Category: Getting started

What to do when you can’t deal with your partner’s porn addiction anymore

February 7, 2023 / Pamela Houston

Your significant other knows you don’t like him using porn, Only Fans, thirst traps on social media, dating sites, escort pages – but he doesn’t seem to care. You’ve been told, “It’s normal,” “All men do it,” or that you’re controlling, insecure, and jealous. But you’ve had enough. You’ve hit rock bottom. You can’t deal with the lies and the disregard for your feelings anymore. What now?

See to your own emotional needs

After our last d-day, I thought he was the one who needed therapy and outside help since he was the addict and the person who broke promises.

Well, I wasn’t wrong. He did need therapy and outside help. But so did I.

I thought that the simple absence of him acting out with addict behaviors would be enough to help me feel better, given enough time. This was not the case. I had grown used to rug-sweeping the big things that bothered me (not just in my marriage!), hoping that if I ignored my big painful feelings, they would disappear and stop being uncomfortable.

This has never been an effective approach for me, though I spent most of my life doing it over and over in the hopes that it would work this time. It never did. After d-day, I realized I needed to see to my own emotional needs with an expert guide – my therapist – and not just expect the whole thing to blow over on its own.

Of course, you can try to DIY this thing, and you may succeed. However, it will be easier if you have outside support and guidance to help you navigate this intensely personal, difficult situation.

Therapy

When we experienced our last d-day two years ago, my husband’s company had recently laid him off. We had been living solely on my (meager) income and credit cards for a couple of months. We didn’t have money for therapy, and even if we did, he needed the therapist more than I did. I figured I could just get by on my own as I’d always done.

Resist the urge to do this to yourself. Find the money for therapy if you possibly can. Engage an individual therapist for you and ask your partner to find a separate therapist for himself. For you, see a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT) or a therapist who is a member of the Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists (APSAT). A regular garden-variety therapist may not consider porn use problematic or may try to tell you that you have contributed to your situation with your own behaviors.

Do yourself a favor and make sure that your therapist is experienced in guiding partners of sex and porn addicts through the challenges of betrayal trauma. If a therapist you’re talking to or working with mentions codependency as a contributor to your present situation, run.

The codependency model for navigating healing for sex and porn addiction is outdated and, in my opinion, harmful to the betrayed partner. You may be codependent, but that is not a cause of your partner’s porn or sex addiction, and you are not a co-addict. You want your therapist to operate with you using the betrayal trauma model of counseling. You can address additional mental health issues (like codependency) once you’ve gotten your feet under you after the betrayal trauma you’ve experienced.

Support groups

Peer groups composed of others who have experienced betrayal trauma due to their partners’ addictions can be incredibly beneficial. I remember feeling so alone in the early days; I had immersed myself so deeply in my relationships with my husband and kids that I had neglected friendships and let them die off. When d-day rolled around, I felt I had no one to turn to for support.

Joining peer groups helped me with that. I ultimately wound up cultivating friendships with women who understood what I was experiencing, and several of them are still close friends.

At various points in the first year of recovery, I joined several private groups of 6-8 women whose partners were porn/sex addicts. The groups were book study-process groups facilitated by CSATs (the CSATs in my local area all know each other and promote each other’s groups, so my CSAT told me about groups her colleagues were running). These group meetings ran from 6-12 weeks, and because we were in the throes of Covid, all took place on Zoom.

The groups I joined were not free. The therapist running the first group I joined gave me a price break when I told her my husband was not working and money was tight. If you find a group in which you’d like to participate, but the cost seems too great, tell the person facilitating the group about your circumstances. You may or may not get a price break. Still, it doesn’t hurt to ask, especially given how invaluable the experience can be if you feel isolated or unsure about navigating the healing process.

There are also free support groups, many modeled after Al-Anon and other 12-step groups for the partners of addicts. S-Anon is one such program. I have not participated in any 12-step groups for partners of addicts, but I know several people who swear by the support and growth they’ve experienced in S-Anon.

Be aware that most 12-step programs use language about a “higher power,” sometimes interpreted as belief in a god. Often the interpretation of a higher power in this context in western countries is of the Christian god.

Your higher power does not have to be any god or deity. You may determine your own more appropriate higher power if you are not religious but feel that a 12-step group like S-Anon would be helpful to you. Your higher power could be the Universe, the group itself, an aspirational version of your Best Self, or anything else from which you draw comfort or a sense of power.

You can also try Bloom for Women, which is an online course designed to help you begin healing from the trauma you’ve experienced as a result of your partner’s addictive behaviors. Though I have not used this course, I’ve heard great things about it. Not all the modules are free, but getting started there is.

Self-care

The tactics and tools I wrote about in my post, “Things to do when you’re feeling intense and raw,” aren’t just for emergencies. Learning how to ground yourself, be present, sit with your feelings as they are, meditate, and journal are all, in my experience, helpful as sustained practices.

Center yourself

Center yourself right now. Identify your feelings and needs, and then address those needs with all gentleness and love toward yourself. You cannot pour from an empty cup. See to your emotional needs first and foremost before you worry about him, your relationship, or anything else. Put the oxygen mask on so you can catch your breath and make good choices for yourself that will support your emotional health.

Brush up on your boundaries

Setting boundaries with your partner is critical! It can be hard to do – I felt like a big jerk at first – but all healthy relationships have boundaries.

You explicitly place boundaries in your relationship to keep you emotionally and physically safe. When you identify a boundary that you would like to place, you should communicate that boundary to the other person. If that person fails to respect your boundaries, there should be a correlating action that you will take to reinforce that boundary and create safety for yourself.

For example, one of my first boundaries with my husband was to ask him not to take devices into the bathroom with him. I posed this boundary as a direct request: “I would like for you to leave your device where I can see it when you go to the bathroom.” My husband agreed to that boundary, and at that point, the boundary operated as a contract between us.

Should my husband take his device into the bathroom with him, he would be violating my boundary, and it is up to me to enforce it with a correlating action.

My husband hasn’t violated the no-device boundary, but he has broken other boundaries to which he agreed, and I have had to reinforce my boundary with consequences. When my husband violates my boundaries, it isn’t business as usual after that. There must be a corresponding action to show him I’m serious about my boundaries.

Resist the urge to turn the volume up to 11 on boundary consequences. It can be tempting, especially when you’re feeling intense emotions, to say, “If you do XYZ again, I’m leaving you for good!” But that leaves you very little wiggle room if your partner inadvertently violates a boundary. It took my husband months to “get it” and stop accidentally trampling my boundaries, even when he was trying to be a better partner; this is common for addicts newly on the wagon. The consequences you set for boundary violations should be proportional.

One of the consequences I use when my husband stomps my boundaries (usually inadvertently, like a bull in a china shop) is temporarily detaching from him/the relationship. If my husband has behaved in a way that violates a boundary I’ve stated and he’s agreed to, I usually ask for some space from him to take care of myself and give him a chance to reflect so he can do better.

Our relationship can’t continue as usual while I’m activated and upset by the boundary violation. I often find that I don’t want to be relational with him at all when he’s trampled a boundary. So I detach from him, both of us understanding that it will be temporary. I process my feelings and determine what will help me feel better again.

Sometimes what will help me feel better is taking additional space to let myself cool down and let the intensity of my feelings recede. Sometimes, refining the boundary will help me feel better, so he’s clearer about my expectations and wants. Sometimes an apology and discussion demonstrating he understands why I’m upset helps me feel better and more relational. You can adjust your boundaries and consequences to serve you best – remember to communicate them clearly to your partner if the limits change.

You can ask for any boundary that will help you feel safer or enable your partner to demonstrate his desire to rebuild trust with you. Some of my early boundaries included:

No more porn or porn substitutes, obviously
No devices in the bathroom
He leaves his phone on my nightstand at night
He takes ownership of our check-ins with each other and initiates them daily
He pays for all my group sessions and half of my therapy sessions
Rigorous honesty at all times, with both me and others

We have continued refining these boundaries together as my needs have changed over time. For instance, he stopped using porn substitutes but threw himself into crossword puzzles and solitaire instead. I found this problematic because he was pouring 4-6 hours a day into these useless pursuits on a screen instead of looking for a job or participating in recovery activities. So I refined my boundary request to include other screen-oriented time wasters that he was substituting for the porn he’d used when he was active in his addiction. You can change your boundaries and the correlating actions you’ll take if your partner violates them at any time, but remember to communicate them to your partner.

It can be hard to set boundaries. Many women are socialized to put their needs and wants aside for others. Many of us may not have learned how to create healthy boundaries. Near the beginning of The Situation, I felt like such an asshole asking for my emotional needs to be considered and met. I felt bossy and bitchy, and it didn’t feel good. With practice, though, I recognize that I am now assertive about advocating for my needs and wants, and that is a good thing.

I will almost certainly write in greater depth about boundaries and consequences later, because learning to set, share and enforce my boundaries has been one of the greatest gifts I’ve given myself on this journey. Until then, I encourage you to read Vicki Tidwell Palmer’s Moving Beyond Betrayal: The 5-Step Boundary Solution for Partners of Sex Addicts. This book, recommended by my CSAT, was the single most actionable book I read (and in the first year after d-day, I read a lot of books about porn addiction and how to recover from betrayal trauma). Palmer also hosts a podcast, “Beyond Bitchy,” and her website offers helpful blog posts, as well as access to the groups she runs for betrayed partners to complement her work.

Recognize what’s within your control and what’s not

The d-day that my husband and I experienced two years ago was not our first d-day. Each time before that that I had shared with my husband how I felt about his porn use, I thought that his understanding my feelings and hearing me would be sufficient to get him to stop.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. It was never effective.

He cared about me, but his porn addiction, which he’d had for decades before he knew me, was most important to him. The addiction won every time before our last d-day because he wasn’t ready to stop.

It wasn’t until the most recent d-day that I was willing to enforce boundaries for myself surrounding his porn use. I believe that he felt how serious I was about it this time, that I would no longer accept lip service and lies from him and continue the relationship. I think this realization is part of the reason that he came to a place two years ago of being willing to address his addictions. He was afraid I would leave, and that lit a fire under him.

Just as you’ve reached your rock bottom and are now ready to take action, your addicted partner will have to get to a point where he says, “Enough. I’m ready to do the hard work to face and address my addiction.”

It must be the addicted partner’s choice to begin working on the addiction problem. Your wanting it so badly for him and the health of your relationship will make no difference until he is ready to address the matter. Your addicted partner must want to stop using porn (at least on some level) to set his foot on a path to real recovery. He must start wanting recovery for himself (and not simply because he’s afraid of what will happen with you if he doesn’t check the boxes) to achieve any sustainable success.

You cannot control your partner, at all, full stop. You can’t control what he thinks, watches, wants or does. Only your partner can control your partner. And you can only control yourself and your responses to the vicissitudes of life.

After our last d-day, I threw myself into consuming all the resources.

I believe I subconsciously thought that I could read and absorb all the books about porn addiction and betrayal trauma, and then share my learnings with my husband, and that would flip a switch and he’d stop using porn and that would be that. And then we’d live happily ever after, forever and ever amen.

The only thing I accomplished in my 24/7 obsession with resources was burning myself out. I spent at least as much effort and time searching out resources for him as I did looking for resources to help myself. It was kinda like the nudes I’d sometimes sent him in the past to try to keep him from seeking out porn – he never used those either.

Spend your efforts on yourself. Read and listen to resources that help you, rather than trying to find the book, blog post, or podcast that will resonate with him and help him see the light.

You cannot make your addicted partner see the light. He has to see the light for himself for any change to have a lasting effect. This is an immutable fact, and the sooner you can internalize it, the better for your emotional health. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

Lead yourself to the water. Drink deeply, but pace yourself. Recognize that you are the only person you can control. Focus on you and your healing. Keep your eyes on the prize. Hint: YOU are the prize.

Things to do when you’re feeling intense and raw

January 24, 2023 / Pamela Houston

When you’ve just discovered your partner has been lying to you about their porn or sex addiction – this discovery is often called “d-day” – you’re likely to feel intensely hurt, angry, or sad. These extremely raw feelings can be tough to regulate in the moment. I remember, especially in the first six to nine months after d-day, that these feelings would flare up like a wildfire, and they often felt equally hard to contain. Sometimes I was in such high emotion that I felt crazy.

It doesn’t happen as often for me now that I have some healing under my belt and the passage of time has done its thing. I’ve built out a kit with a number of self-soothing tools to enable me to move through the burning flames of my most intense feelings to a place closer to my center, and I’d like to share some of those tools with you for when your feelings are most raw and painful.

Remember that the intensity of these feelings is temporary.

Remind yourself of this every time the feelings start spinning up. Every. Time. Remind yourself as often as you need to. Make it your mantra and say it out loud if you need to:

This is temporary. I will not always feel this intensely. This pain will not always feel this raw.

In the moment’s intensity, this may not feel true, but I promise you, it is. All things and feelings, good or bad, are temporary. If you let them pass in their own time, they will.

You will not always feel as profoundly and keenly pained as you do in this moment. The feeling will subside. It may not go away entirely, but it will not always feel this terrible, this paralyzing, as it does when it’s most intense. Pinky promise.

Ground yourself in the present moment

The most intense feelings from my betrayal trauma are often rooted in the past or the future, but usually not in the present moment. I get triggered thinking about my husband’s past behaviors and feel intense anger or sadness. Or I get caught up in fears about the future – what if he does it to me again? What if I find out he’s hiding it better and lying about it again? What if, what if, what if…

By rooting myself in the present moment, I turn away from the unchangeable past and the unknowable future, and I focus on what I can do for myself right here, right now, in the present moment.

Returning to the present moment doesn’t wipe away my feelings and make things A-OK immediately. I still feel the feelings, but the intensity sometimes comes down when I bring myself back to the present, and that often gives me the space to figure out what I need to do next.

There are myriad ways of grounding yourself in the present moment. I’ve listed a few I like to use below.

Meditation

I’ve been Buddhish for almost twenty years, so when my therapist recommended I re-engage with meditation, it was a familiar place.

Meditation has been a hot topic in the mainstream for many years and can be used to address emotional distress. If you have a vision of hours of cross-legged sitting humming “Om,” think again. A meditation practice doesn’t have to be that much of a thing.

When I’m in high distress, I prefer guided meditations. Sometimes I like to find a reflection to address the particular emotion I’m feeling – anger, for instance. Other times, a self-compassion meditation fits the bill.

If you have trouble meditating with your eyes closed or following your breath or the guiding voice in a guided meditation, try lighting a candle and placing it before you. Focus your attention on the flickering candle flame to keep you engaged with your meditation.

Even 60 seconds of focus on your breath, the soft voice of a compassionate meditation guide, or another object of focus can bring you back to the present moment and to a place where you can begin moving through the intensity of your feelings.

I have enjoyed using Headspace for meditation and Calm for sleep stories and immersive sounds while I’m meditating. My favorite meditation app – loaded with tons of free content from meditation thought leaders – is Insight Timer.

Other grounding exercises

Try these shorter exercises if launching a meditation practice feels like too much commitment.

Literal grounding

Close your eyes. Notice your body where you are sitting or lying. Notice every point where a part of your body touches something else (your hand resting on your leg, your bottom pressed into the chair’s cushion). Scan your body and the physical sensations you’re experiencing: the warmth in your cheeks from your heightened emotions, your quickened heartbeat, the feelings of your breath in and out of your nose, the sensations of your body in contact with furniture or the floor. Place your feet on the floor and feel them connecting with the ground if possible. You’re literally grounding yourself here, as if your feet are the roots of a great tree, rooted in the physical present. Stay in this moment, grounded and present, as long as you need to.

Grounding yourself with your senses

Notice your space. Find and name five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. The combination of counting and finding things brings me sharply back into the present moment.

Another exercise I like is to close my eyes and listen, then name all the different sounds I can hear. Right now, I can hear the whoosh of the furnace fan, my husband clicking on a spreadsheet he’s working on for work, and the sounds of my keystrokes as I write this. My dog is snoring. I am aware of what is happening in the space I inhabit. I am fully present in my physical space, and my emotional state is more manageable when I am entirely in the present moment.

Take care of yourself

Self-care can take many forms, and what you find helpful depends on what makes you feel calm, safe, and content.

Self-compassion

Despite what I just said about self-care being variable, self-compassion is a universal need. Every person is worthy of feeling self-compassion.

People who are hurting need to express self-compassion and kindness toward themselves. Practicing being gentle with yourself when you are in pain is a critical skill to refine as you learn to bring yourself back to a center where you feel comfortable with yourself and your feelings. This will give you the power of self-validation, an invaluable tool in centering yourself regardless of what your significant other does or doesn’t do.

When you feel shitty or crazy or heartbroken or full of rage or any other raw, intense emotion because of your partner’s porn addiction behaviors and lies, treat yourself as kindly as you would a beloved friend or family member experiencing the same feelings of betrayal.

If someone you loved was experiencing the feelings you’re feeling right now, you wouldn’t tell them to suck it up, get over it, or brush it to the side and carry on. You would let that loved person cry on your shoulder and vent their feelings. You would hug them (or hold them tenderly in your thoughts if they’re not the hugging type). You would hear them and validate their feelings and offer them comfort.

Do the same things for yourself. You may not love yourself as much as you love your beloved friend or family member, but try. You are worthy of self-love. You are worthy of gentle kindness when you’re feeling difficult feelings. Hold space for yourself. Be compassionate toward yourself.

Kristin Neff is an expert on cultivating self-compassion in an unforgiving world. I strongly recommend her book, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself,” if you’d like to explore more about building your self-compassion skill.

Feel your feelings

This is another universal one. I think it’s a human impulse to want to run away from unpleasant feelings or to brush them aside and hope they’ll go away if they’re out of sight.

Resist this urge.

Soak in it. Sit in that feeling. Sit with it. Let it be what it’s going to be, for as long as it needs to be. Create room for it. Acknowledge the feeling – identify it and figure out where it came from, if possible – but even if you can’t figure out where it’s coming from, accept that the feeling is with you, and then embrace it if you can.

I envision a little room in my heart where this Feeling can hang out while it sorts itself out. My visualization includes a comfy little chair for the Feeling and a side table where it sets its teacup. The Feeling may also have access to a little ottoman so it can put up its feet if needed, and a rug to really tie the room together.

Don’t worry – the Feeling won’t move in permanently if you create space for it. I was always afraid that it would stay forever if I let it make itself too much at home, but I have found that these challenging feelings actually go away faster if I create a space for them and let them run their course than if I try to brush them aside and pretend that I’m feeling OK.

I have discovered that if I let the feeling be what it is for as long as it needs to, it usually only takes a couple of days to resolve and vacate – on its own. When I was more in the habit of brushing away uncomfortable feelings, it sometimes seemed like the feeling had gone away, but it would then rush up later at unexpected times, having been simmering away inside me unresolved, festering and growing larger and messier than it was in the first place.

Trust me, feel the feelings. Accept them. Visualize riding a wave as the feelings wash over you. Keep your head above water with meditation, self-care, and the tactics below, but don’t try to outswim the pain. Stay with it; let it be what it needs to be. After decades of unsuccessfully rug-sweeping my uncomfortable feelings, I promise this is the better way.

Process the feelings

It may be helpful for you to start processing the feelings as you’re feeling them.

Identify and name what you’re feeling.

A feelings wheel can help you narrow down the nuances of what you’re feeling. Did you know that anger is usually a secondary emotion?

Identify what caused the feeling to arise in you.

Did your partner say something insensitive? Is your partner not making you feel heard? Did you trigger yourself with a thought from the past?

Once you’ve identified what you’re feeling, try to figure out what stirred up the emotion you’re experiencing. What will help you address the root cause of these complicated feelings? Consider what you can do to help soothe these feelings and what steps you can take to tend to the problem that created these emotions in you.

Journal

I’ve kept a journal, off and on, for decades. I have a terrible memory, so writing things down helps me keep an accurate record of what has happened. Tracking disagreements can be helpful if your partner is prone to gaslighting you. Writing about what I’m feeling can help me identify the why and what my next steps to take care of myself should be. Keeping a journal enables me to reread how I moved through previous intense emotional situations and gives me an anchor when I’m feeling raw and crazy. Even intermittently, I’ve found keeping a journal exceptionally helpful in my journey beyond d-day.

Spend time with someone you trust

I didn’t have friends when I discovered my husband had lied to me for our entire relationship. I had turned all my attention inward to my husband and kids, and hadn’t maintained friendships. I felt utterly alone on d-day and for several months afterward until I could build a network of friendly people as my external support system.

If you don’t have people you trust, start building that network. I made mine by joining private groups run by local Certified Sex Addiction Therapists (CSATs). I grew very close to some of the other women in those groups and am friends with them now. Until I grew those friendships, my CSAT, whom I saw individually, helped me process some of my most uncomfortable emotions.

If you have friends and family you can share your emotional distress with, know that you don’t have to tell them everything that is happening to ask for comfort. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing that your partner is a porn addict or sex addict, that’s OK. You can express the feelings you’re having and ask for comfort, an ear, or whatever it is you want them to provide. You don’t have to go into detail if you don’t wish to. What you disclose and to whom is entirely up to you.

In the US, if you feel suicidal, you can text or call 988 to access the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. It’s open 24 hours and it’s free. Here’s what to expect when you call a hotline.

Distract yourself

If you aren’t ready to process your feelings and they’re too intense to sit with, distract yourself, preferably with something pleasant that doesn’t tax you. This is where self-care gets quite specific and individual. Here are some ideas that have worked for me in the past.

Take a bath – A long soak with luxurious bubbles, a candle, and a book, podcast, or show often helps me feel more relaxed and together.
Play a game – Immersing myself in Animal Crossing or a Pokemon game sometimes helps me feel more chill.
Binge a show – Two or five episodes of a gripping show can sometimes help knock down the intensity of a feeling.
Take a walk or have a workout – Exercise increases the levels of happy chemicals in your brain, including serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Plus, you get the stress-reducing benefits of endorphins (and Vitamin D if you walk outside – wear sunscreen, though!).
Put on some loud music and dance it out See above.
Meditate or do some mindfulness exercises – Also see above.
Be creative – If you have a hobby, throwing yourself into a project can take your mind off the intensity of your distress.
Throw ice cubes – Yeah, seriously. Take a cupful of ice cubes outside and smash them on the pavement (out of walkways or other places smashed ice could be problematic). Sometimes when you’re angry, it feels good to break something.
Go out with friends – Have a date with yourself and your besties.
Go out by yourself – Take yourself on a date. You are your own best company!
Do anything you like when you’re not in distress– Bonus points if it is healthy and non-self-destructive. For example, you can be forgiven for drinking about your feelings, but ultimately, getting drunk about a problem isn’t going to fix it and may make you feel worse about it. To the extent possible, distract yourself in non-toxic ways – it’s kinder to yourself. But if your cope isn’t exactly healthy, try not to give yourself too hard a time about it. This shit is hard, and you’re in the thick of it. See above about self-compassion.

So, in summary, when you’re feeling so crazy you wanna tear your hair out, so angry that you want to punch a hole in the wall, or so sad that you just want to curl into a little ball and stop existing, first remind yourself that the intensity of these feelings is temporary. Try to stay in the present moment, experience the emotion as fully as you can tolerate, and be gentle with yourself until the intensity of the feeling has dimmed enough for you to manage it. Ride the wave each time the challenging feeling swells up. The seas will calm, and you will be in a better place to figure out what to do next. You got this.