In this panel discussion, hosts and therapist Nick Stumbo explore common pitfalls couples encounter when trying to rebuild their sexual and physical intimacy after a history of sexual addiction or compulsive behavior. They identify several recurring mistakes: rushing physical reconnection before emotional healing; using sex as the primary metric of relationship progress; weaponizing sexual withholding as a form of punishment; focusing on quantity of sex rather than quality; attempting to return to the pre‑addiction "normal" instead of constructing a new, healthier foundation; and comparing one’s recovery timeline to others. The speakers employ analogies—treating recovery like post‑surgical physical therapy, and likening the process to rebuilding after an earthquake—to illustrate the need for gradual, individualized pacing and rebuilding of trust. They stress that each couple’s timeline depends on factors such as marriage length, disclosure timing, age, and other traumas, and that professional guidance is essential for navigating emotional safety and fostering a sustainable, quality‑focused intimate connection.
Chapters
You know, uh, one of the, the challenges as we're entering into this topic, um, of growing closer together and rebuilding that, uh, that intimacy, but more specifically, um, the physical relationship, right? Um, which that is closely or very related to this struggle or addiction, right? And so as you, as you guys have encountered couples coming in for help and they want to rebuild that, that sexual physical side of things. What are some mistakes that you've seen people do? And even if there's some examples of when things have gone wrong or poorly, so to speak.
Yeah, all of our clients are perfect, so no mistakes.
Yeah, right.
And we ourselves walked it.
Oh yeah, perfectly. So perfectly.
Gosh, I think some of the biggest mistakes we see are just people who can rush things too soon in the physical side, right?
Yeah.
Um, obviously when they come to us in this arena, there's been some dysfunction sexually, you know, somewhere. And sometimes we see people rush it too early and they're using, um, sex or sexual connection as a way to try to heal without having properly healed emotionally. Yeah, sometimes we see people swing to the other end of the spectrum and stay stuck in avoidance of what hurt them. Um, and so sometimes it's like people really rush it, they go too fast, sometimes they stay stuck too far apart. And I think the biggest thing that we encourage people when they come and they do their beginning work with us, like an intensive on a disclosure We talk a lot about how this is your surgery, right? But to really effectively heal after a big surgery, you need to do PT for quite a while, right? And you need to work and use the muscles. And so, um, we're just really big on making sure that people don't do their discovery, disclosure, maybe some individual therapy, but not going deeper in ongoing professional help. To really get deeper than just healing this wound, but actually learning how to incorporate a new healthy marriage together.
Yeah.
I mean, I think a couple things I'll add on to there. I think in this space where sexuality and sex and unwanted sexual behaviors have been the thing that's impacted the relationship, it's very hard not to use that as also a metric, or the metric, for how are we doing. And I see so many couples, we see so how many couples get off track in that space is like, you know, sex is what's got us here. So the metric of how we're doing is sex. And I think it's easy to take that approach and almost it can become as like sexuality is our fix for this. And, you know, really getting it a little backwards in that space that the focus— I think about it in terms of input and output, right? The focus of the input is emotional safety and emotional connection and growing that in a brand new way. And the output of that very often, not always, is healthier, more connected, and often more frequent sex that comes from that. But when we reverse that and are looking more as that, as, you know, focusing on the output and how are we doing there, and that being the thing that helps get the emotional connection as opposed to the other way around, it can really derail a lot of couples.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I can, I can also see, in addition to that, I can also see, um, The pendulum swinging to the opposite as well of no sex, right? Or being weaponized against in terms of withholding, right? As a way to, well then get you back in a sense. But it's, it's for a lot of people, it's not a conscious, so to speak. They're not that attuned to their emotional, they're not aware, right? To why, as to why they may be withholding. And so that's why you guys come in with your expertise to be able to help them navigate where the pendulum is at and have better understanding and, um, competency on why it's important to take time for your healing, deep, deep healing, in order to incorporate that.
Yeah, yeah.
I think so much of addiction in this arena, or compulsive behavior, is focused on quantity.
Oh my gosh, yeah, right?
And we are so big on like, quantity might not be the thing, it might be quality that is far more important in the arena. Of sexual intimacy.
Yeah.
And I'll also add one more, like, analogy here. I'm a learner that the way I'm wired, I can really learn a lot from analogies that make sense to me. And I think in this space, one of the analogies I think about a lot is the analogy of an earthquake, right? And I think literally and metaphorically, earthquakes happen really sudden. You know, they happen in a moment, right? But the reality is they are so far from sudden. Right? It is the slow, gradual shift of things going on under the surface, fault lines and tension moving under the surface that causes this thing. And I think if we think about it in that terms, in those terms related to this question, I think one of the ways we can really get off track is to just run back to the structure that was there, you know, regardless of how unsafe it may be, regardless of, you know, if we have a house that survives an earthquake, it wouldn't be wise just to run back in and be like, okay, this is the structure, we got to get back to this as soon as normal living the normal way. Often it takes a complete rebuild, right, of tearing that down because it's unsafe and really building a new structure on the back end of that. And I think often that's— that analogy fits really well specifically in the space of couples healing, but more specifically sexuality.
Yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, that was one of the mistakes I feel like I've seen is couples that are looking to just get back to the way things were. Like, we've gotta deal with this problem. Yes, it's an issue, but we're just trying to get back to what's normal without realizing how much the addictive behavior has impacted what they defined as normal. And that in some ways was like a poison pill that was undergirding a lot of their thoughts and behaviors and emotions. But because they had defined it as normal for so long, they just want to kind of get back to that stability. And I know that was very much my challenge because I thought of, you know, my marriage life as being here and then this totally separate thing because, you know, it started as a teenager long before I met my wife. I was like, yeah, I've got these addictive issues with pornography, but that's not related to my marriage. I mean, I knew it hurt my wife, but I in my mind thought that's not related to our marital physical intimacy. Those are totally different. And it took a while to see like, oh, there were ways of thinking and believing and selfishness and all of this that I should not have been trying to get back to normal. I should have really been hopeful that we're gonna build something new and better and more meaningful rather than just how could we get back to our normal? So I see that and I saw it in my own story. I think the other thing I would just throw out is this is very much an area where not one size fits all because the number of years you've been married, the timing of when disclosure happened, how long into the marriage of marriage, your age, season of life, what other traumas might be there, what traumas might be in your story. Like, all of those things could impact how quickly a couple feels comfortable mutually re-engaging in physical intimacy. And for some, for various factors, it can happen, I think, fairly quickly with, you know, appropriate— we want it to be mutual, not just one or the other trying to press for it. But for some, it can happen fairly quickly, and for some, it's a very, very long process. And one of those is not right and the other wrong. Both are probably right for that couple and what they're experiencing. And so I, I hope that's something that listeners will take out of this, that your story is your story and the way you reintegrate physically will be your way with— but I hope what they'll also hear is with the help of some wisdom, some guidance that really can help you think through how are we re-engaging physically.
So good. Yeah, we didn't even hit on that, but I think comparison is— can be really dangerous in this space too, right? Whether it be with somebody else has been through the journey or a resource out there, right? It's like I'm not lining up to that, or we're not living up to that, so something must be wrong. I think you bring up an awesome point.
