I will share with you some things that my husband and I are doing/learning about true, genuine forgiveness. Many of these came from the book, "How Can I Forgive Your?: The Courage to Forgive, The Freedom Not To." as well as the book, "After the Affair". I know not everyone sees PA as infidelity, but many women do - or at least respond to PA the same way people respond to marital infidelity. The first big component is that the betraying spouse must indeed, earn forgiveness. There are six areas that are deemed "critical tasks" for earning forgiveness:
1. Look at your mistaken assumptions about forgiveness and see how they block your efforts to earn it. While the book covers a number of assumptions, one that resonated with my husband the most was the myth that he didn't deserve to be forgiven. He had to work through that and realize that forgiveness is a choice the hurt person takes when the betraying partner shows to truly are seeking forgiveness.
2. Bear witness to the pain you caused. This is a big one because often times betraying people want to get it over with and not really think about or talk about the issue again. Some advice for how to bear witness to the pain includes: encourage the person you hurt to share her pain (the author points out that if you don't draw her out and encourage her to talk through her injury, she'll never get close to you or forgive you); initiate discussion about the injury (basically - when you bring up the violation, you let the hurt person know that it's on your mind too, another point made is that if you want your partner to move on, you must pay attention to her pain. If you don't, she will); listen to the hurt person's pain with an open heart (again the author points out that while you may want to run from the anguish you inflicted - don't, your listening helps her to open up to you and let you back into her life). The book then covers advice for active listening.
3. Apologize genuinely, non-defensively, responsibly. This part covers the seven elements of a genuine apology. The elements are 1) take responsibility for the damage you caused, 2) make your apology personal, 3) make your apology specific (meaning you will be apologizing for things you did individually and not a sweeping "sorry I hurt you") 4) make your apology deep, 5) make your apology heartfelt (basically, not apologize for selfish reasons, for you to be genuinely forgiven - your remise must be real, profound, and enduring) 6) make your apology clean 7) apologize repeatedly (for surface wounds, apologizing is enough, for serious injury you may need to apologize again and again). Other aspects of the apology including: needing to go beyond confession, need to go beyond an expression of regret, needs to go beyond 'icing on a rancid cake' (when you hurt someone you may want to do nice things for her, but these loving behaviors cannot substitute for a true apology. They are collateral gifts and may convey an honest wish to make up, but they're not enough to earn forgiveness. The book goes on to provide examples of bad and good apologies as guidelines.
4. Seek to understand your behavior and reveal the inglorious truth about yourself to the person you hurt. This was the one of the truest statements in the book, "When she asks you, "Why did you do it? Why did you hurt me so?" and you respond, "I don't know," she's likely to go ballistic. If you haven't a clue, why wouldn't you hurt her again? Why should she feel safe with you? Why should she forgive you?" And - one piece of advice from me - DO NOT blame dopamine! That explains how you got addicted, that doesn't explain why you turned to porn and not her, that doesn't explain what took you so long to seek help, that doesn't explain why her love for you was not enough for you to seek help sooner, and dopamine does not at all, in any way, shape, or form - explain lying! Back to the book, it encourages you to explore the source of your behavior and gives you guidance in how to do that.
5. Work to earn back trust. Things that are required for rebuilding trust include 1: engaging in low-cost and high-cost trust-building behaviors, filling out a dysfunctional thought form (it tells you what the form is and how to use it, it basically helps you to show your spouse how you are actively working to change those things that set you up for failure and change starts with your thoughts), realization notes (these are brief cards or e-mails you send to the hurt person to demonstrate that you're disturbed by your behavior and are trying to change, and finally - plan a recommitment ceremony.
6. Forgive yourself for injuring another person. The final element goes into great detail on how and why you need to forgive yourself. If you don't forgive yourself, you are likely to sabotage any efforts you make at trying to earn her trust and forgiveness.
As you can see, there are a lot of elements to this particular aspect - and that is just one part of the book. The "After the Affair" book is chalked with many more important components and key tasks that can be completed. The big thing is - this is hard work. However, when you begin to understand just how deep her pain is you will understand why it takes so much time, effort, and commitment to earn back her trust and forgiveness. While what you have to do may feel overwhelming consider this - the only reason she is hurt this deeply is because she loved you so deeply. For now she is still with you - despite her pain, despite her disappointment, despite her wondering just how the real you is - she is still there. That is a very, very deep love - why would you risk for one minute having her shut you out of her heart for too long? If she loved you even just a little less, she would have been out the door right now. That is such an amazing love and a love not many people get a chance to experience - why would you risk losing it. Her staying with you demonstrates her love for you. Now - it is time for you to demonstrate your love for her.
Another important element of the book (After the Affair) is that it generally takes a minimum of 18 months for trust to truly be rebuilt. while that may feel like a long time, when you think about what you did - it probably pales in comparison to how long you were PMO. Every single time to snuck out the room - that was a lie, every time you PMO instead of being intimate with your significant other - that was another betrayal. You have to remember you didn't commit one transgression, you committed a number of transgressions over time. Every single one caused a cut. One big cut could simply be sewed up with a bandage put on and given a set timeframe and an easy way to monitory healing. That isn't what you did. She doesn't have one big wound, but a thousand little and some big wounds. Some wounds are jagged and not clean - sewing them up will take specialized skill. Some might even be infected. When you have 1,000 cuts there is no where to put a bandage, so the wounds stay out in the open - constantly reminding both of you that they are there and need attention. The good thing is that because they are out in the open, you can watch them heal. One hundred might heal quickly, rejoice in those victories. And, there might be some stubborn ones - those in hard to reach places, that take significant time and effort to heal. And don't be upset when she finds a new wound she didn't know was there at first. As the ones hurting the most at the time get her attention, as those begin to heal she may find a few hiding in a corner.
One thing I would say do is to close your eyes, visualize your SO, and think of every singly PMO session as a swipe at her with a razor blade. Now, every lie you told is a swipe at her with a box cutter. Do you see how filled with wounds she is? Do you see why she looks in the mirror and feels like she is ugly and unlovable? She sees each and every one of those wounds. She can't even see her own beauty anymore, just the scars. She doesn't trust you right now because she is wondering how you continued to jab the blade at her over and over and over again - yet now say that you love her. She is wondering - how can you hurt someone so badly that you claim to love? Now, I get when you were in your dopamine high and having a blast with PMO you did realize at the time what wounds those sessions were causing to your SO. However, your ignorance of the pain you were causing doesn't matter. What matters is that she is hurt and you are the one that hurt her. If you love her - you will be the one to wash her wounds, put on the healing salve, attend to the bandages, apply cream to try to ensure they don't leave a scar, and most importantly - stand by and hold her and love on her and be there for her as the pain from the wounds at first sets every areas of her soul on fire and then slowly - very slowly, the pain will subside. Remember, just because you can see her scars doesn't mean you know how much pain she is feeling. Sometimes a paper cut hurts worse than a much more 'significant' injury. Let her tell you what her pain level is. It will be uncomfortable for you, you will probably want to run away and hide as the reality of the hurt you caused her comes into focus. If you truly love her, you will face it all and help her through it. Hopefully, seeing the full reality of the results of your journey into PA will be enough motivation for you to never, ever, ever return to porn again. While it may have "broken your dick" as is often stated around here, your porn use broke her - who she is, who she thought she was, what she thought your relationship was all about - all of those things, broken and in tiny pieces scattered through her heart and mind. If you love her, you will gently and consistently help her find every piece, and glue them back together again. Fixing a dick is easy - 90 days and good as new. There is no 90 day magic window for her. While it is going to take a lot of time and effort on your part constantly remind yourself that the reason why she is so broken is because the love she has for you is so strong. The reason why you have to work so hard to earn back her trust is because of how much she trusted you at the time. If she thought of you as a lying, dirty dog she wouldn't even flinch when she found out. She didn't see you as a lying dirty dog - she saw you as an amazing, honorable, and trustworthy man. Your job is to become the man she always thought you were.