A Couple's Guide to Sexual Addiction by Paldrom Collins

Author:Paldrom Collins [Collins, Paldrom Catharine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 978-1-4405-2697-8
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2011-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Working with Strong Feelings and Emotions

How can you move together as a couple from the wounded state of lack of connection and betrayal to the rewards available in relationship intimacy? The difficulties that have arisen in your relationship can lead to greater awareness and understanding and ultimately to a greater connection, but how? When your relationship has been broken by betrayal through sexual compulsivity, however the problem has manifested, no matter which side of the problem you are standing on, you are bound to be experiencing strong feelings and emotions.

Being able to tolerate and work through strong reactions and feelings of anger, fear, and pain can help both partners, as well as their relationship. These capacities and skills are not only fundamental to working with compulsive and addictive impulses, but also are steppingstones on your path to building greater intimacy.

Vulnerability and Intimacy

Humans are wired to need each other. So why is it that we seem to be unable to connect in ways that allow this basic need to be met? In relating with our closest partner, we have an opportunity to learn how to work with our strong feelings and emotions in ways that build vulnerability. This vulnerability is the key to unlocking the door to intimacy and connection.

To be vulnerable means you are willing to be hurt. If we emotionally block ourselves off from being hurt, we also shield ourselves from other feelings. We cannot selectively choose to only experience positive feelings and emotions and do away with the negative ones. If we banish fear, anger, and pain, we cut ourselves off from joy, love, and belonging.

We can be safe behind walls, but then we miss the wonders of visiting the ocean or skiing in the mountains or dining at a wonderful restaurant. In other words, we can give ourselves the illusion of the safety of walls, but at the high cost of walling ourselves off from connecting with others. We could wear a metal suit of armor, as if we were expecting to be called to joust at any moment, and we would feel protected, but the suit of armor would render us unable to feel the touch of others.

To inhibit our vulnerability is also to inhibit the physical and emotional touch of others. The armor makes us feel safer from the expected attacks of others, but at the price of vulnerability. To be sure, there is a place for armor and a place for vulnerability. Your most intimate relationship with your spouse is not the place for armor.

If we desire the rewards of the intimacy of human connection, then we must learn how to bare ourselves to the hurt, the wounding, that is also a part of our human interaction. In order to become vulnerable, we need to learn to work with our survival impulses that urge us to fight, flee, or freeze when faced with what we perceive as potential danger. We need to learn how to negotiate our most primitive human emotions. We need to see that the experience of these emotions will not destroy us.

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