I hate that I have ruined some important holidays for you, but I want to reassure you that I am working a good recovery program and will work on creating new memories that you can trust. Empathy is putting yourself in her place. You cannot possibly know the intensity of her feelings, but when you are able to look at what she is struggling with through her eyes, you are better able to assess what she needs. Though the therapist promised to help them navigate recovery in the most positive way, he had been labeled too emotionally stuck and sent off to individual therapy with me! It was the therapist that indicated his inability to surrender and heal was holding back recovery. Was this a special case? Sadly no, too often, many betrayed spouses receive this message. The question becomes, Why would someone who appears to be functioning well act against their morals and values? Are these folks actually addicted to sex, or is sex addiction an excuse for bad behavior? In her What Your Therapist Really Thinks column for New York magazine on May 11, 2017, Lori Gottlieb responded to a letter from a reader wondering whether their husband might be having an affair. When they reached the middle of their 20s, the men showed signs of a condition called sexual anorexia, where they had actually experienced a damaged or non-existent desire for sex. The study showed that many men began using pornography at an early stage of their teen years, with nearly six percent starting when they were 14 to 18 years old. To be honest, my appetite for porn accounted for why I got the internet in the very first place, and now that I am down in a horrendous pit, I seriously wonder whether there is hope of recovery for me, for whenever I log onto the internet, I must view porn. What is wrong with me? Why can t I change who I am present? Addicts need to identify their personal rituals so that they can intercept the addictive cycle before they act out. Rituals could include things like fantasizing about having sex with a co-worker, imagining what your neighbour looks like without clothes on, arranging your schedule for some alone time with your computer so you can log in to porn sites uninterrupted.