When spouses, partners or people who are dating a sex addict ask “Is sexually addictive behavior cheating?” what they usually mean is “Do I have a right to feel as betrayed as I feel?” or “Should I try not to take this so personally?”  After all, the partner may have been told that sex addiction is a “disease,” that it is out of the addict’s control, or that it has nothing to do with you.

As someone who is in an intimate relationship with a sex addict you are bound to feel many powerful feelings about what your partner is doing.  The sex addict’s compulsive behavior of going to strip clubs, sexual massage parlors, repeated affairs, and other even more deviant sexual compulsive behaviors will make you feel that you are being betrayed.  These sexually addictive behaviors may logically have nothing to do with you but they are almost certain to feel like cheating.

What makes the sex addict’s behavior feel like cheating is twofold:

(1)   It takes a part of your partner and removes that part of him or her from the relationship.  The whole person is not available to you.  While nobody makes 100% of themselves available to their partner all of the time, part of what makes the relationship an intimate relationship is that you and your partner are available to each other on all levels.  This includes mental, physical, emotional and sexual.  When a chunk of who your partner is as a sexual being is taken away from the relationship and invested somewhere else the natural response is feeling abandoned and betrayed.  Part of your partner is MIA.  This was not the deal!

(2)   When there is dishonesty or secrecy about the sexually addictive behavior, and there almost always is, this adds to the feeling of being cheated on.  In a committed relationship lying is interpreted as being shut out or rejected.  This is not something most people can tolerate in a partner.  After all the whole point of a committed relationship is that you are with someone who knows you and with whom you can be truly yourself.  Secrecy about anything can be experienced as a betrayal but secrecy about sexual behavior is certain to be.

Are internet porn and cybersex cheating?

What if the sexually addictive behavior involves only compulsive internet pornography use?  Or what if the behavior is limited to cybersex, “chatting” with people your partner will never meet in real life?  This is experienced by partners and spouses as a form of cheating about 99.9% of the time.  It is guaranteed to make you feel that your partner has sexual ideals and fantasies that are different from you.  This is just as true when the sexually addictive behavior is not with another real person as when it is. 

 

Your internal experience of any sexually addictive behavior in a partner is likely to be the same. As with all forms of sexual addictive behavior, the addictions to  pornography or cybersex makes you as a spouse or partner feel not only that your partner has removed part of him or herself from you, and that they are keeping secrets but also that it is somehow your fault.

Cheating and betrayal are as highly disturbing as they are because they make you as a partner question yourself and your relationship.  You find yourself asking:

• Am I adequate or am I somehow deficient?  And
• Is my partner the person I thought they were?

If the sexual addictive behavior went on for a long time before it was disclosed, you as a partner will feel as though your whole world has been shaken.  It can challenge your sense of reality even more than the cheating of a non sex addict.  “Regular” cheating may make you angry, hurt or vindictive.  But a partner with a sex addiction can be harder to fathom.  Who is this person I married anyway?  What does all this say about me?  (see Mending a Shattered Heart, Second Edition A Guide for Partners of Sex Addicts By Stefanie Carnes.)

Can sexual fantasies and looking at other men/women be cheating?

Sometimes a sex addict will attempt to act out addictive sexual fantasies with you, their partner.  If this is odd or unwelcome it may be seen as a form of cheating in that it is an attempt to have a relationship in their mind with someone who is not you, a fantasy.  Sometimes this is a matter of degree.  There is nothing necessarily wrong with fantasies, but addictive fantasies and behaviors are compulsive, they are all the addict really wants sexually.

Looking at other people may be a form of sexually addictive behavior or it may just be rude and inconsiderate.  If it is compulsive, it will likely make the partner feel rejected and unworthy.  This too can be experienced as a betrayal.

When it’s not cheating

Although all sexual addictive behaviors have an element of cheating and betrayal for the partner, not all sexual disloyalty is due to sexual addiction.  Sexual fantasies in one form or another can be a very normal part of life.  They can also be a very normal part of sex life for couples.  Looking at attractive people can be just a normal reflex for most people and may mean nothing.  Without the secrecy, the compulsiveness and the splitting off of part of your partner’s life, sexual behaviors may be disturbing but they may not be sexual addiction.  Likewise, sexual infidelity in the form of an affair may be an isolated incident.  It may cause a lot of trouble for the relationship and may even end it, but it is not necessarily a symptom of sex addiction.

However, your partner’s sexual fantasy life, their interest in other people and their tendency to look at or comment about others a lot may be a symptom of sex addiction or it may simply be a symptom of something wrong with your relationship.  If it is bothering you are not sure about what it means it is certainly a good idea to talk to your partner about it and to ask a therapist or counselor what it means.  You will either clear the air, or on the other hand you may find out there is more there than meets the eye.  Either way, it is best to know what is really going on and to take appropriate action to either repair the relationship or get help for your partner and yourself.

 

The term “sexual addictive behaviors” covers a very wide range of activities.  In that sense the term does not refer so much to a specific activity as it does to the way it is done and the impact it has on your life.  It is much the same as saying that playing the slot machines in a casino is not what makes you a gambling addict.  What makes you a gambling addict is why you gamble, for example, to escape dealing with painful emotions and or other life difficulties, how you gamble, for example is it now and then or is it several hours at a time every chance you get, and the results of the gambling, for example that you neglect your life, go into debt or lose your job.

In the same way it is not whether you masturbate or not, whether you hook up with random sex partners on websites, or any other particular sexual behaviors that make the behaviors sexually addictive.  As with gambling, over eating, compulsive shopping, hoarding and other problem behaviors sexual addictive behaviors are a matter of the role the activity plays in your life rather than the type of behavior.

Sexual Addictive Behaviors are Excessive  

Sexual addictive behaviors are considered addictive because they are done in a compulsive way.  That there is a compulsion involved is usually clear once you know the whole story.  The behavior of looking at internet pornography is not necessarily an addiction.  But if the person is spending ten or more hours a week looking at internet pornography, doing it when he or she is at work and is supposed to be working, or is doing it late into the night and can’t get up the next morning, then this is one sign of a sexual addictive behavior is present. Click here to see a list of the ways sexual addictive behaviors are commonly defined.

Sexual Addictive Behaviors are a Way to Self-Medicate

Another aspect of the sexual addictive behaviors that are considered compulsive or addictive is that they serve the function of a drug in the person’s life.  See the blogs “This is your brain on cyberporn” and “Sex Addiction as a pathological relationship with a Drug” for more information on sexual addictive behaviors as drugs.  Sexual behaviors can be used to numb out in exactly the same way as drugs and in fact many drug addicts and alcoholics have sexual addictive behaviors and vice versa.

Sexual Addictive Behaviors have Negative Life Consequences

A third necessary criterion for sexual addictive behaviors is that they are addictive when the activity has negative consequences and the behavior is continued despite these consequences.  In other words continuing in the behavior even though you have had financial or marital problems, aren’t there for your kids, have trouble getting ahead in your work and even getting in trouble with the law.  The sexual addict continues the behavior despite how damaging it is.

Sexual Addictive Behaviors are Chronic and Progressive

Last but not least is the fact that sexual addictive behaviors share with other addictions the fact that the addiction is chronic and progressive if the addict does not get help.  Most people who become entrenched in a pattern of sexual addictive behaviors cannot stop on their own no matter how bad the consequences are. It is a pattern of behavior that exists over time and usually does not resolve itself but rather tends to increase or “escalate” in terms of the obsession with the behaviors, the frequency of the behaviors, the risks taken in the process, and the increasing disregard for what is socially acceptable.  Click Here for information treatment options.

 

Cybersex Addiction

Cybersex addiction is a form of sex addiction in which the sexual behavior involves the use of the internet for a sexual experience that becomes addictive, that is the addict is unable to stop excessive sexual behavior despite the consequences.  Cybersex goes beyond pornography addiction, in which the addict spends 10 or more hours a week viewing pornographic internet images or videos.  These may be legal pornography or they may be illegal, i.e. images or videos involving children or underage teens.   Addiction to internet pornography is now being talked about as a virtual epidemic in the United States and elsewhere.  In the Christian community alone, 57% of pastors report that porn addiction is the most damaging issue for their congregation (Dan Drake, MS) and 71% of those with sexual acting-out problems also use the internet as a sexual venue.

Teens and Cybersex Addiction

There are many ways in which the internet can fuel cybersex addiction.  “Sexting” had become common in recent years among teens in particular.  In sexting young people share sexual material with others in the form of written text that has sexual content or they transmit sexual images such as nude photos of themselves or someone else. The internet is a significant gateway drug for young people to be primed for cybersex addiction.  The average first time contact with internet pornography is age 11.  The largest consumers of internet pornography are the 12 to 17 year old group.  Even without pornography however, teens and even children are subject to a barrage of sexual content through electronic games that contain highly sexual material.

Cybersex Addiction in Many Forms

A wide range of adolescent and adult behaviors fit under the broad category of cybersex addiction.  These include accessing sexual chat rooms, finding prostitutes, finding “hook-ups” (others who are immediately available for sex in real life) and selling or trading of pornographic photos and videos.  When these activities are engaged in excessively they tend to interfere with the person’s normal functioning in their daily life.  When the person fails to stop the excessive sexual behavior despite the consequences they are like a drug addict who cannot do without their drug.  They are described as having a cybersex addiction. 

The Real Life Problems Associated with Cybersex Addiction

I had a patient who was a successful medical doctor who was so in the grip of a cybersex addiction that he had on one occasion had sex with seven different women in one day, all of whom he found through ads on the internet.  For the most part we think of cybersex addicts as using a computer or laptop but this same man told me that when he gave up his access to his smart phone and laptop in an effort to quit, he managed to find a way to use his automobile GPS to find a “hook-up” i.e. access to an immediate sex partner.

Cybersex addiction is often called “the great accelerator” or “the crack cocaine of sex addiction”.  A person prone to sexual acting-out behavior discovers new kinds of imagery and behavior that they never thought of consciously before and quickly becomes compulsively fixated on these new images and scenarios, ultimately seeking to act them out in their life.  It is thought that this takes place because the new imagery acts to trigger something unconscious, something forgotten but not gone, in the psychosexual history of the person.

Cybersex addiction is particularly insidious because it is sexual contact that is easily accessible, often cheap or free and can be done anonymously in private.  It is equally insidious because in contrast to some other kinds of sex addicts such as those who have serial affairs, spend their salaries on strippers or prostitutes, or engage in real-life risky behaviors like voyeurism or exhibitionism, cybersex addicts have little fear of the consequences because they can  tell themselves that their behavior may be compulsive but that it is basically harmless or victimless.  This is most definitely not the case.  It is a pattern of behavior that exists over time and usually does not resolve itself but rather tends to increase or “escalate” in terms of the obsession with the behavior, the frequency of the behavior, the risks taken in the process, and the increasing disregard for what is socially acceptable.

Cybersex addiction has serious consequences on many fronts: marital, financial, and occupational.  One of my patients who is a cybersex addict developed a fetish that completely consumed him sexually both online and in real life.  He sought treatment when he realized that he was himself disgusted with this behavior and that he was incapable of a normal relationship.  Of the many costs of cybersex addiction, perhaps one of the least appreciated is that young males who view significant amounts of pornography are becoming unable to be sexually aroused by a real person.  So insidious is the airbrushed perfectionism of the internet’s sexual imagery (97% of internet imagery is artificially altered to be more perfect) that recent findings suggest that men are becoming impotent in real life situations with real women.

If not actually causeing impotence, cybersex addiction presents a serious risk to a person’s ability to bond with another in a love relationship.  The expectations of what sex is become too unrealistic.  A sex addict  I know in his 50’s who has struggled with cybersex in many of it’s forms is fond of saying: “Miss January is always there for me, she always wants me!”  Never mind that’s she’s not a real person.

By Linda Hatch

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https://www.sexaddictionscounseling.com/cybersex-addiction-what-is-it/

Normally sex and intimacy should be with the same person

Sex Addiction is called an intimacy disorder because people who are sex addicts do not know how to relate in an intimate (close) relationship in an open and comfortable way.  Not only are sex and intimacy detached from one another they are not even in the same neighborhood.  Intimacy is an essential part of love relationships.  It is the ability to share all parts of ourselves (our thoughts, our bodies, our feelings), to be vulnerable, and to be honest about what is going on inside of us.  Even with someone they love, sex addicts are “intimacy disabled”, that is they are fearful of sharing their true selves with another person and are therefore unable to share one or more aspects of their true selves.  They are unhappy and lonely and desperately want to “connect”.  Like the now cliché lyric says, they are “looking for love in all the wrong places”.  But the solution to the problem does not lie outside of them.  It is more than just bad choices, poor judgment or a lack of adequate information.  It is a deeper problem and that is why it is termed and intimacy disorder.  The sex addict is literally unable to break down the wall that distorts and separates his sex life from his normal life and unable to integrate the various parts of himself in the context of a loving relationship.  See for partners of sex addicts.

 

Origins in Infant and childhood bonding problems

Sexual addiction as an intimacy disorder results in part from a lack of adequate bonding due to some disruption in the relationship to a primary caregiver (usually the parent).  Sex addicts were often sexually abused as children but they are more often emotionally neglected and tend to come from families that are rigid, authoritarian or sexually repressed.  This failure leads to an inability to trust and to bond normally with another and a fear of sharing all the parts of oneself with another.   In sex addicts this intimacy disorder results in the addict leading a “double life”.  Most often the addict’s sex life exists apart from his or her life with a spouse, partner, boyfriend or girlfriend.  Even when the sex addict is having sex with a partner or spouse, it is often the case that the addict is not “all there”.  He or she may be lost in fantasy or just going through the motions.  Many addicts feel they are having satisfying sex with their partners when in fact they are not really able to be present.  Even addicts who feel they really desire their partner usually have some other more compelling and highly charged experience that they revert to outside of their relationship whether it is serial seduction, hook-ups, prostitutes, chat rooms or affairs.

It’s not always the parents’ fault

Not all problems with attachment in childhood and the resulting intimacy disorders come from parental neglect.  Some attachment problems also arise through accidents of fate such as the illness, absence or death of a caregiver.  (There is also thought to be both a genetic predisposition to addictions in general which may be passed on as a predisposition to addiction in the case of sexual addiction as well.)

Intimacy disorder is curable

A person who is so-called “intimacy-abled” is able to form a healthy intimate and sexual attachment with a partner in adulthood.  That implies the ability to trust your partner, to trust your own ability to set boundaries, to communicate your feelings in the moment, to be able to commit, and to relate to a partner with all aspects of yourself and not to lead part of your life in isolation or compartmentalization, separate from the one you love.   The untreated baggage of a disordered attachment history leads to mistrust, fear, distancing, sexual conflicts, feeling unlovable, and lack of experience with healthy communication.  These are underlying problems that are effectively treated in sex addiction treatment and sex addiction therapy.  The work of recovery is not only about becoming able to abstain from compulsive sexual addictive behaviors; it is about learning to relate to others in a different way.  Tackling the intimacy disorder aspects of the sex addict psyche is fundamental to lasting recovery from sex addiction.   See also Getting Help.

 

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One of the definitions of sex addiction is: “a pathological relationship with a mood altering experience.”  This definition comes out of an earlier formulation in alcohol and drug dependency theory, namely that addiction is “a pathological  relationship with a mood altering substance”.  Expanding the definition of addiction to include behaviors, sometimes called “process addictions” such as gambling, eating, and sexual addictive behaviors allows us to see the person’s relationship to the sexual behavior as problematic or pathological, rather than the behavior itself.  The key point here is that the same behavior may be sexually addictive behavior for one person and not for another.  Good examples of this are cyber sex and internet pornography.  Someone may engage in these in an infrequent and harmless way while another person may engage in these to the point that they constitute a sexual addiction.

A pathological relationship to a sexually addictictive behavior has to do with the role it plays in our life.  In the case of sexual addictions the behavior occupies a role in our lives that is unhealthy in some way, meaning that it has consequences that are destructive or dangerous to ourselves or others.  In the case of sexual addiction the pathological element could have to do with

1. extreme focus on the behavior, such as using internet pornography for hours every day,
2.  the riskiness of the behavior such as frequent anonymous sex,
3. with the potential legal consequences of behaviors such as exhibitionism and voyeurism and
4. the potential for the behavior to be seriously disruptive to the person’s life and functioning in relationships, career, etc whether or not the sex addiction is ever discovered.

A mood altering behavior refers to the sex addict’s reason for engaging in the behavior (or engaging in it to an excessive degree).  In sex addiction, as in all other addictions, behaviors are considered potentially mood altering and therefore potentially addictive in that they can be used to “medicate” unpleasant feelings (such as fear, depression, worthlessness, rage etc.) due to the chemicals released in the brain when those behaviors are performed. See also Sex Addiction is a Drug

For many people who struggle with sex addiction, masturbation was used early in life as a self-soothing or self-medicating strategy to escape from fear, abandonment, depression and betrayal.  Many sexually addictive behaviors are a reenactment of traumatic experiences from childhood.  Sexual addictive behavior carried over into adulthood becomes a habitual way to deal with emotion and stress.  Unfortunately sexual addiction as a way to self-medicate has far reaching and negative consequences as do all drugs.  See also This is Your Brain on Cyber Porn

 

 

Adults and children alike are daily bombarded with sexualized images of women and girls as they watch TV, surf the web, play video games, watch music videos, and look at print media (the image at the left is of Dakota Fanning in the recent Marc Jacobs ad for “Oh Lola” fragrance.)  There is a link between the pervasiveness of ever younger, more sexualized images of girls and larger issues such as the exploitation of girls, child pornography, and intimacy problems in both women and men.  The negative effects of sexualized imagery seem to be linked to the following.

(1) The depiction of women and girls is becoming more and more “objectified” and more and more sexual.  Objectification means

• A person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics;
• A person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy;
• A person is sexually objectified – that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making; and/or
• Sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.

(2) The images of women in the media are increasingly idealized and unrealistic in terms of thinness, youth, and flawlessness.  In fact, 97% of images on the web have been in some way altered to be more perfect.  This gives adults and especially teens an unrealistic expectation about attractiveness and makes it more difficult to relate to a “real” less perfect or mature person.

Little has been written about the causes of the seemingly relentless trend toward increased sexualization in the culture and toward sexualized portrayal and targeting of younger and younger girls.

The sexual attraction to youth on the part of adults exists and is present in many people as one of our deeply unconscious and most primitive feelings which have been submerged and excluded as we mature by the Darwinian societal taboo against cross generational sex.  But that which is primitive and taboo when it is brought into the open in an apparently socially acceptable way is bound to be enormously compelling.

This is consistent with the empirical finding that exposure to child sexual imagery somehow brings the attraction to consciousness and reinforces it.  Furthermore, when there is profit to be made off of the primitive and unacknowledged feelings that exist in the adults, then commerce will take advantage of that fact.  There exists a vicious circle of sexualized content, increased objectification of girls, risky sexual behavior in tweens and teens, exploitation of children and young people, and the epidemic of internet porn.

There is a disconnect between what society views to be child sexualized content in an acceptable form and what is seen as child pornography.  That is to say that the vicious circle continues to exist because we have come to lead a “double life” as a society.  Examples of the acceptable form of child sexualization can be readily seen on any web page relating to so called “baby beauty pageants”, in which very young girls are made to look like alluring adults via clothing and make-up.  Another example would be the “barely legal” sort of imagery in the study cited above in which women over 18 are made up to look like children. The compartmentalization of sex offending as a separate thing from the “harmless” sexualization of children enables us to continue to accept media phenomena that are not in fact harmless.

 

 

What counts as sexual betrayal?

When we think of being sexually betrayed by a partner who has a problem with sexual addiction we typically think of sex with someone other than us.  But sexual betrayal can take many forms; just as sexual addiction can take many forms (see Defining Sex Addiction, The Ten Types).  Any of a wide range of behaviors can be experienced as sexual betrayal including visiting sexual massage parlors, going to strip clubs, hiring prostitutes, sexually spying on others, exposing oneself in public, and reading or viewing pornography.  These are obvious forms of sexual betrayal and a sex addict may engage in any or a combination of these and more.  Often a spouse or partner will have only a vague intuition that there is something going on, but it is important to listen to that intuition and find out as much as possible, even when a person denies everything.  The head-in-the-sand approach doesn’t work!

After uncovering the sexual betrayal is the partner a victim, policeman, or enabler?

Most often the disclosure of sexual addiction is experienced as extreme betrayal by a partner no matter what the sexual behavior.   Typically a partner finds out about the sexual “acting out” gradually, as the addict is forced to admit to the full extent of his or her behavior.  What follows is an attempt by the spouse or partner of the addict to get the addict to change.  This is usually met with little or no success unless the addict agrees to get into some form of treatment.  Here the spouse or partner is in a horrendous emotional situation in which he or she likely feels the symptoms of acute posttraumatic stress due to the traumatic nature of betrayal, and is put in the position of trying to find “help” for the betrayer.  Worse still, the partner is expected to support the addict’s recovery and refrain from “enabling” the addiction.  This is a hopelessly confusing emotional rollercoaster.  At this point it is normal to feel extreme feelings of all kinds, grief, paranoia, rage and self doubt.

So what is the best approach for a spouse or partner?

First and foremost, the partner of a sex addict needs to take care of him or herself.  No matter what the partner’s problems, it is important that they get all the support and help they can without feeling guilty.  Second, it is very important for a spouse or partner to hold the addict accountable and not give in to the addict’s need to dodge the issues or make some weak partial gesture toward getting treatment.  Often it is the spouse or partner who gives the counselor the ammunition they need to get the addict to follow through (up to and including being willing to walk away).  During the addict’s recovery, the partner will be the most help to the addict by keeping them accountable.  The pitfall here is when the addict wants to find a way to make it the spouse’s fault if they fail to get better!  It’s never the partner’s fault.

What about the long haul?

Living with a recovering sex addict has its own serious challenges.  The spouse or partner may experience “mini-betrayals” in which the addict wishes to get away with a watered down version of some previous acting out behavior.  An example would be seeking out input that is not strictly speaking pornography but still gives the addict a “charge”, or contacting an old girlfriend on the internet to “see how she’s doing and catch up” and so on.  These min-betrayals can get quite subtle, like excessively looking at other women or men, flirting in a supposedly “harmless way” and talking about friends in a very sexual manner.  It is not wrong to confront the addict about these behaviors and to demand that they stop.  If the addict is in pretty good recovery by then he or she will recognize that you are right or at least agree to stop doing the behavior just to be on the safe side.  Unless the sex addict can do and say the things that make their partner feel safe and trusting, then the sexual betrayal is still going on in some form or other.

 

Robert (no real names used) is in Federal Prison in Georgia serving a nine year sentence for photographing underage girls. He is 44, married with children.  Prior to his arrest, Robert had a 10 year history of sex addiction beginning with viewing internet pornography and evolving into viewing and creating adolescent and child pornographic material. He received intensive outpatient treatment at a clinic for sex addiction in California prior to beginning his prison sentence.  Below are excerpts from his letter from September 2011 which show his strengths, his challenges and his commitment to recovery.

Dear Linda,

…..I’m reading a great book called The Addictive Personality, by Craig Nakken.  It’s in their own library here for the drug classes.  It he says that the object of addiction can switch once an addictive personality has been established within a person.  He says when people get in trouble with one object they often switch to another one to get people off their back.  I saw some of these dynamics myself when I began to face my issues more seriously… The first day I was stopped by the FBI at LAX airport I stopped looking at any images with underage (<18) models.  That was the easiest step.  Then there was porn, your standard internet porn that millions of guys are addicted to these days.  That wasn’t so easy but with the help of Dr. Zimik (inVentura) he helped me set a goal to stop looking at porn altogether.  I was able to do this for almost a year …But I simply transferred my focus to photography and doing shoots with women in sexy outfits, sometimes nude.  It’s like squeezing a balloon, you just displace the air in the balloon, the air is still inside… it just moved to another area…

Well, on other fronts, I just switched “cellies” a few weeks ago.  My former cell mate moved because he is now in the drug program.  He was a drug dealer in Jacksonville FL.– a black guy with Bob Marly dreds and gold teeth.  He probably never worked a real job a day in his life,  he and I were not very compatible cell mates, put it that way….He stole some things from me and borrowed some stamps (about $18 worth) and refused to pay me back after months of badgering him.  He has a serious gambling addiction and I have since found out he owes several people….In a normal prison situation I would have had to “deal” with this in a violent way.  Not here. …The sex offender population have other issues but are generally normal people not trying to “get over” on anyone.  I’ve found the sex offender inmate to be socially inept and/or “nerdy”, many playing dungeons and   dragons…

I’m still working in the chow hall as a cook and I’m making and selling cakes on the week-ends….I spend about 4 hrs/wk with choir practice and several hours in Bible Study.  I will be teaching a study soon on 2 Peter….I wok out about 3-4 days/wk…I miss my family like you wouldn’t believe and still have no hope of a visit at this point.  My wife and I really don’t talk much.  I talk w/ my kids once/week – that’s going fine.  That’s all for now…

Take care,

Robert