Okay, so what do you think you and the sex addict you love have in common—besides the home, bills, kids, and the life you share? Any ideas? No? Then we'll tell you because the answer is extremely important to both you and him. In fact, you could say it is nothing less than the Secret Ingredient for Healing and for Life.

The Secret Ingredient for Healing & for Life

Here it is in six little words: You are both powered by joy. And just as a battery-powered toy will not run with a dead battery, neither can a human being heal or live a reasonably happy life without joy. In fact, being human and wanting joy are inseparable. Our Creator made us with brains that want to operate with joy in charge.

And new scientific research backs this truth up. We now know that each of us have a "joy center" in the right orbital prefrontal cortex of our brains, right behind our right eye ball. But the really good news is that joy is a renewable resource: When you're running low, there is a healthy, wholesome way to obtain more of this elixir of life.

The Renewable Resource that Will Light Up Your Eyes & Heal Your Heart

At its essence, joy is relational. This means joy is generated by joy-producing relationships. We experience joy when someone we care about is glad to be with us. It produces warm, happy feelings and we like it.

The easiest way to really understand what joy is and how it's produced is to spend time delighting in your toddler, or watch someone else delight in theirs. Have you ever observed as a very young child flew into Mom's or Dad's open arms, squealing with delight? And have you noticed the glow on the adult's face? The glow that says, "I delight in being with you; you bring me great joy!"

That is a heart-lifting portrayal of how joy looks and feels and what it does for the human spirit. In the exchange between the child and the adult, the child knew that someone she loved delighted in her existence and in spending time with her. If we get enough of that in the first 18 months of life, we have what is labeled a strong "joy-foundation."

While it's not likely you'll be running and jumping into anyone's open arms to feel your own joy, you can systematically increase your joy through relationships. If your heart is breaking because of your husband's addiction, now, more than ever, you need to seek out connections with others who understand the pain and loss you've experienced, and grow "joy-bonds" with them.

We cannot heal if we don't have support and a place to be "real" and loved besides therapy. We need a "family"—a group or a community of people—who will consistently be there for us and delight in our presence. People truly do need people who love them to feel joy, and especially to heal from life's wounds.

How Insufficient Joy in Early Childhood Can Set Us Up for Addiction & Problems

Not only does the "joy-center" behind our right eye ball give us joy, if it has been sufficiently developed during the first 18 months of life, it regulates emotions, pain control, and immunity centers; it guides us to "act like ourselves;" and it releases neurotransmitters that lift our spirits. And it is the only part of the brain that overrides the main drive centers—food and sexual impulses, terror, and rage.

As it does these helpful things, we are far less likely to choose unhealthy substitutes for joy, including sexual addiction. But when one has insufficient “joy-strength,” he is predisposed for addiction and trouble, a very important piece of information if you love a sex addict. Interestingly, the "joy-center" is also known as the attachment center, and sex addiction is frequently called an attachment or intimacy disorder.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that a key way to help a sex addict heal is to encourage healthy, joy-based (non-sexual) relationships with people who will delight in him so his "joy-center"/attachment center can grow. Our Creator knew that many of us would not develop adequate joy-strength as toddlers so he programmed our brains with a solution. He made the joy-center special and unique: It is the only part of the brain that can continue to grow throughout life. Truly amazing.

How Joy Can Help Both You & the Addict Heal

Our amount of joy-strength has to be higher than the amount of our pain or we can't heal emotionally, even in therapy. When our joy-strength is low due to a difficult childhood, painful loss, or our partner's sex addiction, we have difficulty coping with life's stresses.

But we can grow our joy-strength and change our attachment style by forming and exercising "joy-bonds" with a healthy recovery community—and with God.

Remember, being human and wanting joy are inseparable because we are creatures of joy. At the center of joy-based change is the rewiring of both the traumatized brain and the addicted brain, and that can only happen in joy-bonded relationships.