widening the rift of insecurity and confusion between you and your partner. You are now blamed and directed away from the person you want to get closer to. In the meantime, your partner is absolved of their part in the process. No trust is built in your marriage or your therapist. How do you make any progress as a couple, if you all believe that you re the unforgiving, unloving problem partner too stuck to move on? Check-ins and transparency: Ask your husband about his recovery progress. Avoiding triggers and temptations: Request that he avoid situations that may lead to temptation. Additionally, it s important to encourage your husband to explore positive hobbies during the recovery process. Accountability Boundaries Accountability boundaries aim to hold your husband responsible for his actions and help build trust. Partners who continue to be consumed with seeking information are tortured not by the behavior but by their unrelenting quest to uncover all of the lies. Initially, information-seeking helps decrease panic and the horrible loss of power experienced after discovery of the betrayal. However, searching for information or signs of acting out quickly becomes all-consuming. The repair stage. This serious period of healing from sex addiction and its underlying causes can last from one to three years. During this period, the addict gets intensive therapy, learns to take responsibility for her actions, deepens her relationships with her loved ones and learns to have a healthy relationship with sex. According to Hatch, these intimacy disorders develop in addicts as a result of early experiences in their [families] of origin that failed to produce a secure attachment to their caregivers. These may take the form of neglect, abuse, abandonment or the absence of an appropriately nurturing caregiver. Recovery and treatment for sexual addiction Written by Focus on the Family Canada What's inside this article The five components to treatment 2. Stopping rituals 3. Stopping fantasy 4. Healing despair 5. Healing shame There is hope for recovery from sexual addiction. Recovery is a process that occurs over time.