When Details Become a Distraction

“We do not heal the past by living there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.”

-Marianne Williamson

There is a reason your windshield is bigger than the review mirror in your car. If you find yourself always in the ditch with anger, bitterness, and resentment, filled with negative emotion, you might want to stop looking at the negative past and start looking toward a positive future.

If you have been in recovery with your partner for more than a year due to sex addiction, infidelity, or intimacy issues and have completed an intensive and a polygraph, but you are still asking questions about why he or she betrayed you, digging for more details, you are no longer seeking healing. You are using details as a distraction from working on yourself. It is an excuse preventing your own healing. You are never going to change your partner.

In fact, it is a red flag when a partner gives me a verbal laundry list of all the wrongs of their partner. They can list all the things they hate about their significant other. This is not the issue. The issue is whether or not they can make an equally lengthy list of the things they like or love about themselves?

Why you need to stop asking and demanding details of the past:

It feeds your addiction to negative emotions.
It supplies and reinforces your ego’s need to be “right.”
It fans the flames of wanting fairness.
It re-enforces the offenses.
It prevents you from working on the person in the mirror.
It prevents your healing and closure.
It keeps you stuck in a codependent system.
It prevents forgiveness from occurring.
It prevents you from letting go and getting healthy.
It keeps a couple permanently stuck.
It keeps her as a victim and angry.
It keeps her in betrayal trauma and resentment.
It keeps him in shame.
It is not loving to yourself or to your partner.
It becomes an addiction by romanticizing the hurtful past.
It becomes an addiction trying to find the answer to “Why?”
It is a permanent trap and prison.

You are getting a benefit, a payoff, when you keep looking in the review mirror of what they did and why you believe they did it. You most likely will never find THE answer that scratches that itch and gives you relief. Your ego is lying to you, whispering, “You will be happy when he or she feels the betrayal you felt. You will be happy when they confess and repent the why you want them to do so. You will be happy when they love you the way they should. You will be happy when they pursue you. You will be happy when everyone knows the truth.”

You get the point. The problem is this is a lie.

Ego lies to you by telling you: if you can reconcile the past and right all the wrongs, then you will be truly happy. Stop. The truth is you can be happy now! Regardless, if your partner ever changes and becomes who you think they should be. You can be happy in this present moment, as you read this.

Stop living from the outside-in and start living from the inside-out. Anything else is codependent behavior that disempowers you. Your happiness, joy and peace are already and inside of you and always have been.

Cory Schortzman Executive Director

Cory Schortzman is an author, speaker, teacher and licensed mental health professional. Since 2008, he has served as the Executive Director of Transformed Hearts Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, CO. He is the founder of SARA, the Sexual Addiction Recovery Association. Cory is passionate about helping couples and individuals overcome sex addiction. He is also passionate about bringing awareness to the public and supporting the elimination of sex and human trafficking. Cory has been married since 1998 to his beautiful wife, Kerry, and lives in Colorado with their four daughters. He and Kerry have been seen on the CBS Early Show, Inside Edition, and ABC Good Morning America, Fox 21 News, and TLC/Discovery discussing the harm of sex addiction and the joys of recovery. He has also been heard on numerous radio programs.

Cory’s books include: Out of the Darkness, Into the Light the Workbook, Into the Light the Steps, Ashes to Beauty the Steps, 301 Dating Ideas, 301 Conversational Ideas, 301 Ways to Say I Love You, 301 Ways to Love Your Children & 301 Recovery Tools & Tips.