solid surface supports your weight, helping your nervous system register stability in your immediate environment. Posture adjustments can signal safety to your nervous system through body positioning. Sit with your back against a wall or chair when possible, allowing you to maintain visual awareness of your surroundings while feeling supported. These small changes help your brain recognize environmental safety cues. Breathing Regulation Strategies Breathing techniques for hypervigilance focus on nervous system regulation without creating feelings of vulnerability. Unlike traditional deep breathing that might feel unsafe, these approaches help you notice your breath patterns while maintaining alertness to your surroundings. Box breathing provides structure for nervous system regulation through predictable patterns. This technique involves breathing in specific counts that create rhythm and predictability, helping your brain shift from chaos to order without losing environmental awareness. Breath awareness without forcing changes allows you to notice your natural breathing patterns without trying to control them immediately. Simply observe whether your breathing feels rapid, shallow, or tense, acknowledging these patterns as information about your current nervous system state. With these essential techniques in mind, the next section will offer practical tips to help you maximize the effectiveness of your grounding practice and personalize it for your daily life. Tips for Effective Grounding Engaging Your Senses To maximize the therapeutic benefits of grounding techniques, you’ll want to begin by intentionally connecting with your physical sensations and immediate environment. Our expert therapists recommend starting with purposeful deep breathing—observe the rhythmic rise and fall of your chest and feel the life-giving air flowing into your lungs. Direct your attention to the grounding sensation of your feet making contact with the floor or the supportive presence of your chair. Engage all your senses systematically by scanning your surroundings and naming what you observe, tuning into the sounds that surround you, and becoming aware of any scents or tastes present in this moment. As an example, you might focus on the gentle flow of the breath through your nostrils, the natural symphony of birds beyond your window, or the comforting texture of the fabric you’re wearing. These precise sensory details serve as powerful anchors that root you firmly in the present moment while redirecting your mind away from anxious thought patterns. Personalizing Your Practice What makes these evidence-based techniques particularly valuable is their remarkable versatility—you can practice them in your home, workplace, or any public setting—providing you with a reliable tool for managing stress and anxiety wherever life takes you. We encourage you to approach this practice with patience and self-compassion as you explore different techniques, paying close attention to which approaches leave you feeling most centered and at peace. Through consistent practice, you’ll develop a personalized toolkit that serves your unique needs and supports your journey toward greater emotional resilience. Now that you have tips for effective grounding, let’s move on to step-by-step calming protocols you can use during moments of high alert or overwhelm. Step-by-Step Calming Protocols When hypervigilance peaks and you feel overwhelmed by constant alertness, structured protocols provide concrete steps to follow when your brain feels scattered and unable to focus on abstract coping strategies. Mental grounding techniques, such as using self-talk, naming your age and location, or reciting specific statements to confirm reality, can help anchor you in the present moment and reduce panic. The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise for Safety When to use this: During moments of high alert, especially during panic, or when feeling unsafe in your environment. Notice 5 things you can see: Look around and identify five specific visual details. You can use categories to choose what to focus on, such as objects that signal safety, exits, or familiar items. For example, “I see the door handle, my water bottle, the pattern on this chair, the window showing daylight outside, and my phone within arm’s reach.” Identify 4 things you can touch: Focus on four different textures or surfaces you can physically feel right now. Prioritize stable, comforting sensations like “the solid armrest under my hand, the soft fabric of my shirt, the cool surface of this table, and the firm ground beneath my feet.” Listen for 3 distinct sounds: Use categories to choose and organize the sounds you hear, such as safe, neutral, or needing attention. For example, “I hear the refrigerator humming (safe), cars passing outside (neutral), and someone walking upstairs (checking for familiarity).” Recognize 2 scents in your environment: Notice two things you can smell that feel familiar or neutral, such as “the scent of my coffee and the clean smell of this room.” Name 1 thing you can taste: Identify one taste currently in your mouth, often residual from food, drink, or even the neutral taste of your own mouth. This adaptation allows you to practice grounding techniques while maintaining the environmental awareness your nervous system requires for feeling safe. Box Breathing for Nervous System Regulation When to use this: For ongoing nervous system activation, chronic hypervigilance, or when you need to calm down without losing alertness. Inhale for 4 counts: Breathe in slowly through your nose while counting to four, maintaining awareness of your surroundings rather than closing your eyes. Hold breath for 4 counts: Pause your breathing while staying alert to your environment, counting “1, 2, 3, 4” silently. Exhale for 4 counts: Release your breath slowly through your mouth while maintaining your environmental scan. Hold empty lungs for 4 counts: Pause before your next breath, staying present and aware. Repeat this cycle for 5-10 rounds or until you notice your nervous system activation decreasing. Practice this technique with your eyes open and positioned where you can maintain visual awareness of your space. Building Predictable Daily Routines Predictable routines signal safety to hypervigilant nervous systems by reducing the cognitive load of constant environmental assessment. When your brain knows what to expect, it can allocate less energy to threat detection and more to nervous system regulation. Create a morning safety scan routine that systematically checks your environment in a structured way. This might involve looking out windows, checking doors, and noting familiar objects in their expected places. This routine satisfies your nervous system’s need for environmental awareness while building confidence through predictability. Schedule grounding breaks throughout your day at consistent times. Set reminders to practice techniques like the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise or box breathing for just a few minutes every few hours. These scheduled check-ins help prevent nervous system activation from building to overwhelming levels. Establish an evening wind-down protocol that transitions your nervous system from hypervigilance to rest. This routine might include dimming lights at a specific time, doing a final environmental scan, practicing breathing techniques, and engaging in predictable calming activities that signal safety to your brain. With these step-by-step protocols, you can respond effectively to moments of high alert. Next, let’s explore how to create grounding spaces that support your ongoing well-being. Favorite Places for Grounding Establishing a designated grounding space represents a clinically proven strategy that our experienced therapists consistently recommend for clients experiencing overwhelming emotions or acute distress. This therapeutic anchor point may be a physical location—such as a serene park setting, a thoughtfully arranged corner of your living space, or a window-side retreat where you can observe natural movement that promotes nervous system regulation. Alternatively, you can harness the power of guided visualization by creating a deeply personalized mental sanctuary—perhaps a sun-drenched coastal environment, a peaceful woodland setting, or an alpine meadow—where your mind can access feelings of safety and profound calm. When therapeutic grounding becomes necessary, gently close your eyes in a safe environment, or engage your mind’s eye to access this carefully cultivated space. Our expert approach involves full sensory engagement: consciously observe the visual elements and spatial relationships, attune to the auditory landscape, notice aromatic details, and feel the tactile sensations against your skin. Allow your nervous system to naturally settle into the restorative feelings this therapeutic space provides. You can also establish a physical grounding environment in your home by integrating evidence-based comfort elements such as living plants, weighted textiles, or carefully calibrated lighting. These personalized therapeutic spaces, whether physically present or mentally constructed, serve as powerful clinical tools for stress management and the restoration of emotional equilibrium. Once you have a favorite grounding place, you can further enhance your self-care by integrating grounding into your daily routines and combining it with other wellness practices. Grounding for Self-Care Integrating Grounding into Daily Life Integrating grounding techniques into your personalized self-care routine represents a transformative approach to supporting your emotional resilience and managing the stress that life inevitably brings. As you navigate your healing journey, these evidence-based practices can be seamlessly woven into your moments of restoration—whether you’re engaging in mindful meditation, therapeutic stretching, or taking intentional walks that reconnect you with the present moment. Combining Grounding with Other Self-Care Practices When you combine grounding with other therapeutic self-care modalities like reflective journaling, restorative yoga, or immersing yourself in nature’s healing presence, you amplify their profound calming effects and create a comprehensive toolkit for emotional well-being. By establishing grounding as a consistent foundation in your daily routine, you grant yourself the invaluable permission to pause, mindfully check in with your body’s wisdom, and reclaim your sense of agency when life’s challenges feel overwhelming. These specialized techniques empower you to respond to emotional distress with the compassion and patience you deserve, replacing self-judgment with self-advocacy. Your healing journey is a deeply personal process, and it’s not only acceptable but necessary to honor your pace as you explore and integrate new, evidence-based strategies for managing stress and nurturing your emotional well-being—positive change is not only possible, it’s within your reach. Grounding for self-care lays the foundation for emotional regulation, which we’ll discuss in the next section. Grounding and Emotional Regulation When your emotions feel overwhelming or difficult to navigate, know that you don’t have to face this struggle alone. Grounding techniques offer you a specialized, proven path to reclaim your emotional balance by anchoring you firmly in the present moment. These expert-backed approaches help you tune into your physical sensations, providing your nervous system with the high-quality care it needs to find calm. This compassionate practice creates a safe space where you can truly notice what you’re experiencing and respond with intention, rather than being swept away by emotional overwhelm. Your journey toward emotional resilience doesn’t end with immediate relief—it grows stronger with each grounding practice. As you commit to this personalized approach to healing, you’ll discover a deeper attunement to your emotional needs and develop the confidence to integrate other therapeutic strategies into your life. Whether you’re drawn to mindfulness, creative expression, or cognitive-behavioral techniques, grounding becomes your foundation for accessing these powerful tools. By prioritizing this essential practice, you’re not just managing difficult moments—you’re empowering yourself to navigate life’s challenges with the specialized care, emotional well-being, and unshakeable confidence you deserve. Next, let’s address common challenges people face when using grounding techniques for hypervigilance and how to overcome them. Common Challenges and Solutions People implementing grounding techniques for hypervigilance often encounter specific obstacles that differ from general anxiety management, requiring adapted approaches that honor both the need for calm and the need for safety. Many people tend to experience negative thoughts or habitual responses, such as disconnecting from their bodies or developing certain symptoms, when trying to use grounding techniques for hypervigilance. Challenge Solution Feeling Vulnerable During Grounding Exercises Keep your eyes open during techniques, position yourself with your back to a wall or solid surface, and practice initially in familiar safe spaces where you know the environment well. Racing Thoughts Interrupting Focus Use counting-based grounding techniques, engage physical sensations more strongly through touch or movement, and practice shorter grounding sessions initially to build tolerance gradually. Techniques Not Working During High Stress Start with the simplest techniques during calm moments to build familiarity, gradually increase complexity as your nervous system learns to regulate, and develop backup micro-grounding techniques you can use anywhere. Begin with the basics of grounding techniques, such as reciting familiar facts or basic sequences (like counting or naming days of the week), before progressing to more complex strategies. Your nervous system needs practice recognizing safety cues before it can access more complex regulation strategies. Begin with basic techniques like noticing three things you can see when you’re already relatively calm, building your capacity to use grounding strategies when stress levels increase. With these solutions, you can adapt your grounding practice to overcome obstacles and build confidence in your ability to self-regulate. Conclusion and Next Steps Hypervigilance represents your nervous system’s attempt to protect you, and effective grounding techniques work with this protective instinct rather than against it. Through consistent practice of awareness-maintaining grounding strategies, you can help your nervous system find regulation while honoring your need for environmental safety. To get started: Choose one sensory grounding technique to practice today when you feel calm, building familiarity before using it during stress. Implement box breathing during one routine daily activity, such as drinking your morning coffee or before meals. Identify one predictable routine to establish this week that signals safety to your nervous system. If you ever feel overwhelmed or in crisis, remember it’s important to talk to a trusted person or mental health professional for support. Reaching out and talking to someone can help you feel safer and more supported.

“How couples argue and disagree about issues appears to be more consequential to the success of marriage than what they argue about or how often they experience conflicts.” To reword the above quote taken from an article by Hanzal and Segrin in the Journal of Family Communication, you could simply say “how we fight has far more influence on the future of our marriage, than what we fight about”. Therefore, our fighting style, or how we fight, really matters. Conflict in marriage arises from differences in preferences, backgrounds, and values between partners. Conflict in marriage is a natural and inevitable part of relationships, as two individuals bring together their unique perspectives, habits, and expectations. Before I get into the different styles of fighting, we need to be aware that gender differences make a big difference in our fights. In fact, a husband and a wife will experience the same fight differently. Not just because they have different perspectives, but because they are different genders. You might not be a typical couple, and that’s not necessarily a problem, but the following things, about how most couples operate are good to keep in mind. Studies show women tend to be more negative in conflict and use confrontational behaviors that say “this is all about me”, rather than the marriage. The behaviors include being demanding, hostile, threatening, insulting and insisting that all the change should come from their husband. Research shows that wives tend to use more destructive conflict behaviors than husbands, which can contribute to higher divorce rates. But to generalize men as well for a moment… Men are more likely to avoid. They get scared of the big emotions, so feel safer avoiding them altogether. Withdrawal behaviors, such as keeping quiet or leaving to cool down, especially when used by either husband, are linked to higher divorce rates. Another thing for men to keep in mind is that the less influence a woman feels she has in her marriage, the bigger the artillery she has to use to gain influence, so the more confrontational she will be. Husbands, if you want a happier wife, receive her influence! Remember, both husband and wife have the same end goal of trying to save the marriage, but they come at it from two completely different angles. Couples who engage in a demand-withdraw pattern, where one partner demands and the other spouse withdraws, are at a higher risk for divorce. Not only do they have different perspectives, but conflict behaviors in the early years of marriage can predict divorce rates over a span of 16 years. Some conflicts in marriage are perpetual and rooted in fundamental differences in personality or lifestyle, and unresolvable conflicts are inherent in all relationships because each partner is a unique person with their own reality. Nearly 70% of all marriage conflicts are considered perpetual and essentially unresolvable, but healthy conflict in marriage can lead to growth and deeper intimacy when managed well. Introduction to Conflict If you’re reading this, you likely understand that conflict is a natural part of your relationship journey—and yes, that includes your marriage. No matter how deeply you love your spouse, you will face moments when disagreements surface—whether they center on finances, parenting decisions, control dynamics, or simply the overwhelming pressures of daily life. Here’s what truly matters: it’s not whether conflict happens in your relationship, but how you and your partner navigate these challenges together as a united team. Learning to resolve conflict in a healthy, constructive way represents one of the most transformative skills you can develop for building the strong, loving marriage you deserve. Your marital conflicts often emerge from the beautiful complexity of bringing together two unique individuals—each of you carries distinct opinions, values, and personality traits that make you who you are. The key lies in approaching these differences with genuine mutual respect and a deep willingness to understand not only your own emotional experience, but your partner’s inner world as well. Effective conflict resolution begins with developing strong communication skills that will serve your relationship for years to come. This means you’ll practice active listening with intention, express your feelings with honesty and vulnerability (while avoiding the destructive patterns of finger-pointing or blame), and together create a safe emotional space where both of you feel truly heard and valued. Relationship expert John Gottman’s research demonstrates that couples who invest in truly listening and empathizing with each other experience far greater success in resolving conflicts and actually strengthening their bond through these challenges. It’s also essential for you to recognize that some disagreements—what Gottman identifies as “perpetual conflicts”—may never find complete resolution, and that’s perfectly normal. Rather than allowing these ongoing issues to create resentment or letting yourselves go to bed carrying anger, you and your partner can work collaboratively to address the deeper underlying concerns and discover constructive pathways forward. By genuinely acknowledging each other’s perspectives and functioning as a true partnership, you can prevent minor tensions from escalating into major threats to your relationship’s foundation. When you or your spouse feels hurt or misunderstood, addressing those vulnerable feelings with genuine care and shared responsibility becomes absolutely crucial. By avoiding blame and focusing your energy on deep understanding, both of you can feel supported and valued, even during moments of disagreement. Remember, your goal isn’t to “win” any argument, but to discover solutions that honor both of your needs while strengthening the intimate connection you share. By making conflict resolution a central priority in your marriage, you’re making a profound investment in a relationship that can not only survive life’s inevitable challenges but actually emerge stronger and more resilient over time. Whether you’re working through a specific difficult situation or simply navigating the everyday complexities of married life, developing the skills to manage conflict with empathy, respect, and open communication will help you build the loving, lasting partnership you both envision for your future together. Anger in Marital Conflict One thing that surprised us in the research for this topic, was that an angry wife has a far greater negative impact on marital satisfaction than an equally angry husband. The Proverb that says ”It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman” apparently is very true! It’s important to remember that hurt feelings in marriage can occur even when neither spouse has done anything wrong, often due to unmet expectations. Wives need to take their anger seriously! Yes, male anger can be more dangerous (and I don’t want to minimize that in any ways, but in non-abusive marriages a wife’s anger not only lowers their marriage satisfaction but their husband’s as well. The angrier we become (this goes for both husbands and wives but I’m specifically thinking of women), the more tempted we are to use nasty behavior such as demand, withdrawal, contempt, and criticism; all of which are particularly corrosive to marital well-being. Instead, expressing feelings openly and calmly, and acknowledging when you or your spouse feel hurt, can prevent anger from festering and help foster understanding and empathy. When anger has caused hurt, offering a genuine apology is valuable—sincere apologies can help heal wounds and strengthen the bond between partners. Styles Dr. John Gottman identified several marital conflict styles that describe how couples typically handle disagreements. Every marriage has its own particular set of disagreements, often rooted in the unique backgrounds, temperaments, and experiences of the two individuals involved. These differences naturally lead to relationship problems, as couples encounter conflicting desires and expectations. For example, a typical relationship problem might involve disagreements about money, division of chores, or parenting approaches. Couples often find themselves having the same argument repeatedly without resolution, which can lead to feelings of unfair treatment and misunderstanding. It’s important to recognize that most unresolvable marriage conflicts involve differences of opinion rather than moral issues, making it possible for couples to agree to disagree and address these challenges constructively. This model of fighting styles is taken from Dr. Gottman’s study in 1993. The first three are functional and work fine. The last two are considered unstable. 1. Avoiders Typical Behaviors Avoiders don’t think they are avoiders but don’t have any specific strategies for resolving conflict. They may wait stuff out or even talk stuff out, but never really go deep with each other. They kind of state their points, reaffirm their common ground and move on after coming up with some ambiguous solution. Impact on Marriage When issues are left unresolved, couples may end up feeling distant and lonely. Often have the same argument repeatedly without resolution, leading to feelings of unfair treatment and misunderstanding. Avoiders tend to shy away from open conversation, which is essential to solve problems and build intimacy. Couples who avoid discussing their differences are less happy over time, particularly women. Tips for Improvement Agree to start opening up to each other and stop bottling up issues in your marriage. Practice active listening and make time for honest conversations. Consider taking a communication and conflict resolution course like Talk To Me 101. Compromise and find solutions that benefit both partners, such as alternating preferences for vacations or family gatherings. 2. Volatiles Typical Behaviors Volatiles come straight at each other. They disagree and try to persuade each other. They produce a lot of drama: both positive and negative. Value arguing and really work hard at convincing each other. Impact on Marriage While they value arguing, it’s important for volatiles to focus on expressing feelings openly and having constructive conversations, rather than just arguing. Healthy conversation—where both partners actively listen and share their emotions without blame—can help resolve marriage conflict more effectively. These folks can bicker pretty good but passionate love-making will likely follow. Tips for Improvement Adhere to good ground rules for arguments. Be careful not to shift to hostile behaviors. Maintain a solid fondness and admiration system as a base in your marriage. Focus on finding solutions together, not just winning arguments. 3. Validators and Mutual Respect Typical Behaviors Validators tend to walk the middle line. There is conflict but there’s ease and calm too and each spouse is trying to validate the other. This could look like clear empathy or a lot of “Mm hmm’s”. Impact on Marriage Validators show empathy by actively listening to understand the other’s feelings, rather than just responding. Acknowledging each other’s feelings and viewpoints helps build a sense of intimacy and mutual respect. Listening and acknowledging is more important than winning the argument. This is a calmer approach to marriage, and it sounds rosy (and is!) but the romance can dissipate and the marriage can end up as a close friendship. Tips for Improvement Watch out for over-empathizing to the point of avoiding necessary, honest feedback. Tell your spouse the uncomfortable things they may need to hear. Use a solution-oriented approach to transform conflicts into opportunities for deeper connection. 4. Hostiles Typical Behaviors Hostiles have very negative conversations. There is always lots of defensiveness, lots of globalizing and each spouse is very judgmental. Impact on Marriage Destructive conflict behaviors, such as criticism and yelling, are linked to higher divorce rates. Focusing on who is ‘wrong’ or assigning blame can escalate marriage conflict and further damage the relationship. It is always a downward spiral. Tips for Improvement Actively seek help, such as reading Dr. Gottman’s books or pursuing marriage counseling. Practice active listening and use ‘I’ statements. Set boundaries and prioritize quality time to rebuild trust. 5. Hostile/Detached and Perpetual Conflicts Typical Behaviors Hostile/Detached couples normally have little or no emotional involvement with each other. Occasionally they may get into a hostile spat, often about trivial matters. Impact on Marriage Emotional distancing and lack of involvement from one or the other partner can lead to ongoing relationship problems and feelings of disconnection. Intimacy issues often arise when partners have mismatched needs for physical or emotional closeness, which can undermine the health and longevity of the marriage. Tips for Improvement Seek professional help to address emotional distance and rebuild connection. Focus on increasing emotional involvement and addressing underlying issues. So, what kind of couple are you? Ideally, you want to be validators and have a little avoidance so you know you’re normal and then a little sprinkle of volatility just to spice things up a bit! How Can We Do Better at Conflict Resolution? Here are actionable steps for each conflict style: Avoiders Agree to start opening up to each other and stop bottling up issues in your marriage. Practice teamwork and active listening. Realize and accept each person’s reality. Take a communication and conflict resolution course like Talk To Me 101. Compromise and find creative solutions that honor both partners’ positions. Volatiles Stick to good ground rules during disagreements. Avoid shifting into hostile behaviors. Maintain a strong foundation of fondness and admiration. Focus on mutual support and understanding. Validators Be mindful of over-empathizing; sometimes honest feedback is necessary. Communicate uncomfortable truths when needed. Use a solution-oriented approach to turn conflicts into opportunities for growth. Hostiles or Hostile/Detached Actively seek help, such as reading Dr. Gottman’s books or pursuing marriage counseling. Practice active listening and use ‘I’ statements. Set boundaries, ensure financial transparency, and prioritize quality time. Build trust through honesty and address defensiveness. Work towards compromise and rebuilding connection. Image courtesy of Raul Lieberwirth under the Creative Commons license.

"I’m not crazy... am I?" If you have ever asked yourself this question after a conversation with your partner, you might be trapped in the fog of gaslighting. In this episode, Clinical Director Caleb Simonyi-Gindele and host Verlynda break down one of the most insidious forms of emotional abuse. Gaslighting isn't just lying; it is a systematic dismantling of your reality. We discuss: The Red Flags: How to distinguish between a normal disagreement and calculated manipulation (like the DARVO tactic). The Psychology: Why does someone gaslight? Is it always malicious, or is it sometimes a defense mechanism for their own shame? The Way Out: Practical, compassionate steps to stop arguing with a distorted reality, document the truth, and rebuild trust in your own intuition. You are not imagining things, and you are not alone. Connect with Therapevo: If you are ready to reclaim your reality, our specialized therapists are here to help. 👉 Book a Free 20-Minute Consultation: https://therapevo.com/domestic-abuse-trauma/

Discovering that your partner might be struggling with sex addiction can feel overwhelming and frightening. You may be experiencing confusion, deep hurt, or uncertainty about your next steps. If you’re asking yourself, “Is my partner a sex addict?” this article is here to provide you with the understanding and clarity you deserve during this difficult time. Sexual addiction, also known as compulsive sexual behavior or hypersexual disorder, is a complex mental health condition that affects many individuals and the people who love them. Recognizing the signs and understanding the true nature of sex addiction becomes a powerful starting point for addressing its impact on your partner, your relationship, and your emotional well-being. Key Points in This Article Understanding Sex Addiction: Sex addiction is a mental health condition rooted in emotional and psychological wounds, characterized by compulsive behaviors similar to other addictions, affecting about 3% to 10% of the population. Distinguishing Sex Addiction from Healthy Sexuality and Porn Addiction: Unlike healthy sexuality, which fosters emotional connection, sex addiction involves secrecy, shame, and behaviors used to avoid difficult emotions, often linked with broader compulsive sexual activities and pornography use. Signs, Symptoms, and Causes of Sex Addiction: Signs include loss of control, preoccupation with sexual thoughts, risky behaviors, and continuation despite negative consequences, often caused by trauma, family background, neurochemical factors, and co-occurring mental health conditions. Treatment and Support Options for Sex Addiction: Effective treatment includes individual, group, and couples therapy, sometimes medication, and support groups like Sex Addicts Anonymous, focusing on managing urges, addressing emotional wounds, and rebuilding trust. Supporting Partners and Moving Toward Recovery: Supporting a partner involves encouraging professional help, honest communication, boundaries, and patience, with recovery being a long-term process that can restore trust and foster emotional healing. What Is Sex Addiction? Sex addiction is a real, tangible challenge rooted in deeper emotional and psychological wounds—not simply a relationship issue or a matter of willpower. It’s crucial for you to understand that sex addiction isn’t caused by a lack of love or attraction toward you; rather, it stems from underlying psychological struggles that require specialized, professional support. Sex addiction mirrors other addictions, such as substance abuse, involving compulsive behaviors, intense cravings, and difficulty stopping despite devastating consequences. Studies suggest that sex addiction may affect about 3% to 10% of the general population in North America. Additionally, sex addiction occurs more frequently in men than women, with research indicating that for every two to five males with hypersexuality, one woman is affected. This article explores what sex addiction truly is, how it differs from healthy sexuality, the underlying causes, and the proven treatment options available for those ready to reclaim their lives from this condition. Defining Sex Addiction Sex addiction is often misunderstood, creating confusion about what actually constitutes compulsive sexual behavior versus a healthy sexual appetite. It’s important for you to understand that sex addiction isn’t simply having a high sex drive or enjoying frequent sexual activity with your partner. Healthy sexuality involves intimacy, closeness, and affection that foster emotional growth and deeper connection between you and your partner. In contrast, compulsive sexual behavior is characterized by using sexual acts to avoid difficult emotions, ultimately leading to significant amounts of shame, lies, betrayal and alienation within your relationship. Sex Addiction vs. Porn Addiction Sex addiction is also distinct from porn addiction, though the two can be interconnected. While some individuals struggling with sex addiction may frequently engage in pornography or phone sex, sexual addiction encompasses a much broader range of compulsive sexual behaviors. These behaviors include reckless sexual activity, excessive masturbation, frequent one-night stands, infidelity, paying for sexual services, seeking out strangers for sexual encounters, or involvement with sex workers and strip clubs. Cheating on you as their partner is a behavior that arises from the compulsive nature of sex addiction, creating even deeper wounds in your relationship. Moreover, sex addiction is not synonymous with sex offending, although many sex offenders may also struggle with sexual addiction. Criteria for Sex Addiction Mental health professionals rely on specific criteria to identify this disorder, including: Loss of control over sexual actions and compulsive behaviors despite repeated efforts to stop. Preoccupation with sexual thoughts and fantasies that dominate daily life. Inability to fulfill personal, professional, or relational obligations due to compulsive sexual behavior. Continuation of sexual activities despite devastating consequences such as relationship breakdown, legal problems, or physical and mental health deterioration. Escalation of sexual behaviors to satisfy increasing cravings. Experiencing withdrawal symptoms when unable to engage in sexual acts. For example, your partner may find themselves engaging in inappropriate sexual conduct even when it puts their work and/or personal health at risk or interferes with their daily responsibilities. Sex Addiction Assessments Sex Addiction Screening Test – Revised (SAST-R) This is one of the most widely used screening tools, which has been used in at least eight published, peer-reviewed empirical studies, and is routinely used in practice at several inpatient residential treatment centers, and by certified sex addiction therapists (CSATs) across the United States, and in other countries (Carnes et al., 2012). Originated in 1989, and has been subsequently revised to adjust to homosexual or female populations. In our practice, we use this as part of a larger assessment called the SDI which is a very comprehensive bundle of assessments which form an effective basis for planning treatment of sexual addiction. However, it is freely available on the Internet and is a great tool to use at the start of therapy to begin to understand the severity of your partner’s addiction. PATHOS Because the SAST is a little bit long, some folks also developed an assessment called PATHOS. It’s just six questions long and has had a couple of studies done already to establish its validity (Carnes et al, 2012): Do you often find yourself preoccupied with sexual thoughts? (Preoccupied) Do you hide some of your sexual behavior from others? (Ashamed) Have you ever sought help for sexual behavior you did not like? (Treatment) Has anyone been hurt emotionally because of your sexual behavior? (Hurt) Do you feel controlled by your sexual desire? (Out of control) When you have sex, do you feel depressed afterwards? (Sad) If your spouse answers “yes” to 3 or more of those questions, we gently recommend that you reach out to a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist who can walk alongside you on this healing journey. Please remember that this is an informal assessment, and there’s always the possibility of false positives or negatives—connecting with a qualified, compassionate clinician will help you gain the clarity and support you deserve for a proper understanding of your situation. We encourage you to approach self-diagnosis with care and kindness toward yourself. For instance, you might consider the example of a 22-year-old who is struggling with pornography—perhaps viewing it once a week. He could easily answer yes to 4, 5, or even 6 of those questions, but labeling him as a sex addict would really overstate and misrepresent the true nature of his challenge and potentially cause unnecessary distress. Many of the young adults we’ve had the privilege of supporting through pornography concerns find their path to recovery and maintain lasting sobriety after just 10 to 14 counseling sessions. In contrast, someone with a more complex sex addiction typically embarks on a deeper 3 to 5-year therapeutic journey to build the robust foundation of sobriety and healing they deserve. Your journey is unique, and there’s hope and specialized care available no matter where you find yourself today. The Addictive Cycle As compulsive sexual behaviors escalate, individuals often experience intense excitement or heightened arousal that reinforces the addictive cycle, making it even harder to break free. This cycle is influenced by the type of dopamine response triggered by different types of sexual stimuli or behaviors, which can further entrench the addiction. These signs and symptoms reflect a serious impulse control disorder that deserves the addict’s attention and compassionate care. There are various types of proven therapy available to address sex addiction, and treatment is often tailored to your partner’s individual needs and any co-occurring mental health conditions. If you’re concerned about your own or your partner’s behaviors, take a moment to journal about the patterns you’ve noticed. This can help you determine whether these behaviors fit the patterns of sex addiction and guide you toward the support you both deserve. Differences Between Addictive and Healthy Sexuality Understanding the contrast between addictive and healthy sexuality can help you gain clarity about whether your partner’s sexual behaviors might indicate a serious problem. Characteristics of Addictive Sexuality Addictive sexuality often involves shame, secrecy, and dishonesty, frequently compromising personal values and creating self-destructive patterns. It may rely on fear, reenact childhood abuse, disconnect individuals from their authentic selves, and foster a world of unreality. Addictive sexuality also often includes controlling behaviors or overwhelming urges, as individuals struggle to manage or suppress their sexual impulses. This addiction relates to emotional disconnection and unhealthy patterns in how your partner engages with sexual behaviors, significantly impacting their overall well-being and your relationship. Characteristics of Healthy Sexuality Conversely, healthy sexuality promotes positive self-worth, operates within a clear value system, uses intimacy to deepen your connection, and supports emotional regulation and authenticity. It respects boundaries, embraces imperfection, and creates mutually satisfying and consensual experiences. Healthy sexuality also involves managing conflict and emotions in constructive ways, emphasizing honest and respectful approaches to relationships and personal growth. Signs and Symptoms of Sex Addiction If your partner is experiencing compulsive sexual behavior, you may recognize patterns in their life that extend far beyond healthy sexual expression. They might find themselves feeling overwhelmed by urges to engage in sexual activities—whether through excessive masturbation, frequent pornography use, phone sex, cybersex, or seeking multiple partners—that feel impossible to control, even when these behaviors are causing distress or significant harm to their wellbeing, your relationship, or their daily responsibilities. That feeling of being unable to stop, despite repeated attempts to regain control, is something many people face on this challenging journey. This ongoing struggle can leave your partner feeling unsatisfied, anxious, or carrying deep shame, and you may notice them spending excessive time and energy on sexual pursuits while other important areas of their life suffer. Recognizing these signs is actually a powerful first step in your healing journey together. If your partner is struggling with overwhelming sexual impulses or finding it challenging to manage these urges, please know that reaching out for support from a therapist or qualified healthcare professional is not only important—it’s a courageous act of self-care that you both deserve. Early intervention can make a profound difference in helping your partner reclaim control and significantly improve both of your overall wellbeing. You both deserve compassionate, specialized support, and positive change is not only possible but absolutely achievable with the right guidance. Causes of Sex Addiction You may be wondering why your spouse has become addicted to sex, perhaps even speculating if you are to blame. Listen: it is not your fault! Sex addiction rarely develops due to shortcomings in married sex; it often stems from a complex interplay of personal history prior to marriage, pre-existing mental health conditions, and environmental factors. Role of Family Background and Trauma Family backgrounds play a significant role, with many individuals struggling with sex addiction coming from families that are rigid (77% of addicts) and emotionally disengaged (87%). A striking majority of people struggling with sexual addiction report histories of childhood trauma, including emotional, sexual, and physical abuse. In fact, surveys of this population indicate high prevalences of these issues: Emotional abuse: 97% Sexual abuse: 81% Physical abuse: 72% These early adverse experiences can leave deep emotional wounds that contribute to compulsive sexual behaviors as a maladaptive coping mechanism. In fact, studies show that a high percentage of people with sex addiction have experienced trauma or co-occurring mental health conditions. Early family dynamics and trauma impact children, shaping their later behaviors and emotional responses into the symptoms you may be observing today. Influence of Pornography and Internet Chat Rooms What about pornography? Pornography and internet chat rooms can act as catalysts or gateways that amplify sexual addiction by providing easy access to sexual stimuli that fuel obsessive sexual thoughts and urges. The chemical response—particularly the release of dopamine—plays a key role in compulsive sexual behavior, reinforcing the cycle of addiction. While pornography addiction is often a component of sex addiction, it is important to note that pornography addiction often exists without sex addiction. Most sex addicts are also porn addicts. Most porn addicts are not sex addicts. Neurobiological Factors Compulsive sexual behaviors are reinforced by chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins, which are released during sexual activity and create powerful feelings of pleasure and reward. This neurobiological process is similar to what occurs in many addictions, where repeated dopamine release rewires neural pathways and sustains compulsive behaviors. The type of neurotransmitter most involved in reinforcing these behaviors is dopamine, which is central to the brain’s reward system. These neurochemicals create a great deal of intensity during peak acting-out moments that cannot be replicated in healthy sexuality. This is what makes sexual behavior in this context addictive. One key shift in recovery becomes the addict’s willingness and commitment to pursue intimacy over intensity. Co-occurring Mental Health Conditions Other mental health conditions, such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and substance abuse—or other co-addictions—frequently co-occur with sexual addiction. These overlapping challenges can complicate diagnosis and recovery, making professional help from healthcare professionals such as we employ, specializing in mental health and addiction recovery, absolutely vital for your partner’s healing journey. Impact on Relationships When sex addiction enters your relationship, the emotional devastation you’re experiencing is both valid and profoundly difficult to navigate. Your feelings of betrayal, hurt, and shattered trust aren’t just understandable—they’re a natural response to having your emotional safety compromised. Many partners of sex addicts experience these emotions as they navigate the broken trust and its impact on their relationship. Your spouse’s sex addiction can also lead to feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem, as you may question your own worth or role in the relationship. This emotional impact is a natural response to the challenges posed by addiction and highlights the importance of seeking support for both partners. Both you and your partner need to focus on your individual well-being to prevent burnout during the healing process. You deserve to know that the confusion and uncertainty you’re facing about moving forward is something we see every day in our practice, and there is a clear path through this pain. What transforms relationships isn’t just time, but creating that essential foundation of open, honest communication where both you and your partner can express your deepest feelings without judgment and begin authentic healing together. The journey to rebuild trust after such profound betrayal requires tremendous courage, but I want you to know that restoration is not only possible—it’s something we witness regularly when couples commit to the healing process with proper support. Rebuilding trust demands consistent effort from both partners, including open communication and mutual accountability. Your intimacy and connection can be rebuilt stronger than before, though we understand this may feel impossible right now, especially if you’re feeling isolated or emotionally overwhelmed by your partner’s behaviors. As experts who’ve guided countless individuals through this exact journey, we know that understanding the nature of sex addiction becomes your most powerful tool for reclaiming your relationship and your peace of mind. Working alongside a specialized therapist or connecting with others who truly understand your experience will provide you with proven strategies to process these overwhelming emotions, establish healthy communication patterns, and develop a personalized roadmap that leads you back to trust, intimacy, and the relationship you deserve. Treatment for Sex Addiction If you are asking, “Is my partner a sex addict?” and suspect that their compulsive sexual behaviors are causing harm, know that there is genuine hope for recovery and transformation. Treatment for your partner’s sex addiction is multifaceted, addressing not only the sexual behaviors but also the underlying emotional and psychological wounds, as well as the emotional needs of both you and your partner. Early signs of problematic patterns can sometimes be noticed even during the dating phase, so recognizing these behaviors early becomes a powerful advantage in your healing journey. Types of Therapy There are several types of proven therapy available for sex addiction, including individual therapy, group therapy, and eventually couples counseling. In some cases, medications may be used as part of a comprehensive treatment plan to address co-occurring mental health conditions. The most effective form of treatment for sex addiction involves varying types of therapy, which focus on addressing the root causes of compulsive behaviors and providing you both with practical tools for lasting recovery. Therapy remains the most common and accessible approach to managing and overcoming sex addiction. Therapies often begin with individual counseling focused on impulse control disorders and managing obsessive sexual thoughts and urges. Emotion-focussed individual therapy (EFIT), trauma therapy and attachment work are frequently the starting points for addressing sex addiction effectively. For effective treatment, it’s essential to address specific traits and behaviors such as secrecy, denial, and boundary violations. In more severe cases where individual therapy with weekly or biweekly sessions is not creating lasting sobriety, inpatient programs lasting several weeks may be necessary to provide intensive support and structure. However, inpatient rehab is rarely necessary for the treatment of sex addiction. Recovery is typically a long-term process that requires significant time, effort, and emotional commitment from both you and your spouse. Support Groups Participating in support groups such as Sex Addicts Anonymous is highly encouraged, as these groups provide a community of understanding and accountability, which is crucial for sustaining sobriety and preventing a return to addictive behaviors. Treatment for Partners For you as the partner coping with a loved one’s sex addiction, the emotional toll can be immense, often resembling betrayed partner trauma. Feeling neglected or emotionally abandoned is a common experience for partners of individuals struggling with sex addiction. Honest conversation, professional guidance, and support groups for partners can help you navigate difficult emotions like self-doubt, anger, and grief. Disclosure of the addiction should be handled carefully and, ideally, with the support of mental health professionals to prevent further harm to your relationship. It’s important for you to expect emotional ups and downs, possible relapses, and the need to set realistic expectations for the recovery journey. Rebuilding trust after betrayal requires consistent, transparent, and accountable actions over time to restore the foundation of your relationship. Your ability to recognize and respond to problematic behaviors, as well as to communicate your needs clearly, is essential for healing. Establishing boundaries is a critical step in creating emotional safety for both partners during the recovery process. The goal of treatment isn’t to dwell on the past, but to move toward recovery, reconnection, and a healthier relationship for both you and your partner. Addressing Co-occurring Conditions Treatment options also include addressing co-occurring mental health conditions, such as mood disorders and anxiety, which may contribute to the compulsive sexual behavior. Integrating therapy for substance abuse or other addictive disorders is often necessary for comprehensive care. For those unable to attend in-person sessions, online therapy options are available, providing accessible and flexible support for individuals seeking help with sex addiction. Seeking Professional Help and Moving Forward If you’re struggling with questions about your partner’s sex addiction, seeking professional help is a critical step toward reclaiming your peace of mind and your relationship. Licensed therapists trained in treating sexual addiction can provide personalized care that respects your partner’s personal values, religious beliefs, and unique circumstances. They can help uncover the underlying issues driving compulsive sexual behaviors and guide both of you toward healing and genuine recovery. As you move forward, it’s important to regularly check in with yourself and your partner about progress and behaviors. Regularly monitoring for signs of relapse or ongoing issues can help you stay aware and address concerns early in your journey. Look for specific examples of behaviors or scenarios that may indicate sex addiction, such as secrecy, dishonesty, or repeated patterns of acting out. Joining a support group or listening to a podcast led by an experienced host in sex addiction recovery can also provide valuable guidance and community support during this challenging time. Your journey toward managing sexual addiction and restoring emotional well-being is challenging but absolutely possible. With compassion, honesty, and professional support, many individuals and couples find hope and healing beyond the pain of sexual obsession and reckless sexual activity. If you or your partner are dealing with compulsive sexual behavior or the aftermath of a partner’s sex addiction, consider scheduling a consultation with licensed mental health professionals who specialize in treating sex addiction and related mental health conditions. Taking this step can be the beginning of a healthier, more fulfilling life for you and your relationship. Maintaining Sobriety and Personal Growth Your journey toward lasting sobriety and meaningful personal growth in sex addiction recovery is one of the most courageous paths you can take—and you don’t have to walk it alone. Continuing to work with your therapist provides you with proven tools and refined strategies that don’t just help you manage urges, but actually transform how you experience emotional well-being and reclaim your sense of control. Building a strong support network—whether through trusted friends, understanding family members, or specialized support groups—creates the accountability and encouragement that becomes your foundation for lasting change. Setting realistic goals and celebrating every step forward, no matter how small it may seem, keeps you connected to your progress and fuels the motivation that carries you through challenging moments. When you prioritize self-care, embrace regular movement, and develop effective stress management techniques, you’re not just reducing relapse risk—you’re actively building the balanced, fulfilling lifestyle you deserve. Remember, your personal growth is an ongoing journey of discovery, and by continuing to nurture your emotional well-being and strengthen your relationships, you’re creating the foundation for the sobriety and happiness that’s truly within your reach. With your commitment and the right support surrounding you, overcoming sex addiction isn’t just possible—it’s the beginning of the healthier, more authentic future you’re meant to live. Frequently Asked Questions What is sex addiction and how does it differ from healthy sexuality? Sex addiction is a complex mental health condition characterized by compulsive sexual behaviors that are used to avoid difficult emotions, leading to shame and betrayal. Unlike healthy sexuality, which fosters emotional growth and intimacy, sex addiction involves secrecy, dishonesty, and behaviors that can harm relationships and personal well-being. How can I tell if my partner might be struggling with sex addiction? Signs of sex addiction include loss of control over sexual behaviors despite efforts to stop, preoccupation with sexual thoughts, engaging in risky sexual activities, secrecy, and continuing behaviors despite negative consequences. If your partner exhibits these patterns, it may be helpful to seek professional assessment and support. What are some common underlying causes of sex addiction? Sex addiction often stems from a combination of factors such as family backgrounds characterized by emotional disengagement or rigidity, histories of childhood trauma like abuse, influences of pornography and internet chat rooms, neurobiological factors involving dopamine and other chemicals, and co-occurring mental health conditions like mood or anxiety disorders. What treatment options are available for sex addiction? Treatment typically includes individual therapy, group therapy, couples counseling, and sometimes medication to address underlying issues. Evidence-based approaches focus on managing urges, addressing emotional wounds, and rebuilding trust, with support groups like Sex Addicts Anonymous also playing a vital role. How can I support a partner who is struggling with sex addiction and rebuild trust in our relationship? Supporting a partner involves encouraging professional help, practicing honest communication, establishing healthy boundaries, and participating in therapy together if appropriate. Rebuilding trust takes time and effort, but with compassion, patience, and proper support, recovery and a stronger connection are possible.

Loving a spouse who is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a unique and challenging journey. Many partners feel lost, confused, and alone, struggling to understand the trauma's impact on intimacy, trust, and even everyday affection. You want to help, but where do you even begin? In this episode, Caleb sits down with Mary Demuth—author, speaker, and survivor herself—to create a compassionate and practical resource specifically for those partners. Mary shares her powerful story and the moment she felt like a "skinny girl at a sumo wrestling seminar" listening to common church advice on sex. She offers a vulnerable look at how her husband, Patrick, navigated his own valid feelings of rejection and the turning point that helped him become a safe place for her. This episode is packed with wisdom on initiating intimacy safely, encouraging emotional connection without pressure (the "High Dive" analogy), and why healing is a "we" journey, not a "you" problem. Find Mary's work at WeToo.org and in her book, "Not Marked". If your partner's past is affecting your present, our therapists at Therapevo can help. We specialize in couples counseling and trauma-informed care. Book a free, confidential 20-minute consultation today at https://therapevo.com/trauma-therapy/childhood-sexual-abuse-trauma-therapy/

Expert therapist and vocalist Ron de Jager reveals how unresolved trauma manifests as vocal blocks and performance anxiety—and shares the path to setting your voice free. ### **iTunes Summary / Show Notes** Have you ever felt like your voice is trapped? For many performers, persistent vocal blocks, stage fright, and performance anxiety aren't just technical issues—they're echoes of past trauma held in the body. The very act of singing, which should be joyful, can become a source of profound fear and re-traumatization. In this episode, we're joined by Ron de Jager, a member of the Therapevo team who holds both a Doctorate in Musical Arts and a Masters in Counselling. He explains the powerful and often unspoken connection between trauma and the voice. Drawing on his clinical research, Ron unpacks concepts like "body armoring," the impact of insecure attachment on performers, and why the statement "the body keeps the score" is especially true for singers whose very instrument was the site of a past violation. Most importantly, this conversation offers a message of hope and a clear path toward healing. Discover how specialized, trauma-informed therapy can help you release what's holding you back and finally reclaim the freedom and power in your voice. **Key discussion points include:** * Why a singer's experience of trauma is profoundly different from other musicians. * The physical and emotional ways trauma manifests in a performer's body. * How to differentiate between a technical issue and a trauma response. * The therapeutic process for helping performers heal and find their authentic voice. **Resources Mentioned:** * **Take the first step:** Book a free, confidential 20-minute consultation with the Therapevo team: [https://therapevo.com/consultation](https://www.google.com/search?q=https://therapevo.com/consultation) * **Learn more about Ron de Jager's specialized therapy for performers:** [https://oyf.link/ron](https://www.google.com/search?q=https://oyf.link/ron)

Feeling like your marriage is broken is an incredibly painful and isolating experience. But does it mean it's truly beyond repair? In this episode, Therapevo's expert therapists, Verlynda and Caleb, provide a comprehensive and compassionate roadmap for couples who feel lost. They break down Dr. John Gottman's "Four Horsemen"—the critical communication patterns that predict divorce—and discuss the non-negotiable situations where safety must be the absolute first priority. Most importantly, this episode is a guide to hope. You will learn the clear signs that your marriage is worth fighting for and hear a detailed breakdown of how Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) helps couples heal deep wounds and rebuild a powerful, lasting connection. If you're looking for clarity and a real, evidence-based path forward, this episode is your first step. ➡️ Ready to find clarity? Therapevo offers specialized, high-quality online couples counseling. Book a FREE, confidential 20-minute consultation to learn more: https://therapevo.com/couples-counseling/

Key Takeaways Pornography withdrawal can cause both psychological symptoms (anxiety, depression, irritability) and physical symptoms (insomnia, fatigue, headaches), commonly referred to as porn addiction withdrawal symptoms (PAWS). The most common porn withdrawal symptoms include intense cravings, mood swings, difficulty concentrating, and sleep disturbances that typically peak within the first week. Additionally, increased sexual thoughts that are difficult to control and irritability are frequently reported. Withdrawal symptoms occur because regular pornography use alters brain chemistry and dopamine pathways, creating dependency similar to other behavioral addictions. Symptoms usually last anywhere from a few days to several weeks, with severity depending on frequency and duration of previous pornography use. Professional support and healthy coping strategies can help manage withdrawal symptoms and prevent relapse during the recovery process. https://youtu.be/ol8Ypi3v5hk Pornography withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, intense cravings, depression, insomnia, fatigue, and temporary loss of sexual desire — effects that emerge as the brain recalibrates its dopamine pathways after compulsive pornography use. If you’ve made the brave decision to quit porn, you may find yourself experiencing unexpected physical and emotional changes. These withdrawal symptoms are your brain’s natural response to breaking free from a behavioral addiction that has rewired your neural pathways over time. Professional help is often recommended to manage these symptoms and navigate the recovery process successfully. Understanding what to expect during this recovery journey and having a competent addictions counselor walking through it with you can help you navigate the challenges ahead with greater confidence and self-compassion, leading to stronger sobriety. The symptoms of pornography withdrawal are real, well-documented, and temporary. While the experience can feel overwhelming, especially in the first few weeks, recognizing these symptoms as part of your healing process is an important step toward lasting recovery and improved well being. Understanding Pornography Withdrawal Pornography withdrawal happens when someone who has developed a strong porn habit suddenly cuts back or stops using pornography altogether. This change sets off a complex series of neurobiological adjustments as the brain learns to function without the artificial dopamine rush that comes from watching porn. These brain changes are similar to those seen in other addictive behaviors, where compulsive use leads to dependence and then withdrawal symptoms. The intensity of these symptoms often relates directly to the severity of the addiction. When you regularly watch pornography, your brain chemistry—especially the dopamine pathways that govern pleasure, motivation, and reward—undergoes significant shifts. Over time, your brain gets used to these intense dopamine spikes, which can lead to tolerance. This means you might need more stimulating or novel content to feel the same satisfaction as before. This neuroadaptation plays a central role in what makes pornography addictive. Just like other addictive behaviors, repeated pornography use can trigger withdrawal symptoms resembling those experienced in substance addiction. Additionally, changes in libido, including a drop in sexual desire, are common after quitting as the brain recalibrates. The experience of withdrawal shares many features with other behavioral addictions such as gambling or compulsive gaming. However, unlike drug or substance addiction, porn withdrawal generally does not involve severe physical dangers, though it can produce significant psychological symptoms driven by dopamine dependence. While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) does not currently recognize pornography addiction as a formal diagnosis, compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD) is discussed within the context of behavioral addictions. This highlights the importance of recognizing and understanding these conditions for effective treatment. It’s important to note that not everyone who stops using pornography will face withdrawal symptoms. Those most likely to experience them are individuals who have engaged in compulsive sexual behavior, used pornography daily over long periods, or relied on porn as their main way to manage stress or sexual release. Early evidence suggests that pornography withdrawal shares traits with other behavioral and addictive disorders, underscoring the need for more research and clinical focus. Psychological Symptoms of Pornography Withdrawal The psychological symptoms of pornography withdrawal often emerge within 24-48 hours and represent some of the most challenging aspects of the recovery process. Physical symptoms, such as insomnia and muscle tension, may also accompany these psychological changes. Understanding these mental health changes can help you prepare for what lies ahead. Anxiety and Panic Attacks Many people experience withdrawal symptoms in the form of heightened anxiety and, in some cases, panic attacks. This anxiety often stems from the brain’s struggle to regulate emotions without its usual coping mechanism. The anxiety may feel particularly intense during times when you would normally watch porn, such as when alone and stressed. Depression and Emotional Numbness Depression frequently accompanies porn addiction withdrawal as the brain’s reward system recalibrates. You might experience persistent sadness, feelings of hopelessness, or a condition known as anhedonia – the inability to feel pleasure from activities you once enjoyed. This emotional flatness is temporary but can be particularly distressing during the early recovery period. For other people, withdrawal can actually alleviate symptoms of depression and feelings of numbness. Intense Cravings and Urges Perhaps the most significant or likely withdrawal symptom involves powerful cravings to return to pornography use. These urges can be triggered by stress, boredom, loneliness, or even seemingly unrelated stimuli that your brain has associated with porn consumption. The intensity of these cravings typically peaks in the first week but may continue in waves throughout the recovery journey. Brain Fog and Concentration Difficulties Many individuals report experiencing brain fog – a mental cloudiness that makes it difficult to think clearly, focus on tasks, or remember information. This cognitive impairment can affect work performance, academic achievement, and decision-making abilities. The brain fog typically improves as your neural pathways heal and adapt to natural stimulation levels. Mood Swings and Irritability Emotional volatility is common during pornography withdrawal. You might find yourself experiencing rapid mood swings, becoming easily frustrated, or having angry outbursts over minor triggers. These emotional fluctuations reflect your brain’s efforts to restore emotional equilibrium without artificial stimulation. These mood swings or the irritability may also be revealing the fact that your coping mechanism of choice is no longer available to you and so you will need to learn new ways of tolerating, expressing, and processing difficult emotions. Social Withdrawal and Relationship Challenges The recovery process often involves increased social anxiety and a tendency to withdraw from friends, family, and social situations. This isolation may stem from shame about past behaviors, fear of triggers in social settings, or simply the emotional exhaustion that accompanies withdrawal. Again, for other people the withdrawal may actually have the opposite effect of opening you back up to friendships or social networks you may have been drifting away from. Not everyone’s experience is the same! Physical Symptoms of Pornography Withdrawal While pornography addiction is primarily psychological, the physical symptoms during withdrawal can be surprisingly pronounced and uncomfortable. Sleep Disturbances and Insomnia Sleep problems represent one of the most common physical symptoms of porn withdrawal. Many people struggle to fall asleep, experience frequent night wakings, or have vivid dreams related to sexual content. These sleep disturbances occur because pornography often served as a sleep aid, and the brain must now learn alternative ways to wind down. There may also be latent sexual material in your mind and nervous system that will take a while to defuse, sometimes leading to nocturnal emissions (for men). Fatigue and Low Energy Persistent tiredness and low energy levels are frequently reported during the early stages of withdrawal. This fatigue results from the brain’s energy-intensive process of neuroplasticity – literally rewiring itself to function without pornography. The fatigue typically improves as the brain adapts to more sustainable energy patterns. Sexual Dysfunction and Changes in Sexual Desire Paradoxically, many people experience a temporary decrease in sexual desire or erectile dysfunction after quitting pornography. This “flatline” period occurs because the brain is readjusting its response to natural sexual stimuli after years of artificial overstimulation. While concerning, this temporary loss of sex drive typically resolves as the brain heals. Physical Discomfort and Tension Headaches, muscle aches, and general physical tension are common during withdrawal. Some individuals also report restlessness, difficulty sitting still, and an overall sense of physical discomfort. Less commonly, people may experience nausea, sweating, or mild tremors, particularly during the acute withdrawal phase. Changes in Appetite Both increased and decreased appetite can occur during pornography withdrawal. Some people find themselves eating more as they seek alternative sources of dopamine, while others lose interest in food entirely. Maintaining proper nutrition becomes especially important during this time to support brain health and recovery. Timeline of Withdrawal Symptoms Understanding the typical progression of withdrawal symptoms can help set realistic expectations for your recovery journey. When you quit pornography, it is common to experience withdrawal symptoms as your brain adjusts to the absence of regular dopamine stimulation. First 24-72 Hours: Peak Intensity The most intense withdrawal symptoms typically occur within the first three days of stopping pornography use. During this period, you may experience the strongest cravings, most severe mood swings, and greatest physical discomfort. For most people, these symptoms peak within the first one to two weeks. This acute phase represents your brain’s immediate response to the absence of its expected dopamine stimulation. During this initial phase, the brain undergoes significant neurochemical adjustments as it attempts to recalibrate the reward pathways previously overstimulated by pornography use. The sudden lack of dopamine surges can lead to feelings of restlessness, irritability, and heightened emotional sensitivity. Many individuals report that their other coping mechanisms feel insufficient, leading to increased vulnerability to relapse. It’s important to recognize that these early withdrawal symptoms, while challenging, are a natural part of the brain’s healing process. Understanding this can help individuals approach recovery with patience and self-compassion. Engaging in supportive activities such as mindfulness, physical exercise, and connecting with support groups can alleviate the intensity of symptoms during this critical period. Recognizing triggers during this phase is crucial. Situations or emotions previously associated with pornography use may provoke strong urges, so planning ahead to manage these can improve chances of sustained abstinence. Utilizing tools like environmental modifications and behavioral replacements can support individuals through this vulnerable time, setting the foundation for longer-term recovery success. Week 1-2: Continued Challenge with Gradual Improvement The first two weeks generally involve continued psychological symptoms, though their intensity may begin to fluctuate. You might experience good days followed by difficult ones, which is entirely normal. Physical symptoms often start improving during this period, though sleep disturbances may persist. Week 3-4: Noticeable Progress By the third and fourth weeks, most people notice significant improvement in their symptoms. However, you may still experience occasional “waves” of cravings or emotional difficulty, particularly when exposed to triggers or during times of stress. Month 2-3: Stabilization Phase Most withdrawal symptoms resolve within two to three months, though some individuals may experience an extended period of recovery. The brain’s neuroplasticity continues working to restore normal function, and many people report feeling better than they did before their addiction began.   Individual Variation It’s crucial to remember that withdrawal timelines vary significantly based on individual factors. Some people may feel substantially better within weeks, while others require several months for complete recovery. This variation is normal and doesn’t indicate failure or weakness. Future studies are needed to better understand the variability in withdrawal timelines and symptom progression. Factors That Influence Withdrawal Severity Several factors determine how severely you might experience withdrawal symptoms and how long they may last. Most research on withdrawal severity is based on the general population rather than clinical samples, so individual experiences may vary. Duration and Frequency of Use The length of time you used pornography and how frequently you consumed it significantly impact withdrawal severity. Daily users over multiple years typically experience more intense and prolonged symptoms compared to occasional users. Type and Intensity of Content The nature of pornographic content consumed also influences withdrawal difficulty. Those who progressed to more extreme or novel content may experience stronger withdrawal symptoms as their brains readjust to normal stimulation levels. Age of First Exposure Individuals who began using pornography at younger ages often face more challenging withdrawal periods. Early exposure during critical brain development phases can create deeper neural pathways that require more time and effort to change. Co-occurring Mental Health Conditions Pre-existing mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, or other addictive disorders can complicate the withdrawal process. These conditions may become more apparent during withdrawal and require additional professional support. Social Support and Environmental Factors Strong social support networks and healthy environmental factors can significantly reduce withdrawal severity. Conversely, isolation, relationship stress, or environments with easy access to triggers may intensify symptoms. Overall Physical and Mental Health Your general health status, including sleep quality, nutrition, exercise habits, and stress levels, influences how well your body can cope with the withdrawal process. Those in better overall health often experience milder symptoms and faster recovery. Managing Withdrawal Symptoms Successfully navigating pornography withdrawal requires a comprehensive approach that addresses both the immediate symptoms and the underlying factors that contributed to the addiction. Establishing Healthy Daily Routines Creating structure in your daily life provides stability during the emotional turbulence of withdrawal. Establish consistent sleep and wake times, regular meal schedules, and planned activities that reduce idle time when cravings might intensify. Maintaining a predictable routine helps your brain recalibrate and adapt to the absence of constant dopamine spikes from pornography use. It also fosters a sense of control and accomplishment, which is vital for mental health during recovery. In addition to structuring your day, setting small, achievable goals can provide motivation and a sense of progress. These goals might include completing a task, engaging in a hobby, or practicing a relaxation technique. Celebrating these small victories reinforces positive behavior and helps counter feelings of discouragement that may arise during withdrawal. Another important aspect is managing triggers by proactively planning your day. Identify times or situations when you are most vulnerable to cravings and fill those periods with purposeful activities. This can include social interactions, physical exercise, or creative pursuits. Keeping busy not only distracts from urges but also promotes the development of new, healthy habits that replace old compulsive patterns. Finally, self-compassion plays a crucial role in maintaining structure. Recognize that withdrawal symptoms are part of your brain’s healing process and that setbacks are common. Allow yourself grace and patience as you navigate these changes, understanding that consistency over time leads to lasting recovery. Physical Exercise and Movement Regular physical activity is one of the most effective strategies for managing withdrawal symptoms. Exercise naturally boosts endorphin production, improves mood, reduces stress, and provides a healthy outlet for restless energy. Even moderate activities like walking or stretching can provide significant benefits. Mindfulness and Stress Reduction Techniques Practicing mindfulness meditation, deep breathing exercises, and progressive muscle relaxation can help manage anxiety and emotional volatility. These techniques provide healthy coping mechanisms for stress without relying on compulsive behaviors. Nutritional Support Eating nutritious foods supports brain health during the recovery process. Focus on whole foods, adequate protein, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates while avoiding excessive caffeine, sugar, and processed foods that can worsen mood swings and energy crashes. Building Support Networks Connecting with trusted friends, family members, or support groups provides crucial emotional support during challenging moments. Many people find value in online communities, online therapy, or 12-step programs specifically designed for sex addiction or compulsive sexual behavior disorder. Productive Activity Replacement Identifying meaningful activities to replace the time previously spent watching pornography helps fill the void and provides a sense of accomplishment. Consider learning new skills, pursuing hobbies, volunteering, or engaging in creative pursuits. Trigger Avoidance and Environmental Modifications Identifying and avoiding triggers is essential for preventing relapse. This might involve installing website blockers, avoiding certain locations or times of day when urges are strongest, and modifying your living space to reduce temptation. Creating a Recovery Plan Creating your personalized recovery plan isn’t just another step—it’s a compassionate act of self-care that honors your courage to heal from porn addiction and navigate withdrawal with grace. Your unique journey deserves a thoughtful roadmap that understands your individual challenges and celebrates your commitment to growth. As you begin, we encourage you to gently explore your personal triggers with curiosity rather than judgment, developing nurturing strategies to support yourself through cravings—whether that’s discovering fulfilling alternative activities that bring you joy, embracing mindfulness practices that ground you in the present moment, or reaching out to your support network who truly understands your path. Your emotional landscape during recovery deserves the same specialized attention and care that our expert therapists provide their clients every day. Learning to honor and process your feelings—through gentle techniques like conscious breathing, reflective journaling, or meaningful conversations with trusted friends—empowers you to navigate difficult emotions without returning to old patterns. This healing journey often includes the tender work of rebuilding relationships and restoring trust with your loved ones, recognizing that addiction can strain even our most cherished connections, but that repair and deeper intimacy are absolutely possible. Seeking professional guidance through therapy or counseling represents a profound investment in your wellbeing and future—one that provides you with specialized, personalized support tailored to your unique needs and circumstances. An experienced mental health professional becomes your ally in addressing underlying concerns, developing healthy coping strategies that truly serve you, and celebrating your progress along the way. Embracing nurturing habits like regular movement, nourishing nutrition, and restorative sleep creates a foundation of resilience that supports your entire being through this transformation. Finally, connecting with support groups or online communities offers you the gift of understanding voices—people who truly comprehend your experiences and can offer genuine encouragement as you continue growing into the person you’re meant to become. When to Seek Professional Help While many people successfully navigate pornography withdrawal independently, professional support can be invaluable, especially in certain circumstances. Anyone addicted to pornography will benefit from counseling, especially if you have multiple failed attempts to quit pornography. Professional therapists who specialize in behavioral addictions can provide personalized strategies, help address underlying issues, and offer ongoing support throughout the recovery process. In addition to counseling, joining a support group focused on pornography recovery can provide invaluable community-based support. A comprehensive treatment program should include addressing the underlying drivers of addiction, often rooted in challenges around attachment and trauma. Persistent or Worsening Symptoms If withdrawal symptoms persist beyond 4-6 weeks without improvement, or if they worsen over time, professional intervention becomes even more essential. Extended symptoms may indicate underlying mental health conditions that require specialized treatment. Severe Depression or Anxiety When withdrawal symptoms significantly interfere with your ability to function at work, school, or in relationships, professional help is crucial. Severe depression, persistent anxiety, or panic attacks may require therapeutic intervention or medication management. Suicidal Thoughts or Self-Harm Any thoughts of suicide or self-harm during withdrawal represent a mental health emergency requiring immediate professional attention. Don’t hesitate to contact emergency services or a mental health crisis line if you experience these symptoms. Co-occurring Addictive Behaviors If you’re struggling with substance abuse, gambling, or other compulsive behaviors alongside pornography addiction, professional treatment becomes even more important. These complex presentations often require specialized, integrated treatment approaches. Relationship and Sexual Dysfunction When pornography withdrawal significantly impacts your intimate relationships or sexual functioning doesn’t improve after several months, couples therapy or sex therapy may be beneficial. These specialized approaches can help restore healthy sexual relationships and communication patterns. Professional treatment options include individual therapy, group therapy, specialized addiction counseling, and in some cases, medication management for co-occurring mental health conditions. Our therapists offer online sessions, making quality care more accessible and convenient for those with busy lives. Frequently Asked Questions How long do pornography withdrawal symptoms typically last? Most people experience the worst symptoms within the first 1-2 weeks, with gradual improvement over 4-8 weeks. However, some individuals may have symptoms that last several months, especially if they had a severe addiction or underlying mental health conditions. The timeline varies significantly based on factors like duration of use, frequency, age of first exposure, and overall health status. Are pornography withdrawal symptoms dangerous? Unlike alcohol or drug withdrawal, pornography withdrawal is not physically dangerous or life-threatening. However, the psychological symptoms can be intense and may require professional support, especially if someone experiences severe depression or suicidal thoughts. While the symptoms are uncomfortable, they represent your brain’s natural healing process and will improve with time and proper support. Can withdrawal symptoms come back after they’ve improved? Yes, some people experience “waves” of withdrawal symptoms that can return weeks or even months later, often triggered by stress, relationship problems, or exposure to pornographic content. This phenomenon is normal and typically becomes less frequent over time. These recurring symptoms don’t indicate failure but rather represent your brain’s ongoing adaptation process. Do women experience different withdrawal symptoms than men? While the core symptoms are similar, women may experience more emotional and relationship-focused symptoms during withdrawal, while men often report more sexual dysfunction like “flatlining” (temporary loss of sexual desire). Both genders can experience the full range of psychological and physical symptoms, though individual presentations vary widely regardless of gender. Is it normal to have no withdrawal symptoms when stopping pornography? Yes, not everyone experiences withdrawal symptoms when stopping pornography use. This typically occurs in people who used pornography occasionally rather than compulsively, or who didn’t develop a psychological dependence on it for emotional regulation or stress relief. The absence of withdrawal symptoms doesn’t minimize the positive benefits of stopping pornography use. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "How long do pornography withdrawal symptoms typically last?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Most people experience the worst symptoms within the first 1-2 weeks, with gradual improvement over 4-8 weeks. Some individuals may have symptoms that last several months, especially if they had a severe addiction or underlying mental health conditions." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Are pornography withdrawal symptoms dangerous?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Unlike alcohol or drug withdrawal, pornography withdrawal is not physically dangerous or life-threatening. However, the psychological symptoms can be intense and may require professional support, especially if someone experiences severe depression or suicidal thoughts." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can withdrawal symptoms come back after they have improved?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes, some people experience waves of withdrawal symptoms that can return weeks or even months later, often triggered by stress, relationship problems, or exposure to pornographic content. This is normal and typically becomes less frequent over time." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Do women experience different withdrawal symptoms than men?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "While the core symptoms are similar, women may experience more emotional and relationship-focused symptoms during withdrawal, while men often report more sexual dysfunction like temporary loss of sexual desire. Both genders can experience the full range of psychological and physical symptoms." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is it normal to have no withdrawal symptoms when stopping pornography?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes, not everyone experiences withdrawal symptoms when stopping pornography use. This typically occurs in people who used pornography occasionally rather than compulsively, or who did not develop a psychological dependence on it for emotional regulation or stress relief." } } ] }

Why Porn Addiction Recovery Takes Longer Than You Think If you or someone you love is struggling with compulsive pornography use, you probably want to know one thing: how long is this going to take? It’s a fair question, and it deserves an honest answer. Porn addiction recovery is absolutely possible. We see it in our counseling practice regularly. But lasting recovery is not just about stopping the behavior. It involves rewiring deeply embedded neurological patterns, rebuilding trust in damaged relationships, and developing entirely new ways of managing stress, loneliness, and emotional pain. That process typically unfolds over one to two years or more, though meaningful progress often begins within the first few months of committed treatment with a qualified therapist. The timeline varies significantly depending on how long the addiction has been active, whether underlying trauma or mental health conditions are present, and how strong your support system is. What we can tell you from years of clinical experience is that the people who recover are not the ones who white-knuckle their way through willpower alone. They are the ones who get the right help and stay engaged with the process even when it gets hard. Here is what the recovery timeline actually looks like, what influences it, and what you can do to move through it with greater confidence. How Pornography Rewires Your Brain Understanding the neuroscience behind porn addiction is not just academic. It is one of the most powerful tools for reducing the shame that keeps people stuck. When you understand that your brain has been physically changed by repeated exposure to high-dopamine stimulation, the problem stops feeling like a moral failure and starts looking like what it actually is: a treatable condition. Repeated pornography consumption triggers your brain’s reward system in ways that closely mirror substance addiction. Dopamine floods the same pathways activated by drugs and alcohol, creating a reinforcement cycle that strengthens with every use. Over time, your brain adapts through a process called desensitization. Natural rewards, including intimacy with your partner, become less satisfying. You need more frequent or more intense stimulation to get the same response. What started as pleasure-seeking becomes compulsive behavior performed to avoid discomfort rather than to gain enjoyment. Many of the clients we work with describe emotional numbing, difficulty finding pleasure in ordinary activities, and persistent intrusive cravings. These are not character flaws. They are predictable neurological consequences of chronic high-dopamine exposure. The critical insight, and the source of genuine hope, is that these brain changes are not permanent. The same neuroplasticity that allowed your brain to wire itself around pornography allows it to rewire toward healthier patterns with proper treatment and time. This is where clinical approaches like Certified Sex Addiction Therapy (CSAT) become essential. CSAT-trained therapists understand the specific neurological and relational dynamics of compulsive sexual behavior and can guide the recovery process in ways that general therapy often cannot. Timelines We Typically See in Our Counseling Agency Recovery timelines are not one-size-fits-all, but after years of working with clients across the full spectrum of pornography addiction, we can describe what we typically observe. These ranges reflect real clinical experience, not theoretical estimates. Addiction Severity Treatment Duration Typical Outcomes Mild Addiction 8-12 weekly sessions Significant progress in 2-3 months Moderate Addiction 3-6 months weekly sessions Substantial change and improved control Serious Addiction 6-12 months weekly sessions Major life improvements and stable recovery Very Serious / Sex Addiction 2+ years ongoing support Long-term recovery with maintenance Mild Addiction Recovery (2-3 Months) Clients with less entrenched patterns of compulsive porn use often achieve significant progress in 8 to 12 weekly counseling sessions. These cases typically involve decreased but not completely eliminated control over pornography consumption, with fewer structural life consequences. People in this category may have recognized their problem early and sought help before the addiction severely impacted their relationships or daily functioning. They often respond well to cognitive behavioral therapy and basic coping strategies. Moderate Addiction Recovery (3-6 Months) The majority of clients seeking porn addiction recovery fall into the moderate category. We recommend 3 to 6 months of weekly counseling for substantial change. This period allows for rewiring ingrained habits, developing effective coping strategies, and exploring the emotional triggers and relational patterns that drive the addictive behavior. During this timeframe, we often see clients begin to address underlying mental health issues that contribute to their porn use, such as anxiety, depression, or unprocessed trauma. They also begin rebuilding trust in relationships and developing healthier patterns of intimacy and sexual expression. We frequently use Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) during this phase to help couples reconnect and begin repairing the attachment injuries that pornography use often creates. Serious Addiction Recovery (6-12 Months) For those experiencing severe consequences from their pornography use or compulsive behavior with intrusive thoughts about pornographic material, 6 to 12 months of regular counseling is typical. The recovery process at this level includes managing withdrawal symptoms, emotional volatility, addressing co-occurring mental health disorders, and often couples or family therapy to repair significant relationship damage. Clients in this category may have escalated to more extreme porn content, experienced significant relationship breakdowns, or developed other mental health symptoms alongside their porn addiction. One thing we see consistently at this severity level is that the addiction has become the person’s primary strategy for emotional regulation. They are not just using porn for pleasure. They are using it to manage anxiety, avoid conflict, numb grief, or escape from a life that feels unmanageable. Recovery at this level requires replacing the entire emotional regulation system, not just stopping one behavior. Very Serious Addiction Recovery (2+ Years) In the most severe cases, such as when porn addiction behaviors overlap with other compulsive sexual activities or have continued for many years, 2+ years of counseling is often needed. Recovery becomes a long-term process similar in scope to recovery from substance use disorders. These cases often involve complex trauma histories, multiple addictive behaviors, or severe relationship and life consequences. Recovery requires comprehensive, trauma-informed treatment addressing not just the pornography use but the underlying emotional wounds and life circumstances that fostered its development. We often integrate attachment theory into our work at this level, because the relational deficits that drive the most severe addictions typically have roots in early attachment experiences. Individual Variation Matters It is important to understand that these timelines are averages. Your motivation, life context, access to support, willingness to engage with difficult emotional work, and presence of other mental health conditions all impact the pace of your recovery. Some people move through these stages more quickly. Others need more time. The key is working with qualified mental health professionals, ideally those with CSAT or similar specialized training, who can tailor treatment to your specific needs and circumstances. The Stages of Porn Addiction Recovery Crisis and Decision Stage (0-3 Months) This period typically begins with a moment of recognition, whether from personal distress or a catalyzing external event such as relationship breakdown, discovery by a partner, job consequences, or a health scare. During this stage, you make the crucial commitment to change and begin taking concrete steps to address your pornography addiction. The crisis stage is marked by high motivation but also intense vulnerability. You may experience acute cravings, anxiety, and persistent preoccupation with pornographic material. This is when you need the highest level of therapeutic and social support to maintain your commitment. Common early actions include seeking professional counseling specialized in sexual addiction, installing digital restriction tools to limit access to pornographic content, joining support groups for accountability and peer support, informing trusted friends or family members about your recovery goals, and developing immediate coping strategies for managing cravings. Many people successfully stop watching porn during this initial phase, often within the first month or two. However, achieving sobriety is just the first step. We tell our clients: stopping the behavior is the floor, not the ceiling. The deeper work is what comes next. Shock and Withdrawal Stage (1-8 Months) As your neurochemical system adjusts to the absence of high-frequency pornography-induced dopamine stimulation, you may experience withdrawal symptoms similar to those seen in substance abuse recovery. This is often the most difficult period, and it catches many people off guard. Common withdrawal symptoms include irritability and mood swings, anxiety and restlessness, insomnia and sleep disturbances, fatigue and low energy, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, difficulty concentrating, strong cravings for pornographic material, and emotional lability with sudden surges of anger, sadness, or grief. Professional therapy is critical during this stage. A trained therapist provides emotional containment, helps you understand and manage these symptoms, and begins addressing the underlying issues that contributed to your addiction. Many people find that individual counseling combined with group therapy provides the comprehensive support needed during this challenging time. These withdrawal symptoms are temporary. They indicate that your brain is actively healing from the effects of compulsive pornography use. Knowing that can make a significant difference when you are in the middle of it and wondering whether something is wrong. Grief Stage (Around 6 Months) Around the six-month mark, many of our clients enter what therapists call the grief stage. This is the point where you begin processing deeper pain and grieving the role that pornography played as a coping mechanism in your life. This stage often involves confronting root causes of the addiction: childhood trauma, attachment wounds, ongoing loneliness, or other underlying mental health issues. While this is emotionally challenging, it represents some of the most important progress in the entire recovery journey. We often tell clients that this is where the real transformation begins, because you are no longer just managing behavior. You are addressing the emotional architecture that made the behavior necessary in the first place. Common experiences during the grief stage include sadness about time and relationships lost to addiction, anger about the impact of pornography on your life, fear about facing life without your primary coping mechanism, grief over childhood experiences that contributed to vulnerability, and anxiety about building authentic intimate relationships. Therapy during this stage focuses on deeper emotional regulation, processing trauma or painful experiences, and developing self-acceptance and self-compassion. Many people find that this stage, while difficult, leads to significant breakthroughs. Repair Stage (18-36 Months) The repair stage represents a significant shift from managing addiction symptoms to actively building healthy habits and reintegrating into balanced living. This period involves substantial relationship work, redefining intimacy, and developing a sense of meaning and purpose beyond avoiding pornography. Key areas of focus include rebuilding trust in damaged relationships, developing healthy patterns of sexual intimacy, creating meaningful life goals and pursuing personal growth, establishing sustainable routines, continuing to address any ongoing mental health symptoms, and building a strong support network of healthy relationships. This is often where couples therapy or family therapy becomes particularly important. If your addiction has impacted your closest relationships, and in most cases it has, the repair stage is where that relational healing happens. We frequently use Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) during this phase because it directly addresses the attachment injuries that pornography use creates between partners. The repair stage is often when people begin to experience the full benefits of their recovery efforts: improved relationships, better mental health, increased self-esteem, and a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment in life. Growth Stage (2+ Years) With compulsive urges largely controlled and healthy life patterns established, the growth stage focuses on personal development, mature self-understanding, and continued improvement in relationships. Research suggests that the risk of relapse declines significantly after two years of sustained recovery, though it does not disappear entirely. Many people maintain ongoing connections with support groups or periodic therapy sessions as a form of maintenance. During the growth stage, many people report significantly improved intimate relationships, better overall mental health and emotional regulation, increased confidence and self-esteem, greater sense of purpose and life satisfaction, and the ability to help others struggling with similar issues. Understanding Relapse in Porn Addiction Recovery Relapse is extremely common in behavioral addictions, particularly in the first year of recovery. Studies indicate that up to 60-75% of people recovering from porn addiction experience at least one relapse episode within the first year. This statistic is not meant to discourage you. It is meant to normalize what is a predictable part of the recovery process. One clinical distinction that matters here is the difference between a slip and a full relapse. A slip is a single, isolated return to the behavior, often followed by immediate recognition and re-engagement with recovery. A full relapse is a sustained return to compulsive patterns. They require very different responses, and understanding the difference can prevent a momentary slip from becoming a full relapse driven by shame and hopelessness. We often tell clients: a slip is not a failure. It is data. It tells you something important about what triggered you, what coping strategy was missing, and where your recovery plan needs strengthening. The people who recover are not the ones who never slip. They are the ones who learn from slips and keep going. Research consistently shows that people who persist through setbacks and continue working on their recovery have much better long-term outcomes than those who give up after an initial lapse. Factors That Influence Recovery Duration Your individual recovery journey will be shaped by a range of personal, environmental, and clinical factors. Understanding these can help you and your treatment team develop a realistic and effective recovery plan. Trauma and Childhood Experiences A substantial number of individuals with porn addiction report histories of childhood abuse, neglect, or attachment disruption. These experiences often complicate and typically prolong the recovery process, because effective treatment must address not only the addictive behavior but also the emotional and relational wounds that made pornography a necessary coping mechanism. If your pornography use began as a way to cope with traumatic experiences, recovery may require specialized trauma-informed therapy approaches. This often extends the treatment timeline but leads to more comprehensive healing that addresses root causes rather than symptoms alone. Co-occurring Mental Health Conditions High rates of comorbidity exist between porn addiction and other mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and ADHD. When these conditions are present but untreated, they significantly delay recovery and increase the risk of relapse. Comprehensive treatment addresses these co-occurring issues through an integrated approach rather than treating them separately. Relationship Patterns and Attachment Style Marital conflict, insecure attachment patterns, and lack of healthy intimacy often co-exist with compulsive porn use. Recovery is typically accelerated when partners are involved in counseling, though repairing trust and rebuilding intimate relationships can take years. People with secure attachment styles and strong relationship skills often recover more quickly than those with histories of relationship difficulties or insecure attachment patterns. However, recovery itself can improve your capacity for healthy relationships over time. Many of the couples we work with report that their relationship after recovery is stronger than it was before the addiction was discovered, because the recovery process forced them to build communication and intimacy skills they had never developed. Severity and Duration of Use People who use pornography multiple times daily or have been consuming it compulsively for many years typically require longer recovery periods. The brain changes associated with long-term, high-frequency use take more time to heal. Escalation to more extreme content generally indicates more severe underlying emotional or psychological issues that require deeper therapeutic work. Commitment and Willingness to Change Recovery efforts rooted in internal motivation, such as personal values, life goals, and genuine desire for change, typically produce better long-term outcomes than those driven exclusively by external pressure like ultimatums from partners. While external consequences can provide initial motivation, lasting recovery requires developing internal reasons for change and commitment to the difficult process of personal growth. Quality of Support System Working with mental health professionals who specialize in sexual addiction, ideally those with CSAT certification, significantly improves recovery outcomes. Beyond professional support, having trusted family members, friends, or mentors who understand your recovery goals and can provide ongoing encouragement and accountability makes a measurable difference. Social isolation and shame are major drivers of relapse. The antidote is connection, not willpower. FAQ Can you fully recover from porn addiction? Yes. Full recovery from pornography addiction is possible with proper treatment, commitment, and support. Recovery involves more than stopping pornography use. It includes developing healthy coping mechanisms, addressing underlying mental health issues, rebuilding damaged relationships, and creating a life that provides genuine fulfillment. Many former porn addicts report that their lives become significantly better than they were even before their addiction began. Working with mental health professionals who specialize in sexual addiction, particularly those with CSAT certification, greatly improves your chances of lasting recovery from porn addiction. How long does porn addiction recovery take? Recovery timelines vary widely. Mild cases often see significant progress in 2-3 months of weekly counseling. Moderate cases require 3-6 months. Serious cases need 6-12 months of intensive treatment. Very severe cases, especially those involving co-occurring sex addiction or complex trauma, may require 2+ years of ongoing therapeutic support. Most people achieve initial sobriety within the first month or two, but deeper healing and lifestyle changes unfold over much longer periods. Recovery is not a linear process, and setbacks do not mean failure. What withdrawal symptoms can I expect when quitting porn? Common withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, irritability, mood swings, intense cravings, fatigue, sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating, and emotional volatility. These symptoms typically peak within the first few weeks and gradually subside over 1-2 months with proper support. The intensity varies based on how long and frequently you used pornography, your overall mental health, and the quality of support you receive during early recovery. These symptoms indicate that your brain is actively healing from the effects of chronic dopamine overstimulation. Is relapse normal during porn addiction recovery? Relapse is extremely common. Research indicates that 60-75% of people recovering from behavioral addictions experience at least one relapse episode within the first year. A relapse does not mean you have failed or that recovery is impossible. The important distinction is between a slip, which is a single isolated return to the behavior, and a full relapse, which is a sustained return to compulsive patterns. Most people who achieve long-term recovery experience one or more setbacks during their journey. The key is learning from these experiences and returning to your recovery plan with professional support. What is the first step to recovering from porn addiction? The most important first step is seeking professional help from a therapist who specializes in sexual addiction. While self-help tools like internet filters and accountability software are useful, they address the behavior without addressing the underlying emotional and relational issues that drive it. A qualified therapist, particularly one with CSAT training, can help you understand the specific patterns behind your addiction and develop a treatment plan tailored to your situation. Beyond professional help, practical first steps include removing immediate access to pornographic content, informing trusted support people about your recovery goals, and approaching the process with self-compassion rather than shame. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can you fully recover from porn addiction?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes. Full recovery from pornography addiction is possible with proper treatment, commitment, and support. Recovery involves more than stopping pornography use. It includes developing healthy coping mechanisms, addressing underlying mental health issues, rebuilding damaged relationships, and creating a life that provides genuine fulfillment. Working with mental health professionals who specialize in sexual addiction greatly improves your chances of lasting recovery." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How long does porn addiction recovery take?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Recovery timelines vary widely. Mild cases often see significant progress in 2-3 months of weekly counseling. Moderate cases require 3-6 months. Serious cases need 6-12 months of intensive treatment. Very severe cases may require 2+ years of ongoing therapeutic support. Most people achieve initial sobriety within the first month or two, but deeper healing unfolds over much longer periods." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What withdrawal symptoms can I expect when quitting porn?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Common withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, irritability, mood swings, intense cravings, fatigue, sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating, and emotional volatility. These symptoms typically peak within the first few weeks and gradually subside over 1-2 months with proper support." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is relapse normal during porn addiction recovery?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Relapse is extremely common. Research indicates that 60-75% of people recovering from behavioral addictions experience at least one relapse episode within the first year. A relapse does not mean failure. The key is learning from setbacks and returning to your recovery plan with professional support." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the first step to recovering from porn addiction?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The most important first step is seeking professional help from a therapist who specializes in sexual addiction. A qualified therapist can help you understand the specific patterns behind your addiction and develop a tailored treatment plan. Beyond professional help, practical first steps include removing access to pornographic content and informing trusted support people about your recovery goals." } } ] } If you are ready to begin your recovery journey, you do not have to figure this out alone. Our therapists specialize in porn addiction recovery and understand what it takes to move from where you are now to where you want to be. Schedule a free 20-minute consultation and take the first step toward the life you actually want.

What if I told you that the people who seem the most controlling are often the ones who feel the most out of control on the inside? This paradox is a profound truth frequently encountered in couple’s counseling. That constant need your spouse might have to check who you’re texting, manage your schedule, or question your spending—it’s almost never really about you. Instead, it’s a coping mechanism, a flawed attempt to manage a storm of anxiety, deep-seated fears, or even past trauma raging inside them. Understanding this distinction is crucial because the behaviors we label as controlling can be complex, and the defining line between a frustrating dynamic and abusive control often comes down to the presence of fear and power. Ask yourself: Does your spouse’s controlling behavior seem to stem from their own internal anxiety or fear? Or does it feel like a deliberate tactic to isolate you and maintain power over you? The core difference lies in your emotional experience—are you feeling frustrated, or are you genuinely afraid of your partner’s reaction? If fear, intimidation, or isolation are present, you may be facing coercive control, a serious form of domestic violence. In such cases, your safety is absolutely paramount, and connecting with resources like the National Domestic Violence Hotline is essential. If you are in danger, it is absolutely necessary to prioritize your safety and seek help immediately. However, if you feel fundamentally safe yet struggle with frustration due to your partner’s need to control, then this article is here to support you in navigating that challenge. https://youtu.be/Ip3HCn9SGP0?si=6D6UwPFC16UrfvHJ Part 1: Introduction – The Frustration is Real When your spouse exhibits controlling behavior, it can feel overwhelming and deeply frustrating. You might find yourself constantly questioned about where you are, who you’re with, or how you spend your time. Perhaps your partner micromanages the family finances down to the last dollar or insists on approving every plan you make with your friends. Sometimes, what initially seem like “helpful suggestions” turn into directives about how you should dress, what you should eat, or even how to parent your children. It’s important to remember that a controlling person can take many forms—some may be overtly domineering, while others may use subtle or manipulative tactics. Not all controlling people act the same way. Such controlling behavior can leave you feeling not trusted, infantilized, and filled with resentment. Many individuals have felt isolated, anxious, or powerless in response to a controlling person’s actions. These feelings are real and significant. At the same time, reframing controlling behavior as an attempt by the controlling spouse to manage internal chaos or emotional pain can help you discern how to navigate this problem in your relationship. Recognizing this can help you develop empathy for your partner, even when their behavior feels counterproductive. In this article, we will explore the root causes behind controlling behavior, develop compassion for the spouse who struggles with it, and provide practical tools for the other spouse to respond with strength, understanding, and love. This approach aims to foster a healthier connection within your marriage or relationship. Part 2: The “Why” Behind the “What” – Unpacking the Roots To effectively address controlling behavior, it’s essential to understand what lies beneath it. Typically, it’s not about a desire to dominate but rather a flawed strategy to cope with deep fears and anxieties. Many controlling behaviors are learned from parents or family dynamics, especially when parents themselves were authoritative or maintained strict control within the household. As humans, there is a natural tendency to seek control or security in relationships, which can sometimes lead to unhealthy patterns. Several factors often contribute to a controlling spouse’s behavior, including past traumas or betrayals that happened earlier in life and continue to influence current actions and emotional responses. 1. Anxiety & Fear For many controlling people, control is a way to manage an unpredictable and chaotic internal world. When anxiety is high, predictability feels like safety. A controlling spouse may expect certain behaviors or outcomes from their partner, and when these expectations are unmet, their anxiety can increase, leading to more controlling behaviors. This need to control can manifest as constant criticism, questioning, or even the silent treatment when things don’t go as expected. 2. Unresolved Trauma or Past Betrayal Past traumas or betrayals, whether in the current relationship or earlier in life, can leave a person’s nervous system constantly on alert. For example, a husband whose father was unfaithful might compulsively check his wife’s phone—not out of distrust toward her personally, but out of fear of being blindsided again. This behavior can deeply affect the wife, making her feel distrusted, controlled, and emotionally hurt, undermining her sense of autonomy and respect within the marriage. This trauma-driven controlling behavior is a misguided attempt to protect oneself from future pain. 3. Perfectionism Perfectionism often acts as a defense mechanism against shame or failure. The belief is that if every detail is controlled—from how the house is kept clean to how the family spends money or how a partner manages their tasks—disaster and judgment can be avoided. This can lead to expectations that become unfair within the marriage and family, causing tension and conflict. 4. Low Self-Esteem & Relational Insecurity A core wound such as “I’m not good enough” or “I’m unlovable” can drive controlling behavior. The controlling spouse may fear abandonment and try to keep their partner close by controlling their actions. Ironically, this behavior often pushes the partner away, creating a cycle of insecurity and control. This dynamic can affect the entire family, including children, who may sense the tension and feel unsafe. Wives, in particular, may be especially impacted by controlling dynamics within a marriage, sometimes experiencing challenges related to dependency and loss of identity. Understanding these factors helps clarify that controlling behavior is often less about a desire to dominate and more about a person’s internal struggle with fear, insecurity, and past wounds. Part 3: What to Do – Actionable Steps for Connection If you find yourself on the receiving end of controlling behavior, there are healthy ways to respond that foster connection and reduce conflict. Take time to talk openly with your spouse about how certain actions make you feel, and encourage honest dialogue about control issues. These steps emphasize communication, respect, and boundaries. Suppose you notice a pattern where your partner makes decisions without your input—this could be a sign of control, but it might also be a misunderstanding. In such situations, it’s important to make your point clear when discussing boundaries and needs, so both partners understand each other’s perspectives. Sometimes, a single moment of honest conversation can lead to a shift in understanding and help both of you move toward a more balanced, interdependent relationship. Interdependence in a relationship allows both spouses to meet each other’s needs without feeling controlled, fostering mutual respect and autonomy. Step 1: Get Curious, Not Furious Instead of reacting with anger or defensiveness, try shifting your response to one of curiosity. Ask open, gentle questions that invite your spouse to share their feelings and fears. For example: “I notice you seem worried when I spend money on my own. Can you tell me what fear comes up for you around our finances?” “Help me understand how you feel when I’m out late with my friends.” This approach encourages open conversation and helps you hear the underlying emotions driving their controlling behavior. Step 2: Practice Differentiation Differentiation is the art of staying connected to your partner while maintaining your own sense of self. It means empathizing with their anxiety without taking responsibility for fixing it. You might say: “I hear that you’re scared, and that’s okay. Your fear is yours, and my need for autonomy is mine. Both can exist.” By setting this emotional line, you protect your well-being while honoring your partner’s feelings. Achieving this balance and interdependence can bring a sense of emotional rest and relief to both partners, allowing each person to feel safe and respected. This balance is key to creating respect and safety in the relationship. Step 3: Set Loving Boundaries Boundaries are essential for protecting your peace and are different from ultimatums or punishments. Setting clear, loving boundaries communicates your needs while respecting your partner. Even when married, it is important to maintain personal boundaries and autonomy, as boundaries in marriage should not mean giving up your independence. Examples include: “I love you, and I also need to make plans with my friends without needing to run it by you first. I’ll make sure our shared calendar is updated.” “I’m happy to discuss our shared budget, but I need autonomy over my personal spending allowance without justifying every purchase.” Creating these boundaries helps both partners understand expectations and reduces the feeling of being controlled or micromanaged. Part 4: Conclusion & The Path Forward Moving forward in a relationship with a controlling spouse requires compassion for the underlying reasons behind controlling behaviors and the courage to take action with loving boundaries and differentiation. Successful couples often engage in respectful negotiations rather than demands or sacrifices, creating a foundation of mutual understanding and shared decision-making. If you recognize these patterns in your marriage or partnership, the next step is seeking guidance. Specialized counseling can provide a safe, non-judgmental space for both spouses to heal and reconnect. Our therapists offer free, confidential consultations to explore how therapy might support your journey toward a healthier, more balanced relationship. With understanding, respect, and commitment, your relationship can transform from frustration and control to connection, autonomy, and hope. Remember, you are not alone, and help is available to support your safety, well-being, and the unconditional love that can still flourish within your family.

Disclosing an affair is one of the most critical and challenging conversations a husband can have with his wife. When mishandled, this revelation will certainly extend the healing process and possibly could mean the end of the marriage. However, for those who genuinely want to save their relationship and show as much care to their betrayed partner as possible, there are ways to approach this conversation with clarity, care, and respect. Understanding what to tell your wife about your affair—and how to say it—can make all the difference in whether your marriage survives this painful breach of trust. Infidelity affects about 20-25% of marriages, highlighting how common yet devastating this issue can be. https://youtu.be/nPlogRdjb18?si=YoPnDPSijA9Bcvac The fear of causing pain and facing the consequences of infidelity is very real and understandable. Yet, how the conversation starts is crucial; it should not be about damage control (i.e., mere self-preservation) or minimization. Instead, it must be rooted in honesty, integrity, and a commitment to building a foundation for possible healing. If your goal is to save your marriage, knowing how to communicate the truth about your affair is the first vital step. TLDR; being honest and transparent from the beginning is essential for rebuilding trust and demonstrating genuine remorse. Healing From An Affair Begins With Thoughtful Disclosure The healing process after an affair is never simple, but it is possible with the right approach and mindset. The reality is that both partners will experience a wide range of emotions, from anger and grief to confusion and hope. Recently found research shows that couples who approach this journey with empathy and a willingness to work through difficult issues are more likely to rebuild trust and potentially create a stronger relationship than before. Rebuilding trust takes time (more than you think!) after infidelity, requiring patience and consistent effort from both partners. It’s important to keep your heart open and acknowledge the pain that has been caused, both to yourself and your spouse. Seeking out a counselor who understand betrayal trauma can provide the guidance and structure needed to address the complex issues that arise after infidelity. In some cases, the support of a parent or other close family member can also offer comfort and perspective. Many people struggle with the decision of whether to involve friends and family in the recovery process after infidelity, as it can be both a source of support and a potential complication. Remember: there is no single “right” way to heal. Every couple’s circumstances are unique, and what works for one may not work for another. The key is to remain open, communicate honestly, and be willing to put in the work required to move forward. Healing takes time, but with empathy, the right support, and a commitment to facing reality together, it is possible to start rebuilding your relationship from a new, solid foundation. Preparing for the Infidelity Disclosure Preparing to tell your wife about your affair requires careful thought and planning. The right environment can make a significant difference—choose a time and place where you both feel comfortable and free from distractions, so you are able to be fully present with the fallout. Before the conversation, take time to write down your thoughts and disclosures. This can help you clarify what you want to say and ensure you don’t fall back on lies or excuses when emotions run high. It’s also wise to consider seeking the guidance of a counselor for betraying partners before you start this difficult conversation. A professional can help you prepare, offer advice on how to approach this discussion, and provide support as you work through the aftermath together. Being prepared means not only knowing what you want to disclose, but also being ready to listen to your spouse’s feelings and concerns with empathy and validation. Remember, the goal is not to justify your actions or shift blame, but to take responsibility and start the process of healing. By approaching the conversation with a commitment to honesty, openness, and a willingness to work through the issues, you lay the groundwork for rebuilding trust and moving forward together. The Temptation to Hide Affair Facts, Minimize, or Dishonesty One of the most common and damaging pitfalls when confessing an affair is the temptation to hide facts or minimize the situation. This often leads to “trickle-truthing,” or what we call “staggered disclosure”, where information is revealed in pieces over time rather than all at once. While it might seem kinder or safer to disclose details slowly, this approach always causes more harm than good. Each new revelation acts like a fresh emotional betrayal for the betrayed spouse. A wife who experienced this shared her pain: “He has trickle-truthed me endlessly, every iteration of the truth being the ‘final truth’… It sets us back further every time, shatters his credibility even more, and re-traumatizes me.” Staggered disclosures are experienced as re-betrayals. Each new piece of information is another shattering moment for the betrayed spouse. Hiding the truth in this way does not protect the relationship from harm; in fact, it often deepens the wounds. The fear of revealing everything often stems from a deep sense of shame. However, the only way to combat shame is through complete vulnerability, which requires surrendering control over the outcome. Once your wife suspects that you are holding back information, she will always wonder what else you might be hiding. This suspicion makes healing and forgiveness far more difficult. Another betrayed spouse described the destructive impact of staggered disclosure: “First, it was just ‘sexting.’ Then I found out they met for coffee. Months later, I learned it was a full-blown physical affair. Each lie felt like D-Day all over again… The constant lying was more painful than the cheating.” The initial pain caused by infidelity is compounded exponentially when facts are withheld. Therefore, a thoughtfully handled, honest, and complete disclosure is the only path forward if you want to minimize the trauma caused to your wife. Don’t Blame or Justify When you confess your affair to your wife, it is essential to avoid blaming her or justifying your actions in any way. While it is true that many affairs happen in marriages that are distressed, emotionally disconnected, or sexless, this is not the time to bring up those issues. Doing so will only add fuel to the fire and deepen her hurt. Trying to convince your wife that your actions were justified will only make her feel more betrayed and intensify her pain. There will be time later—perhaps in couples therapy or through professional help—to explore the many factors that contributed to the breakdown of your relationship. But during the initial conversation, your sole focus should be on taking full ownership of your choice. No matter how difficult your marriage was, you made a deliberate choice to betray your wife and break your marriage vows. That is the best stance to take at this point in your recovery. Avoid using pity or self-loathing as a shield either. Expressing overwhelming guilt or focusing on your own pain can subconsciously shift attention away from your wife’s grief. While that may seem productive, it only delays her healing: her hurt, anger, and devastation must have space in this conversation. What Truth To Disclose About The Affair Building a new foundation of honesty requires that your disclosure be factual, thorough, and free of minimization. The goal is to share all the relevant facts—not to provide a graphic or sensationalized account. Here is what we generally recommend you should tell your wife about your affair: Who the affair partner was, including how you knew her (the other woman). Revealing this information is crucial to avoid creating suspicion towards other individuals in your life. When the affair occurred, including start and end dates. Where and when the affair meetups took place. The nature of the affair—whether it was emotional, physical, or both. How you concealed the affair, owning up to all lies and secrecy. How the affair ended, or if it has not. Offer access to your emails and other digital communications to demonstrate transparency. When answering questions, be prepared to respond honestly to anything your wife asked, no matter how difficult (see What Not to Disclose, below). Your wife may ask you to explain the reasons behind the affair, as she tries to understand why it happened. Be cautious here: most husbands do not know how to provide an explanation without blaming their wife, which is certain to backfire. Inevitably, our experience is that betraying husbands have unrecognized, unmet emotional needs and longings that subconsciously are projected onto the affair partner. But to really articulate those reasons in a thoughtful, non-blaming, responsibility-taking way often takes some good therapy work. You might consider telling your spouse, “I am not sure why. But I will figure it out so that I can become a safe partner for you.” When Truth About Your Mistake Is Confessed Well One wife described a disclosure that made recovery possible: “He sat me down and told me the truth—the whole truth—in one go. He didn’t wait for me to find evidence… It was brutal, but it was honest. There were no more secrets waiting around the corner to ambush me. That complete transparency… was the one thing that allowed me to even consider trusting him again.” In her case, she discovered the affair after noticing unusual behavior and finding messages, which made the honesty in his confession even more important. When you disclose, choose your words carefully. The right word or words can make a difference in how your remorse and sincerity are received. Complete honesty is the only way to dismantle the system of deception that infidelity creates. Be willing to repeat your apologies and reassurances as often as needed to help rebuild trust. What Not to Disclose While transparency is crucial, certain details are counterproductive and can inflict unnecessary trauma. Avoid sharing a play-by-play of sexual encounters or specific intimate details, such as what the other woman wore. These graphic details create painful mental images and comparisons that hinder healing and deepen emotional wounds. However, your wife’s physical safety must always be a priority. You need to disclose whether there is any risk of sexually transmitted diseases by sharing the types of sexual contact that occurred and whether protection was used. If your wife asks for graphic details, it is appropriate to pause and respond with care. It is important to be emotionally present during these conversations, showing that you are fully engaged and attentive to her feelings. You should also strive to be kind in your communication, approaching the discussion with empathy and understanding. You might say: “I want to be completely truthful, but I believe some details will hurt you more than help. I want us to be careful because some memories may fade for me but never for you.” Suggesting that these topics be explored in couples therapy can help both of you navigate what information is truly necessary for healing. Your task here is to avoid causing further harm while also avoiding it looking like you’re just hiding necessary details. Dealing with the Affair Partner After disclosing your affair, one of the most important and potentially challenging issues to address is how to deal with the affair partner. In some cases, there is no possibility of accidental contact (e.g., coming across her in the grocery store). In other cases, continued contact with the other woman (e.g., if she is a coworker) can create massive amounts of fear and make it much harder for your spouse to begin healing. To protect your marriage and show your commitment to rebuilding trust, it’s often necessary to set clear boundaries or end all communication with the affair partner. Sometimes, this necessitates major transitions such as a change in employment. If you’re unsure how to navigate this complex situation, seeking professional help is highly recommended. A counselor can help you and your spouse work through the emotional fallout, develop a plan for dealing with the affair partner, and address the root causes of the infidelity. Every case is different, so it’s important to consider your unique circumstances and prioritize empathy, honesty, and open communication as you deal with this difficult issue. Support Plans The context and timing of this conversation are incredibly important. Avoid disclosing your affair right before a family event or when your wife has other pressing commitments. Instead, choose a quiet time—such as a weekend evening—that allows space for emotional fallout. At the same time, avoid delaying this conversation any longer than you need to: disclosure is always better than discovery. You should have a plan for your own therapeutic work. Finding a professional therapist to understand your behavior and work through your guilt and mistakes sends a powerful signal of safety and commitment to your wife. Consider what support your wife will need immediately after the disclosure. Arranging for a trusted friend or family member to be available can help her feel less isolated in her pain. This person should be someone who can be confidential and validate her feelings without pressuring her to forgive or reconcile prematurely. Sharing one’s experience of infidelity with trusted friends can also alleviate feelings of loneliness and shame, providing a sense of connection during a deeply isolating time. Be prepared for many questions in the days and weeks following your confession. Answer all factual inquiries patiently and honestly. This process helps validate your wife’s reality and rebuild trust. A Foundation for Healing True remorse is not about regretting being caught; it is about being deeply horrified by the pain you caused your spouse. This genuine remorse is the signal that allows a betrayed wife to begin considering forgiveness and rebuilding trust. One wife on a recovery forum shared what this looked like in practice: “He answered every single one of my questions. He didn’t get defensive… He just answered. He booked his own individual counseling appointment and found a marriage counselor for us that same day. He wrote out a timeline of the affair. He gave me all of his passwords. He knew he had to be an open book, and he didn’t hesitate.” Disclosing an affair is agonizing, but it is the essential first step toward potential healing. By preparing carefully, taking full ownership, providing all the information your wife needs while avoiding harmful details, and prioritizing her emotional and physical safety, you can create a foundation of honest communication. While this approach does not guarantee forgiveness or that your marriage will survive, this courageous integrity is the only way to open the door to rebuilding trust and working toward affair recovery together. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) 1. Should I tell my wife everything about the affair?Yes, honesty and transparency are crucial for rebuilding trust. While you don’t need to share graphic details that may cause unnecessary pain, you should disclose all relevant facts, including who the affair partner was, when it occurred, and how it ended. Being open helps prevent suspicion and supports healing. 2. How do I prepare for telling my wife about my affair?Preparation involves choosing a private, distraction-free time and place, reflecting on what you want to say, and possibly seeking guidance from a counselor. Be ready to take full responsibility without blaming your wife or marriage, and prepare to answer her questions honestly and patiently. 3. What if my wife asks for details that might hurt her more?It’s important to be truthful but also compassionate. You can explain that some details may cause more harm than healing and suggest discussing sensitive topics with a professional counselor. The goal is to provide enough information for understanding without inflicting additional trauma. 4. What is betrayal trauma?Betrayal trauma is the deep psychological injury caused by a violation of trust in a core relationship, resulting in intense grief and a shattered sense of safety. This trauma is severely compounded when the truth is revealed in stages, as each new lie or withheld fact re-traumatizes the betrayed partner. Consequently, the betrayed individual’s nervous system can remain in a constant state of high alert, making them feel perpetually unsafe and as if they are waiting for the next painful “ambush”. 5. What support can help after disclosing an affair?Both partners benefit from professional counseling to address emotional fallout and rebuild the relationship. Additionally, having trusted friends or family members who can provide confidential emotional support to your wife can alleviate feelings of isolation and shame during recovery.

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Yes, your brain can recover from porn addiction. The neurological changes that pornography creates are real, but they are not permanent. The same brain plasticity that allowed the addiction to form in the first place is what makes recovery possible. We work with people every week who are living proof of this. But here is what most articles about porn addiction recovery won’t tell you: the problem is almost never willpower. The person who relapses on a Tuesday night after three weeks of sobriety is not weak. Their brain has been systematically rewired to disconnect desire from consequence, and no amount of white-knuckling can overcome a neural pathway that has been reinforced thousands of times. Understanding how that rewiring works, and what actually reverses it, is where real recovery begins. If you are the person caught in this cycle, or the partner trying to understand why someone you love keeps doing something they swore they would stop, this is for you. How Porn Rewires Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Addiction “What Were You Thinking?”: The Neural Disconnect This is the question partners ask most often in our office: “What were you thinking?” And the honest, uncomfortable answer is that in the moment of relapse, the person was not thinking. Not in the way you mean. In the grip of compulsive behaviour, the part of the brain that desires pornography becomes profoundly disconnected from the part that sees and weighs the consequences. You can fully commit to stopping when you are calm, clear-headed, and looking your spouse in the eyes. But in the moment of craving, your rational brain is essentially offline. This is not an excuse. It is a neurological reality, and understanding it is the first step toward changing it. The Mesolimbic Dopamine Pathway: Your Brain’s “Wanting” Circuit At the core of this disconnect lies the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, often called the brain’s “wanting” system. Located in the primitive midbrain and extending to the forebrain, this pathway is responsible for the intense hit associated with addictive behaviours. When you consume pornography, dopamine is released in the nucleus accumbens, creating a powerful reward signal. Over time, your brain becomes less responsive to this dopamine release, requiring more frequent, longer, or more intense exposure to achieve the same effect. This is tolerance, and it is why usage almost always escalates. Critically, your brain also becomes less responsive to natural, healthy rewards: the warmth of a real conversation, the pleasure of a shared meal, the intimacy of being known by another person. We often explain it to clients this way: pornography does not just add something to your brain’s reward system. It recalibrates the entire scale. Everything else starts to register as less. The Amygdala, the Hippocampus, and Euphoric Recall The rewiring does not stop with the dopamine pathway. The amygdala, the brain’s emotional centre, becomes linked to this circuit, connecting stress and negative emotions with the dopamine release that pornography provides. In practical terms, this means your brain learns to treat pornography as medication for difficult feelings. Then there is the hippocampus, where memories are stored. It plays a key role through what clinicians call euphoric recall: not just remembering the act itself, but the excitement, the anticipation, the perceived discovery. Your brain reconstructs the experience as better than it was and presents it as a solution to whatever discomfort you are feeling right now. It is the brain’s way of saying, “Remember how good that felt? You need that again.” This is why triggers seem to come out of nowhere. A difficult day at work, a conflict with your spouse, even boredom: your hippocampus has already catalogued these as situations where pornography “helped.” The Prefrontal Cortex: When Your Decision-Maker Goes Offline In contrast to these primitive reward circuits is the prefrontal cortex, the front of your brain responsible for higher-level thinking, impulse control, and weighing consequences. This is the part that tells you looking at porn is going to hurt your partner, damage your self-respect, and set your recovery back weeks. In addiction, the prefrontal cortex becomes significantly impaired. The neural pathway between this rational, consequence-aware region and the desire-driven mesolimbic pathway weakens or disconnects entirely. This explains why, in moments of relapse, people consistently report feeling like they “weren’t thinking” or “just didn’t care anymore.” The part of your brain that could tell you to stop is not connected to the part creating the desire. If you are a partner reading this, this may be one of the most important things to understand: the person who relapsed is often telling the truth when they say they don’t know why they did it. That is not a deflection. It is a description of a brain in which the warning system has been disconnected from the accelerator. Rebuilding the Connection: How the Brain Heals from Porn Addiction When caught in this cycle, the primitive, desire-driven circuits dominate. Breaking free requires a dual approach. First, it is crucial to deprive the mesolimbic dopamine pathway of its unhealthy source of stimulation. This means abstinence from pornography so your brain can re-attune to normal, healthy pleasures. Research on neuroplasticity consistently shows that the brain can recalibrate its reward system when the artificial stimulus is removed, though this takes time and the timeline varies from person to person. Second, and equally vital, is actively rebuilding the neural pathway between the desire for pornography and the awareness of its real consequences. In porn addiction therapy, we use techniques like brainspotting to help rewire these connections, linking the craving with the real-life fallout in a way that makes consequence awareness more present in the moment of temptation. This is not about shaming yourself into compliance. It is about giving your prefrontal cortex back its voice. A key part of this work is also learning healthy coping mechanisms and developing a deeper understanding of your triggers and attachment patterns. Many of our clients who are working with a certified sex addiction therapist (CSAT) find that this combination of neurological rewiring and emotional insight is what finally makes sobriety sustainable rather than a series of white-knuckle streaks. Shame: The Hidden Engine of Porn Addiction Relapse When the “Painkiller” Becomes the Pain Here is one of the most important clinical reframes we offer clients: shame is not the cure for porn addiction. It is the fuel. Many people try to use shame as a motivator to stop, believing that if they beat themselves up enough, they will finally quit. “If I just hate myself enough for doing this, I’ll stop.” This strategy feels intuitively right. It is also almost universally counterproductive. Pornography functions as a maladaptive coping mechanism for shame itself. The images present an illusion of desire and validation, acting as a temporary antidote to feelings of worthlessness. Yet after the act, the shame returns, intensified. This creates a vicious cycle: you feel bad, you use porn to temporarily numb the feeling, you feel worse afterwards, and then you use porn again to cope with the increased shame. We see this pattern in our practice constantly. A client will describe weeks of progress followed by a relapse that “came out of nowhere.” But when we slow down and trace the emotional sequence, there is almost always a shame trigger: a moment where they felt inadequate, rejected, or fundamentally flawed. The shame did not prevent the relapse. It caused it. Shame also thrives in secrecy, pushing individuals further into isolation and away from the very relationships that could support recovery. This is the painful paradox: the intended “painkiller” becomes the source of escalating pain. Beyond “Just Horny”: The Deeper Needs Driving Porn Use Why the “I’m Just Horny” Explanation Falls Apart Often, people rationalize pornography use by saying, “I’m just horny.” While sexual arousal is part of the experience, this explanation almost always masks something deeper. The euphoric recall system can trick your brain into labelling uncomfortable feelings as sexual arousal, making you believe that addressing your “horniness” will solve the underlying issue. There is also a cultural script, particularly for men, that equates sex drive with a basic biological need like hunger. “Men need release.” But unlike food, which is essential for survival, you will not die without ejaculating. The body has its own mechanisms for managing sexual tension. Believing this myth lowers inhibition and provides a rationalization that keeps the addiction in place. The clinical reframe we offer is this: “I’m just horny” is almost never the whole truth. It is the surface-level story your brain tells because the real story is harder to face. The Valid Longing Underneath What is actually happening beneath the surface is often a deeper, legitimate longing that is going unmet. These longings show up as uncomfortable feelings: loneliness, sadness, anger, boredom, or grief for what is missing in your life. Perhaps it is a longing for genuine connection, for deep friendships, or for a healthy sexual relationship with a partner who truly knows you. When these legitimate emotional needs go unaddressed, pornography steps in as a distorted, short-term solution. It distracts you from the pain of isolation or unmet intimacy, but ultimately leaves you feeling more disconnected than before. It is crucial to understand that these underlying feelings are valid. There is no shame in experiencing loneliness or longing for connection. They are signals from your body and mind, pointing you toward needs that deserve to be met in healthy ways. Desexualizing the Need for Connection The path toward lasting recovery involves acknowledging these deeper longings and finding wholesome ways to fulfill them. This means actively working to desexualize your need for connection. Instead of turning to pornography, focus on building genuine relationships with real people. This includes fostering emotional intimacy with a partner, deepening friendships through real conversation (not just texts or social media), and actively engaging in community. Whether it is a sports team, a men’s group, a faith community, or a recovery group, re-establishing these connections addresses the core needs that pornography attempts to medicate. For partners reading this: understanding that the addiction is often rooted in unmet emotional needs does not excuse the behaviour. It does, however, help explain it. And in our experience, couples who can hold both truths at the same time, that the behaviour was harmful and that the person was in genuine pain, are the ones who find their way through to the other side. If you are navigating this as the betrayed partner, you deserve support too. Why Porn Addiction Relapse Happens and How to Break the Pattern Relapse is one of the most demoralizing parts of recovery. You do the work, you build momentum, and then one bad night undoes what felt like weeks of progress. But here is what we want you to understand: relapse is not failure. It is data. Every relapse tells you something about what your brain is still reaching for and what need is still going unmet. The clients who recover are not the ones who never relapse. They are the ones who learn to read the relapse instead of just hating themselves for it. In our practice, we help clients build a relapse prevention framework that goes beyond “just don’t do it.” This includes identifying your specific trigger patterns (stress, loneliness, conflict, even certain times of day), developing pre-planned responses for high-risk moments, building accountability with safe people who will not shame you, and using therapeutic techniques like brainspotting and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) to address the emotional roots rather than just the behavioural surface. Restricting access to pornographic content through filtering tools and accountability software is one practical piece of this. But restriction alone is not sufficient. If the underlying emotional architecture stays the same, the brain will find workarounds. Real relapse prevention addresses both the access and the ache. Finding the Right Help for Porn Addiction Recovery One of the barriers to recovery that does not get talked about enough is how hard it can be to find a therapist who actually understands porn addiction. Many therapists tend to normalize pornography use, treating it as a harmless behaviour rather than recognizing its compulsive and addictive dimensions. This normalization can feel invalidating for someone who knows, in their own experience, that this is destroying their life. Additionally, the shame associated with pornography addiction creates a significant barrier to asking for help in the first place. Many people feel isolated and misunderstood, and encountering a therapist who minimizes the problem can reinforce the belief that no one really gets it. This is why it matters to find a therapist who specializes in this work. A counsellor with specific training in porn and sex addiction, ideally a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT), understands the neuroscience, the shame cycle, the relational impact, and the attachment patterns that drive the behaviour. They will not minimize what you are going through, and they will not shame you for it either. One of the most powerful tools for dismantling shame in addiction is simply talking to someone about it. A porn addiction counsellor provides a safe, non-judgmental, and confidential space to work through these issues. For many of our clients, the first session where they tell the whole truth is the moment recovery actually begins. If you are ready to take the next step, our team of porn addiction counsellors at Therapevo are here to support you. We work via secure video call, so you can access specialized care from the privacy of your own home. You can book a free 20-minute consultation to talk through what you are experiencing and find out if we are the right fit. Frequently Asked Questions About Porn Addiction and Brain Recovery Can your brain fully recover from porn addiction? Yes. The brain changes caused by pornography addiction are real, but they are reversible through neuroplasticity. With sustained abstinence from pornography, your brain’s reward system gradually recalibrates, and natural sources of pleasure become rewarding again. Professional therapy, particularly with a CSAT, accelerates this process by addressing both the neurological patterns and the emotional drivers underneath the addiction. The timeline varies, but most clients begin noticing meaningful shifts within a few months of consistent work. Why do I keep relapsing even though I want to stop watching porn? Relapse happens because addiction weakens the connection between the part of your brain that desires pornography (the mesolimbic dopamine pathway) and the part that weighs consequences (the prefrontal cortex). In moments of craving, your rational brain is essentially offline. This is not a willpower problem. Effective recovery involves rebuilding that neural connection through therapy, developing awareness of your specific triggers, and creating pre-planned responses for high-risk moments. How does shame make porn addiction worse? Shame creates a self-reinforcing cycle. Pornography temporarily numbs feelings of worthlessness or inadequacy, but after use, shame intensifies. The increased shame then drives you back to pornography for relief. Many people try to use shame as a motivator to stop, but clinically, shame functions as fuel for the addiction rather than a brake. Recovery requires replacing shame with honest self-awareness and accountability within safe relationships. How long does it take for the brain to heal from pornography? There is no single timeline because recovery depends on factors like the duration and intensity of use, whether you are working with a therapist, and what emotional needs were driving the addiction. Many people report that the intensity of cravings begins to decrease noticeably within 60 to 90 days of abstinence. Deeper neurological recalibration, including restored sensitivity to natural rewards, typically continues over several months to a year. Working with a specialized counsellor significantly supports this process. What is the best treatment for porn addiction? The most effective approach combines individual therapy with a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT), techniques like brainspotting or EFT to address emotional roots, and community support through recovery groups. Practical tools like content filtering and accountability software help reduce access, but they work best alongside therapy that addresses the underlying emotional patterns. For couples, involving both partners in the recovery process, often through couples counselling, leads to stronger outcomes for the relationship and the individual.

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Do you find yourself repeatedly involved with people who leave you feeling drained, confused, or questioning yourself? Have you ever wondered, “Why do I keep attracting toxic people?” If so, you’re not alone. This question often places the blame squarely on your shoulders, leading to significant self-blame and shame, especially if you’ve been harmed repeatedly. But here’s the truth: It’s not just about who you passively attract. The real issue lies in how individuals with exploitative, manipulative, or abusive behaviors actively target specific vulnerabilities and even positive characteristics in others. In this article, we’ll uncover the psychology behind these toxic relationship patterns. We’ll show you how manipulators identify and exploit vulnerabilities, reveal their subtle and overt tactics, and most importantly, provide you with research-backed tools to heal, build resilience, and break free from these cycles for good. This isn’t about blaming yourself; it’s about understanding the pattern, reclaiming your power, and learning how to choose healthier, happier connections. Shifting the Focus The word “toxic” is frequently used, and in our profession, it generally refers to people who engage in harmful behaviors: exploitation, manipulation, abuse, or general disrespect. If you’re experiencing this, we want to shift the focus from the self-blaming question, “Why do I attract toxic people?” The Trap of Self-Blame The question “Why do I keep attracting toxic people?” places the onus entirely on the person who has been harmed. It implies that something is fundamentally wrong with you that draws these individuals in. This perspective can lead to deep shame and a feeling of being inherently flawed, especially if it’s a recurring pattern. People struggling with this often ask, “What is wrong with me?”—a truly difficult and painful place to be. New Perspective: They Actively Target Vulnerabilities We want to shift away from the idea of passive attraction to focusing on how exploitative individuals actively target others. They aren’t just randomly showing up; they are often consciously or subconsciously seeking out specific traits and vulnerabilities. This means the responsibility for the manipulative or abusive behavior lies solely with the person exhibiting it, not the target. Responsibility: Where It Truly Lies The person who abuses or exploits is the one responsible for those actions. Understanding this is crucial because it takes the burden of blame off the person who has been targeted. While you may have vulnerabilities, the issue is their exploitation by someone else. As counselors, we believe you should be able to have your vulnerabilities, your challenges, your past experiences, and not be taken advantage of. You should be able to heal and exist in the world without fear of exploitation. The Predator Analogy: Understanding the Dynamic Consider a predator analogy. A bunny in a garden, happily eating, might ask, “Why do I attract hawks and coyotes?” This isn’t the right question because it implies the bunny is flawed. Bunnies are resilient and vital to the ecosystem. They aren’t inherently wrong for being bunnies. A better question for the bunny is, “How can I be safer in this world, given there are predators, and I don’t have many defenses?” This shifts the focus from self-blame to understanding the environment and developing strategies for safety and resilience. Similarly, for humans, having vulnerabilities doesn’t make you flawed; it makes you human. The focus needs to be on understanding how to navigate relationships safely when exploitative people exist. Vulnerabilities are Not Flaws: They Are Targeted This is a critical point: Vulnerabilities are not personal defects or flaws. They often stem from past experiences like trauma, attachment injuries from early caregiver relationships, or even inherent personality traits like a high degree of empathy. To healthy people, these traits are often seen as positive. But to very unhealthy, exploitative people, they are seen as opportunities. The issue is the exploitation of these vulnerabilities and qualities. Zero vulnerability is not a realistic or healthy goal. We want to empower you to heal, understand what’s happening, gain knowledge to protect yourself, and build relationships based on mutual respect and safety. The Vulnerabilities they Exploit Targeting by exploitative individuals is rarely random. They often possess a keen sense for identifying sensitivities or unmet needs in others, seeking specific “targets” that make someone more susceptible to manipulation and control. Targeting is Not Random: Seeking Openings Manipulators are skilled at spotting opportunities. They may look for unmet needs from childhood, like a longing for attention or validation, or sensitivities developed through difficult life experiences. They then use this awareness not to nurture these needs, but to exploit them for their own gain. This targeting aspect is key. Vulnerabilities are Not Weaknesses: Origins and Perspective Again, your vulnerabilities are not weaknesses. They are often psychological patterns or sensitivities from past experiences. Understanding this is part of recognizing the manipulator’s tactics, not blaming yourself. For example, someone who grew up with an emotionally unavailable parent might have a deep unmet need for affection. An exploitative person can sense this longing and “love bomb” them, providing overwhelming attention that feels comfortable but is ultimately used for manipulation. Zero vulnerability is not the goal; being safe with your vulnerabilities is. You should be able to have the challenges life has handed you without someone taking advantage. Common Targets: What do Toxic People Consciously or Unconsciously Target? Based on research and clinical experience, here are some common vulnerabilities and traits that exploitative individuals often target: Low Self-Esteem & Weak Boundaries: Individuals with low self-esteem or difficulty setting boundaries are more susceptible to manipulation. They may be less likely to assert their needs or leave harmful situations. Manipulators actively erode their confidence further through criticism and blame, gaining more power. They often test boundaries early with small violations. Insecure Attachment Styles (Anxious/Avoidant) & Fear of Abandonment: Our attachment patterns, shaped by early caregiver relationships, can become vulnerabilities. Anxious Attachment: People with anxious attachment often fear abandonment and crave closeness. A toxic person may use love bombing to create intense dependency, combined with intermittent reinforcement (a cycle of highs and lows) and threats of leaving to keep the person desperate for validation. Avoidant Attachment: People with avoidant attachment are often uncomfortable with intimacy. A toxic person might use superficial charm to draw them in or trigger their fears about closeness. Boundary violations might be harder for avoidant individuals to recognize early. History of Trauma (Childhood Abuse/Neglect, Past Toxic Relationships): A history of trauma impacts one’s ability to trust, regulate emotions, and perceive themselves. Dysfunction can make unhealthy dynamics seem “normal,” making it harder to spot red flags. Manipulators may see a history of trauma as a sign of vulnerability they can exploit, assuming the person is used to poor treatment or has deep-seated insecurities. Codependency & People-Pleasing: Codependency often involves an excessive reliance on pleasing others or prioritizing their needs. People-pleasers find it difficult to say “no.” Exploitative individuals see this as a prime opportunity, making unreasonable demands, inducing guilt, or playing the victim, knowing their target will likely comply. High Empathy: While a wonderful trait, deep empathy can be exploited by those who lack it. Highly empathetic individuals may make excuses for a toxic person’s behavior, be susceptible to guilt trips, or feel compelled to “fix” their partner. Their capacity for forgiveness can inadvertently keep them stuck longer. Exploiting Positive Traits (“The Goodness Trap”): Toxic people can even turn your virtues against you. Loyalty, compassion, trust, and a willingness to give the benefit of the doubt—”prosocial values”—are wonderful qualities. But with the wrong person, these become tools for exploitation. Your desire to understand them, your loyalty in staying, or your compassion for their supposed struggles can be leveraged to keep you invested and compliant. These vulnerabilities are often interconnected. For example, a history of trauma might contribute to insecure attachment or low self-esteem, creating multiple points of potential exploitation. The Predator’s Playbook: How Vulnerabilities Are Targeted Exploitative behavior isn’t just about who they target; it’s about how they do it. They have a playbook of tactics designed to erode self-worth, confuse reality, and create dependency. This is an active process involving observation, recognizing cues, and testing boundaries. Active Process: Observation and Testing Toxic individuals are often skilled observers. They watch for signs of vulnerabilities. Once they identify a potential target, they begin testing boundaries. These might be small violations initially, just to see how the person responds. If there’s a “gap” or willingness to yield, they see an opening they can widen over time. Common Manipulation Tactics: The Tools of Control Here are some common tactics used by exploitative individuals: Love Bombing: Overwhelming the target with excessive affection, attention, compliments, and grand gestures early on. This makes you feel amazing and is designed to create intense dependency, distracting you from red flags. Gaslighting: A tactic to undermine your reality, memory, and sanity. The manipulator might deny things they said or did, twist facts, or make you doubt your own thoughts (“That never happened,” “You’re too sensitive”). It’s disorienting and makes you trust yourself less and the manipulator more. Intermittent Reinforcement: An unpredictable cycle of reward and punishment. The manipulator alternates between periods of intense closeness and periods of neglect or abuse. This creates confusion and a powerful, almost addiction-like bond known as trauma bonding. The unpredictability makes the target desperate for the return of the good times. Guilt-Tripping & Blame-Shifting (including DARVO): Evading responsibility for harmful actions by making the target feel guilty or at fault. DARVO is a common pattern: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. When confronted, they Deny the behavior, Attack the confronter, and then Reverse roles, claiming they are the real Victim. Criticism & Belittling (Devaluation): After initial idealization, the manipulator constantly criticizes, mocks, and belittles the target. This gradually erodes the target’s self-esteem and self-worth, diminishing their power. Isolation: Attempts to cut the target off from their support network. The more isolated the target becomes, the more dependent they are on the manipulator, increasing control and preventing outside perspectives. Control: Manipulators often seek to control various aspects of the target’s life, including finances, activities, appearance, and decisions. This diminishes autonomy and reinforces dependency. Threats & Intimidation: Overt threats (e.g., of leaving, self-harm, violence) or covert intimidation that creates constant fear or anxiety, making the target feel like they are “walking on eggshells.” Exploiting Emotional Vulnerabilities: Weaponizing shared secrets, insecurities, or past trauma. For example, using a confided body insecurity to criticize you. This is a profound betrayal of trust. Grooming Process: Toxic relationships rarely start with overt abuse. It’s a gradual process, beginning with targeting vulnerabilities, building trust, and then slowly introducing isolation and boundary testing before escalating to overt control and abuse. This gradual nature makes the danger hard to spot early. Trauma Bonding: A powerful emotional attachment that forms with an abuser through the cycle of abuse and intermittent reinforcement. It can be a survival mechanism, a desperate attempt to befriend the enemy. Trauma bonding makes leaving incredibly difficult, especially with insecure attachment or a history of trauma. Understanding these tactics helps you recognize what is happening and name the behaviors you are experiencing. This shifts the focus from “What is wrong with me?” to recognizing the unhealthy dynamic perpetrated by someone else. Healing, Protecting, and Building Resilience The good news is that healing is possible, and you can break free from these patterns and build healthier relationships. This involves acknowledging the harm done, understanding the dynamics you’ve experienced, and putting active strategies in place to reclaim your personal power and prioritize your well-being. Healing is Possible: Reclaiming Your Power Healing is a journey that involves more than just recognizing the problem. It’s about actively working on yourself to become more resilient and less susceptible to exploitation. While you can’t control the manipulator’s behavior, you can gain control over your response and your future choices. Evidence-Based Strategies: Tools for Transformation Here are some research-backed strategies that can help you heal and build resilience: Cultivating Self-Worth & Self-Compassion: Actively challenge negative messages internalized from toxic relationships and cultivate self-acceptance. Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness, understanding, and empathy you would offer a friend. This directly counters the shame and blame. Techniques like affirmations, journaling, mindfulness, and focusing on your strengths can help rebuild self-worth. Developing & Enforcing Healthy Boundaries: Boundaries are essential limits—physical, emotional, and mental—that define what you will and will not accept. Setting them requires self-awareness, clear communication (using “I” statements), and consistency. Be prepared for pushback from toxic individuals, but holding firm is vital. Note: If you are in a situation involving domestic violence, prioritize creating a safety plan and getting to physical safety before attempting to enforce boundaries directly. Healing Attachment Wounds (Towards Secure Attachment): If early caregiver relationships resulted in insecure attachment, working towards earning secure attachment is crucial. Secure attachment involves feeling comfortable with intimacy and autonomy and being able to trust others in safe relationships. Therapy, particularly Attachment-Based Therapy or Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), can be highly effective. Developing self-soothing techniques helps build internal security. Addressing Past Trauma: If a history of trauma is a root vulnerability, addressing it directly is essential. Trauma-informed therapies like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) or Somatic Experiencing can help process traumatic experiences, change negative beliefs, and reduce their impact. Breaking Codependent Patterns: If you struggle with codependency or people-pleasing, work on recognizing your tendency to excessively focus on others’ needs or try to “fix” them. Increase self-awareness, prioritize your own self-care, and practice saying “no.” Detach from the responsibility of fixing others and develop self-reliance. Seeking Professional Support: A trained counselor or therapist provides a safe space to explore these dynamics, gain insight into your patterns, develop practical skills for setting boundaries and communicating effectively, and receive validation. Look for therapists who understand trauma, attachment, and personality disorders. Building a Support Network: Reconnecting with trusted friends, family, or joining a support group combats isolation. A healthy support network provides different perspectives, validation, and emotional support, reminding you that you are not alone. Holistic Approach: True healing often requires addressing both the “roots” (past trauma, attachment wounds) and the “branches” (current behaviors, beliefs, and relationship patterns). Self-Compassion as Foundation: Throughout this journey, self-compassion is key. It fuels the courage needed to make changes and acts as a powerful antidote to shame and blame. It’s a challenging journey, but it leads to self-understanding, resilience, and the ability to build fulfilling relationships based on respect and safety, not exploitation. There is hope, and you can make these changes. Recognizing Healthy Dynamics: Red Flags vs. Green Flags As you heal and begin to seek healthier connections, recognizing the signs of both unhealthy and healthy dynamics is crucial for making informed choices. It’s like learning to spot potential danger signs (red flags) and indicators of safety and respect (green flags). Importance: Navigating Towards Safety Developing this ability allows you to trust your intuition and make decisions about who is safe to have in your life. You become more attuned to subtle cues, enabling you to protect yourself and move towards relationships that nourish rather than deplete you. Red Flags Checklist (Warning Signs): These behaviors or patterns signal potential danger or unhealthy dynamics: Toxic Communication: Patterns like contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Controlling Behavior: Attempts to dictate your actions, finances, relationships, or decisions. Lack of Respect or Trust: Consistent disregard for your feelings, opinions, or privacy. Lack of Empathy or Support: Inability or unwillingness to understand or validate your emotions. Manipulation & Gaslighting: Twisting facts, undermining your reality, using guilt or coercion. Anger Issues & Aggression: Uncontrolled anger, yelling, intimidation, or any form of abuse. Isolation: Trying to pull you away from your friends, family, or support system. Chronic Blame & Lack of Accountability: Constantly blaming others and refusing responsibility (using DARVO). Negative Impact on Well-being: Feeling consistently drained, anxious, fearful, or like you’re “walking on eggshells.” Trust your body. Unaddressed Substance Abuse: Active addiction can significantly contribute to harmful patterns. Green Flags Checklist (Healthy Signs): These are the positive indicators of a healthy, respectful, and supportive relationship: Mutual Respect: Valuing each other’s feelings, opinions, and autonomy. Trust & Reliability: Being able to count on them and feeling safe in their presence. Empathy & Emotional Support: Offering understanding, validation, and care during difficult times. Healthy Communication & Conflict Resolution: Discussing issues openly, listening, and working towards solutions constructively. Accountability & Apology: Taking responsibility for mistakes and offering sincere apologies. Support for Individual Growth: Encouraging your personal development, interests, and goals. Reciprocity & Shared Effort: Giving and taking are balanced; both invest in the relationship. Healthy Boundary Setting & Respect: Being able to set your own boundaries and respecting others’. Feeling Safe, Valued, Uplifted: Feeling secure, appreciated, and uplifted by the relationship. Shared Values & Goals: Compatibility in core beliefs and life direction (important in close connections). Key Distinction: Actions Speak Louder The key distinction is that green flags often involve active, constructive effort and the presence of positive qualities. Red flags, conversely, involve destructive actions or the absence of these positive qualities. Dual Focus: Seeking the Good, Avoiding the Bad When looking for healthy relationships, adopt a dual focus: actively avoid the red flags AND actively seek out the green flags. Simply being free of red flags isn’t enough for a truly healthy connection; you need the presence of positive, supportive dynamics as well. Choosing Healthier Connections We’ve shifted the perspective from “Why do I attract toxic people?” to understanding how exploitative individuals actively target and exploit vulnerabilities in others. We emphasized that having vulnerabilities is not a flaw; it’s a human reality that shouldn’t be weaponized against you. Knowledge is Power: Recognizing the Pattern Understanding the dynamics of exploitation and the common tactics manipulators use is incredibly empowering. This knowledge helps you recognize unhealthy patterns early, spot the red flags you might have missed, and make informed choices to protect yourself. It builds your capacity to identify harmful situations before you are deeply enmeshed. Healing is Key: Addressing the Roots Addressing the underlying vulnerabilities—whether tied to self-worth, attachment patterns, past trauma, or codependency—is essential for long-term change. Healing work builds your resilience, reduces your susceptibility to exploitation, and enables you to choose and sustain healthier relationships. It’s the foundation upon which a safer relational future is built. The Journey: A Path Towards Resilience The path to breaking free from cycles of toxic relationships is a journey. It can be challenging, requiring effort and sometimes professional support, but it leads to profound self-understanding, increased resilience, and the capacity to build fulfilling relationships based on mutual respect, safety, and genuine connection. Professional and social support are invaluable resources. Empowerment: Taking Control of Your Relational Future You have the power to make changes and shift your relational trajectory towards a healthier future. We have seen many individuals who have been in very difficult, toxic environments slowly begin to change their contexts, their social networks, and their choices, moving towards workplaces and relationships that support and uplift them instead of tearing them down. Understanding these dynamics and implementing these strategies takes time and effort, but it is absolutely possible. You deserve to feel safe, valued, and respected in your relationships. We are here if you need us. If you’d like to learn more or explore these topics in a safe space, please reach out via our contact page.

After betrayal or infidelity, protect your mental health. Learn 7 urgent trauma steps to cope with shock, find support, & start healing now.

If you’ve just discovered something that shattered your trust, one of the first questions you need answered is whether you’re dealing with infidelity or sex addiction. The distinction matters more than most people realize, because the two problems look similar on the surface but operate on completely different mechanisms, and the path to healing depends on getting the right answer. When we work with couples navigating this kind of crisis, the clarity that comes from understanding infidelity vs. sex addiction is often the first thing that lets both partners breathe again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgzezDzaPR8 The short answer: infidelity is the breaking of trust through sexual or romantic secrecy. Sex addiction is a pattern of compulsive sexual behavior that the person cannot stop despite wanting to. A person can be unfaithful without being addicted. A person can be sexually addicted without being unfaithful. And yes, a person can be both. What determines the right approach is not the severity of what happened, but the underlying pattern driving it. We approach this subject knowing that you may be the person who was betrayed, or the person who acted out, or both of you reading together during one of the most fragile moments in your relationship. Either way, you deserve honest, clinical clarity rather than vague reassurance. Understanding the Key Differences Between Infidelity and Sex Addiction One of the most common questions we hear is, “How do I know if this is infidelity or addiction?” When a couple is grappling with a recent discovery or disclosure, it can be incredibly challenging to tell the difference. Both involve sexual behavior outside a committed relationship. Both cause immense pain. But their underlying drivers and characteristics differ in ways that change everything about how healing works. What Defines Infidelity At its core, infidelity is sexual activity with someone other than a primary romantic partner or spouse. Today we’re focusing specifically on sexual infidelity, not emotional affairs. While emotional affairs are undoubtedly a profound betrayal and cause deep hurt, they do not fall under the clinical definition of sexual infidelity, which specifically involves sexual behaviors. Infidelity can look many different ways. It might be a single, isolated incident, or it could involve multiple extramarital partners, either serially or simultaneously. The complexity increases when an affair partner is also a sex trade worker, or when a long-term secondary relationship or “second family” scenario exists. Even in those severe cases, the behavior can still be classified as infidelity if certain key elements of addiction are absent. What Defines Sex Addiction Sex addiction, in contrast, is characterized by a recurrent failure to resist sexual impulses. The most critical differentiator is the concept of impulse control, or rather, the profound lack of it. This isn’t about having sex multiple times with an affair partner. It’s about a high level of spontaneity, impulsiveness, and uncontrollability surrounding the sexual activity. The individual feels compelled to act despite a genuine desire to stop. What we often see in practice is that people with sex addiction describe a feeling of being “hijacked” by their own behavior. They make promises to themselves, set boundaries, sometimes even put physical barriers in place, and still find themselves acting out. That cycle of resolve, failure, shame, and repeat is one of the clearest clinical markers that distinguishes addiction from a choice-driven affair. Core Differences That Matter Impulse control is paramount. With sex addiction, there’s a profound inability to resist compulsive urges. In infidelity, while there’s a choice made to betray, it typically doesn’t exhibit the same level of uncontrollability. Escalation over time looks different in each pattern. Infidelity might deepen emotionally, but sex addiction often involves escalation in the intensity, frequency, and risk of sexual behaviors. This can mean progressing from one type of acting out to another, or engaging in increasingly dangerous scenarios. Variety of behaviors is another marker. Sex addiction typically presents a wider range of sexual behaviors compared to a contained affair. While an affair might involve different situations, sex addiction can encompass encounters with paid sex workers, anonymous hookups, voyeurism, exhibitionism, or extensive pornography use, even without a traditional “affair partner.” The desire to stop versus the desire to continue is particularly hard for betrayed partners to hear, but it’s a key distinction. People struggling with sex addiction often express a persistent, genuine desire to stop their behaviors, experiencing profound remorse and shame after acting out, only to repeat the cycle because of compulsion. Affairs, on the other hand, often involve a persistent desire to continue the relationship with the affair partner, driven by fantasy or an idealized projection of that person. Underlying motivation differs as well. The motivation for an affair is typically emotional and tied to current relationship dynamics or personal unmet needs. Sex addiction is generally driven by deeper attachment wounds and unresolved trauma. While trauma can play a role in someone’s propensity for affairs, its severity and direct connection to the compulsive behavior are typically more pronounced in sex addiction. The scope of harm also tells a story. While infidelity causes immense emotional harm primarily to the betrayed partner, sex addiction often brings a wider array of severe consequences to the individual acting out: significant financial loss, sexually transmitted infections, legal issues, or physical danger from risky encounters. An affair, while devastating, often occurs in a comparatively contained scenario. Here’s the clinical reframe that surprises many couples: none of this comparison minimizes the pain of infidelity. Whether it’s an affair or sex addiction, the betrayal causes real neurobiological trauma. The reason we differentiate is not to rank the severity of pain but to understand the nature of the problem. That understanding is what guides the path to effective healing and recovery. Recognizing the Signs and Symptoms of Sex Addiction Building on those core differences, here are the specific indicators that characterize compulsive sexual behavior. Much of this framework draws from the pioneering work of Patrick Carnes, a foundational figure in sex addiction research and treatment. Lack of impulse control: The individual repeatedly fails to resist impulses to engage in sexual behaviors, even when they genuinely desire to stop. Wider variety, greater risks, longer period: The pattern typically involves diverse sexual behaviors, often escalating in intensity, frequency, and risk (financial, physical, legal, social) over a longer period, sometimes a lifetime. In rare cases, sex addiction can manifest suddenly due to significant physiological changes, such as starting testosterone supplements, leading to unexpected compulsive behaviors. Repeated unsuccessful attempts to stop: Numerous earnest attempts to stop, reduce, or control sexual behavior, only to relapse. This chronic relapsing cycle is a hallmark of addiction. Inordinate time spent: A significant amount of time is dedicated to obtaining sex, engaging in sexual activity, or recovering from sexual experiences. This preoccupation consumes a person’s life far beyond what would occur in an affair. Extensive preoccupation: A persistent, consuming preoccupation with sexual behavior, fantasy, or preparatory activities like planning, fantasizing, or seeking opportunities. Continued behavior despite negative consequences: This defines addiction of any kind: continuing the behavior despite clear knowledge of persistent or recurring social, financial, psychological, or physical problems caused by it. Is It a One-Time Affair or a Pattern of Sex Addiction? This question, born from fear and pain, is deeply unsettling when you’ve just discovered your partner’s betrayal. The honest answer is that you don’t know for certain at first. But we can offer some clinical guidance to help you understand the probabilities. In many cases, it may be “just” an affair. We use “just” not to minimize the devastating pain, but to differentiate it from the complexity of addiction. Statistically, infidelity is more common than sex addiction. General social surveys indicate that 20 to 25% of married men and 10 to 15% of married women report having sex outside their marriage over their lifetime. Among younger adults in their twenties, women report rates closer to 20%. Some broader definitions, including any sexual interaction that could jeopardize the relationship, push overall rates even higher. Approximately one quarter of all marriages will experience infidelity at some point. Sex addiction, by comparison, is estimated to affect about 10% of the population, and this figure often excludes individuals whose primary compulsive behavior is pornography. Statistically, it’s less common to be married to a sex addict than to someone who has committed an act of infidelity. When to Suspect Sex Addiction Consider the possibility of sex addiction if your partner had an extensive history of excessive or compulsive sexual activity prior to your marriage that was never addressed through counseling or recovery work. The affair you’ve discovered could be a relapse in an ongoing pattern. Also consider it if your partner’s sexual history before marriage was never fully disclosed, and upon reviewing it now, you begin to see patterns that suggest compulsivity or excess. Less commonly, significant sudden physiological changes, such as starting testosterone supplements, can coincide with a rapid onset of previously uncharacteristic sexual behaviors. If these factors are not present and there’s no other evidence suggesting an underlying compulsive pattern, you are most likely dealing with infidelity rather than sex addiction. The initial phase after discovery involves immense uncertainty. If your partner has been secretive, trust is shattered, making it difficult to accept their honesty right now. This period requires a painful bearing of uncertainty as you gather more information and observe their willingness to be transparent and engage in healing. The Role of Pornography in Infidelity and Sex Addiction Pornography use is a frequent concern for partners navigating betrayal. From a moral standpoint, many individuals view pornography as damaging. Clinically, our approach to treatment focuses on the compulsive nature of its use and the desire to stop. Pornography and Sex Addiction In our practice, we view pornography addiction as a subset of sex addiction. While not every person who uses pornography compulsively is a “sex addict” in the broader sense, it’s rare to find a sex addict who does not use pornography. For many sex addicts, pornography acts as a powerful accelerant, throwing gas on the fire of their compulsive behaviors. We’ve observed cases where pornography use sparked curiosity that escalated into infidelity, and where pornography addiction itself intensified into broader sex addiction. However, it’s crucial to clarify a common misconception: from our clinical experience, the vast majority of individuals addicted to pornography in committed, monogamous relationships never have an affair. Addressing the “Boundary Breaker” Myth When trust is shattered by the discovery of pornography use, it’s natural for the betrayed partner to assume the worst: “If you broke this boundary, you must have broken them all.” This understandable fear stems from deep hurt and a need to make sense of the betrayal. However, many individuals with pornography addiction establish internal boundaries (specific content they’d never view, places they’d never watch) that, paradoxically, help them justify and contain their use. While these internal boundaries exist, it’s important for the recovering individual to understand that such rationalizations are part of the addiction’s self-justification. Their pornography use alone still constitutes a profound betrayal to their partner. The clinical reality: it is very common to have pornography use without infidelity, and less common to have both. The presence of both doesn’t automatically indicate sex addiction. Each behavior needs to be assessed within its own context, weighing the signs of addiction. The Role of Alcohol In both infidelity and sex addiction, alcohol can act as a significant disinhibitor. We frequently find that alcohol use was a precursor to or part of the acting-out process, lowering inhibitions and making it easier for individuals to engage in behaviors they might otherwise resist. For infidelity, this means grappling with the role alcohol plays in future fidelity and understanding its power as a trigger. For sex addiction, it highlights the potential for comorbidity with other addictions, requiring vigilance to prevent “addiction switching” (shifting from sex to food, exercise, shopping, or substances) during recovery. Reliable Assessments for Sex Addiction If you’re wondering whether you or your partner might be struggling with sex addiction, it’s natural to look for reliable assessment tools. While the internet offers many quizzes, it’s vital to know the difference between quick self-tests and professionally validated instruments. Here are three levels of assessment: an easy screening, a more serious self-report, and a professional diagnostic tool. 1. The PATHOS Questionnaire (Easy Screening) PATHOS is a short, six-question screening tool developed by Patrick Carnes and colleagues in 2012: Preoccupied: Do you often find yourself preoccupied with sexual thoughts? Ashamed: Do you hide some of your sexual behavior from others? Treatment: Have you ever sought help for sexual behavior you did not like? Hurt others: Has anyone been hurt emotionally because of your sexual behavior? Out of control: Do you feel controlled by your sexual desire? Sad: When you have sex, do you feel depressed afterwards? Three or more “yes” answers is typically a positive screen. However, this tool has limitations. A person with a healthy libido and strong moral values could score high due to feelings of shame or preoccupation, even without addiction. If you’re applying these questions to a partner who has engaged in extensive sexual activity, their distress and desire to do penance after discovery could inflate the score, mislabeling severe infidelity as sex addiction. While too short for a definitive diagnosis, scoring 4 to 6 on PATHOS warrants further investigation. 2. The SAST-R (Sexual Addiction Screening Test, Revised) The SAST-R is a more comprehensive 20-question “yes/no” assessment available online. Non-addicted individuals typically score 2 or 3. The clinical threshold for differentiating between non-addicts and those likely needing sex addiction treatment is typically six or more positive answers. For those in outpatient treatment, the average score is around 10. For inpatient treatment, it’s usually around 13. Important caveats when interpreting scores: Strong religious values combined with recent discovery can lead to higher scores. An individual might answer “yes” to questions about temptation or thoughts rather than actual behaviors, reflecting moral struggle or a desire for penance more than addiction. As a self-report test, scores can be influenced by denial or current self-perception. A sex addict in deep denial might under-report. Someone desperate to “fix” themselves after being discovered might over-report. If you or your partner score at or above six, we strongly recommend seeking a certified sex addiction therapist (CSAT) for professional evaluation. The SAST-R is a helpful tool to initiate that conversation and determine whether deeper clinical work is needed. 3. The SDI (Sexual Dependency Inventory) The SDI is the most thorough professional assessment for sex addiction. It takes 1.5 to 2.5 hours to complete and is often a composite of several longer instruments, including the SAST. The SDI provides a comprehensive picture of an individual’s sexual history, attachment patterns, compulsions, and trauma, examining both present and past behaviors. This tool is exclusively available through CSATs in a clinical setting because its interpretation requires professional expertise. It is never used to evaluate infidelity in isolation; it’s reserved for situations where sex addiction is clearly suspected. Due to its deeply personal nature, the SDI results are almost never shared outside clinical notes. It serves as a powerful clinical tool to accelerate understanding of a client’s history, not a label to be handed out. Assessing Infidelity: What Information Is Helpful? For the betrayed partner, the longing for information about an affair can be overwhelming. You want to understand the full extent of the secrets, to grasp the harm and reclaim a sense of knowing. However, while information is important, not all information supports healing. We’ve found that getting every graphic detail about an affair, including sex positions, comparisons to one’s own body, or intimate dialogue, can be profoundly re-traumatizing. Once heard, those images and details cannot be unheard. They often create intrusive thoughts and lasting pain that impede healing rather than advance it. Instead, we recommend focusing on the essential data that supports healing and future safety: Who was the affair partner? Where did the meetings or sexual activity take place? When did it happen, and how often? This information can validate your internal wisdom or historical suspicions, clarify boundaries for future fidelity, and inform the recovery process without causing unnecessary re-traumatization. An experienced trauma therapist specializing in betrayal trauma can guide you through this process effectively. Frequently Asked Questions What is the difference between infidelity and sex addiction? Infidelity is the breaking of trust through sexual or romantic secrecy outside a committed relationship. Sex addiction is a pattern of compulsive sexual behavior characterized by a failure to control impulses, escalation over time, and continued acting out despite negative consequences. A person can experience one without the other, or both simultaneously. The core difference is whether the behavior is driven by choice and relational factors or by a compulsive cycle the person cannot stop. Can someone cheat on their partner without having a sex addiction? Yes. Infidelity is significantly more common than sex addiction. Approximately 20 to 25% of married men and 10 to 15% of married women report extramarital sexual activity, while sex addiction affects roughly 10% of the population. Many people who have affairs do not exhibit the hallmarks of addiction, such as loss of impulse control, escalation, or repeated failed attempts to stop. How do I know if my partner is a sex addict? Key indicators include repeated failed attempts to stop the behavior, escalation in frequency or risk over time, extensive preoccupation with sexual activity, and continued behavior despite serious consequences. A premarital history of compulsive sexual behavior that was never addressed through counseling is also significant. Clinical assessments like the SAST-R and evaluation by a certified sex addiction therapist (CSAT) can help clarify the diagnosis. Does it matter for treatment whether it’s infidelity or sex addiction? Yes. Effective treatment differs significantly. Infidelity recovery focuses on trust repair, relational dynamics, and rebuilding communication between partners. Sex addiction treatment uses a structured recovery model that addresses compulsivity, underlying trauma, and attachment wounds, often alongside individual and group therapy specific to addiction. Using the wrong treatment approach can stall healing or miss the root problem entirely. Can a person with sex addiction stay faithful in a marriage? Yes. With proper treatment, including work with a certified sex addiction therapist, participation in recovery groups, and ongoing accountability structures, many people with sex addiction achieve sustained sobriety and build faithful, honest relationships. Recovery is challenging and requires long-term commitment, but it is clinically well-established that sex addicts can and do become reliably faithful partners. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the difference between infidelity and sex addiction?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Infidelity is the breaking of trust through sexual or romantic secrecy outside a committed relationship. Sex addiction is a pattern of compulsive sexual behavior characterized by a failure to control impulses, escalation over time, and continued acting out despite negative consequences. A person can experience one without the other, or both simultaneously. 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Recovery is challenging and requires long-term commitment, but it is clinically well-established that sex addicts can and do become reliably faithful partners." } } ] } Finding Your Way Forward After Betrayal Whether what you’re facing is infidelity, sex addiction, or both, the pain is real and it deserves real clinical support. Betraying partners can become faithful. People with sex addiction can achieve well-established sobriety. Those impacted by pornography addiction can find recovery. And betrayed partners can heal from betrayal trauma and learn to trust again from a more intuitive, discerning place, grounded in reliable behavior observed over time. This repair work is difficult. Not every marriage survives the devastation. But for those who choose to stay and rebuild, and for those who need clarity even if the outcome is uncertain, professional support changes everything. If you and your partner are trying to make sense of what happened and figure out the right path forward, a free 20-minute consultation is a good place to start. You’ll talk with a real person, not a scheduling bot, about where you are and what kind of help fits your situation.

Stop feeling guilty! Learn to set healthy boundaries correctly in relationships & life. Avoid manipulation, handle reactions, and protect yourself.

12 Leading Symptoms of Complex PTSD: Affiliate link for Dr. van der Kolk's book The Body Keeps the Score: https://amzn.to/41YOT0J 1. Constant feeling of unsafety and hypervigilance. 2. Inability to relax, leading to bodily tension and discomfort with practices like meditation or yoga. 3. Difficulty sleeping, often waking up in high alert. 4. Negative self-image, including feelings of self-hatred and distorted sexuality. 5. Attraction to unavailable partners, while avoiding those who offer warmth. 6. Discomfort with intimacy, finding affectionate people repulsive. 7. Frequent anger outbursts, often driven by deep-seated fear rather than rage. 8. Paranoia, expecting hostility from others and being drawn to negative social media content. 9. Desire for isolation, preferring to be alone due to social anxiety. 10. Subtle suicidal ideation, feeling life is exhausting and unbearable. 11. Rigidity in routines, needing control to avoid perceived chaos. 12. Overworking as a coping mechanism, trying to achieve external success but never feeling safe.

Have you ever had a conversation with your spouse where you just couldn’t get through to them? You’re trying to explain something, but they’re either not listening or completely misunderstanding you. Or maybe a small miscommunication turned into a bigger argument, leaving you wondering, “What just happened?” Here, we break down the five key fundamentals that make marriage communication strong, clear, and full of love. We talk about how to truly understand each other, create a safe space for honest conversations, and build deeper trust in your relationship. We also give you a few exercises you can do today to strengthen your marriage connection. Whether you’re newly married or have been together for years, these five fundamentals can transform the way you and your spouse communicate. Empathy and Understanding: The Foundation of Connection The first key to strong marriage communication is empathy and understanding. This is the foundation of communication. We like this quote by Montgomery: The goal of quality communication is the achievement and maintenance of interpersonal understanding.[i] In other words, the reason we communicate at all is so we can understand each other. We want to get to a place of understanding and stay in a place of understanding. Let’s take a close look at empathy.   What Is Empathy? An easy definition of empathy that we like is this: “When I stand in your shoes and look at the world through your lens, through whatever you’re experiencing… when I put myself in that place…it makes sense that you feel what you do.” When we work with couples, there’s one phrase we use a lot: “It makes sense.” This is a basic affirmation of reality. It’s a way of expressing empathy. It doesn’t mean that you agree with everything they say. It’s understanding: “If I were in your shoes, having walked to this point, I would be reacting the same way; your reaction makes sense.” The 3 Components of Empathy There is a widely accepted conceptualization of empathy that says it has three main components.[ii] They are cognitive, emotional, and motivational. Let’s talk about these. Cognitive empathy: The first is called cognitive empathy, which is just the recognition and understanding of the emotional states of others. So, in my brain, I’m aware that you are having sadness right now because there are tears coming down. Cognitive empathy is that attention and awareness of what your spouse is experiencing. We call that attunement in other kinds of therapy. Emotional empathy: The second component is emotional empathy. This part of empathy is experience sharing. It means that I share your emotion. I still maintain a distinction between myself and you, but I share in what you are experiencing and feeling. Our readers who are empaths sometimes may have to remind themselves that there is that distinction between self and other. So, if you’re upset about something that happened at work, I don’t have to go storming into your office to solve the problem on your behalf. Instead, I get upset alongside you, I see that your reaction makes sense, and I feel the upset, but I know there is a distinction between self and other. Motivational empathy: The third component of empathy is motivational empathy. This is also known as empathic care. Motivational empathy is having feelings of concern for the other and having a willingness to put effort into improving their well-being. If I have empathy for you, it’s motivating me to do something to care for you. Now, sometimes we harp on men a little bit when we do seminars. Sometimes men tend to rush to solutions. That’s motivational empathy, sure, but this problem-solving part is at the back of the list. Men often jump straight to “I’m concerned about you and I want to help you solve this.” But, timing is important with this. Before jumping to solve the problem, it’s important to first join your spouse in the emotional experience, notice, and validate. If you haven’t done the first two, the noticing and validating, it’s actually not empathy. It’s just solution-finding, fixing the problem. Our goal is empathy and understanding; these are fundamental to a strong marriage connection. Practical Takeaway Tip: As we’re thinking about this empathy piece, here is one takeaway: Think about the last time you and your spouse had a disagreement. Did you truly try to understand their point of view? Or were you just waiting for your turn to talk? Try this. The next time you’re having a conversation, just pause and ask yourself, “Do I really understand what they’re saying?” And ask yourself that before responding to your spouse. Do I get it or am I just talking? Really go for that understanding, 100%. Safety: Creating a Judgment-Free Space Now let’s look at our second key component of communication connection. This key component in communication connection is safety. You want to create a judgment-free space in your marriage. A spouse must feel really safe in order to indicate how we really feel. So he or she must be convinced that no harm will come from an expression of their feelings in order to be fully comfortable expressing themselves emotionally. To create safety, you want to send the signal to your spouse that they are safe with their emotions. You send this message when you don’t try to talk them out of their feelings and you don’t dismiss them. You don’t turn or hide away from them. You don’t tell them, “Oh, it’s not a big deal,” or “It’ll be okay.” Because actually, that’s telling them that their feelings aren’t valid. It’s dismissing them instead of understanding them. When they share something with us, we might be uncomfortable, but being with them and letting them feel what they’re feeling and then validating those feelings creates safety. Here are some phrases to watch out for, phrases that signal dismissiveness of your spouse’s feelings. You want to try to avoid these kinds of phrases: It’ll all be fine. It’ll all work out. Don’t worry about it. I don’t think you need to be this worked up about it. Phrases that include the word “just”. “You just need to pray about it.” “You just need to relax.” “Just talk to them.” “Just don’t worry about it so much.” While your intentions are good and you mean to encourage your spouse, these phrases signal that you think that what they’re going through is simple or no big deal. So, it’s actually a signal of dismissiveness of their experience. It’s the opposite of noticing and validating their emotions. Even though you mean to help your spouse feel safe and to reassure them that if they “just do this” everything will be okay, your spouse is receiving a signal that they can’t bring these feelings to you. Now you’re probably wondering, what should you do when your spouse shares their feelings, in order to create safety? What can you do to help them feel really safe? The way to un-upset your spouse while also ensuring they feel safe bringing their feelings to you, is to meet them in it, to help them feel seen, to be with them as their companion. When you do this, all of a sudden, this big thing is manageable. So, you want to co-regulate with your spouse. Signal to them, “I’m here with you. I’m feeling this with you. I’m not trying to send this away. I want you to know I’m right beside you with this.” Practical Takeaway Tip: Here’s a practical tip. The next time your spouse shares something personal with you, resist that urge to react and fix it immediately. Instead, just listen and say “I hear you,” “I appreciate you telling me this.” Or say, “I hear you, thanks for sharing this with me.” It’s a small change you can make that makes a huge difference. Acceptance: Love Without Conditions The third key fundamental to strong marriage communication and connection is acceptance. This is basically showing love without putting extra conditions on it. It can be simple phrases that we can communicate by just saying, “I care about what happens to you. I’m concerned about you as a person.” This is not scorning or scolding. It’s communicating in a genuine way, “Hey, I’m worried about you and I want what’s best for you. You and your problems are important to me.” This also includes acceptance around misbehavior. We don’t mean abusive behavior, but when your spouse is struggling, you can communicate, “You’re struggling, and it’s not the shiny side of you, but I love you.” You can say things like, “I’m not fond of what you’re doing right now, but I love you and I know there’s a better version of you in there who wants to do better, who can do better.” Acceptance is having that belief of “There’s something precious in here, and whatever has happened for you right now, it’s not coming out, but I want you to know I’m here. The love is here. You’re safe with me. You’re accepted.” One way to show acceptance in your marriage is to express appreciation and gratitude for your spouse. Even if there is something you’re struggling to appreciate or accept about your spouse right now, you can look for other things that you can appreciate. This sends the signal that you see the whole person, not just this behavior they’re struggling with right now, and you love them and accept who they are. A simple message like, “I love how thoughtful you are,” for example, can make a huge difference. Practical Takeaway Tip: Here’s a practical tip for showing acceptance to your spouse. This week, try this: Instead of pointing out something your spouse could improve, point out something you appreciate about them. Respect: Speaking Kindly, Even When Upset The fourth key for a strong marriage is to show respect, to speak kindly and respectfully, even when you’re upset. This, of course, is easy when we’re getting along, but it’s important to stick to this even when you’re not. In the research, there is this quote: Each spouse must learn to proceed on the fundamental conviction that nothing is so important as to warrant the violation of integrity in marriage – mine or my spouse’s.[iii] So, what is this saying in plain English? It’s saying we need to commit to this belief that nothing bad enough happens in marriage for me to violate my own integrity by speaking in a way that I’m not proud of, or to violate my spouse’s integrity by attacking them or cutting them down. Another way we could put this is that we need to hold sacred the bond between us. So, we need to show respect for our spouse when we’re together, whether we’re getting along or disagreeing. We also need to show that respect if our spouse is not around. We want to make sure our spouse knows we have their backs even when we’re not together at the moment. You want to show them “You’re important to me whether you’re in the room or not.” We use the example sometimes of a bunch of ladies sitting around eating salads, complaining about their husbands, or a group of guys talking about the old lady. Holding that respect, when you’re together and apart, helps make the marriage more enjoyable and secure. And, being able to trust that you’ll be respectful to each other even when you disagree or even when you’re angry with each other, sends the message “We’ll solve this problem somehow.” And we’re going to do this in a way that’s respectful, and without name-calling. Here’s another great quote from Harper: “If each of us learns to deal respectfully and lovingly with the you, me, and us of this relationship, meanings will somehow get communicated, marriage will be enjoyable much of the time, and problems will somehow get handled, if not solved.”[iv] Practical Takeaway Tip: Next time you’re in an argument with your spouse, before you respond, just pause and ask yourself, “Is what I’m about to say building our relationship up? Is it maintaining that respect? Or is it actually tearing down? Is it corrosive to the bond that exists between us? Openness: The Power of Honest Conversations The fifth fundamental key to strong marriage communication is openness. You could call this the power of honest conversation. It’s the effort of making yourself talk about stuff that you need to talk about. Disclosure. So, I’m an introvert, and for those of you who are familiar with attachment styles, I grew up avoidant. So for me, self-disclosure is unnatural and terrifying. And it’s a little harder to push through that, but openness is so important. It’s the sharing, and finding ways to do it that are safe, respectful but also genuine, being transparent about what is actually going on, having awareness of what is actually going on for me, and then disclosing it in a way that you can receive it. If you are in a non-abusive relationship, I can guarantee that your spouse wants to know more of you. You are more complex and fascinating to your spouse than you may realize. So, we encourage you to get into the habit of sharing, even if for you it doesn’t feel natural at first. It’s a skill you can develop that can help strengthen your marriage connection. And for the spouse who is receiving that openness: If your spouse shares something personal, you want to be careful to receive that, to not brush it off, to show love and acceptance. Because if you brush it off, your spouse isn’t likely to be vulnerable and open again. These are moments, again, where you can use some of those phrases we talked about earlier, like “Thank you for sharing this with me,” or “I hear you,” or “That makes sense.” Practical Takeaway Tip: As you’re working on this, you can have this 10-minute conversation with your spouse. Ask your spouse, “What is something I did this week that made you feel loved?” And their response might surprise you. Then validate, accept what they say, and then ask a tougher question: “What is something I did this week that hurt you, even a little?” And again, whatever they say, be careful not to get defensive or try to justify the behavior. Instead you can thank them for being brave enough to tell you, and say “I can see why that hurt you.” Remember, the goal is not to defend, but to understand. Take Away Developing these relationship fundamentals can make your marriage communication strong and clear. Working on maintaining empathy, creating safety, having openness, being respectful, and really accepting your spouse will help you keep your marriage strong and full of love for the rest of your lives. It can take time and practice, but they payoff – a lasting and fulfilling marriage – is worth it. References [i] Barbara Montgomery, “The Form and Function of Quality Communication in Marriage,” Family Relations 30, no. 1 (1981): 21–30. [ii] Jamil Zaki and Kevin N. Ochsner, “The Neuroscience of Empathy: Progress, Pitfalls and Promise,” Nature Neuroscience 15, no. 5 (May 2012): 675–80, https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3085. [iii] Robert Harper, “Communication Problems in Marriage and Marriage Counseling,” Marriage and Family Living 20, no. 2 (1958): 107–12, https://doi.org/10.2307/348352. [iv] Harper.

Welcome Back: Where We’ve Been and What’s Next for the Podcast In our 280th episode, we provide an update after a five-year hiatus! We discuss our personal experiences, including burnout, career changes, and coping with the pandemic. The episode covers the transition from our old OnlyYouForever brand to the new Therapevo Counselling brand, highlighting the expanded focus on diverse counseling topics and services. We also touch on rebranding the podcast to ‘Normalize therapy.’ and adding a new YouTube channel. We talk about upcoming content and plans to expand our social media presence and blogging. We are so excited about returning and invite listeners to join us on this new journey! Timeline 00:00 Welcome Back! Introduction and Episode Overview 00:31 Reflecting on the Past: Life Since 2020 07:19 Current Affairs: Rebranding and New Beginnings 12:34 Looking Ahead: Season 2 and Future Plans 18:32 Conclusion: Thank You and See You Soon Episode Transcript Caleb: Welcome to the marriage podcast for smart people. Verlynda: We haven’t said that in a long time. Caleb: we have not, this is our 280th episode! And we’re thankful that you’ve joined us again today. And our plan for today is to talk about three things. Number one, where we’ve been since 2020 when we last published an episode and what’s been going on. Number two is where we’re at presently. And number three is what is coming up next in season two: a rebrand, a new name for the podcast, and a lot of the great content that you’re already used to. So Verlynda: Hmm. Caleb: Without further ado, we’re going to skip our usual intro roll because we are changing a lot of things right now, and we’ll get to all that. But let’s, you know, Verlynda, let’s start in with this topic[00:01:00] Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: been since 2020. What are Verlynda: Life has changed. Yeah. Big pieces. I mean, well, in your life is kind of one of the big ones that played a major part. Caleb: Yeah. Yeah. So, and I think we should tell folks too that we’re recording this five about five years since we last recorded. Verlynda: Yes. Caleb: to it sometime in the future, that’s the gap between episode 279 and episode 280. So yeah, the biggest thing for me 2020 was kind of that second year of COVID, am I right? Verlynda: March 2020, it started or our country shut down. Caleb: Okay, yeah, we started getting into the thick of it. We were getting pretty burnt out on podcasting at the time, because we’d done a weekly show for quite a while, and that had been pretty intense for us. Kept up, a pace on that. I think we were doing like a little more sophisticated, a little more complex episodes too, which was cool. Verlynda: Yeah. More research. Caleb: Yeah. And I’d also been like hammering away at starting this [00:02:00] business or counseling business at that point for six years had been counseling for 20, that’d be about 10, 11 years at that point myself doing some mixed vocational stuff, of course, in there. But I also had a huge bout of burnout, compassion fatigue as a therapist. So that was a big thing that was going on. And I think it was 2020. Was it that summer or the next summer where I actually tapped out for a while? Do you Verlynda: I think it was that summer. Yeah. Caleb: and I just wasn’t paying attention to how [00:03:00] absolutely exhausted my body was. So, yeah, that was a huge a huge thing for us and fortunately had other people to kind of keep the business going. And you filled in a bit there, Verlynda, on the business side, too. We had a great administrator, Vivian at the time, who was helping us and I started coming back into the business in the fall. And then I don’t think I really started counseling until late 2020 or the start of the next year. Really? So seeing clients again. So I tried to really take the recovery seriously, get back on my feet and that kind of stuff because it is a career that means a lot to me and I wanted to stay in it. Verlynda: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then during this time, like we had three teenagers in the house, we were in that stage of like, We’re beginning to launch them and it, it just took a lot of energy, Caleb: kind of energy. Yeah. Verlynda: yeah, different situations and Caleb: families do of like running to all those games and Verlynda: yes, kids and [00:04:00] sports. Caleb: yeah Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: pretty heavily involved in church at the time. Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: there Verlynda: So something had, Caleb: stress Verlynda: sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Caleb: Yeah. Verlynda: Yeah. Something had to go. Yeah. And then, I mean, the counseling agency took off during COVID because we were online already and Yeah, a way that business went. And then I went back to school beginning of 2021. I went back to school to get my marriage and family therapy. My master’s in marriage and family therapy is the official name. Loved it. Loved every minute of it. Love the learning. Just felt like a different person coming out of it, like it was such an amazing experience and such a privilege to be able to do that, to be at a stage where I could go back to school and now getting to do the work that I get to do, like, it’s just, it’s such a privilege and it’s so exciting. So that’s my new career, my new [00:05:00] stage of life. Caleb: yeah, that was huge. And we’re super thankful for all the awesome people that kind of pointed to you in that direction to like, and also the ones that supported us through that journey you know, putting one member of your family as adults back through school full time. Was a huge commitment on everybody’s part. And our Verlynda: Yes. Our kid. Yes. Caleb: extra like Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: and like Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: got in on there. So that was really cool. Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: And the other thing that was really a blessing to us, but also part of like the burnout and the busyness and not getting the podcast done was we were doing online therapy when it wasn’t cool to do it, which was Verlynda: Yes. Caleb: And when the pandemic hit. We were like ready to go and so there is a huge demand from clients. And then there was also counselors coming to us not sure of the technology and how to pivot. And we were all set up. We had the systems in place. We had the procedures to know how to do it. so there was quite a bit of rapid growth during the pandemic for our Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: but all of that onboarding and growth, that was a lot of work as [00:06:00] well. So, yeah, that’s, what’s been going on there. Verlynda: Yeah, but can I make a note on that, though, Caleb? Well, this is like, we’re going into the current here because I’m talking about the current, but, like, the team that we have, like, yes, there was rapid growth, but the team that we have is such a beautiful group of people. Like, I am proud to say that each one of, like, that I get to work with them. So it’s pretty neat. The people that are on our team. Caleb: Yeah. We do love our team Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: They’re amazing people for sure. Yeah. And I hope that all doesn’t come across like a bunch of like, here’s why we didn’t get our work done stuff, but just to let you know, like sometimes you forget, like on the other sides of shows that we watch or even like TV, like there’s real humans on the other side of that stuff. Right. And we’re those real humans for this podcast and life got too busy. And and I just personally, like, I just lost the drive and the energy with that burnout to get this podcast done. So that was one thing that that sacrifice. So many of you have reached out and said, Hey, where are you guys? I hope you Verlynda: Mm hmm.[00:07:00] Caleb: we thank you for all that love. And we thank you for all the well wishes. I wrote quite a few of you back just saying, Hey, I’m burnt out. I’m so sorry. And you were very gracious about it. So for everybody that was just like sweet about that. Thank you. You guys are welcome. Take care. Much appreciated. Verlynda: Yes, for sure. Caleb: special. Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: Verlinda. Verlynda: Current Affairs, we are rebranding. So you can see on Caleb’s shirt right there, possibly, if you’re watching versus listening. Caleb: Yeah. Verlynda: we have a new name. We are now Therapevo Counseling. So we were finding that We really, Caleb: just describe the logo for our Verlynda: oh yeah, Caleb: a podcast. Yeah. Verlynda: so our logo, it’s like very simple, but it’s like a phoenix, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. And Therapevo, the word in Greek is healing, or it’s Greek for healing. And so that’s really like the, the umph. The basis of our business is [00:08:00] like how our clients can rise from the ashes of what they’ve been through with such resiliency and healing. And it’s a, it’s a beautiful thing. So why are we rebranding? Why are we rebranding Caleb? Silence. Caleb: specialties and they just didn’t kind of resonate as well with a marriage site. And I think the one that I pick because it sort of makes it the most obvious is we had like four or five people who just love to work with teenagers. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing therapists for adolescents. They could connect with adolescents really well lead them through like amazing change out of very difficult circumstances or trauma that they’d experienced, whatever it had been. But then it’s like really weird for a teenager to go to only you forever dot com the slogan. Well, you know, we help you build a thriving, passionate marriage. And sign Verlynda: [00:09:00] Yes. Silence. Caleb: that our therapists love to work in. And I know for you, Verlynda, coming on the team as well, that was a huge motivating factor because you love working with teenagers. And and like I said, that’s the obvious one. It’s not that we’re being inundated with teenagers, but you can imagine like we get single people coming for help on various topics Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: things like you know, we have someone who specializes in blended families. Now we have someone who specializes in like perinatal, postnatal trauma. other people on grief and like, Verlynda: Yeah. Yeah. Caleb: and if you guys have listened to us from the start in our early [00:10:00] episodes, like we were trying Verlynda: Hello. Caleb: counseling over Verlynda: Hello. Caleb: video call, offering that to people all over North America with therapists in almost every time zone. We still need an Atlantic therapist Verlynda: Hello. Caleb: and that’s our main thing. And then kind of our secondary thing is the cruise as far as products that we Verlynda: Yes. Caleb: And Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: still have our communications course, and we do still sell a few of those booklets, a digital version of them every month, the Betrayal Devotionals. So that’s cool, too, but we needed a brand that was really focused mainly on that counseling, and I’m not sure if we’re going to kind of put the cruise onto that site or just leave it on its own site still, but that’s kind of how things are evolving, so. Verlynda: Yeah. Yeah. So we just had our fifth, Caleb: Yeah, Verlynda: think it was our fifth Caleb: fifth. Verlynda: marriage [00:11:00] cruise. Caleb: Mm hmm. Verlynda: And again, like it was a beautiful time. It was a little bit smaller this time, but the couples that came were, they were ready to learn. They were ready to work. They were making connections Caleb: hmm. Verlynda: and it’s just so cool to like see the light bulb go off or see the connection made and the bonding. And so that’s such a privilege to be able to do as well. Caleb: Yeah, and we just consistently get like 5 star reviews from people on that and great feedback on how it has been a blessing to their marriage and that there’s so much energy and excitement that they live with, leave with, Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: So we, we love to do that. So yeah, does that cover kind of what’s happening right now? So I should maybe just say like at this moment 2025. And we’re about three weeks out from launching our new website at therapevo.com. OnlyYouForever.com is going to be retired. And all of that stuff is going to be forwarded. All that great content is going to be put on therapevo.com and all those old links that are out there. We’ll all have [00:12:00] forwarding. Like 301 redirects, they’re called attached to them. So everything kind of moves to the, to the new site that way. Verlynda: Okay. Caleb: So that’s where that’s at. And we’re just in the throes of getting all that set up right now. So the design is done. It’s a beautiful website, stunning design, very classy, kind of friendly, but elegant, and I’m really looking forward to having that up and able to announce that in a few weeks, mid March. I hope. Yeah. Verlynda: we’re already wearing the shirts. So, you know, we’re waiting for that website. Caleb: Yes, we’ve got the got the merchandise for the staff for Christmas. So then let’s talk about what’s next Verlynda. And I’m just sort of keeping an eye on the clock here, too. for season 2 of this podcast, I think the big thing that folks should be aware of is just kind of watching for that in your favorite part podcast listening app, Spotify or Apple podcast or whatever you’re using, Google play, that kind of stuff. changing the name to Normalize therapy. So you’re going to see Verlynda: Mm [00:13:00] hmm. Caleb: We’re going to be, there’s gonna be a different logo. So the old infinity loop with the heart, we love that. It’s got a little dated now. So you’re going to get, see the new logo with the Phoenix on there Verlynda: Mm hmm. Caleb: We’re going to start with, you know, some of those marriage related topics, but because our clinic is getting more diverse and so on, we hope to bring in some of these other topics as well, Verlynda: Yeah. Yeah. Caleb: for sure. Like just everything sort of counseling related. Verlynda: Yeah. And even possibly having more interviews, it might be less frequent, but hopefully more consistent. Yeah. Caleb: So Verlynda: For those of you. Caleb: in at a pace we can sustain. Verlynda: Yeah. Yeah. And for those of you who supported us so faithfully on Patreon, thank you for that. We are going to be retiring that.  Caleb: Yeah, Verlynda: else are we doing with this, Caleb? Caleb: well, I think the tone is going to evolve a little bit because in the first Verlynda: Mm. Mm Caleb: as the marriage podcast for smart people, I was the guy with the marriage and family therapy masters, right? Verlynda: hmm. Caleb: And you were kind of like, [00:14:00] bringing that down to everyday language, making it Verlynda: Yes. Caleb: to the people. And that was our vibe. And Verlynda: I think some people called it the expert and the normal person. I think is how some people put it. Caleb: I resented the implication of, yeah. Identifying you as the normal person. Verlynda: I thought it was great. Caleb: I have concerns about that, but it’s going to shift a little bit in that we’re both professionals and I’ve just been amazed to see you coming through your master’s degree, getting that education under your belt and like how much richness you bring to the table, to the discussions now it’s going to shift, the quality. I think the, the quality of our podcast content has, is going to go even higher. It’s going to be amazing. Verlynda: Well, thanks for saying that. I, I think I’m going to struggle a little bit with like, like I know we’re equal as people, but I still look at you as like the expert in the room. With the experience that you have and the work that you’ve done I, I might still just try and make it normal, normal ish.[00:15:00] Caleb: normal. Yeah, I don’t Verlynda: don’t know. Caleb: is gonna mind it being made normal and I can understand the experience thing and I’m expecting that as we go, it’ll probably shift a bit to you know, you get that thousand hours, like client hours under your belt. And it’s just kind of, you begin to feel really comfortable in your authority on topics, Verlynda: Right. Right. And again, topics might make a difference too, whether Caleb: Yeah. Verlynda: what we have experience in Caleb: already that we’ve identified that you’re a lot stronger on than I am. Because they’re interests of yours, and Verlynda: and vice versa. Yeah. Yeah. Caleb: sure. The other thing we’re going to be doing and hoping to do is uploading to YouTube. So we’ll have a YouTube channel set up. Are we haven’t done that yet. A Verlynda: No. Video’s scary. Caleb: little scary. This is kind of our first test recording of that format today. So Verlynda: Yeah. Caleb: We’ll continue to publish an audio only version for all you faithful podcast listeners out there. And then our goal, too, is to kind of really continue with that same high quality content that is Verlynda: Mm hmm. [00:16:00] Yes. Caleb: education based and backed. So there’s just a lot of people out there giving their opinions on how you should do life. And we have always had this conviction of, like, bringing that truth out of what people have discovered through studying creation, studying how people interact with the world around them and with each other. Verlynda: Yes. Caleb: we want to keep that going as well. We’re working a little bit for Linda are going to be doing a man. I, I have a reluctance to say I’m doing things before I’m doing them, but maybe it’s good for me to put this out there. Verlynda: What are we thinking of doing? Caleb: out loud, we’re going to expand our social media output just to be a little more consistent out there. Verlynda: Oh, we have not been great with social media. Caleb: No, we have not. Verlynda: We’ve struggled. Caleb: We kind of suck in that. We are happy to scroll on it, but we don’t actually put Verlynda: Yes. Caleb: So Verlynda: Yes. Caleb: be held accountable for that. So that’s going to be going on. And then [00:17:00] we also have a lovely lady who’s just started writing for us, she’s going to be doing just some blog content. So there would just be some articles that we’ve wanted to have up for a long time about various things. I think she’s doing a psych degree. I think she’s working on that right now, if I remember correctly, Verlynda: Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Caleb: So, yeah, we’re happy about that. And that’s kind of where we’re going. What’s coming next as far as we can see from where we’re at right now. So that’s all, you know, God willing, we’ll see how Verlynda: Yep. Yeah, Caleb: And we just like to invite folks. Sorry, we’re going to come in there. Verlynda: I was just going to say, like, coming up is the next Marriage Cruise, like, we’re currently selling Marriage Cruise 2026. Caleb: Yes, we have a group room set aside. We’ve already had a booking on that, and I’ll tell you, cruise are selling out way faster than they used to, Verlynda: Yeah. Since the pandemic. Caleb: like, you can’t wait to figure out your cruise holidays for February, and like November, or December, or Verlynda: Mm hmm. Mm Caleb: to, you have to get that puppy locked in long before that, so Definitely reach out, check out our website, christianmarriagecruise. [00:18:00] com. And of course, if we can help you with counseling you can get us on our website right now at onlyyouforever.com. If this rebranding has happened and you’re listening to this sometime in March, it’ll automatically forward you to our new therapevo.com site. Verlynda: hmm. Caleb: So that’ll work. too. But we would love to help you. We have amazing therapists who currently have some availability and we can get you set up with someone who is just the right fit for the particular set of issues that you want to talk about. Verlynda: Mm hmm. And we’re just, well, I, I should say, I, I’m excited to be back. Like, I have great memories of the podcast, so I’m looking forward to this. It’s going to be fun. Caleb: Yeah, it’s Verlynda: I guess we’re wrapping this part up, so maybe this one should be sad, but Caleb: Well, Verlynda: looking ahead, I’m excited. Caleb: right? Verlynda: Yes. It’s a journey. Caleb: It is. So let’s close. Just look with a huge thank you to all of you that have Verlynda: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Caleb: of our episodes. I apologize for the brain damage and all of the other effects that that has caused, you [00:19:00] for being faithful listeners. And if you’re a sucker for punishment, we have more coming! Verlynda: There we go. Caleb: just enjoy good content, I should say we Verlynda: Yes. Yes. Caleb: Verlynda Verlynda: Good content with good people. There we go. Caleb: Now, you know, I decided to outsource my marketing. Verlynda: Alrighty. Caleb: That’s all for today. Thank you. And we’ll see you in the next episode.

We’re here to talk There’s a level of control that occurs in relatively few marriages that we would see as part of an abusive power and control dynamic. But then there’s a lower level of control that doesn’t come from an abusive spouse that can still be frustrating and lead to conflict in the marriage. We’ve talked about the abusive kind of control before, so if you want to learn more about that kind of control feel free to go back to our previous episodes of the podcast to learn more about what that looks like.  Today, we’re talking about the annoying kind of controlling. This is not so much about the spouse’s power and dominance as the controlling spouse’s worry, fear, anxiety, and maybe even mental health issues that are driving this behavior. And sometimes the non-controlling spouse may also be acting in ways that prompt this behavior. If you’re listening to this to try to figure out your spouse, you may ask yourself what your role might be and how might you help your spouse feel less of a need to be in control. Where Control Issues Come From 1. Fear Control issues are often rooted in fear. This is the first place to look. If you’re afraid and you want to make it safer, you’re going to want to control the variables. This is quite a common response to fear. Fear can come from a number of different places. One place fear can come from is trauma. When something very frightening or overwhelming happens, it may cause a person to install certain requirements or demands in order to preserve safety. For example, you’ve been in a late night car accident, and you now want to control all of the family travel so that there’s no late-night travel going on and no one is allowed to go out after dark. So now you’ve become “controlling.” You’ve installed requirements or demands on others in order to preserve your sense of safety and well-being, to stop the horror from repeating itself. Another source of control is abandonment (fear of being left alone). If you were left alone at some point as a child or at a point in your marriage, that may result in the kind of controlling behavior where you don’t let your spouse do things on their own or do certain things on their own. You always have to be there, or you always have to do things together. 2. Betrayal Betrayal may also lead to controlling relationships with certain kinds of people in order to prevent re-betrayal. For example, if in your first marriage you were sexually betrayed by your spouse, in your second marriage you may marry a faithful person, but you exert control on them to make sure that that previous betrayal doesn’t re-occur, much to the frustration of your current spouse. That can get difficult because it can cause such distress in your marriage that there’s an emotional separation, or drifting apart that occurs between you. Thus, controlling behavior can lead to further dysfunction.  3. Mental Health Issues Now that we’ve talked about a few fear-related causes of control, we’re going to move on to look at mental health. Some mental health issues can cause controlling behavior. Take personality disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Someone with BPD may say if you leave, I’ll hurt myself, or I might not be ok somehow (there’s a clinging aspect of BPD that does relate to fear of abandonment, but it is also a mental health condition and the fear piece is a part of that).  BPD is something some individuals suffer with, but it is not a common disorder. A more common mental health issue would be anxiety of various forms: generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia (we can’t go out, or we go there and I make you turn around and take me back home), etc. which may manifest as need to control/limit behaviors or activities with others in attempt to reduce the symptoms of anxiety. The other spouse may find themselves saying “why are you always controlling the time that we have to leave. Why can’t we just stay and have a good time. Or, even symptoms of OCD or relational OCD where there is an obsession over the quality of the bond between you.[1] This is not a formally recognized diagnosis in the DSM-5, but it is fairly well documented anecdotally. With relational OCD, there’s an obsession over the quality of the bond between the two of you. One person is always checking up on how things are going, controlling all the things we’re doing together to make sure we’re ok, things are going well, we’re having conversations, etc. The other spouse may feel like “can we not just be together.” Those are experiences in the marriage that are born out of one person’s mental health struggles. 4. Perfectionism  Perfectionism is another possible source of control issues. Perfectionistic people may feel the need to do things right or be seen as doing things right, as having that ideal marriage or that ideal family. This is related to a deep, often unacknowledged sense of personal shame, so they need to appear really well before others, and this may extend to their spouse as well. So, there’s a lot of control about how you both appear when you’re in public, what you both behave like when you’re in public, etc.[2] 5. Low self-esteem Low self-esteem is another cause for control issues. One study reported that 35% of controlling people believe they are “nobody’ and have no value unless they are in a relationship.[3] This means that you are drawing a lot of value from being in a marriage to build up your self-esteem that you are a wanted, loveable person. Underneath the low self-esteem, there could be a fear of being useless without their spouse or a fear their spouse will reject them if they express their true feelings. Or there may be a belief that nobody else would love them so will do anything to keep their spouse. 6. Insecurity in your relationship Insecurity in your relationship can also lead to control issues. You may feel insecure in the relationship so that you need to control what your spouse is doing, how they’re doing it, and who they are with. You may push away any alternatives to yourself. This may also be due to spousal bad behavior. If your husband flirts with certain kinds of women, and you don’t want to be around those kinds of women as a result and he thinks you’re controlling, he actually needs to face up to what’s going on for him. This is a situation where a spouse may be controlling things because you (as the husband) can’t reliably demonstrate the security of your marriage bond to her. Research shows that 53% of controlling people indicated they “cling to their relationship as though their life depended on it.”[4] They have a deep concern about not being loved enough, and may feel that they love you more than you love them. Research shows that 54% of controlling people worry about being dumped to the point where their fear keeps them up at night. That fear/insecurity might result in controlling a lot of the things you do together, or making sure that it’s just you guys together all the time because they’re trying to still this uncertainty they are carrying around. If you’re listening to this and your spouse is saying “you’re kind of controlling” and you say “you know I do stay up at night worried about our marriage,” that might be something to explore with a therapist. It may be an attachment issue; maybe you had a parent that was unreliably available and you had to work hard to feel some sense of connection. Now your spouse might be a reliably available person, but you can’t rest on that because of that template that was formed in you early on in your life.  You may be wondering how to tell the difference between this kind of worry about your marriage and the idea that you should go with your gut if you suspect your husband of cheating on you (as an example). This is an important distinction to make. To really understand the fear, you have to look at the evidence surrounding the source of your fear. If you’re thinking about the fear when you are in a calm moment and you think, my husband has actually never done anything that would cause me to doubt him. When I really stop and look at the evidence, I realize it’s ok, but I still have this gnawing fear. Then you want to look for evidence in your family of origin. If there’s a ton of evidence in your family of origin and none in your husband’s life then our gut is sending a warning signal, but it’s sending a warning signal based on a past template. If you grew up in a family that was always there for you and there’s clear, ongoing evidence in your husband’s behavior, then the fear is likely telling you that there may be cause for concern. In short, go for your gut, but make sure the source of the data is based on evidence. 7. Unhealthy ideas of love Another reason a spouse might be controlling is having unhealthy ideas of love or what an ideal spouse/marriage looks like. Research shows that 47% of controlling people find themselves drawn to romantic partners who have serious personal, relationship, or psychological issues. So, if you find yourself trying to control your spouse, you might ask yourself if you came to the relationship with the person you are married to with a mentality of trying to fix their problem, or out of some belief that they would be lost without you.  Sometimes the word codependency comes up (though this has come into some disfavor in the counselling community). It may be more helpful to consider whether you draw worth from supporting, improving, or caretaking your spouse. That means that you really have to control them because they’re a very broken person and they need a lot of help, and when you help them you feel really good about who you are and your ability to make this world a better place. You’re needed and valuable. So, control really gets wrapped up into this mentality. And it’s hard for a person to make a shift from that to the idea that they have to let their spouse take ownership for their life.  Sometimes, when you take a step back, your spouse’s problems make life harder for you. This raises the question “what is legitimately in your control that you should be taking care of and what is something that your spouse needs to take care of and left to face consequences for. That can be a hard line to walk, but it can bring a great deal of freedom for you both when you walk through it carefully and thoughtfully. (Controlling behavior is tiring for the person doing the controlling as well as the person being controlled). How to Support a Controlling Spouse If there is a mental health issue, it’s important to seek a proper diagnosis and treatment. It can often take some time to face that challenge of figuring out what the issue is and pursuing psychiatric treatment. That requires a lot of support, compassion, care, and thoughtfulness from you as their spouse.  If you notice that your spouse is exerting controlling behavior in the moment, try to look for the fear. Speak to that fear and reassure it. Stay present and help your spouse to stay present. Voice their fears by saying things like “are you afraid of losing me here? Are you afraid that I might give more attention to these other people than you? I want you to know that I’m aware of this, and I’m going to work really hard tonight to make sure that you know that our marriage is secure, I’m here for you, and you’re my main point of interest. We’re going to go through this together. In doing this, you’re making the commitment more explicit than you may otherwise have thought you need to by verbalizing your commitment to your spouse and allowing your spouse to feel held emotionally and highly valued by you. That reassurance will likely help your spouse feel less of a need for control. If you can communicate and provide some of the safety so that they won’t feel that they have to establish that for themselves. In doing this, you can help your spouse to stay present. You are essentially saying you may fear losing me, but right now I am here, I am present with you, you are loved, you are held.  Managing Power Struggles A crucial thing to do during a power struggle is to be firm but kind. Articulate your understanding of what is appropriate in a given situation, and what you have decided to do. Remember, you cannot control (or reverse-control) your spouse’s behavior or thoughts. It’s important to focus on your own actions, but in the interest of the marriage bond, not just self-interest.[5] Sometimes, this can also come back to power struggles. There may be a point where you need to be firm but kind as well. We would encourage spouses to try the more compassionate approach that we’ve just suggested first, and work with that for a while, but there may be other times where you need to articulate your understanding of what’s appropriate in a given situation and what you have decided to do. For example, if your wife doesn’t want you to go to a business meeting with other women, you may say “I have to have this business meeting even though there will be women in the room. I need to have the meeting or I will lose my job” (this is assuming there has been no betrayal, but your spouse has a fear or insecurity). You may need to set a boundary and go to the meeting, but you can ask your wife what she needs in order to feel reassured (e.g. I can check in with you before and after the meeting). Focus on your own actions rather than your spouse’s. You want to act in the interest of the marriage bond as well, not just self-interest. So, rather than saying “I’m going to do this whether you like it or not,” you could say “I’m going to take care of our marriage and I need to do what’s required for my work.” So, it’s marriage interest, not just self-interest that’s motivating this discussion. Sometimes, you will need to exercise your own power to choose what you will do. Then you can step out of the power struggle and leave your spouse free to decide what they will do.[6] For example, if you’re supposed to go out to dinner at a friend’s house, your spouse’s anxiety sets in, and 30 minutes before going your spouse says “our family isn’t going. We’re staying home.” You may say “I want you to know that I love you, I’m here for you, but these people have put a lot of effort into this, I’m going to go out for dinner. What do you want me to tell them about why you’re not coming? I don’t want to throw you under the bus, but I do need to go.” In this way, you’re setting a boundary by keeping your commitment, but also giving your spouse the freedom to decide whether or not they will go. In some situations, you can concede and work through the issue later, but other times you need to do what you’ve committed to do, so you’re striving to preserve the integrity of your marriage without allowing it to become the defining feature of your relationship. This can be tough to navigate, and you want to choose carefully where you’re going to exercise your own power to choose, but sometimes you do need to compassionately step out of the power struggle and encourage your spouse to face their fears. References [1] Kristina Randle, “Anxiety & Control Issues,” PsychCentral (blog), 2018, https://psychcentral.com/ask-the-therapist/2011/12/06/anxiety-control-issues/. [2] “GoodTherapy,” GoodTherapy (blog), n.d., https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/control-issues. [3] Ilona Jerabek, “Fragile Ego-Trip – New Study Reveals Factors Behind Control Issues in Relationships,” Cision (blog),2018, https://www.prweb.com/releases/fragile_ego_trip_new_study_reveals_factors_behind_control_issues_in_relationships/prweb15906327.htm. [4] Jerabek. [5] Richard Kop, “It Just Takes One: Resolving Power Struggles in Love and Marriage” 63, no. 3 (2007), https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=8631e5dc-ffae-474a-a42e-e7c7c77bba9f%40sdc-v-sessmgr01. [6] Kop.  

This is a subject we’ve wanted to address for some time. We see some irony in the work we do with couples or individuals when it comes to abuse. Often, though not always, people who are in a relationship with a truly abusive person do not realize it. On the other hand, couples who are in high conflict often label the other person as abusive when they are not really an abusive person, although they may relate to abusive tactics from time to time. So, the ‘abuse’ word gets abused sometimes. And other times, when it should be used, it’s not. So, we hope we can provide some clarity today by going through some of these emotionally abusive behaviors. One distinction we want to make right off the bat is that probably all of us at some point in time have resorted to using one or more of the abusive tactics we are going to discuss in this episode. There’s a difference between bad behavior and a more fundamental problem of being an abusive person. The latter is a more characterological issue: it’s a way of seeing one’s intimate partner all the time as someone to be controlled, dominated, manipulated to serve you, as less than you. On the other hand, many of us in conflict may use some abusive tactics — that’s not acceptable either, but it’s nowhere near the scale of severity compared to a spouse who faces a characterologically abusive person every day. It may just be that your marriage is normal, there’s no cycle in that sense, but when you get into conflict, you might use unpredictability or blame. That’s bad too, but not problematic in the same way as abuse. The key distinction between resorting to abusive behavior when in conflict and being in an abusive marriage is that the cycle of abuse is always happening in an abusive marriage. We talk extensively about being in an abusive marriage in episodes 123, 124, and 125. Generally, abusive behavior can be verbal, emotional, and/or physical. Right now, we’re focusing on emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can include verbal assault, dominance, control, isolation, ridicule, or the use of intimate knowledge for degradation. This is the kind of abuse that targets the emotional and psychological well-being of the victim in order to gain power over them. It is often (though not always) a precursor to physical abuse.[1] Some types of physical behavior can be considered emotional abuse in that they involve acts of physical violence although the victim is never physically impacted. Examples include: throwing objects, kicking a wall, shaking a finger or fist at the victim (threateningly), driving recklessly while the victim is in the car, or threatening to destroy objects the victim values.[2] Emotionally Abusive Behavior 1. Gaslighting According to Paige Sweet, gaslighting is “a type of psychological abuse aimed at making victims seem or feel ‘crazy,’ creating a ‘surreal’ interpersonal environment (so bad it didn’t seem real) (p. 851).[3] It’s more of a gendered phenomenon that occurs in power-laden intimate relationships where the wife is dependent, not the husband. The husband brings the social and economic capital to the relationship, and so has a degree of power that he can abuse. It promotes the idea that women are overly emotional, irrational and not in control of their emotions. Signs of Gaslighting: Spouses who gaslight will often “flip the script.” That’s the basic tactic: whatever actually happened, they’ll say something else happened. You heard them say XYZ, they’ll deny saying it at all or tell you it was actually ZYX and you must be losing it for not remembering. When there’s not another witness and your spouse is doing this constantly, it erodes your sense of self-trust. There’s lots of lies: about what was said, what actually happened, and who did what. This is usually more subtle, rather than a blatant thing. Another tactic is to use your insecurities against you: you’re worried because he didn’t come home last night? He says that that’s your own foolish paranoia. Rather than being willing to be accountable, the emphasis is placed on what’s wrong with you and why you’re upset over this in order to remove the spotlight from themselves. Another example of gaslighting is a constant challenge of past events. Again, couples in conflict often disagree on details, but this is an extreme, constant rewriting of past history that leaves you bewildered and disorientated. Another example is if your belief that his behavior is wrong is turned around on you and you are being blamed for being too emotional, for having inappropriate thoughts yourself, for being hormonal, or just labeled crazy. One startling thing that studies have shown is that some women preferred physical to psychological abuse, and would sometimes provoke physical violence to avoid being called crazy.[4] In our experience, women coming out of this kind of contact are often very disoriented, it’s like their magnetic compass doesn’t work and just spins on the dial. They don’t know where true north is anymore, or what the facts are, or what’s real, or is it just me? They’re extremely bewildered because this has been such a steady thing. 2. Unpredictability Abusive people may seem to make situations chaotic for no other reason than to keep the other in check and hanging on to them to control what’s happening. The abuser feels like everything is stable for them, but they still cause chaos for their spouse so that they can remain in control of the situation. Other types of unpredictable behavior include: Putting on a drastic mood swing, such as going from being very affectionate to full of rage and breaking things. There may be emotional outbursts that they create that keep you dancing on edge and taking care of them. Starting arguments for seemingly no reason. Self-contradiction, such as making a statement that contradicts the one they just said and acting like there’s something wrong with you for not following. Acting two-faced, such as being charming in public but completely changing the minute they get home.[5] This is an emotional tactic to keep you on edge and ungrounded so that the power and control remain with the person who is acting this way. So, you can see that things that are this severe are not what most people are doing when they’re in conflict. This is a different level and a consistent cycle. 3. Isolation Tactics Isolation tactics are forms of emotional abuse and include such behaviors as restricting a person’s contact with family and friends, or physically confining a person (such as blocking a doorway so that they can’t leave). Isolation aims to undermine the victim’s life and identity outside the relationship and foster a sense of dependency on them.[6] Sometimes, this can happen geographically. But be very cautious about being whisked away in a long-distance relationship and taken to the other side of the country, or somehow compelled to abandon your education or a successful career, or taken away from family and friends.  Geographic relocation is one tactic for isolating someone.  Sometimes these kinds of things happen in normal marriages, but if that’s happening and these other signs are going on, that’s when you want to be cautious. It doesn’t mean that every time a couple moves it’s because the husband is abusive, but this is a way that an emotionally abusive spouse can isolate their partner from their support network so that they can be controlled. In our organization, we’ve seen this happen to very professional, intelligent women. 4. Criticism and blaming Isolation can also happen as an abusive tactic through turning a person against their support network.  Watch for a romantic partner who villainizes your family and friends so that you end up feeling very alone. If you’re trying to see if a relationship is abusive from the outside, remember that you’re looking for a number of signs of abuse. If, for example, you’re trying to determine if your daughter is in an abusive relationship and her spouse is using isolation tactics, or if she’s just cut contact with you, remember that you’re watching for a constellation of behavior, not just one particular sign of abuse. Furthermore, if you are a parent of someone in an abusive relationship, you also don’t want to take over control from the controller. You want to empower your daughter to make wise decisions that are in support of her own personhood.  5. Avoiding Responsibility for Unacceptable Behaviour Extreme manipulators may recruit friends, law officers and court officials, even the victim’s own family to their side, while shifting blame to the victim. They deny the violence or abuse or rationalize it and tend to use such types of defenses: Total outright denial (It never happened. You are just imagining it. You want to hurt me), Alloplastic defense (It was your fault, your behavior provoked me into such reactions, if you didn’t do this, I wouldn’t be so mad). In other episodes, we talked about the fundamental attribution error where if I do something wrong, I’m just a victim of my circumstances, but if you do something wrong there’s something wrong with your character. That to an extreme is the alloplastic defense, which is a tactic for avoiding taking responsibility for your own unacceptable behavior. Altruistic defense (I did it for you, in your best interests! It was your fault). Transformative defense (What I did to you, it was common and accepted behavior).[7] I did this for you in your best interest. I’m taking you away from your family and friends so that you’re going to be a better person, so I can help you. Or, what I did to you, that’s a common and accepted behavior. (E.g. in this part of Canada/America, everyone slaps their wife when they don’t do something, so why are you freaking out? What’s your problem?). Perpetrators are often concerned with their reputation and image in the community – among neighbors, colleagues, co-workers, bosses, friends, extended family. They use specific forms of denial when they are in public which can include: Family honor stricture (We don’t air dirty laundry publicly, the family’s honor and repute must be preserved, what will the neighbors say?), and Family function stricture (If you snitch and inform the authorities, they will take me away, and the whole family will disintegrate).[8] 5. Deliberate Accidents A spouse can abuse their power over you in some fashion, such as “forgetting” to mail your light bill so that your lights are turned off.[9] (Of course, if you simply forget, that’s different, you’re not doing it to establish power and control.) Another example would be not catching something on the stove from burning so that you are made to feel inferior for burning supper.     6. Control There are a number of signs of control including: Making demands or orders and expecting them to be fulfilled. Making all the decisions, even canceling another’s plans without asking. Continually monitoring a spouse’s whereabouts. Insisting on regular calls, texts, or pictures detailing where the person is and even showing up to these places to make sure they are not lying. Requiring immediate responses from calls or texts. Exerting financial control over the other, such as by keeping accounts in their name or only giving them a limited allowance. Spying by going through the person’s phone, checking their internet history, or looking through their communications with others. Now, a lot of these do occur when there’s been a betrayal. But that’s a need to re-establish safety after a break in trust. And you want to take this along with the whole list of everything we’ve talked about today. Demanding a spouse’s passwords for their phone, social media accounts, and email at any time and really taking away their privacy and independence. Belittling a spouse by treating them as though they are a child, including telling them what to eat, what to wear, or where they can go. Yelling, which is frequently a scare tactic and can be a way for an abusive person to let the other know who is in control (like they’re intimidating you into a submissive position). Using the other person’s fears; abusive people will often manipulate a person’s fears to control them. Withholding affection; abusers may punish a person for “bad” behavior by withholding affection or making them feel they are undeserving of love. Giving excessive gifts with the implication that these gifts may disappear at any time, or as a reminder of what they would lose if they left the relationship.[10] 7. Blame Playing the victim: The abusive person may try to turn the tables on the other person by blaming them for the issues they have not dealt with. They may even accuse the other person (the actual victim) of being the abusive one in the relationship. So, they push you to the point that you are angry enough to have an outburst at them, and then say that you’re verbally and emotionally abusive towards them, therefore you need to modify your behavior. Now they’re back in control because they’ve pushed you out of control, and they blame you for doing that.[11] We’ve worked with cases where the husband provoked the wife to screaming and raging, and then calmly pointed out her irrational and crazy behavior as proof she was the problem. This also goes along with the gaslighting point we started with.  8. Shame There are a number of ways that an abusive partner can shame their spouse: Lectures: The abusive person may give lectures about the other person’s behavior in a way to make it clear that the other person is inferior. Outbursts: This involves aspects of control, as well. Not doing what an abusive person wants may result in an outburst of angry behavior from them. It is both a way to control the person and make them feel shame for “not listening,” paying attention, or attending to them properly. Lies: Abusive spouses may blatantly lie, telling the person false opinions from their friends about their “bad” behavior. For example, “even your mom can see that you’re not a good housewife and has made comments to me about that.” This is often done in a way that you can’t verify whether the accusation is true or not. Walkouts: Abusive spouses may leave a situation rather than resolve it. In a disagreement at home, for example, they may remark about how the other person is “crazy.” This can put all the blame on the other person and make them feel ashamed while also not solving the issue and then the other person just walks away. So, they’ll leave you, and then they just detach from everything. Trivializing: If the other person wishes to talk about their issues or problems, the abusive person may criticize them for even having the issue or tell them that they are making a big deal out of nothing.[12] An example of trivializing is if you had a concern about an abusive spouse’s behavior and you want to talk about that and they turn around and tell you how ridiculous it is that you would even bring this up and act like you are you always nitpicking on them, and now there’s something wrong with you because you’re making a big deal out of nothing. Thus, they are trivializing you into feeling shame for even having brought up concern about me.  So, if there’s no chance ever to discuss what your spouse is doing wrong as the abuser in the relationship, that’s a good sign that the behavior is abusive. If you can’t get anything to stick to your spouse, again along with some of the other behaviors, that’s a sign of genuine emotional abuse. It’s not necessarily the defensiveness, but more the fact that your spouse is dumping it all back on you and indicating that the fact that you even brought it up means that the problem is you. Even though we’re almost always defensive at times as couples, even in healthy marriages, this is referring to when a spouse is never taking responsibility.  9. Humiliation This can take a number of forms including: Blatant name-calling: abusive partners may blatantly call the other stupid, “an idiot,” or other harmful names. If confronted, they may try to pass it off as sarcasm or emphasize the times you may have called them a name back. Joking or sarcasm: Although sarcasm can be a tool for comedic release if both people enjoy the joke, abusive people can also disguise their derogatory remarks as sarcasm. Sarcasm can be a tool for comedic relief if you both enjoy the joke, but often abusive people disguise their derogatory remarks as sarcasm. If the other person feels offended, the abusive spouse may make fun of them further for “lacking a sense of humor.” Harmful nicknames: nicknames or pet names may be normal in relationships. However, a name that hurts is unacceptable if it harms one’s spouse. Public displays: abusive people may openly pick fights in public, only to blame the other person if they become angry. They may also pick on the other person or openly make fun of them in a social setting. Patronizing: this may include talking down to another person for trying to learn something new, or making it obvious that the person is “not on their level.” Again, in a healthy relationship, you should be able to talk about things that the other person doesn’t know, but there should be give and take. There shouldn’t be a sense of “you’re stupid” because I’m having to tell you this and I know so much more, which can go along with lecturing, or there’s no point in even telling you because you won’t get it (in a demeaning way), which is withholding information, another power tactic. Insults on appearance: an abusive person may insult the other’s appearance around others. Comments may include remarks about weight, body shape, or postpartum changes in your body. Cheating: abusive people may cheat on their partners to hurt or humiliate them, or to imply that they are highly desirable and you’re not, therefore you’re stuck with them, you’re lucky to have them, and you should be trying to please them.[13] If you’re listening and thinking that a lot of this is happening (it doesn’t have to be all of it), you went through the assessment and it indicated that your spouse is abusive, what now? It’s important to realize that you can’t fix the abuser, but there is a point where knowledge is power. You want to study, understand, expand your awareness. Two books that we recommend are The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans and Why Does He do That by Lundy Bankcroft. If it’s not safe to have those physical books around, you can get the Kindle app on your phone and download it there or go read it at a local library and leave the book there. They’re commonly available books.  Sometimes hope comes from leaving an abusive relationship because you can’t change the other person. And research shows that abusive men are most motivated to change when their spouse has left and they want them back. As long as you’re there and you can be controlled, there’s no reason for him to face his own demons. Regardless of what action you decide to take, you certainly want to educate yourself about abuse and what it looks like. In some cases, you can start to call these things out and set boundaries and insist that they stop. In this way, you can renormalize the power in your relationship. But if doing that puts you in more danger or makes it worse, then your right to safety, emotionally and physically, is a greater moral importance than staying in the marriage. We’re pretty strong in upholding marriages, but there are certain cases where the right to respect, health, etc. takes priority over that and so you might consider making an action plan in that case. A person’s right to life, respect, and dignity is of higher value than upholding a marriage. Again, listen to our content on abusive relationships. This episode and the following two episodes are about abusive relationships. We talk about when you need to leave, how to leave, and how to make a safety plan. References [1] Gunnur Karakurt and Kristin Silver, “Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships: The Role of Gender and Age,” Violence and Victims 28, no. 5 (2013): 804–21.[2] Karakurt and Silver.[3] Paige Sweet, “The Sociology of Gaslighting,” American Sociological Review 84, no. 5 (2019): 851–75, https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419874843.[4] Sweet.[5] Susan M. Johnson, The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection, 2 edition (New York: Routledge, 2004).[6] Karakurt and Silver, “Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships: The Role of Gender and Age.”[7] Zlatka Rakovec-Felser, “Domestic Violence and Abuse in Intimate Relationship from Public Health Perspective,” Health Pyschol Res. 2, no. 3 (2014): 1821, https://doi.org/10.4081/hpr.2014.1821.[8] Rakovec-Felser.[9] Tamara Hill, “10 Common Behaviors of the Abuser,” 2019,https://blogs.psychcentral.com/caregivers/2017/04/10-common-behaviors-of-the-abuser/.[10] Johnson, Jon, “What Are the Signs of Emotional Abuse?,” Medical News Daily (blog), accessed May 22, 2020, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325792.[11] Johnson, Jon.[12] Johnson, Jon.[13] Johnson, Jon.

How do I know if I can trust my spouse again? This question represents one of the most profound dilemmas a betrayed spouse will struggle with as they journey towards healing after a significant betrayal. How do I know I’m not going to get hurt again? How do I know I’m not just being a fool to trust him or her? Trust is so easy to break and so hard to build: today we’d like to give you more insight into the dynamics at play in this important struggle. Before we talk about indicators of trustworthiness, we’re going to look at factors that are independent of trustworthiness, or a lack thereof, in your spouse, that affect your ability to trust them again. The Interference of Betrayal Trauma Betrayal often causes symptoms of trauma to appear. Symptoms of betrayal trauma include: Avoidance (possibly even as far as terminating your relationship with your spouse) Hypervigilance (fear response) which can involve scrutinizing all of your spouse’s behaviors, searching, researching, double-checking and interrogating Obsessive questioning, meaning that you continually grill your spouse, and may find it hard to stop  Rage (fight response) Numbness (freeze response)[1] Identifying these symptoms isn’t meant to pathologize any of them. It’s just good to be aware of the symptoms so that you can recognize it if you experience betrayal trauma. Sometimes you can spend a lot of emotional and mental space trying to figure out what happened. Gordon, Baucom and Snyder (2005) note &#8220;a primary disruption experienced by the injured partner is intrusive, persistent rumination about the event, which can become so overwhelming and uncontrollable that it interferes with both concentration and daily functioning&#8221; (p. 1394).[2] If you’re experiencing symptoms of betrayal trauma, the process is entirely inside because of what the betraying spouse has done. The symptoms of betrayal trauma can protect you from reaching out to your spouse again, even if they’ve returned to a trustworthy place. We’re delicately saying that the symptoms of trauma can prevent you from trusting, even if you are in a situation where it would be safe to trust again. Part of the impact of trauma is how it affects trust. Gordon, Baucom, and Snyder (2005) go on to observe: &#8220;A major cognitive response associated with the discovery of an affair is the change in beliefs about the partner and relationship; one can no longer trust in his or her partner or feel safe within the relationship&#8221; (p. 1394). Trauma affects what you believe about your spouse. Here’s the point: they betrayed you. The betrayal causes trauma. In the ensuing fallout, it is possible that significant cognitive and emotional changes occurred in your spouse so that they are now a trustworthy person. But if your trauma is unresolved and unhealed, the trauma itself will prevent you from seeing, believing and acting on that trustworthiness.  We’re not saying all betraying spouses become trustworthy. Yours may not be. But we are saying that yours may now be, but your trauma prevents you from acknowledging this because it’s protecting you. In conjunction with your spouse doing what is necessary to become a changed, trustworthy person, you also need to take care of this trauma that has occurred.  For betraying spouses listening, it is not for you to turn on your spouse and say this is your fault/problem. A trustworthy betraying spouse can say “yes, I caused this, and I understand that your healing may not follow the same trajectory or speed as mine and you take all the time you need and I will do what I can to support you and I will do what I can to support you.” If they won’t do this, that is a sign that they’re not really trustworthy because they are still blame shifting. That’s for betrayed spouses to consider as you reflect on yourself. Now, as you reflect on your spouse, we want to give you some warning signs, and some proceed with caution signs. Keep in mind that trust is not a switch that you flip. It is more like a savings account: it needs to be built up steadily over time. Real or perceived betrayals are like sudden, major withdrawals from that account.  Warning Signs of Betrayal Now we’re going to take a look at the warning signs of betrayal. To some extent, every betrayed spouse is a bit different in how they respond to the betrayal, but there are also a number of practical things to look for that are indicators that you can trust your spouse again.  The delicate part is that there are normal levels of these problems in every marriage. Most married men/women have some level of defensiveness at times, but high levels of these issues do represent major warning signs of betrayal. 1. Pathological Defensiveness It’s normal to be initially defensive after betrayal. A betraying spouse might say, oh it wasn’t that bad, that’s not how it really was. Sometimes this is because of their own shame. They feel horrible about it and they try to turn the dial on that bad-person dial back to zero because it feels horrible to sit in it. This is a sign of defensiveness, but not necessarily of untrustworthiness.  While the above are certainly not helpful, they’re not necessarily a sign of betrayal. Defensiveness is a sign of betrayal if the betraying spouse accepts zero responsibility. For example, if he/she says “I went out with my buddies, they started drinking, Bob slipped me a shot of whiskey, and I was unfaithful.” In other situations, there is a total denial in the face of the evidence, saying “no, that didn’t happen.”  They may also engage in gaslighting behavior, saying something like “why would someone try to wreck our marriage by saying I’m cheating on you?” as the affair partner is writing to the betrayed partner saying I’m having an affair with your spouse.   2. Blame Shifting If you’re still getting blamed for the circumstances that led to the issue (you weren’t sexy enough, you were too busy, you were off chasing your career, etc.) People who don’t accept responsibility and blame others see themselves as victims of their circumstances. The problem is, if he/she was a victim once, he’ll likely become one again. On the other hand, people who demonstrate agency can accept responsibility and make the necessary changes to create safety in marriage. A spouse who acts like they have the power to control their choices is more trustworthy than one who sees themselves as a victim. A spouse who is willing to say “I made a choice where I disregarded you and I disregarded our marriage and I chose to do this and it was wrong” can accept responsibility and make the changes to create safety in their marriage. They are more trustworthy than a person who is always the victim. This may sound backwards. You might think that it would be harder on your spouse to hear “it was my fault, I made this decision, and I hurt you” yet that’s what they need to hear. And your spouse already knows that, so acknowledging it is not new information, but it shows your spouse that you are willing to take responsibility for your actions. 3. Being Non-committal If your spouse won’t verbally and sincerely commit to repair and restoration that may be a sign that s/he’s still keeping their options open or still considering an affair partner as an alternative. Trust from you is an expression of commitment. It’s a bridge you build towards a fixed point: if your spouse is a moving object, your bridge will fall. Not everyone who comes to couples therapy has come to a place where they’ve let go of the affair partner, and it’s important that they get to a place where they’ve completely stopped their involvement with the affair partner in order to commit to you.  You might worry that if your spouse begins to show trustworthy behavior, they’re just doing so to win you back, rather than sincerely. But remember that trust is built by being reliable over time. If a spouse isn’t sincere about wanting to win back your trust, they won’t be able to do the reliable over time part. They’ll douse it on for a period of time and then the bad habits will come back. The exception would be if they’re pathologically insincere. If they can maintain a layer of deception after deception for years and are willing to lead you on a total charade for years, that’s much more serious, but this is not often the case. Most spouses who commit to repair and restoration are sincerely ready to commit to the marriage. 4. Unaddressed Entitlement, Narcissism, Unaccountability or Compulsivity Other reasons not to trust your spouse include some personality disorders, and the denial that often comes with sex addiction. Not all personality disorders lead to affairs, but if you are married to someone with histrionic personality disorder, it will sometimes show up as an over-flaunting of sexuality, which can lead to affairs. Spouses with narcissistic personality disorder may feel they deserve everything the world has to offer including you being a faithful spouse to them while they do whatever other things they want to do. Some unaddressed expressions of bipolar disorder also lead to pursuing affairs. (Note: nearly all people with bipolar disorder are faithful spouses, but some manifestations of bipolar, during the manic phase, include pursuing affairs.) Until the underlying symptoms of these disorders are treated, it’s probably not wise to consider trusting again. Unaccountability is the refusal to accept any form of accountability. Again, betraying spouses often get frustrated by the hypervigilance of the betrayed spouse, (why are you checking my phone, why are you checking my email again etc.), but the refusal to accept any form of responsibility becomes an issue. It’s a normal part of the distress following a betrayal for there to be cross-examination, scrutiny, and sometimes interrogations, which are difficult for the betraying spouse. But when the betraying spouse manifests a consistent ongoing refusal to accept any form of accountability for several months or a year or two, that’s a warning sign that they are untrustworthy. If they act like they can have this separate piece of their lives hidden in this way, that’s not trustworthy behavior. But that’s different from people objecting to some of the responses of the betrayed spouse. 5. Compulsivity: see an opportunity, act. With compulsive behavior, there’s no connection in a person’s mind from desire to consequence (acting on that desire). If your spouse is acting without considering you as the betrayed spouse, (wanting to do something and not thinking about who it’s going to impact) that is a necessary ingredient for the betrayal to occur. As long as evidence of compulsivity is present, it’s probably not safe to trust. Following betrayal, you’ll almost always have lots of conflict in your marriage, lots of unresolved issues, lots of resentment, and unmet emotional needs. It’s tough because you have to take care of your marriage and also repair it. But these are signs of conflict and distress, not necessarily signs of unfaithfulness. The distress in your marriage doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t trust your spouse. It’s normal to be distressed afterwards. In many cases, the marriage dysfunction that was not really acknowledged before is now on the table. Looking at all of these struggles, you may think this person is untrustworthy, but they may actually be trustworthy, you just now have to solve what was happening in the marriage. A Dysfunctional Marriage is Not Necessarily a Warning Sign It’s worth noting that there are higher rates of affairs in dysfunctional marriages versus happier marriages, but there are also plenty of distressed marriages with Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and unresolved issues in which the partners never engage in infidelity. You have to take care of your marriage and repair it as well (preferably with a therapist) but these are signs of conflict and distress, not necessarily signs of unfaithfulness. Signs of Trustworthiness A number of the signs of trustworthiness are the opposite of the signs of untrustworthiness. 1. Decreasing defensiveness Having more empathy for the impact on you as the betrayed spouse without your betraying spouse dissolving into his/her own shame is a good sign that you can trust your spouse. 2. Accepting responsibility Having your betraying spouse acknowledge the impact of their actions on you and accept responsibility is a positive thing. Recognizing and owning the damage done and hurt that it caused and seeking to make amends is a sign that they are willing to work on your relationship, and that they can be trusted again. You do want to be aware that if you try to make amends immediately it may come across as defensiveness, so it is generally best to acknowledge the impact of your actions on your spouse, stop for a period of time, and then make amends later so it doesn’t come across as defensive. 3. Voicing commitment to the marriage  If the betraying spouse is verbalizing their commitment to the marriage and acting on it, that is a good sign. For example, if they’re investing at home, working with you on things, being willing to have the hard conversations, and wanting to work on things. 4. Personal Growth Facing personal issues, working on themself, taking charge of mental health, recognizing personal dysfunction (being able to name it) and pursuing help via pastors, good friends or therapists are also important things. 5. Accountability It is a good sign if your spouse is willing to be accountable for their actions by telling you where they are going, when they are going out, etc. and being willing to give you the extra details to reassure you. This may be frustrating for them at times, but they need to understand that it’s important to do it.[3]  This is also the opposite of hiding a part of your life completely from your spouse. 6. A preference toward honesty over self-protection. This means that the betraying spouse says I’d rather be truthful with you even if that’s going to make it difficult for us than hide something else from you. An example might be, if an affair partner reaches out to the betraying spouse, he’d rather tell you and face your distress than hide it and hope you don’t find out (even if he doesn’t respond to the affair partner). When your spouse tells you something he could have got away with, but would rather have honesty and disclosure than ‘happy wife happy life’ that’s a good sign even though you’ll go back to the pain, they’d rather have the consequence of something they’re really not guilty of because they understand the need for honesty between you. Again, this is the opposite of hiding, covering, or protecting. Signs of Relational Health 1. Benevolence If your partner is genuinely interested in your welfare and not just his/her own, that’s a good sign. In other words, is your partner motivated individualistically (i.e., to seek his/her own gain) or is he/she motivated cooperatively (i.e., to seek joint maximum gain)?[4]  2. Honesty If your spouse does things that show that they are being honest with you (for example, letting you know where they are going when they go out) that is a sign that you can begin to trust them again It shows forthrightness if your spouse is willing to offer information before you’ve asked for it.[5] 3. Commitment Commitment reassures your partner that you are in this together, and you are willing to repair the relationship and make things work. It involves knowing that your partner (betraying spouse) puts your needs at the top of the list and is willing to make sacrifices for you and your relationship. If they do this in a way that is not just because you’re prompting them to do it, it shows that they’re holding you in higher esteem. They couldn’t have held you in high esteem before when they were having the affair, so when you see them doing this for you out of their own volition that’s a sign of increasing trustworthiness.[6]  If they’re prioritizing your needs, this is different from fawning or flattery where they’re just trying to get you happy again. It will probably be obvious when it is authentic versus, you’re just sucking up because you messed up. 4. Willingness to create new boundaries If there were factors that lead to infidelity in your relationships, such as your spouse going for lunch with a member of the opposite sex, and now your spouse is willing to set boundaries to avoid temptation, to make sure that you feel safe and that they don’t ever get into a situation where it could lead them down that road again, that is a sign of trustworthiness in your spouse.[7]  When betraying spouses don’t do this, the betrayed spouse may object to it unless they set boundaries. There is a loss of freedom that comes with this, but at the end of the day the betrayed spouse doesn’t want a doormat either, they just need to see that you’re willing to make the changes in order for them to be safe.  Having some restrictions on your freedom may be a necessary thing in order to re-establish trust in your relationship. Setting boundaries shows that you would honour them above some of these personal preferences that led to the betrayal, and when they see you doing that and they begin to trust you again and you repair the marriage, often some of the restrictions that were necessary immediately following the betrayal will be loosened. Boundaries will look different depending on how the betrayal happened. For example, if a husband has a pornography addiction that has been hidden for a long time and comes out that he’s been looking at porn on his smartphone, his wife may say that he needs to use a flip phone. But if the husband conducts all his business on his smartphone, this could lead to a problem. In this situation, it may mean asking him to work with his laptop and a flip phone for a while, and down the road when he’s demonstrated reliable behavior, he can return to using his smartphone again. It’s probably not a bad idea to take a break from using his smartphone for a while to help resist the temptation of pornography anyways.  People who have poor boundaries may need to set new boundaries permanently. Like if there’s a pattern of drinking at work events and you hook up with someone at a work event and you have an affair because you’re intoxicated, a boundary may be no alcohol and work events, and you will always hold that boundary to make sure that your spouse is safe. 5. Consistent Integrity This extends to small things as well as big ones. Sauerheber and Disque (2016) note &#8220;Even the most unintentional, uneventful, or unpremeditated fib (or lie) can set the betrayed partner&#8217;s healing back. For example, Suz&#8217;s affair ended 2 months prior to both her and Derrick entering couples counseling. A year into these author’s work with this couple, Suz told Derrick she would be home from yoga at 5 p.m. Instead, she stopped to see a friend on the way home. When she returned home at 6 p.m., Derrick was livid. The issue was not her friend, but rather, as he explained: &#8220;You lied to me. The agreement was that you would come straight home from yoga unless you notified me&#8221; (p. 216).[8]  If there’s untruthfulness, it may not even be intentional. But part of the repair towards trustworthiness requires a higher commitment to honesty and integrity than what was held before. That shows up in little details. Trust is built by reliable behavior over time. In the above example, all Suz needed to say was, “I’m stopping to see my friend.” Even if Derrick was upset because he had dinner ready, it’s not going to trigger the betrayal because she let him know. The important part is being committed to total honesty and integrity. References [1] K. C. Gordon and D. H. Baucom, “Understanding Betrayals in Marriage: A Synthesized Model of Forgiveness,” Family Process 37, no. 4 (1998): 425–49.[2] Gordon and Baucom.[3] Iona Abrahamson, Rafat Hussain, and Adeel Khan, “What Helps Couples Rebuild Their Relationship After Infidelity” 33, no. 11 (2011), https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X11424257.[4] Robert Larzelere and Ted Huston, “The Dyadic Trust Scale: Toward Understanding Interpersonal Trust in CloseRelationships” 42, no. 3 (1980): 595–604, https://doi.org/10.2307/351903.[5] Larzelere and Huston.[6] Bob Navarra, “Precursors to Infidelity: The Six Warning Signs,” Dr. Robert Navarra (blog), accessed May 28, 2020,<a href="https://drrobertnavarra.com/dr-john-gottmans-research-provides-key-insights-in-understanding-trust-and-in- recognizing-the-signs-behaviors-and-attitudes-that-indicate-a-path-toward-betrayal/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://drrobertnavarra.com/dr-john-gottmans-research-provides-key-insights-in-understanding-trust-and-in-recognizing-the-signs-behaviors-and-attitudes-that-indicate-a-path-toward-betrayal/.[7] Jill Sauerheber and Graham Disque, “A Trauma-Based Physiological Approach: Heling Betrayed Partners Heal from Marital Infidelity,” The Journal of Individual Psychology 72, no. 3 (n.d.).[8] Sauerheber and Disque.

The five pillars of attachment are felt safety, attunement, soothing, expressed delight, and support for becoming one&#8217;s unique best self. They are the core attachment needs every child requires from a caregiver, and every adult continues to need from a spouse. The framework comes from the seminal attachment textbook Attachment Disturbances in Adults by Daniel P. Brown and David S. Elliott (W. W. Norton, 2016), and it sits underneath everything we do in marriage counseling when a couple is struggling to feel close. Attachment is, in plain language, the science of love. It&#8217;s the secure emotional bond that forms between two people, first between an infant and a primary caregiver, and later between spouses. Secure attachment makes it easier to build stable relationships where both people have room to grow. The default attachment style you carry into your marriage was largely shaped in those first years of life, and for 68 to 75 percent of people, that childhood style persists into adulthood.[1] Only about 40 percent of adults are securely attached, which is the style most likely to produce a satisfying long-term marriage. Attachment style is not destiny. You can move toward a more secure way of relating, and the five pillars are the practical road map for how. This article walks each pillar through both lenses: how a parent provides it for a child, and how a spouse provides it for a spouse. If your style of relating got built on a shaky foundation, these are the places repair usually has to happen. A Quick Review of Attachment Attachment style isn&#8217;t a personality trait. It&#8217;s a learned pattern of how you reach for closeness and what you do when closeness feels uncertain. Most people don&#8217;t realize their style is doing the work in the background of their marriage, shaping how they fight, how they soothe, how they read silence, and what they assume their spouse meant by a tone of voice. Most people also don&#8217;t realize their style can shift. That&#8217;s part of why we keep returning to attachment theory in our writing and in our work with couples: it&#8217;s one of the few clinical frameworks where understanding the mechanism actually starts to loosen the pattern. What Are the 5 Pillars of Attachment? Brown and Elliott describe the five pillars as the conditions a person must experience in order to develop a secure attachment style. Levine and Heller adapted them for an adult-relationship audience in their book Attached.[2] Both versions agree on the same five pillars: A sense of felt safety A sense of being seen and known (attunement) The experience of felt comfort (soothing) A sense of being valued (expressed delight) A sense of support for being and becoming one&#8217;s unique best self For each pillar below, we&#8217;ll start with how a parent provides it for a child, and then walk through how that same pillar shows up between spouses. The same need lives inside the adult who once was that child. 1. A Sense of Felt Safety Parent to Child Safety comes from consistency, reliability, and protection. Consistency and reliability are mostly about predictability. Is the parent present and available in a way the child can count on? If a parent is unpredictably available, the child learns they can never quite be sure, and that uncertainty becomes the seedbed of an anxious attachment style. When a parent consistently responds to the child&#8217;s emotions, needs, and wants, the child experiences felt safety. If the parent flies off the handle unpredictably, this can produce an attachment injury even when the parent is physically present, because the parent isn&#8217;t emotionally predictable. No parent is perfect. As long as the parent&#8217;s response is understandable and predictable most of the time, the child develops a secure baseline. Protection isn&#8217;t helicopter parenting. Children scrape their knees, fall off bikes, and bump into the world; safety doesn&#8217;t mean preventing every small pain. Protection means handling adult-sized concerns out of the child&#8217;s view. A child should not feel responsible for financial instability or a parent&#8217;s emotional state. And of course, a parent must take serious threats seriously: physical harm, inappropriate sexuality, and emotional abuse and neglect. When protection fails, the child organizes their internal world around that failure. The takeaway becomes: significant others are not safe, I am alone in this world, and I have to protect myself. That belief travels into adulthood and lands in the marriage. Marriage If felt safety wasn&#8217;t built early, your spouse will likely have a hard time feeling safe with you, even if you&#8217;ve done nothing to threaten them. Your part is to become the kind of spouse with whom opening up is less risky. That means making it possible for your spouse to share deeper emotions, concerns, thoughts, and struggles, and then validating what they share. You let them have their feelings. You tell them their feelings make sense. You listen even when those feelings involve something you might need to change, and you do your best to listen non-defensively. You also build safety when your spouse sees you actively protecting the bond between you. You speak well of them to others. You honor their cautionary requests around situations that could threaten the bond. You proactively disclose flirtatious messages or anything else that could erode trust. Safety in marriage means rigorous honesty and rigorous accountability in the small daily things, not just the big ones. Reliability also matters. Be home when you said you&#8217;d be home, or communicate openly when that changes. Be someone your spouse can count on to share the load of household labor or to provide for your family in whatever way you&#8217;ve agreed to. And then there&#8217;s safety in conflict, which is its own discipline. That means refusing to gaslight, refusing to use intimidation to win, refusing to belittle through name-calling or character attacks. It means staying away from &#8220;you always&#8221; and &#8220;you never,&#8221; and refusing to dismiss your spouse&#8217;s concerns as not a big deal. Conflict is rarely pleasant. It can still be safe. 2. A Sense of Being Seen and Known (Attunement) Parent to Child Attachment researchers call the second pillar attunement. Secure parents are carefully attuned to their children. Attunement has three parts: tracking the child&#8217;s immediate behavior, tracking the child&#8217;s inner state of mind, and tracking the child&#8217;s developmental range at any particular moment. An attuned parent responds in real time, adjusts to what the child is showing, and lets the child&#8217;s signals shape what happens next. The attuned parent will also voice their best estimate of the child&#8217;s emotions, needs, motivations, and ideas. When a child is crying, the attuned parent works to figure out what&#8217;s happening, names the cause out loud, and acknowledges the upset. That naming is what trains the child to track their own internal experience. An attuned parent follows the child. They pay close attention when the child is in intense emotion and let the child relax and play when the child is calm. It&#8217;s possible to be over-attuned (fussing over a child who needs no fussing) and it&#8217;s possible to be under-attuned (missing the child&#8217;s distress). Attention isn&#8217;t agitation. It&#8217;s just being available to what&#8217;s actually happening. A lack of attunement to the child&#8217;s developmental stage often pulls the parent into power struggles, makes the parent more likely to read the child&#8217;s normal limits as personal failure, and increases the chance the parent will humiliate the child when the child can&#8217;t reach a goal that wasn&#8217;t developmentally available to them.[3] Marriage Attunement in marriage is being understood. It&#8217;s paying close attention to your spouse&#8217;s state and being willing to take an interest in what&#8217;s happening for them when they need you. It isn&#8217;t hypervigilance or surveillance. It&#8217;s the willingness to stay curious about your spouse, to ask about their inner experience, to take a loving interest in what&#8217;s actually going on under the surface as you do life together. You won&#8217;t do this perfectly. The point is whether you make the effort regularly. 3. The Experience of Felt Comfort (Soothing) Parent to Child Consistent parental soothing is what builds a child&#8217;s capacity for affect regulation. Marian Tolpin observed that &#8220;the child&#8217;s developing internal structures for affect regulation result from the cumulative internalization of repeated soothing and comforting behavior by the parent.&#8221;[4] In plainer language: when the parent reliably calms the distressed child, the child eventually learns to do that work for themselves. When a child is soothed and experiences felt comfort repeatedly over time, they develop an internal representation of being soothed. They begin to carry that representation inside themselves.[5] As the representation stabilizes, the child needs less external soothing because they can call up the internal version of it on their own. This is how self-regulation actually develops. It isn&#8217;t a willpower trick. It&#8217;s a residue. Some parents believe distance toughens the child up. Many of those parents experienced exactly that distance from their own parents. Attachment research points in the opposite direction. The path to a child who can manage their own emotions runs through a parent who consistently helped them manage emotions when they couldn&#8217;t. Soothing isn&#8217;t dismissive of the child&#8217;s experience. It looks like bringing the child close, attuning to what they&#8217;re feeling, reflecting it back, and staying with them while their nervous system calms. The child eventually realizes things will be okay, even when the cause of the upset (the scrape still stings) hasn&#8217;t gone away. Marriage The adult who experienced consistent soothing as a child can usually navigate marital distress without their nervous system flooding. Their nervous system has the internal scaffolding to come back down. The adult who didn&#8217;t experience that soothing tends to do one of two things in marriage: either shut down and withdraw because the emotion is unmanageable, or pursue their spouse frantically for the equilibrium they can&#8217;t generate themselves. The pursuing spouse keeps coming, the withdrawing spouse pulls further away, and the cycle locks. One pattern we see in session over and over: the spouse who never learned to receive soothing as a child cannot tolerate being soothed by their partner as an adult. The partner reaches in, says the right thing, and the soothed spouse stiffens or pushes the comfort away. It looks like rejection. It often isn&#8217;t. It&#8217;s the nervous system finding the experience unfamiliar enough to read as a threat. The work in counseling is to help the receiving spouse stay long enough in the contact that the body learns it isn&#8217;t dangerous. The best thing you can do as a spouse when your partner is in distress is to respond to the emotion that&#8217;s actually present. If they come to you scared about a cancer scan or worried about a kid, &#8220;don&#8217;t be worried&#8221; or &#8220;it&#8217;s not as bad as you think&#8221; translates into &#8220;put your emotion away, it&#8217;s too much for me.&#8221; That isn&#8217;t soothing. It&#8217;s containment for your sake, not theirs. Try instead: &#8220;Yes, that is scary, and whatever happens, I&#8217;ll be right here with you through it.&#8221; Or: &#8220;It&#8217;s a lot. You aren&#8217;t alone in it.&#8221; That validates the emotion and offers your consistent, reliable presence as the resource. You don&#8217;t have to fix the threat. You have to stay. 4. A Sense of Being Valued (Expressed Delight) Parent to Child Being valued is what attachment researchers call expressed delight. It isn&#8217;t a grand display every time. It&#8217;s the steady, recognizable signal that the parent is glad about who the child is. Expressed delight builds secure attachment, and it lays the foundation for healthy self-esteem. When a child can count on their parents to be delighted in them, the experience of being valuable becomes part of their internal sense of self. Self-esteem emerges most cleanly when the parent expresses delight in who the child is, not just what the child does.[6] &#8220;That was thoughtful of you to write that card for your friend&#8221; lands differently than &#8220;good job.&#8221; When the most important people in a child&#8217;s life see them as having worth, a quiet purpose grows from that. If you grew up feeling you couldn&#8217;t do anything right, or that you were a pain, or that your parents didn&#8217;t really want you in the first place, that absence of expressed delight will follow you into adulthood. In marriage, you&#8217;ll often struggle to believe you actually belong to the person you&#8217;re with. That can collapse into hopelessness, or it can express itself as endlessly fussing over your spouse in ways that paradoxically confirm the old belief that you have no worth. Marriage In marriage, expressed delight usually means celebrating little things often, and big things well. The little things are the daily rituals of connection that John Gottman writes about: greeting each other when you come home, saying goodbye in the morning, being visibly glad to see one another at the end of the day. The big things are acknowledging accomplishments when they happen, the promotion, the project, the hard thing your spouse pulled off, in a way that names the work it took. Acknowledgement of who your spouse is matters more than acknowledgement of what they produce. You don&#8217;t want them to feel valued only for output. Celebrate the accomplishment, and at the same time, name the qualities of character that made the accomplishment possible. 5. Support for Becoming One&#8217;s Unique Best Self Parent to Child The fifth pillar is support for being and becoming one&#8217;s unique best self. It&#8217;s built through a parent&#8217;s consistent, reliable, unconditional encouragement of exploration and creativity. Children who feel that support feel free to explore, discover, succeed, and fail. Through that range of experience, they grow into the strongest and most distinct version of themselves. They figure out what they&#8217;re good at and what they can do in the world. They are allowed to try and not have to succeed at every attempt. Parents who provide this support are not threatened by their child&#8217;s developing strength or by the possibility that the child may, in some areas, become better than they are. Imagine a farming parent whose adult child has a newer, better way of running the operation. If the parent never received expressed delight from their own parents, accepting the child&#8217;s better way may feel intolerable. They may double down, &#8220;you need to listen to dad here,&#8221; and reinforce the older way as superior. From an attachment perspective, the work is to tolerate the discomfort of being surpassed and to keep encouraging the child anyway.[7] That&#8217;s how a child becomes their full self. We&#8217;d say it&#8217;s also how a child becomes everything God made them to be. Marriage In marriage, this pillar is offering your spouse the room to grow as an individual. You both have gifts and abilities, some of them not yet developed to their full potential. Growth can take many forms: hobbies, shared projects, travel, church or community service, further education, or balanced career development that doesn&#8217;t come at the cost of the marriage. Supporting your spouse&#8217;s becoming means tolerating risk and accepting failure as part of growth. Sometimes the easiest way to see this is to imagine what happens if you take that freedom away. If your spouse feels stifled, that closure becomes a quiet wound in the attachment bond. Many spouses limit each other out of fear: &#8220;if you become everything you could be, you&#8217;ll leave me behind.&#8221; That&#8217;s an attachment fear in plain dress, and it&#8217;s worth working on, alone or with a therapist. Attachment Healing Is Possible It is possible to repair some of the effects of a poor or disrupted childhood attachment bond. Even when a marriage is severely distressed, it&#8217;s possible to shift toward a more secure way of relating to your spouse. The five pillars give you the categories. The work is in the daily practice. Sometimes other factors complicate things, including trauma that has reshaped how the body experiences attachment. That work tends to go better with a therapist who specializes in trauma and understands attachment as a clinical framework, not just a buzzword. Frequently Asked Questions What are the 5 pillars of attachment? The five pillars of attachment are felt safety, attunement (being seen and known), soothing (felt comfort), expressed delight (being valued), and support for becoming one&#8217;s unique best self. They are the conditions a child needs from a caregiver in order to develop a secure attachment style, and the same conditions adults continue to need from their spouses. Who created the 5 pillars of attachment framework? The five pillars come from Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair by Daniel P. Brown and David S. Elliott (W. W. Norton, 2016), the seminal clinical textbook on adult attachment repair. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller adapted the framework for a general audience in their book Attached (2010), which is where many readers first encounter it. What is the difference between an attachment style and the 5 pillars of attachment? The four attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized) describe the patterns adults end up with. The five pillars describe the conditions that produce those patterns. If you received the five pillars consistently in childhood, you most likely developed a secure style. If one or more pillars were missing or inconsistent, the result is usually one of the insecure styles. The pillars are the building blocks; the styles are the outcomes. Can the 5 pillars of attachment heal an insecure attachment style? Yes, in time and with intention. About 25 to 32 percent of adults shift toward a more secure attachment style over the course of life, often through a stable long-term relationship, a good therapist, or both. The mechanism is the same as in childhood: repeated experiences of felt safety, attunement, soothing, delight, and support for growth slowly build new internal templates. The body learns, eventually, that the new pattern is reliable. What are the five components of attunement? Attunement, the second pillar, has three core components in the original framework: tracking the child&#8217;s immediate behavior, tracking their inner state of mind, and tracking their developmental range. Many practitioners expand this into five working elements: presence, accurate perception of the child&#8217;s signals, contingent response, voicing the child&#8217;s inner state, and adjusting to developmental stage. The same elements apply between spouses, with curiosity in place of caregiving. Where to Go From Here The five pillars are a map. Reading the map is the easy part. Walking the territory, especially if your own pillars were thin, is harder. Most people benefit from doing some of that work with a counselor who is both trauma-informed and fluent in attachment as a clinical model. If you&#8217;d like to explore whether working with us could help you and your spouse build a more secure bond, you can book a free 20-minute consultation through our website. There&#8217;s no obligation. It&#8217;s just a conversation about whether we&#8217;re the right fit. References The &#8220;Five Pillars&#8221; framework originates in the seminal attachment textbook Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair by Daniel P. Brown and David S. Elliott (W. W. Norton &#38; Company, 2016). [1] Peter Fonagy et al., Development, Attachment and Childhood Experiences, in The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Personality Disorders, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2014), 55&#8211;77. [2] Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find&#8211;and Keep&#8211;Love (New York: Penguin, 2010). [3] Levine and Heller. [4] Marian Tolpin, &#8220;On the Beginnings of a Cohesive Self,&#8221; The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 26 (1971): 316&#8211;352, as cited in Levine and Heller, Attached. [5] Levine and Heller. [6] Levine and Heller. [7] Levine and Heller. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are the 5 pillars of attachment?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The five pillars of attachment are felt safety, attunement (being seen and known), soothing (felt comfort), expressed delight (being valued), and support for becoming one's unique best self. They are the conditions a child needs from a caregiver in order to develop a secure attachment style, and the same conditions adults continue to need from their spouses." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Who created the 5 pillars of attachment framework?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The five pillars come from Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair by Daniel P. Brown and David S. Elliott (W. W. Norton, 2016), the seminal clinical textbook on adult attachment repair. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller adapted the framework for a general audience in their book Attached (2010), which is where many readers first encounter it." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the difference between an attachment style and the 5 pillars of attachment?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "The four attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized) describe the patterns adults end up with. The five pillars describe the conditions that produce those patterns. If you received the five pillars consistently in childhood, you most likely developed a secure style. If one or more pillars were missing or inconsistent, the result is usually one of the insecure styles. The pillars are the building blocks; the styles are the outcomes." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can the 5 pillars of attachment heal an insecure attachment style?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes, in time and with intention. About 25 to 32 percent of adults shift toward a more secure attachment style over the course of life, often through a stable long-term relationship, a good therapist, or both. The mechanism is the same as in childhood: repeated experiences of felt safety, attunement, soothing, delight, and support for growth slowly build new internal templates. 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Did you know that the research shows that marriage takes a hit when you have kids? One author reported in 2005 that an analysis of 90 different research studies showed the drop in marital satisfaction is a shocking 42% larger among the current generation than their predecessors. A more recent study from 2016 showed that 67% of couples reported a decline in relationship happiness for up to three years after the birth of their first child.[1] Those figures are reported in non-pandemic situations.   Clearly, parenting does impact marriage for most of us, and parenting during a pandemic presents additional challenges. We want to give you some concrete ways to boost your marriage even while you’re parenting during a pandemic. How to Prioritize Your Marriage Instagram and Facebook don’t tell the full story. While we find ourselves posting photos of some pretty sweet moments with our kids, we need to normalize the fact that parenting is very challenging. It makes life more complex and challenging. And those Instagram moments are few and far between. We don’t want to be negative, but we do want to be real. Parenting is hard work. Recognize the Pressure High expectations mean lots of social pressure to have your kid excel in one area, if not multiple areas: academically, socially, in sports or athletics, with spiritual values, etc. It’s exhausting and consuming.[2] As if this wasn’t challenging enough, the compounding problem is that by the time the kids are all launched, the dad and mom hardly know each other and they’ve endured all this stress with little resolution: divorce can become an appealing option.[3] So how does a couple balance all these demands and not end up in that place? Here are a few ways to help couples find balance. Have a Daily Stress-Reducing Conversation Stress often creates overwhelm and emotional reactivity. Having a stress-reducing conversation involves discussing the day’s frustrations, but separating those frustrations from the relationship. Don’t blame all of your frustrations on the relationship when stress is likely the root cause. That gives you both a chance to vent, gain support, and show empathy for one another.[4] This is very important during isolation too. Spend Time with Just One Another This is good at any time, but extra tough if you have kids at home right now who are normally at school. Be intentional about making the time for one another. This restores or fosters a sense of partnership so it’s not only about parenting but also what exists between you two.[5] Think about ways you can do this on a daily basis (smaller, consistent moments) but also on an intermittent basis (e.g. date nights). This may look a bit different during a pandemic, but try to find creative ways to spend time just with one another even if you can’t do some of the activities you would normally do together. In a pandemic context you likely have more time, but it can be harder to make time just for each other if you are home with your kids, so being intentional about creating time is key to prioritizing time with your spouse. Discuss Division of Labour A University of California, Berkeley study tracked 100 couples from first pregnancy through the child&#8217;s transition to kindergarten found that the No. 1 source of conflict in the first three years of parenthood is the division of labor. According to psychologist Carolyn Page Cowan, the couples had expected a more 50-50 arrangement than they ended up with. The study also showed that when dad doesn&#8217;t step up, mom is more likely to report symptoms of depression. &#8220;That&#8217;s not a good recipe for parenting or for the couple&#8217;s relationship,&#8221; says Cowan.[6] You need to talk about expectations here. You need to recognize how that has translated (or not) into what actually happens, and what a fair (not necessarily equal) division of labour would look like. It’s all the more important to revisit this during a pandemic with changes in work schedule, conditions, or unemployment. Communicate with Kindness Sometimes we need to recognize that the stress around us does not need to become the stress between us. When you communicate with your spouse, take a deep breath, take the edge of your tone and find a kind way to ask for what you need. Cultivate Friendship Between You Couples who cultivate a friendship during the transition into parenthood report less anger and hostility and feel better equipped to handle challenges.[7] One way of doing this is by asking your partner questions, and keeping up with little details and events in their life.[8] Benefits to Your Kids We’ve touched on this in past episodes, but prioritizing your marriage actually has more benefits for your kids than if you prioritize your kids. Recent research has shown that when the family unit falls apart, so do the kids. Children from broken homes have a higher rate of academic problems, promiscuity, teen pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse, emotional and behavior problems, violence, suicide, and poverty as adults. The best way to protect your children from these things is to keep your marriage together. Children lose a lot of their sense of security when a marriage breaks down: their world unravels and no amount of baseball, dance, piano lessons or toys can make up for that loss. According to Gary Smalley and Barb Rosberg (n.d.) &#8220;To put your marriage on hold for 18 years – or even one year – while you raise children is not only detrimental to your marriage, but it is also devastating to your children.&#8221;[9] Children need to know that their parents not only love them, but also each other. Their sense of security grows as they see their parents expressing love to one another. This strong bond between you also positions you to be better parents.[10] References [1] April Eldemire, “3 Tips For Couples to Stay Connected After Baby,” 2016, https://www.gottman.com/blog/3-tips-for-couples-to-stay-connected-after-baby/.[2] Lauren Picker, “And Now, the Hard Part. That Sweet Little Thing Is about to Commandeer Your Life. Be Prepared.,” Newsweek 145, no. 17 (2005), https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&#38;db=mnh&#38;AN=17848053&#38;site=ehost-live&#38;scope=site.[3] Gary Smalley and Barbara Rosberg, “Putting Your Spouse before Your Kids,” n.d.,https://www.focusonthefamily.ca/content/putting-your-spouse-before-your-kids.[4] Eldemire, “3 Tips For Couples to Stay Connected After Baby.”[5] Smalley and Rosberg, “Putting Your Spouse before Your Kids.”[6] Picker, “And Now, the Hard Part. That Sweet Little Thing Is about to Commandeer Your Life. Be Prepared.”[7] Eldemire, “3 Tips For Couples to Stay Connected After Baby.”[8] Eldemire.[9] Smalley and Rosberg, “Putting Your Spouse before Your Kids.”[10] Smalley and Rosberg.

Reasonably often, we get inquiries from a wife whose husband is addicted to pornography and he won’t do anything about it. In this article we want to help you prepare for that first serious confrontation where you have a very deliberate conversation about this problem and how it is impacting you as his wife. Understanding Denial It’s almost inevitable that you are going to run into some level of denial in a conversation like this, so let’s begin by talking about denial. It would be easy to run into this and throw your hands up in the air and give up. However, it is important to understand that denial is a common response to addiction. It is a feature of addiction. And addicts are typically in denial of the negative consequences of their addiction.[1] One important piece to understand is that the part of the brain that craves or desires something has no direct neural connection to the part of the brain that holds the consequence for engaging in what you desire. One relatable example is a second piece of dessert: the idea of that second piece is always significantly more attractive when you’re about to start into it than the experience of it when you’re through it and starting to feel gross. If someone were to stop you before that fork bite and say, “No, you should not do this! You’ll feel gross” your automatic response would be, “Get out of my way or you’ll be wearing this fork! I want it anyway!” Now, that is a somewhat trivial example, but it illustrates the power of denial in addiction to the point where a person can ignore the evidence that their choices are harmful.[2] Nevertheless, it’s still important that the addict is confronted with the consequences of the addiction. We’d just like you to understand that the addict will be in denial and we want to help you prepare so that you can present your evidence, your complaints and concerns in a way that you can motivate him to seek help. Prepare Yourself First As we’ve mentioned in other episodes, we are born-again Christians who are not perfect but are trying to live lives that reflect the values of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. All of that to say, we come at this issue with a moral belief that pornography is not helpful to marriage.  We also recognize that we have a lot of listeners who don’t share this belief system and so you’ll approach this issue differently.  So, we’re going to offer a range of questions that you should consider as you prepare for this conversation. Depending on your own beliefs and values, some of these questions will be more relevant than others. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions: we just want to think through all that might be going on for you as you approach a confrontation like this with your husband. Consider your motives for having this conversation: What are you hoping to accomplish? Is it to reassure yourself that you are enough? Are you angry and looking to express this? Is it a conviction against his use of pornography? Consider the basis of your objection: Is it moral? Is it based on general beliefs that you have about pornography? Is it the fact that your spouse is lying or hiding to cover it up? Is it other behaviors that come with the addiction, such as gaslighting? Being clear on exactly what you are objecting to will help you make yourself clear to your spouse. Consider the consequences: What impact has his pornography use had on you? What needs and fears are you carrying into this conversation? Pay attention to what your body has been telling you, what your thoughts have been, what you feel in your heart about pornography and describe its impact on you as thoughtfully and precisely as you can. Your husband needs to know the negative effects this has had on you.[3] Know what you are willing to accept and be prepared to state boundaries that you will consider implementing in order to create emotional and relational safety for yourself.  Prepare Your Confrontation When we talk about preparing a confrontation: this doesn’t necessarily mean conflict or a fight, although that may happen. But what we’d encourage you to aim for is a serious, thoughtful and deliberate assertion of what this problem means to you, how it is impacting you, and what needs to happen in order for your marriage to be restored. As we go through this section, I want to acknowledge the team over at CovenantEyes — we don’t have any affiliation with them at the moment but their blog is an excellent resource for topics like this and we are drawing on the experience of some of their writers as well as our own clinical experience and training. Plan for a Soft Start Because you are confronting something that is probably very shame-inducing and has been hidden for some time, it’s going to be helpful to plan a soft start to the conversation. This doesn’t mean that you’ll be vague or beat around the bush. It is helpful to be direct and get to the issue quickly. But you also don’t want to launch out of the gate on the attack, since this will only make matters worse. It’s easy to be direct when something like this is hurting you significantly, but you do want to keep your overall goal in mind which means you need your husband to hear what you are saying and have it sink it. Starting the conversation from a place of rage is not going to facilitate that outcome. You might consider starting with a statement that is simple and factual like, “It’s time to talk about your pornography problem and I would like you to listen for a few minutes while I tell you about how it is impacting me. After that you will have a chance to respond, but I really need you to start by hearing and understanding what this is doing to me.&#8221; Share the Emotional Impact This is very important to do. You’ll want to use your insights and self-awareness from the questions I relayed earlier along with the clarity and insight from the journaling exercises in the bonus content from this show. One aspect of denial in addiction is that the addict has buffered himself from the reality of how his actions are impacting you. He has had to numb himself from this consideration in order to continue with the behaviors: now is the time to carefully burst that bubble of denial with some visceral detail about what it’s like to be in a marriage with pornography present and active. Be careful here to focus on your experience and not to resort to railing on him. Shame is not an effective motivator for change. Helping him become aware of the extent of your pain and the devastation that this is causing you will make him aware of the consequences of his porn use and will do far more to motivate him to change than you cussing him out. Additionally, don’t assume your feelings will be obvious to him. Make it obvious and explicit for him by letting him know what you’re feeling. State Your Boundaries Boundaries help you to establish physical and emotional safety. Whether he is exhibiting remorse or not, if it is safe to do so, you should state your boundaries clearly and simply. We encourage wives to set boundaries that offer them options so that you can enforce the boundary according to the nuances of the situation. An example boundary would be: when you lie to me, I do not feel safe and I cannot trust you. Since I cannot be intimate with someone I cannot trust or feel safe with, when you lie to me, I will consider one or all of the following boundaries until I feel safe again: You will move out of the bedroom immediately I will not have sex with you You will talk to [your therapist, your pastor, your dad, your accountability partner] about the lying If you had a relatively minor incidence of lying you might say, you can stay in the bedroom but we’re not having sex this week. Or if there was a significant cover-up and lying relapse you may choose to implement all three boundaries. There’s no right or wrong with boundaries in the sense of what will fix him. Remember that these boundaries are about what you need in order to feel emotionally and relationally safe, so they will be different from marriage to marriage. Offer Him a Chance to Respond Ideally, this problem will become a gateway to more openness between you. You can start that process even with this conversation by offering him a chance to respond to you. You can invite his participation by asking him questions about his perceived ability to stop, why he uses it, and the impact that he sees it having on you or himself. If you encounter a lot of blaming and find yourself starting to feel traumatized by his responses, it would be best to shut that conversation down and continue it in a safer environment such as with a counselor. Where you can, acknowledge his viewpoints. You want to express some empathy for him, but at the same time it should not turn into a pity party for him about how his difficult childhood led to this situation. For example, you can acknowledge &#8220;Yes, your childhood was hard and I cannot imagine what it must have been like. But this is now and you and I need to come to an understanding that these coping mechanisms cannot continue. You need to find a healthier way to cope.&#8221; It is good to acknowledge his viewpoints and let him know you understand his feelings, but you should not excuse his actions. It may also be good to acknowledge his shame and remind him that the way to beat shame is to bring the darkness out into the light. He needs to talk to someone; he needs to face this problem with someone who will be more neutral and supportive than you can be. After the Conversation These conversations are hard to have. It’s very possible that you’ll come away feeling that parts or all of it may not have gone well. What do you do then? Well, if some parts did not go well, then you can revisit those. If you are stuck on certain issues and he is open to it, then those might be better suited for a counselling session. If the conversation was unsuccessful and you are being blamed and gaslighted and the addiction continues, then you should consider an escalation intervention such as are offered by the ARISE network of interventionists. These are proven, established ways of effectively motivating addicts to seek help for their addiction. Also, you should consider your own need for healing now. Even if the conversation did go well, are you needing to work through some betrayal trauma from the lying? How has this impacted your self-esteem and self-confidence? The repair of these challenges need not rest on his willingness to pursue sobriety: you can take the initiative to pursue your own healing and growth even while he pursues his. Our counsellors are trained to help wives whose spouses are caught in pornography addiction and we can help you through any part of this process, from the initial conversation, to your own healing work, to the impact of the addiction. References [1] Hanna Pickard, “Denial in Addiction,” Mind &#38; Language 31, no. 3 (2016), https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&#38;db=psyh&#38;AN=2016-28286-003&#38;site=ehost-live&#38;scope=site.[2] Pickard.[3] Laura, “How to Talk to Your Husband About His Porn Use,” CovenantEyes (blog), 2017, https://www.covenanteyes.com/2017/04/24/how-to-talk-to-your-husband-about-his-porn-use/.

Well, we live in unprecedented times as many of us are adjusting to a global crisis. We are recording this episode in the middle of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, with some of our listeners in cities in full lock-down and others nervously awaiting the community spread of this disease. Certainly, it has created considerable stress and new issues to negotiate. Today, we’d like to help you understand how these kinds of crises impact marriage, but more importantly, how your marriage can help you buffer the storm.  How Coronavirus (Or Any Crisis) Affects Marriage We want to start by normalizing what many are experiencing during this time of crisis. This is a very stressful time. Under this kind of stress, all sorts of issues are going to show up: things related to your family of origin, how you wish to feel supported under duress, communication differences, sexuality issues, attachment, and also loss. To start with the loss issue, many people have lost the regular rhythm of their normal routines. You may find yourself no longer gathering with colleagues at work every day. If you had kids in school, you’ve lost your quiet time at home and the routines you were accustomed to. You may have lost the ability to gather with your church community, go to the gym, and head to the grocery store without fear. There is a lot of loss all around us even if the coronavirus is not in our neighbourhood. And if it is? There could be tragic loss as well. All of this comes with a lot of stress, so we’ll start by looking at how stress affects your marriage. Stress Affects Both Spouses Even if you are not personally as stressed, if your spouse is feeling it, it will bleed over into your experience too. Studies have shown that there is more of a correlation in wives experiencing the stress of their husbands than vice versa.[1] So if your husband is stressed, even if you weren’t, you are going to pick up on that and are likely to have an empathic response. It’s just really hard to get through a time like this untouched by what is going on around you. You May Disagree on How to Handle the Pandemic At ordinary times in life, you may disagree about how to handle money or whether to spend holidays with family or away on vacation. Similarly, you can also disagree about how to handle crises like this pandemic.[2] These disagreements could be related to your family of origin. If your respective family of origin handled crises in different ways, your spouse’s approach to handling the current crisis may be much different from yours. For example, you may believe that this is a time to connect (carefully, and with social distancing) and help one another out as much as possible by sharing resources. But your spouse may feel this is a time to stockpile and hunker down and really protect yourselves and your children. Normal disagreements and differences in the way your family of origin styles tend to show up during a time of crisis. You Deal with Stress Differently It may also be that you have very different ways of coping with stress. This will be accentuated right now. One spouse may want to control the situation and take every possible step to ensure safety. That would be more of a doing or busy response — nothing wrong there. But the other spouse may just really need to talk about their fears and anxieties. You can see how it would be easy to have a disconnect: one spouse wondering why the other is not helping with what needs done, and the other just longing to sit down and be able to talk it out. Naturally, if you don’t take time to communicate with one another, the stress of this crisis can make you feel estranged. So, it is important to pay attention to how the pandemic may be affecting each of you differently and how you respond both respond to it.[3] Your Attachment Style Impacts Your Stress Response We have talked about attachment style in past episodes (episode 251-254) and this is relevant when you are under stress as well. If your attachment style is avoidant or dismissive, you will tend to use distancing coping strategies, whether it’s through busyness or really adhering to social distancing, you pull back from other people. In your marriage, this can make it challenging to keep a close connection as a couple.[4] If your attachment style is anxious, you may find yourself very sensitive to your spouse’s availability and getting increasingly upset with his or her distraction in the crisis, leaving you feeling more alone or even a little abandoned. On the other hand, individuals with a secure attachment style are able to demonstrate more efficient problem-focused coping when under stress. For those of you that have worked hard on your marriages and your attachment to one another, this is a time when your marriage really becomes a source of resilience and strength for you. Now, the good news is that, even if our attachment styles weren’t all correct heading into this crisis, we can still leverage what we have and where we are at for the better. For example, if you are more anxious in your style can you channel that energy into preparing for this challenge? Marriage Tips for Managing the Pandemic Crisis We want to give you several tips to help you navigate this time as successfully as possible. 1. Discuss Your Needs  How are you doing with asking for what you need during this crisis? Have you offered your spouse the opportunity to talk about how you can better support him or her during this pandemic?[6] 2. Talk About Your Past As previously mentioned, your personal history becomes relevant during times of stress. Did you go through times of crisis when you were a child? How did your family respond? How is that shaping your response to the current crisis? Talking about your past can help you to separate your own assumptions and defaults to consider how your respective histories are influencing your present choices.[7] 3. Discuss Past Struggles You’ve Gone Through Together It can help you review the difficult times that you have navigated before. Reminding yourselves of your resilience and your ability to overcome past hurdles can give you some reassurance and hope that you will need to find your way through this crisis as well.[8] 4. Hire a Counselor Counselors who work with Emotionally Focused Therapy help couples process, validate, and normalize their emotional experiences and find comfort with one another. This empirically supported method of therapy helps clients recognize difficult emotions, make sense of them, and then manage the emotions with a new perspective that includes the support and empathy of your spouse.[9] 5. Communicate More We cannot stress this enough. More stress? Communicate more. If it becomes necessary to not be physically close (e.g., isolating from one another within your home due to symptoms) during this crisis, it will be especially important to increase your communication so you can stay emotionally connected. Sometimes, when anxiety is high, there can be more controlling and criticizing behaviors as worries leak into our interactions. You do need to discuss problems, but you need to be really intentional about constructive communication and support one another.[10] 6. Recognize the Crisis is the Crisis Sometimes, all the stress, disruption and changes can make it feel like your marriage is in crisis when in reality your marriage is just in a crisis. Note the difference between being in crisis and being in a crisis. They may actually feel similar. A crisis like this pandemic can shake your core sense of wellbeing and can make you feel isolated, threatened, neglected and so on. It’s important to note the impact of these external factors so you don’t unnecessarily blame your marriage for the difficult feelings you’re experiencing.[11] 7. Develop Resilience This crisis is an opportunity to develop resilience as a couple. Resilience, described extensively by Walsh (1998), is the “capacity to rebound from adversity strengthened and more resourceful.”[12] Resilience is extremely important during a time of crisis. Crisis can actually help strengthen your marriage as you work together to navigate the challenges it presents.[13] 8. Be a Secure Base One specific way you can develop resilience as a couple is to be a secure base for one another. The negative effects of stress can be buffered if emotional support is perceived as available from “even one reliable source.”[14] If your spouse can rely on you for support that can help relieve the stress of this pandemic.[15] Ask yourself what you are doing to be that person that your spouse can turn to for support, and how you are making yourself available to your spouse. References [1] Mina Westman, Dalia Etzion, and Esti Danon, “Job Insecurity and Crossover of Burnout in Married Couples,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 22, no. 5 (2001): 467–81, https://doi.org/10.1002/job.91.[2] S. H. McDaniel, W. J. Doherty, and J. Hepworth, Couples and Illness (Medical Family Therapy and Integrated Care, 2014), https://doi-org.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/10.1037/14256-008.[3] McDaniel, Doherty, and Hepworth.[4] M. C. Pistole, Amber Roberts, and Marion Chapman, “Attachment, Relationship Maintenance, and Stress in Long Distance and Geographically Close Romantic Relationships,” Grand Valley State University, 2010, https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&#38;context=counseling_articles.[6] McDaniel, Doherty, and Hepworth, Couples and Illness.[7] McDaniel, Doherty, and Hepworth.[8] McDaniel, Doherty, and Hepworth.[9] McDaniel, Doherty, and Hepworth.[10] {Citation}[11] McDaniel, Doherty, and Hepworth, Couples and Illness.[12] Froma Walsh, Normal Family Processes: Growing Diversity and Complexity (Guilford Press, 2012).[13] McDaniel, Doherty, and Hepworth, Couples and Illness.[14] Pistole, Roberts, and Chapman, “Attachment, Relationship Maintenance, and Stress in Long Distance and Geographically Close Romantic Relationships.”[15] Pistole, Roberts, and Chapman.

If you have decided to disclose an affair to your spouse, you are probably looking for a concrete answer to one question: what do I actually need to tell them? A thoughtful infidelity disclosure covers seven specific elements: the type and extent of the betrayal, who the other person was, where and when the contact happened, how often, whether there are health implications from any sexual contact, the current status of that relationship, and where your spouse might cross paths with the affair partner going forward. The rest of this article walks through each one, when and how to set up the conversation, and what to expect afterward. If you are also trying to figure out what to leave out, read our companion piece on what to avoid when disclosing infidelity. Why a Prepared Disclosure Matters It is reasonable to wonder if anything good can come out of disclosure. A thoughtful, prepared disclosure offers real repair potential. A rushed, careless, or forced one almost never does. Any damage from this conversation should come from the behavior you are disclosing, not from how you deliver the news. That is not a promise about outcome. You can prepare this well and still hear everything your spouse has been carrying, because a full range of emotions from betrayal is part of what has to happen. What a prepared disclosure does offer is a chance that the first moments of your spouse&#8217;s grief are not also their first moments of re-traumatization at your hands. A careful disclosure can even become a first step of repair, if it validates what your spouse has been sensing for weeks or months and restores their trust in their own perception. Disclosure or Discovery? Discovery is what happens when your spouse finds out on their own. They see a text. A friend lets something slip. An old email surfaces. Discovery takes many forms, and it is usually worse than a prepared disclosure, because it often teaches your spouse that you were never going to tell them. A well-prepared disclosure, even a poorly timed one, at least signals a turn toward honesty. A forced disclosure sits in between. That is the situation where external pressure, such as a looming news story or a threat from the affair partner, forces your hand. Forced disclosures are difficult for obvious reasons, but even then, a thoughtful approach to how you deliver the news still matters. The guidance below is built for the more common shapes of infidelity: an affair has occurred, there is a pornography problem, or there has been a financial betrayal. If what you need to disclose is not a bounded affair but an extensive pattern of sexually acting out over years, that situation is clinically different and calls for a professionally guided therapeutic disclosure rather than the version described here. Our team can help with that more specialized process. Make a Full Disclosure and Avoid Trickle Truth The single most important rule in disclosure is this: tell the whole story the first time. Do not spread the disclosure out over days or weeks in an attempt to soften the blow. Clinicians call that pattern trickle truth, and it is one of the most damaging mistakes we see. Trickle truth usually comes from good intentions. The betraying spouse wants to protect their partner from too much pain at once. What actually happens is that the betrayed spouse just begins to stabilize when another piece of information arrives, which re-shocks the system and installs a new layer of distrust. The accumulated damage of trickle truth is far greater than the damage of a single, complete disclosure. We see the fallout of this constantly in our practice. Because disclosure is hard and your impulse in the moment will be to shorten the conversation, prepare in advance. Write down everything you need to cover. That way, when part of you starts looking for a reason to hold something back, your preparation keeps you honest. What to Include: A 7-Point Disclosure Checklist These are the elements you need to cover in a disclosure. They are specific enough that your spouse can reconstruct the basic shape of what happened, without handing them graphic material that will replay in their mind. Our companion article covers what to avoid including, including excessive sensory detail. 1. The Type and Extent of the Infidelity Name what happened, in basic terms. If the affair was sexual, say so, and describe the extent (for example, &#8220;we had oral and vaginal sex&#8221; or &#8220;it was one sexual encounter over a weekend&#8221;). If the affair was emotional, describe what was shared in broad terms (for example, &#8220;I shared things with her about our marriage that I should only have shared with you&#8221;). Use appropriate, accurate language, not slang, and not vague euphemism either. 2. The Identity of the Affair Partner and How You Know Them Tell your spouse who the affair partner was and how you know them. A co-worker, a neighbor, a college friend, someone you met online. Your spouse needs this so they can orient themselves in the situation. It also helps them understand whether the affair partner is someone who might be in your shared world going forward. 3. Where You Met Share the general setting, not the specific venue. &#8220;In a hotel&#8221; rather than &#8220;at the Marriott on 12th Avenue.&#8221; &#8220;At a work conference&#8221; rather than &#8220;in a specific hotel room.&#8221; The general location is enough for your spouse to understand the situation. The specific is the kind of detail that becomes a landmark their mind returns to. 4. When You Met and How Often Share the time frame of the affair and how often the contact happened. &#8220;It started about six months ago and we saw each other roughly once a month&#8221; is the kind of information that gives your spouse the pattern. This also lets your spouse map the affair onto their own memories of those weeks and months, which is an important part of their processing. 5. Health Implications If the affair involved sexual contact, disclose whether barrier protection was used. This has direct health implications for your spouse if you have been sexually active at home. Your spouse deserves the information, and they should be able to get tested if they choose to. This is non-negotiable. 6. The Current Status of the Relationship Tell your spouse whether the affair is over. If it is, say when and how you ended it. If you have not yet ended it, be honest about that, and be ready for the conversation that follows. If the affair partner is still actively in contact with you or trying to be, your spouse needs to know. 7. Where You Might Cross Paths Going Forward If the affair partner is someone you might unavoidably see in the future, such as a co-worker or a member of the same church community, your spouse needs to know. Surprise encounters after disclosure are particularly destabilizing, because they feel to your spouse like evidence that the affair is not actually over. Name the risk and talk about what you are going to do about it. Choose the Right Time to Disclose Do not stumble into a hasty disclosure. Do not start this conversation when you know you have a fast-approaching deadline, a school concert, or guests arriving in an hour. Give your spouse, and yourself, the space the conversation actually needs. Choose a time when you have at least two or three hours available to sit with your spouse, walk through everything, and answer their questions. Pick a time when your spouse will have some capacity to process afterward. Not right before work, and not right before an evening that ends with guests arriving or an early morning they have to sleep for. Approach the Disclosure with Empathy Psychologist Shirley Glass described the discovery of infidelity as a traumatic event that shatters the basic assumptions of commitment, love, and honesty, and she noted that understanding the story of what happened is part of recovering from that trauma. Your spouse is about to walk through exactly that. Expect a range of strong emotional reactions, possibly stronger than you anticipate. If you find yourself thinking that your spouse is overreacting, that is a cue to stop thinking about your own discomfort and re-focus on what you have actually done to them. Common responses after disclosure include: Intense emotional disruption and feeling completely blindsided. Shock and grief, with cycles of numbing, confusion, anger, and despair. A desire to spend time apart, sometimes for days. A surge of questions, sometimes the same questions asked repeatedly. None of that is overreaction. Most of this is a nervous system in acute shock, and post-infidelity stress is well documented. Your job is not to manage their response. Your job is to be present and honest while they experience it. Offer Support Options Your spouse will need support, and they may not be in a state to organize it themselves in the first days after disclosure. Come to the conversation with a few options prepared, without taking over the choice of who they end up working with. Written resources. Articles, podcasts, and books on betrayal trauma can help your spouse begin to make sense of what they are experiencing. Some spouses lean hard into research early on. Counseling options. Have the names of two or three therapists who work with betrayal trauma, with links to their websites. Fit matters a great deal here, so bring a few solid options and let your spouse choose. A trusted support person or two. Encourage your spouse to reach out to at least one or two friends or family members who will support them and not undermine the possibility of repair. It is common for betrayed spouses to feel too ashamed to tell anyone, so this matters. Support groups. In some areas, support groups exist specifically for spouses working through betrayal. These can be particularly helpful for spouses of sex addicts, where the dynamics are especially isolating. Apologize, but Do Not Expect Forgiveness Yet A sincere apology is part of disclosure. No words will heal what has been done, and your apology will not feel adequate, because nothing can in that moment. It would still be a serious failure to leave it out. Do not ask for forgiveness at this stage. You can acknowledge that you do not deserve it, and that you hope in time your spouse will be able to offer it, but do not request it. Make clear that you understand this will take time and that you will not pressure them. It also helps to acknowledge specifically what you are seeing and hearing. Something like, &#8220;I can see I have hurt you terribly, and this is going to be very difficult for you to work through.&#8221; And to state your commitment to responsibility: &#8220;I take full responsibility for this. I am not going to blame you. I also know I need to look at how I came to make this choice so I never end up here again.&#8221; What Happens After Disclosure? Disclosure opens a period of uncertainty. You may not know for days or weeks whether your spouse will stay. That uncertainty is part of what you signed up for when you chose to betray, and it is not something you can put back on your spouse to resolve. One useful piece of research: relationship volatility right after disclosure, including threats to leave, has not been found to predict the eventual outcome of the marriage. In other words, the rage and the ultimatums in the first days are not the forecast. They are the shock speaking. What actually predicts recovery is whether the unfaithful partner sustains honesty, accountability, and engagement over time. Many couples do recover from infidelity, including from significant betrayals. The path forward is sustained honesty, accountability, and time. It asks you to keep showing up, keep taking responsibility, reassure your spouse of your commitment, and eventually, if your spouse is willing, to receive their forgiveness when it is offered. Frequently Asked Questions What should you include in a disclosure of infidelity? A full disclosure covers seven elements: the type and extent of the infidelity, who the affair partner was and how you know them, where and when contact occurred (in general terms), how often, whether barrier protection was used if sexual, the current status of the relationship, and any risk of future contact. The goal is honesty about the shape of what happened, not graphic sensory detail. Is staggered disclosure ever a good idea? No. Staggered disclosure, or trickle truth, almost always does more damage than a single complete disclosure. Every new piece of information re-shocks your spouse&#8217;s nervous system and teaches them that you are still hiding. The goal is for your spouse to reach a point where they believe they now know everything. Trickle truth makes that point perpetually out of reach. What is trickle truth? Trickle truth is the clinical term for releasing the truth about an affair or betrayal in small pieces over time rather than in one complete disclosure. It is usually driven by the betraying partner&#8217;s desire to soften the blow, and it consistently backfires. The cumulative harm of multiple shocks is worse than a single prepared disclosure, and it erodes trust more than the original betrayal in some cases. How long should an infidelity disclosure conversation last? Plan for two to three hours at minimum. You need enough time to cover the full disclosure, sit with your spouse&#8217;s initial response, and answer the questions that come up in the moment. Do not schedule the conversation just before an obligation, and do not try to fit it into an evening that ends with guests arriving or a morning that starts with an early commute. What happens after you disclose an affair to your spouse? Expect your spouse to go into acute emotional shock for days or weeks. They may cycle through rage, grief, numbing, and disorientation. They may ask the same questions repeatedly, or ask for time apart. This is not overreaction. It is the nervous-system response to betrayal trauma, and it typically softens over months rather than days. Recovery is possible, and professional support in this season makes a real difference for both partners. Preparing for Disclosure Walking into this conversation well is mostly a matter of preparation. If you are in the season before a disclosure and would like support thinking it through, we can help you prepare. 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If you are trying to break a pornography addiction, one of the best things you can do is to find a group that you can join in addition to doing individual counselling. Fortunately, there are a number of great options out there to choose from depending on what is available in your area or whether or not you are looking for something that fits with your faith/beliefs or your goals for sobriety. Today, we are looking at 6 of the largest groups available so that you can make a choice about what might work best for your situation. A number of porn and sex addiction groups came into being in the 1970s, probably in response to the sexual revolution.[1] A number of these groups have been around for a long time and they are well established. But they are not all the same — we’ll try to articulate those differences as we go through so be sure to note what seems to be a good fit for you based on the information we provide about each group. Try to pick a couple because you’ll also want to go on their websites and see if one of them has a group near you. Group 1: Pure Desire Website: https://puredesire.org/ About:  Pure Desire Ministries International began in a local church. It was founded by Ted and Diane Roberts. It began as a program to help people with addictions and codependency. Over two decades, they developed a strategy for working with sex addiction that is both Biblically-based, clinically informed, and successful in creating change. In 2007, it became an independent 501c3. It has expanded beyond the church it started in and become internationally known. Their services are available in Canada, the United States, and around the world. Pure Desire is a Christian organization designed to help men, women and young adults recover from sex addiction and intimacy disorders. They have specific groups for men, women, young men, young women, and college-age men. Training: Their counselors also have training through the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction (IITAP) and are licensed as either Certified Sex Addiction Therapists (CSAT) or Pastoral Sex Addiction Professionals (PSAP). In-Person or Online: Pure Desire offers both local and online groups. The local groups are volunteer-led and the online groups are led by a Certified Pure Desire Group Leader. Program: They have groups both for those struggling with addiction and for those struggling with betrayal. It’s difficult to see what the program is for local groups, but their online groups are a 2 hour-long weekly meeting with 1-2 hours of homework a week. It’s a 10-month long commitment in total. Fees: The local, volunteer led groups are free, but the online groups led by one of their leaders are a paid commitment. At the time of this writing, the group for addicts was $490 plus resources (about $60) and the group for betrayed spouses was $290 plus the resources (US Dollars). Strengths/Weaknesses Compared to Other Groups: The founder of Pure Desire, Ted Roberts, was working alongside Pat Carnes when he was doing his research and started writing about sex addiction back in the 90’s. It’s very well-grounded clinically as well as Biblically with a lot of experience helping people recover from porn and sex addiction. Group 2: Celebrate Recovery Websites: https://www.celebraterecovery.com/ (Around the world) https://www.celebraterecovery.ca/ (Canada) About: Celebrate Recovery offers a faith-based 12 step program. They began in 1991 at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California when John Baker wrote a letter to Rick Warren, the senior pastor outlining the vision God had given him for starting Celebrate Recovery. John is still the primary author of the Celebrate Recovery curriculum and materials. Though it has Christian affiliation and a biblical approach to addictions treatment, more than 70% of their members come from outside the church. Celebrate Recovery began with just four Open Share Groups and has expanded to over 14 groups today. 43 people attended the first meeting and now over 27,000 people have gone through the program locally, many of whom now serve in Celebrate Recovery and the church. Celebrate Recovery is the number one outreach ministry at Saddleback Church. There are now 35,000 churches offering these groups around the world. To date, over 5 million people have completed their Step Study program. Celebrate Recovery is growing in other places than churches including recovery houses, rescue missions, universities, and prisons around the world. In August 2004, the organization was announced as California&#8217;s state-approved substance abuse program for prisons. 1 out of every 3 people who attend one of their programs struggle with drug or alcohol abuse. In-Person or Online: The program is in-person only, and if you go to their website you can look for “Find a Group” on their menus to look for one near you. Here’s a short link to the locator: https://locator.crgroups.info/ They also host an annual ALLTogether rally at Saddleback which are a time of worship, hearing testimonies of recovery, inspiration, and fellowship. Recovery is not a prerequisite and all are welcome. See their website for details. Program: Their groups are for people dealing with hurt, pain or addiction of any kind. They take the 12 steps from Alcoholics Anonymous and add a biblical component to each concept. They also use 8 Recovery Principles that are faith-based principles, which are meant to work alongside the 12 steps to help members work towards recovery. Fees: There is no cost for participating in a group, but there are small fees for resources such as Celebrate Recovery Bibles, Celebrate Recovery Journals, or a Celebrate Recovery Participants’ Guide. Strengths/Weaknesses Compared to Other Groups: They claim a success rate of nearly 85 percent. It should be noted that while it does follow a 12-step program, much like Alcoholics Anonymous, there are no specific guidelines for what individuals who sign up are breaking free from. They don&#8217;t specialize only in pornography or sexual addiction, so it is not as targeted an approach as some of the other groups on our list. If there’s not a targeted group in your area that is specific to porn and sex addiction, then you would do well to seek out a CR group. Group 3: Sexaholics Anonymous (SA) Website: https://www.sa.org/ About: Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935. Since then, dozens of other forms of 12-step fellowships have been founded, following a similar 12-step program in Simi Valley California. One of these fellowships was Sexaholics Anonymous, which was founded in the 1970s by a man struggling with sex addiction who adapted the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program for sex addiction, creating Sexaholics Anonymous. The group is for men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with one another. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop lusting and to become &#8220;sexually sober.” There are a handful of AA spinoffs related to sex or porn addictions or to betrayed spouses and the major differentiator between these groups is often around their definition of sexual sobriety. It’s basically a moral differentiator between the groups. SA&#8217;s definition of sexual sobriety is to have no form of sex with self or with persons other than one&#8217;s spouse (if one is married). In SA’s sobriety definition, the term “spouse” refers to one’s partner in a marriage between a man and a woman. For the unmarried sexaholic, sexual sobriety means freedom from sex of any kind. And for all members, sexual sobriety includes progressive victory over lust (Sexaholics Anonymous Manual, 191-192). Sexaholics Anonymous has no affiliation with any religion or organization, but they do talk about a Higher Power, much like AA groups. In-Person or Online: They have in-person conventions at various locations including Sumas Washington, Atlanta Georgia, and Toronto Canada. See website for details. SA meetings can be found in person, by email or by phone. They have in-person groups throughout the USA and Canada. Program: The program is designed specifically for people dealing with sex addiction and porn addiction. There are groups throughout the U.S. Visit their website to find a group near you. Fees: There is no cost for SA membership. The group is self-supporting through member&#8217;s own contributions. Strengths/Weaknesses Compared to Other Groups: The program is for both genders, but also particularly addresses women and the shame many women experience with sex addiction. A number of women have given testimonies of having found freedom from sexual addiction through SA. Some other groups are more focused on men’s issues. One concern with SA groups is that if you are heterosexual you want to be particularly careful about coed groups, especially if there’s a possibility that someone else in the group could be the kind of person you would have acted out with. That’s a very considerable risk factor that for some people will mean they need to find a male-only or female-only group instead. It’s worth noting that the group has certainly helped many people, and has the benefit of being free and providing a free manual. There are no studies on the effectiveness of the groups. One area of criticism that SA does get targeted for is being more Christian than it claims to be. For example, the group has received harsh criticism from Morty Finklestein, who did a comparison of the different groups. He states that &#8220;Sexaholics Anonymous is by far the most rigid, fundamentalist and conservative of all the fellowships. Most of its members, like its founder Roy K. are religious.&#8221; (Though the group is not specifically religious, the 12-steps are religious in nature).[2] They also want members to strive towards only having sex with their spouse if they are married, and they encourage same-sex attracted members to remain celibate. Group 4: Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous Website: https://slaafws.org/ About: S.L.A.A. is a program dedicated to anyone, men or women, who suffer from an addictive compulsion to engage in or avoid sex, love, or emotional attachment. They use the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous to help individuals recover from these compulsions. One of the differences from the SA groups is that in the SLAA groups you define your own sobriety. But they are gathering in order to face and deal with obsessive or compulsive behaviors. There is no religious or secular affiliation and they welcome people of any sexual orientation or gender identity. In-Person or Online: In-person groups in Canada and the USA. They also have online groups and an option for phone meetings. See the website to see if there is a group near you. Every year they have a conference. In 2020 it&#8217;s in Sacramento, California (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, n.d.). Program: The goal is that by giving and receiving support from others in similar situations, you have a better chance of recovering, and also learn how to engage with people in a non-addictive way. They provide literature: the S.L.A.A. Basic Text, which contains information about discovering the illness, beginning recovery, defining sobriety, the Twelve Steps of S.L.A.A., and contains personal stories of others who have gone from addiction to recovery. There are also pamphlets that can be useful. Groups are led by other members rather than official facilitators. Fees: There is no cost for meetings. Strengths/Weaknesses Compared to Other Groups: They go beyond just sex and porn addiction to love addiction and help you work on building healthy relationships. They also provide some resources for people with eating disorders, which can be related to relationship issues. Many issues such as pornography are related to these bigger issues, which the program helps you address. Group 5: Captives Free Ministries Website: https://CaptivesFree.com/ About: Since 2000, their ministry has helped countless people experience freedom from sexual addiction using Dr. Mark Laaser’s seven principles to Living in Freedom Every Day (or L.I.F.E.). The late Dr. Laaser was nationally recognized as the leading authority in the field of sexual addiction with over 27 years of recovery experience. L.I.F.E. Recovery International is a Christ-centered support group ministry whose mission is to encourage, empower, and equip God’s people to live every day in integrity. L.I.F.E. provides consistently-revised addiction recovery workbook resources, educational multimedia presentations, and support group structure to the Christian community across the globe. In-Person or Online: Groups are in person. They also offer telephone support groups. Most groups are in the United States. Program: The program is for men and women. It offers a step-by-step program with definite goals each month for a year. Fees: There is no cost for joining a group. For all groups, it is recommended that members make a $5 donation to the group as an investment in their healing. UPDATE January, 2022: there is a $199 lifetime membership fee to join a group now. Strengths/Weaknesses Compared to Other Groups: It provides help for spouses, men and women. They also have a couples’ guide that couples can work through together. The group seems to provide the most structure of many of the free groups, particularly compared to other faith-based groups such as The King&#8217;s Men. The program includes different tasks to be completed each month. The program was also developed by Dr. Laaser, who specializes in sex addiction. Other faith-based programs apart from Pure Desire can tend to emphasize spirituality over clinical training. Group 6: The King&#8217;s Men Website https://www.thekingsmen.org/ About: The King&#8217;s Men is a Catholic group founded by Mark Houck. Their goal is to address the issue of man&#8217;s role in the body of Christ. The group has over twenty total years of experience in dynamic lecturing, expert teaching, and workshop training. They offer a variety of options for conferences, retreats, and other speaking engagements. They speak to men, women, and youth on a variety of topics. In-Person or Online: Groups are in-person at a variety of locations. Check out the website for locations. Program: The groups deal with masculinity and sexual morality in general, and pornography as part of that. Their program is based on four pillars: education, formation, action, healing. They offer weekly formation and accountability meetings called TKM Men’s Groups. The program has been developed and refined by experts in masculine spirituality. The meetings combine prayer, education, and an action-oriented component called the Four C’s. The meetings offer men an opportunity to grow in virtue and accountability using the Biblical maxim that “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17). Fees: The website does not mention any fee for joining a group. Strengths/Weaknesses Compared to Other Groups: The group places less emphasis on counseling from trained counselors, but it is a Catholic-based approach if that’s important to you. It targets porn addiction, so if you’re dealing with sex addiction, it’s probably not a good fit. References [1] Finklestein, “Which Sex Addiction Program Do You Belong In?,” 2013, https://www.thefix.com/content/sexual-addiction-sex-recovery2002?page=all.[2] Finklestein.

If you have betrayed your spouse and disclosed that betrayal to them, one thing you will have become very aware of is the rage that betrayal can cause. In our experience in working with couples, many people who are working through their own infidelity and trying to recover their marriage find that they aren’t sure how to respond to this rage or what to do with it. Today we are going to look at why anger is a normal part of responding to betrayal, where it comes from, and how to best support your spouse in the face of it. Anger Is A Common Reaction to Betrayal When a person is betrayed, there are a lot of potential responses that often come in waves and in varying degrees of intensity. According to researcher MeowLan Chan (2009) &#8220;Typical responses to betrayal include: retaliation, reduction in trust, distrust or suspicion, increase in monitoring, negative emotions (e.g., anger, disappointment, frustration), deterioration in the quality or even termination of the relationship, withdrawal of effort and cooperation within the relationship, and demand for more legalistic forms of trust as substitutes for interpersonal trust.&#8221;[1] These reactions affect both your spouse and your relationship. One of the most prominent negative emotions is anger, or even rage. In all fairness, when anyone is faced with an extreme threat they will often respond with anger. Anger helps a person survive by shifting their focus toward doing the things necessary for survival. Since a marriage is usually grounded on what was seen to be a reliable foundation of trust, when that foundation is shattered by betrayal, this significant breakdown in one’s foundation is often experienced as a threat to survival. Furthermore, anger is a common response to events that seem unfair or to circumstances that set you up to be a victim of the choices of others, especially a situation like a betrayal event.[2] Understanding Trauma and PTSD from Betrayal The severity of a spouse’s response to betrayal can come as a surprise to the betraying spouse. Often, a betraying spouse wants to justify their actions and the way they may have gone against their values with those actions. They do this by denying and minimizing their actions in their mind. As a result, they tend to mentally turn the dial down on what the anticipated consequences will be. Regardless of how much denial is occurring, it does not affect the severity of the impact on the betrayed spouse. Quite often, a betrayal becomes a traumatic event, even causing many of the symptoms of PTSD. Your spouse may experience other negative effects of trauma such as forgetting important parts of the traumatic event, exaggerating negative thoughts about oneself, others, or the world, distorted blame of self or others, detachment or estrangement from others, inability to experience positive emotions, lack of interest in activities, or globally negative experiences of fear, horror, anger, guilt, or shame.[3] This is all due to the trauma that frequently comes with betrayal. It’s such a blow to a person that it becomes a shattering event. Looking at the rage response more specifically, some of the criteria for rage include:     Having an experience that exceeds healthy anger. Losing the rational component of brain functioning that enables a person to think clearly and logically.      Losing the ability to consider consequences for actions. Even seeking to hurt your spouse in a physical way. It should be noted that these particular features of rage were observed in a study of violent women who experienced rage towards their partner, but not in a betrayal context.[4] However, we hear about betrayed spouses experiencing the same symptoms when they have experienced spousal betrayal. It’s important to note that even when you have been betrayed, it is still not acceptable to resort to physical violence. Yes, it’s also unacceptable to be betrayed, but two wrongs won’t make a right and physical violence won’t help you feel safer. Why Your Spouse Ends up Raging Basically, the reason your spouse experiences rage is because the part of their nervous system that is responsible for calming and stabilizing him or her under stress breaks down under situations of extreme stress. It just cannot keep up with something as severe as betrayal. And in that scenario the part of their brain that helps with social engagement goes offline and they resort to more primitive fight or flight behaviors such as withdrawing or lashing out angrily.[5] In any case, the important thing to remember is that this is a protective function that is active now. In plain English: your betrayed wife is raging at you because she is trying to restore a sense of safety within herself. That safety was torn away by the betrayal. We all need to have a basic sense of safety that the people closest to us are trustworthy and reliable. And when they prove they are not through something like infidelity, our survival systems kick in to try to restore or bring us back to that place of safety. This happens at a very core level within our nervous system. How to Respond and Support Your Spouse 1. During the rage It is helpful if you can keep in mind that your betrayed spouse’s rage is an effort to restore safety that feels as if it has been torn from her (or him), then you will be in a better position to adequately respond to these very intense emotions. If you can, try to hear what your spouse is saying and carefully note the underlying fear. The fear is often not overtly expressed, but it will definitely be there behind the rage. Responding in a reassuring and empathic way to that fear (and avoiding becoming defensive) will often calm the rage because it is showing your spouse that you get it: that you see what is happening for him/her and you are willing to acknowledge that reality. When your spouse understands that you see, acknowledge, and are appropriately responding to their pain, then they can begin to feel safe again. Because all of us carry some faith in humanity that says, “If this person really sees and acknowledges how hurt I am they will do everything in their power to make sure I don’t get hurt more.” That’s what empathy does. Of course, it’s difficult to respond with empathy in the face of rage. You likely won’t get it the first few times. But if you’ve researched this topic and found this episode/article, then you are likely starting to realize that it is much more effective to respond gently to your spouse, rather than meeting their rage with your own anger or defensiveness. On a broader scale, there are a number of other useful strategies to help with your spouse’s betrayal trauma. These efforts will help reduce the amount of anger and rage your spouse feels as well. 2. Recognize That You Are on Different Timelines A betrayal is traumatic. It takes time to heal. It comes with a flood of thoughts and feelings and confusion. Just like you would expect someone to need time to work through grief after the loss of a loved one, so your spouse needs time to work through the loss of the marriage they thought they had. You may be feeling better almost immediately because your confession or disclosure has relieved you of this great burden of shame and secrecy that you’ve been carrying. But your spouse is going to be on a different timeline, so you should not have the expectation that they will feel relief from this as rapidly as you will.[6] Everyone is different, but in some cases, it would not be unreasonable to expect it to take a year or more to fully process through grief and forgiveness after a betrayal. 3. Offer Compassion, Comfort and Care Your spouse’s rage or anger may activate those feelings of shame and guilt that you first experienced with the betrayal. But it’s important to work hard at staying non-defensive and refraining from responding with anger. One common recommendation is to think about responding with compassion, comfort and care.[7] Compassion is just extending the empathy and concern we talked about previously. Comfort is about providing reassurance and care attending to your spouse’s extra needs as they go through this difficult process. As you consistently provide these, it helps your spouse see you again as a source of comfort and safety.  4. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There It can be tempting to try to take your spouse back to the past and to resurrect that in the present. But that won’t work. Recovering from betrayal, especially a significant betrayal, means rebuilding your marriage. You will have to work together to build something new and beautiful, rather than trying to regain what was past. The past is what brought you to a place where betrayal was possible and then it became a reality. A new trust, a new bond, and a new authentic vulnerability will need to be built between you.[8] 5. Encourage Your Spouse to Get Support Quite often, betrayed spouses feel very isolated. If they do reach out to a friend and disclose what has happened, then they bear the shame and stigma of being that poor wife/husband that got cheated on. On the other hand, being alone in your pain is a greater misery than just having the pain. This can leave them caught between a rock and a hard place. Encourage your spouse to reach out to a trustworthy, confidential friend or two, or to family members. Ideally, if you want to save your marriage, these people should be friends of the marriage, and not just someone who is going to give your spouse pity or vilify you. Yes, they will need to provide support for your spouse, but they need to be able to do so with the aim of helping you rebuild your marriage. As well, it is good to help your spouse understand what we have already discussed: that betrayal often causes symptoms of trauma. And while you have caused that trauma, you cannot heal it for him/her and so, regrettably, you have also tasked them with the need to get some counseling help as well. There are therapists who specialize in betrayal trauma: we offer this in our online counseling agency, and we can help people via secure video calls. In many parts of the country, these specialists are also available. References [1] MeowLan Evelyn Chan, “‘Why Did You Hurt Me?’ Victim’s Interpersonal Betrayal Attribution and Trust Implications” 13, no. 3 (2009): 262–74, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017138.[2] “PTSD: National Centre for PTSD,” n.d., https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/anger.asp.[3] J.S. Fraser, “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Unifying Effective Pyschotherapies: Tracing the Process of Change, 2018, 20, https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1037/0000078-009.[4] Kimberly Flemke, “Triggering Rage: Unresolved Trauma in Women’s Lives” 31, no. 2 (2009), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-009-9084-8.[5] Stephen Porges, Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation(London, 2011), https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&#38;lr=&#38;id=0-nxBGHj36oC&#38;oi=fnd&#38;pg=PR9&#38;dq=polyvagal+theory+rage&#38;ots=tfyDgln2gk&#38;sig=4rFi-k45sMVkXSYsq1BMaD&#8211;C1s&#38;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&#38;q=polyvagal%20theory%20rage&#38;f=false.[6] John Mark Haney and Leslie Hardie, “Psychotherapeutic Considerations for Working With Betrayed Spouses: A Four Task Recovery Model,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy 35 (2014): 401–13, https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1073.[7] Carl Stewart, “3 Essential Responses to Your Spouse’s Betrayal Trauma Triggers,” CovenantEyes (blog), 2019, https://www.covenanteyes.com/2019/02/25/3-essential-responses-to-your-spouses-betrayal-trauma-triggers/.[8] Haney and Hardie, “Psychotherapeutic Considerations for Working With Betrayed Spouses: A Four Task Recovery Model.”

Compassion is probably something that you find harder to provide for yourself than for others. However, did you know that self-compassion can help your marriage? Yes, we often talk about what you could and should give to your spouse in marriage, but today we want to talk about the need for self-compassion and how beneficial that can be both for yourself and for your marriage. In Western culture, compassion is most commonly thought of as something that should be extended to others. In fact, most of what you will read nowadays about self-compassion finds its roots in Buddhist traditions where compassion to oneself is considered to be as important as one’s compassion to others. At OnlyYouForever, we operate out of a Christian worldview, and we think we can very easily point to a Biblical basis for self-compassion in the second greatest commandment that the Lord Jesus stated: love your neighbor as yourself. That little phrase, “as yourself” is the justification for taking a serious interest in self-compassion because your love for your neighbor (or your spouse!) is going to be based on this. What is Self-Compassion Self-compassion was first defined by psychologist Kristin Neff and she described it as “Kindness toward the self, which entails being gentle, supportive and understanding.”[1] So rather than harshly judging oneself for personal shortcomings, one offers oneself warmth and unconditional acceptance. The reason why this subject is worth addressing is that a growing body of research suggests that self-compassion is strongly associated with psychological health, and less anxiety and depression.[2] As well, Self-compassion is negatively correlated with depression, anxiety, and perfectionism, and is positively correlated with life satisfaction.[3] Research also indicates that self-compassion is associated with better emotional coping skills, greater ability to repair negative emotional states, and generally a more positive state of being.[4] You can imagine how those things can all benefit marriage as well. How Self-Compassion Can Benefit Your Marriage A recent study from 2018 looked at the effects of self-compassion on romantic relationships.[5] The students involved in the study who reported higher levels of self-compassion tended to report having higher quality romantic relationships. Now, one of the limitations of the study was that it was done on young people in romantic relationships who were in undergraduate students in university. Nevertheless, the results are worth considering for anyone in a romantic relationship/marriage.  So, why does self-compassion lead to greater satisfaction in relationships? One reason is that people with higher self-compassion are more aware of and able to meet their own needs for kindness and self-comfort. In a distressed marriage, a lot of the focus goes toward figuring out what your spouse needs so this may be a little counterintuitive. But, the ability to balance independence with connectedness, which is being able to observe and respond to your own needs as well as to your spouse’s, is important for healthy relationships. Another reason that individuals with high levels of self-compassion have stronger conflict resolution abilities is that self-compassion gives you more of an ability to see their spouse’s point of view during the disagreement as part of your common humanity rather than a personal hardship that is happening to you. In essence, it means you can love your spouse as yourself while in conflict. That’s a very powerful skill to have when working through conflict.[6] When to Use Self-Compassion Of course, with self-compassion one might simply say “use it everywhere,” but here are a few specific examples to consider. Compassion can be extended toward yourself when suffering occurs through no fault of your own, such as when the external circumstances of life are simply painful or difficult to bear.[7] For example, your company downsizes or your child is bullied at school or you have a parent who is given a difficult diagnosis. Yes, care for the other may be necessary, but what about compassion for your own pain in those circumstances? A more challenging example may be when you suffer as a result of your own mistakes, failures or personal inadequacies. How are you going to take care of yourself when you screw up? Are you able to accept that you made a mistake, and to think about understanding and rectifying it in a calm, engaged way? Coming back to difficult life circumstances: can you show self-compassion in circumstances where you may have previously turned to self-medication? One of the things that self-compassionate people do is they turn inward to offer themselves soothing and comfort. They allow themselves to be moved by their own distress so that they foster a desire to heal and overcome the difficulties they are experiencing.[8] They don’t numb or dissociate from the pain or challenges: they look at them, they look at what they need, and they recognize those needs and then they pursue adaptive (rather than dysfunctional) ways of meeting those needs.  How To Practice Self-Compassion We’re going to give you six ways you can practice self-compassion. The first three are the core constructs of self-compassion: Self-kindness vs. self-judgment Common humanity vs. isolation Mindfulness vs. over-identification[9] Practice Self-Kindness Rather than judgment and criticism towards yourself, self-kindness is the tendency to apply a caring and tender attitude toward your difficult circumstances.[10] This could be in respect to something smaller like not getting your physical exercise done for the day: can you view that in a forgiving and kind manner, understanding that tomorrow is a new day? Or do you beat yourself up? Or, if you notice some aspect of your personality that you dislike, can you treat that flaw gently? Really pay attention to the emotional tone of the language that you use toward yourself. Is it kind and supportive? It’s important not to dismiss the small things when you practice self-compassion. When you do fail to meet a personal goal or expectation, rather than attacking and berating yourself for being inadequate: offer yourself warmth and unconditional acceptance. If you do need to change, it’s not canceling the need to change, or making excuses, but kindness actually does a lot more to prepare and enable change than criticism or contempt. Recognize Your Common Humanity It’s important to recognize that it is only human to make mistakes, even to do things that are wrong, and that you are not alone in this.[11] This is not the same as making excuses: the goal is to reduce or remove any sense of isolation. We have to understand that all humans are imperfect and that we all sin, fail and make mistakes. My flawed condition is a shared human condition. The same goes for suffering: my life difficulties are part of the broader human experience. It is comforting to know that I am not alone and possibly even millions of others have experienced what I am experiencing.[12] Where this really helps is in reaching out to others in the midst of our personal struggles[13] so that we don’t feel isolated. Practice Mindfulness When you are in the middle of a struggle — say experiencing distress in your marriage — you can very easily get carried away in the torrent of pain that you are experiencing. And you can get carried away to the point where you over-identify with the problem.[14] Mindfulness just involves stepping back to observe and notice what’s happening. It gives you a little bit of distance and objectivity on your own distress. It’s not dissociation, which is disconnecting from reality. It’s more that you carefully observe it but you just step back from needing to solve or fix or numb. It’s like watching the credits scroll at the end of a movie: just notice what comes up for you. Try not to react to your reactions. Just observe, notice, and let it scroll by. The practice of mindfulness helps people step back from obsessing over negative thoughts or emotions — especially about yourself — which can help you get back to a place of self-compassion. Treat Yourself as You Would Someone Else One thing that some of my clients find helpful is to treat themselves as they would treat a small child in need of their care and compassion. Often, we as adults will say that we don’t know what we need. Well, think of a small child in similar circumstances or with similar feelings: what would you want to do for that child? Inevitably, we know what those good, caring, nurturing things to do would be. Well, can you extend those things to yourself?[15] Give Yourself Permission to Be Imperfect In the Christian world when I am speaking at church, I will sometimes refer to the need to recognize that our sanctification is incomplete. We are not who we want to be, but neither are we who we were. We are in a process of growth. It’s helpful to cultivate a perspective of yourself that sees yourself as in a journey towards wholeness and completeness. The implication is that it is OK for you not to be there yet. This helps us not to lose faith in our potential or ability to heal and to find ourselves a way out of difficult circumstances. In a way, it allows us to note our moments even of laziness or unproductively without having to define ourselves by those moments. Yes, they happened. But it is not all of who I am and I can find my way out of these difficulties.[16] Work with a Supportive Therapist Therapy is an ideal context to have someone coach you through your first steps of self-compassion. We know that our brains have the ability to practice self-compassion or learn new patterns of thinking/behavior, but sometimes we need help putting that into practice[17] Therapy creates a safe space for you to: notice your thoughts/feelings have a realistic perspective of yourself and others demonstrate empathy for yourself. In time, you will begin to internalize these skills and integrate them into your life.[18] References [1] Allison Abrams, “How to Cultivate More Self-Compassion,” 2017,https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-compassion/201703/how-cultivate-more-self-compassion.[2] Kristin Neff and Elizabeth Pommier, “The Relationship between Self-Compassion and Other-Focused Concern among College Undergraduates, Community Adults, and Praticing Meditators,” Self and Identity 12, no. 2 (2012): 160–76, https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2011.649546.[3] Jia Wei Zhang et al., “A Compassionate Self Is a True Self? Self-Compassion Promotes Subjective Authenticity” 45, no. 9 (2019): 1323–37, https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218820914.[4] Neff and Pommier, “The Relationship between Self-Compassion and Other-Focused Concern among College Undergraduates, Community Adults, and Praticing Meditators.”[5] Emily Jacobson et al., “Examining Self-Compassion in Romantic Relationships,” Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, n.d., https://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Jacobson2018.pdf.[6] Jacobson et al.[7] Neff and Pommier, “The Relationship between Self-Compassion and Other-Focused Concern among College Undergraduates, Community Adults, and Praticing Meditators.”[8] Neff and Pommier.[9] David Biber and Rebecca Ellis, “The Effect of Self-Compassion on the Self-Regulation of Health Behaviors: A Systematic Review,” Journal of Health Psychology 24, no. 4 (2017): 2060–71,https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105317713361.[10] Zhang et al., “A Compassionate Self Is a True Self? Self-Compassion Promotes Subjective Authenticity.”[11] Zhang et al.[12] Abrams, “How to Cultivate More Self-Compassion.”[13] Neff and Pommier, “The Relationship between Self-Compassion and Other-Focused Concern among College Undergraduates, Community Adults, and Praticing Meditators.”[14] Neff and Pommier.[15] Abrams, “How to Cultivate More Self-Compassion.”[16] Abrams.[17] Abrams.[18] Abrams.

Disclosing an affair is a terrifying but crucial step toward healing a marriage. This episode provides guidance on how to navigate this difficult conversation with honesty and care. We'll cover the four key things to avoid when revealing infidelity, such as staggered disclosure and blame-shifting, which can cause further trauma. Learn how to take responsibility for your actions, understand the impact of betrayal on your partner, and discover how couples therapy can create a path toward rebuilding trust and moving forward together.

If you ever find yourself feeling overwhelmed during conflict, then this article is for you. We describe the psychological experience of flooding: when you white out or shut down or get hijacked by your own emotions. Usually, this happens during a fight with your spouse and it never helps resolve the issue you’re facing. In this article, we talk about what flooding is and how you can calm yourself down in order to navigate through conflict more successfully.  What is Flooding? This is a problem that marriage researchers have been paying attention to since the 1990’s when Dr. Gottman first began describing it. It’s a common experience — typically for the withdrawer in marriage, and, since the husband is most commonly the withdrawer in a pursue-withdraw cycle, it happens the most to men. Of course, there are some wives who experience it too. Gottman defines flooding as &#8220;the subjective sense of being overwhelmed by the partner’s negative affect, finding it to be unexpected and intense, and feeling as though one’s information processing is impaired.”[1] In other words, in the face of your intense anger or upset I get overwhelmed and shut down. Flooding is not an emotion in itself. It’s just the experience of becoming overwhelmed and feeling like your thoughts are disorganized and you don’t know how to respond.[2] How to Recognize Flooding The more obvious signs of flooding to watch for are just that sense of being overstimulated, feeling that you are overwhelmed, and mentally disorganized.[3] It will typically prompt a fight or flight response in you so that you will want to either respond with anger or withdraw from the situation. About 80% of husbands will stonewall in this situation[4] which looks like emotional withdrawal (shutting down) and sometimes physical withdrawal (e.g., heading to the garage) as well. The less obvious signs of flooding are much like an intense stress response. These signs may include: increased respiration, an increased heart rate, an increase in blood pressure and perspiration. At the same time, you may notice yourself starting to have very negative or catastrophic thoughts about the relationship, for example thinking that “this is never going to work” or feeling very hopeless. Impact of Flooding It’s also important to notice that flooding may really compel you to want to put a stop to the situation that caused or prompted the flooding. In other words, you’ll want to shut down the argument or end the conflict, almost at any cost. It’s like you are driven to escape the situation.[5] The really difficult thing about flooding is that while it is something that happens to you during conflict (nobody does this intentionally to themselves) it is almost universally interpreted as you doing something to or against them! So, the more withdrawn you get as you feel overwhelmed, the more your spouse is likely to turn up the volume. In actual fact, as a result of the flooding, you may even be unable to hear what your spouse is saying.[6] This inability to hear your spouse is a key part of the cycle that we unpack and unravel with our marriage counseling clients as we help them find new ways to navigate conflict. In this article, we are going to talk about why this happens and how to calm yourself down. Why Do I Flood? You may be wondering, why does this happen to me? Or perhaps it is your spouse that gets flooded and you’re asking yourself, “Why does he do that?” It’s important to be aware of this because as the intensity of conflict increases, you will reach a point where your thinking brain is shut out. The thinking part is the piece that can examine the complexities — the gray areas — of an issue and help you sort it out by considering your spouse’s point of view (the facts at hand, your own emotional state, etc.). You do really have to be on top of your mental and emotional game to navigate some marital conflict. But when you are flooded: you don’t have access to those parts of your brain which makes navigating the conflict effectively impossible. So why does it happen to you? Here are some possible contributing factors: You may be more emotionally sensitive than you realize. While you are probably accused of insensitivity when flooded, it may actually be that you are more sensitive to your spouse’s emotions and so you very easily experience them as threatening or overwhelming.[7] A history of intense anger. If your history includes experiencing intense anger from your spouse or in your family of origin, you may be more vulnerable to flooding. It’s possible that you if you grew up in a family with little to no conflict and your spouse has a volatile or assertive conflict style that this could be overwhelming for you. a history of not experiencing direct anger could be a contributing factor too getting flooded when your partner expresses anger. If your attachment style includes a strong fear of rejection or abandonment, you are more likely to experience flooding.[8] The point here, again, is that flooding is not something you are doing to your spouse. Undoubtedly, it is frustrating for your spouse. And walking away from your spouse with no explanation or suggestion to reconnect is definitely not something that will help your marriage. At the same time, some severely flooded spouses will walk away because they feel if they can just leave and the situation and calm down then the marriage will be OK. That is very sincere, and may not have any negative intentions involved, but ultimately, it’s not going to work either. You will need to find a way to calm yourself, stay engaged, and see the issue through. At the same time, your spouse will need to learn to ask for what they need in ways that do not trigger you and make you feel overwhelmed. It has to be a cooperative effort with shared responsibility. How to Calm Down During Flooding Once you understand what is going on when you experience flooding, the next step is to look at what you can do to help yourself calm down when you experience it. The first thing to do is just to become aware of when you are flooded. Self-awareness is a critical first step because you cannot respond to what you are not aware of. Observe what is happening inside you. You will want to create some distance between yourself and the storm of thoughts and feelings you are experiencing. Even just noting to yourself that you have gotten activated and your body is starting to react is helpful.[9] One good strategy is to prepare ahead of time and mentally store an image of your spouse at his or her best. Picture a moment in time — a snapshot that you can wrap a frame around to keep other negative experiences out of — when you experienced your spouse as loving, generous and well-meaning.[10] When you get flooded and if you need to take a break, you can recall this image to remind yourself of your spouse’s good will towards you. Another image that may be useful is one you can use in the moment when you recognize you are flooded. Just picturing a large complex wheel that is spinning furiously and then you just slowly imagine slowing and slowing that wheel down. As it slows down, remind yourself to be grounded. Feel the chair you’re in, notice the comforts in the room around you of furniture or a blanket you have or a pet, and just observe and let go of some of that fear that has built up inside you as you slow that wheel down. That can be a helpful grounding technique. How To Take A Break Finally, it’s important to give yourself time to calm down. There are helpful and unhelpful ways of taking a break so we want to describe how to do so in a way that is helpful.  If you are in conflict with your spouse you may need a 10 to 30 minute break. During the break, try not to think about the fight or what to say to your spouse: if you keep thinking over things you will stay escalated.  Remember to do the following things before take a break: Before you separate, be sure to tell your spouse when you are coming back so that they do not feel abandoned or that you are just walking away. They need to know you are committed to resolving the issue with them. During the break, read a book or magazine or do something self-soothing. Exercise can be helpful too: a walk or run or yoga. Take your mind off what is happening so that when you come back to the disagreement you can have a fresh start to the conversation. Hopefully, you can also begin with a softer start to the conversation. This is a great antidote to flooding.[11] For the Other Spouse As a final note for the spouse of the person who gets flooded, it’s really important to recognize that this is not something your spouse is doing to you. It may be difficult to do this if you’ve had to try hard to figure out why it happens and try to make sense of their flooding. If it has frequently felt like you were being shut out, it’s hard to not to take it personally. And it is very hard to get past that feeling of rejection. The flooding really is something that’s happening to them. It is true that you most likely have a part to play in it too. You may not fully realize how intimidating your anger is to your spouse or how much they are afraid of losing you. Perhaps they have coupled their flooding with some bad habits or reactions that are not appropriate or acceptable for conflict. But all of these things are part of the dynamic that happens between you during conflict. The solution does not lie in you preventing or fixing their flooding problem. It lies in changing the entire dynamic between you so that you solve issues as a team, facing the dragon of your negative cycle rather than as opponents in an arena facing one another.This is the work we do with couples in our online counseling agency. We deliver proven, well-established approaches to couples counseling over secure video call. If you’d like more information just head on over to our website at https://therapevo.com/. References [1] Heather Foran et al., “The Intimate Partner Flooding Scale,” 2017, https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/doi/pdf/10.1177/1073191118755911.[2] Foran et al., 20.[3] Foran et al., “The Intimate Partner Flooding Scale.”[4] Julie Gottman, Julie Gottman on When Partners Get Flooded, 2016,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0pCpvMs6oM.[5] Foran et al., “The Intimate Partner Flooding Scale.”[6] Stephanie Manes, “Making Sure Emotional Flooding Doesn’t Capsize Your Relationship,” The Gottman Institute (blog), 2013, https://www.gottman.com/blog/making-sure-emotional-flooding-doesnt-capsize-your-relationship/.[7] Alina Sotskova, Erica Woodin, and Lisa Gou, “Hostility, Flooding, and Relationship Satisfaction: Predicting Trajectories of Psychological Aggression Across the Transition to Parenthood,” Aggressive Behavior 41 (2014): 134–48.[8] Amy Hooper et al., “Revisiting the Basics: Understanding Potential Demographic Differences With John Gottman’s Four Horsemen and Emotional Flooding,” The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families 25, no. 3 (2017): 224–29, https://doi-org.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/10.1177%2F1066480717710650.[9] Manes, “Making Sure Emotional Flooding Doesn’t Capsize Your Relationship.”[10] Manes.[11] Gottman, Julie Gottman on When Partners Get Flooded.

We&#8217;re here to talk If you are married, it’s more than likely that you’ve had a discussion with your spouse at some point about a friendship between one of you and someone outside your marriage. So, what about those opposite-sex friendships? Are they healthy or are they dangerous? Should we avoid them at all costs or take them on a case by case basis? How much friendliness with the opposite sex is too much and could land you in trouble? What if the person you’re friends with is 50 years older than you? These are all questions we explore in this article. Recognize the Hazard First of all, we don’t take a hard line on this issue in either direction. We neither tell you to back off and let your spouse be a grown-up and choose his or her friends or insist that there can be no friendships with the opposite sex for either of you. This is a nuanced issue with lots of variables and we want to point you towards a thoughtful, nuanced, self-reflective review of this issue. Hopefully, you do this in a way that prioritizes the sanctity and value of being in a loyal, committed, thriving marriage. It’s important to recognize that we all need to recognize there is a potential hazard in opposite sex friendships. This doesn’t just apply to flirtatious friends; it’s is really true with any friend. If someone is your friend, it is because you are attracted to them: to their personality or characteristics or physical appearance or what they have to offer or how they make you feel. The word “attraction” may make you nervous there: it doesn’t necessarily mean physical attraction or even attraction in a way that is unfaithful to your marriage. It’s natural that we like our friends. You may not be thinking in that direction today, but it is important to acknowledge this as a potential hazard. That doesn’t call us to paranoia or isolation: it should call us toward caution and self-reflection to make sure we keep things in a healthy place. What to Watch For The Potential for More The first issue to be aware of is that there is often the potential for more than a friendship. There are conceivable circumstances under which a friendship could exist with absolutely no sexual attraction or sexual compatibility. In a case like this, having a friendship with someone of the opposite gender presents no problem at all.[1] An example of this is little old ladies from church. You can go to her house for the afternoon, chat, share personal stories, have a cup of tea, pet her cat, and nothing is ever going to happen. At the same time, it’s important to realize that many opposite-sex friendships involve people who—if circumstances were different—might be potential romantic partners. It’s also worth noting that it is common for men to mainly befriend women that they have at least some degree of physical attraction to.[2] In light of this, it can be hard to know how best to handle opposite-sex relationships because another important task for married people is to stop considering alternatives. You don’t want to be moving through life considering potential alternatives to your spouse. But you also have to recognize that if someone is a potential alternative then that friendship has greater risks associated with it. The key difference between these two thoughts is the element of fantasy. Fantasy says, “I wonder what it would be like to be married to him or her?” Or worse, “…To have sex with that person?” This is called considering alternatives, and it erodes your commitment, intimacy, and loyalty towards your spouse. On the other hand, it is possible to realize that someone is attractive or kind or admirable in some way. You need to be conscious of recognizing that there is potential for more (without fantasy or thinking about what that potential might be) and just set a mental boundary for yourself. Warning Sings It’s important to pay attention to the warning signs and not to ignore them. Some warning signs might be: If you find yourself consistently texting with someone of the opposite sex and it’s not strictly confined to necessary communication for work or other responsibilities. If you try to arrange more meetings or “together time” than you need to (e.g., if the friendship started at work). If the friendship is becoming intimate: emotionally or physically (e.g., sharing personal things you don’t usually share with the opposite sex or sitting close together or holding hands).[3] If you find yourself thinking about the other person a lot, even to the point of being distracted when you are with your spouse (obsessing). If you start getting together outside of the context of your initial or primary connection. For example, if you start having coffee with someone you met at the gym. If you find yourself hiding the details of your communication or time spent with the other person from your spouse. If the nature of your communication is becoming personal or intimate. Healthy Boundaries for Friendships According to family counselor Greg Smalley, &#8220;Friendships with people of the opposite sex should be casual  friendships: Your time together is infrequent and, when you do see each other, you are guided by strong boundaries that your spouse and you have previously agreed to.”[4] How to Set Boundaries The guiding principle in setting up boundaries is to prioritize your marriage.  You have to preserve your relationship with your spouse above all friendships. You want to protect your marriage but also to think specifically about protecting the trust between you.[5] The balance is key since we all need to have friends; our spouse cannot be the entire extent of our social network. And all of us will have some friends of the opposite sex whom we need to be friendly to. But we need to do that without putting our marriage at risk. Here are some guidelines that you can discuss with your spouse: Do not be friends with anyone your spouse does not feel comfortable with&#8230; no exceptions. And don&#8217;t continue fighting for that friendship once your spouse has waved the red flag. That only makes you look like you care more about this friend than your spouse.[6] Caveat: We are assuming here that there’s not a problem with jealousy in your marriage (see episode 113). It’s ideal if you can articulate the reason for the discomfort and both of you agree. There is the odd case where a spouse has an unaddressed and out of control jealousy problem, or even an abusive control issue and ends up isolating the other spouse on the basis of this otherwise useful and healthy principle.  Your friendships with the opposite sex need to be completely out in the open. If you&#8217;re hiding a relationship with the opposite sex from your spouse or hiding how close you are to the other person, that should set off some serious alarm bells.[7] Don&#8217;t share private details of your marriage with anyone of the opposite sex. Lean on a mentor, pastor, life coach, or a trusted friend of the same sex.[8] There are different opinions on how much you should be a support to someone of the opposite sex. Some people say you should never be the shoulder for someone of the opposite sex to cry on. They’ll tell you to be kind, hand them a tissue and walk away. You might have healthy boundaries, but this person might not.[9] The part about boundaries is true. But there may also be a place for careful consideration of supporting someone, provided you have your spouse’s approval and awareness of the nature and extent of that support, and that you consider the potential for more that was discussed previously.  Don&#8217;t be alone with a person of the opposite sex outside of work, unless you and your spouse agree ahead of time. This includes being alone in a messaging app: texting, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, etc. Romantic relationships usually come out of recreational activities and intimate conversations, so if you&#8217;re spending time having fun or gaining familiarity with this friend, it can easily lead to something more.[10] It’s also worth being very deliberate about planning business trips with someone of the opposite sex in a way that protects your marriage as well as both of your reputations.  It’s Not All About Prevention While it can be helpful to follow a list of “do-not’s,” it is also good to think about things you can and should do for yourself and your marriage. There are a few things you can do to strengthen your marriage: First of all, cultivate a deep friendship with your spouse. Make that relationship your top priority: not just in principle but in practice. This doesn’t mean you need to exclude all other friendships, but this relationship ought to take precedence over all others.[11] You’ll be most protective of, and cultivating towards your most important friendship. Make that person your spouse. Secondly, your closest, most rewarding friendships outside your marriage should be with people of the same sex.[12] These relationships are also healthy for your marriage. If you don’t have any then that is an indicator that this is a necessary growth area for you. Something is out of balance. Thirdly, build shared social networks with your spouse.[13] Try to find people where you can be friends as a couple with another couple. So, the friendship and sharing of life and the companionship that develops exists between you as couples, and the strongest bonds or sense of connection is between the two guys and the two women in this context.  Most of us need more friendships, not less. And more connection, not less. We just really want to encourage you to build that first of all with your spouse, then with same-sex friends. Thirdly, to do so carefully, thoughtfully and with boundaries towards members of the opposite sex. References [1] Debra MacLeod, “Why Opposite-Sex Friendships Will Destroy Your Marriage,” 2019,https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/debra-macleod/opposite-sex-friendship_b_6646482.html.[2] MacLeod.[3] Carter Zack, “1-on-1 Opposite Sex Friends: A Blind Spot Threat to Marriage,” 2017,https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/clear-communication/201708/1-1-opposite-sex-friends-blind-spot-threat-marriage.[4] Greg Smalley, “The Billy Graham Rule: Should You Be Friends With Someone of the Opposite Sex?,” 2017,https://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/the-billy-graham-rule-should-you-be-friends-with-someone-of-the-opposite-sex/.[5] Meygan Caston, “How to Keep Boundaries With the Opposite Sex,” 2017,https://www.marriage365.org/blog/how-to-keep-boundaries-with-the-opposite-sex.[6] Caston.[7] Smalley, “The Billy Graham Rule: Should You Be Friends With Someone of the Opposite Sex?”[8] Caston, “How to Keep Boundaries With the Opposite Sex.”[9] Caston.[10] Caston.[11] Smalley, “The Billy Graham Rule: Should You Be Friends With Someone of the Opposite Sex?”[12] Smalley.[13] Smalley.

Four episodes back we addressed the topic of pain during sex for women and that show received a lot of downloads. Today we return to the topic but this time for men. Sexual issues like this can be difficult to figure out and often people just don’t even know who to ask, so they struggle alone. We hope this will be the start of getting help for anyone who is struggling with pain during sex so that you can return to enjoying physical intimacy with your wife. Pain During Sex for Men Often, the cause of pain during sex can by physical, psychological or a mixture of both. Generally, you’ll want to start by addressing this problem with your family doctor to see if there is a medical cause. You may also find help with a referral to a psychiatrist, counselor or sexologist in order to work through the causes and find a solution that works well. If you’re going to talk to your doctor, it helps to go prepared with the information you need. Men can experience pain during erection or ejaculation or post-erection or post-ejaculation.[1] Often, because we feel awkward about the topic, we don’t really think carefully and precisely about the timing of the pain, but do keep this in mind so you can assist your doctor in helping you. Also, sometimes the pain will come with other problems such as erectile dysfunction, though this may be a symptom of another problem rather than the primary cause of the pain. It’s good to note that there are some common lifestyle changes that can help with this issue of pain as well: exercising, eating well, limiting your alcohol consumption and quitting smoking can all help reduce sexual problems for men.[2] Basic Sources of Pain We are going to speak about some more complex causes of pain. But I think it’s worth noting that just the friction of sex can irritate the skin on your penis if your spouse is not sufficiently lubricated. Using a quality lubricant is the solution for this problem.  It’s also helpful to note that there’s a connection between sex drive and pain. Low sex drive does not necessarily cause pain, but pain during sex may cause low sex drive. Finally, we’re not going through an extensive list of sexually transmitted infections or diseases but it should be noted that STIs such as herpes or untreated gonorrhea can cause burning, itching, or sores, bumps, or blisters in the genital area (treatment is similar for men and women).[3] Common Causes of Pain During Sex There are a number of other causes of pain during sex, some of which are not as well-known. Delayed Ejaculation Delayed ejaculation is characterized by taking more than 30 minutes to ejaculate during sex, or in some cases, not ejaculating at all. Depending on what’s happening, this can either be caused by pain or result in pain. It’s hard to distinguish cause and effect: there could be a minor physical issue that results in the delayed ejaculation. Or the delayed ejaculation may be the by-product of a medication and then the pain comes from irritation, for example, from friction due to the extended duration of intercourse. If you’re facing this issue, you should consider causes such as anxiety and stress, or medications such as antidepressants or hair loss treatments. There could also be a prostate or urinary tract infection, a hormone imbalance, possible birth defects, or pelvic or spinal nerve damage.[4] You’ll definitely want to start with your doctor on this one. Your doctor can help you figure out the underlying issues and recommend treatment. In the meantime, use plenty of lubricant and it’s also helpful sometimes to just remind yourself to take the focus off achieving orgasm and, instead, really enjoy being with your spouse.[5] Persistent Pelvic Floor Muscle Spasms Sometimes the muscles in the pelvic floor stop working properly. These are muscles that extend from your pubic bone at the front, back to the base of your spine.[6] One problem that can occur is pelvic floor muscle spasms which involve these muscles over contracting.[7] Pelvic spasms will feel like a sharp pinching and pain in the pelvic area. You may also feel pain in your lower abs and constant pain in the perineum (the area between the anus and scrotum) and groin (note: there are other possible causes of pain in this area).[8] Everything from sitting down to engaging in sex can spark pain[9] and these spasms can also lead to inflammation around the nerves in your genital area which can make erection or ejaculation painful.[10] This problem can occur for a number of reasons. Stress can prompt men to unconsciously tighten and clench their pelvic floor muscles. There may also be a urinary tract infection, prostatitis, or bladder infection that triggers and ongoing dysfunction in these pelvic floor muscles.[11] Physiotherapists can diagnose and treat this issue. Certain activities such as cycling with a hard seat that doesn’t fit is not recommended! Physiotherapists may also recommend things like biofeedback to help relax these muscles or a set of exercises called the Kegel exercises to help gain control or recondition these muscles.[12] Another similar issue is trigger points. When there’s pain in the pelvic floor, it may cause some muscles to form tight bands which can restrict blood flow, leading to inflammation around the nerves. This can lead to pain during sex. Treatment is similar to treatment for pelvic floor pain: you start with a physiotherapist but will also want to incorporate techniques that increase blood flow including quitting smoking if you smoke, exercise, weight loss, and so on. Chronic Prostatitis or Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome (CP/CPPS) Prostatitis is an inflammation of the prostate gland that causes swelling, pain, or a burning sensation during urination[13] and also during or after intercourse or upon ejaculation.[14] With a prevalence rate of 2-16 % in North American males and 3-14% among Asian and European males, CP/CPPS is a urological condition characterized by pain in the pelvic region, and concomitant sexual and voiding dysfunction.[15] A significant percentage of men with this issue also experience erectile dysfunction and reduced sexual interest. It can be caused by the nervous system being chronically activated and tightening of the pelvic muscles. Worry, anxiety and depression can also be factors in contributing to this issue.[16] Working with a urologist is recommended as they can treat the inflamed prostate gland. Things like taking a short walk or a warm bath before engaging in sex can help as well.[17] Hypersensitivity of the Penis Another potential source of pain is that the penis can become sensitive after you orgasm which can make continued intercourse uncomfortable or painful.[18] You may also find that if you are having very frequent intercourse with your wife, your penis becomes oversensitive. This problem may also be occurring on top of the prostate issues discussed earlier.[19] It is also possible that you may have a skin disorder such as Zoon’s balanitis (inflammation of the head of the penis and foreskin), erosive lichen planus (an inflammatory skin condition marked by an itchy, bumpy rash), lichen sclerosis (a chronic inflammatory skin disease), or penile cancer that is causing pain with intercourse.[20] Again, you’ll want to start with your doctor to determine the cause of the issue. If the issue is one of the skin disorders, your doctor will be able to advise the best treatment, but in some cases, you may just be having too much sex on a given day. If that’s the case, you may want to consider finding other ways to be intimate with your spouse. If it’s not just an issue of too much sex or a skin disorder, you may want to follow some of the recommendations for the prostrate issue. It’s also possible to reduce the sensitivity of the penis through the use of condoms or numbing cream. Additionally, you may want to consider changing sex positions to find one that is more comfortable for you.[21] Tight Foreskin or Deformities of the Penis Some causes of pain are related to the foreskin of the penis. There is a condition called phimosis where the foreskin of the penis is too tight to retract over the head of the penis completely. There’s another condition called paraphimosis where the foreskin is tucked behind the penis and cannot be pulled forward.[22] Both of these can make intercourse more painful for men. The best course of action for these issues is to see the doctor. Surgery may be recommended. It’s also possible that the structure of your penis has been damaged by some condition or disease or even has a congenital deformity.[23]This can certainly result in pain in the penis[24] and again there’s a lot of possible root causes here so you’ll want to see a urologist or at least your family doctor to start with. Priapism There’s another condition called priapism which is a prolonged erection of the penis. Before all the men start to guffaw, this is an actual problem and a non-sexual erection can be quite painful. Sometimes it can be stimulated by intercourse but it’s just not going away because blood cannot leave the penis or because the blood flow is regulated improperly in your body.[25] Men can also experience an erection for more than 4 hours, or one that is unrelated to sexual interest or stimulation. In some cases, men may have an erect but not fully rigid penis shaft. In any of these situations, this condition can be quite painful and unpleasant. As far as causes go, it can be related to sickle cell anemia or caused by medications like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra or even by certain antidepressants or antipsychotics. It’s also more common in individuals who abuse drugs or alcohol. It can result from injury to the spinal cord, clotting disorders or even, believe it or not, Black Widow spider bites.[26] If you have an erection lasting more than four hours, you need to go to emergency and speak to a doctor. If it’s not four hours but you have recurrent, persistence, painful erections that resolve on their own then you should see a doctor as well.[27] Hernia Lastly, pain in intimacy can be related to a hernia. This is a fairly large topic, but if you have an inguinal hernia (a hernia in the groin area) then you may experience pain during intercourse. Sometimes this can be due to scarring resulting from the operation to fix the hernia.[28] The pain frequently occurs right after surgery and usually goes away with time, but about 10% of men experience chronic pain after hernia surgery.[29] Symptoms for this kind of issue include: Intense sharp pain that feels like a knife stabbing and twisting in the groin A burning hot sensation Feeling like you have a foreign body penetrating and invading your body. Testicular pain Pain during sexual intercourse Pain when moving or walking[30] There can also be hernia pain before surgery which can make sexual activity impossible.[31] Anything related to hernias requires a visit to the doctor. Conclusions on Pain During Sex Our bodies do fail us sometimes. And it’s important to communicate with your spouse about the pain you are experiencing. It can be a frustrating or even embarrassing situation but if the root issue is psychological, then a good conversation and opening up the topic with your wife may be all that is needed in order to relax enough to work through the issue. On the other hand, if the source is physical, you’ll definitely want to speak to a medical practitioner as well. In some cases, such as if the root issue is an infection or possibly an STI, you’ll want to refrain from further intercourse until you know what is happening.  Again, talking to your spouse is key. If your spouse doesn’t know why you are pulling back from sex, she has to come up with an explanation on her own. This could lead to a lot of stress in your marriage so it’s best to address these difficult topics and work together towards a solution. From BCACC: As podcasts can be subscribed to and accessed all over the world, psycho-educational podcasts should include a disclaimer to the effect that they are a self-help tool and do not replace individual counselling or represent an attempt to solicit clients from jurisdictions where the RCC does not have the legal ability to practice. Further, they are not intended for those experiencing severe symptoms such as suicidal thoughts, for which emergency help should be sought. References [1] Allyson Shrikhande, Painful Erection/Painful Ejaculation: Causes and Treatments, 2018,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D3es5D9tFA.[2] Kevin Zorn, “Sexual Problems in Men,” Medicine Net (blog), n.d., https://www.webmd.com/sexual-conditions/mens-sexual-problems.[3] “Reasons Men Have Pain During Sexual Intercourse,” 2018, https://www.verywellhealth.com/pain-during-intercourse-2329078.[4] Tim Jewell, “What Causes a Sore Penis During Sex,” 2018, https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sex/sore-penis-after-sex.[5] “Why Sex Can Be Painful for Some Men,” accessed January 14, 2020,https://onlinedoctor.lloydspharmacy.com/blog/painful-sex-in-men/.[6] Benjamin Peim, “For Men, Stress Often Plays a Role in Pelvic Pain,” accessed January 15, 2020, https://thepapergown.zocdoc.com/author/benjamin-peim/.[7] Peim.[8] Stephanie Prendergast and Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer, “Male Pelvic Pain: It’s Time to Treat Men Right,” accessed January 15, 2020, https://pelvicpainrehab.com/male-pelvic-pain/4342/male-pelvic-pain-its-time-to-treat-men-right-2/.[9] Peim, “For Men, Stress Often Plays a Role in Pelvic Pain.”[10] Shrikhande, Painful Erection/Painful Ejaculation: Causes and Treatments.[11] Jeanine Barone, “What Are Pelvic Floor Spasms?,” Berkeley Wellness, 2017,https://www.berkeleywellness.com/self-care/sexual-health/article/what-are-pelvic-floor-spasms.[12] Barone.[13] “6 Reasons for Pain during Sex in Men,” 2018, https://www.thehealthsite.com/sexual-health/how-to-avoid-pain-during-sex-and-last-longer-in-the-bed-da1214-254160/.[14] Kelly Smith et al., “Sexual and Relationship Functioning in Men with Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrom and Their Partners,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 36, no. 2 (2005): 301–11, https://doi.org/doi-org.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/10.1007/s10508-006-9086-7.[15] Smith et al.[16] “Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome Treatment,” n.d., https://pelvicpainhelp.com/cpps-chronic-pelvic-pain-syndrome/.[17] “6 Reasons for Pain during Sex in Men.”[18] “Reasons Men Have Pain During Sexual Intercourse.”[19] “Reasons Men Have Pain During Sexual Intercourse.”[20] “Reasons Men Have Pain During Sexual Intercourse.”[21] “The Best Ways to Reduce Penis Sensitivity,” n.d., https://www.consumerhealthdigest.com/male-sexual-health/penis-sensitivity.html.[22] “6 Reasons for Pain during Sex in Men.”[23] “Penis Deformities,” n.d., https://www.thehealthsite.com/sexual-health/how-to-avoid-pain-during-sex-and-last-longer-in-the-bed-da1214-254160/.[24] “Penis Deformities.”[25] “Priapism,” Mayo Clinic (blog), n.d., https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/priapism/symptoms-causes/syc-20352005.[26] “Priapism.”[27] “Priapism.”[28] Rosenberg Tolver and M. A. Tolver, “Pain during Sexual Activity before and after Laparoscopic Inguinal Hernia Repair” 39, no. 12 (2014), https://doi.org/doi-org.ezproxy.student.twu.ca/10.1007/s00464-015-4143-8.[29] “Inguinal Hernia Repair Aftermath: Pain, Recover, Complications, Side Effects,” 2019, https://skinanswer.com/inguinal-hernia-repair-aftermath-pain-recovery-complications-side-effects/.[30] “Inguinal Hernia Repair Aftermath: Pain, Recover, Complications, Side Effects.”[31] Tolver and Tolver, “Pain during Sexual Activity before and after Laparoscopic Inguinal Hernia Repair.”

When your wife finds out you&#8217;ve been using porn, she isn&#8217;t overreacting and she isn&#8217;t making it up. Her nervous system is responding to a betrayal wound the same way it would respond to any other relational trauma. This article is for husbands who want to understand what their wife is actually going through, and why her healing depends on more than your apology. We work with this every week in our practice. The hurt you&#8217;re seeing in her is real, it has a name, and there is a structure to it that you can learn. None of that requires you to defend yourself. It requires you to listen well. Why Your Wife&#8217;s Reaction Surprises You In our online counseling practice, we help a lot of husbands break a pornography habit. One pattern shows up over and over: most of them are surprised by how devastated their wife is. They expected her to be angry. They didn&#8217;t expect grief. They didn&#8217;t expect the trauma symptoms that came weeks or months after discovery, and they didn&#8217;t expect her to be different in a way that didn&#8217;t seem to be fading on its own. If that&#8217;s where you&#8217;re sitting right now, you&#8217;re not the first husband to be confused by it. The mismatch between what you thought was happening and what&#8217;s actually happening for her is part of why this article exists. Anger is the response you braced for. What you&#8217;re seeing is something else, and once you can name it, you&#8217;ll be in a much better position to respond to it well. For context, porn use is widespread. A 2018 study in the Journal of Sex Research found that roughly half of men are exposed to pornography before age 13, that nearly all men report using it at least occasionally for masturbation, and that about 46% use it weekly. By contrast, only 16 to 31% of women report regular use.[1] Common doesn&#8217;t mean harmless, but the prevalence does explain why so many men assume their use isn&#8217;t a big deal until their wife&#8217;s reaction shows them otherwise. What Porn Does to How You See Sex One way to think about porn use is as a pacifier. A pacifier soothes something. It quiets a feeling that would otherwise need to be felt. The cost is that whatever the pacifier quiets never gets tended to directly, and over time, the pacifier becomes the only thing that works. For porn, the cost is sharper than that. When you view pornography, you aren&#8217;t watching neutral content. You are learning about sex. Bodies are unrealistic. Lighting and editing are designed to intensify the experience past what real sex feels like. Your brain adapts to what you keep feeding it, and porn trains the reward system over time. So your sense of what sex should feel like quietly shifts. Real sex with your real wife starts to feel like the watered-down version, which is exactly backward. Your marriage hasn&#8217;t gotten worse. Your reference point has. Why Casual Porn Use Is Not Harmless The most common defense husbands offer themselves is that a little porn doesn&#8217;t hurt anyone. The research doesn&#8217;t support that frame. A nationally representative sample of more than 20,000 married Americans found that those who reported seeing an X-rated movie in the previous year were 12% less likely to report a happy marriage, 25% more likely to have been divorced, and 10% more likely to have had an extramarital affair.[2] A separate survey of divorce attorneys found that 56% of divorce cases involved heightened use of internet pornography by one partner.[3] We don&#8217;t quote those numbers to shame anyone. We quote them to point out that the gravitational pull is real. Whether the use is occasional or compulsive, it is pulling on the marriage. Most husbands underestimate that pull until they&#8217;re inside the conversation we&#8217;re describing here. How Pornography Decreases Intimacy in Marriage The mechanism is quieter than the affair version of betrayal. Secret use, hiding, and guilt slowly withdraw a person emotionally from his partner. She may not be able to name it, but she usually senses it. She feels less wanted, less seen, less safe to lean in. Sexual functioning often takes a hit too, because porn use and attachment patterns interact in ways that pull a couple further apart even when they&#8217;re still in the same room. By the time discovery happens, the intimacy has usually been thinning for a long time. Betrayal Trauma: What Your Wife Is Actually Experiencing The clinical term for what&#8217;s happening in your wife&#8217;s body and brain is betrayal trauma. It is not a metaphor. The discovery of a husband&#8217;s hidden porn use can produce a trauma response that looks a lot like post-infidelity stress, and many clinicians use trauma-informed tools similar to the ones used for PTSD symptoms.[4] If you want the deeper nervous-system picture, we&#8217;ve written a complete guide to how betrayal trauma impacts the brain and body. The response tends to move through a recognizable arc. Shock and disorientation. The first hours and days after discovery. She may feel numb, dizzy, or strangely calm, followed by waves of crying she can&#8217;t predict or control. She may forget basic things. She may lose her appetite or eat far more than usual. The man she thought she knew has just become unfamiliar, and her sense of the world being predictable has fractured. In our practice, we consistently see wives describe the same hour-long stretch on the night of discovery: a wave of crying that arrives, leaves, arrives again, and then settles into something colder and more clinical, where she starts asking the kinds of questions that come from a part of her that&#8217;s already deciding whether the marriage can survive. The shift from grief to interrogation in one night is a near-universal marker of how deep this goes. It is not manipulation. It is her system trying to keep her safe. Intrusive thoughts. Once the initial shock loosens, the questions start. What was he watching. When did he watch it. Was he thinking about it when we were together. These thoughts don&#8217;t arrive on a schedule. They arrive while she&#8217;s making dinner or trying to fall asleep. She isn&#8217;t choosing to dwell on it. Her brain is trying to reassemble a story that suddenly has missing pieces. The somatic load. Sleep disturbance, appetite swings, headaches, chronic fatigue, racing heart, GI distress. Trauma lives in the body, and her body is carrying it. This isn&#8217;t her being dramatic. This is what a body can look like when it stays on high alert for weeks or months. Identity beliefs. Then come the meanings. I wasn&#8217;t enough. I wasn&#8217;t pretty enough. He never really loved me. None of those beliefs are true, but they are extremely sticky in the aftermath of betrayal, because her brain is trying to explain to itself why this happened. The explanations land on her body, and they damage her self-worth in ways that don&#8217;t undo themselves quickly. Hypervigilance. Finally, her nervous system makes a quiet promise that she&#8217;ll never be caught off guard again. She watches your phone. She watches your face. She watches the door when you come home late. This is the chapter most husbands find hardest to live with, and it&#8217;s also the most predictable. Why She Isn&#8217;t &#8220;Just Overreacting&#8221; Once you understand betrayal trauma as a nervous-system event rather than a personality response, the behaviors that come next make sense. She starts checking phone bills and digging through browser history. She wants to know your location, often asking the same question five different ways. She seems to need to know things she has no rational reason to ask about. From the outside, that can look like control. From the inside, it&#8217;s a body that has just learned the worst news of its adult life trying to reduce the chance of being blindsided again. Her detective work isn&#8217;t paranoia. It&#8217;s a protective part of her stepping forward because the part of her that trusted you got hurt and can&#8217;t be in charge right now. In Internal Family Systems language, that protector part is loud because the wound underneath is fresh. This is also where most husbands get stuck, because their first instinct is to defend. The defense almost always lands like another denial of her reality to a nervous system already on alert, which deepens the trauma response and convinces her she still doesn&#8217;t have the full picture. Of course she would react that way. From her side, every defensive move is another data point that says her perception of reality cannot be trusted, and her perception is the one thing she has left. One more piece worth naming. Many wives ask, &#8220;How could he love me and still do this?&#8221; The honest answer is that men compartmentalize differently than women do. The part of him that loves her and the part of him that uses porn don&#8217;t have to talk to each other for him to function. That isn&#8217;t an excuse, and it isn&#8217;t permission. It&#8217;s an explanation for why her question feels like a contradiction to her and doesn&#8217;t to you. The work of recovery, in part, is breaking down those compartments so the same self that loves her is the self that makes the decision about what to do with arousal. Why the Lying Lands Harder Than the Porn This is the piece most husbands miss completely. We hear it from wives in nearly every session at this stage of the work: it wasn&#8217;t the porn that broke me, it was finding out how long he&#8217;d been hiding it. The porn breaks one specific trust, the trust around fidelity and sexual partnership. The lying breaks something deeper. It breaks her trust in her own perception. She replays the years and realizes she was reading the marriage one way while you were quietly living a different version of it. Every &#8220;I love you&#8221; she remembers gets re-examined, not because she doubts that you meant it, but because she doesn&#8217;t know what else she missed while she was busy meaning hers. This is also why minimizing the disclosure makes things worse, not better. When a husband admits to &#8220;some&#8221; porn use and a wife later finds out it was more, the second discovery hits harder than the first. She now has confirmation that her ability to read you is unreliable, which collapses the platform she&#8217;s been trying to rebuild on. Early, complete honesty, handled with the right support, is almost always the better path. It feels worse in the short term. It hurts less in the long arc. We&#8217;ve watched dozens of couples find their footing again after a hard, complete disclosure, and we&#8217;ve watched many more get stuck for years in a slow drip of partial truths. What Disclosure Done Well Looks Like Discovery and disclosure are different events with very different downstream consequences. Discovery is when she finds out without your participation. Disclosure is when you tell her, in a structured way, with the right help around both of you. Done well, disclosure can actually be part of her healing rather than another wound on top of the first one. If you&#8217;re considering how to have this conversation, two of our companion articles go deeper. Here&#8217;s what to include when you disclose, and here&#8217;s how and when to tell your wife about your porn habit. The short version: do it once, do it completely, and do it with a trained therapist who can hold the conversation for both of you. Frequently Asked Questions How does pornography affect marriage? Pornography affects marriage in three layers. It shifts the user&#8217;s reference point for sexual reality, which makes real intimacy feel inadequate over time. It introduces secrecy, which thins emotional intimacy long before discovery. And once discovery happens, it produces a betrayal-trauma response in the non-using partner that often takes months to a year of intentional couples and individual work to heal. What are the symptoms of betrayal trauma from porn discovery? Common symptoms include intrusive thoughts about the discovery, sleep disturbance, appetite changes, somatic complaints like headaches and GI distress, racing heart, hypervigilance about a partner&#8217;s phone or whereabouts, recurring questions about what was missed, identity beliefs around not being enough, and emotional cycling between grief and rage. These can persist for weeks or months and usually respond well to trauma-informed couples work paired with individual support. Why does my husband prefer porn to sex with me? He doesn&#8217;t, in the way you mean. Porn use is rarely about preference for a different partner. It&#8217;s a coping pattern that started before he met you and quietly trained his brain to look for arousal that doesn&#8217;t require him to be relationally present. The work of recovery is closing the gap between the part of him that loves you and the part of him that uses porn as a pacifier when something else is hard. That gap is not about you. Is watching porn a form of cheating? Most therapists who work with betrayal trauma treat secret pornography use as a form of infidelity, because the partner experiences the violation as one. The fidelity in marriage is about exclusivity of sexual attention, not only physical contact. We&#8217;ve written a longer answer to the cheating question here, and the short version is: if your wife found it and feels betrayed, the cheating frame is the one that matches her experience, regardless of the technical category. How long does it take to heal from a husband&#8217;s porn use? It depends on what the couple does after discovery. With trauma-informed work that includes individual support for the wife and recovery work for the husband, most couples we see start regaining stable footing inside six to twelve months, and feel substantially repaired by eighteen to twenty-four. With no intervention or with continued lying, the timeline is open-ended and frequently ends in divorce. More on the recovery timeline here. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "How does pornography affect marriage?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Pornography affects marriage in three layers. It shifts the user's reference point for sexual reality, which makes real intimacy feel inadequate over time. It introduces secrecy, which thins emotional intimacy long before discovery. And once discovery happens, it produces a betrayal-trauma response in the non-using partner that often takes months to a year of intentional couples and individual work to heal." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What are the symptoms of betrayal trauma from porn discovery?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Common symptoms include intrusive thoughts about the discovery, sleep disturbance, appetite changes, somatic complaints like headaches and GI distress, racing heart, hypervigilance about a partner's phone or whereabouts, recurring questions about what was missed, identity beliefs around not being enough, and emotional cycling between grief and rage. These can persist for weeks or months and usually respond well to trauma-informed couples work paired with individual support." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why does my husband prefer porn to sex with me?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "He doesn't, in the way you mean. Porn use is rarely about preference for a different partner. It's a coping pattern that started before he met you and quietly trained his brain to look for arousal that doesn't require him to be relationally present. The work of recovery is closing the gap between the part of him that loves you and the part of him that uses porn as a pacifier when something else is hard. That gap is not about you." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is watching porn a form of cheating?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Most therapists who work with betrayal trauma treat secret pornography use as a form of infidelity, because the partner experiences the violation as one. The fidelity in marriage is about exclusivity of sexual attention, not only physical contact. If your wife found it and feels betrayed, the cheating frame is the one that matches her experience, regardless of the technical category." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How long does it take to heal from a husband's porn use?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It depends on what the couple does after discovery. With trauma-informed work that includes individual support for the wife and recovery work for the husband, most couples we see start regaining stable footing inside six to twelve months, and feel substantially repaired by eighteen to twenty-four. With no intervention or with continued lying, the timeline is open-ended and frequently ends in divorce." } } ] } You Don&#8217;t Have to Figure This Out Alone If you&#8217;re a husband sitting with this and wondering what to do next, the answer is the same one we give in our consultation calls. Tell the truth, completely, with help. Get yourself into recovery work. Give her access to her own trauma support, with someone who isn&#8217;t your therapist and isn&#8217;t trying to manage the marriage. Then come into couples work together when she&#8217;s ready. You can book a free 20-minute consultation here. We work with husbands who want to stop, with wives healing from discovery, and with couples rebuilding after porn has fractured trust. Whichever side of this you&#8217;re on, you don&#8217;t have to figure it out by yourself. References [1] Megan K. Maas, Sara A. Vasilenko, and Brian J. Willoughby, &#8220;A Dyadic Approach to Pornography Use and Relationship Satisfaction Among Heterosexual Couples: The Role of Pornography Acceptance and Anxious Attachment,&#8221; The Journal of Sex Research 55, no. 6 (2018): 772&#8211;782, https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2018.1440281. [2] Jill C. Manning, &#8220;The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research,&#8221; Sexual Addiction &#38; Compulsivity 13, no. 2&#8211;3 (2006): 131&#8211;165. [3] American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers survey of divorce attorneys, as cited in Manning (2006). [4] Barbara A. Steffens and Robyn L. Rennie, &#8220;The Traumatic Nature of Disclosure for Wives of Sexual Addicts,&#8221; Sexual Addiction &#38; Compulsivity 13, no. 2&#8211;3 (2006): 247&#8211;267.

What do you do when you’re going to see family for the holidays or on a vacation and you know that not everybody is in that healthy place where they’re going to be able to show you, your spouse and kids respect and care?  So many of our listeners — if they want to spend time with family — know ahead of time that it’s not likely to go well. How can we prepare and protect ourselves when this is the case? For many people, family visits are a time to look forward to where you enjoy spending time with your family. But for many people, they would have at least some concern about one of their parents or family members making part of the time difficult or uncomfortable. And I know there are other folks where they feel an obligation to honor their parents by visiting them but also know that there are going to be some legitimate hardships during that visit. Signs of a Toxic Relationship Let’s start by just looking at the signs of a toxic relationship. If you are put down a lot or if you experience passive-aggressive behaviors or comments from a family member then that’s evidence of a toxic relationship.[1] For example, they may bring something up out of the blue like “why did you not invite me to that movie you went to?” Or they may tell your wife something that they want you to hear, but not have the courage to confront you directly.  Another sign of toxicity is if you find the person consistently attempting to cross boundaries that you have set. When this happens, you may withdraw or feel anxious or uncomfortable but perhaps not really recognizing why. If you notice this reaction in yourself, it may be because one of your boundaries has been crossed.[2] We’ll talk more about setting boundaries later on, but the reality is that many people, despite having difficult family members, feel that they should continue to make visits or spend time with difficult, sarcastic, narcissistic, ill-mannered, or toxic family members. What’s the best way to handle that reality? Ways to Handle Difficult Family Visits 1. Prepare Beforehand If you know you&#8217;re going to a family gathering and you have a difficult relationship with one or more family members, practice self-care before going on the visit. Sleep and good nutrition can help you feel good, and help you be in a positive frame of mind before meeting family members.[3] It’s also a good idea to get on the same page with your spouse. If there are predictable patterns of behavior that you’ll be facing, what do you want to ignore or tolerate, and what are behaviors that one or both of you would consider severe enough to confront? What are your shared boundaries that you both agree to? What are your absolute no-zones? The question here is how can you face this as a team? And support and maintain connection with one another in the face of these challenges? 2. Do What You Can to Work With the Relationship It doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves that some toxic relationships can become healthy. Sometimes people just go through a phase or even just slip into a way of relating to us that isn’t really a true reflection of their deeper values. If this is the case, accountability may be prudent. You might decide that you want to gently call them out if they are being passive-aggressive and let them know how this kind of behavior is hurtful to you. At the same time, you may wish to acknowledge their feelings, saying things like “I didn’t know you were upset about that.”[4] It’s good to remember that, typically, remaining silent or else trash-talking the person to your spouse doesn’t really help them to grow. And it may be worth confronting some of these behaviors to see if the person is willing and able to respond. If you find that your spouse does not respond, then it may be time to set some healthy boundaries until the person is in a place where they can relate to you with some basic elements of respect and care. Just be sure to be thoughtful and not judgmental. It’s easy to write a family member off as toxic. Sometimes it’s just a bad recipe: you and them and the circumstances you each find yourselves in. Shifting that recipe somehow may be all that’s required in order to create a more healthy pattern of interacting.[5] 3. Structure the Length of the Visit Sometimes it just helps to figure out how long to make your visits with the other party. You may come to realize that a few hours is usually fine — see if you can split your interactions into blocks of time where you know you’re likely to at least have an OK time together. If you travel from a distance for the visit — can you notice if staying for 3-4 days is fine, or maybe a week is fine but after that things start to go sideways? Paying attention to the duration of the visit may help you avoid conflict between you and family members. If your family member is quite a distance away then you may not have as much control, though you can see if you can break up the visit with a side-trip somewhere. This may require some compromise but do try to stay in charge of the length of visits and remember that longer visits are not necessarily better.[6] 4. Take Breaks  Another option is to take breaks as you need them. This could be anything from leaving the house for a brisk walk to doing what we suggested earlier: perhaps even taking a three-day mini side trip with your spouse during your 10-day visit with your parents.[7] Also, you may be able to adjust the accommodations so you have some personal space or a safe area to retreat to. If it would be helpful, consider staying in a hotel or to renting a car so that you have some options available to you in order to be able to take break when you need to.[8] Debrief Afterward After the family visit make sure you debrief with your spouse. If you ended up having a difficult conversation or experienced something hurtful, be sure to talk to your spouse about what happened.[9] It’s important as you do this that your spouse doesn’t just get angry and retaliate, but acts as a support and confidant and just validates your experience. Remember: you probably don’t need a solution as much as you need to have a companion. It is helpful to have someone who hears and understands and will walk with you through the reality of traumatic family visits. Keep Perspective It’s also helpful to just work on keeping things in perspective. A family member’s one harsh comment can really color your entire perspective of that person. But try to keep the bigger picture in mind. Is that all of who that person is or just a part? Are all your relationships with your family members toxic or is it just one or two or three people?[10] Build Your Support Network It’s also helpful to build a support network around you. Dr. Paul Jenkins (2018) states that &#8220;positive, inspiring, uplifting relationships can be the antidote for the toxic ones.&#8221; That said, if you&#8217;ve been exposed to a toxic relationship for a long time and are experiencing long-term issues because of it, therapy can also be helpful.[11] Positivity training can also help you condition your mind to see things differently.[12] If you have experienced trauma, it is also helpful to do trauma therapy using techniques like EMDR, brain spotting, or somatic experiencing. It is possible to heal from traumatic family events with good therapy. Forming close relationships with other healthy family members can also be a good way to feel supported. For example, having close and supportive relationships with siblings can be a buffer against trauma experienced in a relationship with a parent or other family member. Similarly, if you go to family gatherings with your spouse, they can be a source of strength and support to you.[13] When to Drop the Ax In extreme cases, you may need to set a boundary that looks like a cut-off. Unfortunately, this kind of boundary setting is often misused. It’s important not to do this unnecessarily, but only if the situation really requires it. If your safety or your children&#8217;s safety is ever at risk, setting boundaries may mean not seeing that person, even if they are a family member. Just because someone is a family member, does not mean that you have to see them over a holiday if it is not safe to do so.[14] You and your children’s safety trumps their need to have you spend time with them because you are a family. In other words, the people in the family are more important than the institution of the family. Safety comes first. Set Appropriate Boundaries In most relationships, boundaries do not have to mean a complete cut-off, but it is still important to set boundaries to ensure your own mental health and emotional safety. It&#8217;s important for you to decide what&#8217;s OK and what&#8217;s not ok, and what positions you will put yourself into and what positions you will choose to avoid.[15] You can set the limits. No one else will do it for you. Setting boundaries appropriately and assertively is a good way to protect yourself from toxic relationships.[16] You don&#8217;t have to pretend a behavior is OK if someone is crossing a boundary that you have set. When you pretend it’s OK, you welcome further boundary violations. And being assertive about your boundary is fine: you don’t need to be aggressive nor should you be perceived as aggressive. Boundaries are just way of stating the terms on which you’re happy to have a loving, respectful relationship with someone else. The idea behind boundaries certainly isn&#8217;t to avoid all people, but rather to build good, enriching, and enhancing relationships.[17] Note from BCACC: As podcasts can be subscribed to and accessed all over the world, psycho-educational podcasts should include a disclaimer to the effect that they are a self-help tool and do not replace individual counselling or represent an attempt to solicit clients from jurisdictions where the RCC does not have the legal ability to practice. Further, they are not intended for those experiencing severe symptoms such as suicidal thoughts, for which emergency help should be sought. References [1] Kati Morton, How to Deal with Toxic Family This Christmas 2016! Psychology 2 Kati Morton &#124; Kati Morton, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTLcYGXUWpM.[2] Morton.[3] Paul Jenkins, How to Deal With Toxic Family Members, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZKfunvjwDg.[4] Morton, How to Deal with Toxic Family This Christmas 2016! Psychology 2 Kati Morton &#124; Kati Morton.[5] Morton.[6] Lerner, “A Survival Guide for Difficult Family Visits,” Psychology Today (blog), 2011, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-dance-connection/201106/survival-guide-difficult-family-visits-0.[7] Lerner.[8] Jenkins, How to Deal With Toxic Family Members.[9] Jenkins.[10] Jenkins.[11] Jenkins.[12] Jenkins.[13] “Trauma and Families: Fact Sheet for Providers,” accessed December 12, 2019, https://www.ncsby.org/sites/default/files/resources/Trauma%20and%20Families%20Fact%20Sheet%20for%20Providers%20&#8211;%20NCTSN.pdf.[14] Morton, How to Deal with Toxic Family This Christmas 2016! Psychology 2 Kati Morton &#124; Kati Morton.[15] Jenkins, How to Deal With Toxic Family Members.[16] Jenkins.[17] Jenkins.

If you find yourself thinking, &#8220;my husband takes me for granted,&#8221; you are not being dramatic or ungrateful. You are naming something real. The noticing itself matters, and it is usually the first honest signal that something in the relationship needs attention. When a wife feels taken for granted, she is usually describing a slow accumulation: the effort she puts in has stopped being seen, the care she offers has become background noise, and the thank-yous have quietly disappeared. It is rarely one cruel moment. It is the drip of invisibility over months or years. Here is the short answer we give to women who ask us about this in our counseling office. Feeling taken for granted in marriage is almost always about relational patterns, not about who your husband is as a person. It usually shows up when two things overlap: a slow drift in the marriage where attention and appreciation have faded, and a set of patterns in how you relate (often people-pleasing or codependency) that make it easier for that drift to go unchecked. Both pieces need care, and both can change. This article is our attempt to help you make sense of what is happening and to point toward a way forward that respects both your experience and the work a real marriage actually takes. The Slow Drift Toward Being Taken for Granted Most marriages do not start out in this place. In the early years, appreciation is easy. You notice each other. You say thank you for small things. Affection is offered without being prompted. Then life gets busier. Kids arrive. Jobs intensify. Parents age. Bills compete for attention. And somewhere in there, the appreciation habit quietly dies. Psychologists call this habituation: the brain stops registering what is familiar and predictable. Your husband is not choosing to stop noticing you. His nervous system has simply filed your presence under &#8220;constant,&#8221; and constants are what the brain tunes out. This is not an excuse. It is a diagnosis of drift. Drift is the default in any long relationship that is not being actively tended. The good news is that what drifted can be reoriented, and the first step is naming it honestly instead of waiting for your husband to wake up on his own. Marriage Roles and Expectations Part of what makes being taken for granted so painful is that most of us carried a set of expectations into marriage that we never fully examined. We absorbed them from our families of origin, from the culture, from what our friends&#8217; marriages looked like, from the stories we watched growing up. Those expectations tell us what a good wife does, what a good husband does, and what love should look like on an ordinary Tuesday. When the real marriage stops matching the expected marriage, the gap shows up as a feeling. Sometimes the feeling is anger. Sometimes it is sadness. Often, for the wives we sit with, it is the quiet ache of being invisible to the person who was supposed to see her most clearly. Before you can do much about the pattern, it helps to get curious about the expectations. What did you think marriage would feel like? Where did that picture come from? Is there space in it for both of you to be tired, imperfect, and still committed? Naming the expectation does not mean lowering the bar. It means giving yourself a chance to see the actual relationship, not the imagined one. The People-Pleasing Pattern Here is where things get more personal. For many of the women we work with, feeling taken for granted is tangled up with a lifelong habit of people-pleasing. People-pleasing usually has roots. It often starts in childhood, in a family where love felt conditional on being helpful, quiet, agreeable, or low-maintenance. A child in that environment learns early that the safest way to stay connected is to anticipate what other people need and provide it before being asked. That child grows up, gets married, and brings the same operating system into her marriage. On the outside, it looks like generosity. On the inside, it feels like a quiet contract: &#8220;If I keep giving, I will be loved and valued.&#8221; The problem is that your husband never signed that contract. He may not even know it exists. So he receives the giving as normal, not as a love deposit he owes interest on. Over time, the giving accumulates, the thank-yous do not, and resentment quietly builds. People-pleasing is not a character flaw. It is an adaptation that worked for a long time and eventually stopped working. Recognizing it is the beginning of being able to choose something different. The Codependency Pattern Some women find that what started as people-pleasing has slid into something heavier: codependency. Codependency is what happens when your sense of worth becomes dependent on managing, caretaking, or rescuing the people around you. The marriage stops being a partnership between two whole people and starts being a system in which your wellbeing rides on how your husband is doing, how he is treating you, and whether he is meeting your unspoken needs. Author Darlene Lancer offers a four-step path out of codependency that we often reference with clients. We find it clear, practical, and kind. Abstinence. This is the deliberate choice to step back from the caretaking, rescuing, and controlling behaviors that have become automatic. Abstinence is not coldness. It is making room for yourself by stopping the behaviors that have been crowding you out of your own life. Awareness. Once you stop moving at the old pace, feelings surface. Awareness is letting yourself notice what is actually there: grief, anger, exhaustion, longing. This is the part most of us would rather skip. It is also the part that opens the door. Acceptance. Acceptance is not approval and it is not resignation. It is the honest acknowledgment that this is what is, that you did not cause all of it, and that you cannot control your husband into becoming someone who naturally notices you. Acceptance is where you finally get to put down what was never yours to carry. Action. Action is what becomes possible once the first three are in place. It is asking for what you need clearly. It is setting boundaries you are willing to follow through on. It is reconnecting with the parts of yourself that got shelved somewhere along the way. Action without the first three steps usually collapses. Action grounded in the first three has a chance to stick. A Note on Your Spouse&#8217;s Role We want to be honest about something. Nothing in this article takes your husband off the hook. If he has slipped into treating you like the furniture, that is real and it matters. Part of a healthy marriage is both spouses taking responsibility for noticing each other, speaking appreciation out loud, and doing the small acts that keep the relationship alive. At the same time, you cannot change him by waiting. You can only change your own patterns and then invite him into a different kind of conversation from that new place. For many couples, that invitation is the thing that finally moves the marriage. For some, it reveals that deeper work is needed, and that is information worth having. If you are not sure where your marriage sits on that spectrum, our complete guide to counseling for husband and wife walks through what healthy repair can look like when both partners are willing to engage. Frequently Asked Questions Why does my husband take me for granted? In most marriages, being taken for granted is the product of relational drift rather than a decision your husband made. The brain tunes out what is familiar and predictable, so the care you offer stops registering as remarkable. Layered on top of that, patterns like people-pleasing or codependency can make it harder for either of you to notice and correct the drift. The combination is what produces the feeling of being invisible in your own marriage. What should I do when my spouse takes me for granted? Start with yourself before you start with him. Notice the pattern honestly, name it out loud to yourself, and get curious about the expectations and habits that have been keeping it in place. From there, you can begin to speak clearly about what you need instead of hoping he will guess. Many women find that working with a counselor helps them untangle their own patterns before having the hard conversation with their husband, and that usually makes the conversation more productive when it happens. Is feeling taken for granted a sign of codependency? Not always. Sometimes it is a signal that the marriage has drifted and needs intentional repair on both sides. But if you notice that your sense of worth rides almost entirely on how your husband is treating you, that you feel responsible for managing his moods, or that you have a long history of giving more than you receive in most of your relationships, codependency may be part of the picture. A trained counselor can help you sort out which parts are drift, which parts are pattern, and what to do with each. Can couples counseling help when one partner feels taken for granted? Yes, and in our experience it often does. Couples counseling gives both partners a structured space to say things that have been hard to say at home, to be heard without the conversation spiraling, and to practice new ways of noticing each other. It works best when both spouses are willing to show up and engage honestly. If your husband is not ready to come in yet, individual counseling is still a meaningful place to start. Moving Forward If you have read this far, you already know something important. The feeling of being taken for granted is information, not a life sentence. It is telling you that something in the marriage has drifted and that something in your own relational patterns may be due for attention. Both of those are workable. We would be honored to walk with you on that work. Our couples counseling practice exists for moments exactly like this one, where a wife is ready to stop waiting to be noticed and start building a marriage where both partners are genuinely present to each other. When you are ready, we are here. This article is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for counseling with a registered clinician. If you are in a situation involving abuse or immediate safety concerns, please reach out to a qualified professional or local support service in your area. References Lancer, D. (2015). Codependency for Dummies (2nd ed.). John Wiley &#38; Sons. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why does my husband take me for granted?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "In most marriages, being taken for granted is the product of relational drift rather than a decision your husband made. The brain tunes out what is familiar and predictable, so the care you offer stops registering as remarkable. Layered on top of that, patterns like people-pleasing or codependency can make it harder for either of you to notice and correct the drift." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What should I do when my spouse takes me for granted?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Start with yourself before you start with him. Notice the pattern honestly, name it out loud to yourself, and get curious about the expectations and habits that have been keeping it in place. From there, you can begin to speak clearly about what you need instead of hoping he will guess. Many women find that working with a counselor helps them untangle their own patterns before having the hard conversation with their husband." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Is feeling taken for granted a sign of codependency?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Not always. Sometimes it is a signal that the marriage has drifted and needs intentional repair on both sides. 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If you experience pain during sex, you are certainly not alone. Pain during sex is called dyspareunia, and research shows that about 7% of women experience pain it.[1] Of those 7%, about one-quarter of them reported that the pain had been occurring frequently or every time they had intercourse over at least 6 months. Today, we’d like to look at some of the most common causes so that if you’re experiencing dyspareunia you maybe have a starting point to know how to explore and hopefully resolve this challenge.  Pain during sexual intercourse is a relatively common issue. Of course, the lifetime prevalence is going to be higher, and I would expect that every person is likely to have at least some discomfort if not some pain during the course of their sexual interactions with their spouse over the lifetime of their marriage. This can be tough to talk about for some people, so we hope that today’s show serves as a bit of an icebreaker and introduction to the subject.  We’re not sexologists, sex therapists or medical professionals. I am a marriage counselor so we do address sexual issues, but just be reminded that if you are experiencing pain your wisest course of action is first of all to talk to your doctor or gynaecologist, and possibly to book an appointment with a sex therapist. There are more reasons for pain during sex than what we will cover, for example, we are not going to address urinary tract infections or sexually transmitted infections. But anxiety and menopause are two major causes so we’ll start with them. Sexual Anxiety Sexual anxiety (or sexual performance anxiety) is something that affects men and women of all ages, regardless of how much experience they have had with sexual intercourse. There are a variety of possibilities here. A newly married wife may be too self-conscious to tell her husband what she does not enjoy: this could lead to some trepidation or anxiety about having sex which could result in pain during sex.[2] In some cases, the anxiety may be short-lived and go away on its own. In other cases, it may be something that occurs on a regular basis and interferes with a healthy sex life.[3] According to sex educator Amy Jo Goddard (n.d.), two things are generally the root cause of sexual performance anxiety. She states, &#8220;this response is conditioned by the way in which we were brought up to think about certain aspects of sex and our own bodies, and by social expectations that impact our relationship with our own sexuality.&#8221;[4] This means that messages from your family of origin, your church, or from locker-room discussions or friends at school — all those sources could potentially contribute to anxiety during sex. Other times it may simply be a lack of sex education: perhaps not that you don’t understand how sex works, but that you’re just not prepared for all the realities of sexual encounters with your husband. Everyone functions differently and has different needs when it comes to sex, and not being well educated can lead you to feel unsure about the techniques of giving, achieving or receiving pleasure. Additionally, you may experience fear because of myths concerning pregnancy, or myths about how your body is supposed to react during sex, and these beliefs can be very anxiety-inducing.[5] Of course, anxiety impacts arousal, which impacts your body’s ability to prepare itself for penetration and intercourse. It’s also important to note that the anxiety doesn’t have to be sexual performance anxiety. It could be anxiety about anything: how you’re going to pay the bills, your child’s health, the family get-together that’s coming up, whatever. General anxiety can also impact your sexual experience, potentially resulting in discomfort or pain. What to do About Anxiety Obviously, with such a wide variety of potential sources for anxiety it is challenging to cover all the possible solutions. If your anxiety is more generalized then taking care of that anxiety may just as easily end up taking care of the pain during sex as well.  But let’s look at sexual anxiety specifically.  There are a few things that you can do to reduce your anxiety. Check is your own expectations of yourself. Don’t expect yourself to be a perfect romantic partner right away (if you are recently married) or even all the time (if you’ve been married a while). It takes time and patience as well as a lot of trial and error to become a proficient lover. It helps if you can learn to talk openly and honestly with your husband if there are certain things you don’t like.[6] Learning to express your wants and needs is important. If you keep things bottled up, especially fears, they will likely increase your anxiety and make sex more difficult or painful. If you’re worried about taking too long to orgasm, struggling to stay aroused, or just not being aroused in the first place, those are things that you will need to find ways to talk about and work through collaboratively, preferably without either party feeling blamed or taking the problem personally. How can you look at this as a problem to solve together? How can you frame this challenge into something that gets solved between you, real-time, in the context of intimate connection and tender, loving care? It’s important to be kind to yourself as well as respectful to your spouse during this process. If you know there is a deeper psychological reason behind the pain, it’s worth facing that issue with your spouse and seeing a therapist if it persists. If you always have pain during intercourse, it can create a difficult cycle to break out of because you may involuntarily tighten your muscles in anticipation of the pain, and that tightening causes further pain.[7] One basic approach to try here is to reassure yourself that your spouse wants to be with you, that he welcomes your presence and your sexual needs, and that he wants you to be at ease and comfortable with him. What you’re doing is really trying to lower the sense of demand or pressure and move yourself to a place of openness and curiosity.  Menopause and Pain Menopause may involve falling hormone levels, which can have a variety of effects. You may be less interested in sex than your husband and that may make sexual encounters tense and stressful which could easily lead to pain. There can also be a physical shift towards vaginal dryness, which leads to pain during intercourse.[8] Dwindling estrogen due to menopause is the number one reason for pain during sex at midlife and beyond. Hormone shifts make the tissues in your vagina to become thinner and dryer. That leads to physical friction during sex; your vagina may also become less stretchy so things may feel tighter during intercourse.[9] There are a number of ways to compensate for the effects of menopause in order to reduce pain during sex. The first thing to know is that you can go to your doctor for a prescription of estrogen: this may help make intercourse less painful and comes in three forms: a cream, a tablet or a ring.[10] For some women, simply using a good water-based lubricant during sex may help with a lack of lubrication, especially if dryness is the issue more than soreness. You can also use a vaginal moisturizer which is something that you would apply regularly, not just during sex. There are both over the counter and prescription options for moisturizers. Putting more emphasis on foreplay may help: being more aroused before penetration means you will be more lubricated. Give yourself more time to enjoy caressing, perhaps oral sex, or different positions. As well, having sex more often will lead to increased blood flow to your sexual organs, which may help with lubrication, which will make intercourse less painful. Vaginismus Can Be Painful Next is a common condition called vaginismus. This involves an involuntary spasm in the vaginal muscles that comes from a tightening of the pelvic floor muscles.[11] Vaginismus sometimes is caused by anxiety about having sex or a fear of being hurt during sex. If you have this condition you may also notice pain inserting a tampon. In terms of what to do about vaginismus, doing counseling related to the source of fear or anxiety related to sex or penetration can help with this. There are also a set of exercises called Kegel exercises that can help you learn to relax the muscles surrounding your vagina. In covering anxiety and menopause and vaginismus, we’ve dealt with some of the most common sources, but let’s just run through some more potential sources of pain in case some of our listeners are experiencing these as well. Uterine Fibroids Uterine Fibroids are benign lumps that grow on the uterus. Symptoms may also include heavy periods, cramping and an urge to urinate as well as painful sex. Your best option here is to see your doctor. Treatment options may include embolization (a minimally invasive surgical technique and hormone therapy or a hysterectomy (removal of the uterus).[12] Endometriosis This is a difficult condition where the tissue that lines your uterus can grow elsewhere within or even outside of your pelvis, causing pain in your stomach, pelvis and back during sex.[13] You definitely want to see the doctor if you are experiencing deeper pain, not just pain at penetration so your doctor can diagnose this and recommend treatments.[14] Pelvic Inflammatory Disease With PID, the tissues deep inside become badly inflamed and the pressure of intercourse can cause deep pain. Again, you’ll want to see a doctor here for appropriate treatments.[15] Vaginal Infections This is possibly one of the simpler causes: you may have a yeast infection which causes pain and itching in the vaginal area. This can be treated with an over the counter product, but you should also see your doctor in case a stronger prescription medication is necessary. Previous Injuries It’s also possible that an injury from childbirth such as a tear or even an episiotomy (cut) made in the skin between the vagina and anus during labor will cause you pain. The treatment for this will vary depending on the injury. Sometimes a pain-relieving cream will be sufficient, there may also be work you could do with pelvic floor muscles or even surgery to remove irritated tissue. Again, it will depend on the injury so a doctor is the right place to start here.[16] A related topic is having sex too soon after childbirth. Doctors advise waiting six weeks after childbirth before having sex.[17] Vulvodynia This is a condition that causes “almost a chronic or constant burning or raw feeling” around the vulva.[18] Doctors are not sure what the cause is but self-care and medical treatments can bring relief.[19] Tilted Uterus About one in four women have a tilted uterus. This means that the uterus leans backward at the cervix instead of tipping forward. This normally is not a problem but it can make sex, particularly in certain positions, painful. The solution here is to experiment with different positions to find ones that are not painful.[20] A History of Sexual Abuse Not all women who experience pain during intercourse have a history of sexual abuse. And not all women with a history of sexual abuse have pain during intercourse. That said, some women who are survivors of sexual abuse may experience pain. Again, it’s good to check with a doctor to eliminate other causes, but if you are a survivor and have pain that cannot be explained by another cause, you may wish to do your own personal therapy. The medical profession may also be able to help in this situation as there are also medications that the doctor can prescribe to reduce pain, including low doses of tricyclic antidepressants such as imipramine, amitriptyline, and nortriptyline, as well as medications used in pain management for nerve-related pain such as duloxetine, gabapentin, pregabalin, and others.[21] General Tips Generally speaking, where there is no underlying medical cause, sex therapy is often helpful. Even unrelated to abuse, there could be unresolved issues such as deeper guilt or inner conflicts regarding sex that you may wish to work through with a counselor. It’s important to note that if you are experiencing very intense pain you should see a doctor right away. If you are unsure of the source of the pain, you should also see your doctor. There are other potential issues besides what we have mentioned here that your doctor can diagnose and recommend treatment for. Regardless of the source of the pain during sex, it’s always recommended that you seek help: it’s easy to feel embarrassed and sit at home. It makes sense that it can be a difficult topic to talk about. But if you are finding intercourse painful and are unsure why, try talking to your husband, someone you are close to, and to your doctor so that you can try to understand what’s happening.[22] Note: From BCACC: As podcasts can be subscribed to and accessed all over the world, psycho-educational podcasts should include a disclaimer to the effect that they are a self-help tool and do not replace individual counselling or represent an attempt to solicit clients from jurisdictions where the RCC does not have the legal ability to practice. Further, they are not intended for those experiencing severe symptoms such as suicidal thoughts, for which emergency help should be sought. References [1] Victoria Allen, “Why Sex Is Painful for 7% of Women,” Daily Mail, 2017,https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca:3649/login.aspx?direct=true&#38;db=bwh&#38;AN=120945273&#38;site=eds-live&#38;scope=site.[2] Allen.[3] “Sex Anxiety: How Can You Overcome It,” Medical News Daily (blog), n.d.,https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321304.php#1.[4] “Sex Anxiety: How Can You Overcome It.”[5] “Sex Anxiety: How Can You Overcome It.”[6] Pamela Connolly, “I Was a Virgin until I Met My Girlfriend and I’m Finding Sex Painful. Is This Normal?,” 2019,https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/03/virgin-sex-relationship-first-girlfriend-painful-infection.[7] Jessica Ferger, Pain During Sex? What Women Need to Know, 2014, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pain-during-sex-what-women-need-to-know/.[8] Allen, “Why Sex Is Painful for 7% of Women.”[9] “Menopause: When Sex Hurts,” n.d., https://www.webmd.com/menopause/guide/painful-sex#1.[10] Painful Sex in Women,” n.d., https://www.webmd.com/sexual-conditions/guide/female-pain-during-sex#1;“Menopause: When Sex Hurts.”[11] “Painful Sex in Women”; Ferger, Pain During Sex? What Women Need to Know.[12] “Painful Sex in Women.”[13] Deborah Weatherspoon, “Why Do I Have Lower Abdominal Pain During Sex?,” 2019,https://www.healthline.com/health/lower-abdominal-pain-during-sex.[14] Ferger, Pain During Sex? What Women Need to Know.[15] “Pelvic Inflammitory Disease,” n.d., https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pelvic-inflammatory-disease/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20352600.[16] “Vulvar Pain: Symptoms, Causes, and More,” n.d., https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/vulvar-pain#treatment.[17] Kalli Anderson, “Postpartum Sex: Why It Sometimes Hurts,” 2017.[18] Ferger, Pain During Sex? What Women Need to Know.[19] “Painful Sex in Women.”[20] Weatherspoon, “Why Do I Have Lower Abdominal Pain During Sex?”[21] Stephanie Yeager, “Easing Vaginal Penetration Pain,” 2015, https://www.paindownthere.com/blog/sexual-abuse-vaginal-nerve-pain.[22] Ferger, Pain During Sex? What Women Need to Know.

Back in episode 209, we did a show on the five things you need to know if you’ve been betrayed by your husband. Today we want to look at the experience of a husband who has been betrayed. Men and women both experience betrayal, but have different ways of responding to it.  Betrayal trauma is the result of a shocking disclosure of a relational breach, whether that’s unfaithfulness or some other form of broken trust or loss of confidence in your marriage. These breaches can come from things like spousal neglect, cheating or various forms of infidelity, dishonesty, deception, betrayal, rejection, or other circumstances that cause you to stop trusting your spouse.[1] Men Process Betrayal Trauma Differently Than Women Unfortunately, there is much less research on men dealing with betrayal trauma than on women. Men definitely experience pain and have to go through a process of healing after they are betrayed, but they tend to process it differently than women. According to Douglas Weiss (2019), a psychologist who sees both women and men dealing with betrayal trauma, men tend to compartmentalize more than women and they tend to block out painful experiences such as betrayal.[2] Research shows that men tend to go in one of two directions when dealing with infidelity: either they divorce their spouse or they give them one more chance.[3] Women are actually more likely to experience symptoms of trauma and PTSD after betrayal, whereas men don’t end up with the same PTSD symptoms. Keep in mind that this is a general statement. There are men who do experience trauma and PTSD symptoms after betrayal. They also should look for professional help, grieve what has happened, and deal with the hurt, anger and betrayal that they’ve endured.[4] Betrayal can Have Lasting Effects Just because you have not developed symptoms of PTSD, this does not necessarily mean you are free and clear of any lasting effects. Even without adverse ongoing symptoms, you still have to take time to process the hurt, anger and betrayal. You have to grieve the loss of an unadulterated marriage and other effects of what has happened. There are some feelings that betrayed men experience that are common to both genders. For example, shame. It could be shame of believing that others will see them as sexually incompetent, thus prompting their spouse to go outside the marriage. It could also be believing that they are relationally or emotionally inadequate, again prompting the spouse to seek to meet their needs outside the marriage. However, where other women will typically rally around one of their own when betrayed, a man in the same situation may find himself with friends who don’t know how to support him in this very vulnerable and emotionally raw stage after he discloses the affair to them. Finally, it’s always helpful to remember that everyone processes betrayal differently. And every kind of betrayal is different. For example, a financial betrayal (e.g., a hidden gambling loss) will prompt a very different reaction than the discovery of an affair. One thing both genders need to do is to consider, process and express the emotions generated by the betrayal. If you have friends, a mentor, or someone in your support network who can be there with you as you do this work, that is a huge help. It’s also a good idea to reach out to your therapist for counseling. If you haven’t worked with a therapist before we have a number of our team members at OnlyYouForever who work with betrayal situations in marriage too. 5 Ways To Heal From Betrayal We’d like to give you the five things you can do to help you recover from a betrayal.  1. Give Yourself Time  It’s important to understand that there is no quick fix to a situation like this. Recovery from betrayal is a painful process. It takes time to heal.  It is totally normal during this time to feel anger and distress. It’s normal to be fine one moment and ambushed by emotions the next. It’s all part of the process of healing. Betrayed husbands may feel tempted to act out in a revenge fling after finding out their wife has had an affair, but that does not help the marriage heal. Typically, you just end up hurting each other worse through a reaction like this and it does nothing to help your healing process.[5] Sometimes these revenge affairs are just an attempt to fill the hole in your own heart or an attempt to replace the loss you feel. Even if the betrayal has left you alone, being alone for a while is not necessarily a bad thing.[6] It will take several weeks before things are not totally raw. It will take several months to return to a fairly normal state of being. And it may take a few years to fully heal from betrayal, especially if it was traumatic. To be honest, some spouses report not being able to fully heal from their spouse’s betrayal even with enough time.[7] That said, if you are motivated to heal and you can find the right kind of help to walk with you through that healing journey, there is definitely hope that you can heal with time. 2. View It As a Wake-up Call  This is challenging — but, ask yourself if there is a way you can see this betrayal as a wake-up call? A way to learn and discover things about yourself and about marriage so that you can grow.  In a marriage, there are always times when one or both spouses’ emotional needs are not being fulfilled. This is especially true if you have had communication problems with one another. So as you work on regaining trust, try to be aware of the ways in which you perhaps have not been communicating your own needs and desires to your spouse.   A good couples’ therapist is very helpful: ultimately both of you will have to take some responsibility for the problems in the relationship that led up to the affair, even though your wife was the only one who was unfaithful. This is about taking charge of and accepting responsibility for the future.[8] Seeing the betrayal as a wake-up call is also a helpful perspective to adopt because it is empowering. If you are just blaming everything on your wife, and staking your future on her making all of the changes, then you are adopting a disempowered position. Yes, she does need to make changes and she does need to demonstrate reliable behavior over time so that trust can be rebuilt, but you can also be part of the change process in order to create a new, safer, thriving and passionate relationship. 3. Allow Yourself to Grieve For men especially: we are not good at grieving. But going through a betrayal is a lot like bereavement. We talked earlier about some of the losses related to betrayal. Those things are in the past and cannot be recovered.  Grief is a process that requires time.[9] It cannot be rushed and it should not be bypassed or it will likely show up in your marriage as anger later on, or even show up in your health in the form of mental health issues or even physiological problems. 4. Don’t Assume Moral Superiority Taking the moral high ground in a situation like can be very tempting: being betrayed puts you into the place of a victim. Moral superiority appears to restore power and offers an outlet for anger. Unfortunately, it will not help you heal. It will increase your spouse’s shame and that will not help her to heal or to do what she needs to do in order to avoid this problem in the future.  On the flip side, blaming yourself is not productive either. While we do encourage you to face your part in contributing to a marriage where this became a possibility, it was still your wife’s choice to go outside of the vows she made to you. You don’t need to compromise your own integrity, the person you are, or the person you believe you can be.[10] Ideally, what you want to do is to move on from the experience and commit yourselves to restoring your marriage rather than ruminating on the betrayal.  5. Focus on The Good Blame and guilt are destructive in a relationship. There’ll be a period where that is at the forefront, but if you maintain that and it becomes resentment you will have a hard time sustaining your marriage (if that is what you hope to do).[11] There has to be a process of acknowledging all the hurt, doing the hard work of forgiveness, working on yourself to understand how you’ve been impacted, and then restoring the marriage.  Throughout this, focusing on the positive can be helpful. This is a time, as you begin to heal, to strengthen yourself. Look for things at work or in your recreation time where you can be successful and boost your self-confidence.[12] Ground yourself back in things that matter to you: your faith community is a good one to consider. Practice gratitude.  If you choose to rebuild your marriage, while the betrayal will remain as a significant event, don’t allow it to become what defines your interactions and your relationship with your wife for the remainder of your marriage. Note From BCACC: As podcasts can be subscribed to and accessed all over the world, psycho-educational podcasts should include a disclaimer to the effect that they are a self-help tool and do not replace individual counselling or represent an attempt to solicit clients from jurisdictions where the RCC does not have the legal ability to practice. Further, they are not intended for those experiencing severe symptoms such as suicidal thoughts, for which emergency help should be sought. References [1]“Recovery From Partner Betrayal Trauma,” n.d., https://partnerbetrayaltrauma.org/.[2]Doug Weiss, Do Men Get Partner Betrayal Trauma Too? What’s The Difference? (Question Answered), n.d., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nussTjkgchY.[3]Weiss.[4]Weiss.[5]Linda Blair, “I Can’t Stop Thinking about My Wife’s Affair,” 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/feb/21/familyandrelationships.[6]George Everly, “The Trauma of Intimate Partner Betrayal,” 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/when-disaster-strikes-inside-disaster-psychology/201806/the-trauma-intimate-partner-betrayal.[7]Blair, “I Can’t Stop Thinking about My Wife’s Affair.”[8]Blair.[9]Blair.[10]Everly, “The Trauma of Intimate Partner Betrayal.”[11]Blair, “I Can’t Stop Thinking about My Wife’s Affair.”[12]Everly, “The Trauma of Intimate Partner Betrayal.”

Picture an ordinary Tuesday. Your wife is at the stove, and you walk past, resting your hand briefly between her shoulder blades. Three seconds. No words. That small piece of contact is doing more for your marriage than most couples realize. Physical touch is one of the first senses we develop, and it never stops being a primary channel of intimacy in adult love. It is also the channel that erodes most quickly when life gets busy, when children arrive, when stress builds, or when the relationship has been wounded. Couples often arrive convinced they have grown apart, when what has actually happened is that the small, daily touches have quietly disappeared. Fortunately, this channel can be rebuilt, and the research gives us a clear path back. Why Touch Matters More Than Words Social touch is essential to normal human development and to the formation of attachment bonds in adult relationships. Most of the research literature on touch begins with the mother-infant relationship, where it is well established that physical contact regulates the infant&#8217;s nervous system and forms the foundation of secure attachment.[1] That same regulating function does not stop at childhood. In adult marriage, touch carries information that words cannot. A hand on the back, a forehead resting against your partner&#8217;s, a long hug at the door before you leave for work: these communicate &#8220;I see you, I am with you, you are safe with me&#8221; faster and more reliably than the same words spoken aloud. We sometimes see couples who pour effort into talking and still feel disconnected. Often the missing piece is not more conversation. It is the steady stream of small physical contact that signals safety and presence to each other&#8217;s nervous systems before either of you has said a word. What Counts as Affectionate Touch The research literature uses a careful definition. Romantic physical affection is &#8220;any touch intended to arouse feelings of love in the giver and/or the recipient.&#8221;[2] The word &#8220;arouse&#8221; can be misleading here. Loving touch can be either non-sexual or sexual, and both matter. Researchers add a useful clarifier: ideally, the touch fits the setting, does not get in the way of what your partner is doing, and is not aimed at immediate sexual gratification.[3] In plain language, that breaks down to three things. Touch should be appropriate to where you are. Most couples understand intuitively that sexual touch belongs in private. Affectionate non-sexual touch can happen anywhere, but the kind of touch and the level of intensity should match the setting. Touch should not interfere with what your spouse is doing. It should never restrain or control. Holding your partner&#8217;s hand while they are trying to chop vegetables, or putting an arm around them while they need both hands on the steering wheel in a snowstorm, can feel intrusive even when the intent is warm. Affection can wait the thirty seconds it takes for them to finish. Touch should not be exclusively a runway to sex. There is a place for sexual touch in a healthy marriage, and there is a place for touching your spouse in a way that signals openness to sexual initiation. But if every touch is a sexual touch, your spouse will start to feel objectified instead of loved. The non-sexual touches matter precisely because they are not loaded. How Touch Calms the Nervous System This is where the nervous system gives us a practical clinical frame. Affectionate touch activates the parasympathetic nervous system. That is the body&#8217;s calm-down system, the one that slows your heart rate, lowers your blood pressure, and signals to your brain that there is no threat in the room. Recent research highlights the role of the vagus nerve, which acts somewhat like a highway between the head and the heart. Activities that stimulate the vagus nerve include touch, slow synchronized breathing, and placing a hand over your partner&#8217;s heart. These are some of the simplest practices any couple can try, and they calm the body before either partner has found the right words. Across many couples, this also explains a counterintuitive observation. Sometimes the conversation does not need to happen first. The regulation needs to happen first. Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy, uses the phrase &#8220;hold me tight&#8221; precisely because the embrace itself does the regulating, long before the right words show up. Many of the couples we work with discover that twenty seconds of contact at the door, before either of them tries to talk, changes the entire conversation that follows. If you want a deeper picture of how this co-regulation works at the nervous system level, see the 5 pillars of attachment. This is also why so many couples drift into unintended distance. When two people stop touching, they each lose a daily, wordless source of co-regulation. Small disagreements feel bigger. Neutral expressions get read as criticism. The world feels less safe with this person than it used to. The fix is not always more talking. Sometimes it is simply choosing to touch each other again. The Health and Bonding Benefits Research Confirms Once you understand the nervous system mechanism, the research findings line up cleanly. Affectionate touch in marriage is linked to measurable health benefits. Studies have found positive effects on cardiovascular health, neuroendocrine markers, and immune function in connection with various forms of partner touch, including holding hands, neck and shoulder massages, kissing, and physical intimacy.[4] One particularly clean study looked at what researchers called &#8220;warm partner contact,&#8221; defined as positive, relationship-focused interaction (talking about a topic that enhanced closeness, watching a short romantic video) while maintaining physical contact such as holding hands for ten minutes, followed by a full ventral hug lasting twenty seconds. Compared to a group without warm contact, the touch group showed lower systolic blood pressure, lower diastolic blood pressure, and lower heart rate responses to laboratory stress tasks afterward.[5] What that means in practice: a hug before a hard day at work is not merely sentimental. It is doing measurable work in your spouse&#8217;s body. Touch also reshapes how threatening the world feels. In a 2006 brain imaging study, women received a small electrical shock in three conditions: alone, holding a stranger&#8217;s hand, and holding their husband&#8217;s hand. Holding any hand reduced the brain&#8217;s threat response. But for women in happy marriages, holding their husband&#8217;s hand quieted threat-responsive regions of the brain even more.[6] The more secure the marriage, the more your partner&#8217;s hand functions as a buffer against the world. A separate study on non-sexual cuddling between partners (full-body, intimate, but not sexual) found that participants reported feeling protective, nurtured, peaceful, and very positive afterward. When asked what cuddling meant to them, themes like love, intimacy, closeness, and comfort came up far more than sexual themes did.[7] Cuddling is its own thing. It is not foreplay. It is connection. This kind of contact also releases oxytocin, the same hormone released during sexual orgasm and during breastfeeding, which produces a calming, bonded sensation. At the same time, regular physical affection lowers cortisol, the body&#8217;s primary stress hormone.[8] Daily small touches, then, are doing two things at once. They are turning down stress and turning up connection. Touch Is a Love Language Gary Chapman names physical touch as one of the five love languages.[9] If physical touch is your love language or your spouse&#8217;s, then the daily touches we have been describing are not optional flavor. They are the primary way love registers as love. Some husbands hear &#8220;physical touch&#8221; and immediately think of sex. Sex is one dialect of this love language, but it is only one. Holding hands, brief kisses, hugging, back rubs, an arm around the shoulder, a hand resting on the small of the back as you pour your wife a cup of coffee: these are full sentences in this language, not preliminaries. Some forms of touch require your full attention. A foot rub, a back massage, sexual foreplay. Other forms only require a moment and can layer on top of whatever else you are doing. Both kinds count. The longer ones build memory. The shorter ones keep the channel open. You can also use touch to soften an experience that would otherwise feel mundane or stressful. A kiss before you both get into the car for a road trip. A hug before the grocery store. A hand resting on your spouse&#8217;s back while you wait in line for something neither of you wanted to do. These small acts redirect the emotional tone of an ordinary moment. If you did not grow up in a touchy family, you can still learn this language. It can begin with a pat on the back, or your hand resting on your spouse&#8217;s leg as you drive or watch something together. It is allowed to feel a little awkward at first. The body learns. When Touch Has Become Loaded: Rebuilding After Trauma or Long Distance For some couples, touch is not neutral. It is loaded. If you have a history of touch deprivation, an abusive past relationship, sexual trauma, or a betrayal in your current marriage, the same touch that calms one nervous system can put another into alarm. This is one of the situations where Therapevo&#8217;s clients most often need help, and it is also the situation where well-meaning advice about &#8220;just hold each other more&#8221; can do real damage. The work here is not to push through. It is to rebuild slowly, with the body included. Stay present. When safe touch happens, let yourself notice that this touch, right now, is not the touch you were hurt by. The hand on your back belongs to someone you have chosen to be with, in a present where you are not being violated. That distinction has to be felt, not only thought. Name what you are choosing. It can help to literally say, out loud, &#8220;I&#8217;m choosing to lean into you for a minute.&#8221; Naming the touch as chosen, present-tense, and consensual helps the thinking part of the brain stay online and tells the body this is a different category of contact. Build tolerance gradually. Start with the lowest-intensity touch you can both feel something positive in. A hand on a forearm. Knee-to-knee on the couch. Stay there until it feels easy, before you escalate. There is no race. If touch feels truly unsafe, please do not muscle through it. Trauma-informed work with a clinician who understands how the body holds this kind of injury is what helps. Our team often works alongside trauma-informed care to help couples rebuild physical safety with each other before they try to rebuild physical affection. Where to Start: A Practical Path Back to Touch If touch has gone missing in your marriage, you do not need a grand gesture. You need a small, repeatable starting point, and a few weeks of consistency. Begin with hand contact. Hold hands when you walk somewhere together. Rest your hand on your spouse&#8217;s leg when you sit together. These are the lowest-friction touches and the easiest to start. Hug longer. Most couples hug for two seconds at the door. Try ten. Try twenty. A fuller calming effect seems to show up around twenty seconds, not at two. If twenty feels weird at first, sit with the weird. It is the body relearning the channel. Make non-sexual cuddling its own category. Get good at cuddling that is not on the way to sex. Spend ten minutes on the couch some evening just leaning into each other while you watch something. After a while, some of that cuddling can include sexual signals. But do not collapse the categories. Save a substantial portion of your cuddling for connection only. The variety keeps the touch readable. Initiate small kisses and hugs across the day. The kiss as you walk by the kitchen. The hug for no reason. These small initiations carry signal value far beyond their size. They tell your partner you noticed them, and that you are choosing closeness, repeatedly, without needing it to lead anywhere else. We have seen this single change help marriages begin to turn a corner, sometimes within a few weeks. This is also the moment to remember that physical and emotional intimacy feed each other. Couples who rebuild affectionate non-sexual touch often report that sexual intimacy returns more easily as a side effect. The two are not separate channels. They are layers of the same channel. Frequently Asked Questions Why is physical touch so important in marriage? Affectionate touch activates the parasympathetic nervous system, releases oxytocin, and lowers cortisol. Practically, that means daily small touches are continuously co-regulating both partners&#8217; bodies, telling each nervous system &#8220;you are safe with this person.&#8221; Marriages that maintain a steady stream of non-sexual physical affection report stronger bonds, better stress tolerance, and easier conflict recovery than marriages where touch has disappeared. What does lack of physical touch do to a marriage? When touch goes missing, both partners lose a daily, wordless source of safety. The world starts to feel less safe with each other than it used to. Small disagreements feel bigger. Neutral expressions get read as criticism. Couples often interpret this as &#8220;we have grown apart,&#8221; when the underlying mechanism is closer to &#8220;our nervous systems have stopped co-regulating.&#8221; The good news is that this is a fixable problem. How do you rebuild physical affection in a marriage that has lost it? Start small and steady, not big and dramatic. Begin with the lowest-intensity touch that feels good to both of you, such as holding hands or a hand resting on a leg. Lengthen your hugs to twenty seconds. Keep non-sexual cuddling as its own category, separate from sexual touch. Do these things daily for a few weeks before you expect a felt change. Touch atrophies fast and rebuilds slowly, but it does rebuild. What is the difference between affectionate touch and sexual touch? Both are loving touch, but they differ in goal. Affectionate touch is contact intended to express love, comfort, or connection without an immediate sexual aim. Sexual touch is oriented toward sexual response. Healthy marriages contain a generous amount of both, with the affectionate touch carrying the daily load of connection and the sexual touch belonging to a different, more focused part of the relationship. When every touch becomes sexual, the affectionate channel collapses, and partners often start to feel objectified. Can physical touch help repair a marriage after disconnection or betrayal? Yes, but the order matters. After betrayal or significant disconnection, safety has to be re-established before physical affection can do its regulating work. Forcing closeness too early can re-traumatize the wounded partner. Trauma-informed pacing, often with the help of a clinician, allows touch to come back gradually, in the right order. When safety is in place, the physical channel becomes one of the strongest carriers of repair. Not the only one, but a powerful one. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "Why is physical touch so important in marriage?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Affectionate touch activates the parasympathetic nervous system, releases oxytocin, and lowers cortisol. Practically, that means daily small touches are continuously co-regulating both partners' bodies, telling each nervous system you are safe with this person. Marriages that maintain a steady stream of non-sexual physical affection report stronger bonds, better stress tolerance, and easier conflict recovery than marriages where touch has disappeared." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What does lack of physical touch do to a marriage?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "When touch goes missing, both partners lose a daily, wordless source of safety. The world starts to feel less safe with each other than it used to. Small disagreements feel bigger. Neutral expressions get read as criticism. Couples often interpret this as we have grown apart, when the underlying mechanism is closer to our nervous systems have stopped co-regulating. The good news is that this is a fixable problem." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How do you rebuild physical affection in a marriage that has lost it?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Start small and steady, not big and dramatic. Begin with the lowest-intensity touch that feels good to both of you, such as holding hands or a hand resting on a leg. Lengthen your hugs to twenty seconds. Keep non-sexual cuddling as its own category, separate from sexual touch. Do these things daily for a few weeks before you expect a felt change. Touch atrophies fast and rebuilds slowly, but it does rebuild." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is the difference between affectionate touch and sexual touch?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Both are loving touch, but they differ in goal. Affectionate touch is contact intended to express love, comfort, or connection without an immediate sexual aim. Sexual touch is oriented toward sexual response. Healthy marriages contain a generous amount of both, with the affectionate touch carrying the daily load of connection and the sexual touch belonging to a different, more focused part of the relationship. When every touch becomes sexual, the affectionate channel collapses, and partners often start to feel objectified." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Can physical touch help repair a marriage after disconnection or betrayal?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Yes, but the order matters. After betrayal or significant disconnection, safety has to be re-established before physical affection can do its regulating work. Forcing closeness too early can re-traumatize the wounded partner. Trauma-informed pacing, often with the help of a clinician, allows touch to come back gradually, in the right order. When safety is in place, the physical channel becomes one of the strongest carriers of repair. Not the only one, but a powerful one." } } ] } You Do Not Have to Figure This Out Alone If touch has gone missing in your marriage, or if it has become loaded for either of you, working with a clinician who understands both the nervous system and the relational dynamics can shorten the road back. Our therapists offer a free 20-minute consultation to help you figure out whether couples counseling is the right next step. References [1] M. H. Burleson et al., &#8220;Marriage, Affectionate Touch, and Health,&#8221; in Health and Social Relationships: The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated, ed. Matthew Newman and Nicole Roberts (American Psychological Association, 2013): 67-93, https://doi.org/10.1037/14036-004. [2] Andrew K. Gulledge, Michelle H. Gulledge, and Robert F. Stahmann, &#8220;Romantic Physical Affection Types and Relationship Satisfaction,&#8221; The American Journal of Family Therapy 31, no. 4 (July 2003): 233-42, https://doi.org/10.1080/01926180390201936. [3] Burleson et al., &#8220;Marriage, Affectionate Touch, and Health.&#8221; [4] Burleson et al., &#8220;Marriage, Affectionate Touch, and Health.&#8221; [5] K. M. Grewen, S. S. Girdler, J. Amico, and K. C. Light, &#8220;Warm Partner Contact Is Related to Lower Cardiovascular Reactivity,&#8221; Behavioral Medicine 29, no. 3 (2003): 123-30. [6] J. A. Coan, H. S. Schaefer, and R. J. Davidson, &#8220;Lending a Hand: Social Regulation of the Neural Response to Threat,&#8221; Psychological Science 17, no. 12 (2006): 1032-39, as summarized in Burleson et al., &#8220;Marriage, Affectionate Touch, and Health.&#8221; [7] S. M. van Anders, R. M. Edelstein, R. M. Wade, and C. R. Samples-Steele, &#8220;Descriptive Experiences and Sexual vs Nurturant Aspects of Cuddling between Adult Romantic Partners,&#8221; Archives of Sexual Behavior 42, no. 4 (2013): 553-60. [8] Terry Gaspard, &#8220;10 Ways to Rekindle the Passion in Your Marriage,&#8221; The Gottman Institute, 2016, https://www.gottman.com/blog/10-ways-rekindle-passion-marriage/. [9] Gary Chapman, &#8220;Speaking Love through Physical Touch,&#8221; The 5 Love Languages, 2019, https://www.5lovelanguages.com/2009/03/speaking-love-through-physical-touch/.