If you’re in a relationship with a sex addict who’s still acting out or is in early recovery, your life and relationship are in crisis. It’s likely you’ve been repeatedly lied to, manipulated, or “gaslighted.” Gaslighting is a term often used to describe one of the ways addicts avoid being found out. It’s a form of psychological manipulation intended to cause you to question your own sanity. For example, your partner may tell you that you didn’t hear what you know you heard, or that he said something that you’re sure he didn’t say. If these deceptive incidents repeat with regularity, you eventually lose faith in your ability to know what is real and what isn’t.
As a partner, you may have even been overtly abused—verbally, physically, or sexually. Your life may be drama-filled and chaotic. Your relationship may feel like it’s about to end, and you may wonder why you’re still in it. Living in the chaos and fog of addiction creates immense pain, suffering, loss of esteem, and undeserved consequences related to the addict’s behavior.
You may live in a constant state of anxiety and feel fundamentally unsafe in the world. Partners often experience panic episodes before and during discovery or disclosure. If you have children, you may worry about how or whether they’ve been impacted by the addict’s behaviors, or how they’ve been affected by living in a family where active addiction is present.
As a partner (or former partner) of a sex addict, you may have attempted to change the addict’s behavior or get him help in various ways. He may have told you he stopped, or that he would stop after a certain time, or that he would get help . . . but he didn’t follow through. You’ve probably made threats or issued ultimatums to the sex addict for continuing his behavior—threats on which you didn’t follow through. There have likely been broken agreements and promises that left you feeling helpless or powerless.
You want him to stop his self-destructive and relationship-destroying behaviors and you wonder why he can’t. You may have thought that if he loved you, he could—or would—stop hurting you so much. Sadly, when it comes to addiction “just do it” just doesn’t work.
I want you to understand how vulnerable you are when you take the perspective that when he stops or gets better you’ll feel better. I want you to recognize and own the power you have now, in this moment, to begin the process of healing and eventually thriving—with or without the sex addict in your life. With the skills and tools in this book, you will learn the power that comes from focusing on you, on your needs and wants, learning how to make requests when that’s appropriate, and what to do when boundaries are broken. The bad news is the sex addict’s out-of-control behavior and what it has done to you. The good news—and the solution to your pain—lies with you. You may have been a victim of his deception and betrayal, but you are no longer a victim. You have the power to take charge of your life beginning right now.
Knowledge is power, and this is especially true when it comes to breaking through the fog and pain of being in relationship with a sex addict. This book will give you, as a partner or former partner, the information you need about sex addiction and sex addiction recovery so that you can make informed and effective choices in your best interest.
Even if you’ve had prior experiences in relationships with addicts of other kinds, don’t expect to use the same skill set and strategies with the sex addict in your life. There are fundamental differences between sex addiction and alcohol or other drug addictions, both in the recovery process and in the issues partners face. You will save yourself time and heartache by knowing the difference.
PARTNERS OF SEX ADDICTS: CO-ADDICTS OR TRAUMA SURVIVORS?
In the early days of sex addiction treatment, the focus was primarily on the sex addict. Most of the literature available, as well as the treatment models used, were geared toward helping the addict establish a solid foundation in recovery. For the most part, the partner of the addict was on her own either with no support or sometimes with a therapist who had little information about sex addiction or worked with the partner from a co-addiction or codependency model.
Al-Anon, the twelve-step program founded in 1951 by Lois W. (wife of Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous), is based on a co-addict/codependency model. The co-addiction model says that partners of addicts play a role in the addiction cycle by refusing to acknowledge that the addict has a problem (denial), by enabling the addict’s behaviors, or by using various strategies to control the addict’s behaviors, either directly or indirectly. Al-Anon is a helpful program and I often refer clients to it. However, the co-addiction model doesn’t address the special circumstances and needs of partners of sex addicts. This perspective often leaves partners feeling that they’re at fault for the addict’s behavior.
Most partners see themselves as profoundly defective and inadequate after the discovery of extramarital affairs, anonymous sex, or the compulsive use of pornography. You may believe that if you were like the women (or men) in the pornography your sex addict partner looks at or like the person he had an affair with—he wouldn’t have strayed. Or maybe if you had just gone along with some of the sexual activities he wanted to do that didn’t feel comfortable to you, he wouldn’t have been unfaithful.
Although none of these provide an explanation for the addict’s behaviors, it’s logical and understandable for you to think his sexual indiscretions are about you. When your partner chooses another person or pornography over being sexual with you, the experience and the impact is much different from finding out he’s been secretly gambling or using drugs. The sex addict’s behavior is felt on a deeply personal level that affects you in ways other addictive behaviors don’t. In Chapter Two I offer more detail about how the experience of partners of sex addicts differs from that of partners of all other addicts due to the intimate nature of sexual betrayal.
Most sex addicts avoid emotional, physical, and sexual intimacy with their partners. This is not because they aren’t attracted to their partner or because they think she’s lacking in some way. In fact, sex addicts often can’t understand why they engage in behaviors that cause them to risk losing someone they deeply love and to whom they are sexually attracted. This is one of the reasons I was not in favor of the term “Hypersexual Disorder” as a description for sex addiction or out-of-control sexual behavior as it was proposed for the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In my experience working with sex addicts and their partners, the majority of sex addicts are sexual with their partners far less frequently than they are outside the relationship. Although it’s beyond the scope of this book to address how sex addiction develops, it is often the result of co-occurring mental health issues and/or trauma.
Because of the personal nature of sexual betrayal, you may not relate to the co-addict approach that emphasizes the partner’s role in the addictive dance. You may feel responsible or blamed for the addict’s behavior. Although it’s true that partners can exhibit codependent behaviors and play a role in a dysfunctional relationship dynamic, you are not responsible in any way for the sex addict’s choices.
Thanks to the work of many in the field of sex addiction treatment, we now have a better understanding of how to address the needs of partners. The most immediate need is to assess the level of trauma you’ve experienced. Many partners suffer from symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)—the most common being panic episodes, distressing memories, and intrusive thoughts about discovery and/or disclosure, sleep problems, or feeling perpetually on guard and anxious. Some partners have symptoms that rise to the level of a formal PTSD diagnosis. The partner’s trauma is brought on by the addict’s lies, deception, and gaslighting, which are discussed in greater detail in Chapter Four.
First and foremost, partners must be heard and validated. Depending on the severity of the trauma symptoms you’re experiencing, you may need trauma-specific treatment such as Somatic Experiencing (SE), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), or Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. If your symptoms are worse, a multi-day workshop or inpatient treatment may be needed. (See