You will stop seeking things for your own self-satisfaction and begin to think of ways to help others. You will stop seeing your past behavior as something regrettable or that you have to close the door on it forever. Instead, you will accept that you were what you were then, and you are a different person now. It makes sense to me that looking at our Memorial Day picnic pictures causes you great pain Validation of Her Feelings Using the Five Primary Feelings It can be difficult to ascertain how she is feeling, so it is helpful to focus on her primary feeling (and see if you got it right). If you were indeed able to figure out the primary feeling, you will be able to validate it later in your day if it comes up. In my work with sex offenders, I often used the term transitory guilt, which is a short-lived guilt that is very intense in nature and not manageable to carry around in one s mind, to describe the offensive cycle of behavior. A myriad of thinking errors or cognitive distortions are used to decrease and eventually eliminate the guilt, thus putting the offender in a position to reoffend. The mind is the intelligent part of us that gets frustrated at losing control. It is in the sense that the conscience exists. This is the part that generates feelings of right or wrong. The physical brain has no concept of right or wrong. Its primary function is to keep us alive, and it does this by driving us to avoid pain and seek pleasure. For still others the definition of what constitutes sexual sobriety may be defined by whether or not a person is engaging in certain behaviors or activities. So sobriety may look different for different people. A core concept from 12-step recovery programs is that there is a profound difference between true sobriety and mere abstinence. Why Full Disclosure is Important Mark & Debbie Laaser Faithful and True Ministries Speak the truth to each other. (Zec.8:16). At Faithful & True, we encourage truth-telling. We encourage being authentic. We work with many couples for whom there has been lying and covering up of sexual and emotional betrayal.