• Home
  • Courses
  • Book
  • Blog
  • About
  • Member Login

Vicki Tidwell Palmer

  • Home
  • Courses
  • Book
  • Blog
  • About
  • Member Login
×
  • Home
  • Courses
  • Book
  • Blog
  • About
  • Member Login

Doesn’t He Have to Want It [Recovery] for Himself?

March 29, 2015

As a betrayed partner, you want your unfaithful spouse to want to change . . . . from the inside out.

Changing from the inside out means he wants to get better for himself — not because you, or anyone else, are breathing down his neck. You’d like to know that he would commit to changing his behavior even if he wasn’t in a relationship with you.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case for sex addicts—or any addict—in the aftermath of discovery.

Addicts usually attempt to bargain with the addiction and the people in their life who are unhappy about it by engaging in a few half-hearted new behaviors while simultaneously holding on to the old, addictive ones.

It’s completely understandable that you, as a partner, long to know that your spouse genuinely wants to get better for his own sake. However, I encourage you to focus on his actions rather than his level of motivation, reasons for change, or his words.

Think of a time in your life when you wanted to change a behavior. Maybe you wanted to lose weight, exercise more regularly, change your eating habits, or just wanted to learn a new skill. Did you always want to go to the gym, make the healthy food choice, or sit down to practice the guitar? Probably not.

Changing an addictive behavior is a series of minute-by-minute—sometimes second-by-second—decisions.

The internal pull toward an ingrained, addictive habit that’s been years in the making takes an intense level of focus, determination, and effort. An addict must replace his addictive pattern with new, healthy, and life-affirming habits and behaviors.

The experience of addiction recovery is similar to the stages of grief formulated by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. The 5 stages are:

  1. Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

Notice that acceptance is the last stage.

For an addict, acceptance comes when he is at peace with the reality that he will be engaged in a recovery process for the rest of his life. He is no longer burdened with frequent and intense feelings of shame, and no longer perceives himself as a victim for “having” to be in recovery.

When an addict reaches acceptance, he enjoys attending 12-step meetings, meeting with his sponsor, and engaging in fellowship with other recovering addicts. He answers your questions and listens to how his actions impact you with little or no defensiveness.

You will know when your spouse has changed—at the core—by his attitude toward recovery activities and the lessening of his overall defensiveness about the need to engage in ongoing repair and rehabilitation of your relationship.

These changes take time.

The common wisdom about recovery from sex addiction is that it takes 3 to 5 years for an addict to get grounded in a good, solid recovery plan. My experience working with sex addicts and their partners for more than a decade confirms this piece of common wisdom.

If you related to the examples I mentioned earlier about changing an old, bad habit or creating a new one in your own life, I’d like you to ask yourself what motivated you to begin?

People often embark on a new exercise program or a change in their eating habits because they think it will cause others to feel or think differently about them. We’re often initially motivated by external factors like getting someone’s approval, avoiding judgment, or trying to prove to others—or maybe even ourselves—that we’re worthy.

But what we usually find—if we stick to our new, healthier habit long enough—is that we feel better because of the sense of accomplishment, increased confidence, and overall good feeling we get as a result of our efforts. The goal that initially motivated us becomes a by-product rather than the driving force behind our new behavior.

It’s the same with addiction recovery. Addicts rarely seek help on their own without the motivation of external pressure. They typically begin their recovery journey to avoid conflict, placate, or simply get someone off their back.

But take heart. I encourage you to focus on what your spouse is doing rather than on how he feels about it or what he says about it, especially in the first year of recovery.

If your unfaithful spouse follows a recovery path—even if it’s kicking, screaming, and full of unattractive self-pity in the beginning—he will find over time that a life unburdened by guilt, shame, and deception is worth the effort.

As you navigate through this painful and difficult process, I encourage you to seek support and encouragement from trusted friends, groups specifically for betrayed partners, online communities, your counselor or therapist, and other helpful resources.

 


If you’d like to receive blog posts just as soon as they happen, enter your email address now in the Subscribe to Blog via Email form on the right of this page. And if there’s a topic you’d like me to address in future articles, please enter it in the Comments section below.

All submitted comments are subject to editing to protect confidentiality and maintain anonymity. Submitted comments containing profanity, offensive language, or otherwise objectionable material will not be published.

© Vicki Tidwell Palmer, LCSW (2015)

Survival Strategies for Betrayed Partners blog articles are protected by U.S. copyright laws, and may not be reproduced, distributed, or re-published without written permission of the author.

Related

Screen Shot 2016-05-18 at 12.06.02 PM

Ready to to identify, create, and maintain effective boundaries?

Enter your name and email below to download the fillable PDF 5-Step Boundary Solution Clarifier to record your work.

About Vicki

Vicki is the best-selling author of Moving Beyond Betrayal, host of the Beyond Bitchy Podcast: Mastering the Art of Boundaries, and blogger for Thriving After Betrayal blog, ranked one of the Top 15 Infidelity Blogs and Websites to Follow in 2019. Her latest project, unveiled on International Women’s Day 2020, is The Radiant Threefold Path | Return+Reclaim+Receive.  read more…

Moving Beyond Betrayal

Categories

  • Addiction & Recovery
  • Boundaries
  • Disclosure
  • For Addicts
  • For Couples
  • Inspiration & Hope
  • Rebuilding Trust
  • Trauma & Partners

Recent Posts

  • Time to Thrive
  • Life Can Only Be Found in the Present Moment
  • Healing Begins With You
  • An Open Letter to Betrayed Male Partners
  • 5 Ways to Deprive the Past of Oxygen

Subscribe to Blog

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Moving Beyond Betrayal & Boundaries

The Book, “Moving Beyond Betrayal”

The 5-Step Boundary Solution Clarifier

Reading & Online Resources

Beyond Bitchy Podcast: Mastering the Art of Boundaries

Online Courses & Support for Partners Moving Beyond Betrayal

Formal Therapeutic Disclosure/Polygraph Presentation Bundle

Moving Beyond Betrayal Clinicians & Coaches Course

For Women Ready for the Next Phase of Healing

Explore The Radiant Threefold Path

Read Latest Posts from The Radiant Threefold Path Blog

Learn about The Radiant Threefold Path | Return+Reclaim+Receive

Get the FREE Invitation to the Path

Connect with Vicki

Instagram

Facebook

YouTube

Contact

© Copyright 2023 Vicki Tidwell Palmer. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy