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.
5 Comments
[…] online with someone of sexual interest can be a form of sexual betrayal even when there is no actual or even virtual sex involved. The partner who invests a lot of […]
Thanks for this and the other posts. My partner disclosed a very longstanding and active sex addiction six months ago and life has been a roller coaster ever since. I knew about his history but did not know it was active when we came together four years ago. He disclosed on our honeymoon. I did see the signs but had no idea whatsoever what I was seeing. Just one comment on the above post – my partner’s last slip was linked to Facebook (Twitter is no better). He admitted to cruising around sites through Friend lists and looking for soft porn pics (really, it does not take much). Twitter was fodder too. Most blocking software do not filter pictures. Even googling “beautiful women” in the image search is enough to do the trick for him and, I am sure, many others. Porn in any form used to be hard to come by – now you have to work hard to avoid it. it is a real challenge for recovering addicts and their accountability partners!
Today, six months after disclosure, he is sober but definitely struggling with intimacy issues. Many of the intimacy avoidance behaviors I saw before he acted out are present and have actually been getting a little worse recently. He feels pretty good about where he is at since he has never let himself simply be honest about his more difficult feelings – particularly as they regard women – because of a strong history of enmeshment with his mother in a home environment that felt very unsafe to him. I love this man very much, he is truly beautiful and warm and affectionate (when not at risk of having things get intimate in any way – even if non sexually) but I literally ache laying next to him at night after he so clearly dodges intimacy opportunities when they are not so well bounded. He says that he is experiencing very low sexual desire at this point. Is this normal and, most importantly, is real and authentic intimacy possible for couples like us?
“he is… warm and affectionate (when not at risk of having things get intimate in any way – even if non sexually) but I literally ache laying next to him at night after he so clearly dodges intimacy opportunities when they are not so well bounded. He says that he is experiencing very low sexual desire at this point. Is this normal and, most importantly, is real and authentic intimacy possible for couples like us?”
No.
After lying in bed wirh my husband in his room about 4 times in 3 days I finally blew up at his lack of sexual interest because I assumed he was acting out in yet another way. I am now facing 2nd degree assault charges because when he blocked me from leaving I knocked off his glasses and scratched his arms. Blood is very photogenic for cops. He is going to destroy me one way or another.
At nearly 60 and completely lacking self confidence, I am afraid to leave him. I will make him kill me so he destroys himself as well. I wont just give him to some pert young c— after all the misery I’ve been through with him since well before Discovery.
If you have youth and confidence, flee.
I’m 14 years married and only two weeks into this new an unwanted realm of being a sex addicts wife.
Susan, did things ever change for you?
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