There are many residual effects of living with an addict still active in his addiction. Your esteem has likely been eroded over time, impacting the way you feel about yourself physically, sexually, and emotionally. If you’ve been with your partner for many years, you may have lost respect for yourself, wondering why you’re still in the relationship, or why you “put up” with repeated indiscretions and disappointments.
Living with active addiction often means a life of broken promises, empty threats, lies, and other crazy-making experiences. Once surrounded by the fog of addiction, you feel as though you’re at the mercy of the addict’s unpredictable and chaotic dance. But that is an illusion.
With the tools of the 5-Step Boundary Solution (5-SBS) presented in this book, you will regain your ability to identify and trust your own reality. You will learn how to reclaim your personal power by taking action to get your needs met rather than waiting, wishing, or hoping for the sex addict to stop his behaviors so that you can get on with your life and feel better.
This book is especially helpful if you
• don’t know what boundaries are;
• are confused about how to set boundaries;
• aren’t sure if you have a right to set boundaries;
• have set boundaries in the past but didn’t know what to do when they were violated;
• come from a family where boundaries were frequently violated or nonexistent.
Chapter One, “Your Future Is Not Your Past,” starts with the bold promise that even though you’ve been living in the fog of sex addiction and were profoundly betrayed by the most important person in your life—there is hope. You will learn the ways sex addiction has impacted you, why you’ve struggled to maintain your reality, and how the 5-SBS can guide you through the process of gaining clarity and finding serenity, by setting and maintaining effective boundaries.
Chapter Two, “Not All Addictions Are Created Equal: What You Need to Know about Sex Addiction,” focuses on the basics of addiction and the important differences between sex addiction and other forms of addiction. You may be skeptical about the sex addiction label and wonder if it’s just a convenient excuse for bad behavior. This question is addressed, along with an outline of the fundamentals of a good first-year addiction recovery plan for sex addicts.
Chapter Three, “First Things First: How to Recognize a Good Boundary When You See One,” discusses our natural and innate urge to seek safety and why boundaries are essential for your healing. You will learn the two functions of boundaries, the use of “non-negotiable” boundaries, along with some of the common boundaries set by partners of sex addicts in the early stages of discovery and/or disclosure.
Chapter Four, “Boundary Solution Step 1: Knowing and Owning Your Reality,” shows how being in relationship with an addict has a devastating impact on your ability to know and trust your reality. You will learn specific tools to recognize and honor your innate capacity to recognize your truth so that you can regain trust in your reality and intuition.
In Chapter Five, “Boundary Solution Step 2: Getting Your Needs Met,” you will identify the specific needs that aren’t currently being met in your life and in your relationship, and you will create a vision for the future. By starting with the end in sight, you’ll be better able to recognize the boundaries you need to set.
Chapter Six, “Boundary Solution Step 3: Identifying Your Power Center,” focuses on the ways in which powerlessness, authentic personal power, and “power over” manifest in relationships, and how working with power dynamics can enrich or damage your relationship. You will learn the difference between expectations and contracts, and how to use authentic personal power to create an action plan. By owning your power you will avoid the dangers of not taking action, remaining in a victim position, or creating toxic power struggles with the sex addict.
In Chapter Seven, “Boundary Solution Step 4: Creating and Implementing Your Action Plan,” you will learn the difference between ultimatums, demands, and requests. You will understand why demands and ultimatums don’t work, and why making requests is the most effective way to gain clarity and resolution. You will learn how to make clear, effective requests and what to do when your partner says “no” to a request.
Chapter Eight, “Boundary Solution Step 5: Evaluate Your Results: Mission Accomplished . . . or Not: When Boundaries Are Broken,” invites you to take a moment to celebrate if your efforts have been successful, and addresses what to do when boundaries don’t work, are broken, or are violated. This is one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of boundary work. You will learn specific steps to take when a boundary violation occurs, along with how to determine an appropriate “repair” when an agreement is broken.
Because broken agreements, boundary violations, and unsuccessful boundary work are a major source of frustration and confusion, you may be tempted to skip ahead and go straight to this chapter. I encourage you, even if you begin with Chapter Eight, to go back to the prior steps of the 5-SBS before attempting to fix any boundaries with which you’re currently struggling. Laying the foundation for your boundary work—through 1) knowing your reality, 2) knowing your needs and wants, 3) identifying where you have power (or don’t), and 4) how to take effective and meaningful action—will save you time, effort, and heartache.
Chapter Nine, “Speed Bumps, Roadblocks, and Crash Landings: Hidden Barriers to Boundary Work and What to Do about Them,” discusses why, even with guidance, good intentions, and support, partners sometimes struggle to follow through with boundary work. This can happen for a variety of reasons including not feeling good enough, difficulty managing emotions, financial considerations, or pre-relationship trauma. Regardless of the reasons, identifying where the challenges are—and knowing what to do about them—will help you make course corrections and lay the groundwork for a more successful outcome the next time around.
Chapter Ten, “Burning Is Learning: How Your New Boundary Muscle Will Keep You Strong and Serene for a Lifetime,” shows you how the skills and tools you’ll learn in this book are indispensible not only in your current situation, but in all areas of your life. Once you understand the fundamentals of good boundary work, you can apply them in any setting or situation—with extended family relationships, friends, coworkers, employers, children, and many more. Mastering boundaries also has a powerful lasting impact on your confidence and self-esteem.
The last chapter, Chapter Eleven, “Partners Beyond Betrayal: Trust, Gratitude, and Forgiveness,” discusses three central themes of partners’ healing from the impact of sex addiction after the discovery and crisis stage. Fair warning: this chapter is not for the faint of heart. Arriving at trust, gratitude, and forgiveness are monumental steps for partners, and they come in their own time. You will hear from real partners who have traveled the courageous journey to find a new and better way of living than they ever imagined. These partners have truly moved beyond betrayal.
In order to get the most out of this book and quickly learn the five steps of the 5-Step Boundary Solution process, I recommend that you go online now, before continuing to read, and download the free “5-SBS Clarifier” at www.vickitidwellpalmer.com/5sbsclarifier.
The “Clarifier” is a two-page worksheet outlining each of the five steps of the 5-SBS process with brief instructions for each step. Use one “Clarifier” for each boundary you would like to create or for boundaries that have been broken or violated.
At the end of Chapters Four through Eight there are exercises that guide you through completing each of the respective steps in the 5-SBS process. Use the “5-SBS Clarifier” you downloaded to record your answers and reflections for each step as you work through them.
For the purpose of learning the 5-SBS process, as you go through the steps outlined in each chapter, I suggest you choose one relatively simple problem you believe may require a boundary, or a known boundary you want to create, that may