The secondary gain is that you begin to apply this constructively compassionate mindset to others as well. The Early Recovery Couples Empathy Model incorporates these skills to help you to become less reactive to your environment and the reality of the betrayal. You replace the fear with a constructive compassion that is reinforced using the Ford Isomorphic Path to Self-Intimacy. Although sexual addiction has received some high-profile exposure with movies such as Don Jon and celebrities Tiger Woods and David Duchovny revealing that they are addicted to sex, the issue still remains foreign to most. What is sexual addiction? In his book Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction, Patrick Carnes, an expert on sex addiction and treatment, defines sexual addiction as any sexually related compulsive behavior which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones and one s work environment. Step 5: Finally, if after being proactive in these ways, that need still remains, can we surrender that need? Can we see if God might work in that space and bring about something we could not? Or teach us something about ourselves that we may have needed to know? Putting It Together Let s walk it through with an example: Let s say you are at your spouse s work event on a Friday evening. We each took this opportunity to say, "Thanks for helping us survive, we see you, we will listen now, we will take care of you. We can work together without shame." Replacing Shame The work done that day underscores the importance of relieving the burden of shame from the recovering sex addict. Truthful answers allow for more of the puzzle pieces to take shape. However, trust is only really built from someone who is willing to offer the truth, the whole truth, without being asked. The problem with questioning is that a betrayed woman may wonder if she has not asked just the right question, or enough questions, so her mind will continue to obsess about what she has missed. If you manage a period of sexual abstinence correctly you will learn some important lessons about yourself that will help you for the rest of your life, especially if you combine it with other constructive actions. There are many people who can go 90 days without sex with relative ease. But if you are a person whose sexual behaviors have taken you where you don't want to go time and again then you may find a 90 day period of sexual abstinence to be a serious challenge.