Writing a restitution letter to your partner comes within a week of your formal therapeutic disclosure. In this letter, you acknowledge your behaviors and how they have impacted your partner. It is an opportunity to express sincere empathy and remorse for the harm done to her, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and verbally.
One of the ways I’ve found to be successful is the “Thirteen Dimensions of Sex Addiction Induced Trauma” (April, 2014) by Dr. Omar Minwalla, Director, The Institute for Sexual Health (ISH) The Sex Addiction-Induced Trauma Model© (SAITM©).
- Discovery Trauma
- Disclosure Trauma
- Reality-Ego Fragmentation
- Impact to Body and Medical Intersection
- External Crisis and Destabilization
- SAIT Hypervigilance and Re-Experiencing
- Dynamics of Perpetration, Violation and Abuse (SAIP)
- Sexual Trauma
- Gender Wounds and Gender-Based Trauma (GBT)
- Relational Trauma and Attachment Injuries
- Family, Communal and Social Injuries
- Treatment-Induced Trauma
- Existential and Spiritual Trauma.
Each dimension of the 13 areas of trauma is very likely to have impacted your partner. It is well worth your time and effort to understand the level of how she has been wounded. It makes so much difference to her to hear you say in your own words how you understand the pain she is in. Spend some time in Minwalla’s article to read and re-read the main points he is driving at. It is written in clinical terms; however, there is a lot to take away from his research and knowledge of the trauma she experiences.
For your restitution letter, take each dimension and write into it as you understand the impact. Don’t cut it short; show up with empathy. Remember, it’s an opportunity to express your understanding of your actions, and when you’re apologizing, tell her why you are sorry. When the focus is off you, your shame does not get in the way of speaking from the heart with a clear and concise freedom to express how you want to help her heal.