Essentially, if your couples therapist says, Go get more help on your own, they are effectively deeming you a lost cause. After all, they are a relationship expert, literally sending you away from your relationship for not being good enough at forgiving and forgetting. This confirms your worst fears about your worth as a partner and kicks you when you re down. Many adjustments will need to be made in order to overcome sexual addiction. Changes include giving up sexual fantasizing and flirting, changes in the way one dresses, getting Internet filters, joining support groups and entering therapy. Honesty is the foundation to recovery for any addict, and it's no different for the sexual addict. Behaviors include masturbation, fantasizing, pornography, flirting, prostitution, massage parlors, sexual affairs, emotional affairs & other acts of infidelity. The lies and deception used by husbands to keep these behaviors hidden can create many emotional and physical symptoms for their wives. When wives internal world of perceptions and intuition does not match up with their external world of what they are seeing and being told, they can develop feelings of being crazy. Many people think a sex addict is that creepy-looking person they tend to avoid, the person who is unsuccessful in pursuit of relationships, the social outcast, the person without means and resources, or the person with the corny pickup lines in bars. And although all of these descriptions could be part of a sex addict s profile, focusing on stereotypes is an antiquated and closed-minded way of thinking, especially when it comes to understanding sexual addiction. Sex addicts often drag perfectionism, shame, and self-hatred into their sexual decision making process, which is what drove the addictive behaviors in the first place. While the first few months of sexual recovery does require somewhat rigid boundaries, it is essential to help addicts negotiate the line between healthy sexual recovery and a healthy nurturing of self. Many, unfortunately, do not realize how powerful these tiny chemicals are and how they affect our lives, behavior, and happiness. At this microscopic level, there s a constant interplay between chemical and electrical interaction. In his insightful book, The Mind and the Brain, Dr. Jeffery Schwartz explains the differences between the mind and the brain.