Dear Rick,

Am hoping you can offer some alternatives to my dilemma. I am the betrayed spouse and am having a challenge because I am feeling stuck between two roles in my marriage recovery. That of the recovering wife and an accountability partner for my husband. My husband has not disclosed his infidelity to anyone. There are only three individuals whom know the truth - me, his life coach, and his sex addict counselor. As of late his coach has dropped out of the picture because she is experiencing complications from pregnancy. He only sees the sex addict counselor once a month. What that is looking like in our lives is me becoming the one who is holding him accountable when he slips into relapse behaviors such as hiding, lying and resistance to "working the AR program". The confrontations are taking a toll on our relationship. Each time I call him out on something I have discovered he goes into anger. I am holding the line with him but feel I am being cheated out of getting to be the recovering wife. He cannot have empathy or compassion for me when I am the one holding up the mirror of what needs to be transformed.

This morning I asked him to get in touch with his life coach and ask her to reach out to Crossroads Counseling and see if there is a therapist who can take him on since she is not able to schedule regular appointments with him. He launched into a fit of anger and says I am always attempting to control his every move. There was not one ounce of kindness emoting from this man. Only contempt because he feels he is being squeezed to do something he is putting off.

What would you advise? I do not want to be his accountability partner. I want to be his wife. I want him to offer me all the courtesies of the EMSO program. Currently that is not happening because he is viewing himself the victim of my wrath.