Intimacy Disorder and the Healing Power of Confrontation

Sex addicts seem to be good at looking out for themselves, but in reality the opposite is the case.  They are most often crippled when it comes to relating in a confident and genuine way.  Instead of speaking their truth, sex addicts rely on avoidance, aggression, placating and manipulation.

I believe this is part of the codependence that is at the root of all addiction.  Sex addicts predictably approach other people with insecurity and mistrust.  They have early life experiences that leave them alienated: expecting little from others and fearing abandonment, abuse or neglect.  Being open and genuine in interpersonal intimacy is felt as stressful and potentially dangerous.  This is an intimacy disorder.

Aggression vs. assertion

Self assertion, including healthy confrontation, is actually the opposite of aggression in all the important ways.  What is the difference?

Assertion involves saying and doing things that will give you the best chance of getting what you need but not at someone else’s expense.

Aggression involves saying and doing things designed to get what you need at someone else’s expense.

If you are assertive you are clear about what you need and want but in a way that is respectful of the fact that the other person may or may not go along with what you want.  You have a right to ask for anything, but the other person has a right to say no.

In aggression, you try to push, bully, manipulate or frighten.  You make the other person do what you want but you create a negative experience which is harmful to them.  You get what you want but you damage the relationship.

Avoidance, placating and manipulation

Addicts are often so lacking in the confidence that they cannot tolerate being vulnerable to potential rejection or open to negotiation.  They seek instead to control the situation as a way to stay safe.  They may completely avoid talking about anything that goes on inside them.  Often they have a very elaborate “façade” by which they appear to be what they think the situation demands.

Other times addicts simply bury their own strong needs and feelings by just going along with whatever their partner wants.  Placating is a way of staying in control by dodging any situation which the partner might not like.  This works for the addict because although they resent playing this “childlike” role, they have an outlet, a secret life of acting out that allows them to gratify themselves unhindered and without risk.

Manipulation is another form of control that allows the addict to dodge real communication and avoids negotiation and compromise.  It can be aggressive, as when the addict “guilt trips” their partner or it can be underhanded, as when the addict pits someone else against their partner to achieve an outcome or dishonest, as when the addict flat out denies what their partner is experiencing and tries to distort their reality.

In any of the above examples, the addict is avoiding any real confrontation because (a) it is not something they feel they know how to do very well and (b) it is frightening to be transparent with their feelings and needs.  But intimacy in a relationship demands that both people be willing and able to be clear and open about what they want, how they feel, and how things affect them.  No one can do this all the time and no one can be expected to do it flawlessly.  But if one or both of the partners cannot put their needs out on the table they have placed a drastic limit on where the relationship can go.  Learning healthy confrontation can go a long way toward resolving intimacy disorder.

Find Dr. Hatch on Facebook at Sex Addictions Counseling or Twitter @SAResource 

Is Your Relationship Addictive? Take the Self-Test

Relationships should feel good.  They should be happy and loving most of the time.  Addicts, recovering addicts and partners of addicts often have relationships that are the opposite.

As Patrick Carnes has pointed out in his writing, both sex addicts and their partners often have many similarities in their psychological makeup.  Both addicts and partners of addicts often come from families in which relationships were dysfunctional and appropriate nurturing was unreliable.

This early relational trauma leads to both fear of intimacy and fear of abandonment.  And these can lead couples into patterns of relating where each feeds the other’s unhealthy dynamics such as avoidance, manipulation, lack of openness, fear, and over-control.  See also my post “When Love Addicts Fall for Sex Addicts.”

Mistakes addicts and partners make

  • Mistaking sex for intimacy

Most sex addicts and many partners of sex addicts place an undue emphasis on sex as the most important aspect of the relationship or as the proof of whether the relationship is loving and devoted.  Sex addicts have little experience of healthy intimacy and place an undue emphasis on having their sexual needs met, either inside or outside the relationship.  Partners may allow themselves to see their addict’s powerful sexual attraction as the only or most important aspect of love and intimacy.

  • Lack of Courtship Skills

Addictive relationships often begin with sex.  By building a relationship on sex and romantic passion, addicts and their partners may ignore the process of getting to know each other in a healthy way.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying feeling swept away, but it shouldn’t prevent you from learning about one another as part of a process leading to healthy commitment.  In a more normal courtship, people take it slower and ask more questions about the other person’s situation, their relationship history, their feelings about relationships etc.  And they also do not approach the situation with any ideas about what they might need or want in another person (aside form feeling swept away).

  • Mistaking Intensity for devotion

Many addictive couples have patterns of high intensity and high drama in their relationships.  They may have frequent and even violent conflicts and they make often break up and get back together.  Their interaction may be characterized by jealousy, threat, competition, and fear, all of which are mistakenly interpreted as signs that the relationship is the most important and most deeply committed one in their life.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

  • Mistaking power for trust

People who feel inadequate to the demands of an intimate relationship or who are overly fearful of abandonment may have an excessive need for control in their relationships.  Instead of feeling safe and secure in the knowledge that they can deal with problems that arise, they are closed off and mistrustful.  This leads to a vigilance about what the other person is doing and a lack of openness in communication.  The excessive need for control is based in the person’s own insecurity about their ability to sustain a relationship, their worth as a partner and their partner’s reliability.

An addictive relationship self-test*

The items in the test below are informally compiled based on my clinical experience and reading on this topic.  These problems are not unique to addicts and may be experienced by anyone with impaired intimacy and relationship abilities.  But they are very characteristic of addicts and often of the partners of addicts as well.

  1. Growing up I didn’t see my parents as consistently loving, and contented with each other.
  1. My relationships typically start with an intense sexual attraction and rapid involvement.
  1. I find it easy to start relationships but they always get complicated.
  1. I find it hard to know how to get out of a bad relationship.
  1. I sometimes think I stay in a relationship because I am afraid of being on my own.
  1. I am afraid of my partner’s anger.
  1. I sometimes placate or manipulate my partner to avoid confronting things.
  1. I find it easy to get into thinking that my partner is to blame.
  1. My partner and I don’t talk about our feelings about the relationship.
  1. In my relationships one person is always less devoted than the other.
  1. Either I feel superior to my partner or I feel my partner is superior to me.
  1. I am dishonest with my partner at times to avoid upsetting him/her.
  1. When I am in a relationship my partner and I don’t socialize with friends as a couple very much.
  1. Either I or my partner is always trying to get us into some kind of therapy.
  1. I feel that having a good relationship is hopeless.

*Taken from my book Relationships in Recovery: a Guide for Sex Addicts who are Starting Over

When you look at this list of statements, it should be clear that what I am calling addictive relationships are characterized by things like negativity, turmoil and alienation.  A person who has the emotional development required for healthy intimacy would avoid or even run from such a relationship.  Without a level of openness, security and contentment it is impossible for relationships to succeed and for the partners to flourish.

Find Dr. Hatch on Facebook at Sex Addictions Counseling or Twitter @SAResource

Signs of a Porn or Sex Addiction Relapse

When a client who is trying to avoid a sex addiction relapse has had a slip I can often tell before they say anything about it.

At first I wasn’t sure what it was that I was seeing; whether it was just intuition or whether they were actually doing something different.  And with some clients I could tell right away and with others I couldn’t.  So what was the difference?

Signs of a relapse

When I see clients who have had a slip since the last time I saw them I can sometimes spot the following signs:

A difference of style.  The addict who is coming in laden with the knowledge that he has had a slip will likely be thinking about the fact that they have to discuss it with me.  This often results in their seeming to be superficially jocular or casual.  They seem to be tap dancing, probably because they feel embarrassed or ashamed about having let themselves and me down.

A difference in cognition.  To a greater or lesser extent, a sex addict who has had a slip or a relapse will be suffering from the aftereffects of their drug.  In order to go into the slip in the first place, the addict will have had to let go of part of their rational thinking, the part that has to do with weighing consequences, and thinking logically about the decision they are about to make.  This suspension of higher order thinking, being in the “bubble” as it is called, may have residual effects on their apparent ability to think clearly and communicate clearly.

Lack of focus.  The addict who has had a slip may seem scattered in the aftermath.  They are not completely able to integrate what they know they have done to endanger their recovery and part of them doesn’t want to think about it or about anything else.  They may deflect or divert the conversation and go off on tangents.  They may even be questioning their interest in recovery, their need to change or the appropriateness of the program.

When are these signs missing?

Why is it sometimes easier for me as a therapist to spot a client who has relapsed than it might be for other people in their life, even their partner?  And when are they able to fool me as well?

I think the answer has to do with the level of commitment to recovery that the addict has achieved.  Most of my clients are trying to be honest with me.  When they have something to say that they would previously have lied through their teeth about, they have an automatic high level of cognitive dissonance about it which causes some visible distress symptoms.

Likewise when the addict is still somewhat on the fence about whether and how much of their sexual acting out they really want to give up, then they will be better able to lie to themselves and therefore their deception will be more impenetrable.

It follows that the more someone has become committed to recovery the more difficult it will be for them to conceal the truth from someone they are close to.  When an addict has not really given up the need for secrecy as a way of life, they will more readily adopt a false persona that may be hard to see through.

An addict who has lied to his wife for years and then gotten into recovery may be better able to slip into old deceitful habits with her than with a new person such as a therapist.  The addict may have been doing well in recovery so far but when it comes to intimate relationships, recovery is more than just avoiding sex  addiction relapse. Relationship recovery and the building of honesty and trust is a long term process that involves revamping the entire basis of the relationship.

Find Dr. Hatch on Facebook at Sex Addictions Counseling or Twitter @SAResource

Do Happily Married Men Go to Prostitutes?

I’ll go out on a limb and say that a married man who visits prostitutes repeatedly is probably not the happiest kid in the sandbox.  Although the wives of such men may feel the behavior reflects on their desirability, my experience tells me that such a pattern of behavior doesn’t have anything to do with the wife’s attractiveness.  It says something about the man who, most often loves and feels committed to his partner.

Paying for sex on a regular basis is not the norm, even for single men.  And it can be a sexually addictive behavior, in which case it has to do with the man’s emotional problems including his problems dealing with relationships.

Who are these men who pay for sex?

An article published earlier this year called What Kind of Men go to Prostitutes?  reviewed some of the recent research and survey data on men who visit prostitutes.  The studies indicate that between 1 and 3 percent of men in the U.S. have gone to a prostitute in any given year and about 14 % of men have paid for sex at some point in their lives.

The studies also indicate that men who hire prostitutes are only slightly more likely to be single than married.  And furthermore they do not appear to differ much from the general population of men.  The men’s reasons for having hired prostitutes were seen as predictable: wanting more sex, being unhappily married, being insecure about dating, wanting the excitement of risk, and wanting power and control.

An outcome study of men who attended a “John School”, a criminal diversion program for men who are arrested for paying for sex, reported that:

“Johns report a variety of reasons for why they purchase sex including the feeling that buying sex is an addiction. Interviews with “Johns” revealed that 83 percent of participants identified buying sex as an addiction (my italics) (Durchslag & Goswami, 2008).  Additionally, research suggests that men who participate in the commercial sex industry often view women as commodities and feel a sense of entitlement to sex. Interviews revealed that men who did not have a regular sexual partner also legitimized purchasing sex (Monto, 2000).”

The Johns as a group also consisted of married and single men.  Were all the married men paying for sex because they were unhappily married?  This is unlikely, because Johns as a group are characterized as unhappier than other men.  And besides, if they have problems with sexual behavior this could account for their unhappy marriage as much as the other way around.

Unfortunately there is not enough known about the demographics of the John population or the prevalence of psychological problems.  These are still very much being debated.

Paying for sex and sex addiction

I feel on firmer ground talking about the kinds of relationship dynamics that are commonly seen in men who show up for sex addiction treatment where paying for sex is one of their compulsive behaviors.

As with sex addicts in general, men who visit prostitutes most often have other sexually addictive behaviors.  These can include compulsive porn use, cybersex, strip clubs, and sometimes offending behaviors like exhibitionism and others.  Going to prostitutes is thus part of an pattern of sexually addictive acting out behaviors.

The fantasy element in sexually addictive behavior

Whatever the specific behavior, sexual acting out is always largely a fantasy.  It takes place outside of the person’s “real life” and it functions as a drug.  While engaging in the sexually addictive behavior, the addict escapes whatever is painful and achieves a totally gratifying experience on his own terms.  This implies that the man has issues that he cannot resolve, or issues he would rather escape than allow his adult self to face head-on.

The avoidance of intimacy in sexually addictive behavior

Paying for sex is exactly the same as any other sexually compulsive behavior in that it is part of a pattern of intimacy avoidance.  What is the addict escaping from when he is avoiding intimacy with a partner?  It is not that the prostitute has so much more to offer than the spouse.

The sex addict experiences intimate bonds as frightening and overwhelming.  Being with a prostitute is safe, limited and controlled interaction.  The addict can relax and feel safe from the dangers of getting hurt, abandoned, rejected or feeling inadequate.   The sex addict feels unlovable and insecure and meets his needs for sexual abandon in a contrived, compartmentalized way.

Sex addicts feel bad about their addictive behavior afterward but they continue to do it.  If a man who is not an addict visits a prostitute he may feel many things but he will not be driven to repeat the experience.

Find Dr. Hatch on Facebook at Sex Addictions Counseling or Twitter @SAResource

Why Sex Addicts Blame Their Partners

For most sex addicts, blaming a spouse or partner for a pattern of sexual acting out behavior is a predictable part of the denial process .  Even when they are devoted in many ways to their spouse and family, addicts may still feel that their behavior is caused by something in their situation.

Like all denial mechanisms, this is partly a matter of wanting to avoid feelings of shame about the behavior, as well as wanting to explain it away.  This “shame dumping” as it is sometimes called can be conscious or unconscious, overt or covert.  It is like saying “I’m really a good guy; I only do what I do because of such-and such.”

Your own problems and addictions are usually hard to spot and/or admit to.  But it is always easier to see what’s wrong with someone else or what’s wrong with your life.

Feeling abandoned by a partner with the birth of a child

It is very common for an underlying sex addiction in men to really begin to take hold following the birth of a child.  The problems with the addict’s intimacy avoidance, their addiction proneness, or their lack of emotional maturity were most likely there before.  Often they were masked by the newness of the relationship.

The birth of a child takes the mother away to some extent and puts the emphasis on someone other than the addict.  The addict may flee the new demands and seek to escape into acting out.  In this case the addict may feel unconsciously that they have been rejected or abandoned by his wife and thus feel justified in acting out behaviors like going to strip clubs, prostitutes or sexual massage parlors.

Self sacrifice and overwork

Self sacrifice and devotion to their partner may paradoxically be a setup for the addict to begin to feel like indulging the urge for a separate secret life of acting out.  Many sex addicts are prone to work too hard and try to be the hero for their spouse or partner.

Later they come to resent it and feel that they are owed something.  Instead of being able to practice the intimacy skills of stating their needs with their spouse and letting go of being the hero, they take refuge in a very self indulgent secret life which they feel they deserve.  You will sometimes hear addicts in recovery say “I had to shoot my white horse.”

Sexual dissatisfaction

Sex addicts often feel that their sexual acting out whether in porn use, serial affairs, or any other sexual behavior is a direct reaction to something that is missing in their marriage.  They may say that the problem is that they “want more sex than my wife” and their reasoning is that if that is the case then they are justified in going outside the marriage or relationship to get sex.  After all it’s his/her fault.  If their partner were meeting their needs then they wouldn’t have to seek sex elsewhere.   But in reality it’s apples and oranges.  What the addict wants is an addictive high, a dopamine rush that is the result of a secret sexual behavior.  This is not just a case of needing more sex.  And it is certainly not the partner’s fault.

Lack of investment in the relationship

Most sex addicts who have partners and who are active in their addictive behaviors are lacking in the ability to be fully invested in their relationship.  Even if they love their partner very much, they have chosen a relationship and a way of relating to a partner that sets the stage for the compartmentalization and deception that go along with sex addiction.  They often feel that they didn’t really want to get married or commit to the partner in the first place.

All too often sex addicts have no idea what a good devoted primary relationship should look like and they are unable to bond effectively.  They expect little of the relationship and of their partner and so are free to put their eggs in several baskets.  They may think consciously that their partner is just too busy with work or that their partner will be likely to betray them anyway.  But it is not their partner who can’t make the bond happen it is them.  Their addiction (and intimacy dysfunction) is not an effect, it’s a cause.

Porn Addiction in Film: “Don Jon” Gets Intimacy Disorder Right

The new film “Don Jon” starring and written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (and hopefully its planned sequel “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For”) have the potential to do more to combat the epidemic of sexist porn and sex addiction than all the “feminist porn” movies, books and women’s studies classes put together.  The film is so well done and so entertaining that you might not notice that it is a feminist film or that it deals with intimacy disorder.

In the title role Gordon-Levitt plays a shallow young man whose life is anchored by strong ties to his family, church and male friends.   He is not a sleaze or a loser, he likes to keep his apartment sparkling clean, and he’s a nice guy with a lot of charm and innocent warmth.  It’s just that he inhabits a social world in which the sexual objectification of women and the search for sexual hook-ups are the norm.  He is also a hope-to-die porn addict, which he confesses to his Catholic priest every Sunday but which he fails to identify as a real problem.  He has no idea what intimacy is let alone intimacy disorder.

The story is one of a man whose consciousness is raised through meeting and connecting with Esther (played by Julianne Moore), a totally present and very spiritual survivor of great personal tragedy.  The theme of the film is stated toward the end: that intimacy is losing yourself in someone else not losing yourself in fantasy.

A lot of the film is taken up with the funny and poignant attempt at a relationship with Barbara, a woman he lusts after but who withholds sex.  Scarlett Johansson gives an amazing performance as Barbara, the sexy, gum-cracking, love addict who wants to mold a relationship to match her fairy tale fantasy of the great love.  As this relationship develops we see that both Jon and Barbara are totally intimacy disordered.  Neither one really knows how to get to know another person or how to move forward in a genuine courtship.

In the Julianne Moore character, Jon finds an ancient goddess archetype,  who approaches him in a night class which he is taking to please Barbara (i.e. to get in her pants).  In case there is any doubt that religion and spirituality are not necessarily the same thing.  Jon goes  to church every Sunday with his family and confesses his “sins” of pornography/masturbation and sex out of wedlock with hilarious honesty (“35 times in the last week”) and while he performs all the resulting Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s diligently, he never evolves one inch until he meets his de facto spiritual guide.

Gordon-Levitt, unlike the character he plays in the film, has feminist consciousness in his DNA.  He is the son of non-observant Jewish progressives.  His father was at one time the news director for KPFK and his mother ran for U.S. congress in the 70’s in the Peace and Freedom Party.  Gordon Levitt is quoted as saying:

“My mom brought me up to be a feminist.  She was active in the movement in the 60s and 70s.  The Hollywood movie industry has come a long way since its past.  It certainly has a bad history of sexism, but it ain’t all the way yet.”

Is Masturbation OK in Recovery From Sexually Addictive Behaviors?

Masturbation  can present a problem for people with sexually addictive behaviors.

I would not encourage anyone to see masturbation as inherently bad or a problem, and yet there are some people who would see any sexual activity outside of marital sex, even masturbation as wrong.  If you hold such a view on religious or other  grounds, then you may see masturbation as wrong no matter what.

But since I do not hold such a view I distinguish between those situations in which masturbation is harmless and those in which it can complicate things for someone attempting to recover from sex addiction.

When is masturbation counter-productive?

In the early months (or maybe years) of recovery I believe it is a good idea for sex addicts to abstain from masturbation, regardless of whether compulsive masturbation is one of their sexually addictive behaviors or not.  Here are some situations where Masturbation can reinforce addictive patterns.

  • Masturbation can itself be a compulsion, meaning that it is being used to excess and as a drug.  For some sex addicts masturbation is their primary sexually addictive behavior.  Often it is done in conjunction with porn use but sometimes it is done using fantasy alone.  Compulsive masturbation often starts early in life and continues into adulthood.  The addict will often develop a pattern of masturbating numerous times per day.  In order to be free of this compulsion and lead a more normal sex and relationship life in recovery, the addict will need to “kick” the habit and allow their brain chemistry to return to normal functioning.  This means total abstinence for a period of time during treatment and recovery.
  • Masturbation can be part of a pattern of other sexually addictive behaviors.  Masturbation often accompanies other sexually addictive behaviors built around fantasy such as compulsive cybersex, sexual chat,  voyeurism, and exhibitionism.  The masturbation may be done at the time of the other behavior or it may be done later using the stimulus of the memory of the event.  In this case the behavior of masturbating is tied to whatever pattern of addictive acting out behavior exists and provides the sexual gratification for which the other behavior is the stimulus.  At least initially, the addict cannot quit one behavior without quitting both.
  • Masturbation in early recovery can prevent the process of withdrawal and lead to relapse.  Since the addict’s “arousal template” as it is called, is one of addictive sexual acting out of one type or another, it is likely that any form of sexual stimulation, at least in the beginning of recovery, can lead back to cravings and urges for the addict’s preferred sexually addictive behaviors.  Even if the addict has never masturbated compulsively, masturbating in recovery can bring on cravings for other behaviors, behaviors like anonymous sex, prostitutes, etc.   I takes a long time in treatment for the unhealthy urges and fantasies to subside or at least be less powerful.  Instead of allowing the addictive pattern to weaken, masturbation may be like taking small amounts of the drug, thus prolonging the process of withdrawal.

When is masturbation a useful part of recovery?

After a sex addict has established a period of abstinence from all sexually addictive behaviors, it is possible that masturbation can be engaged in in a normal way that does not threaten their sexual sobriety.  This is very much a subjective and individual decision to be arrived at by the addict and their sponsor or counselor.

  • Masturbation can become a more healthy activity that is not a compulsion and is not tied to another sexually addictive behavior.   It may be that the addict will find it a useful way to explore and check in with the fantasies that have driven their addiction and the memories or traumatic events that have shaped their sexuality in the past.
  • Sometimes addicts can actively change the content of their masturbation fantasies to experiment with different and healthier mental stimuli.  Some addicts masturbate while thinking about their spouse or partner.
  • Or addicts may simply be able to enjoy occasional masturbation as a positive, private experience that is different from their relational sex but is not part of a compulsion or an addictive pattern.

But many times masturbation loses it’s charm for sex addicts once they have given up their sexually addictive behaviors and no longer crave the hyper-arousal that their addictive fantasies provided.

 

When Love Addicts Fall for Sex Addicts

As a therapist I have noticed that partners of sex addicts frequently have characteristics of love addicts.  This is not always the case of course.

Partners of sex addicts may be innocent bystanders.  But I think there are some reasons to suggest an affinity between love addicts and sex addicts.

There are underlying similarities between sex addicts and love addicts in terms of brain chemistry, intimacy issues, abandonment fear and co-dependentence.  Both tend to have early childhood trauma and attachment issues.

However, I think it is the separate, distinct characteristics of each that attract them to each other.

Here are my thoughts on how this pairing might come about and what function  it might serve for the addict and the partner

The allure of the sex addict

What sex addicts do is to behave in certain predictable ways that turn out to be an engraved invitation for the love addict.

  • Superficial intensity

Love addicts have the fantasy of being desired and rescued.  As Pia Mellody puts it

“When these individuals get old enough, they begin to form a fantasy in their head of somebody rescuing them from being so alone, of making them matter. The fantasy usually takes the form of being rescued by – it is like Cinderella — a knight in shining armor or a wonder woman, who will take care of them and help them come out of their dilemma of being too alone and worthless and not knowing what to do.”

Sex addicts are themselves very insecure and narcissistic.  They want to be seen as the hero even if it is a façade.  The love addict would like to be permanently swept away.  But intensity is not the same as intimacy; it is a fantasy that cannot be sustained.

  • Dishonesty

Sex addicts can appear to offer unconditional love and acceptance because they lack the ability to be who they really are in a relationship.  The sex addict is often comfortable with saying what the love addict wants to hear since he or she is invested in a whole other, secret sexual life.

This works for the love addict who needs to feel completed in a relationship.  The love addict does not see through the sex addict’s perfect love but merely projects their own fantasy onto it.  They feel safe.

  • Seductiveness

Sex addicts are seductive.  They can manipulate the love addict into feeling that they are perfect, the fairy princess.   The love addict needs to feel perfect in order to feel safe.  If I am perfect you will never leave me.

  • Lack of intention or commitment

Sex addicts substitute the intensity, superficiality and seductiveness for any real investment in the relationship or in the future.  Lacking intimacy skills they don’t confront the partner about anything, don’t negotiate, and often avoid talking about their needs and wants altogether.

The love addict cannot tolerate the requirements of real intimacy either such as being open to confrontation, being willing to admit to being imperfect or wrong, or allowing the addict to be imperfect.  Since the sex addict lacks the ability to be real and work on a relationship, the basic unavailability of the sex addict a good fit. 

As Patrick Carnes has said:

“Love addicts consciously want intimacy, but can’t tolerate healthy closeness, so they must unconsciously choose a partner who cannot be intimate in a healthy way.”

The love addict partner is unconsciously drawn toward a relationship in which there is intense romanticism (at first) but which cannot lead to a stable grown-up relationship.  In the long run, the love addict will be subjected to disappointment, deception and episodes of abandonment by the person they love.  Yet they will often continue to be “hooked” on the fantasy.

Intimacy and Secrets: Why Sex Addicts Won’t Tell All

Telling a partner their sexual secrets is the last thing that most sex addicts want to do.  Yet it is considered a vital part of sex addiction recovery for the addict and not just for the partner or spouse.

Disclosing everything about the addict’s secret life is important in finding or maintaining intimacy and yet it seldom happens all at once. Despite the fact that sex addiction therapists and sex addiction support groups stress honesty and coming clean with your spouse or partner, addicts fear it like the plague.  (For additional information about the process of disclosure and planned disclosure in therapy see my post “Partners Need to Know the Secrets and Lies of Sex Addiction”.)

Trickling or staggered disclosure

It is normal for sex addicts to want to hold back as much about their addiction as they think they can get away with.  So initially, they are likely to disclose only the minimum they think they need to.  As treatment progresses and the partner or spouse gets more involved, additional sexual behaviors or additional details about the sexual activities may come out or be discovered.  Staggered disclosure is considered by therapists to be the norm (see Corley and Schneider, Disclosing Secrets, 2002).

The resistance to revealing everything

There are a number of reasons why addicts find it so hard to just tell it all; some have to do with overt manipulation and some are more psychological.

  • Wanting to contain the problem and avoid the risk of turmoil or divorce.  Disclosure does cause turmoil but it does not necessarily cause divorce.  Addicts are often justifiably afraid that honesty may result in a break-up.  They have in effect made a bargain: they are giving up the possibility for real intimacy in their relationship in order to maintain the relationship.  This is probably a long-standing bargain so it is hard to see it as such.  It is based on the addict’s insecurity, abandonment fear and negative core beliefs about him/her self.
  • Wanting to “protect” the partner or spouse.  Yes, disclosure is hurtful to spouses and partners of the addict.  But here again the addict is making a trade off: they are saying in effect ‘Hurting my partner by keeping sexual secrets and sacrificing a closer bond is better than hurting my partner by telling the truth.’  Better for who?   In most cases the wish to protect the partner is a rationalization
  • Thinking that certain facts don’t count.  Addicts in early recovery may not really understand the many ways, large and small, that they have acted out their sexual compulsivity.  It is typical in recovery for addicts to add things to the list of sexually addictive behaviors as they gain greater self awareness.  A porn addict may not be thinking that his sporadic affairs were part of an “addiction.”  Another addict may not immediately realize that coming on to a friend’s wife at a party was related to his addiction to extramarital hook-ups.
  • Wanting to be able to continue the undisclosed behavior.  This is not necessarily a conscious wish to be devious.  It may be that the addict stays in denial about a particular behavior, believing it to be innocent or irrelevant because of an unconscious motivation to cling to the behavior and a fear of having to give it up.  Such is the compulsive and deluded nature of addictive behavior.

Honesty, remorse and empathy

Addicts hold the core belief that they are unworthy of love.  They avoid intimacy by losing themselves in their addictive behavior which not only serves to “medicate” anxiety, depression and other negative emotions but also serves to avoid the risk of rejection by an intimate partner.

As addicts recover, they gradually let go of long-standing feelings of shame, fear and inadequacy.  They are more willing to risk real intimacy and let go of their sexual fantasy life.  As they gain a stronger sense of self they become more courageous as well as more genuinely remorseful and empathic.

Honesty with oneself and one’s partner is considered to be an indication of progress in recovery. It is evidence of a new-found ability to connect.  It is both a cause and effect of the healing process.  The addict demonstrates a new more integrated self by being honest with himself and others—even when it’s scary.

In this sense the growing ability to tell our secrets is part of the process of trauma and addiction recovery.  It doesn’t happen all at once.

Find Dr. Hatch on Facebook at Sex Addictions Counseling or Twitter @SAResource

Adult Children of Sex Addicts: What are the Residual Effects?

Growing up with a sex addict will leave its mark.  These are my thoughts based on my own life experiences and my observations over many decades about the results of having a sex addict for a parent.

As I watched the recently publicized exchange of tweets between Mylie Cyrus and her father I saw a myriad of familiar patterns.  I am not saying that Billie Ray Cyrus is in any way a sex addict.  And I am no doubt reading into the situation, but it seemed to me that there were key elements in their relationship that rang a bell.

There are many different ways for a young person to experience the sex addiction of a parent that are covert and unconscious both on the part of the addict and the child.  My own father was a sex addict (and an actor) and I experienced his addiction indirectly in the subtle objectification of me as well as in his “girlfriend-izing” me and implicitly using me to triangulate with my mother.

Sex addicts place undue emphasis on sex.  Thus sex addicts can communicate the over importance of sex to the child in a myriad of ways. Here are some of the dynamics that play out in such families.

  • Sexualizing the child or young person by making comments about their body or their sexual desirability or even their prospects for sexual relationships later in life.  This can include taking a personal “interest” in the young child’s underwear purchases, “compliments” on their appearance which are sexually toned and so on.
  • Giving added importance to sex by making it totally taboo.  The hiding of sexuality, the refusal to acknowledge it as something to be talked about at all can convey that sex is not only dangerous but more powerful than it really is or needs to be in the young person’s mind.
  • Sexual duplicity is engrained in the child when there is a total denial of whatever is going on sexually and a repressive atmosphere around sex.  The message is that one must lead a double life, compartmentalizing sex and keeping it secret.  This means that the child and family are engaged in a collective form of denial in which there is a façade of normality and “healthiness” with a whole secret life going on.
  • Early exposure to sex either directly or by observation can be traumatic to a child who is not yet developmentally ready to make sense of this information.  At least it can be confusing and troubling and takes away a level of safety that the child needs.
  • Infidelity, whether it is explicitly seen or just going on behind the scenes can place the growing child and adolescent in a number of binds.  The child may be caught in the middle, may be made into a confidante or used as a weapon.  All these things violate the child’s generational boundaries.  The parents are supposed to be the grown-ups who take care of the child, not the other way around.

When I learned of the idea of Mylie and her father “working on” their relationship it reminded me that although this sounds reasonable, the generational boundaries can become blurred in this kind of set-up and lead to serious confusion for the adult child.

I believe the best things that adult children of sex addicts can do are:

  • Realize that your experience growing up was dysfunctional in subtle or overt ways and that this will have an impact on you.  Everyone’s childhood has its own problems, nobody’s early life is flawless.
  • Learn about sex addiction if you want to but don’t become obsessed with your parent’s problems.  If you have insecurities about yourself, your worth, your attractiveness or doubts about ever having a healthy relationship these are things you can work on in your own growth and development.
  • Don’t become over-involved with your parent’s treatment or recovery.  This is their journey and you have your own life to live.  If you get drawn in you are just continuing to re-enact the early inappropriate family patterns.
  • Be open to new models of relationship and intimacy.  What you observed in your parents as a child may have been a distorted role model built to hide, rationalize or adapt to dysfunctional relating.

Notice that your parents may have grown and changed through therapy and treatment.    If your parent seems to have pulled away from you this may just be because they are learning how to play a more appropriate, less enmeshed role with their children.  Understanding this allows you to shuffle the deck in your own life and have some faith that things can work out well for you; that healthy, happy relationships are possible.