If you are the betraying partner: Please lean into the recovery process understanding that no fixes exist, quick or otherwise. Knowing how to help your spouse heal from your affair means knowing how to remain committed, patient, and present. You are the main character in this healing process. Therapy should help you ease your partner s pain, not insist that your partner go away and come back healed on their own. Empathy Breeds Connection By Carol Juergensen Sheets LCSW, CCPS-S, CSAT, PCC Empathy is the needed ingredient in relationship building and is an essential requirement when repairing betrayal. Men seem to have an empathy deficit and so I found that breaking it down was much more helpful in teaching this all important skill. In the initial stages of crisis, demanding obedience might be necessary, but demanding obedience in the long term can sabotage trust rebuilding. Trust should be based on genuine care and commitment, not just following orders. Here are three important boundaries to consider for rebuilding trust in your marriage. We can never underestimate the power of prayer in the healing of addictions. The five components to treatment According to Mark Laaser,1 author and recovering sex addict, there are five components to treatment and recovery for sexual addiction. They are: Stopping sexual behaviours Stopping rituals Stopping fantasy Healing despair Healing shame. And when it fails, it results in more trauma. Deep wounds suffered when young cause a level of pain that overwhelms the child. Because human beings are built to stay alive, the brain banishes the ordeal s worst feelings and memory. It locks them away to keep the child alive. Understanding the brain science of trauma and addiction enables the betrayed partner to see the big picture. In reality, this is what s happening with pornography. Throughout my career, I have spent innumerable hours on porn and sex addiction treatment, treating individuals and couples with chemical dependency addictions like alcohol, heroin/opiates, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, etc. I feel qualified to speak about addiction treatment and about what I have witnessed and claimed from a clinical therapeutic perspective that pornography addiction is the primary addiction of them all.