Free A Couple's Guide to Sexual Addiction by Paldrom Collins Page B

never look at the porn again, that I meant too much to him to lose me over it . He promised that if he did, he would tell me.
So for about a month and a half, as far as I know, he didn’t look at anything. But then last Thursday I used his phone to get on the Internet, and right there were a couple of sites he had visited on his break at work. At work! Of course, I was absolutely heartbroken again. I went straight to him and asked, “What the hell is this?” He apologized profusely and said, “I swear, I really don’t look at that stuff anymore. I was just at work and I don’t even know why I did it, I’m so sorry.” He then told me that he thought it would be too hard to tell me that he had looked at porn again because he knew I would get upset. I told him, “I am upset, but it’s always something we can still work through.”
The problem is that I gave Bryan my trust twice already, and he abused it. Now this time he assures me that he doesn’t have a problem with porn anymore—I have nothing to worry about. But I do worry. I worry constantly that he’ll have a “slip up” and look just once more, and then just once more, etc., and not tell me about it.
I have read a lot about sexual addiction and addiction to Internet porn, and Bryan shows all the signs of having an addiction. He told me he still has urges all the time to look, but fights it. He tried to hide it from me because he was embarrassed he couldn’t stop. He even looked at it on his work break because he thought he would be able to just look at a couple of pictures and be good and that I wouldn’t find out.
I worry that until he admits to having an addiction, he won’t truly be able to stop. He needs to realize that he needs to do this for himself. He tells me that he doesn’t like that he looks at the porn and he feels ashamed after he does. He knows how I feel about it, so the only way I can understand his problem is that it is an addiction. But he hates that word and assures me he doesn’t have a problem anymore—let alone an addiction—and that I have nothing to worry about. How can I show him that his problem is way more serious than he thinks it is? How can I sort this thing out?
Thanks for your help,
Heather
From Heather’s e-mail, we can be certain that each partner in the relationship has issues and that the relationship between them needs help. However, it seems that Heather and Bryan have reached conclusions that are just not accurate. Let’s start with the reassurances we would give to both Heather and Bryan—and to you.
Keep in mind that we offer these reassurances knowing that they are important to hear, but also realizing that they are not going to solve the problem. They probably will not penetrate to the core of the internal machinery that has created the problem. We will follow up in later chapters with tools to unravel the mechanisms that are contributing to the difficulty you are experiencing inside yourself and with your partner. We will show you how to work with the underlying motivating causes. In the meantime, think of these reassurances as seeds that are being planted, and take in these reassurances as deeply as you can. We also strongly recommend that you read through the reassurances for both you and for your partner. Understanding the issue from your significant other’s point of view is vital to your development of compassion and empathy.
For Her: What This Does Not Mean about You
As we mentioned in Chapter 1 , you should know that you did not cause your partner’s sexually compulsive behavior, nor can you cure it. That will be his task. His behavior is not about you. It certainly affects you, but it is not due to anything you have done or not done. His sexually compulsive behavior was in place before you met him. You may be (and probably are) an irritant and a stimulant to him at varying times, but his choices about how to deal with his irritations and stimulations are his alone, as are yours.
His fixation