When are Sex Addicts Ready for a Relationship? Here’s a Checklist

Most sex addicts enter sex addiction treatment with a warped sense of what relationships are all about.  The relational trauma in early life that made them addicts also results in their having:

  • No models of healthy relating over time
  • No experience of giving or getting appropriate nurturing
  • No set of relationship skills such as openness and mutuality

Some sex addicts avoid relationships altogether, preferring to limit their intimate contact to porn, prostitutes, hook-ups, cybersex or other sexually addictive behaviors that allow them to avoid the demands of real connection with someone.

Other sex addicts form relationships and marriages while they are secretly active in their addictive behavior.  They too are avoiding intimacy.  They cannot share their deeper feelings with a partner due to fear of being hurt or abandoned.

Mistaken ideas about what relationships are for

Here are some of the superficial ideas that often form the sex addict’s paradigm of what a relationship is for:

  •  A relationship will bring me social recognition and acceptance in a world I want to belong to.
  •  A relationship with a glamorous person will make me proud and confident and make others envy me.
  • A relationship with the right person will provide the perfect balance to my life.
  • A committed relationship with children will make me a normal person with a normal life.
  • We will be considered a “great looking couple.”
  • The right relationship can cure my addictions.

These ideas come out of a sense of inadequacy and reflect the addict’s inability to imagine a healthy bond.  They reveal his or her narcissistic view of a relationship as a useful accessory and a partner as a fantasy.

Recovery lays the groundwork for relationships

In recovery sex addicts have gained enormously in the areas of self-awareness, self control, accountability, honesty, sharing and empathy.  They have learned to connect with themselves and with others.  And they have learned that they are worthy to be loved and that commitment requires vulnerability.  They are less self conscious, more confident and better at communicating.

All of this does not guarantee that the addict is ready for a relationship. Here are some questions that may help clarify whether the addict is ready to try again.

A relationship readiness checklist*

1.      I am more aware of what I am feeling at any given time and I am more able to identify feelings and think and talk about them.

2.      I have taken care of my basic health needs including having an STD test and other routine tests. If I have been prescribed psychotropic or other medication I follow up on appointments and on the use of medication.

3.      My ability to focus on whatever I am doing is improved and I don’t feel anxious and pulled in different directions as much.

4.      I enjoy having “down time” and I don’t feel like I have to do something all the time.

5.      I have learned that I can go to a counselor or other person I trust for help or advice and I can listen to what they say even if I disagree.

6.      I am aware of any problems I have with other addictions and I have done what I needed to do to address them.

7.      I have found ways to keep myself accountable regarding my addiction that rely on people other than a spouse or partner.

8.      I am willing to try out new activities and interests and I am OK if some things I try don’t work for me and others do.

9.      I am willing to experiment with changing my daily ritual.

10.  I have a greater sense of what I want and need and am clearer on what things interest me in life.

11.  I am more interested and confident in my work or other activities.

12.  I am more flexible and more tolerant than I used to be.

13.  I feel like I can stick up for myself when I need to without going overboard.

14.  I am not as self-conscious about initiating a social contact and I can be more comfortable just being myself.

15.  I no longer feel anxious or apprehensive when I am alone.  I would like a partner but I am OK without a partner.

Having achieved these milestones is a minimum requirement for a recovering sex addict who wants to start out with a new relationship.  But the addict will still have some work to do to.  Applying these new found skills in intimate relationship without repeating the mistakes of the past is the next biggest challenge in recovery.  It takes time, practice and a whole lot more self-examination.

*From my book “Relationships in Recovery: A Guide for Sex Addicts who are Starting Over.”

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

Intimacy Disorder: An Addictive Relationship Self-Test

Intimacy disorder and addiction are most often two aspects of the same problem.  While it is true that any addiction can cause relationships to deteriorate, it is also true that sex addicts tend to end up in unhealthy and unsatisfying relationships.

Even sex addicts in good recovery may have many residual problems in approaching intimacy and relationships.  See also my article “Intimacy 101”.

What I am calling addictive relationships are relationships that are usually part of a pattern of negativity, turmoil and alienation.  The majority of the addicts I’ve worked with have grown up in families where their parents were not consistently loving, contented or appropriate with each other or their children.  Often they had addictions of their own.  This dysfunctional model may be all the addict has ever known.

Below is a self-test designed to get you thinking about the intimacy disorder aspect of sex or love addiction.  It is not scientific but it is based on my experience working with addicts.  It is adapted from my recent book Relationships in Recovery: A Guide for Sex Addicts who are Starting Over.

  1. My relationships typically start with intense sexual attraction and rapid involvement.
  2. I find it easy to start relationships, but they always get complicated.
  3. I sometimes stay in a relationship because I am afraid of being on my own.
  4. I sometimes placate or manipulate my partner to avoid confronting things.
  5. I find it easy to get into thinking that my partner is to blame.
  6. My partner and I don’t talk about our feelings about the relationship.
  7. Either I feel superior to my partner, or I feel my partner is superior to me.
  8. I am dishonest with my partner at times to avoid upsetting him/her.
  9. When I am in a relationship, my partner and I don’t socialize with friends as a couple very much.
  10. I feel that having a good relationship is hopeless.

You will see that some of these items are characteristic of dysfunctional relationships in general.  But sex addicts will have experienced at least half of them when they have attempted to sustain an intimate bond with a partner.

The intimacy avoidance characteristic of sex and love addicts means that they can’t get close; they are afraid of intimate, honest relating and expect it to bring pain and shame.  They also can’t let go.  They often put up with a bad situation due to their fear of feeling abandoned and inadequate.  Thus addictive relationships are characterized by ambivalence and feeling stuck and hopeless.

The fears, insecurities and low self worth that characterize addicts predictably lead to relationships that are intimacy avoidant.  Addicts growing up did not experience intimate bonds as supportive, validating or safe.

In recovery from sex addiction the addict who is ready to try for a healthier kind of relating will have to do three things:

  • Examine his/her relationship history in detail
  • Come to understand their past relationship style and how it supported the addiction
  • Write a plan for the future which puts rules and boundaries in place for healthier relating

In addition, the recovery from intimacy disorder will involve making an attempt to envision and outline the kind of relationship the sex addict wants for the future.  This vision may be totally new to the addict.  It will involve:

  • Living together in integrity and harmony
  • Giving and providing safety and support
  • Sharing all the parts of oneself including intellectual, social and sexual life
  • Being able to commit and developing a capacity for devotion
  • Willingness to be hurt as part of healthy vulnerability
  • Putting energy into the relationship but being willing to be alone if things don’t work out

In emerging from an intimacy disorder the good news is that relationships can be the most meaningful and enjoyable aspect of your life.  You can continue to grow as you enjoy the fruits of recovery.