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Hello,

My husband has enrolled into the Minwalla program, and I wanted to know if anyone else has experience with this?

Some information on the program can be found by searching on: ten steps to building a sexual basement.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:03 PM, Saturday, July 12th]

Thank you so much for sharing this resource. I just read the article and so wish that I’d had access to it when I first discovered my WexH’s affair and began to try to unravel the complex web of dishonesty and abuse that he built to make his behavior possible.

I’ll just say that it is so very affirming and validating of my experiences. I’ll be exploring the full website in detail. The specific article you mentioned details my experience better than almost anything else I’ve read.

Thanks again. I hope you’ll let us know how it goes with this program.

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I hope this article is helpful to those like me who are struggling in the aftermath of profound betrayal. Please share experiences if anyone has explored this before.

[This message edited by Neva9643 at 7:00 PM, Saturday, July 12th]

It has helped me with the disconnect between "he’s trying" and "what has happened to me is not about trying". I feel I am getting that it’s really isn’t about reconciliation but for a person to be living with integrity and honesty - something my husband gave up long ago yet kept telling himself I am good husband and father.

For me I am moving away from is reconciliation possible or not, but can he dismantle the internal mechanism that led to a breakdown of values and a fundamental pattern of dishonesty — not a mistake but a long-term system of deception.

Only after that baseline is reached can we look at the relationship future. All the Apologies, all the show of care doesn’t matter - every entitlement, every rationalization, every single lie - has to be addressed, accepted and dismantled. It’s up to my husband to do the work.

Two concepts that stood out to me:
•The Sexual Basement: a metaphor for the hidden double life built to house secret behavior, completely walled off from the partner. It’s not just about isolated incidents of cheating. It’s about a covert operation — sustained lying, gaslighting, and calculated efforts to protect the double life while keeping the betrayed partner in the dark.

•The 22 Rooms: a framework for understanding the many layers of injury — psychological, emotional, relational, even physical.

It’s by far the toughest thing I have had to do in my life!

I read through Minwalla's paper a few months back, and it really resonated with me. I didn't find a lot of useful actionable items in there, but the sense of validation for my pain was definitely cathartic.

This is super helpful and I will be sharing this with my spouse. It confirmed so much for me and hopefully will help him understand that while he had miminual sexual contact (one interactive sexual video I have seen, but mostly attempts to get on calls with women, Facebook chatting, and not recognizing hiding meeting with female facebook friend for coffee 4 times was not OK and in the past dating sites 10 yrs ago and hookup site messages attempting to set up dates). While these are all hurtful and breaking of trust it is not just the actual behaviour its about the hiding and then lying about it, denying and then saying he didn't remember so I had to go digging to find it to show him I wasn't crazy that hurts just as much.

Thanks forsharing

This is even more relevant now that I found out he has been hiding his 25 year porn addiction from me which seriously limited our sex life.

He has read and reflected a lot and I have been sending him resources I come across bit ill.be putting this at the top of my suggestions for him.

I still have a tab open for it.

Apparently I can't link it tho...

I discovered it a couple of weeks ago and still read over it from time to time. There's a lot of info there tho, and it goes pretty deep.

I didn't find a lot of useful actionable items in there, but the sense of validation for my pain was definitely cathartic.

Thats pretty much what I got from it, too. It wasn't geared so much in the way of doing anything, but did validate a lot of my feelings and put it into a different context.

Thanks for sharing this—your comment really resonated with me. I’ve been sitting with that same tension: the article on the "Secret Sexual Basement" is incredibly validating, but it can leave you wondering, "Okay… now what?"

My husband recently completed the 4-day Minwalla program, and here’s how I’ve come to understand the structure and purpose of the work:

1.First, the betrayer must fully understand the mechanisms of manipulation they used—gaslighting, reality distortion, compartmentalization, justification, emotional invalidation, etc. It’s not just about "what they did" but how they constructed a distorted psychological framework to sustain it and silence us.

2.Second, they must come to grips with the entirety of the impact—not just that we’re hurt, but how the betrayal fractures identity, creates complex PTSD, impacts attachment systems, erodes trust in self and others, and destabilizes emotional reality. It’s a deep dive into our trauma.

3.Only then can the betrayer move into rebuilding integrity and relational repair—and here I am hoping my husband finds a structured roadmap: daily practices and specific relational repair steps for showing up for the betrayed partner in. I think he needs to do the second program to get all that.

What I’ve realized is that the work is almost entirely for the betrayer to take on—and most of the guidance is directed at them.

What I’ve realized is that the work is almost entirely for the betrayer to take on—and most of the guidance is directed at them.

There is a program for the betrayed, too. I found a PDF that walks through some things for us to do, but honestly, I didn't find it useful because it was more about exploring ideas and thoughts and, again, very little in the way of action. I got much more from doing IC with a trauma-informed therapist who could guide me in doing CBT/DBT exercises.

I think it makes sense that a lot of the work is carried by the WS, especially in terms of accepting and then changing their abusive behavior. It's not an easy thing to do, and it's overlooked by a lot of infidelity advice, which from what I've seen focuses on helping the couple understand the WS's motivations, setting healthy boundaries, and repairing the relationship. They don't usually dig into how the WS needs to change their understanding of emotional abuse, manipulation, truth, empathy, and love. If I had to theorize, I'd say it's because cheating/affairs have been going on since the invention of monogamy, so it's considered a normative aspect of human behavior (especially male behavior), and there's a lot of "that's just how they are," and shifting the focus to how to keep them from doing it again.

Minwalla's approach doesn't minimize the harm done, and I think it's good that he requires the WS to face their inner demons and wrestle with them. I think that's best done with some professional guidance, though, since it's very personal and likely to be painful for a truly remorseful WS.