Rebuilding Sacred Intimacy was created by Chris and Kathy Sullivan, a married couple who experienced betrayal in their own marriage and rebuilt their physical intimacy using a combination of faith-based principles and trauma-informed neuroscience. After discovery, they spent nearly a year searching for a resource that integrated faith, trauma science, nervous system research, and practical tools for physical reconnection. Finding that no single resource addressed all four dimensions, they built the workbook themselves. Every exercise, framework, and guided prayer in the workbook was tested in their own marriage before being published. The workbook is grounded in Dr. Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's research on body-held trauma, and Dr. Barbara Steffens' findings that nearly 70 percent of betrayed spouses meet the full clinical criteria for PTSD.
The night everything fractured
We won't share every detail here. Some wounds are sacred — meant only for the two who carry them. But we will tell you this much:
The months that followed the discovery were the hardest either of us has ever lived. There were days we couldn't be in the same room. There were nights we couldn't sleep apart. There were moments when the only prayer we could manage was one word: Help.
We sat in counseling offices and read every book we could find. We prayed the prayers people told us to pray. And some of it helped — but none of it reached the place where we were stuck.
The heart had forgiven. The body hadn't received the message.
We could talk about it. We could pray about it. But every time we reached for each other, something inside still flinched and went rigid before we could stop it. And nobody was talking about that.