He told me he was having trouble surrendering to the healing process . As a relationship expert, I had two immediate questions: Who gave him the idea that he needed to surrender to anything? Why did he think was doing it wrong? I soon learned that the very person he and his betraying partner turned to for guidance, their couples therapist, had implicated him as the problem partner! This doesn t mean the betrayed partner will no longer have any feelings of sadness or longing. But they will also have moments of happiness again. There are two tasks in this last phase of the hero s journey: reclaiming their life with a new story that includes the bruises and scars bound together with integrity and pride, and restoring one s self to wholeness. Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples says that betrayal traumas, overwhelm coping capacities and define the relationship, as a source of danger rather than a safe haven in times of stress. When that special someone that we have bonded with betrays us it messes us up because all of a sudden the person who is our secure base in the world has caused us untold pain and robbed us of our sense of safety. Constructively compassionate is defined as allowing oneself to be fully present with the experience of oneself, while fostering a mutual acceptance of suffering, to bring a kinder reaction to distressing emotionality. This is intimacy with the self. That intimacy then ripples out into every other aspect of the partner s life. There are many people who can go 90 days without sex with relative ease. But if you are a person whose sexual behaviors have taken you where you don't want to go time and again then you may find a 90 day period of sexual abstinence to be a serious challenge. Any justification or rationale your brain can throw at you to undermine your resolve is likely to surface at different times. For couples who seek to heal these hurts, we know that there needs to be a new foundation built from telling the truth the whole truth. We call this process full disclosure. I (Debbie) work with wives and partners of men who struggle with being relationally faithful. Behaviors include masturbation, fantasizing, pornography, flirting, prostitution, massage parlors, sexual affairs, emotional affairs & other acts of infidelity.