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. 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. Living in holiness means we look more like God and we think more like God. And this is reflected in our sexuality, and the way we look at and think about other people. 4. Holiness Means Dying to Sin The Bible uses the metaphor of death to describe a Christian s relationship with sin. This can be difficult to understand. When you learn this, you will not only survive, but thrive because of the self-growth that has occurred because of your trauma. Darrin Ford explains in his Isomorphic Path to Intimacy that to gain intimacy as a couple it needs to begin with self-intimacy, and furthermore, partners need to practice distress tolerance and be present with the uncomfortable emotionality that is an inevitable outcome of a partner s natural state manifesting from the betrayal. A hurt person heals amid the remorse, accountability, and responsiveness of the person who injured them. Permit yourself to stop feeling bad about not forgiving quickly enough for your partner, your therapist, or anyone else. Does being unable to surrender to the process mean you are cruel or hard-hearted? By lying to your spouse or family members, you can only ever have the mediocre happiness that comes with living an inauthentic life. Integrity was at the core of his problem, and only through honesty could he find a way upwards. Finding Help In February 2017, we joined Covenant Eyes and hesitantly installed the app.