Bumps in Recovery -- Or Is Is It Sobriety or White Knuckling Or....

A couple weekends ago H and I had a great weekend.  We connected on a level that hasn't been there in a long time.  It felt good -- and a bit frightening at the same time.  I managed to stay present with the emotions.  For the most part, it felt good.

But...it just doesn't always stay that way.

Recovery or sobriety for both of us rides a wave or roller coaster of ups and downs that can be tricky to navigate.

Defining sexual addiction sobriety is a little more complicated than what one thinks of in terms of other addiction sobriety.  Alcohol or drug sobriety carriers a clearer visual.  Except for temporary situations, most people do not plan to stop being sexual altogether.  Some place in the middle of all of this is where a sex addict works towards sobriety.

I found helpful information on this site: https://saa-recovery.org

To help us define our sexual sobriety, many of us use a tool developed within SAA called The Three Circles.

We draw three concentric circles, consisting of an inner, middle, and outer circle. With the help of our sponsor or others in recovery, we write down various behaviors in each of the three circles. In the inner circle we put the sexual behaviors we want to abstain from, the ones we consider “acting out.” These are the behaviors that we identify, with our sponsor's guidance, as addictive, harmful, or unacceptable for us. In the middle circle we put behaviors that may lead to acting out, or that we are not sure about. In the outer circle we put healthy behaviors that enhance our life and our recovery.

I'm planning to work on this with H this week in conjunction with an assignment from the therapist we see.  We've had a rough week with our own emotions and processing the relationship needs and changes.  When emotions run high the typical reaction is to return to the past behaviors.  We're trying to prevent that -- but it's tricky for H.  All the addiction language and information is overloading his circuits.  He wants to try but he also just wishes it would all go away so that he can just go forward without having to think about it again.

Sometimes I'm more like this:

Some times,  I just need H to get it NOW.  No more deer in the headlight look.  No more silent treatment when I try to share my feelings.  No more disappearing into the other room.  No more anger.   Can we just get to a place where we can talk about what happened in our marriage and look at those scars as life experiences not as a chance to criticize or shame?