It s crucial to emphasize that boundaries are not about revenge or policing but about providing structure and space for healing and rebuilding trust. Personal action items may involve seeking personal counseling for emotional healing, along with creating a plan for different scenarios based on your husband s response to recovery efforts. I promise you he does not know how to empathize, so he must learn the skills before it becomes natural to him. I would like to tell you that this process could take three months, but unfortunately it will be 12 to 24 months before this becomes organic. So please be patient with him and try to refrain from rejecting him for his empathy statements. The grief stage. In another six-month period, the sex addict goes through a type of grief. She feels terrible about the damage she has caused to herself and to others. She also grieves the loss of her addiction because she used it like a crutch for a long period of time. Finally, whatever she used her addiction to cover up begins to emerge. A myriad of thinking errors or cognitive distortions are used to decrease and eventually eliminate the guilt, thus putting the offender in a position to reoffend. This process is similar to what sex addicts experience, but it is even more accelerated because the actual guilt and shame process decreases in duration throughout the life of the addictive behaviors. This is not codependency I m talking about. This is healthy, normal, mutual dependency. It is what makes relationships fulfilling and sought after. We all want this special someone to attach to and intermingle our lives with. In fact, attachment researchers talk about the paradox of attachment saying, The more effectively dependent people are on one another, the more independent and daring they become, (Attached). To the one struggling, it relates to their addiction and behaviors. The survivor tends to focus on wanting their spouse s addiction and behavior cured but realizes that is out of their control. For them, the question then goes to their need to heal and move forward from the wounds and trauma of betrayal.