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. Instead, you want to gently remind her that you will work diligently to build back her trust in you). We could say you are triggered and you probably have a need (stage one). You could say, I need you to stop acting like a teenager and take me home or you could say, I m noticing I m tired and I have a need for sweatpants (or to be home, comfort, rest stage two). Your spouse hears you, considers your request and is aware that they have a need to stay a while longer as this is their work event and it s expected that they remain. I remember talking on the phone to an older woman who was a Covenant Eyes customer service employee. She talked to me with empathy and compassion for what I was dealing with and why I was getting this account set up. She was truly an angel, and I wish I remembered her name. My spirits were low, and this was a last-ditch effort to see if we could eliminate pornography from our lives for good. 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. 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). 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. 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.