Darrin Ford explains in his Isomorphic Path to Intimacy that to gain intimacy as a couple it needs to begin with self-intimacy, and furthermore, partners need to practice distress tolerance and be present with the uncomfortable emotionality that is an inevitable outcome of a partner s natural state manifesting from the betrayal. I remember talking on the phone to an older woman who was a Covenant Eyes customer service employee. She talked to me with empathy and compassion for what I was dealing with and why I was getting this account set up. She was truly an angel, and I wish I remembered her name. My spirits were low, and this was a last-ditch effort to see if we could eliminate pornography from our lives for good. Holiness Means Dying to Sin The Bible uses the metaphor of death to describe a Christian s relationship with sin. This can be difficult to understand. What does it mean to be dead to sin? Among other things, dying to sin means taking practical steps to remove opportunities for temptation. It means confessing your struggles to another person (Hebrews 3:13, James 5:16). If you are in a relationship or marriage, and both of you want to continue together, therapy (individual and/or couples) can help provide guidance so that you can reconnect with each other. With effort and time, you can rebuild your relationship and rediscover intimacy. What should you expect in sexual addiction recovery? This individual universe is managed in the same way as the solar system, where whatever we place at the center will direct and orientate everything around it. So we need to ask: What is at the center of our universe? For many it is family, job, or finances. For those struggling with sexual addiction, it can be lust and self. Furthermore, people who came from rigid, uninvolved and emotionally absent families were also more likely to experience sex addiction (77%). In other words, sex addicts often come from childhood environments in which they never learned how to create and maintain emotional bonds. Once they reach independence in adulthood, now free of their former rigid environment, they may struggle to self-regulate their behavior.