This abstinence has several benefits, including preventing sex from being used as a weapon, allowing time to observe his commitment to rebuilding intimacy, and helping him detox from porn s impact. Encourage your husband to pursue intimacy in non-sexual ways during this period. Focus on rebuilding emotional connection and romantic gestures, such as buying flowers or helping with chores. Healing the Shame-Based Self in Sexual Recovery By Robert Weiss, LCSW, CAS Self-Nurturing Early recovery requires a clear and well-defined sexual plan that often requires a period of celibacy. Often times though, this leads to unhealthy judgment, sexual anorexia, and fear. Desperate to "recover right", most sex addicts are guarded about their early sexual choices and behaviors. So the better our relationships are in terms of providing us with a sense of, I can depend on you the more we are able to move fully into the rest of our lives, face insecurity and take risks. In this way our adult relationships mirror our relationship with our parents as children; both, when functioning well, provide us with a secure base from which we can enter our worlds with confidence. Putting in the Work in Sex Addiction Recovery The process of recovery for sex addicts involves identifying those behaviors such as obsessive masturbation, pornography use, anonymous sex, exhibitionism, etc. that take you out of yourself and away from those around you, acknowledging the behaviors as a problem and finding sobriety by eliminating those behaviors before they show up. (I wrote a lengthy article about what it takes to heal from chronic sexual deception, because there's a lot to address.) Especially when it comes to problematic pornography use there is evidence that a 90 day period of total sexual abstinence can help some people "reboot" their brain so that continued abstinence becomes easier and they become significantly happier and more productive as time progresses. I can see as you look at the pictures from the Memorial Day family picnic that you feel sadness because now you question the reality of what really happened on that day. It feels like I contaminated the joyful event. Reassurance That You Have Changed, and Your Top Priority Is to Help Her Heal It will be necessary to share how you are changing and what you are working on to focus on your recovery and her healing (You do not want to be cocky or arrogant.