Pickleball, Not Porn: What I Learned Presenting to a Room Full of Helpers

Back in June I got to present at the Hope for Healing Conference, and honestly, it was one of the highlights of my year. The room was full of coaches, clinicians, and men and women pursuing their own healing. Getting to share our work with that group meant a lot to me, and watching people lean in and take something home is the reason I do this.

Our session was called Pickleball, not Porn! The name gets a laugh, but the work underneath it is serious. It's about how couples find their way back to each other after betrayal and Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder — and why that almost never happens just by stopping a behavior.

Here's the core of it. After betrayal, each person is really on two journeys at once. There's the healing you do on your own, and there's the work you can only do together as a couple. Those two things aren't in competition. They actually feed each other.

They're also not the same journey, and I think that matters. The betrayal came out of the compulsive behavior, so a large part of responsibility for repair lands with the partner who caused the harm. The betrayed partner is healing from something they didn't ask for. Saying that plainly isn't about blame. It's just honest, and couples need that candor before anything else can move.

So why pickleball? Because learning a new game takes patience, a lot of practice, and showing up even when you're bad at it and make mistakes. Pretty much what rebuilding a relationship feels like. You can't play alone. You have to pay attention to your partner, move with them, and keep turning back toward each other after every point. Trust gets rebuilt the same way. Not with one big gesture, but with a lot of small, steady ones.

The best part of the day was getting everybody on their feet. Watching the room go from talking about connection to actually doing it: reading each other, moving together, laughing, that's the stuff I'll remember.

What stuck with me most wasn't anything I said. It was watching a room of helpers get reminded that recovery isn't about shrinking your life or living under a microscope. It's about redemptively building something more beautiful than ever we could imagine from the deepest hurt.

To everyone who came out to Hope for Healing — thank you. You made it a really good day.

If you want to bring this into your own work, or into your relationship, reach out anytime. I'd love to talk.

Andrew Reichel