Marina, a twenty-nine-year-old fitness instructor, has been married to Justin, a professional martial arts trainer, for nearly five years. When they got married, they agreed to sexual fidelity. “We didn’t want to be like some of the other couples we knew who were sleeping around all over the place,” Marina says. “We promised each other to be honest and to have integrity around our sex life.” And Marina has stood by that agreement. Justin, however, seems to view monogamy as something to be worked around rather than respected. Almost since the day they were married he’s been extensively looking at pornography without his wife’s knowledge and having webcam sexual encounters. And lately he is devoting more time and energy to those behaviors than to his intimate life with Marina. “I can’t take it anymore,” she says, “because he just keeps getting worse. In the beginning I felt a little jilted, but back then I bought his lies about how “a little bit of pornography doesn’t count because it’s not real women,” and then later I bought his lies about how webcam sex doesn’t count as cheating because the woman lives a thousand miles away. Thus they will never meet up in real time. But now, I get it, he’s cheating. I mean, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. So he’s cheating on me.” At this point, Marina is extremely frustrated and unclear how to proceed with her marriage because when she broaches the topic with Justin, he either gets angry and defensive, or he belittles her and threatens to leave.
Is Your Partner a Sex Addict?
Most people think that if they were partnered with a sex addict, they would automatically know it. They incorrectly believe that it would be almost impossible to miss the signs of sexual addiction. But in truth, the closer a person is to the problem, the harder it is to spot the problem. Essentially, spouses don’t want to believe that their closest ally could profoundly betray and harm them, and who would? So they tend to look the other way and make excuses for problem behaviors only to themselves “end up” in denial about what is happening. Knowing this, it actually makes sense that the betrayed spouse is usually the last to know about the infidelity. Besides, most people think that sex addicts are creepy men who hang out in adult bookstores, porno theaters, and in red-light districts—“obvious” perverts, so to speak, not like “my husband.”
In reality, only a very small percentage of sex addicts fit this “low bottom,” street-person stereotype. The rest are people that most of us deal with in our day-to-day lives, often regularly, without awareness of their addiction. This is because the vast majority of sex addicts work very hard to hide their problem (primarily because they don’t want anything or anyone to interfere with their addictive sexual fantasies and behaviors, and because of the profound shame they often carry about them). As such, most sex addicts are at least relatively functional, maintaining jobs and even marriages while keeping their problem hidden.
Of course, the people around sex addicts are usually fairly helpful in this regard. This is because most of us, regardless of whether we are addicted, naturally want to keep our problems quiet and out of sight. In return, we are inclined to “not notice” the mildly, unusual, and/or occasionally erratic behaviors of other people—especially those we love. And when we do notice, instead of having the bad taste to mention these issues, we create in our own minds excuses for what the other person is doing. This is especially true in family settings, where healthy spouses need to believe their significant other is trustworthy, dependable and doing right by them as they should believe. In other words, loving family, spouses, even friends, are often unconsciously adept at “looking the other way.” Because of this, many addicts are able to act out for years while loving spouses slog through a denial-driven fog, as those around them either don’t recognize the problem, choose to ignore it or can’t imagine it could be true.
Spotting Addiction—of Any Type
If you are worried that your spouse or partner may be an addict (of any type), there are several common issues to look for. Any and all of these signs can be indicative of addiction, though none is definitive in terms of saying, “Yes, my spouse is an addict.” If, however, you spot several of these behaviors in a loved one, it may be time to take action.
√ Deceitfulness: Active addicts are excellent liars. They fib and make excuses with cold, calculated precision, especially when it comes to protecting their addictive behaviors. When confronted about their lies, they deny, justify, minimize, and externalize by placing the blame on others (a spouse, a boss, a parent, a friend, the government, etc.)
√ Manipulation/Gaslighting: Addicts hide their addiction by convincing you to believe their story—however unlikely it may be—rather than trusting your own feelings and intuition. They are incredibly persistent with this; they will keep at it until you wear down and give in. Often, they will try to make you feel as if you are the one with a problem (lack of trust, imagining things, etc.).
√ Mood Swings: Some addicts can seem hyperactive and extremely happy, followed by periods of depression, irritability, and lethargy. Other addicts can seem pleasant and mellow, followed by periods of anxiety, paranoia, and anger. All this without an obvious external reason. Usually, if questioned, they blame these mood swings on the actions of others or on events beyond their control.
√ Physical Isolation and Withdrawal: The easiest way to keep an addiction secret is to hide from anyone who might recognize the problem. Sometimes addicts just disappear completely. Later, of course, they tell their loved ones (and others) semi-plausible lies and stories to explain their absence.
√ Emotional Isolation and Withdrawal: Because they tend to withdraw physically, and because they tend to be so unpredictably moody, addicts nearly always struggle with interpersonal relationships. As a result, they are notoriously non-intimate, rarely sharing their feelings or their problems.
√ Trouble at Work or in School: Over time, addicts lose focus on just about everything that doesn’t involve their addiction. As such, work and school tend to suffer. However, many addicts are able to “keep up appearances” in these arenas for long periods, sometimes for years on end, even though they’re operating at much less than full capacity. Typically, the decline here is slow and difficult to notice, but it is almost always present.
√ Financial Issues: Active addictions cost money. Even addicts with jobs that pay extremely well tend to live on the edge financially. Some become habitually late paying their bills, while others will ignore their financial obligations altogether or use funds saved for retirement, etc., toward sexual acting out. They may tell loved ones blatant lies about family finances to conceal their actual spending habits.
√ Declining Physical and/or Emotional Health: Active addicts often experience either an increase or a decrease in appetite and/or sleep. Sometimes they binge and purge with one, the other, or both. Usually, because of this, their appearance declines directly related to (less self-care, less exercise, poor eating, sleep problems, etc.) The signs will look different depending on the addict, with sexual disorders manifesting much differently than, say, alcoholism or an eating disorder. As with work and school issues, changes to health and appearance are usually gradual and therefore difficult to notice, but they are almost always there.
Spotting Sexual Addiction
In addition to signs and symptoms common to all addictions, described above, sex addicts tend to show a few behavior-specific traits. Again, none of these is definitive in terms of saying, “Yes, my spouse is a sex addict,” but if you spot more than one, you may want to take action or at least pay a lot more attention to what you are seeing and hearing.
√ Sexual and/or Romantic Secrets: Sex addicts lie and keep secrets about their sexual and romantic activity. If caught in a lie, they typically attempt to cover it with still more lies. They seem to not care that this upsets their loved ones. Spouses and partners often feel unimportant and disrespected because the addict’s sexual philandering seems more important to the addict than the sanctity of their primary relationship.
√ Failure to Keep Promises Regarding Sexual Activity: Sex addicts often promise their loved ones that they will change their sexual and romantic behaviors. Sometimes they even follow through for a few days or weeks, but eventually they’re right back at it.
√ Sexual and/or Romantic Detachment (emotional withdrawal): Sex addicts are consistently more sexually and emotionally involved with porn, virtual sex, online chat, smartphone apps, and sexual and romantic intrigue (either online or in person) than with the loving spouse they have at home. Thus they tend to emotionally distance themselves from those closest to them.
√ Unwillingness to Discuss Sexual Behavioral Issues: Sex addicts typically don’t want to talk about their behavior and/or its consequences, or to consider changing their behavior. Their consistent reaction to concern about their sexual and romantic dalliances may be anger, denial, defensiveness, and/or blaming. They seem to not care how upsetting this is to their loved ones.
Recognizing Infidelity in the Digital Age
A few years ago, Dr. Jennifer Schneider, Dr. Charles Samenow, and I conducted a survey of men and women whose spouses or long-term partners were engaging in significant amounts of sexual activity, either online or real world, outside of their supposedly monogamous primary relationship. Probably the most important finding of our study was that when it comes to the negative emotional effects of sex outside a supposedly monogamous relationship for the spouse, tech-based and in-the-flesh sexuality are no different.1 The lying, the emotional distancing, and the pain of learning about the betrayal all feel exactly the same to the betrayed partner, whether carried out in the virtual or real worlds.
The results of our study confirmed in many ways what I’ve said and written about infidelity for many years—that it’s not any specific sexual act that does the most damage to the betrayed partner and the relationship; it’s the constant lying, the emotional distancing, and the rending apart of relationship trust. In other words, emotional betrayal is nearly always more painful and longer-lasting than any actual physical betrayal. This long-held belief, coupled with the findings in our study, has led me to formulate the following modern-day definition of sexual infidelity:
Sexual infidelity is the breaking of trust that occurs when sexual and/or romantic secrets are deliberately kept from one’s primary intimate partner.
One of the reasons I like this definition is that it encompasses both online and real-world sexual activity. Furthermore, it is flexible depending on the couple. It allows couples to define their own version of sexual fidelity based on honest discussions and mutual decision-making. This means that it may be acceptable for one partner to look at porn (or to engage in some other extramarital sexual activity), so long as the other partner knows about the behavior and both are truly accepting of it. On the other hand, if one partner is looking at live webcam porn (or whatever) and lying about it or keeping the behavior secret, or the other partner doesn’t find this behavior acceptable within the mutually agreed-upon boundaries of the relationship, then it qualifies as infidelity.
As a professional, I make no judgments about the ways in which couples mutually define relationship and sexual fidelity. In days of yore, marriage demanded a lifetime of mutual monogamy, but in today’s world this is not always the case. The monogamy box is not for everyone. In fact, many couples, particularly younger couples, now seek “open” relationships with varying degrees of sexual freedom. As long as these healthy couples mutually agree, without manipulation or coercion, on the relationship boundaries, and so long as both parties then respect those boundaries, whatever they may be, and those boundaries don’t diminish the couple’s emotional bond, then it is not for me (or anyone else) to say that this is right or wrong.
That said, extramarital sexual activity, regardless of whether it reaches the level of sexual addiction, is typically not a mutually agreed-upon activity. More often, one partner values and upholds the couple’s commitment to sexual fidelity (however that is defined) while the other does as he or she pleases and then hides their behavior, justifying it with endless variations of the following lies, ad nauseam:
√ What my partner doesn’t know can’t hurt him/her.
√ It’s only online, so I’m not really cheating.
√ Everybody does this. It’s perfectly normal.
√ We don’t really have a sex life anyway, so this actually keeps us together.
Essentially, those who lie to their primary partners by living a separate sexual and/or romantic life convince themselves that what they are doing doesn’t really count as a betrayal. Of course, that’s not how their spouses and partners typically feel. For example, in our survey mentioned above, 87 percent of respondents said their partner’s online sexual activity had an overall negative effect on their relationship, with 41 percent calling that negative effect “significant,” and 35 percent saying it caused the demise of their relationship. The negative effects most commonly experienced by the cheated-on partners were loss of relationship trust, loss of self-esteem, stress, and anxiety brought on by the cumulative effect of the cheater’s lying and secret-keeping, and diminishment of the sexual relationship. Consider the words of actual respondents:
√ It obliterated the trust in our relationship. I no longer believe a single thing he says.
√ We don’t have sex often and it irritates me that he puts more time into the porn than trying to be intimate with me.
√ I have been traumatized by the repeated discovery of his deception and betrayal of me with these activities.
√ I became over-the-top with snooping, spying, trying to control the behavior, and thinking if I just did, then I could stop it. It caused complete erosion of my self-esteem, boundaries, and sense of self.
√ Now I feel unattractive, ugly, wondering what’s wrong with me. I can’t sleep or concentrate. I’m missing out on life’s happiness.
√ My wife has cheated on me with a real partner, and it feels no different! The online “safe” cheating feels just as dirty and filthy as the “real-life” cheating.
Based on the results of our study, coupled with more than two decades of working with intimacy disorders, sex addiction, and couples battered by lies and infidelity, I can assure you that secretive online sexual activity is every bit as devastating as in-the-flesh cheating. In the eyes of the betrayed partner, there is no difference between digital dalliances and real-world affairs. Cheating is cheating. A lie is a lie, even if it’s a lie of omission. Sexual infidelity destroys relationship trust, and learning about it and dealing with the outcome is painful, regardless of whether the infidelity occurred in person or online.
Understanding the Pain
of Sexual Betrayal
As stated above, for spouses and partners of sex addicts it’s not the extramarital sex that causes them the most pain. Instead, it’s the betrayal of relationship trust: the lying, the secrets, and the ongoing deceit. For a healthy, emotionally attached primary partner this experience of profound and often unexpected betrayal can be incredibly traumatic. One study of women married to sexually addicted men found that many of these women, upon learning of their husbands’ serial infidelity, experienced acute stress and anxiety symptoms characteristic of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.2 To be clear, PTSD is not just experienced by soldiers who’ve survived active duty or victims of hurricanes and earthquakes. In reality, PTSD can be caused by any emotionally overwhelming experience—including serial relationship betrayals. Furthermore, it is a very serious anxiety-related illness, sometimes with life-threatening consequences. So the trauma of sexual infidelity, once found out, is severe.
The after-effects of spousal betrayal trauma most typically manifest in one or more of the following ways. It is important that both spouses and addicts see these (below) as a normal and healthy response to this type of emotional hurt, even though the behaviors and responses may seem “overwhelming” and “never-ending,” leaving partners feeling like they will never be “themselves” again. Sadly, grief is grief, loss is loss, and, when directly related to profound emotional betrayal, can lead to emotional challenges like:
√ Feelings of emotional instability, frequent mood shifts, “over-the-top” emotional reactions, tearfulness, rage, etc., sometimes actually followed by feelings of intense love, sexual desire, and a desire to “make it work”
√ Hypervigilant behaviors (detective work), such as checking cellphone bills, wallets, computer files, phone apps, browser histories, and the like for evidence of infidelity both past and present
√ Being easily triggered into mistrust of the cheating partner—trigger examples include the cheater coming home five minutes late, turning off the computer too quickly, looking “too long” at an attractive person, etc.
√ Going on the attack by “lawyering up,” spending money to punish the cheater, telling the kids age-inappropriate information about what the cheater did, etc.
√ Telling children about the issues in detail, using them to side with a hurting parent against the addict.
√ Having sex with others to “get even”
√ Sleeplessness, nightmares, isolating, desiring to stay in bed and not “deal with the world”
√ Difficulty focusing on day-to-day events, such as picking the kids up from school, work projects, maintaining a home, etc., without being distracted by intrusive thoughts or emotions
√ Overcompensating by trying to lose weight, dress provocatively trying to be highly sexual in an attempt to “seduce” a spouse away from their addiction (which is not actually achievable, but can feel right in the moment)
√ Obsessing about the betrayal and struggling to stay “in the moment,” or alternately avoiding thinking about or discussing it.
√ Escapist behaviors on the part of the betrayed spouse, both with substances (drugs and alcohol) as well as binge eating, spending, etc.
√ Spending to get even
Sometimes there are gender differences in the way betrayed spouses react after learning about their partners’ sexual infidelity. Generally speaking, betrayed females tend to see things globally, thinking, “It’s not just me that you’ve betrayed, it’s also our kids, our home, and our community.” Women also tend to think, “If you lied to me about this, then what else are you lying about? Can I believe anything you’ve ever said?” Betrayed males, on the other hand, tend to view spousal betrayal as a personal assault on their ego, thinking things like, “Does this mean that I’m not a good enough husband or lover?” or, even more narcissistically, “I can’t believe you were out there doing this while I was home trying to be a good husband. If I’d known you were cheating, I would have been out there, too.” But men too can profoundly feel traumatized by a cheating spouse.
Regardless of gender, much of the trauma evoked by the disclosure of a supposedly monogamous sex-addict’s behaviors stems from timing. Sex addicts have obviously known about their extracurricular sexual behaviors all along, and, once their behavior is discovered, they often report feelings of relief that things are finally out in the open. Betrayed partners, however, are typically blindsided and overwhelmed by this information. They’re first learning about it, and thus feel emotionally slammed by it. So while one partner may be feeling relief, the other may feel as if he or she has been run over by a Mack truck. Is it any wonder that betrayed spouses sometimes respond in ways that make them look like the crazy ones? In reality, survivors of this type of chronic betrayal trauma will very naturally find themselves responding with rage, anger, fear, and/or any other strong emotion. And this is to be expected, as they are not crazy; it’s just that their whole world has been turned upside down.
Gaslighting Makes It Worse!
Gaslighting is a term that originated with the 1938 stage play, Gaslight, by British writer Patrick Hamilton. However, most people are familiar with the story through the Oscar-winning 1944 film of the same name, starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. In the film, Boyer convinces his wife (Bergman) that she’s imagining things, most notably the occasional dimming of the house’s gas lights, as part of his plot to steal her deceased aunt’s money and jewels. (The lights dim whenever he’s in the attic, searching for the treasure.) Over time, Bergman comes to believe her husband’s lies and, in turn, to question her sanity.
In today’s world the plot of Gaslight seems pretty outlandish. Nevertheless, the concept of psychological abuse perpetrated by presenting false information and insisting those lies are true, thereby causing the victim to doubt his or her judgment, perception, memory, and even sanity, is relatively well-accepted in contemporary society—probably because gaslighting routinely occurs in conjunction with serial sexual infidelity and various forms of addiction.3 Consider the words of Alexandria:
“Darren was, and sometimes still is, the most charming guy on the planet. We met at a party at a mutual friend’s Manhattan penthouse. I was twenty-five, Darren was thirty. We’ve been dating for six years now, living together for five, and he keeps promising me we’ll get married and start a family, but that never quite happens. The last three or four years, even though we’re sharing an apartment, I almost never see him. He works in finance, and I know the hours are long, but sometimes I feel lonely and I try to call him but he doesn’t answer his phone, even when he’s gone all night or sometimes for an entire weekend. He doesn’t even respond to my texts, just to let me know he’s not dead.
“When he finally does show up, he tells me that his job is really demanding and I should cut him some slack. He’ll tell me that he was working late on a really big deal which I should appreciate and not complain about, and he fell asleep at his desk, or he got called away to the country on short notice to meet with some hotshot client and didn’t have time to let me know about it before he left, and then there wasn’t cell service even though he tried to reach me. And then he reminds me that he’s doing all of this for us, and that I really need to trust him because he loves me and would never do anything to hurt me, and if I really want to get married and have kids with him, then I have to stop acting crazy. And heaven forbid I accuse him of doing cocaine with his friends all night or sleeping with another woman. Then he calls me insecure and paranoid and all sorts of other things. Even though I have found evidence of both, recently. The worst part is that after a year or two of this I decided he must be right, that I really am crazy, jealous, and even paranoid about him/us.
“Last week he was gone for four days, and when he got back, he insisted that he’d told me over breakfast that he was going out of town on business. He said I was really groggy when he told me, so maybe it just slipped my mind. And I believed him! Then, yesterday, I went shopping a few minutes past noon and I walked past a café that we both like. There he was, sitting at a table for two with another woman, kissing passionately. Last night after he fell asleep I went through his iPhone and found out he’s having affairs with at least three women! Now, instead of being mad, I feel crazier than ever. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think straight, and I have absolutely no idea what to do next.”
Alexandria presents a classic case of modern-day gaslighting. Essentially, Darren wanted to continue with his illicit sexual behavior so he crafted a web of lies to justify, deny, and cover up his activity. And when Alexandria had the good sense to question those lies, he flipped the script, insisting his falsehoods were true and that Alexandria was delusional or just making things up for some absurd reason. In this way, Alexandria was made to feel as if she was the problem, as if her emotional and psychological instability were the real issue.
The most disturbing thing about gaslighting is that even emotionally healthy people are vulnerable to it. In part, this is because we naturally tend to defend, excuse, and overlook concerns about the behavior of people to whom we are deeply attached. In larger part, it’s because gaslighting starts slowly and builds gradually over time. In the beginning the lies are plausible, like, “I’m sorry I got home at midnight. I’m working on a very exciting project and I lost track of time.” An excuse like that one sounds at least semi-reasonable to most people, and for a person who both loves and trusts the liar, it’s easily accepted. Over time, however, as the cheating (or whatever else it is that the liar is trying to cover up) escalates, the fabrications also escalate. “I swear, I told you over breakfast that I was going away for four days. You must have forgotten.” Most people would toss a lie like that one out with the garbage, but because the gaslighted partner has become inured to this type of deceit, even the most outlandish mistruths can be accepted. So instead of questioning the liar, gaslighting victims question themselves. In this respect, gaslighting is like placing a frog in a pot of warm water that is then set to boil. Because the temperature increases only gradually, the innocent frog never tries to jump out and save itself until it’s too late.
Over time, gaslighting can result in what is known as a “stress pileup,” leading to anxiety disorders, depression, shame, toxic self-image, and more, including, as mentioned above, symptoms characteristic of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Such is the abuse that sex addicts intentionally perpetrate on their spouses and partners—all so they can continue their hidden sexual behaviors unabated.
Sadly, gaslighting behaviors are often more emotionally damaging to a loving partner than whatever it is that the betrayer is attempting to cover up. With Alexandria, for instance, the most painful part of Darren’s behavior wasn’t that he was having sex with other women, it’s more about the way he lied about it ultimately leaving her feeling crazy and mistaken for doubting his many semi-plausible and/or ultimately utterly outlandish excuses and fabrications.
Getting Help for Yourself
Emma, a forty-nine-year-old lawyer, learned about her husband’s sexual addiction five months ago. Upon learning about his serial sexual infidelity, she got very angry and insisted that her husband seek inpatient treatment for his issue, and that he follow up with ongoing outpatient therapy and regular attendance at twelve-step sexual-recovery meetings. Initially, knowing that her husband was in treatment—all the while watching him like a hawk to make sure he wasn’t slipping or relapsing—gave Emma a sense of control, as did checking his email and cell phone daily. Eventually, though, she realized that her husband’s treatment and recovery wasn’t enough to make her feel whole again. She says, “Somewhere about six to seven months into the problem, I just got tired of the whole thing being about him—his behavior, his emotional problems, his shame and embarrassment, his consequences. What about me? What about my pain and my fears about the future?” As Emma tired of asking about her husband’s therapy and worrying about whether their relationship was going to survive, she found herself nagging and becoming unnecessarily critical, letting her anger and frustration leak out sideways in fits and starts. “Over time,” she says, “as he slowly started to become more consistent and reliable (a good sign of his healing), I got less consistent and more unpleasant. I started to really dislike the woman I was turning into. That’s when I finally sought help for myself.”
As alluded to above, betrayed spouses and partners of sex addicts, despite the hurt, anger, confusion, and betrayal they experience, often resent the idea that they might need help to deal with their feelings and reactions. And this resistance is perfectly natural. After all, “he/she did this to me, to us, so why should I get help?” That said, many betrayed spouses do benefit from therapeutic assistance. At the very least they need to find validation for their feelings, education and support for moving forward, empathy for how their life has been disrupted by the addict’s repeated betrayals, and help in processing the shame they feel about falling for all of the addict’s now obvious lies and excuses. And if the relationship is ever going to truly move on, both spouses must be engaged in righting and steering that ship.
Six Do’s and Six Don’ts
If you’ve learned about a partner’s sexual infidelity, regardless of whether sexual addiction is in play, then you know the kind of pain we are talking about. It’s not just the pain of any specific sexual betrayal that you must process and eventually overcome the big picture, it’s the loss of trust in your spouse and your relationship that is really hard to take. Learning about a supposedly monogamous partner’s extracurricular sexual activity near inevitably leaves you in a daze: stunned, hurt, uncertain, and unable to fully assimilate and accept what has happened. If you have recently learned about sexual addiction and/or infidelity in your relationship and are experiencing any degree of anger, pain, and uncertainty, the following lists of do’s and don’ts may be helpful.
Six things you should do if your partner is sexually addicted:
1) Do get tested for STDs. Men and women who engage in sexual infidelity are often careless about having protected sex (especially oral sex). It doesn’t matter how much you love him or her or how much you want to believe that they wouldn’t act in ways that might hurt you. As soon as you learn that your partner has been sexually unfaithful, you should visit your primary care physician, explain the situation, and ask for a full STD screen. If you don’t feel comfortable going to a known doctor or clinic, seek out anonymous STD testing! Nearly every major metropolitan area in the US has such clinics or programs—just look online.
2) Do investigate your legal rights, even if you plan to stay together. Planning to stay together doesn’t mean you will. Betrayed spouses should always find out their rights in a potential separation, including financial concerns, property concerns, and parenting issues if there are children. It is possible that your partner has already made plans to protect himself or herself legally and financially. You should do the same, regardless of what you hope the outcome of your situation will be.
3) Do reach out to others for help. Dealing with infidelity requires a level of emotional support that is beyond the life experience of most people, and the only healthy way to deal with this is to seek assistance from people who understand what you’re going through: therapists, support groups like Al-Anon, S-Anon, CoDA, and COSA, along with trusted others who’ve dealt with similar betrayal, etc. Whether you decide to remain in the relationship or not, you need (and deserve) care, love, and support, which can only be found by talking about what has happened with compassionate and empathetic others. You should not, however, be vindictive with this information. It’s one thing to enlist others for support; it’s quite another to tell your spouse’s mother, children, boss, or best friend about his or her behavior out of spite. And keep in mind, anything you say to your kids cannot ever be unsaid, so think twice about badmouthing your fellow parent no matter how much you want to tell them.
4) Do learn everything you can about sexual addiction. This educational process helps you to better understand the sex addict, and also to make healthier decisions in the future.
5) Do trust your feelings and observations. If you don’t feel safe with your partner, trust your intuition. If you don’t see your partner getting ongoing help with his or her sexual problems—attending therapy and/or going to twelve-step support groups—then don’t trust that things are getting better.
6) Do expect to join your partner in therapy on your own and with your spouse if you want to work things out. In therapy you may be able to request and receive a full accounting of your spouse’s infidelity. If you are like most betrayed spouses and you don’t want any more secrets in your relationship, then your partner, if he or she is also committed to salvaging the relationship, will, with the therapist’s assistance, disclose what you want to know. This disclosure process best occurs in a therapy room, as the amount and nature of the information can be overwhelming. This process also calls upon the betrayed spouse to get ongoing therapeutic support to deal with information disclosed.
Six things you should not do if your partner is sexually addicted:
1) Don’t have unprotected sex with your partner. No matter what a cheater tells you about his or her past sexual activity and/or recent STD tests, you absolutely should not have unprotected sex with that person until you feel confident that he or she has had a full (and clean) STD screen and that he or she has been faithful since being tested.
2) Don’t jump into long-term decisions early in the healing process. This includes life-changing decisions such as whether to break up, file for divorce, leave with the kids, etc. The rule of thumb is no major changes in the first six months of the recovery/healing process. That said, it’s perfectly fine to sleep in different beds, to live apart while in therapy, and/or to limit your involvement in the relationship to what feels safe to you. Just don’t make life-changing decisions when you are at the height of your pain, hurt, and anger unless you are committed to separation or divorce. If you are done, you’re done, and that’s okay, too. (see also #5 below)
3) Don’t try to use sex as a way to fix the problem. While sexual intensity may feel good and intimate in the moment, using sex to assuage emotional pain is actually a form of mutual denial that moves you and your partner away from the process of healing.
4) Don’t go looking for sex outside the relationship as a way to get even. “Revenge sex” may feel good in the moment, especially if your norm has been to feel neglected and unappreciated. But what may feel great for the few moments you’re doing it might not feel right later, and will almost certainly cloud an already murky situation. Seeking sex as a way to manage hurt and resentment is a very poor choice, and it typically just makes things worse.
5) Don’t make threats you don’t intend to carry out. If you tell your partner that any further cheating will cause you to leave, then you’d better pack your bags and go if/when he or she cheats again. Otherwise, you diminish your credibility. (It’s usually best to not make threats at all. Say what you feel, but try not to make threats in the moment that you may regret later.)
6) Don’t stick your head in the sand or take blame for your partner’s actions. If you have an investment in your relationship, you can’t avoid the hard facts of your partner’s ongoing infidelity. Pretending the problem will go away will definitely not make it go away. Nor will blaming yourself. Nothing that you did or did not do caused the infidelity. Your partner had a choice. It doesn’t matter how you’ve aged, how much weight you’ve gained or lost, or how involved you are with kids, family, friends, and/or work. There are many, much healthier ways that your partner could have expressed his or her unhappiness with you and/or aspects of your relationship than by doing this.
No matter what, relationship infidelity, especially when it’s driven by sexual addiction, brings pain and heartache right along with it. And the worst thing you can do is to bottle things up and hope they’ll just magically resolve. That just doesn’t work. Instead, reach out for support, information, and advice—you deserve it. You will find many of the evaluational and support resources that will be useful to you in the Resources chapter at the end of this book.
Seeking Therapy
Typically, the best place for the betrayed partner of a sex addict to find treatment is with a licensed therapist who specializes in infidelity and related couples issues, perhaps someone who works in tandem with the addict’s primary therapist. It is not recommended that betrayed spouses seek individual help from the same therapist as the addict, as this can result in “splitting” and “taking sides,” which is unhealthy for everyone involved. Couples counseling is also recommended, although early couples therapy is usually more about venting and setting boundaries than it is about a couple’s immediate healing. Sometimes, when both the addict and the betrayed spouse have primary therapists who specialize in sexual addiction, couples counseling can be a joint session with both therapists and both clients, rather than sessions with yet another clinician who specializes in couples work. In addition to being in therapy for themselves, betrayed partners should also expect to be aware of and even involved to some degree in the addict’s treatment. In other words, a sex addict’s recovery plans, friends, and healing process, etc. should not be a mystery to the cheated-on spouse, nor should that information be kept from them.
Over all, the primary initial concern in the treatment of a sexually betrayed spouse is safety. This includes physical health (STDs, family violence), emotional health, financial security, and child/family safety (young kids seeing Dad’s porn, etc.). It is also important to uncover and process specific betrayals that might make the situation feel overwhelming, such as having an affair with a best friend or a relative.
It is always important for both partners to recognize and accept that the betrayed spouse is understandably riding an emotional roller-coaster, where feeling (and sometimes acting) crazy has become the new norm. In other words, the betrayed spouse is likely to display high levels of emotional lability (mood swings), and his or her own forms of acting out (raging, withdrawing, spending, eating, drinking, etc.) both in and out of the therapy room. Typically this lasts for as long as nine to eighteen months.
During this “crisis” period, the therapeutic needs of cheated-on spouses do NOT include:
√ Attempts to calm them down
√ Attempts to get them to look at “their part” in the relationship’s problems
√ Explorations of their childhood and/or their family history
√ Explorations of their sexual/romantic life with their spouse
√ Attempts to diagnose them as codependent, borderline, bipolar, or anything else, other than as a traumatized person in a state of shock who is grieving the damage to a relationship that he or she once held dear
Just as therapists would not diagnose the psychological makeup of parents coming to them for help after their child was hit by a car and seriously injured, therapists should not diagnose or label people coming for help after their lives have been flattened by the discovery of profound infidelity. Instead, therapists are best served by focusing on concrete ways to simply help that spouse get through the day. Prematurely forcing betrayed spouses to look at their own issues—any underlying psychological concerns that may (or may not) have led them into choosing and/or tolerating a cheating partner in the first place—typically just reinforces their feelings of being defective and/or at fault. As such, it is essential that therapists recognize the behaviors of betrayed spouses, however erratic they may appear, as nothing more than typical reactions to deep emotional trauma. (A year or so later, after the crisis has abated, if the betrayed partner wishes it, therapy can address any longer-term issues that he or she may have, such as childhood trauma, attachment deficits, low self-esteem, personality challenges, etc.)
Based on this information, for the first year or so of treatment (the crisis stage), the clinical needs of betrayed spouses and partners of sex addicts DO include:
√ Concrete direction regarding healthcare issues, legal questions, and other forms of self-care
√ Education about sexual addiction, trauma disclosure, and family dynamics
√ Validation of the betrayed partner’s intuition and feelings
√ Assistance with full disclosure by the sex addict
√ Guidance toward social support for what the betrayed spouse is experiencing (usually twelve-step based peer-support groups like Al-Anon, S-Anon, Codependents Anonymous, etc.)
√ Insight into the effects of gaslighting on an intimate partner
√ Structure geared toward moving forward
√ Hope
Once again, betrayed spouses and partners of sex addicts have every right to feel angry, hurt, confused, and mistrustful. As such, they understandably rage, split, decompensate, do detective work, try to get an opinion from anyone they can find, and more. This is a healthy normal reaction to having your personal and family life shattered like a plate.
Getting Help for the Sex Addict
If you think your spouse may be a sex addict, usually the best thing you can do is to talk to him or her about it. Before doing this, though, you may want to take (or at least consider) the following steps:
√ Talk to others who are close to your spouse to get their take on the situation. If you think it will help, you can try to develop an alliance of family, friends, clergy, and supportive others who can help you confront your partner.
√ Gather as much factual information as you can about what your spouse is actually doing, and how it is affecting his or her life (and the lives of others, such as yourself).
√ Consider how your partner is likely to respond to a confrontation. If you think a confrontation may be contentious, difficult, and possibly unproductive, consider hiring a professional interventionist (if you can afford it), as doing so increases your odds of success. (See the Resources chapter at the end of this book for more information on the intervention process.)
It is important to know, before you approach any sex addict, that confrontation is the absolute last thing the addict wants. Even sex addicts who know they have a serious problem will nearly always resist, lie, pretend, and cover up. Sadly, this is the face of their emotional/addictive disorder. However, if you truly care about this person, you will persist despite his or her resistance and potential anger.
When you are prepared emotionally and factually, the best way to confront a sex addict is to start by saying you are concerned about his or her sexual behaviors and well-being, and you think there might be a problem. Then you should list a few of the concrete, undeniable facts that are causing you to worry. Be as specific as possible with these facts, using “I” statements to reduce defensiveness on the part of the addict, such as:
√ I worry because you stay up late on your computer every night, and whenever I wake up to go to the bathroom I catch you masturbating to porn or some person on a webcam.
√ I’m afraid that we will lose our source of income because you’ve been warned twice by your job to stop using company-owned equipment for sexual purposes, but you continue to do it.
√ I’m hurt, angry, and afraid because you contracted an STD and passed it along to me, and I wonder when it will happen again.
√ I’m afraid that I will stop loving you if you don’t get help.
After this, you should tell your spouse that you can no longer sit idly by while he or she ruins his or her (and your) life. Then you can offer to help your partner find books to read, sexual addiction treatment, and/or a twelve-step sexual recovery program. After that, it’s pretty much up to the addict as to whether he or she wants to accept the help you’ve offered.
If you are worried that your partner may react violently to this type of intervention, do not attempt to undertake this process by yourself. If you are worried that you might be abandoned (including financially) if you undertake this process, you may want to first take steps that ensure your financial security and well-being before confronting your partner. Again, if you can afford it, you may want to consult an interventionist or knowledgeable addiction professional for advice and guidance.
With or without the assistance of a specialist, the end goals of the initial confrontation are the same:
√ Let the sex addict know that you care about him or her.
√ Let the sex addict know that you are worried (and why).
√ Let the sex addict know that you will no longer co-sign or support his or her destructive sexual behaviors.
√ Let the sex addict know that you hope he or she will accept the help you are offering.
It is important to remember throughout this process that you cannot get well for another person. Nor can you create in that person the motivation needed for recovery. The choice to get well or not is the addict’s and nobody else’s. No matter how badly you want this person to recover, no matter how great your love for this person, you can’t magically make it happen. If and when the addict decides that he or she wants help, that help is available in abundance. But until that time the best that you can do is to voice your concerns and then refocus on caring about yourself.
If you find yourself struggling with this, you may wish to participate in Al-Anon, S-Anon, Codependents Anonymous, or similar faith-based or therapy support groups, where you will meet other concerned, loving people who are trying to live a healthy life while dealing with another person’s infidelities and/or addictions. Sure, you may wonder why you’re the one getting help when it’s your partner who has the addiction, and this is a perfectly natural reaction. If and when you have it, remind yourself that you’re in a difficult situation, even if you didn’t cause it, and you deserve empathetic support and self-care regardless of what the addict does or does not do going forward.
Staying or Moving On?
When betrayed spouses choose to remain in their relationship, as they most often do, it can take a year or more of hard work on the part of both partners before they are able to reestablish any sense of meaningful, mutual trust. Rightfully so, too, after what they’ve been through. Happily, if the addict is committed to long-term behavioral change (sexual sobriety), living honestly, and regaining his or her personal integrity, the redevelopment of relationship trust is indeed possible. And when the betrayed partner joins the addict in his or her efforts at growth by also engaging in a process of support, education, and self-examination. The chances that the two will remain a couple over time nearly quadruples over couples where the addict alone gets help.
That said, some betrayed spouses of sex addicts do ultimately conclude that the violation they’ve experienced at the hands of the addict is greater than their desire to remain in the relationship. For these individuals trust cannot be restored, and ending the relationship may be the best course of action. Just as a betrayed partner is not wrong to continue a relationship with a sex addict, he or she is also not wrong to end it.
Ultimately, more important than whether a betrayed spouse chooses to stay or go is how he or she goes about growing beyond the loss. This sort of recovery places a powerful emphasis on developing and trusting instincts, finding a greater willingness to express emotions, engaging in self-care and self-nurture, and developing an ongoing and trustworthy peer support network (via a therapy, twelve-step or faith-based group).