Progress toward a healthier, more intimate sexual relationship with my wife of more than 31 years is one of the gifts I’ve experienced through SA. Even the fact that I’m still married is a miracle. It seems that God always took our wedding vows seriously, even though many times over the years I did not. Before recovery, I harmed our relationship by betrayal and unfaithfulness, fear of inadequacy and abandonment, frustration and resentment, and finally loneliness and despair.

Now my wife and I are friends again. We are finally experiencing the togetherness we wanted when we first got married. SA has given me the tools I need to recover intimacy and to experience true union with my wife: “I can’t have true union with my wife while lust is active because she as a person really doesn’t matter . . . And I can’t have true union with myself while I’m splitting myself having sex with myself… But . . . by surrendering lust and its acting out each time I’m tempted by it, and then experiencing God’s life-giving deliverance from its power . . . wholeness is being restored—true union within myself first, then with others and the Source of my life” (SA 42-43).

When I hit bottom in October 2009, my wife was spiritually prepared for what was to come. When I announced that I was leaving her for another person, she looked me in the eye and said, “You’re sick and God can fix this.” Not exactly the response I expected! She had been on a spiritual and healing journey toward God for several years, so when this crisis hit she responded with a whole new set of principles.

After one final relapse, I was beaten. I attended a meeting the next day feeling crushed. A member offered to sponsor me at that meeting. I attended more than 90 meetings in 90 days, and I worked a thorough Step One. My wife also got active in Twelve Step recovery. We both understand the principle that our individual recoveries must be our priority. Without individual sobriety and recovery, our marriage will not get better.

One helpful concept comes from “The Solution” (SA 204): “We discovered that we could stop, that not feeding the hunger didn’t kill us, that sex was indeed optional.” When I was new, this reading encouraged me that I could stop acting out. As I’ve progressed in my recovery, I’ve found that there is more than one possible course of action for the married sexaholic: sex is optional—not mandatory, not required—but possible. I’ve found the words of the White Book to be true: “Our whole concept of sex begins to change. Sex finds a simple and natural place it could never have before and becomes merely one of the things that flows from true union in committed marriage” (193).

I began to hear other married members talk about sexuality and I began to have hope that my own sexual relationship in marriage could be restored to sanity.

Today I read all I can about marriage and relationships. Recovery Continues has been a vital piece of literature on my journey toward healthier sex in marriage. Articles in this book have provided me with new ideas about topics such as abstinence, romance, and sex in marriage. Helpful articles have included “Abstinence in Marriage” (14-15), “What About Romance and Passion in Marriage After Sobriety?” (28-34), “Why Relationships Did Not Work for Me as a Sexaholic” (45-48), and “Lust, Sex, and the Marriage Misconnection” (59-63).

Most important, from this book I learned the importance of commitment: “Only when I committed myself to this one person, with no recourse to others, even if it meant being alone, did I begin to see what true union and love were all about and know the freedom for which I had always yearned” (RC 48).

Step work has also been a continuing source of new ideas and attitudes that have led to healthier relations with my wife. In my Fourth Step, I took inventory of the sexual harms I had done my wife. I saw how selfish I had been. Next, I wrote out a sane and sound ideal for my future sex life (AA 69). I strive to make this new ideal the standard on which my actions and attitude are based.

In the Fifth Step, I cleared out the resentment and shame I was harboring about my relations with my wife. In making direct amends to my wife, I told her I was willing to make things right, and that I would listen to what she had to say about our situation. She didn’t respond right away. She asked for time to “think about it,” which meant I had to remain willing and continue to listen. What a gift!

Over time she told me what she needed and what I could do to make things right. She reminded me of how things were when we were dating. We had looked forward to being together and making plans to spend special moments together. I do that now. I send her emails and leave her notes, and we plan date nights.

My wife encouraged me to believe that I am the man she wants me to be. That means I make amends to her by letting go of my fear of sexual inadequacy and by surrendering my fantasies about how I should perform. What a relief! I believe that God made us and He put us together for a reason. Today I believe that our marriage is not a mistake; it’s a gift!

A final tool that helps me in my relationship with my wife is prayer. The Step Eleven reading suggests that, “If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning mediation” (AA 87). My wife and I have used this principle in our marriage. We don’t always pray together but when circumstances warrant we do. Sometimes we pray together before we have sex. Sometimes we pray afterwards. Sometimes it is truly a spiritual experience. Sometimes it is just the two of us doing what two married people do. Either way, if lust is not present, I consider it progress, not perfection.

As a married person in recovery, I am discovering God’s plan for me, which includes sex without lust in the True Union of marriage. This is how I’m being restored to sanity today.