The Role of Self-Deception in Addicts and Betrayed Partners

One of the most important steps toward recovery in sex and love addiction is getting honest about your addiction.  In the 12 Steps, Step 1 and Step 4 both involve admitting you have a problem and taking a fearless moral inventory of your behaviors.

Deception in relationships with others is one of the most obvious indicators of addiction, including hiding behaviors from your spouse or partner, secretly using at work, or doing whatever you can to mask the problem from your family or friends.

The outward deception characteristic of addiction is often fueled by an inner self-deception.  The addictive behaviors often do not fit with what you want to believe about yourself, and so you justify them, explain them away, or just live in complete denial of their impact.

Self-deception not only happens for the addict, but it can also be present in betrayed partners reeling from the discovery of addiction.  Sometimes self-deception happens before discovering the addiction, as partners can sense intuitively that something is wrong but ignored warning signs.  Other times self-deception happens after discovery as partners seek to make sense of the fact that their loved one and primary adult attachment figure is also a source of great pain in their lives.

Types of Self-Deception

One common type of self-deception is shame-based hiding.  You don’t like what you’re doing to yourself or to others, so you’d rather hide than think about what that says about you.  This might be accompanied by shame-based core beliefs , such as “there’s something wrong with me” or “I’m not good enough.”

Another way to self-deceive is through being a “chameleon,” conforming to the expectations of others.  Essentially, you become whatever you need to be, depending on the person or situation you are in.  You may imitate other people to get what you want or manage the image others have of you.  Unfortunately, with time, this self-deception can lead you to lose a sense of your personal identity.

Creating confusion through chaos and distraction arises as another strategy of self-deception, particularly present in addiction.  An addict using this strategy can mask their addictive behavior, protecting their outlet for escape or relief from painful emotions.  This chaos takes on a life of its own with time as it alienates others and interferes with the structure needed in an addict’s life to work an effective recovery. 

All of these strategies are connected to denial of the presence or power of the addiction. Self-deception strategies can be fueled by denial or provide their own form of justification.

Why self-deceive?

A way to protect yourself from reality.

The truth, especially when addiction is involved, can be incredibly painful.  We don’t enjoy feeling pain.  Lying to yourself can create a buffer between you and the challenging reality such that you limit your experience of pain.  For a betrayed partner, this can be a way of coping with the seismic shift in reality that occurs once you discover the addiction. 

A way to support outward deception and image management.

Lying to yourself can make it easier to lie to other people and get away with it.  When you believe the lies yourself, you seem more convincing.  You may want to maintain the image others have of you, so you begin to lie to protect that image.  Shame about who you truly are propels you to present something different out of belief that others wouldn't like the real you, a feeling of not being good enough, or a host of other negative core beliefs about yourself.

A way to guard you from cognitive dissonance.

When your actions and your values don’t line up, this creates a threat to your identity.  We often cope with this type of cognitive dissonance by altering the way we think about our behaviors through self-deception.  We begin to justify, minimize, and rationalize what we do as a way to feel better about ourselves.  You may begin with some awareness that this is self-deception, but with time, the lies you tell yourself and others begin to feel true. 

Access to attachment and survival needs.

As humans, we have deeply rooted needs for love, acceptance, closeness, and intimacy that have been ingrained in us from our birth.  In particular, when our attachment needs as children were damaged through abuse, neglect, or lack of attunement from our parents, these needs grow even stronger and can take priority over values of honesty or integrity.  Fear of abandonment, loneliness, isolation, and rejection can feel crippling, so self-deception functions as a way to avoid that pain. 

A response to fear.

When we feel fear, our brains go into survival mode, kicking up our fight-or-flight response.  Perhaps in the past, honesty meant you would receive abuse in your family-of-origin.  Fear of separation or divorce can be terrifying for either the addict or the betrayed partner.  At the same time, fear of intimacy can lead to further hiding, as honesty is an invitation to closeness.  If intimacy and vulnerability were unsafe for you due to experiences of abuse or neglect, self-deception is a way to avoid that fear.

Why do we need to stop self-deceiving?

Self-deception leads to neurological changes in the brain.  When lying becomes a practice, our brains become conditioned to lie, such that we may find ourselves lying even when it is unnecessary.  Once this practice becomes rooted in neurochemistry, it becomes much more complicated to change, so catching self-deception as early as possible is important.

Self-deception also creates disconnection and separation in your relationship as you become unwilling to talk about your desires and needs.  Image management can come into play when you disagree with something and don’t believe that it is okay to disagree.  When there isn’t space to have conversations about what you need, both partners become unhappy, and this affects desire and attraction toward one another.

When self-deception has been common practice throughout a marriage or relationship, it creates broken trust and lack of respect.  Selfishness and power dynamics begin to take over and create a toxic dance that leaves both partners feeling dissatisfied and hurt.

The Way to End Self-Deception

Gain more self-awareness.

Start to do your own self-reflection through therapy and recovery work.  This can be a challenging process, as you will be asked to look more directly at the same and pain from which your self-deception has allowed you to hide.  It is important to maintain self-compassion during this stage, remembering that self-deception developed out of a protective instinct that served you in some way, but now is interfering with your life.

Practice honesty in small things.

When self-deception becomes ingrained, it can feel like second nature to lie about things that aren’t important.  Take steps to practice honesty about those small things.  Communicate smaller needs and work your way up to naming larger ones.  Take responsibility when you slip into a lie and go back to correct it.  Recognize your boundaries: you don’t have to use image management in an attempt to control others.

Create space for connection with others.

Offering connection to your partner or others directly addresses your attachment needs.  This can feel incredibly vulnerable, so couples counseling may be helpful in guiding you toward this practice.  You can regulate challenging emotions through physical connection with your spouse, like eye contact and touch that feels safe to you.  Practicing your ability to offer and receive empathy can also allow for a greater sense of connection.

Move toward greater authenticity.

As you grow in knowledge and understanding of yourself, you will be better equipped to express that knowledge and self-acceptance in relationships with others.  Self-reflection can help you learn new ways of dealing with painful emotions, including inviting others in to support you and offer empathy.

Rediscover Your Self-Worth After Betrayal Trauma: Empower Your Future

When you’ve recognized the impact of your partner’s sex and love addiction on your sense of self-worth, it can be a challenge to identify how to break out of that trap.  You may feel stuck or powerless to change.  Your emotional landscape or confusing thoughts may make it difficult for the truth about your inherent worth and value to sink in.

We built the foundation of understanding the impact of betrayal trauma on self-worth by evaluating symptoms in Part 1 and reviewing reminders of what is true in Part 2.  Understanding the truth about addiction and trauma may be reassuring intellectually. But understanding might not change the way you feel, which is a major component of insecurity around your self-worth.  Today, we’ll explore how these insights can influence your behaviors such that your feelings of confidence begin to grow.

Acting “as if” as a pathway out of low self-worth

If you believed that your worth was inherent and not based on what others think of you, how might that change the way you interact with others?  If you believed that it was impossible to be “enough” for the addiction, how might that influence the way you relate to your spouse?  How might that create space for more self-care and boundaries?  As you answer these questions, begin to experiment with taking different actions that fit those changes in beliefs. 

Here are a few examples of potential applications if you acted “as if” these statements were true:

Attend a 12 Step meeting or support group.

If you believe that you are worth spending time with, it makes sense for you to reach out for social support.  Finding a safe place to talk about your doubts and hear others’ stories helps you know that you are not alone.  Outside help will both validate you and challenge you when needed. 

Begin personal counseling.

When you come to realize that the only person you can control is yourself and that you are worth caring for, you will be more likely to seek out professional help on how to do that.  You have a right to receive support and care in the process of moving through the trauma. Seeking out specialized counseling is a way to honor that right.

Release the burden of perfectionism.

If you’ve coped with feelings of failure or insecurity in the past by trying to keep your life together and be perfect, you might find the same patterns surfacing in your betrayal trauma recovery. Remember that your worth is not defined by how much you accomplish, by your status, or by your achievements.  Know that your worth is inherent and allows yourself to take a rest or ask for help.

Put your own needs first by practicing self-care.

Practice kindness toward yourself by recognizing the impact of the trauma of discovery and honoring your needs as a result.  Treat yourself how you would treat a friend if they were going through something similar.  Recognize your needs that aren’t being met and seek out healthy ways to meet them.

For many, self-care can be challenging because it contradicts beliefs that encourage you to put others before yourself.  However, in this case, re-centering on meeting your personal needs is necessary so that you can come into a place of serving and loving your family, spouse, and others more holistically in the future.  You can’t serve others from an empty shell of yourself.  You have to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help others.

Review your “bill of rights” and set healthy, supportive boundaries that affirm your worth.

In the fog that comes after discovery, you might be unclear about how to achieve a sense of safety and stability.  If you’re doubting your worth, you might not be aware of what you have the right to ask for to create a sense of safety in your marriage.  Resources like the “bill of rights” on Vicki Tidwell Palmer’s website, as well as her book Moving Beyond Betrayal, can help you identify what you have the right to ask for and begin to help you on the process of setting boundaries that honor your personal worth and value. 

Part of this process is recognizing legitimate rights related to your body. Acknowledging your right to say “no” to physical or sexual intimacy at any point and particularly in the early stages of recovery can honor your sexual self.

Explore your options.

Talk to your spouse about couples counseling or treatment, intensive opportunities, or other steps of support.  Seek out resources for legal and financial support if you are considering separating and want to pursue financial independence.  Read books and attend seminars on trauma and addiction to learn more about what you might be experiencing.  Seek out safe people in your life who can provide support and a listening ear.

Recognize your own patterns of denial.

Did you have a sense that something was off long before you discovered your spouse’s addiction?  Were there odd occurrences that you explained away or minimized because the thought that your partner might be an addict was too much to bear?  In a relationship without addiction, it makes sense to give your spouse the benefit of the doubt.  But when you discover addiction, rediscovering your intuition requires you to shift that pattern.

To better prepare yourself for future deception that may or may not occur, it is important to examine how your denial manifested itself: how did you explain away inconsistencies in behavior and words?  How have you taken on more of the blame for yourself rather than allowing the addict to own it? By exploring these thought patterns in yourself, you’ll begin to learn to trust your gut again. 

Connect the dots between past trauma and present-day emotional reactions.

Each betrayed partner has a different emotional response to the pain of the trauma.  These responses typically relate to your history: wounds from your family-of-origin, painful experiences in romantic relationships, or even trauma or abuse. 

Consider how the particular patterns of self-doubt you’re feeling are connected to insecurities that stem from your past.  Take the time to unearth longstanding patterns of self-talk that might be contributing to your lowered self-worth.  In this process, you may also uncover some dysfunctional patterns in relating that stem from your past experiences and begin to shift the way you connect with others.

Grieve the hurts without being consumed by them.

You will likely experience grief in waves that hit you for a time after the discovery of your partner’s addiction.  This grief can feel overwhelming and can lead you to a place of self-pity and hopelessness.  It can trigger shame and guilt and lead you further into doubting your self-worth. 

When you feel waves of grief threatening to overwhelm you, use that as an opportunity to acknowledge the reality of the circumstances that have contributed to the pain and redirect your attention to self-care and empowerment to change.  Accept the reality of what is outside of your control and commit to finding ways you can make changes that fit in alignment with your values. 

Recognize that sometimes doubt about self-worth masks the legitimate grief of finding out about the betrayal and having to make decisions about the future.  Staying in a place of self-doubt or shame can be a self-protective response, keeping you from having to face the hard realities of what comes next.

List your strengths.

Make a list of strengths you have which can uniquely help you to make it through this process of recovery.  If you have trouble writing a list, ask those in your support network, your family, or your friends to name strengths they see in you.  Take a strengths-based personality assessment to uncover which qualities of your personality will help you to get through this season.  Identify resources or strengths that you are growing and fostering to remind yourself that you have power to change what is within your control. 

Rediscover Your Self-Worth After Betrayal Trauma: Remember the Truth

When you’re caught up in self-doubt and questioning due to the recent discovery of your partner’s sex and love addiction, the line between what is real and what isn’t can be fuzzy at best.  Many of the explanations running through your mind affect your sense of self-worth as you attempt to understand what is impossible to understand.

 In Part 1 of this self-worth series, we identified thoughts and behaviors that are associated with low self-worth as a result of betrayal trauma.  In this article, we’ll cover some statements of truth that combat the swirling self-doubt and give you a supportive reality check. 

What is true?

When you’re being pummeled by these insecurities, it can help to remind yourself of some affirmations of truth about yourself and your partner’s addiction to ground you in reality. 

Your emotional response and reactions are normal.

You’ve experienced an intense trauma: survivors of betrayal trauma often demonstrate similar symptoms to those who have experienced sexual trauma or assault.  The feelings that come up in response to the betrayal are a reflection of the seriousness of the offense.  Even though you might feel crazy, what you’re experiencing is to be expected from the pain you’ve sustained.

The addiction isn’t about you. It is not your fault.

Sex and love addiction typically develops long before you and your partner meet. It originates as a form of coping with distressing feelings or discomfort.  Most addicts have a history of past trauma or abuse, which can be sexual in nature but also could be physical, emotional, or verbal. Addiction developed as a maladaptive way to cope with stress or pain caused by that trauma or abuse.

What if your relationship had problems beforehand and you can connect the addict’s desire to escape to the tension in the relationship? In this case, your partner still had a choice of how they would cope with that tension.  They did not have to choose addiction, but they did so because of a preprogrammed propensity that they had fostered through early experiences. 

Addiction is never satisfied, so you can never be “enough” for addiction.

When you begin to question whether you weren’t sexual enough for your spouse, remember that no amount of sex will fully satisfy a sex addict.  Many sex addicts believe that having more sex will solve their problems, but it never does.  Addiction is always in search of more and is never satisfied.  The concept of tolerance in addiction shows that what was once enough to provide a “high” eventually loses its intensity and the addict continually needs more to achieve the same effect.

Addicts are masters of denial and deception.

Addicts have years of practice hiding their behaviors so skillfully that no one could tell they were acting out.  They use techniques such as emotional manipulation and gaslighting to mask their behaviors and self-protect.  They will go to any lengths to protect their addiction, often acting in what seems to be contradictory ways to their proclaimed love for you as their partner.  They create an atmosphere to protect the addiction, whether consciously or subconsciously.  It’s crazy-making for you, but the smokescreen they put up explains why you couldn’t see it.

That being said, prior to discovery, you may have had moments when you felt like something was off or that your gut was telling you something was up.  Typically your concerns were met by your addicted partner with further denial and minimization, which may have led you to dismiss your intuition or question your reality.

You are worth spending time with.

In the aftermath of the discovery of betrayal, betrayed partners often feel isolated and alone.  You might be hesitating to contact friends or loved ones, which only adds to those feelings of isolation.  In addition, your insecurities may cause you to question your value in relationships and fear reaching out for support.  Believing that you are worth spending time with can help empower you to seek out your friends and family who can be supportive and safe during this time.

Beyond relationships with others, spouses of addicts lose a sense of their personal identity, whether that’s due to caring for children or caring for the addict.  Spending time with yourself becomes immensely important to reclaim yourself and your personal identity.  Learn who you are.  Spend time getting to know yourself as if for the first time because you are worth getting to know.

Your worth is not defined by external achievements or accomplishments.

When you’re still reeling from the discovery of your partner’s addiction, you probably weren’t the most productive person.  The impact of trauma can throw you off all parts of your daily routine.  Especially if you’re already someone who deals with perfectionistic tendencies, you might be overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy as you grapple with the crushing impact trauma has on your life.

Emphasizing external validation as the primary place you find your worth and value will consistently set you up for failure.  The solution is to recognize that your value and worth is inherent and cannot be influenced or taken away by what others think of you. 

The only person you can control is yourself.

Excessive focus on the addict and their behavior can lead to extreme swings in mood and thought patterns because addiction can be so crazy-making.  Instead, focusing on what’s within your control (your own thoughts, behaviors, choices, and emotions) and caring for those parts of you can help you to detach in a healthy way from the chaos of your partner’s addicted world.  This focus on yourself allows you to align your actions with your own value system, and it acknowledges that you are worthwhile enough to receive care and growth. 

Addicts live a double life and compartmentalize their addictive behavior.

Like the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, addicts often completely separate their addictive acting out behaviors from their normal life.  They dissociate emotionally from their “normal” life while acting out, often dealing with memory fog or fuzziness about specifics of their acting out behaviors afterward.  Your addicted partner could truly love you even while they were active in their addiction, despite their actions communicating something entirely different.

In our third and last installment of this self-worth series, we’ll explore what it means to empower yourself to take actions that affirm your self-worth.

Rediscover Your Self-Worth After Betrayal Trauma: Evaluate the Impact

For many partners of sex and love addicts, betrayal trauma from discovering affairs or addiction can bring up a flood of questions: why did this happen?  Am I not attractive enough for my partner?  Have I not been enough sexually?  Am I stupid for not seeing this sooner?  Did he/she ever really love me, or was it just a lie?

This panicked flurry of questions is an attempt for your mind to make sense of something that is senseless, to explain why the addiction occurred.  It is a natural response to the acute stress of the trauma and the mind’s natural tendency to try to understand what has just happened to you.  Unfortunately, many of these questions damage your sense of self-worth as they create misleading conclusions about the reasons for your partner’s addiction. 

Often, the self-doubt that hits you first is influenced by deeply-rooted insecurities that already exist in your heart.  For example, you may already struggle with self-consciousness about body image and your fluctuating weight because of teasing and body comparison in your teenage years.  If this is the case, discovering your partner’s addiction may lead you to compare your body to images in pornography or affair partners, creating hatred toward your body. Perfectionism, codependency, sexual issues, or aspects of your personality can create sources of self-doubt.

These doubts are made worse when the addict is still in denial over his or her addiction and points out flaws in you that divert attention away from the addiction.  Your spouse may blame physical changes or weight gain for not wanting to be intimate.  He or she may criticize your parenting or spending.  Before your discovery of the addiction, these accusations may have led you to question yourself and set you up for a pattern that continues even after you find out about the addiction.

Discovering a partner’s sex and love addiction or betrayal targets your pain points, adds a few new ones to the mix, and creates the perfect storm that can wreak havoc on your sense of self-worth.

Signs of Impact on Your Self-Worth

Consider the list below of common indicators of insecurity or self-doubt triggered by the discovery of addiction.  Which of these symptoms have you experienced?  How are they playing out in your relationship today? 

Ambivalence about staying or leaving in the relationship.

Ambivalence is not synonymous with indifference: rather, it is the experience of a push-and-pull between two different extremes that you want at the same time.  You may have felt disgusted and wanted to get away from your spouse, but less than an hour later you feel love for him or her and a desire to fix the issues in the marriage.  

When you have this push-and-pull of ambivalence, it is common to become self-critical and angry with yourself for wanting either extreme.  You might fear the judgment of others if you choose either option.  Feeling stuck in not knowing what to do creates a sense of shame and self-contempt that can reinforce your insecurities.

Mood swings between self-contempt and contempt toward the addict.

Similar to the ambivalence between staying or leaving, you might also flip-flop between extremes of hatred for the addict and contempt toward yourself.  You feel angry about what they have done to cause harm to you and your family, but then experience self-hatred for allowing yourself to be in a relationship with an addict.  You blame yourself for their choice to step out on the marriage because you feel inadequate, but then you feel rage at them for gaslighting you into believing that you were the problem.

Shame around sexual desires or negative beliefs about your sexual self.

In some cases, partners find themselves desiring to be sexual with their spouses after the discovery of addiction.  You might be motivated by a desire to secure your partner’s love or to prove that you are satisfying sexually.  Other partners start out wanting nothing to do with sexual intimacy with their spouses but find themselves confused when sexual desire does arise.  Either response can lead to shame, as sexual desire feels contradictory or minimizing to the impact of the betrayal trauma.

A partner’s sex addiction also has a unique impact on beliefs about your sexual self, namely communicating that you are not enough sexually for your spouse.  You can begin to question what you offer sexually and feel unattractive or unappealing.  Your sexual self (your masculinity or femininity) and identity are linked together so closely that betrayal in this sexual realm can deeply impact the core of who you are.

Comparison of your body to affair partners or pornographic images.

Many partners wonder why the addict was drawn to objectify or sexualize other people through pornography or affairs.  You might explain this by coming to the conclusion that you were not attractive enough, or that your partner is sexually interested in people who look different than you.  These insecurities can arise for partners who have a history of body image issues or are feeling dissatisfied with their weight and health, but it can also come up for those who have never felt concerned about their body image.

Feeling stupid or foolish for not knowing the addiction was happening.

How could I have missed this?  For many, the discovery of addiction occurs after the addicted spouse has been acting out for years.  Often, the addiction started long before the two of you met, although it may have escalated into more intensity while the two of you have been together.  You likely were blind to the addict’s sexual behaviors because of their skill at deception and dishonesty throughout the course of your relationship.  The shock of discovering the addiction may lead you to feel like you were stupid for missing it. The fear of being duped or fooled again can lead to difficulty trusting your partner. 

Believing the addiction was somehow your fault.

Despite the fact that the addiction likely existed long before you and the addict got together, you might find yourself struggling with self-blame and looking to your personal flaws and mistakes as justification for the addict’s actions.  You might believe the emotional manipulation and criticism your partner has shared toward you, or you might have insecurities based on abuse or harm from your past that tell you that you are unlovable or worthless.  You might notice a chorus of “if onlys” telling you that if you were different in some way, your partner wouldn’t have chosen their addiction.

Suicidal or homicidal thoughts.

At its most extreme, the hopelessness and depression that comes with the trauma of discovery can lead to thoughts of taking your own life.  Similarly, moments of rage toward your spouse can create thoughts or situations where you could do harm to him or others.  If you are experiencing suicidal or homicidal thoughts, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency facility.

Self-destructive behaviors.

Even if you haven’t gotten to the extreme of suicidal or homicidal thoughts, you may be engaging in self-destructive behaviors as a way to subtly punish yourself or to retaliate in a way that gives you a sense of control.  You might have your own affair or seek out the attention of others in response to finding out about the addiction.  You might escape into disordered eating for a sense of comfort.  You may relapse into your own addiction or find yourself turning to alcohol, drugs, or habits such as shopping or gambling as a way to get relief from the pain you’re feeling.

In future parts of this self-worth series, we’ll review statements of truth that contradict these sources of low self-worth and move you toward a more accurate view of yourself, as well as create a plan of empowerment and change for the future.

How to Cope With a Trauma Response: Part 1

Your day is progressing just like any other.  Waking up, getting the kids ready for school, going to work, preparing dinner…when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you’re hit with a flashback of the event.  You feel a pit in your stomach, sweat breaks out on your forehead, and you feel your heart rate spike.  You’re having trouble breathing, and you feel the urge to escape. 

If you have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or symptoms related to PTSD, you probably know this experience well.  Memories of the trauma or triggers that remind you of the event can send you into a tailspin: you’re fine one moment, then in a panic or shut down the next.  For partners who have experienced betrayal trauma, this response arises with triggers related to their addicted spouse’s behaviors.

The experience of a trauma response can be scary, as it often comes on suddenly and feels impossible to stop.  It can be exhausting to go through one of these experiences as your body goes into overdrive, trying to protect you from a threat that (often) isn’t there.  To cope with your response, you might shut down into a depression, lash out in anger or irritation at the people around you, collapse into grief and sadness, or turn inward with shame.

How do I know I’m having a trauma response vs. pure anxiety or panic?

There are several common symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that may come up when trauma resurfaces:

• Flashbacks to traumatic events (re-experiencing the memory as if it were happening now)

• Mood swings and emotional volatility

• Exaggerated startle response

• Avoiding certain triggers or activities that you used to find enjoyable

• Low self-esteem

• Isolation and withdrawal from others

Trauma shares symptoms with anxiety and/or panic attacks.  Anxiety often includes worries that are more future-oriented than trauma.  While it is true that some anxiety centers around worry about events from the past, trauma responses are different in that they can be traced back to a specific memory of a traumatic event.

Panic attacks can also arise as a result of trauma, with symptoms such as racing heart rate, sweating, feeling faint, nausea, and worry that you’ll die (often related to the heart rate symptoms).  If you experience these symptoms, be sure to meet with your doctor to rule out any underlying medical causes.  However, if there is no obvious medical cause, see if you can connect your reaction to a specific reminder of trauma (as in a trauma response), or notice if the panic arises seemingly out of nowhere (as in panic disorder).

How to Manage Trauma Responses

There are two stages to handling trauma responses.  First, you need strategies to bring yourself back into your window of tolerance by calming the physical and emotional reactions you’re having.  Once you’ve been able to calm and self-soothe, the next step involves exploring the cause of the traumatic response and some options for processing and addressing that trauma.  Today, in Part 1, we’ll talk about the first step: reducing the intensity of your initial response. 

Reduce the physical and emotional overwhelm caused by the initial hit of trauma.

You can’t think straight when you’re in the middle of a trauma response, as your body and mind take you out of your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain involved with decision-making, impulse control, and executive thinking) and move you into your limbic system (the emotional center; the fight-flight-freeze response).

In order to bring your thinking brain back online, it is necessary to calm down your nervous system enough to communicate to yourself that you don’t need to run from a threat, as the adrenaline response is prompting you to do.  Deep breathing, guided meditations, progressive muscle relaxation, grounding exercises, and other ways of calming down the nervous system are useful during these moments.

Use coping thoughts to calm your emotions.

Often, the traumatic event happened in the past and is not currently occurring, as in an experience of a car accident or a past experience of sexual assault.  In these cases, you can use words to remind yourself of your current distance from that painful experience.  They can help you ease the initial intensity of the trauma response.  These might include phrases like:

• I’m safe now, in this moment.

• I’m no longer in that situation.

• I can get through this.

• This too will pass.

• That was a painful experience, and I am not living it now.

But what if the trauma is ongoing?  When you are in a relationship with a sex or love addict who has betrayed you and are working the process of recovery, the traumatic experience may feel more present and real due to broken trust.  In those cases, it may be more helpful to use self-encouraging statements to affirm the strengths you have that are carrying you through.  These might include words like:

• I’ve been through painful moments before, and I’ve survived.

• I’m strong enough to handle this.

• I can’t control other people’s actions, but I can control my decisions and how I respond.

• I can handle this one day at a time.

• This is hard now, but in the long-term, I’m going to be okay.

Use a distraction technique.

If meditations and coping thoughts aren’t cutting it, use a distraction technique.  These are not meant to create unhealthy dissociation from your feelings or events, but instead are meant to help calm the intensity of your experience so that you aren’t as overwhelmed by it and can approach it with more curiosity.  It helps to think of this distraction as temporary, meant to bring your level of intense emotion down so that you can make sense of your reaction and respond differently. 

Using strategies popularized by dialectical-behavioral therapy (DBT) can help create this distraction.  Find an enjoyable activity that you can engage in for a period of time that takes your mind off the trigger.  Engage in a self-soothing behavior that helps you connect to your five senses.  Use the acronym ACCEPTS to help you connect with ways you can distract yourself from the distress. 

In Part 2, we’ll delve into how to explore and process the trauma response, creating tools to help you navigate its impact differently in the future.

Making Offers and Requests: Key Components of Rebuilding Trust after Sexual Betrayal

After the discovery of sex and love addiction in a relationship, the addicted partner often initially responds with promises to change their behavior.  This comes as a direct result of seeing the impact of the discovery on their betrayed partner: anger, grief, hurt and fear.

However, as time goes on, these promises can ring hollow. They came out of the addict having to face the consequences of their behavior in a crisis moment.  For the couple recovering from addiction, you might find that over time, the addict’s promises begin to fade and lose their urgency or importance.  For the partner that is rebuilding trust, this feels like a second wave of betrayal. 

Betrayed partners can respond in a few different ways to this discovery of addiction.  Some partners make threats to leave or divorce their spouse in the heat of the moment, disgusted and shocked by the betrayal.  Some avoid reminders of the addict’s behavior, coping by hiding from the painful emotions that arise when facing the addiction.  Others become hypervigilant, seeking information about their partner’s addiction in ways that border on obsessive.  Some partners become suspicious of the addict’s whereabouts and activities, trying to control their behaviors with demands.

Across the board, though, most betrayed partners are faced with uncertainty about how to move forward in their relationship or marriage.  They want to see changes in their addicted partner, and they want that change to be genuine and lasting, but they aren’t sure they can trust their partner’s words or actions.

This is where the language of offers and requests can come in handy when beginning to talk about rebuilding trust in the relationship. 

Offers

“Offers” are commitments to change specific behaviors done by the addicted partner and/or the betrayed partner as a way of rebuilding trust and honoring the relationship.  While offers may be informed by your partner or spouse’s desires, they are a way for each partner in the couple to take personal responsibility for their own actions.

Examples of offers include:

• I will attend individual and group therapy on a weekly basis specific to my sex and love addiction recovery.

• I will build accountability and support relationships through my 12 Step group, therapy group, or other supportive relationships.

• I will regularly identify and communicate my emotions to you in a way that is consistent with our work in couples therapy.

Guidelines for Offers

Ask for help.

If you’re having a hard time coming up with ideas on what to offer, ask your partner what he or she needs from you in the trust-rebuilding process.  You can also ask a therapist, sponsor, or supportive recovery friend, but the person who has the best sense of what they truly need is your partner. 

Take responsibility.

Look internally at your own role in creating problems in your relationship.  What are some of the ways you have failed to take responsibility for your own actions?  What would taking responsibility for them look like now?  Be willing to acknowledge your own wrongdoing and reasons trust might be broken in the relationship due to your actions or choices. 

Make them specific.

The more specific the offer, the more easily your partner can see that you are carrying it out, and the less likely they are to be disappointed.  Instead of saying, “I’ll go to therapy,” specify, “I’ll go to weekly individual therapy sessions with a therapist specializing in sex and love addiction treatment.”

Set a deadline.

If there are tasks that need to be completed in the trust-rebuilding process, set a certain date by which you plan to have those tasks done.  For example, if you offer to find a sponsor in your 12 Step fellowship, indicate a date by which you plan to have that sponsor (“I’ll ask someone to be my sponsor by the end of this month.”) 

What NOT to Offer

Instead of specific statements of intention, addicted partners often make more global, sweeping claims like, “I’ll do anything you want me to do,” or “I’ll do whatever it takes to save our relationship/marriage.”  A broad statement like this can be interpreted in many different ways, and often the variance in interpretation creates expectations and disappointment when there isn’t follow-through on those promises.  These statements are also often untrue: once the initial shock of discovery wears off, you may find that you aren’t willing to do everything your partner requests and would like to have room to negotiate or create compromise. 

Also, avoid using these offers as a bargaining chip, saying, “I’ll offer this if you’ll offer that.”  Offers are not meant to be a tool to manipulate or force the hand of your partner.  This sets up a distorted power dynamic that can lead to bitterness and resentment.  Any offer you make needs to be one that you are willing to carry out regardless of your partner’s response.

Requests

“Requests” are desires or wants for the recovery process that the betrayed partner and/or the addicted partner communicate to one another.  They differ from demands because there is room for discussion, negotiation, or refusal of the requests.  As partners can respond to requests in a variety of ways (yes, no, or negotiation), the partner who is making the request must be open to the possibility of receiving a response they don’t expect or that challenges their request. 

An important note here: requests are different from non-negotiable boundaries.  Non-negotiable boundaries are around behaviors that, if the addicted partner carried them out, would lead you to end the relationship.  Vicki Tidwell Palmer specifies the difference between non-negotiable boundaries and requests in an article that may help to clarify the difference for yourself. 

Examples of requests include:

• I would like to request that we pursue couples therapy together.  Are you willing to do so?

• I would like to request that we have a weekly date night where we can begin to connect on topics unrelated to addiction recovery.  Are you willing to plan those date nights?

• I would like to request that we have an age-appropriate conversation with our children about our addiction recovery.  Are you willing to have a conversation with me and our therapist planning that discussion?

Guidelines for Requests

Identify what helps you gain trust.

What would help you regain trust in the relationship?  Are there any recovery-related behaviors to which you’d like to see your partner commit?  Using a resource like Vicki Tidwell Palmer’s book Moving Beyond Betrayal can help you clarify your needs and identify what you want to request.  Talk to your therapist or other support individuals, as they may provide other resources to help you discern what you’re wanting from your partner.

Prepare for “no” and negotiation.

When you make a request, it is important to remember that your spouse has the right to say “no” or to ask for a compromise.  Prepare for how you might feel with each possible response.  Decide for yourself how important these wants or needs are for you and identify alternative options you’re willing to discuss as well as self-care behaviors you may need to use if your partner is unwilling to carry out one of your requests.

Keep a written record of agreements.

When you have conversations in which you make requests, write down any agreement you come to, whether it is a “yes” to your request or a compromise the two of you have arrived at together.  Having this written record will serve a few purposes.  It will help you look back periodically to review your progress together as a couple.  It can highlight changes that have happened to encourage trust.  It can also bring you back into alignment if you’ve gotten off track from the agreements you’ve made.

Take caution: this record of agreements isn’t meant to be a weapon to wave in front of your partner’s face when they aren’t complying.  If you do have a written list and things are out of alignment, approach a conversation about it with curiosity and patience rather than demands or anger.  If you worry that you won’t be able to maintain that openness, consider having this discussion together with your couples therapist in a therapy session. 

What NOT to Do

It is easy to slip away from the concept of requests into demands or ultimatums.  Demands do not allow your partner to make a choice about their behavior.  Ultimatums are often an attempt to control or manipulate your partner.  Using demands and ultimatums sets up a distorted power dynamic in which you are like the parent and your partner is like a child.  In order to be two adults on equal footing in a relationship, there needs to be balance in the power dynamic. 

Refrain from making requests that are meant to punish or chastise your partner.  Similar to demands or ultimatums, trying to punish your partner creates an unhealthy, imbalanced power dynamic. A good measure for making requests is identifying what your personal needs are and how your partner can support you in meeting those needs.  You should never be in a position where you are responsible for your partner’s recovery or change: the only person you can be responsible for is yourself.

The Balance of Offers and Requests

Typically, the addicted partner will need to make more “offers” while the betrayed partner makes more “requests” early on in the recovery process.  However, it is good practice to spend time with the reversal.  Betrayed partners, look for offers you can make to work on your own healing or address your responsibility in conflicts or issues in the relationship.  Addicted partners, consider requests you can make to help you support your partner more effectively and rebuild trust with greater ease.

Having an Offers and Requests Discussion

When you decide as a couple to present your offers and requests to your spouse for the first time, it is best to do in the context of a couples therapy session.  Each partners should create lists of both requests and offers, regardless of if you are the addicted partner or the betrayed partner.

As you sit down and walk through your lists together, be open to compromise and willing to talk through potential alternatives so that you can come to an agreement.  Resist the tendency to become defensive and instead try to have empathy for your partner’s perspective.  Use the phrase “help me understand” when you’re having trouble empathizing, then repeat back what you heard to be sure you’re understanding correctly.  Using conversation frameworks from John Gottman’s Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, such as Dreams Within Conflict and the Art of Compromise, to aid you in this discussion.