At first, the thought of stopping this behavior fills you with fear. You re afraid of what your life will become if you don t have the reassurance of that sexual excitement. Will your life be lonely and tiresome? Will you feel less sexy or desirable? Will you fall apart or be an emotional train wreck? To do that, we ll need to spend a bit of time understanding the early wounds that created our intimacy disordered behavior (addictions). So sex addiction recovery is about far more than one-day-at-a-time abstinence; it s real work we do on who we are, how we were formed and how we communicate with others. If you are in a relationship with someone you have sexually betrayed, an agreed-upon time without sex can allow for some relationship healing to begin by giving you an opportunity to focus on developing nonsexual emotional safety and connection. (I wrote a lengthy article about what it takes to heal from chronic sexual deception, because there's a lot to address. Heal, I am going to share situations which I am sure you will find some parallels or pieces to relate to as you examine your own relationship. You will also see how relational skills help repair the present-day problems that are buried in relational trauma. If you find that your coupleship is struggling because the addict does not seem to be using his opportunities to practice it, you may find that you need an ERCEM Specialist to be your guide. Addressing Trauma Part of the Long Process of Recovery.... A history of early trauma is part of the reason that recovery from sexual addiction is typically a long and difficult process. First, people with this addiction need to stop their cycles of compulsive behavior, which usually means refraining from any sexual activity and avoiding potential sexual stimuli. In our work with couples and individuals, we talk a lot about needs. Often, because of mistaken understandings within our family of origin about needs and how to navigate needs within relationship, we have developed a way of being along a continuum. We may have learned to be needless and wantless (self-sufficient), or that your needs don t matter, or we may have learned to be somewhat needy (a passive requiring of others to do for me what perhaps I could sometimes take care of myself learned helplessness).