I am the spouse of a recovering SA. He's 4 years sober. At the advice of his CSAT we did a 90 day abstinence contract at the beginning of his recovery and it helped us both. Are you seeing a CSAT?
I am very active in the Spouses of SA threads in I Can Relate and I've answered questions for spouses about abstinence contracts. I dug up this post for you to share with your wife. It will probably be good for you to read too.
Info on Abstinence Contracts:
The SA's CSAT (or IC) should be advising him to seek sobriety through a 90 day abstinence. This includes not having sex with you or himself (masturbation). In order to get fully sober he needs at least 90 days of NO sexual activity so that he can go through withdrawal and have the chemicals in his brain normalize so that he is not running everything through his distorted addict thinking. It is better if the 90 day abstinence is agreed to by both partners and discussed beforehand. After he goes through the initial withdrawal you will need to work on building emotional intimacy with NO sex. This is very important. SA is an intimacy disorder and he doesn't know how to have REAL intimacy without sex.
More info:
Excerpts from the books "Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction" and "L.I.F.E. Guide for Men" both by Mark R. Laaser
The first step is stopping sexual behaviors. This includes the three building-block behaviors - fantasy, masturbation, use of pornography - and any other behaviors addicts may have engaged in. Just as alcoholics need to stop drinking before they can be treated, sex addicts need to stop acting out before they can embark on the healing journey. {one tool to help an addict stop sexual behaviors is an abstinence contract}
Abstinence Contract:
It is vitally important for sex addicts to stop all sexual behaviors for at least 90 days. They should agree to an abstinence or celibacy contract, which states they will not be sexual with themselves (through masturbation) or anyone else, including a spouse. This contract achieves two basic purposes - one physiological and one intellectual. First, prolonged lack of sexual activity reverses the level of neuro-chemical tolerance addicts have built into their brains. Addicts may experience symptoms of detoxification not unlike an alcoholic, though not as severe. Most people really struggle with this contract somewhere between the seventh to fourteenth day depending on their past levels of sexual activity. {NOTE: From 7 and my rSA, we both have seen other literature and from experience know that the withdrawal can be difficult for up to 6 to 8 weeks! Though we agree it can START at 7 to 14 days.} After that, abstinence gets easier over time. Second, abstinence reverses the sex addict's core belief that "Sex is my most important need." Instead, the sex addict discovers, "Sex is NOT my most important need." This is why 90 days (though somewhat arbitrary) is symbolically important.
Married sex addicts commit to this contract with the mutual consent of their spouses. Spouses often welcome the abstinence contract because the addict has been continually initiating for years. Some are afraid of it because they believe if they are not sexual with the addict, it will discourage him or her from getting sober. Others resent the contract because they worry what they will do without sex. It is often wise to negotiate the abstinence contract with a counselor to avoid misunderstandings about the nature and purpose of the contract. A spouse should be aware that the frequency of sex is never a factor in determining if a sex addict stays sober.
Abstinence can't continue forever if the sex addict is married. In this regard, recovering from sex addiction is not like recovering from alcoholism. Alcoholics can abstain from alcohol for the rest of their lives, but sex addicts do not usually abstain from sex. Recovering from sex addiction is more analogous to recovering from food addiction. Food addicts can't stop eating forever, but they can learn to eat to nourish themselves when their bodies are hungry. Married sex addicts learn that sex with a spouse is appropriate and beautiful when, instead of being a way to avoid intimacy or escape negative feelings, it expresses the intimacy of marriage.
Reasons for Marital Abstinence
In addition to the neurochemical benefit, the most obvious advantage of an abstinence contract for the married sex addict is to take the sexual pressure off the relationship. For many couples, marital sex has been full of conflicts, arguments, and emotional pain. Perhaps, you've avoided sex with your wife and have preferred your acting out behaviors to connecting with her. In that case the pressure is from the absence of sex, but it's still pressure. Even if there's been little or no sexual activity in your marriage for a long time, you need to commit to an intentional period of abstinence. There's a vast difference in deliberately choosing to abstain from sex and in avoiding it because of your addiction.
Almost all sexual addicts (of either gender) are unable to be "present" during sexual activity, especially with their spouses. Instead of authentically making love with your wife, you likely are lost in fantasy about some other sexual experience, either real or imagined. You pretend you're with another partner or engaging in different sexual practices. You insist on darkening the room or you close your eyes to avoid being in the moment because your fantasies are more pleasurable than what's happening right now. In effect, you're still having "addict" sex even though the partner is your wife. Sexual addiction is an intimacy disorder, remember? Taking a break from martial sex gives you the chance to start over in your marriage relationship and learn to be present mentally, emotionally, and spiritually before you add sexual intimacy. Abstinence provides a chance to create TRUE intimacy in your coupleship.
Excerpt from the book "Clinical Management of Sex Addiction" by Patrick Carnes, Kenneth M. Adams
{The partner} must agree to this form of abstinence and accept it for the potential benefit of increased emotional and spiritual intimacy and not as another form of abandonment. A period of 90 days has been the standard recommendation as a period of abstinence. Recently, I talked to two partners who had extended this for 17 months, slowing rebuilding increased physical intimacy until they eventually experienced genital intercourse again. Doing this, they found that they had allowed themselves the time to heal from many of their emotional issues that sex had previously triggered.
From my research and in my opinion the following things should be outlined in the contract in terms of your coupleship and marriage:
1. The duration (90 days minimum). You can set a definite duration or you can leave it open ended. Set an initial minimum duration (90 days) with a clause that if you both feel it would be beneficial, you can agree to extend the contract. Some couples find that things are going so well in terms of building real intimacy with no sex that at the end of the 90 days they will decide to extend it.)
2. A specific outline of what appropriate touching is and is not during this abstinence period.
3. A plan for building emotional intimacy in the relationship. (We chose to use the book “The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work” at the suggestion of our marriage counselor. Perhaps your CSAT will have recommendations or if you have an MC ask him/her.) We also “dated” and found things we enjoyed doing together to build closeness.