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Should You Tell Your Wife EVERYTHING? What 164 Couples Said Years Later · Sex & Porn Addiction Recovery with Russell Beebe

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If your wife doesn't know everything yet, this is probably one of the hardest questions you're facing.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do you tell her the whole truth and risk blowing up what's left of the marriage?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you hold some of it back in hopes that you're protecting her from more pain?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Russell Beebe.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a licensed mental health counselor and certified sex addiction therapist, and I've worked with thousands of men trying to rebuild their marriages after cheating and sexual betrayal.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's research that shows 164 couples after disclosure and what they said afterwards may not be what you expect.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let me show you what they found and what you should know before deciding how much to tell your wife.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if your wife doesn't know the whole story and the whole truth about all the cheating and the sex addiction and all the behavior, I'm going to talk about today what your three options are for disclosure.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to talk about two first, are the ones that I do not recommend.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third one is the one that I recommend.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: But the first two are options that you could use, and they're options that I see my clients use.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them is actually the option that I used in my own marriage.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the third one is really the one that is recommended.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Before I go into these options around disclosure, I do want to make a suggestion, which is let her lead.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in a relationship and you've cheated, you've had infidelity, you had sex addiction, and you're in recovery and you're starting to do the healing in the relationship, and she wants to know the whole truth, or maybe she doesn't believe you or she wants a full disclosure, let her lead that decision.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: She gets to decide.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: What I have found is most partners, most wives want to know the whole truth.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's helpful to them.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's helpful for them to move on beyond the betrayal, but it's also helpful for them in their recovery and it's helpful for you in your recovery.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes wives don't actually want to know all the truth or they're cautious about hearing everything because of the pain that it's going to bring them.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: So most want to know the whole truth, but not everybody.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So before we jump into your options, it's really important to let her lead.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: If she wants a full disclosure, then you should do it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: If she doesn't, if she wants to wait, you allow her the time she needs and the things that she needs to do in her own recovery so that she can feel safe.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we always let whatever options we choose, if we're going to do a disclosure, we first talk with our partner about what they want and what they need, and then we make the decision based on that.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the first option, and again, this option is one of the ones that I do not recommend, but it's also one of the ones that I see my clients do fairly frequently.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I see people in recovery.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've been around this for quite a long time.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I see them do it, which is they do it on their own.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: They basically, their partner is upset, they're wanting the full truth.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there's these late night conversations that go on for hours and hours, and she's trying to get find out what happened.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: What do I know?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: What do I not know?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're experiencing immense trauma and pain around all of this.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then what usually happens is the man, the sex addict, the betrayer, starts to tell her a few things that she doesn't know.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we call the trickled out truth.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this sometimes happens over days, it happens over weeks, happens over months and years.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: She finds a text or she finds an email or a receipt or something, she asks about it, and he's like, Well, yeah, that when I went to Las Vegas, XYZ happened.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this trickled out truth happens over time.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that's not recommended is because every single time she finds out something new, it brings her right back to Discovery Day and it re-traumatizes her over and over and over again.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when somebody's been betrayed, it's why they call it betrayal trauma.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: The partner, many of the partners are experiencing basically PTSD symptoms.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: They don't, their world has been turned upside down, they're hypervigilant, they don't know what's true.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've done so much lying and hiding that they don't really know.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you've done so much gaslighting saying, I didn't do the thing when their intuition said that you did, and then you gaslight it and say I didn't.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that goes contrary to their intuition when somebody internally feels like something's off, like they're being lied to, like, or they're being told they feel like something's happened, but they're being told something different, they start to go literally go crazy.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what partners experience.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So every time you kind of tell a little bit of the truth, it re-traumatizes her and throws her into a spin.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what I have found with a lot of my clients is they'll have these, at the beginning, they'll have these trickled truths that that happened.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this happened in my own marriage at all.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was, you know, telling little bits of truth, and each time I re traumatized my wife.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so they do that, and then suddenly the couple sort of decide.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: She says, I've had enough of the trickled truth.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: What I really need and what I really not need now is all of the truth.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is they sit down at 10 o'clock at night, and he just basically dumps everything that he's ever done in the full truth on her and delivers it in a really clumsy way and does lots of gaslighting and does, you know, things like, you know, what when I when you were pregnant, I cheated on you for, you know, XYZ, and it makes it seem like, well, you're to blame.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so the partner gets all these messages.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: The delivery of the of the full truth is so botched that it actually does more harm than good.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in a in a real, in a good disclosure, you want to carefully prepare that so it's delivered in a way that doesn't re-traumatize her over and over again.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So my experience with my clients and a little bit with my own recovery is that that's what they do.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: They they eventually sit down and they just tell the whole truth and it comes out in a way that's really not delivered in a way that's gonna protect her and not re-traumatize her.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my experience with that is it's not ideal.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And some people don't want to do it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like she is like, I want to know the truth right now.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go through a full and therapeutic um disclosure, which is something I'll talk about later in the video.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go through that.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want to just know it now so we can get it all over with.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he's in a lot of trouble and he really wants to make things right with her, and so he agrees to do it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then they go through this clumsy, terribly delivered disclosure that brings on more harm.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so my experience of my clients is that they they have done that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting about it is although it's more painful for her and more painful for him to go through that, my experience is the truth is the truth, getting it all out.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So then they do actually get through it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the majority of the couples that work with us in our program, if they do what I consider to be a botched full disclosure and they do it on their own, my experience is although it's super painful for her, they actually end up getting through it.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the truth always wins out here.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this option is the first option I'm saying.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't recommend that because there's a third option that's much better.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can do a full disclosure in a much better way.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what we call the trickled truth, or then it's trickled truth followed by we're gonna do it on our own at, you know, 12 o'clock at night, and I'm just gonna dump all this stuff on you, and it's gonna be a terrible experience for both of us.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's really, and and again, people do it.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: My clients have done it, even though we recommend that they don't do that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: They have done it and I have seen couples get through it, and it's fine.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they didn't do a formal therapeutic disclosure.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the second option is kind of what I did in my marriage and my relationship.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And again, this second option is not recommended.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's recommended to do what I'm going to talk about as the third option, which is a full therapeutic disclosure.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: But what I did, what happened with me is I had a I had a therapeutic separation.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was forced by my substance use.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was living in sober living.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: My wife had to move in with my parents, with my son, who's now 18.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: He was an infant at the time.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was terrible.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she didn't even want to talk to me for a while because it was just everything I was relapsing left and right.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I, you know, spoke, I was lying and gaslighting and minimizing and all this stuff.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she was just had enough of all of that.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we didn't really even talk very much for the first five or six months of my sexual recovery, my my sexual sobriety.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that was helpful because I had to really focus on my recovery and it was good.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we didn't talk very much, so we didn't have a lot of like disclosure conversations.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: When we did, I was honest with it.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: But what happened was eventually we started um communicating again and we decided to stay together and we we started working things out in our marriage.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so we spent, you know, maybe about another year where like there'd be times where she would ask me questions like, Did you ever do this?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or did when you went, you know, to that trip, you know, what did you cheat on me then?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: What did you do?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of thing.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, in those moments, because I was in recovery, because I was getting honest with myself, because I was wanting to be honest with her.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this was before therapeutic disclosures, which is what I'm gonna talk about in option three, before therapeutic disclosures were were really a thing.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even wasn't aware.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I was just doing that trickled out truth thing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: She would ask me a question, I would be honest about it.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: She would ask me a question, I would be on every time it was it was tough for her and it was tough for me.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I was just like, I'm in recovery and I'm I'm gonna stop lying anymore because getting honest with myself and getting honest with my partner was really like kind of a foundation of my recovery.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if she asked me a question, I was gonna answer that question.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what happened eventually is that we would have these tough conversations and I would disclose.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to be clear, she knew the majority of everything that I had done.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, and the the gist in the general general of this wasn't like I was hiding tons of stuff.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: She was just asking like follow-up questions and things like that.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there was, I never did a formal, full, 100% honest disclosure.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so she was asking questions.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember I'm doing good in my recovery.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: We were actually doing really good in our relationship.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: We kept having these disclosure conversations.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember one day just saying to her, she asked me a question.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I said, Hey, you know, every time we have this conversation, that you know, when you ask about this, I am 100% willing, I'll, you know, run through a brick wall to be honest with you.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: But every time we do, I feel like it kind of holds us back a little bit and it's a tough conversation.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm willing to answer that question that you just asked, but do you think it's gonna be helpful?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think it's something that you, that you, that you want?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was just my thing.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I felt, I felt confident enough in my own recovery and and in our relationship at this point.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was probably, you know, a year or a little bit over a year into my recovery.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember my my wife said to me, you know what, Russell?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I do want to know the answer to that.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm, I think I'm gonna stop asking.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that was just her truth.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: She felt like she knew enough, didn't want to know anymore.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: She felt good intuitively about my recovery, she felt good about the relationship, and she just decided for herself that she knew enough and that that we were gonna leave it at that.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we've never, since then, we've we haven't had any disclosure conversation.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to be really clear, like if she had said, I want to know the whole truth right now, here and now, or I want to do, I want to spend the money and get a full therapeutic disclosure, which is what I'm gonna talk about in a minute, then I would have done that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would have done whatever I needed to do to be honest with her, to be honest in my recovery and to make things right with her.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: But in that moment, that was what she, that's why I said at the beginning, let your wife or your partner lead what they want and then do that.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's what she wanted and that's where we kept it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, yeah, are there little details and things like that about my story that she doesn't know yet?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: But we just kind of left it at that.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, that was 17 years ago, and we've survived this and you know, my I've been sexually sober for 17 years and doing great.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really, I always tell people the couple, and again, let her lead us.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: The couple in this option, option number two, the couple gets to decide how what it is that I really want here.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I'm trying to give my couple's permission.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: If she says, I just want to know that you're not doing it anymore, and I just want to feel confident about your recovery, I don't need to know all the details.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Give them permission to do that.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, if she really wants, like I said, if she really wants the full disclosure, then you got to do it.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that is option two.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so option three is the recommended option.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the option I tell my clients.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I if they say, what do I do about, you know, she wants to know the whole truth, she wants to know everything, I'm like, this is what I recommend.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now I do notate the two options that I just talked about, the trickled out truth and the clumsy doing it by yourself, and then you both deciding to let bygones be gone.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's really step two.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I make them aware of those options.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I say, look, ethically and logically, and the research and all of it, and you know, the current industry of betrayal trauma and sex addiction and recovery and relationships from betrayal trauma says that the best thing to do is what we call a full and therapeutic disclosure.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's simply, I'm gonna give it in the most simple terms, is the sex addict or the betrayer has a therapist or a coach that's trained in doing disclosures.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the partner, the betrayed partner, has a coach or a therapist who's also trained in doing therapeutic disclosures.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what they do is they spend a couple of months.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is not an overnight thing, it takes a couple of months to prepare.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: What happens on his side is the therapist or coach gives him a document and he answers questions.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a full timeline.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's designed to trigger the timeline of events that happened, and he he's just kind of writes it all out, everything that he can remember to the best of his ability.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then he reviews that disclosure document with his therapist or coach, and the coach helps him craft it in a way that it's delivered in a way that is going to be the most therapeutic or less least harmful to her.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: He tells the whole truth, but it's the way that he tells it that's important.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, if in the disclosure he says, you know, the three times that I cheated on you last fall, all of them were blonde-haired girls because I'm attracted to that, right?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then every time the partner, after the hearing that, every time the partner sees a blonde girl, she gets triggered.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you take details out like that.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And another example is like, if, you know, back in the four years ago when you you were pregnant, we weren't really having sex, I cheated on you, X, Y, Z, right?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then she feels blamed.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like because I was pregnant, because I wasn't having sex with you, that's why you cheated on me.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So in the disclosure, like addicts like me, I say all sorts of stupid stuff like that when I'm trying to be honest, because like I don't know how to be honest with people, right?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So on his side, they're preparing this carefully so that when he delivers that disclosure, which he actually reads in the actual disclosure, he's gonna deliver it in a way that she can hear it and and not create more harm in the best of the bill.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's there's harm in doing it.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she's gonna be she's gonna be traumatized just from the disclosure itself, but it's delivered in a way that's the most effective.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and the addict or the betrayer and the therapist or coach go back and forth on this and they prepare this document.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then that document is shared with her coach.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: They talk about it.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: The two therapists and the coach, coaches talk together.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: They don't do the disclosure if she's not in a good place to do the disclosure.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: They don't do the disclosure if he's not in.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of like trained professional eyes on the whole process.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: If the guy is relapsing and still cheating and still being dishonest in certain ways, it's like, we're not gonna do a disclosure if you're still doing the behavior that got you to this place in the first place.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or if, you know, God forbid, she's so upset that she's suicidal, then doing another disclosure is not gonna make sense.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So there's the the therapeutic team work together over uh several months' time, and then they they finally decide, okay, we think both parties are ready.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: The disclosure document is there, and then they come together and they do the disclosure and they do it in the presence of their support.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is super important for her.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So he reads the document that he prepared, she listens, they can take breaks, she can do some coping skills with her therapist or coach, and they take a break.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's an opportunity for her to come back after the disclosure, ask some questions.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a restitution letter that comes after the fact, and a lot of times, which is really cool.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So he could do a disclosure, right?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Come in and then lie.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we know that he's not lying?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: What they do after or before the disclosure, I think sometimes they a lot of times they do it before.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, by the way, I'm not an expert at this.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just from my training, and I don't do them myself.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: We actually refer disclosures out for my program.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um, these these is my understanding.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is how I advise my clients.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: He will definitely, you know, be able to read that document.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we know he didn't lie in the disclosure?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: The way that they do that is they do a polygraph before or after the disclosure.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's really basically one question is did you tell the whole truth on the disclosure?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so what that polygraph does is it lets her know, yes, he told the truth.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then from that starting point, they can move on.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: So couples, I've had many couples in my program do therapeutic disclosures.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: They, their recovery, a lot of these guys, their recovery is amazing.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: They've been honest, their wife's recovery is is doing well.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Their wife was able to know the whole truth and to move forward.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're able to move forward in their relationship.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, my personal, even though I didn't do a full therapeutic disclosure myself, my experience with my clients has been that it's it benefits their recovery, it benefits their partner's recovery, and most of them stay together.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was where the the study that was done, where they looked at couples, they really just wanted to know, hey, of this third option, the the full therapeutic disposure, how were those couples doing?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: What did they experience?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple of things that they found that supports the third option as the best option.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: One thing is they all thought that the doing it at, you know, at the onset and afterwards was the right thing to do.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: They felt like this was the best way to move forward in our relationship if we're going to stay together is to do a full and therapeutic disclosure.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's a little bit of um apprehension from the betrayer, but a lot of times what the partner wanted, and they both agreed at the beginning and after that it was 100% the right thing to do.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the relationships in the study stayed together.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you might think, oh, he goes this is smashes the lie on the portrayer side, on the sex addict side, that if I tell her the truth, she's gonna leave me.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: If he gets into recovery, she's on board with sticking it through in the relationship, and then they do a full disclosure where he tells her everything.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: The majority, and this is my experience in my program too, the majority of those couples actually stay together.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not true.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can never guarantee that.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the couples did separate and get divorced.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can never guarantee that.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is most of them actually stay together even after a full disclosure.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then the study also showed at times after the full and therapeutic disclosure, um, the betrayed partner actually threatened to leave.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but the majority of those threats, she didn't actually follow through it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: She was able to see the honesty and to work through it, and they actually stayed together.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So even though even after the disclosure, there was threats to leave, but most of the time those couples that went through that process actually ended up staying together.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing that they found is that um, although full honesty, even the third option, the the most ideal option, was super painful and even traumatic, more traumatic to the betrayed partner, that both parties agreed that it was vital in their recovery and vital in their relationship for full honesty.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they all are grateful after the fact that they went through that to kind of be in the relationship and to move on and to just have no secrets and lies, which is really one of the most amazing recovery principles, which is honesty with ourselves and honesty with others and this this way getting to a place where we're not high.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: The addict just hides and and worries, and they have all these secrets and they worry about it, and they worry about the job finding out, their wife finding out.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just like you this is all this inner turmoil.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's just so great to just be like, here's everything I've done, put one foot in front of the other, been honest with myself, been honest with my partner.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: They found that honesty was really the backbone of healing in their relationships.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, if you're watching this and you're starting to get into recovery and you're wondering, like, what is it that these people do?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I do have a program for this uh men, a coaching program for men struggling with sex addiction, infidelity, and cheating, where we get you away from the behaviors, stop the behaviors, get honest with yourself, start the journey of healing in your relationship.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you're interested in talking with us about doing something like that, somewhere around this video, there's a link.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can message us or go through, book a call with my recovery advisor to talk about your situation.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, your wife can be on that conversation as well.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about what we do, see if it's a fit.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: If it is, we'll walk through what that would look like working together and we'll move forward in your recovery.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: If not, we'll give you some good advice, point you in the right direction.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: So somewhere around this video, go ahead and book a free call.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's free, recovery advisor, and we'll talk about your situation and see if what we do could potentially help you in your recovery and then help you guys in your relationship as well.