What To Do If a Dating Relationship is Affected by Pornography w/ Jill Manning

Narrator: This is Pathway to Recovery, an SA Lifeline Foundation podcast featuring hosts Tara McCausland, who is the SA Lifeline Executive Director, and Justin B., a sex addict living in long-term recovery. We have conversations with experts and individuals who understand the pathway to healing from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma because we believe that recovering individuals leads to the healing of families. Hey friends, before we get started, just a quick announcement.

Tara McCausland: Wanted to let you know that registration for the SAL 12-Step In-Person Conference, which will be held in Orem, Utah on April 18th, 2026, is available. And so if you are interested in coming, joining us for this live in-person event, We hope that you will go to sal12step.org, go and register, and here you'll be able to connect with others who are working SAL 12-step and find the power and healing in community. So we hope that you'll join us again, April 18th in Orem, Utah.

Go to sal12step.org to register. Welcome to the Pathway to Recovery Podcast. I am your host, Tara McCausland, and so thrilled to have Jill Manning here with me again for part 2. Thank you for coming back, Dr. Manning.

Jill Manning: Great to be here.

Tara McCausland: So hopefully you will have listened to part 1, which was preventing pornography problems in relationships, and now we want to talk about what to do if a dating relationship is already affected by pornography. Again, we know our audience listening, many of you are already in relationship, in a committed relationship with someone that's struggling with pornography or sexual addiction. There's still helpful information here. And this is also information for the upcoming generation. So we hope you'll send this along to someone who is in the dating scene and needs to be educated about how to move forward in this crazy culture that we're living in of permissiveness.

But Jill, do you want to give us an overview of what we're talking about, what to do if we already have problems with pornography in a dating relationship?

Jill Manning: Yeah, this again, just like with part 1, some of the disclaimer caveat I want to start out with is that there's a real potential for people to take offense on both sides of this. And so my role and goal today is just to share openly and honestly things that I've seen work or not work. And I invite people to engage this content if they feel strongly or in disagreement about something that, you You know, to, to ask why and just to explore it.

I think getting more and more clear on where we stand and what we need is a good thing. So I'm not asking people to see it the way I see it, but to engage this as a topic that I think really everyone is going to encounter in some form, whether through a loved one or exposed ourselves or Somehow this is just a, sadly, a modern reality.

Tara McCausland: So again, if you're listening, I hope you've listened to part 1, but let's say we're in a relationship and we're kind of toying around with the idea of marriage. Maybe we're not that far in, but you're starting to move toward more of a committed relationship and you start having a conversation about pornography, which we hope you will. Before you plunge into a marriage commitment. If someone you're dating discloses a pornography problem, what should your immediate response be?

Jill Manning: My immediate response, which I acknowledge a lot of people are not going to like, is to slow down. It's 2 words, slow down. Now that's going to be a challenge. If you have strong feelings, romantic feelings to someone, there's that whole piece of what does this mean? It can bring up a lot of fear. Slowing down is also a challenge for people struggling with pornography use because pornography use at its core is a quick fix mentality about trying to regulate emotion or regulate something— trauma, pain, stress, anger.

So slowing down is pretty counterintuitive. There will be people that think they need to speed up. Let's get married sooner. Marriage will solve a pornography problem because we will have an intimate relationship. That could not be more unhelpful and unwise. And I, I'm just going to say that as frankly as that. Um, slowing down, getting curious. Really figuring out what does this mean? How long has this been going on? How intense and extensive is this issue?

How frequently does it happen? What are the steps that have been taken so far to stop? Does this person even want to stop? How willing and committed are they to recovery? Are they in recovery or not? Like there's, there's literally dozens of questions that this brings up. That are not going to be answered in one conversation or day. I, as a marriage and family therapist, I am coming at this, Tara, with the assumption that most people listening are desiring healthy, satisfying relationships.

If I go from that assumption, then slowing down, if this is an active problem for someone, there is a lot of work that needs to happen before I would advise someone to move ahead with a further commitment with this person. You do not want to go into a relationship knowingly with someone that is not in solid recovery and sobriety. Sobriety is what we stop doing, but recovery is what we start doing. And I wanna be clear, 'cause there, there may be people hearing this that may feel a lot of shame around, hey, I, I used to struggle with this, um, or maybe I do now.

And I feel like no one's going to want me. And maybe we do a whole episode on that, Tara, at some point. But what I would say is recovery is possible. Sobriety is possible with the right support. You can't do that on your own. No, I don't think this issue is automatically a rejection label or stamp on someone's forehead, but I would not advise someone getting married or engaged With this as an active issue. Now, the following thing that I'm going to say, I know people don't like, but as a clinician, if I'm being integrous and honest with this, I would say ideally I would want people completely sober for a year before engaging in a long-term relationship.

People don't like that answer, but there's research backing that up. We know that the first year of sobriety establishment is the most difficult. Yeah. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy peasy going forward, but if someone can really invest in recovery and sobriety in that first year, and they've been, they've been able to do that, okay, now we really have something to work with. And I, you and I both, Tara, we know and love people that are in recovery that are committed to that.

And that I think brings so much to the marriage table. Yeah. Right? Because of that recovery, you know, because of the self-awareness and the growth and the work they've done on themselves. So anyone listening, I do not believe that just because someone has struggled in the past, that forever means, oh, they're not marriage material, or you should reject or run for the hills right away. I don't believe that. But what I do believe is that you should not proceed You should not proceed.

And I realize that sounds very directive and judgmental, but it's out of a desire of wanting to prevent the pain and betrayal and just destruction that I see each week where people didn't slow down. They made false assumptions about what would happen after marriage with this issue. And it's really gotten them into a world of hurt. I'd rather on the front end, people get very clear, I love you, I do want to be in a relationship with you, but I will not accept active addiction.

And I'm not going to start a relationship on that foundation. Men do this too, but I more, I more see it with women. They self-abandon and they get into a very codependent cycle of placing the other's need or their empathy for their partner way ahead of their own truth, their own values, their own needs. And they try to fix. Oh, I will help you with this. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is his work to do if it's a male or her work to do if it's a female.

We can support. I can, uh, but supporting is not doing the work. And supporting is just that. It is a secondary role. It's not reminders, buying the books, setting the appointments. Being his, his or her therapist. No, none of that. It's that person's work. And if you don't get really clear on those roles right at the outset, you're setting this up for a lot of codependent patterns that are setting a precedent that I promise you, I promise you will, will really undermine healthy dynamic.

It'll become more like a parent-child dynamic. That's very unsexy. Let's just say, right? You will— we don't get attracted to people we feel we have to parent and coddle and like pull along. That's not attractive long-term. Even if someone feels a lot of meaning and sense of purpose in that initially, that wears out, then wears thin, and then it gets into disrespect and resentment. So if someone acknowledges, we, you know, this is an issue, I'd first want to affirm their honesty.

Hey, that's a good thing. That's a good sign. But slow down, get curious, and get very clear on who's responsible for what. And the non-using partner is not responsible and cannot fix that issue. But she or he can say, I'm not willing to proceed or move toward greater commitment with you until there is active recovery. And it's been consistent for a long enough time that you really know how this person's going to fare in the long run.

Tara McCausland: So many thoughts are going through my brain right now, Jill. Of course, my parents, founders of SA Lifeline Foundation, my dad believed, and I think this is the myth that we have to eradicate. He firmly believed that marriage was the solution. Yeah. To his acting out problems. And I, I know that still many people hold that belief. It is not true. Sex is never the issue when we have a compulsive pornography issue or a sex addiction.

It is not about sex. It is the drug of choice. And so if you're listening and you're thinking, gosh, that's a real hard line, if I'm struggling with this, you're saying I I can't move forward, whether you're the one struggling with the behavior or the other partner. But in reality, this is actually the most compassionate thing to do for both individuals. The sooner we can help people understand that we will not accept active addiction, that there are consequences to this behavior, and that recovery is possible, and we're asking people to be accountable for their choices because It's affecting them and it will affect a future relationship.

So while that might feel like a really hard line, I would say, Jill, that is the most compassionate response we could give, not just for ourselves, but for the other person. Thoughts about that?

Jill Manning: Agreed. In 12-step that I'm engaged in, we talk about clarity being loving and kind. Mixed messages are abusive. I think it's incredibly mixed and messy message. To say, I love you and I'm willing to tolerate or make room for behavior that is destructive to you, destructive to us, and disrespectful and undermining to me as a person. It's just, it's so messy. And I do wanna circle back briefly, Tara, something really important you said about this completely false assumption and narrative about marriage solving these issues.

I want to add that clergy, and I say this with great respect and sensitivity, too many clergy and too many clinicians, mental health providers, have also bought in and got sucked into that message where the counsel or encouragement or the secret keeping around this topic I've seen really do harm and has even been traumatic for certain individuals. We need to, as you said, eradicate that messaging because this is not a— the assumption is, is if I marry and I'm in a sexual relationship, the sexual relationship will do away with the need to look at pornography.

This isn't a sexual issue. Yeah. Pornography is not about sex. It's about mood regulation. It's about dopamine. This is a neurobiological issue and disease that you're trying to solve with a marriage solution. And that those don't go together. That's like having an unhappy marriage and thinking bringing children into that is going to— I mean, I don't know for anyone that parenting, bringing parenting into the equation has helped a strained or unhealthy or toxic relationship. That's not how that works.

And most people seeking treatment, Tara, if we look at the research, most of those in treatment for compulsive sexual behavior, 80% of which starts with pornography or involves pornography, most of them are heterosexual married individuals. So if marriage was going to solve this, we wouldn't be seeing that in the data the way that we do.

Tara McCausland: Well, not to rehash this, but it's just like, replace the porn issue with alcoholism or heroin, a hard substance. People wouldn't be saying the same thing. Go ahead and get married, that'll all go away. If we stop thinking about the porn issue as being attached to a sexual relationship, then I think we get clarity. But we still are fighting this uphill battle of people thinking porn is not big of a deal. It's not addictive, certainly. Sorry, I'm getting a little cheeky now.

Jill Manning: No, no, no, I'm with you. I share the fire. I share the fire. Don't worry about it. You're in good company. But it's so demeaning, especially to women. It's demeaning to men in a slightly different way. But, you know, the amount of abuse and degradation of women in pornography, and then as women, For us to say, I'm okay with him doing that. Oh yeah, in fact, I'll marry him. Or I will, I will be open to this being a sexual partner for me.

Someone who has a history and track record of exploiting and degrading women and objectifying women, that those don't go together. So to me, again, it goes back to what we've talked about, education and really understanding what pornography means. And when I say that, I'm saying, please don't go online. you know, and be searching for porn. Look at what are the harms of pornography? What does the research say about what this does to relationships and really what the addiction and what the compulsivity around this involves?

There's a big gap and disconnect, Tara, if I can speak frankly. When I ask women, what do you think he's looking at? And then when I ask the men, when we do polygraph disclosures and they're listing out genres of pornography or behaviors they've engaged in, Can I just highlight the disconnect is enormous. What she thinks is happening and what's actually happening are far apart. If you ask a lot of women, what do you think he's looking at?

And I promise not to be graphic. I don't wanna be triggering here, but often they'll, they'll say, you know, large-breasted women or heterosexual sexual relations. And they kind of have this very '60s-ish That's not what's happening here. This is body punishing, degrading, abusive, glorifying illegal behaviors. So like, I really want men and women to get real here. There's a lot on the line. There's a lot at stake. And when you're in the territory of considering a long-term partner for yourself, please stand up.

And yes, there's going to be sacrifice in there. I would rather have someone have the heartache at the front end of leaving a 6, 10, 24-month relationship. It's painful. And I'm not, I've been through heartbreaks and breakups myself. I don't say that lightly, but that is a walk in the park. Compared to marriage and children and the legalities and finances and all these other commitments, it's suddenly far more complex and messy and difficult. So please, on the front end, hold the line, get clear on what that line is for you, and get educated so that you're not vulnerable to these backward, very destructive ideas.

That all people do this and that marriage is going to fix it. It will not.

Tara McCausland: And just to reiterate, I believe this is the most compassionate response to not sell yourself out and to allow the other person to take some accountability because it's hurting them as much as it would hurt you in the here and now and in the future.

Jill Manning: Well, and on the flip side, Tara, for the user, this is, this is a healthy path. For the person struggling, right? To be able to devote and invest in recovery on the front end, invest. Like, I, I believe pornography is beneath us. And so for people to live their best life and best relationship, I believe the user too, that it's the most loving, respectful thing for them as well. Yes. Yeah. Recovery is possible and people deserve that, I believe.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. So you've said that we never have more leverage and degrees of freedom than we do when we are single. And of course, we're, we're still talking about people who have not yet entered the marriage relationship. What do you mean by that?

Jill Manning: Well, when any of us make a commitment, vow, covenant, legally binding contract with anybody, not necessarily marriage, that is a whole other territory. Than when we are single or prior to making an agreement, vow, covenant, you know, a legally binding contract. As you just said, please do not sell yourself out. You have choices. You have options. You can say no. You can say, not yet. I need more time. I need to see what's happening with recovery before I decide.

And do not rush that. It is when we are emotionally immature, and I wanna give grace. All of us are emotionally immature at stages of life. We're designed, we're supposed to be immature when we're young, right? But when you get into the territory of deciding a marriage partner, you want that to be a, a mature choice. And with maturity comes nuance, patience, right? When we're in that rush, Mm-hmm. Or fear-based mentality. Well, if I don't marry him now, he'll break up with me or he'll find someone else.

He'll find someone that will be okay with this. Okay. Hear that. Reflect that back. Slowing down and getting curious is the most loving, most mature thing both people can do. And I really so strongly discourage starting in relationship when this is an active issue. So when I say being single, you never have more degrees of freedom than then. It's just that you're not yet in that committed relationship. It is not easy, but easier to step back, break up, make a different choice than when we are committed and married.

It also, in terms of the precedent it sets, The message we give our partner, well, you were okay with this to some extent before. What's the problem now? The most effective place and time to say, no way, Jose. I know I will not accept this. I will love you in recovery, but I'm not accepting active addiction, is before we are in a committed relationship. People get ahead of their skis with this often. And that's where education about what marriage does or doesn't do to addiction is really key.

We've established it as a destructive and false narrative that marriage will solve these issues. But what we haven't talked about is it actually is at high risk of increasing these issues because it's not about sex. It's about mood regulation and dopamine. And when you think of the stressors of marriage, the demand on maturity and the demand on our skillset, our coping mechanisms, is pretty intense with marriage. I, speaking for myself, and I'm married to a wonderful man, he is not an addict.

You know, he is a, he was just a great guy, still is. And I find marriage the hardest thing I do. Yeah. So even in pretty ideal circumstances, marriage is tough. Marriage is hard. People are hard. And so what I want to make really clear that for people to know, the risk of this increasing after marriage is really high because it tends to be emotionally immature people that are engaging in this compulsively. They haven't yet learned the skills to maturely regulate nervous system, mood.

Life stressors. So you, you're really taxing that with marriage. And sadly, Tara, having done disclosures for many, many years now, it is not a coincidence that often around the time of pregnancies, birth of children, we see addiction escalate. Why is that? Because those tend to be stressful, even though they're wonderful in many cases, that it can be a joyous thing. Or a wanted thing, it's still stressful. It's stressful financially. It shifts and changes the relationship. So I want people to think that through, that if this is not well established in recovery and the boundaries around that really clear, if the partner has accepted that and allowed that in, she's really, or he's really setting a dangerous precedent that I think will— be harder to kind of reel back in.

So sing— singlehood is the time to do that if you can. Um, and please don't believe that marriage is going to do that any favors.

Tara McCausland: I think for the person who's dealing with the behavior, like, I think if my father had gotten help when he was 20 years old, he had come forward to his faith leader He was counseled not to tell his fiancée about these issues. Again, well-meaning, but the faith leader didn't understand what he was dealing with, nor did he. If we can look at this from a perspective of, I really am doing the most kind, compassionate thing by holding people accountable, by establishing and holding to my values.

I guess for some reason I just am envisioning people listening to this and then feeling discouraged Oh, you're telling me to slow down. You're telling me that I'm not marriageable if I'm dealing with these issues or whatever. I'm saying, no, I want you to reframe this. Mm-hmm. That if we can recognize that honesty and accountability is always going to be the pathway of a more peaceful, happy existence, the sooner we can get there, the better. And I don't know why I feel like I just need to hit that hard.

Jill, because I know that sometimes people feel discouraged by, again, how common this issue is, and they're fearing that maybe they'll never be in a position to be a good marriageable partner because getting into recovery has been so hard. I just want to reassure people that wherever you're at on this path, that honesty and integrity and accountability is always going to be the better option.

Jill Manning: Well, and to build off that, something we have not talked about at all yet, Tara, that I think ties in with this is the research is also clear. And I'm speaking as a mental health provider. The majority of those struggling with compulsive sexual behavior disorder have mental health issues. And the compulsive sexual behavior disorder is often the way they're self-medicating. It's not even always the primary issue. And the research shows this is often correlated. That means associated, or we often see it along with mood disorders, depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, commonly abbreviated as suicidality, personality disorder traits, especially narcissism.

About 44% of those with compulsive sexual behavior issues will have narcissistic traits. So I also don't want people to get lost in the clouds of the pornography. That's sometimes the crisis, but it's not the core problem. So this is also why I want people to slow down and get curious and get treatment and get recovery, because almost always there's mental health issues that are alongside or part of this that are really going to strain marriage relationships as well.

So people will often, and I've done this myself at different points in my life, we confuse the crisis for the problem. There may be the crisis of, oh my goodness, I found this out, or I discovered this, or he said this. That may be the crisis, but the core issue, the real problem is why is this person doing this? What's driving it? Yeah. And so to, you know, to lead into, well, what does recovery look like and mean?

'Cause it, people really need a vision and clarity about, well, what, what does recovery look like? What does sobriety mean? And, uh, yeah, I'm hoping we can talk about that because, and include a mental health perspective because they, they are cousins.

Tara McCausland: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for bringing that up. The pornography issue is the tip of the iceberg. Okay. There's all this other stuff underneath that we're not seeing. Yeah. Well, so let's talk about that. What does solid recovery look like? Because you had counseled a year of sobriety before someone ought to get serious about getting into a marriage relationship or a committed relationship. How can someone tell the difference between real recovery and someone maybe just going through the motions?

Jill Manning: Yeah, real— I love that question because, you know, I've both met people probably, Tara, where they go to lots of meetings, they go to therapy. It's not just the what, it's you want someone that has insight. They understand why have they engaged in this in the past? What are the triggers? What new skills are they developing and practicing on a day-to-day basis to nip those triggers before they really get going? Yeah. So insight is big, not just someone— it can't just be a behavioral approach.

If I do this behavior and I'm stopping this behavior, it has to be deeper than that for long-term success. And why do I engage in this behavior? What insight do I have about my needs and how I get those needs met in healthy ways that can honor and protect a relationship rather than undermine it? So I'm going to go through, if it's okay, I'm going to choose 4 or 5 traits of active addiction and then compare them to traits of active recovery.

And recovery again is what we start doing. Sobriety is what we stop doing. And you need both. We need sobriety, meaning this behavior's no longer being engaged in, but we also need the recovery, which is how we show up differently and the skills we use to protect our sobriety and also be who we need and want to be in our life. So in active addiction, someone's often rooted in a lot of shame and worthlessness. In recovery, they start— it's rooted in humility.

There's clarity of weaknesses, but also strengths. And they start getting back home to a sense of inherent worth, that that doesn't define their worth as a person. With active addiction, someone tends to be pretty defensive about this issue. But in active recovery, someone's open. They're okay talking about it. In active addiction, there's a lot of deception and secrets. In good recovery, there's honesty and transparency. I think it was actually SA Lifeline that taught me H2A: humility, honesty, accountability.

That's really the posture of good recovery. In active addiction, we lack boundary. In fact, Dr. Stephanie Carnes referred to addiction as a disease of boundary failure. In recovery, we have bottom lines and boundaries very clearly defined, and we live them. It's not our partner's job to impose those or be the sober living coach and the monitor of all of those. A person in good recovery knows their limits and knows Within the bounds that they need to live to be protected and healthy.

And lastly, I would say in active addiction, we see a lot of signs of emotional immaturity. And in active recovery, we start seeing a lot of more maturity. And I define emotional maturity as they struggle with worth, struggle with boundaries. They tend to be egocentric. Mm-hmm. That's a whole other conversation about maturity, but I mean, I'm using that as a clinical term. So recovery is— boy, I admire people that are in recovery. And as I said earlier, and I mean it, the people that I know that are really walking a path consistently of excellent recovery, they bring a lot to the table with relationships.

Yeah. You know, I think I've not met anyone that said, I, you know, I prefer a life without addiction. Sure, of course. And if there's someone that you deeply love and you feel a connection and bond with, and they're struggling with this, 'cause this is, this is a common struggle in our human condition, that does not automatically mean rejection or no relationship. But I think the timing's gonna be key and really Setting a precedent that this needs to be a relationship in recovery and having a foundation of that.

So going back to what does recovery look like? I like to see someone that has a very clear plan. They know how to take care of themselves. They know what their triggers are. They have insight about where this is rooted and they've changed their lifestyle. To address those issues. And they're learning how to regulate their nervous system differently, learning how to process and deal and express emotions and have more patience rather than this quick fix mentality of, I need a quick fix to feel better.

They're more comfortable with discomfort and can sit with things that are hard. And not be in that childish dopamine chase all the time. Those are some things that I look for. And also honesty, that this is someone that can tolerate, they're not allergic to honesty. They can be radically honest, rigorously honest with themselves and with their partner. You know, I love the definition that integrity is telling myself the truth. Honesty is telling my truth to other people.

Right? We need both.

Tara McCausland: Love that. Well, to encapsulate that, I think we recognize that sobriety is not recovery, but abstaining from the behavior is an important first step. And oftentimes we talk about positive sobriety at SA Lifeline Foundation versus just sobriety, which is, again, we have to stop the behavior. But if the person that you are dating is only saying, well, I've stopped the behavior, but they're not, as you said, Doing these other things that are allowing for them to make a lifestyle change and dig a little deeper into what, why was I even doing porn in the first place?

Right. We're still pretty much at square one if they're just zoning out.

Jill Manning: If someone's saying, oh, I stopped that. I'm never going to look at that again. I don't even want to look at it again. And that's as far as it goes. That is, that's a very risky Fragile position. That person's at high risk for getting sucked back into that when life hits. It's like a dry drunk, right? That, right. If someone is an alcoholic but no longer drinks, but hasn't done recovery to understand why did I drink in the first place and how have I changed my relationships or life to fill that void?

in a healthy way. Yeah, they're actually— dry drunks can be pretty jerky. It's like, I, in fact, I've had people say, I actually liked being around that person more when they were drinking.

Tara McCausland: Yeah. Well, so when we're considering how, say we have a couple and they're hoping that he can get some recovery and he's doing some work, but maybe she is Sometimes feeling a little codependent because she wants him to heal. She wants him to recover. She wants this relationship to work. How do you avoid sliding into maybe over-functioning or avoidance when dating someone who struggles with pornography?

Jill Manning: So hard, right? It's so hard because so many of us are socialized, especially females, are socialized that to give, give, give, you know, that be Our version of support and love is often very enmeshed and very codependent. So we don't see it. We see it as loving. And going back to what we talked about in the first episode around clarifying values, we need to really clarify what's in my control and what's not. You know, we talk about the 3 C's, which is rooted in the Al-Anon literature, but I know is used widely in many 12-step communities, that I can't control it.

I can't cure it. I didn't cause it. Right. I know I got those in the wrong order, but it's really true. And so for people to get clear on, I do not have control over another person, the way they think, feel, behave. What can I do? Okay. I could support by asking about this occasionally, or ask them, how often would it help you for me to ask or check in? I think what people do is they self-abandon and they prioritize the user's experience over their own.

How many people I've met to say, you know, I wasn't okay with this, but I stuffed that or shut that down or ignored that, or I just hoped it would get better. It would really be true and take good care of ourselves. If we're doing something for someone else that they can do, we're over-functioning. And anytime we over-function, Tara, I've learned the hard way, we're under-functioning for ourselves. And it's a setup for resentment and burnout and disconnection.

So I think it's okay to ask questions and to expect answers. But if we see or sense that someone's not pulling their weight, that they're not remembering things or not tracking or following through consistently, really take stock of that. Again, that's, I'm really about precedence when it comes to long-term relationships and some of the precedence and patterns we get set or begin to set in dating or courting. To be watchful of those, is this really long-term?

a healthy pattern for me to be engaging of doing recovery work or thinking that I can fix him or her. We can't. I mean, that's the basis of Step 1, right? The unmanageability that arises when we get that flipped and we become a higher power in someone's life, we get— it gets messy and blurry as to where the boundaries are. That's gonna look differently for different people, I realize. But the encouragement is to ask yourself, what is in my control and what isn't?

And that's hard to face sometimes because humans will often keep grief at bay by believing if they do more, if they work harder, if they just hang in there, it will work out. And with addiction, sadly, especially if someone has— an addict has narcissistic leaning, her cup is gonna be completely run dry and no one's looking out for her. So please, if you're, if you're listening and in a relationship, there's someone you love, please love them enough and love you enough to not do their work for them.

Tara McCausland: Well, our time is running short, and so I won't ask our typical bookend question. But for someone who really wants a porn-free marriage, what would you say to them if they're perhaps feeling a bit discouraged or afraid they're asking for too much? What are your thoughts about that?

Jill Manning: It's possible. It's possible. A lot of people don't believe that, but it is possible. And if this is not an active issue in someone's life or relationship, hold true. Hold that standard and expectation of, and it's okay to desire that and to stand for that. If this is an active issue, recovery is worth it and it's possible. Many will underestimate the work involved and the time involved to get a foundation of recovery. That's why I encourage people to slow down, get qualified professional help.

You know, do love yourselves enough to do that right and get a really solid foundation there where this is no longer happening. And there's good education, understanding about why it did happen in the first place. But yeah, I just, it's possible is what I would say.

Tara McCausland: This has been so good, Jill, and I'm grateful. for your friendship. We rely heavily on Dr. Manning and her, her insight and wisdom at SA Lifeline. But again, I value you so much as someone who speaks truth and brings light to dark places. So thank you again for your time today. And for our listeners, thanks for being here. We hope that this has been helpful.

Narrator: Thanks for joining us. We invite you to Subscribe to this podcast so that you don't miss new episodes. And while you're at it, will you please leave us a 5-star rating and review to help us spread the good news that healing from sexual addiction and betrayal trauma is possible? We invite individuals who are struggling to join our virtual or in-person trauma-sensitive 12-step meetings. Meeting times and locations can be found at sal12step.org. You can find quality You can also find more information at salifeline.org, and we hope that you will follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

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