It's Not Your Job to Fix Him

It is not your responsibility if you are the intimate partner of the person who you think has an addiction specifically in this area. Let's say a pornography addiction, sex addiction, whatever it is. Not only is it not your responsibility to be the one who gets them help, but it's so counterproductive. It is so counterproductive. Don't worry about how they're going to find help. He's a big boy. He's got Google. He He knows people. He can ask. he'll find whatever help he needs to find or not. But you're um setting an assignment for him, you know, giving him like a checklist. Not only is it not facilitating healing to the to to be totally frank, in my experience, that sort of cat-and- mouse game of like I caught you, now I'm going to oversee your correcting of the situation. And it becomes it becomes I call it a cat-and- mouse game because it is it is a game and it becomes this like preoccupation where I guess in some ways I understand it's like a woman feels this sense of betrayal which is incredibly destabilizing. Like it's like your whole life that you thought you had suddenly is like the rug is pulled out from under you and then you're trying to get some feeling of control back. And so very often the feeling of control or the attempt to get some feeling of control back is like okay I'm going to outline for him a program or a a a an agenda or a regimen. This is how he's going to get better and he's going to that itself becomes such a a a toxic dysfunctional preoccupation that is so it's just not it's not conducive to healing a relationship. is not conducive to any type of responsible adult intimate relationship. My advice is like this. You want to know you're the wife in the situation. Okay, what should I do? What should I do? What should I do? What should you do? Have your own standards and boundaries. Don't worry about his standards and boundaries. Whether you know he's going to get help or he's not going to get help or if he's going to ever watch porn again or if he's not going to watch again or he's going to get a filter on his phone or he's going to get rid of his his smartphone. You don't worry about it. That's not your problem. to take back your power, your agency, your sense of emotional autonomy. By emotional autonomy, what I mean is, and this is to me the most important thing, your ability to be sane and serene and have your own life, even if he is acting in ways that are completely off-the-wall. Okay? Your path is for you to figure out what your standards are, what you're okay with, what you feel safe with, and what you don't feel safe