Posts in self-care
Mid-week Gotta Share~Retreats Just For YOU!

Tania Rochelle, MS LPC NCC (and most importantly—a guest blogger here!) has launched her website, https://sweetwaterretreats.com and her FB page Sweetwater Retreats. Of particular interest is that she is offering three retreats for wives and partners of sex addicts in three different locations. Registration is limited to eight. As well as being a licensed counsellor and teacher, Tania is a publisher writer who uses all her training to develop tools to treat our trauma symptoms. She is a great listener and will be there for you. Also, every participant will receive a follow-up session with me that is included in the retreat fees. Check out the dates and locations here: https://sweetwaterretreats.com/ Scroll down the homepage for retreat fees and dates.

You also might know Tania from Episode 2, Part 1 of PoSARC’s Survivor series. Lili Bee talks with Tania about her experience extricating herself from her life with a man called a sex addict (not once but twice!) and how she is enjoying a life of freedom now, as well as a new relationship that is positively different from the one she left behind. You can watch that video on http://www.posarc.com/ home page. Just scroll down past a few other videos and there it is!

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Post-traumatic stress, self-care, making decisionsDiane Stricklandretreats for partners, partners are priority
Where Does Hope Fit? And What Is It?

Although I am over nine years from dday, it has been a long journey to find my voice. I well remember putting one foot in front of the other every day as one of the walking dead. I didn’t use the word hope. I just kept going. That was hope. Now, leaving terror behind means I can use my critical faculties to do what they do best—identify, question, analyze and discuss what happened, and choose what happens next.

I seek a just way for us to understand and heal our lives that begins with ourselves as priorities for care, not women to be “managed.“ I will not ignore the domestic violence in our experience or when practitioners add a “therapeutic” version of it to our nightmare. And I keep going. That is still hope.

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Post-traumatic stress, therapeutic abuse, self-careDiane Stricklandhope, suicidality, your strength, hopium, misogynist therapy
You asked for more: Boundaries and Consequences

Your feedback from “The Big Boundary Bluff” (posted two weeks ago) kept me busy for days as messages poured into my inbox. Thank you for taking the time to write. The blog travelled widely and much discussion ensued: women were screaming “YESSSSSSSS!” and panicked men called sex addicts got busy mansplaining boundaries to me—at least till they noticed too many wives and partners on the forums were walking through the prison door they’d just realized had been unlocked all the time. Too late! Too late! They’re getting away!

1.     Why are these men so panicked when you stop making up boundaries to curtail and direct their behaviors?

The moment you stop creating boundaries that men really already know, the jig is up.

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making decisions, Post-traumatic stress, self-care, fake regretDiane Stricklandboundaries, boundaries for partners, sex addicts manipulate, sex addicts tricks, infantilizing sex addicts, partners who challenge sex addicts, partners look after themselves, codependent
Suddenly Alone

What was your dday?

For most women, there were many episodes of uncovering bits of evidence, stumbling over contradictions, and then questioning our husband or boyfriend. We had no notion of the massive bottom to the iceberg on which we stood. But those episodes weren’t ddays.

Dday is something else altogether. Dday is when you grasp you have been deliberately deceived by your life partner on core value ground. You may not know all the who, what, where, when or why’s—but you know there’s been a breach in your relationship that is a critical breach. It’s not about a crisis that reveals illness, a mental lapse of some kind, or a stress related behavioral problem. Dday is when you perceive for the first time that he is “okay” with hurting you. That, in my opinion, is dday.  And for me, that meant I was suddenly alone.

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therapeutic abuse, self-care, Post-traumatic stressDiane Stricklanddday, discovery, isolation, alone, finding company, audio blogs, partners look after themselves, suicidality, hopelessness, therapeutic incompetence, misogynist therapy, trauma symptoms
The Big Boundary Bluff

I received a message this week from an exasperated wife. She had come to realize the farce of all the boundary work she had been asked to do to save him and their marriage. Nearly ten years ago I remember thinking the same thing about all the “keep ‘em busy and let them think it will make a difference” boundary work the industry and even partner advocates espoused. Somehow it just didn’t make a lot of sense.

And nearly ten years later, I have a better idea of why it didn’t make sense then, and now. So, I’ve listed the points I believe wives and partners should consider before they comply with the industry’s boundary homework assignments.

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self-care, therapeutic abuse, making decisionsDiane Stricklandboundaries for partners, partners look after themselves, core values, recovery ploys, therapeutic incompetence