subject: Sexual Addiction and Forgiveness | Sexual Recovery Services [print this page] Sexual Addiction and Forgiveness | Sexual Recovery Services
Couples whose relationship has been impacted by an experience of betrayal want closure and the accompanying sense of resolution that can come with having a shared experience of forgiveness. It is rarely something that either person can force or control how, when, where, or if it happens. It comes as a final step that one realizes has been taken only in retrospect. It shows itself as loving grace. It brings trust between two people who want to help and not harm the other, even when one person's behavior seems contrary to this intent. When a transgression occurs, (and it will) the violation is not taken personally. Instead, it is held in grace and the experience embraced with mutual sadness for the ongoing struggles that accompany addiction.
Sexual Addiction Treatment
This may be the greatest gift that strong sexual addiction and co-addiction recovery programs bring to a relationship. I often tell couples that the potential for profound intimacy seems more available to couples who are walking the road of recovery together than to couples who have never been afflicted by the problem. The mandate for complete openness and honesty and accountability for even the most subtle tendencies to manage information or control another person's ability to freely function separately and autonomously, are all conditions for becoming your best as an individual and as a couple.
Sexual Addiction Recovery
Forgiveness is best described as knowing, trusting, and believing that your partner's behavior is not and never has been about you. Therefore, forgiveness is an outcome of you having embraced your own behavior; acknowledging that the journey that has brought you to be in this relationship has been no mistake! We are all accountable for being exactly where we are right now. This statement was true at the beginning and has remained true throughout this journey. We can forgive ourselves and our partners for the anger and resentments we employed to hold one another hostage and responsible for creating the difficulties we have been forced to overcome. Maybe with forgiveness, we can hold this journey, not as the burden it has sometimes seemed, but instead as the opportunity to experience as a couple our capacities for the depth of intimacy that is the gift of successful recovery.
