Sex addiction, in particular, creates a sense of excitement and pleasure, while simultaneously ensuring emotional distance and avoidance of true connection the kind of intimacy that can leave one open to being hurt. 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. Scott has management and leadership certifications from the University of Notre Dame and Cornell University. Scott is currently a program director for Arbor Counseling Center in Gurnee, Illinois. The views expressed in Counseling Today are those of the authors and contributors and may not reflect the official policies or positions of the editors or the American Counseling Association. Understanding these facts and the dynamic that hurt people can go on to hurt people can help a wife build empathy and can also help her to depersonalize his behaviors. She can hopefully hear in his story that these behaviors are not really about her, they are about much older and deeper pain. This is not an excuse for sinning; it is an opportunity to grow through pain. 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. When you do this, you decrease reactivity and begin to trust yourself again so that you can appreciate who you are and your own intuition. You develop an improved sense of confidence that allows you to attune to the reality that the addict s behaviors affect you but are in no way, shape, or form because of you. Personal action items may involve seeking personal counseling for emotional healing, along with creating a plan for different scenarios based on your husband s response to recovery efforts. If he earnestly seeks help, you can commit to working on the relationship together. If he refuses help, you must follow through with consequences when boundaries are crossed.