Putting It Together Let s walk it through with an example: Let s say you are at your spouse s work event on a Friday evening. As the evening moves on, you become aware that your spouse is going to want to stay for a while longer. You might begin to feel frustrated, irritated, annoyed and begin thinking about how ridiculous this is, they always do this, does he/she think we are teenagers, what s wrong with them etc. Holiness Means Receiving God s Grace For Christians, overcoming pornography is not primarily about self-discipline or willpower. It s about God s grace working in a believer s life. Christians should rely on God s strength through prayer, Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and Christian community, rather than trying to conquer sin by their own efforts (Philippians 2:13). This is especially true when pornography is included as part of a masturbation ritual. From this perspective masturbation may need to be considered off-limits for many sex addicts. For other people, however, non-compulsive masturbation can actually aid the biological urge for sexual release, provide a venue for self-nurturance and contribute to an overall sense of sexual health. If so, you may be learning about Partner Betrayal Trauma for the first time. Here s the thing about Partner Betrayal Trauma. It makes you feel like you are losing your mind. It puts you on an emotional rack and pulls you in opposite directions until you are begging for mercy or you break and ricochet over to one of the extremes just to find some relief. There is no expectation that they will navigate it in the most positive way possible. Pretending to be positive only makes matters untrustworthy and messier for longer. B: Advice Regarding Surrender Or Getting Over Hurt On Your Own Any therapist s expectation that a hurt, betrayed partner would get over it and make recovery less messy is not helpful. But in the absence of a healing/recovery process, the betrayed partner s anger intensifies and can cause them to be further traumatized by sifting through emails, texts and conversations, asking for every minute detail of the affair. As anger ferments, it can lead to rage. Rage can wreak havoc on the body, leading to health problems.