Safety Contract

For the partner of someone in recovery for sexual addiction (SA) — couple work and disclosure context

This contract is a shared commitment to your safety during the disclosure arc and the ongoing recovery work. It is a clinical tool — it does not replace emergency care.

Betrayal trauma is a clinical phenomenon, not a character flaw. When you hear the truth of your partner's acting out — whether in a weekly check-in or a formal therapeutic disclosure — your nervous system may respond with flooding, dissociation, rage, numbing, or collapse. These are not signs that something is wrong with you. They are signs that something traumatic has happened to you. This document is here to hold those responses, not to pathologize them.

This is a clinical tool. It does not replace emergency care. If you are in immediate danger of harming yourself, your partner, or anyone else, call 911 or call or text 988.

Client Information

Full nameDate of birthToday's dateTherapist / providerDisclosure phase / contexte.g. pre-disclosure, disclosure day, first 72 hours post-disclosure, first week post-disclosure, ongoing recovery

What I Am Naming

I acknowledge that in the course of disclosure and the recovery work that follows, I may experience one or more of the following. I am naming them here so they are not minimized or hidden:

#	Risk I am naming
1	Suicidal thoughts, or urges to end my life
2	Urges to harm myself — self-injury, self-punishment, or destructive self-soothing around food, substances, or sleep
3	Flooding — being unable to regulate my nervous system, panic, intrusive images or thoughts, hyperarousal that will not settle
4	Dissociation — feeling unreal, numb, cut off from my body, or losing time
5	Rage activation — urges to harm my partner verbally, emotionally, physically, or through property damage; urges to humiliate or publicly expose
6	Urges to surveil, hack, search devices, or gather proof compulsively
7	Urges to leave without communicating, disappear, or make impulsive decisions about the relationship from a flooded nervous system
8	Urges to self-soothe through destructive means — restricting or binging food, using substances, compulsive spending, impulsive sex, or any behavior that leaves me feeling worse after
9	Urges to confront third parties — an affair partner, family members, or public audiences — from a dysregulated state

III

My Commitments

I commit to the following, naming that these commitments are made alongside the honoring of my trauma response — not in spite of it. I will initial each commitment to make each one intentional.

#	Commitment	Initial
1	I will not attempt suicide. I will not harm myself in any form.
2	I will not act on destructive self-soothing urges (food restriction or bingeing, substances, impulsive behaviors) without first reaching out to a support contact listed below.
3	I will not act on rage urges toward my partner or toward any third party. If the urge is strong, I will pause, ground, and call a support.
4	I will not surveil, search devices, or investigate compulsively without first taking the urge to my own therapist, partner specialist, or support group.
5	I will not make major decisions about the relationship — leaving, divorcing, publicly disclosing, confronting third parties — while I am in acute dysregulation. I will wait until I am regulated and have consulted my own clinician.
6	I will not use my partner as my crisis support during an acute betrayal trauma episode. My partner is not my safety net in the very moments when their betrayal is what is hurting me. I will contact my own supports first.
7	If I am unable to keep this contract on any given day, I will call my therapist, my partner support, 911, or 988 — in that order, escalating as the acuity demands — rather than act on the urge.

My Support Contacts

My healing is held by a team that is mine — not a team I share with the person who caused the harm. I will list the people and resources I can turn to:

My own individual therapist (partner-trauma-informed — CCPS / APSATS ideally)

Phone / contact

Partner support group (APSATS-informed or BTC-focused)

Contact

Couples therapist (if different from individual)

Phone / contact

Trusted support person (not my partner; not someone who will pressure me to forgive or minimize)

Phone / contact

Spiritual or faith support, if meaningful to me

If I Cannot Reach My Supports

Emergency resources are always available, regardless of this contract.

911 — if I or anyone else is in immediate danger.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988 (available 24/7).
Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741.
Emergency Room — nearest emergency room or urgent care.

Joint Commitment to My Partner

To my partner: I commit to honoring my own healing work and to staying present in this recovery process in a way that is sustainable for me. I will name when I am in crisis rather than act silently on an urge. I will not weaponize my trauma response to cause you harm. My safety is part of the shared container of our healing, even as my wounds are mine to tend.

VII

Signatures

Client signature

Draw your signature above

Date

Therapist / provider signature

Draw your signature above

Date

A copy of this signed contract is kept by the client, by the therapist, and (with the client's consent) may be shared with the partner for mutual transparency.

Back to Safety Contract