Early recovery from sex addiction is a tumultuous time, your position in recovery is shaky at best. So how do you maintain that precarious foothold when your partner is on the emotional roller coaster? You know the roller coaster I’m talking about; the one where she’s angry, sad, fearful, or an ever-changing mix of all; the one that seems to you to have come out of nowhere; the one where its facts and logic just don’t make sense to you; the one you don’t really understand but have learned to fear.

How do you survive her rollercoaster ride and, more importantly, how do you help her through it so that the seeds of a little confidence are planted? If the Serenity Prayer seems to be your only lifeline to get her through the roller coaster ride, let me teach you a new strategy to help you calm the emotional storm and begin to repair your relationship.

First of all, accept that you won’t understand, so don’t make the mistake of saying you’re doing it just to appease her. Let me tell you a secret about your wife; she already knows you can’t understand. She may not like that fact, but when she’s not on the roller coaster she gets it. She also knows that you cannot heal her or stop her pain. What she needs from you is not for you to make the roller coaster go away, but for you to ride the roller coaster with her and help her deal with her pain until she is relieved of it. Do you remember when you were a child and you hit your arm? She probably cradled him gently with her other arm. You held him until the pain subsided. When she can tolerate listening to her partner’s pain, it is as if she is cradling her heart and helping to contain her pain until she backs off.

For you to do this, it will take a very different kind of listening and responding than you may be used to. You will need to remember that being aroused is an emotional state; it’s not about the facts, so don’t focus on the facts by trying to reason with her or point out the errors in what she says. Don’t tell her she’s wrong, even if her facts are wrong. Don’t respond in anger and don’t punish her for being provoked.

Your task is to listen to your heart, to realize that you are in pain, to know that your pain is connected to your behavioral history, and to care. The following is a set of instructions on how to use what recovery expert Dr. Doug Weiss suggests he consider an emotional GPS to help him track her partner’s grief and help her get off her roller coaster. emotional.

1. Remember that you the goal is to listen to listen to your heart, do not listen to solve the problem. Pay attention to your breathing to help regulate your emotions. Put more physical space between the two of you if that helps you focus more on her pain.
2. Acknowledge your pain (eg, “I’m sorry you’re in pain.”) Remember that it doesn’t matter if she is dead wrong about the current trigger. The pain has to do with the cumulative weight of past injuries that have hit her with the full force of her right now. that is what you are really acknowledging.
3. Discover and explore their feelings. (eg, “Can you tell me more”). You’re just trying to track where his emotions are going. Don’t get caught up in the details of any event that triggered your emotions.
4. assume the responsibility. This doesn’t mean that you say you did something if you didn’t. It means that you take responsibility for her being in a position to be provoked by some event, even if you don’t understand the facts about the wrongdoing (eg, “I’m sorry I caused you pain”). Don’t start defending yourself, don’t apologize and, whatever you do, do not lie. If you committed the misdeed, cheer up. If you think she didn’t, be willing to consider the possibility that she’s right (e.g., “I don’t think I caught that woman, but I’ll talk to my sponsor about your observation and take it into account.” my recovery plan”).
5. ask him what he needs from you.
6. Do what she asks of you.

If you meet his emotional roller coaster with anger, it will be like pouring gasoline on the fire and you will ruin the opportunity to repair some of the damaged trust. If you go into your victim, you are ignoring her pain and making everything focus on you. It doesn’t matter if she’s on her victim when she activates. If you get into a power struggle over who is the real victim in this case, you reinforce her fear that you will never be there for her emotionally. Instead, use her emotional roller coaster as an opportunity to use your emotional GPS and show her that you’ll be there, the way she needs you to be. Know that if you join her on that emotional roller coaster, you are planting the seeds that will eventually grow into restored trust.