What Will Fall Away As you progress through the 12 steps and your continued therapy, the feelings of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. 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. And the type of responsiveness we received greatly impacted our ability to validate our own needs and set our expectation for whether or not our needs would matter to others. What did you learn about having needs when you were young? There is so much to discuss about needs, but what I want to focus on in this article is how I help individuals and couples break needs down in order to understand where this larger topic of needs might be getting stuck for them. Behaviors include masturbation, fantasizing, pornography, flirting, prostitution, massage parlors, sexual affairs, emotional affairs & other acts of infidelity. The lies and deception used by husbands to keep these behaviors hidden can create many emotional and physical symptoms for their wives. When wives internal world of perceptions and intuition does not match up with their external world of what they are seeing and being told, they can develop feelings of being crazy. It took years for me to truly understand that this addiction is very much a physical pathway problem in the brain. The biggest struggle for my husband through this heartbreaking addiction was the concept of integrity and honesty. I firmly believe that true recovery is not even remotely possible until all the cards are face up on the table. If they respond to their addictive longings by calling someone in recovery, going to a meeting, etc., then the call of the addict has served its purpose and deserves appreciation. This replaces shameful behavior with self-nurturing and healthy attachment. Group Treatment Experience When I provided inpatient treatment for Dr. A recovering addict who has accomplished these things and desires a healthy relationship may consider some factors for further readiness. Consider the following checklist: Is in active, engaged recovery and maintains a support group of friends, recovery partner(s) and sponsor Has grown more aware of his or her feelings and is able and willing to talk about them to others Has learned how to reach out to others when difficult feelings or cravings emerge, or when issues arise in close relationships Has acknowledged any co-occurring or crossover addictions and is working on them in recovery Has acknowledged any co-occurring mental illnesses that may be present and has sought help.