Infidelity Survivors and Partners of Sex Addicts: Bill of Rights
New Year’s resolutions can be difficult in the wake of discovering betrayal in a relationship. Finding the energy to come up with a goal for picking up the pieces of a broken life, much less following through on one, can put a betrayed partner in overload. Sometimes simply reminding yourself of your list of inalienable relational bill of rights may be all you can handle.
The following Bill of Rights was created by a community of remarkable women recovering from their spouse’s infidelity and sex addiction:
I have a right to grieve the loss of all I thought was true about our marriage!
I have a right to be changed by what you did to our marriage!
I have a right to determine my boundaries in a relationship!
I have a right to take care of myself!
I have a right to feel what I feel!
I have a right to affirm myself!
I have a right to my own thoughts!
I have a right to my own perception of reality!
I have a right to love and be loved!
I have a right to be angry!
I have a right to express my anger!
I have a right to call the shots for my life, and not feel guilty for it!
I have a right to my own opinion!
I have a right to trust my own intuition!
I have a right to refuse to carry someone else’s shame!
I have a right to have a night out with my female buddies!
I have a right to trust or not trust as I see fit!
I have a right to express myself!
I have a right to cry!
I have a right to make choices that work for me!
I have a right to take my time to have my recovery at my pace in what works for me!
I have a right to decide where “my side of the street” is.
I have a right to set healthy boundaries and it doesn’t matter if others don’t like it!
I have a right to be less than perfect!
I have a right to remember that I am an amazing woman who is not diminished by your choices!
Know your bill of rights!
Dr. Janice Caudill is the founder and Clinical Director of McKinney Counseling & Recovery. MCR offers individual, couples, group therapy and multi-day intensives for partners of sex addicts and wounded hearts struggling with sex addiction, infidelity, love addiction or love avoidance, intimacy anorexia, or relational trauma in the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Richardson, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and surrounding areas.
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