The PBSE/Dare to Connect Approach vs 12-Step Support Groups
06/11/24 • 33 min
In PBSE Episode 232, Mark & Steve respond to a listener's experience and questions with regard to the approach to Betrayal Trauma healing that PBSE and Dare to Connect take, vs. the experience in 12-Step groups. Here's what the partner of a porn/sex addict submitted to PBSE—
Is it me or are the approaches of partner-oriented 12-step fellowships the opposite of the recovery approach taken in PBSE podcasts? The podcasts are all about connection and boundaries. The partner’s 12-step fellowship I attend feels all about ignoring your partner's actions and not letting his actions hurt you. And doing what makes you happy? So it’s about disconnection.... Right? Why is it that they (12-Step groups) are popular on both reddit and your podcasts? Am I seeing this wrong?? Or is there something about those 12 step fellowships that I don’t understand??
On the surface, the approach in PBSE/Dare to Connect vs. 12-Step for partners, can in some ways seem very different. However, they actually are the same fundamental approach, but from two different directions!
Here are essentially the two questions/observations about 12-Step, presented by this betrayed partner—
“It’s all about ignoring your partner’s actions... right?”
NO! It’s about SURRENDERING your partner’s actions, focusing on yourself (including your trauma & pain) and what you CAN control, which is boundaries built first around your own safety, needs and wants, and then incorporated properly into a committed relationship. This allows for personal healing and the most optimal functioning of the relationship. As recovery and healing progress, a partner uses healthy boundaries to create safety and expectations for what is needed for the rebuilding of trust and moving toward deeper connection.
“It’s all about disconnection.... Right?”
It's about establishing and holding boundaries around the needs of the self FIRST and learning how to fill your own bucket in healthy ways.
Depending on how early one is in healing and recovery/how deep the enmeshment trends run in each individual/in the relationship, MAINTAINING LONG-TERM HEALTHY CONNECTION SOMETIMES MEANS SHORT-TERM DISCONNECTION.
Once personal healing, healthy boundary setting & holding, and healthy sovereignty/independence are happening in a sustainable way, it allows us to authentically connect with those in the world around us, INCLUDING our addict partners.
Mark and his partner, and Steve and his partner have the best marriages they've ever had, BECAUSE they don’t "need" each other (aren't "needy") the way that they used to. They each work to stand emotionally on their own two feet, and support each other wherever and whenever they can, WITHOUT taking ownership of the other person’s “stuff."
Learn more about Mark and Steve's revolutionary online porn/sexual addiction recovery and betrayal trauma healing program at—daretoconnectnow.com
Find out more about Steve Moore at: Ascension Counseling
Learn more about Mark Kastleman at: Reclaim Counseling Services
In PBSE Episode 232, Mark & Steve respond to a listener's experience and questions with regard to the approach to Betrayal Trauma healing that PBSE and Dare to Connect take, vs. the experience in 12-Step groups. Here's what the partner of a porn/sex addict submitted to PBSE—
Is it me or are the approaches of partner-oriented 12-step fellowships the opposite of the recovery approach taken in PBSE podcasts? The podcasts are all about connection and boundaries. The partner’s 12-step fellowship I attend feels all about ignoring your partner's actions and not letting his actions hurt you. And doing what makes you happy? So it’s about disconnection.... Right? Why is it that they (12-Step groups) are popular on both reddit and your podcasts? Am I seeing this wrong?? Or is there something about those 12 step fellowships that I don’t understand??
On the surface, the approach in PBSE/Dare to Connect vs. 12-Step for partners, can in some ways seem very different. However, they actually are the same fundamental approach, but from two different directions!
Here are essentially the two questions/observations about 12-Step, presented by this betrayed partner—
“It’s all about ignoring your partner’s actions... right?”
NO! It’s about SURRENDERING your partner’s actions, focusing on yourself (including your trauma & pain) and what you CAN control, which is boundaries built first around your own safety, needs and wants, and then incorporated properly into a committed relationship. This allows for personal healing and the most optimal functioning of the relationship. As recovery and healing progress, a partner uses healthy boundaries to create safety and expectations for what is needed for the rebuilding of trust and moving toward deeper connection.
“It’s all about disconnection.... Right?”
It's about establishing and holding boundaries around the needs of the self FIRST and learning how to fill your own bucket in healthy ways.
Depending on how early one is in healing and recovery/how deep the enmeshment trends run in each individual/in the relationship, MAINTAINING LONG-TERM HEALTHY CONNECTION SOMETIMES MEANS SHORT-TERM DISCONNECTION.
Once personal healing, healthy boundary setting & holding, and healthy sovereignty/independence are happening in a sustainable way, it allows us to authentically connect with those in the world around us, INCLUDING our addict partners.
Mark and his partner, and Steve and his partner have the best marriages they've ever had, BECAUSE they don’t "need" each other (aren't "needy") the way that they used to. They each work to stand emotionally on their own two feet, and support each other wherever and whenever they can, WITHOUT taking ownership of the other person’s “stuff."
Learn more about Mark and Steve's revolutionary online porn/sexual addiction recovery and betrayal trauma healing program at—daretoconnectnow.com
Find out more about Steve Moore at: Ascension Counseling
Learn more about Mark Kastleman at: Reclaim Counseling Services
Previous Episode
Because He’s a Sex Addict—even in Real Recovery—I will still Never Be Enough For Him! How do I Cope with That?!
Episode 231 comes in response to a very raw and real submission by a PBSE listener who is the partner of a sex addict. Here's what she vulnerably expressed—
I’m the partner of a sex/porn addict who has a 3-4 year history of lying about being in “recovery.” Even to sponsors, men groups & therapists. My experience has always been my discovery, never his disclosure, and death by a thousand cuts over the years. He states he is now “taking his recovery seriously.” That’s to be seen. I’m not writing on what to do about him. I’m writing to understand and get closure for myself from an addiction perspective since it has consistently been denied me. When in active addiction or in actual recovery, is it true to believe that sexually and aesthetically I will always be “the lesser thing” or major effort will be required on his part to simply desire me in a way that so many other women are/have been desirable to him? I’ve watched him put tons of effort and protection around his efforts to desire other women. But when it comes to me, there’s absolutely nothing there. No pursuit, no flirting, no dates, no chivalry, no sex, and no love. He acts bored, uninterested and even bothered by my presence. He calls this "being sober." I call it being more than alone and it's led me to consider ACTUALLY being alone rather than suffering while waiting for something that seemingly is never coming. My mental health is demanding I get away from this with urgency. I’ve wanted my family to stay together but not at the detriment of my own health. He’s obviously more interested in other women and my concern is that since I’ve already been determined as “less than” to him, I will never be enough and what he truly desires—even if he does get into real, active recovery.
In this episode, Mark & Steve get raw and real about how to approach this situation form the aspect of a partner that is AUTHENTIC, EMPOWERED, and BOUNDARIED!
How does the partner of a sex/porn addict get in touch with her true, authentic WANTS and NEEDS? What can easily derail this process? What are the obstacles that prevent a partner from fully engaging in the process of determining and expressing these wants and needs?
Why are these wants and needs critical when making life-altering decisions about a relationship?
Why are BOUNDARIES the GRAND KEY to getting wants and needs met OR deciding to move on?
Learn more about Mark and Steve's revolutionary online porn/sexual addiction recovery and betrayal trauma healing program at—daretoconnectnow.com
Find out more about Steve Moore at: Ascension Counseling
Learn more about Mark Kastleman at: Reclaim Counseling Services
Next Episode
What’s the Point in Staying with a Porn/Sex Addict? What’s in it for the Betrayed Partner?
In Episode 233, Mark & Steve respond to a very heart-felt submission from a betrayed partner, who asks some very hard questions about her relationship with a partner who is a porn/sex addict in recovery. Here's what she submitted to PBSE—
Hi Mark and Steve, I’m feeling a lot of apathy in my marriage and I don’t understand the point in staying. I’ve been with my husband for two years and married for less than six months. We have been separated for two weeks now because he has kept relapsing on porn. I have been previously married and initiated the divorce when I realized I was in a psychologically abusive marriage. My current husband has the pattern of—a [new disclosure day,] then a honeymoon period where he makes changes and has lots of epiphanies, and then within a couple of weeks he slides backwards and then he is shocked when he relapses again. This time around it looks like he is throwing himself into recovery: 12 step attendance, therapy, daily accountability partner, journaling, meeting with our religious leader. But I just don’t believe in any of it. I’m waiting for the cycle to repeat itself. I go to my own support groups and I listen to these sad women and the whole time I’m thinking, “why are we putting up with this? Why are we risking our well-being for the slim chance our addict spouses will change decades of ingrained behavior?” I want to leave. I know life goes on after divorce. I know I’ll be ok. Currently I stay because God has told me to give it more time. But I am not interested in being another woman whose spouse is still relapsing years later. Could you please tell us spouses what’s the point in staying? What is there to be gained for us?
- In the Dare to Connect program, we are currently diving deep into what it means to get in-tune with one's authentic wants and needs in a relationship and how to set healthy boundaries around this authenticity.
- Too often in our culture, it's not safe to express true wants and needs, or we're used to them not being consistently met anyway, so we naturally default to hopelessness, apathy and exhaustion.
- How can betrayed partners peel back the layers on what they truly and authentically want and need at their deepest core--and HOW can they voice these and place healthy boundaries around them?
- How can a betrayed partner use a "Pros & Cons" list to get raw and real in the decision about whether to stay or go—and how can she talk openly and vulnerably with her addict partner about this list?
- For many betrayed partners, it IS authentic to keep having hope, being optimistic and keep seeing the good in their addict partners. But are there limits on this approach? When does it leave the realm of being "authentic"?
- Why a betrayed partner should ALWAYS make life-altering decisions from a place of EMPOWERMENT and NEVER from a boxed-in place of helplessness.
Learn more about Mark and Steve's revolutionary online porn/sexual addiction recovery and betrayal trauma healing program at—daretoconnectnow.com
Find out more about Steve Moore at: Ascension Counseling
Learn more about Mark Kastleman at: Reclaim Counseling Services
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