In the interest of self-disclosure, I relate to The “S” Angle with firsthand experience. I’ve encountered “S” issues in both of my significant relationships: once in my first marriage (the one that ended abruptly after I discovered my husband’s hidden sexual life), then once again in my second marriage (the relationship I passionately fought to support and survive for more than a decade).

What do I hope to accomplish by telling you my own “S” Angle story? Bottom line, I’m committed to honor the ways “S” issues have affected my life as a woman, and to authentically reflect the ways those experiences inform and influence my work as a partners coach.

My “S” Angle story started with the disintegration of my first marriage, circa 2002. I know this sounds melodramatic, but I honestly thought I might die from the pain of that rejection. As a young woman of faith, divorce was my worst nightmare, something that I honestly never saw coming. As one might expect, I experienced deep feelings of betrayal, abandonment and personal loss. But what caught me off guard—what I didn’t anticipate, even as I began to accept the inevitability of our divorce itself—was the traumatic process of slowly uncovering my husband’s hidden sexual life. Those “drip-drip” discoveries compounded my original wave of shock and grief, introducing me to a reality I struggled to comprehend.

Fast-forward a few years. Emerging from that experience, I received “a second chance” at life and love. I engaged my next serious romance older and wiser, with different needs and expectations. I chose a man I believed wouldn’t leave me, seemingly committed to emotional intimacy, and someone who would fight like hell for me and our relationship—which I believe he did at various points. We knew that our marriage wouldn’t be easy, so we both committed that when things got tough, we would pursue whatever support we needed to make it work. Before long, I realized that “S” issues were once again threatening to implode my most intimate relationship—and even though these new behaviors were notably different than the ones I’d discovered in my first marriage, I found myself tweaked into a keenly familiar emotional dynamic, one I now recognize as compound trauma (C-PTSD). This time around, I was grateful to have a husband who humbly acknowledged his personal “S” issues, willing to seek solutions to a problem that had haunted him for decades. Together, he and I reached out for help, desperate to avoid the breakdown of our beautiful-but-struggling romance.

The powerful part of this story—and the reason I consider it a legitimate part of my coaching website—is the fact that my husband and I DID find help, both independently and together. We connected with a network of knowledgeable professionals (therapists, coaches, educators, authors, clinicians) and non-professional support communities. These people quickly recognized our self-defeating behaviors and intimacy-killing disorders, a long list that included sex addiction, emotional trauma, family-of-origin issues, codependence, fear, anger and clinical depression. Our support team never labeled us or put us in a box. They didn’t dictate our decisions, or tell us what we “ought to” do. Instead, they gave us tools to repair our relationship and heal ourselves. Those resources gave us a concrete foundation for healing and recovery, both separately and together. In short, they gave our relationship a true, fighting chance.

The “S” Angle is my primary niche coaching specialty. Hands down, it’s the most challenging (and rewarding) work I do, and it’s the topic that most closely integrates my personal and professional experience. In addition to my relevant training in Divorce Recovery, Couples Relationships and Family Addiction Dynamics, I’ve been educated and certified via The Association for Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists, incorporating APSATS’ Multidimensional Partners Trauma Model (MPTM) into my work with all parties impacted by sexual betrayal.

Within this niche specialty, S-Angle coaching for partners features many of the same concepts and goals involved in basic life coaching. (You can read more about coaching at Women Ever After.) When I coach clients around their “S” Angle experiences, my job is to champion each client in meeting HER needs, goals and priorities, whatever those may be. Sometimes, a woman seeks coaching during the process of divorcing her sex addict husband. Other times, she wants tools and resources to help her stay (safely) within that relationship. As a partners’ coach, it is NEVER my job to make that decision on behalf of my client, and it’s not my role to devalue my client’s decision, no matter what decision that might be.

When I’m working with “S” Angle clients, I do engage a unique set of skills and training, one that addresses the very personal (and sometimes very complicated!) world of betrayal trauma. Most importantly, I’m trained to practice a trauma-sensitive approach to coaching partners. This means that:

• I will NEVER blame my client for her partner’s compulsive sexual behavior.

• I will never label my client as codependent, co-addicted, or co-enabling.

• I will respect my client as someone who loves a sick person, not as someone who is sick simply because she loves him.

• I’ll never hold a client responsible for healing her partner’s compulsive sexual behavior.

• I’ll never expect my client to sacrifice HER own wellbeing (physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, psychological, sexual, financial, relational, vocational) to facilitate HIS recovery.

• I will support my client as someone who’s been caught in the crossfire of her partner’s harmful behavior.

• I will suggest healthy resources to help my client understand infidelity, pornography and sex addiction—for the purpose of processing how those things impact HER.

• I’ll help my client discern what “healthy choices” look like within this “new normal.”

• And when it comes to healing the trauma she’s experienced as an “S” Angle partner, I will MAKE SURE my client is well connected to clinical sources for therapeutic support when needed.

When I coach “S” Angle clients, there ARE a few themes that surface, more commonly and more consistently than in general life coaching. These partners often seek specialized coaching, specifically for support in these relevant areas:

• to clarify their internal and relationship realities;

• to discern between known facts and unknown factors;

• to protect themselves physically, emotionally and financially;

• to identify their own needs, then take healthy action to get those needs met;

• to strengthen their own voices within their relationships;

• to explore, understand, establish and enforce healthy boundaries, both internal (personal) and external (interpersonal)

• to reconnect with their own intuition, honor their gut instincts, and trust in THEMSELVES;

• to learn what is “normal” for sex addiction and recovering sex addicts;

• to establish self-protections against denial or gaslighting;

• to exercise new ways of coping with triggers related to their partners’ acting out;

• to find courage when facing acute emotions like fear, pain and anxiety;

• to experience grief within a safe and solution-oriented environment;

• to rediscover (or redefine) their own concepts of sex, intimacy and womanhood;

• to measure and validate their own personal progress;

• to explore new resources for self-support, especially those that directly address sex addiction, trauma, rebuilding and (sometimes) relationship restoration

• to define what acceptance, forgiveness and “moving on” mean for THEM

• to reenvision their future lives, with or without their partners, in the aftermath of their “S” Angle experiences

• to practice ABUNDANT, LEGITIMATE and absolutely NECESSARY amounts of self care!!!

Scarlet Sisterhood is a twelve-week phone coaching support group. Its purpose is to validate, educate and empower women throughout their experience of intimate betrayal.

Click here for more details.
NEXT Scarlet Sisterhood Group: Spring 2017

Coming soon

Private Peer-Support via Social Media
Relational trauma can result in profound social transition and/or isolation. Due to that fact, many survivors turn to social media for connection, validation and supportive interaction—often resulting in relationships between “strangers” who ultimately feel more like “sisters.” To that end, it’s been my honor to create and moderate two free peer-support groups via Facebook, empowering woman around the world to meet others who share similar experiences. Within these spaces, communications are ONLY visible to other group members, protected from exposure to family, friends and other social media contacts. All group members are required to submit an online Participation Agreement, acknowledging their voluntary commitment to self-responsibility, confidentiality and non-judgment toward others.

At present, I moderate two different peer-support groups via Facebook: