He may also have experienced various forms of abuse or abandonment. These also effect his identity and development. As he age progresses himself through his story, it becomes clearer and clearer how his sexual sin developed and progressed. 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. states, It is imperative that we treat pornography and sexual addiction with the respect accorded any drug addiction, for as we shall see, that is precisely what it is. Until we, the general public, become more informed about the reality of how pornography reacts with the human brain, it will just be looked at as a moral weakness or some entertainment rather than a true chemical addiction. For many people, a good definition of sexual sobriety is to engage in sex only with a primary partner when true emotional intimacy is present. For other people the goal is simply to have no sexual secrets. For still others the definition of what constitutes sexual sobriety may be defined by whether or not a person is engaging in certain behaviors or activities. 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. Despite the negative consequences caused by their addiction, recovering addicts need to find ways to love and value the addiction. For example, will insurance cover health care treatment for sex addiction if it is not considered a mental health disorder? While both sides make fair arguments, we cannot deny the connections between mental health and sex addiction. For 88% of those with a sex addiction, mental illnesses play a key role. Sometimes, especially at the beginning of the recovery process, sobriety has to be dealt with hour-by-hour. The Spouse s Road to Recovery Upon discovering the addiction, the spouses of sex addicts find themselves mentally and emotionally shattered. Some counselors would say that spouses are codependent at this point, a term that is defined as: A psychological condition or a relationship in which a person is controlled or manipulated by another who is affected with a pathological condition (as an addiction to alcohol or heroin).