You’ve discovered your husband’s secret pornography use or infidelity. Will sex addiction marriage counseling help? What to know BEFORE you go to couple therapy.

If you relate to any part of this, enroll in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop to determine what’s going on in your marriage.

Do We Need Sex Addiction Marriage Counseling?

If you recognize that couple therapy is contraindicated for your specific situation, but are desperate for solutions, or at least support, please recognize that your emotional safety is the priority.

Rather than focusing on helping your partner recognize their harmful behavior, you can focus on establishing emotional and physical regulation and safety for yourself.

Consider:

• Listening to The Free Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to understand more about what’s going on in this situation.
• Scheduling an individual session with a BTR.ORG coach to determine what you need to meet your own basic needs, including sleep, hydration, and nutrition.
• Attending a BTR.ORG Group Session to process your trauma and find strength in community

It can be devastating to realize that sex addiction marriage counseling will likely make the situation worse.

Transcript: Is Sex Addiction Marriage Counseling Right For Me?

Anne (00:00): Dr. Jill Manning is here today. I am so excited to have her because so many women are wondering about couples therapy. We have women in our groups who are asking questions, saying, “Hey, I need a good couples therapist. Where should I go?” And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. I’ve seen two different situations with couples therapy that I’m just going to introduce this topic with. Then we’ll talk about it from there.

Number one, many men are going to therapy, and the women aren’t seeing a big difference. So they think, “Well, if we get a couples therapist, and I’m involved, then maybe I’ll see the improvements that I’m looking for.” So there’s that element of it. Another element is that they’re seeing their marriage issues as marriage issues or communication issues. Rather than as an abuse issue or as an addiction issue.

Complexities of Couple Therapy

Dr. Jill Manning (01:22): Let’s jump in because there is a lot to unpack, and this is probably a layered podcast. So I want our listeners to be realistic that I’m hoping we can cover some good ground today. But it is complex. Anytime we’re dealing with human beings and especially human beings in relationship, there are so many moving parts. Situations are unique. I’m sure there’ll be listeners that may find exceptions to every guideline and rule I’m going to outline today.

But as a marriage and family therapist who’s been working 17 years in this field and specializing in partners for the bulk of that, this is an area I feel really passionate about. I see a lot of harm being done to individuals and also to marriages themselves when couple therapy is not timed well. The timing is really key. And we’re going to get into that today.

The Rule of Five

(02:13): But I want to introduce this idea of what I’m calling the rule of five, rule meaning guidelines. I want us to start right from the beginning and let’s think of traditional couple therapy. Okay, let’s start that as a reference point for this conversation. When we’re dealing with betrayal trauma and sexual addiction, I believe as a clinician that it departs quite significantly from traditional couple therapy. And we need to have a good understanding of those differences.

So in traditional, your typical run-of-the-mill couple therapy situation, there are five. Again, this is the rule of five. Five key goals for traditional couple therapy. The first one being supporting a couple in identifying sources of conflict. Number two, helping each person in the relationship identify their own participation in conflict and issues that may be coming up. Number three would be helping a couple realize healthy expectations for the relationship in one another.

Goals of Traditional Partner Betrayal Trauma Counseling

(03:19): Number four is defining how the relationship’s going to work, the boundaries, the roles, the division of labor, all of that. And then fifth, improving the skillset of a couple, whether that be communication, intimacy, conflict resolution. So I’m calling those traditional rule of five main goals in traditional couple therapy. But there’s what we call indications and contraindications to traditional therapy. And again, I want to use the rule of five. There’s five main contraindications and five indications.

Contraindication is a fancy word for saying things that we see where we would not recommend couple therapy. And then indications, meaning things that would indicate that that would be a good thing. Here’s the thing, and many of my colleagues will readily acknowledge this that I do co-therapy with and consult with. This is counterintuitive what I’m about to say. When sexual addiction comes to light and there is a betrayal that surfaces, what people like myself ask couples to do is very counterintuitive.

Contraindications of Couple Betrayal Trauma Counseling

(04:32): And that is to not engage in couple therapy initially. And sometimes for a long while, not to do couple therapy. And that’s counterintuitive because when something like this comes up, the relationship is seriously compromised; it’s a major threat to the marital bond. Or even if two people aren’t married, just the relationship itself takes a major hit. And so it’s counterintuitive for us to say, “Hey, all this stuff’s come up that’s really harming your relationship. We’re going to ask you to hold off on couple therapy perhaps for a long while.” That’s counterintuitive. I understand.

And really both empathize and sympathize and support people that have this issue come up and they think we need to get to a couple therapists ASAP because we are in big trouble. That makes logical sense. But here’s why, again, going back to the rule of five, five contraindications to traditional couple therapy.

“Timing is Key”

(05:32): And then I want to get into when is it indicated and a good thing because timing is key. And we know from research, Anne, that when couple therapy is not well timed, it actually can put a couple’s ship at greater risk for divorce and dissolution. So I take this really seriously.

I want listeners to know that my personal stance as a clinician is that I do my very best to do all that we can to keep relationships intact, especially families intact when that is healthy and desirable to do so. It’s not always safe to do that, and it’s not always what’s wanted, all things considered if that is wanted, if it’s healthy and safe to do so, I do my very best to make sure that that can happen. But let’s get into contraindications for even traditional couple therapy, and listeners will start realizing, “Oh, okay, this fits with betrayal trauma and sex addiction pretty well.”

The Five Contraindications of Couple Therapy

(06:30): The first contraindication is physical violence or any type of abuse, emotional, sexual, physical, financial, any type of abuse that’s going on. That is not a situation where we would want couple therapy. Number two, mental illness or addiction problems, especially if they are active and untreated or in the early stages of being untreated.

Number three, if one person continues to engage in a relationship outside of the marriage. Now having done work with pornography for years, I’m of the opinion and belief, and I believe there’s research to back this up, that pornography is a very insidious type of relationship outside of the marriage. Number four is when one or both parties have decided to begin divorce proceedings. And fifth, if there’s a lack of empathy, if one or both parties is either not wanting to or incapable of being empathetic to the other’s reality, that’s not a situation we’d want them to be in couple therapy. Do those five make sense?

Empathy and False Equivalencies

Anne (07:39): Absolutely. When things got really bad for me, we had never tried couple therapy before and I was like, “Okay, we have to do this. We have to do something.” And things got a lot worse, and then he got arrested. So for me, he became more abusive because it was like, “Oh, now’s the time. I can unleash all my resentments toward her and all my feelings based on all my erroneous thought processes that he had. And he just became more and more abusive through that process.”

The Assumption of Safety & The Assumption of Equality

Dr. Jill Manning (08:08): And when we start couple therapy, I’m saying this, Anne, honestly and truthfully as someone who has both been in couple therapy in my own relationship and also as a couple therapist, okay, I’ve been on both sides of this situation. And when we enter that arena called couple therapy, there are two assumptions that are really important for us to be aware of.

There’s an assumption of safety and there’s an assumption of equality. In a situation with sexual betrayal and sexual addiction, there is not a quality, especially if there are secrets and dangerous secrets at that, and there is a lack of safety. So if you have a traditional couple therapist in the room that is not well versed in the dynamics of sexual addiction, gaslighting, and the emotional abuse and also the physical risks that this issue can bring up, it’s not a good situation to be in.

“The risk of gaslighting & emotional abuse… pollutes the ability for… healing to occur.” 

The risk of gaslighting and the emotional abuse in really subtle and sometimes blatant ways can enter into that space. It pollutes the ability for that space to hold both people in an appropriate way and for there to be healing to occur because everyone’s protecting themselves in that.

Anne (09:27): So two things concern me when we’re talking about this. The first is that if empathy is not present, I have heard people talk about empathy training and helping the addict learn how to mimic empathy when they’re not actually feeling it so that they can learn the mechanics of empathy. But end up faking empathy.

They end up learning scripts for empathy rather than actually becoming empathetic, which can cause a wife to be more confused. She might be more abused by the empathy being jerked around by this like, “Oh, he’s acting empathetic now, but he’s really still acting out and she doesn’t know. Let’s talk about that first, and then I’ll hopefully remember my second thing.”

“Coming Home Again to Your Gut”

Dr. Jill Manning (10:13): So one of the most important things that I want for partners to gain in their own recovery process is coming home again to their gut, reconnecting to their gut. And empathy really is hard for a human being to fake.

If someone’s really connected and they have a good working gut, you’ll know there’s something missing in that for a strong therapist that really understands how critical empathy is both the reception of empathy and the giving of empathy that she and her gut reads accurately, whether that’s the real deal or not, and whether he’s able to have the skills, and I know I’m speaking in a gender-segregated way here for ease of conversation, that’s really, really important.

Now, I want a couple is choosing reconciliation, and there is sobriety and good recovery work occurring for both parties that I am passionate about, people getting to couple therapy as soon as we are able to have them ready for that. I had a couple of people recently suggest that I’m against couple therapy. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I am very much for it. I think it’s actually essential that the couple relationship itself be exposed to good quality treatment and healing.

Attachment Therapy & Partner Betrayal Trauma Counseling 

Anne (11:38): Let’s talk about attachment therapy for just a minute now. I did attachment therapy with my husband when those counter indications were present, and the therapist that we did attachment therapy did not say, “Oh, wait a minute. You have these things present, and so we should not do attachment therapy.” The assumption in those sessions was, if addiction is an attachment disorder, then the solution is attachment therapy. Can you talk about that for a minute?

Dr. Jill Manning (12:10): Really good question. And again, it’s counterintuitive, isn’t it? Because that really is the logic that’s being used by many, many people seeking therapy and many people providing therapy. If this is rooted in attachment wounds that have not been healed or trauma that’s unresolved, then, therefore, the solution would be attachment work. I get it. And we have to be really careful because healthy attachment work must be founded on safety.

How Can Folks Attach in a Healthy Way? 

Nobody attaches without a lack of safety unless it’s a really anxious, unhealthy, dysfunctional attachment, a trauma bond, let’s say. Okay, but in terms of healthy attachment, safety must be there, and we must have trust and respect, equality, consent, all of the elements of healthy intimacy also apply to healthy attachment. Again, the timing I think is critical with anyone that’s dealing with attachment wounds, both in their histories but also with one another.

So I recently spoke with an international trainer of emotionally focused therapy, which is one of the most common attachment focus therapies right now, and it’s very well supported in the research. It’s actually one of the top types of therapy I recommend couples seek out. I express concerns around some of the harm that I’m seeing done with attachment-focused therapy in sexual addiction recovery, namely that people are engaging in that before safety is established and honesty is established or even sobriety.

Anne (13:45): Or lack of abuse or –

Dr. Jill Manning (13:46): Abuse, and they 100% agreed with what I’m saying today.

False Equivalencies in Counseling

Anne (13:51): Absolutely. Yeah. That’s what I worry about with people’s therapy is that very situation. Or same thing with the abuse. It’s the dance of she asks him to cut the tomatoes and he feels shame, and so he yells at her and screams in her face.

Dr. Jill Manning (14:07): There’s something that we call false equivalency, right? We’re making a false equivalent of two behaviors. She’s critical and he’s acting out with prostitutes, okay?

Anne (14:18): Yeah, right? Or she’s critical and he’s punching walls, right?

Dr. Jill Manning (14:21): Those types of false equivalencies I see as highly dangerous and harmful for both parties as well as the relationship itself.