A co-addict - a spouse of an addict.
Partners of sexual addicts, like partners of alcoholics, can also benefit from counseling and support groups. Normally these partners are codependents, and they, too, suffer from the extreme adverse effects of the addiction.
When sexual addiction emerges in a relationship, a crisis occurs for couples.
Partners often feel that something is wrong, they try to get the addict to share their inner world. However, addicts cover their guilt and shame and they making their partners feel "crazy".
One partner is preoccupied with sexualizing their world while the other is preoccupied with the addict’s thoughts, feelings, and activities.
Partners of sex addicts often experience abandonment, betrayal, and rejection. They feel hurt and angry.
Communication is strained, and both partners feel misunderstood and alone.
Unlike spouses who catch their husbands or wives in open adultery, a spouse may initially enter counseling with little more than a suspicion of a partner sharing intimate words with another woman on a computer.
Sometimes, it's difficult to know whether someone close to you has an addiction. The addict might hide the addictive behavior or you might not know the warning signs or symptoms. The following behaviors are characteristic of sex addicts:
A change in Sleep Patterns - Stay up late to watch television or surf the Web
- a change in sleep patterns is the first indicator.
A person may stay up after the rest of the family has gone to bed or get up
several hours early to carry on an email exchange with a cyber lover.
Chat rooms and meeting
places for cybersex don't heat up until late at night, so the cheating
partner tends to stay up later and later to be part of the action. Often,
the partner suddenly begins coming to bed in the early-morning hours, may
leap out of bed an hour or two earlier and bolt to the computer for a
pre-work e-mail exchange with a new romantic partner may explain things.
Demands for privacy, ignoring other responsibilities,
evidence of lying, personality changes, and a loss of interest in sex are
some of the other signs that may be apparent when a person is involved in
cybersex
If someone begins
cheating on their spouse, whether on-line or in real life, they'll often go
to great lengths to hide the truth from their wife or husband. With a
cyberaffair, this attempt usually leads to the search for greater privacy
and secrecy surrounding their computer usage.
The computer may be moved from the visible den to a secluded corner of his
locked study, the spouse may change the password, or cloak all his online
activities in secrecy.
If disturbed or interrupted when online, the cheating spouse may react with
anger or defensiveness.
Household Chores Ignored - when any Internet user increases his time
on-line, household chores often go undone. That's not automatically a sign
of a cyberaffair, but in a marriage those dirty dishes, piles of laundry,
and un-mowed lawns might indicate that someone else is competing for the
suspected person's attention.
In an intimate relationship, sharing chores often is regarded as an integral
part of a basic commitment. So when a spouse begins to invest more time and
energy on-line and fails to keep up his end of the household bargain, it
could signal a lesser commitment to the relationship itself - because
another relationship has come between marriage.
Personality Changes - a spouse is often
surprised and confused to see how much their partner's moods and behaviors
changed since the Internet engulfed them.
A once warm and sensitive husband becomes cold and withdrawn.
A formerly jovial husband turns quiet and serious.
If questioned about these changes in connection with their Internet habit,
the spouse engaging in a cyberaffair responds with heated denials,
blaming, and rationalization.
Often times, the blame is shifted to the spouse. For a partner once
willing to communicate about contentious matters, this could be a
smokescreen for a cyberaffair.
Loss of Interest in Sex - some cyberaffairs
evolve into phone sex or an actual rendezvous, but cybersex alone often
includes mutual masturbation from the confines of each person's computer
room.
When a spouse suddenly shows a lesser interest in sex, it may be an
indicator that he has found another sexual outlet.
If sexual relations continue in the relationship at all, the cheating
partner may be less enthusiastic, energetic, and responsive to you and your
lovemaking.
Declining Investment in your Relationship -
those engaged in a cyberaffair no longer want to participate in the marital
relationship - even when their busy Internet schedule allows.
They shun those familiar rituals like a shared bath, talking over the dishes
after dinner, or renting a video on Saturday night.
They don't get as excited about taking vacations together and they avoid
talk about long-range plans in the family or relationship.
Often, they are having their fun with someone else, and their thoughts of
the future revolve around fantasies of running off with their cyberpartner -
not building intimacy with a spouse.
Look at pornographic material such as magazines, books, videos and clothing catalogs
Frequently isolate themselves from spouses or partners, and don't inform them of their whereabouts
Are controlling during sexual activity or have frequent mood swings before or after sex
Are demanding about sex, especially regarding time and place
Get angry if someone shows concern about a problem with pornography
Offer no appropriate communication during sex
Lack intimacy before, during and after sex, and offer little or no genuine intimacy in the relationship
Do not want to socialize with others
Fail to account for increasing number of toll -- 800 or 900 -- calls
Frequently rent pornographic videotapes
Seem to be preoccupied in public with everything around them (objectifying women)
Feel depressed
Are increasingly dishonest
Hide pornography at work or home
Lack close friends of the same sex
Frequently use sexual humor
Always have a good reason for looking at pornography
An abstinence period can also be helpful to the sex addict's partner, who is often experiencing a great deal of stress at this particular time.
The partner may have recently learned of the addict's sexual acting out. If other people were involved, fears of contracting a sexually transmitted disease may be present. An abstinence period takes the pressure off the partner or spouse, or may have found it difficult in the past to decline sexual overtures from the addict.
Partners of sex addicts typically report a history of having been repeatedly lied to and of having been excluded from important decisions affecting them. Accordingly, when a decision is made as part of treatment to initiate an abstinence period, it is highly desirable to include the partner in the decision, or at least to provide the partner with a full explanation of the reasons behind the decision and request her cooperation.
Many couples feel relief when they finally can name the problem: sexual addiction . Couples acknowledge issues of betrayal, trust, and emotional and physical safety.
By understanding the causes and consequences of sexual addiction, partners can rebuild the broken trust and develop a healthy sense of self.
Helpful test - Partner's Sexual Co-Addiction Screening Test: http://www.sexualrecovery.com/resources/selftests/psast.php
The discovery of a cheating partner is difficult for the spouse to accept. Spouses react to the cheating partner with doubt, jealousy toward the computer, and a fear that the relationship will end because of someone they never met. Furthermore, spouses often become enablers as they rationalize their partners’ behavior as just a "phase" and they go to great lengths to conceal the problem from family and friends.
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Sex addiction is a family disease. Both partners have been part of the problem and both can participate in the recovery process, individually and together. Couples who are willing to identify and to work through individual issues such as family of origin difficulties, possible past traumas or neglect, and the need for better skills to cultivate intimacy, can do well in recovery.
Couples who do well:
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Based on Working with Couples from a Spiritual Perspective - MARK R. LAASER
Just as the second and third step of Alcoholics Anonymous ask addicts to trust and surrender their lives to a higher power; couples also must do a second and third step. They will need to surrender their relationships to God, as they understand God. By their own resources they are powerless. Therefore, for couples to be on a spiritual journey of healing each person in the relationship must surrender his or her life to God. I believe that each member should also be willing to surrender his or her partner to God. This is a way of confronting codependency. It is saying, “I can’t control or manipulate you. I have no power over your presence or approval. I give you over to God.” When these first two acts of surrender have been made, it is possible to turn the relationship over. Couples who are willing to do this will experience a new freedom and hope.
The second spiritual question is, “What are you thirsty for?” I believe that underneath all of our feelings, core beliefs, and expectations we all have universal desires. Recent anthropological and sociological studies have begun suggesting that men and women are not as different as we have thought. Is it not really the case, for example, that men may like to talk and women may like to have sex. My wife, Debbie, and I have constructed a list of seven desires that we use in our counseling practice and in our workshop ministry to show couples what they may really be “thirsty” for. They are the desires to be (1) heard and understood, (2) affirmed, (3) blessed, (4) safe, (5) touched in non-sexual ways, (6) chosen and passionately desired, and (7) included in fellowship with God and with others.
When we don’t get our desires met in healthy ways, either currently or historically, we develop expectations of others to give them to us. This is where couples get into trouble. I expected Deb to provide me with all of the desires of my heart in some female goddess or great earth mother way. Historically, I thought that when she said yes to sex, she was listening, affirming, blessing, being safe, touching in the only ways I knew, passionately choosing me, and including me in her life.
When we don’t get our desires and expectations met, that leads to core beliefs about ourselves and others, resentful and angry feelings, and unhealthy attempts (false solutions) to get them met.
For sex addicts, it is a sexual solution. Their core beliefs, according to Carnes, are that no one loves them or meets their needs, so they try and do it themselves through sex. In many sexual fantasies and activities, addicts believe that they are seven for seven in getting their desires met.
The solution for couples is not to learn how to serve each other’s desires better. The spiritual solution is to find the desires of our heart in our relationship with God and with our community of family and friends. When couples do that they take the pressure off each other and decrease the anger from their violated (and unrealistic) expectations. In the fulfillment that comes from this spiritual solution to our desires, couples may very well have the strength and inner resources to become servants to each other’s desires, but out of strength and not out of weakness.
The third spiritual question is, “Are you willing to die to yourself and, therefore, what are you willing to die for?” The greatest generation of America, according to Tom Brokaw, were those (now 80 year olds) who were willing to go to far flung places and die for their country. Those of us in the Viet Nam generation questioned the validity of that war, and our willingness to die for our country was hidden in all those doubts. Thanks to the crisis of 9-11, however, all of us have reconnected with that patriotic willingness. I am personally fond of the story of the priest who went into a crumbling building to offer last rites and do his job.
Is there any doubt that addiction is selfish? Those in recovery discover that they need to die to their arrogance and sense of control. They are “not God,” and their selfish desires get them nowhere. As we know, it sometimes takes huge consequences to take a person to the place of dying to himself. The attitude of selfishness can pollute any relationship. Sex addicts are selfish in many ways and especially in their sexuality. In recovery from coaddiction, partners are often encouraged to heal from their codependencies, and enmeshments. It is good to establish healthy boundaries, but there can be a danger that such encouragements lead to the opposite end of the pendulum swing, selfishness. Many spiritual traditions teach attitudes of selflessness. In Christian scripture, one of its main writers (Paul in Ephesians 5) compares the relationship of marriage to that of Jesus and the Church. The Christian story is based on the fact that Jesus willingly gave up his life for all who follow him. Therefore, this teaching stresses that we should be like Jesus and be willing to die for our partner. When this attitude is adopted, it should come only from a position of strength and not one of weakness. The first attitude is one of maturity and sacrifice. The second is one of codependency and selfishness. Couple’s counseling that is spiritually based can, then, ask the question, “Out of your strength, are you willing to die to yourself and for your partner.” When this kind of attitude is adopted, I find that couples’ arguments are virtually non-existent.
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One of the great challenges of couple’s counseling is to help both partners determine how they trigger each other into their deepest places, the wounds of these kinds of abuse. We know that “hurt people find hurt people.” And that “hurt people hurt people.” This is what Carnes and others have called “trauma bonding.” I am more fond of referring to it, with Carnes, as the theory of “heat-seeking missiles.” Couples, of course, repeat the kinds of traumatic situations they experienced in their families. They are possibly hoping for a different solution or are trying to be in control of the action or are the offenders rather than the victimized (the victim to victimizer cycle). On the surface this can seem very discouraging because it would seem natural that the solution to this is to be separated or divorced. However, the recognition of this dynamic affords a couple a great opportunity to become allies in the healing journey. It is perhaps, in my theological understanding, one of the ways that a couple finds meaning in their pain.
Solid couple’s counseling can only proceed where both partners are willing to seek individual healing for their trauma. If it is only the addict doing so, couple’s work cannot be successful. One of the most important stages in healing trauma individually is to find meaning in the suffering and pain. Viktor Frankel showed how to help ourselves and others find meaning in suffering. Rather than being victims, we can learn to see the opportunity in it to understand life’s greater truths. Henry Nouwen, in his later years as he healed from a situation that had sent him into despair, wrote a series of reflections that has changed many of the ways I do therapy.
Nouwen says, in one of those reflections, that all of us have our own individual pain. We are wounded in specific ways at specific times. When we stay in the place of that pain we can only remain angry and vindictive. I would add, addictive. He goes on to say that pain and suffering is our opportunity to participate in the pain of all humanity. All people have their own individual pain. When we share our pain, it allows us to live in solidarity with all those who suffer and are in pain. Our burdens become lighter as we participate in the universal community of humanity.
How many of us remember what it was like to go to our first meeting and eventually to tell our story? How it felt to share with the community? This dynamic has particular significance for couples. Rather than see each other as the cause of our pains, we can choose to see that our wounds are opportunities to connect with the wounds of our partner. We both experience hurt, suffering, and pain. Much of it was caused by others much earlier than in our relationships.
I remember the day when my wife, who isn’t the victim of sexual abuse, had a dream in which she clearly saw what my perpetrator had sexually done to me. Likewise, even though I was not wounded in some of the ways she was, understanding my pain allows me to empathize with her in the uniqueness of her pain. When these understandings take place, partners become companions. That is why, when we trigger each other, we can choose to view it as a opportunity for greater insight, healing, and empathy. Doing so is a spiritual movement of the highest value. Recovering couples find that understanding the cycle of how partners hurt and trigger each other is also the opportunity to transform relationships. This is a place of awareness that very few couples ever get to.
FORGIVENESS AND NEW COMMITMENT We know that the sexual addiction brings infidelity to a relationship. It violates all of the desires of the heart described above. The partner is not heard, affirmed, blessed, safe, touch in non-sexual ways, chosen, or included. This brings the most acute pain, and with it anger. One of the main dynamics counselors deal with is how to help the offended partner find trust, and eventually, forgiveness. There are those who find the possibility of this very pessimistic. Spiritual tradition, however, encourages us to find forgiveness in our hearts. The well-known prayer of Jesus (the Lord’s Prayer) says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Christian tradition tells us that we must forgive others as God has forgiven us. A spiritual program will encourage partners to forgive each other. This assumes, of course, that the addict is maintaining sobriety.
Mature people in recovery will seek to be honest about the wrongs, or sins, they have committed against others (Alcoholics Anonymous; AA, Step 4). They seek to continually take inventory (Step 10), and promptly admit when they are wrong. They also try to make amends for the wrongs they have done (Step 9). We are left in couple relationships to decide if we are going to forgive those wrongs and accept those amends from our partners. The decision to do so, I believe, is a matter of one’s spiritual journey. It may be based on the acceptance that all of us make mistakes and need forgiveness. I believe that forgiveness is a decision that can be made. We can act forgiving. Acting forgiving can mean many things.
A partner must first examine what he acts like when he is not forgiving. For example, he may not be open to communicating at all and may be totally shut down. She may use her anger to continue to blame her partner for everything. Acting like forgiving then will certainly mean being willing to talk and being willing to not blame. In the movie “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” the wife of a man who has been profoundly abusive, decides to forgive him and to care for him after he has been shot and temporarily paralyzed.
We encourage each partner of our couples to make an inventory of what they might need to do today to act forgiving. We also encourage them to call a sponsor or member of one of their groups to check out these projected actions. Feeling like forgiving will usually come much later. Those who have achieved this decision know that it is not a one-time event. They also know that it is as much for them as it is for the offending person. Living free of anger and resentment is a great freedom. This freedom allows couples to get past many of the anger roadblocks that prevent their relationships from growing. Couples who are working a program together as companions will ask themselves the spiritual question, “Who have we offended and to whom do we need to make amends?” If couples are a one-flesh union, then there are certainly times when they together have offended others. I think, for example, of my children. As parents, Deb and I have made some mistakes for which we need to seek forgiveness. We ask all of the couples that we work with to consider committing to the relationship. My wife calls it, “Closing the door on divorce.” This does not mean that we have totally healed all of the hurts and angers. It does mean that we are committed to try and heal them. It does not mean that separation or divorce may not be an option in the future. It does mean for now that we will work on the relationship and will not threaten to leave. This is a spiritual act. This is not because some spiritual commandments tell us that we must stay together at all cost. It is because we decide to recognize the sacredness of our relationship and that we will not give up on it easily. Jewish and Christian tradition teaches that God hates divorce. That is not because he forbids it but he does recognize the devastation it can cause. Even Christian tradition is clear that where there has been infidelity, divorce is an option (the gospel of Matthew, chapter 5). Certainly in cases of sexual addiction, the infidelity loophole is present. Cleary, the spiritual dynamics I have outlined will lead us in the direction of commitment. Willingness to die to the self and for the other, being selfless, finding meaning in the pain, and forgiving will form a foundation on which a new commitment can be made. We often experience that the couples we work with will create a time or service of rededication, possibly in front of a spiritual authority. Many of them buy new rings and celebrate a new anniversary because of this. These moments can be wonderful experiences of grace and healing.
DEVELOPING VISION The sexual addiction cycle begins with fantasy. Fantasy is an imagined picture of a hoped for reality that will bring healing to the wounds of the soul. We can have money fantasies that heal the wounds of perceived material deprivation. We can have money, status, power, and sports fantasies that heal the selfperception of being rejected and excluded. Sexual fantasy can lead us to believe that we will find the love we’ve never known in sexual activity. Any fantasy, therefore, can be a false solution to desires that only God or deeper spiritual understanding can provide. G. K. Chesterton has been reported as saying, “A man who knocks at the door of a brothel is looking for God.” Many of us have written and said that sexual addiction is a misplaced spirituality, a search for ultimate love and nurture. Many spiritually passionate and brilliant people have been those who struggle with sexuality. Martin Luther King once remarked that sexual temptation was the price of great spiritual leadership. As we begin to better understand his life, we know that there was a dark sexual side to it. Fantasy will determine what we look for. A sex addict can walk into a crowded room and “see” every sexual possibility in it. The answer to this begins with the “thirst” discussed earlier. If we thirst for things of the flesh, we will see things of the flesh. If we thirst for spiritual fulfillment, we will start seeing God or the higher power in others, the world, and ourselves. When we decide that we will try to thirst for God, we are on the way to developing a vision. In Jewish scripture, the book of Proverbs contain a verse, “A people without a vision will perish.” The same passage goes on to say, “they will go unrestrained.” Vision determines what we see and is based on what we desire. Spiritually, it can be based on one’s sense of calling from God. Rick. Warren’s recent book, The Purpose Driven Life, challenges Christians to find God’s calling, plan, and purpose in their lives. The success of this book indicates to me that we all long for vision and purpose. Vision directs everything that we do. In the book Alice in Wonderland, Alice comes to a fork in the road. She asks for help in knowing which way to go. The question back is, “Where are you going,” to which she responds, “I don’t know.” Her answer is, “then either road will take you there.” I believe that all of us need to have our life directed by a vision we embrace for ourselves. Like individuals, couples may suffer from fantasies. They may have a fantasy of what the perfect relationship is like. These fantasies seek to heal the wounds the relationship has created in the past. We encourage couples to work on what family models and core beliefs helped them to come up with these unrealistic pictures. Working with them may simply be a matter of helping them find truer models of intimacy and developing a vision to achieve that. The problem for some couples is that each partner may have a vision, but they don’t match up or complement each other. The couple that has two different visions really experiences division. Couple’s work, therefore, must help a couple develop a vision that both partners can embrace and pursue. This doesn’t mean that each partner doesn’t have his or her individual calling and vision. It simply means that the partners will support each other in his or her strengths, abilities, and calling. This can be a matter of a spiritual quest. Even if partners come from different faith backgrounds and can’t agree on a common spiritual practice, they can come to a commonly held vision for their relationship. It may simply be to find meaning in their pain. It could be to serve others by sharing their story. Possibly it could mean sharing a daily meditation. Or, it could direct a larger life calling for their work together. My wife and I recently spent retreat time with a wonderful spiritual director who helped us form a one-sentence vision statement. Our vision is to, “speak, teach, write, and counsel for the purpose of educating the Church about sexual integrity.” This vision directs us to books we have written, speeches and workshops we have done around the world, and (most recently) to opening our own counseling center to work with other couples. For us, this is a matter of doing God’s work and not our own. We seek to live not for ourselves, but for others. To us this is our spiritual calling. Those couples who don’t have a vision, will do only what they think they have to in order to survive. Those couples who do have a vision will do whatever it takes to fulfill it. To borrow from the Promises of AA, they will find a new strength and hope. They will find that God is doing for them what they couldn’t do for themselves.
Women deny their intuition that something is wrong, although some insist on couple therapy to improve the relationship.
Spouses attempt to reduce the likelihood of acting-out through bargaining, increased sex (and sexual repertoire), lingerie, and makeovers.
When the sexual addiction is discovered, spouses report feeling sad, hopeless, overwhelmed, betrayed, isolated/alone, angry, traumatized, and confused about whether to stay in the relationship.
Spouses who experience both online and live affairs report that they feel the same degree of hurt for both types. They engage in behaviors that they hope will reduce the likelihood of acting out, including more intense detective work, bargaining, increased sex (and sexual repertoire), lingerie, makeovers, and so forth. Most spouses enter therapy when these efforts are unable to change the partner's addictive behavior.
Attachment injury/rupture (the foundational beliefs of the relationship are redefined negatively e.g., “I can’t trust him,” “He will never be faithful,” “He really doesn’t love me”)
Public humiliation (e.g., a partner arrested for solicitation of sex) or economic hardship (e.g. paying for prostitutes, purchasing pornography, etc)
Financial difficulties often occur when employment is terminated because of inappropriate sexual activities in the workplace or when excessive amounts of money are used
Losing church fellowship privileges (e.g., excommunication)
Impact on children - consequences to children in a home where one caregiver is acting-out (spouse is likely to divorce if she is feeling their children are at risk)
Hypersexual behavior typically robs the relationship of the emotional energy of at least one partner. The deception, guilt, and shame that accompany hypersexuality distract from accessibility and responsiveness. Additionally, the attention devoted to the hypersexual behavior reduces commitment and time that could have been devoted to the relationship.
"When a spouse is involved with substance abuse, a wife considers it his
problem, but when it comes to pornography, she considers it her problem,” Graham
said. “To add to her feeling of personal lack, shame, and low self-esteem with
sexuality in her marriage, the addict believes the same misguided conclusion,
that if his partner was more this or that then he wouldn’t need porn. Thus we
have women who are running to Victoria’s Secret and plastic surgeons like crazy
when in fact that has nothing whatsoever to do with helping sexual addiction to
pornography in any way, shape, or form.”
See also: Codependency
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