Sex Addiction Recovery: Coping With Your Emotionally Motivated Wife

Early recovery from sex addiction is a tumultuous time, your recovery foothold is shaky at best. So how do you maintain that precarious foothold when your partner is on the emotional roller coaster? You know the roller coaster I’m talking about; the one in which she is angry, sad, fearful, or an ever-changing mix of everything; the one that seems to come out of nowhere for you; the one where its facts and logic just don’t make sense to you; The one that you don’t really understand but have learned to fear.

How do you survive her roller coaster and, more importantly, how do you help her get through it so that the seeds of a little confidence are planted? If the Serenity Prayer seems like your only lifeline through the roller coaster, let me teach you a new strategy to help calm the emotional storm and begin to mend your relationship.

First, accept that you won’t understand, so don’t make the mistake of saying yes just to appease her. Let me tell you a secret about your wife; she already knows that you can’t understand. You may not like that fact, but when you’re not on the roller coaster, you get it. She also knows that you can’t fix her or stop her pain. What she needs from you is not for the roller coaster to go away, but for you to get on the roller coaster with her and help her deal with the pain until it is relieved. Remember when you were a kid and you hit your arm? She probably cradled him gently with her other arm. He held it until the pain subsided. When you can tolerate listening to your partner’s pain, it is as if you are cradling their heart and helping you contain their pain until it recedes.

In order for you to do this, a very different kind of listening and response will be required than what you may be used to. You will need to remember that activation is an emotional state; it is not about the facts, so don’t focus on the facts by trying to reason with her or by pointing out the errors in what she is saying. Don’t tell her that she is wrong, even if her facts are wrong. Don’t respond angrily and don’t punish her for being provoked.

Your task is to listen to their heart, notice that they are in pain, know that their pain is connected to your behavior history, and worry. The following is a set of instructions on how to use the recovery expert Dr. Doug Weiss suggests that you think of it as an emotional GPS to help you track your partner’s pain and help her get off her emotional roller coaster.

1. Remind yourself that your the goal is to listen to your heart, not listening to solve the problem. Pay attention to your breathing to help regulate your emotions. Leave more physical space between the two of you if it helps you focus more on your pain.
2. Acknowledge their pain (eg “I’m sorry you’re in pain”). Remember that it doesn’t matter if you are totally wrong about the current trigger. Pain is about the cumulative weight of past injuries that have hit her with full force in this moment. what is what you are really acknowledging.
3. Discover and explore your feelings. (for example, “Can you tell me more?”). You’re just trying to track where their emotions are going. Don’t get caught up in the details of any event that triggered your emotions.
4. Assume the responsibility. This does not mean that you say you did something if you did not do it. It means that you take responsibility for her being in the position of being provoked by some event, even if she is misinterpreting the facts about the wrongdoing (eg, “I’m sorry I caused you pain”). Don’t start defending yourself, don’t ask for forgiveness and whatever you do, do not lie. If you committed the wrongdoing, man upstairs. If you don’t think she did, be willing to consider the possibility that she is right (for example, “I don’t think I discovered that woman, but I will talk to my sponsor about her observation and take it into account. My recovery plan “).
5. Ask him what he needs from you.
6. Do what it asks of you.

If you face his emotional roller coaster in anger, it will be like pouring gasoline on a fire and you will ruin the opportunity to repair some of the damaged confidence. If you go into your victim, you are ignoring their pain and doing everything for yourself. It doesn’t matter if you are on your victim when activated. If she has a power struggle over who is the actual victim in this case, it reinforces her fear that he will never be there emotionally for her. Instead, use your emotional roller coaster as an opportunity to use your emotional GPS and teach her that you will be there, the way she needs you to be. Know that if you join her on that emotional roller coaster, you are sowing the seeds that will eventually grow into restored trust.