Pivotal For Couples

Session 1 – Can relationships recover?

The first session will introduce you to the 3 stages of couple recovery. Using the metaphor of a boat to represent your relationship, and a tidal wave that capsizes it to represent the discovery of sex or porn addiction on your life, you’ll be introduced to the 3 stages of recovery for couples. Stage 1 – Surviving the Impact, Stage 2 – Navigating the Meaning and Stage 3 – Moving On.  You’ll also hear advice on making the most of this course.

Session 2 – Surviving the impact

The journey of recovery for couples begins with surviving the impact. The tidal wave has hit, your relationship has capsized, you’re both floundering in the water and the most important thing for each of you to do is get safely back to shore. This session addresses the common problem of one partner wanting to move on faster than the other and explores the 4 tasks for surviving the impact. Self-care, looking after others, establishing accountability and improving communication.

Session 3 – Navigating the meaning stage

Session 3 focuses on the essential topic of disclosure. For any couple to make sense of the tidal wave, they need to know what it was and why it happened. We also look at what’s left of your relation-ship – how bad the damage is and whether there’s enough worth saving. The session concludes with 12 questions to help you consider if you can continue together and rebuild your relationship.

Session 4 – Moving on: New roles and rules

Stage three of couple recovery, Moving On is broken into 2 parts with session 4 focussing on new roles and rules. All relationships change when they’re hit by a tidal wave and there is no going back to how things were. This means that if couples choose to stay together, they will need to adapt new roles and agree new rules. This session explores those changes in depth so you can each consider if this is something you want to sign up to.

Session 5 – Rebuilding trust and intimacy

If couples do decide to continue their journey together, rebuilding trust and intimacy is essential for the relationship to survive. In this session we explore what intimacy really means, not sexual intimacy, but all the other kinds of intimacy that are precursors to a physical relationship. We look at practical strategies for rebuilding trust, including how to manage slips and relapses as well as practical suggestions for deepening intimacy.

Session 6 – Final thoughts

The final session takes a cold, hard look at divorce or separation so couples can be fully aware when making decisions about the future. There is also an exploration of trial separation and what you each need to consider before deciding to tell others . We end the course by summarising previous sessions with a top 10 for couples in recovery.