3 Gateways to Intimacy: Things You Can Practice Doing Now

Intimacy is the ability to be real with a significant other, the ability to be known for who we really are.  And being seen in this way requires that we are secure enough to take a risk and be vulnerable.

Sex addiction has been described as an “intimacy disability.”  Addictive behaviors are ways to deal with stress and negative emotions; ways that do not depend on other people for soothing or emotional support.  Addicts feel mistrustful about being open with their needs and have a deep rooted belief that no one who really knew them could love them.

In recovery, addicts learn to reconnect with themselves and with their inner feelings without running away.  And they learn to reconnect with other people with more trust and less fear of rejection.

But addiction treatment does not automatically resolve all the addict’s fears about being known and about sharing all of themselves with a partner.  Becoming intimacy-“abled” is a much longer process than that of simply kicking an addiction.

Building intimacy skills

It is all very well to tell people to stop judging, to set appropriate boundaries or to “speak your truth in the moment.”  But these can seem pretty abstract and hard to put into practice.

Here are some specific kinds of behavior that the addict can focus on and some ideas about why they may help promote intimacy.

Nurturance

Nurturance involves giving someone what they need.  But in a relationship with a partner it also implies that the nurturer gives something (reassurance, food, listening, back rubs etc.) willingly and without resentment.  You don’t have to be a saint to nurture someone, and you can even do it because you are convinced that it is part of what you should do as a partner.  But real nurturance does mean that you give some attention to what the other person is feeling and that you are sincerely motivated to be kind to them.

Why does being nurturing foster intimacy?  Because it promotes empathy and an understanding of what your partner is like inside.  If done in the right spirit, nurturing makes us more able to be caring.  And taking care of someone is a way for them to feel our love and for our love to become deeper.

Also nurturing another person has the potential to bolster our own self esteem, even if that is not the original motivation.  When we give freely in this way it means that we are “full,” that we are not always worrying about our own need for self enhancement.

Mutual process

How do you relate to a partner when dealing with something specific in your life together?  It could be anything: an analysis of a movie you saw, a decision about buying furniture, or a discussion of one another’s plans and fears.

Addicts are all-or-nothing people: either we do it my way or we do it your way.  Instead of engaging in a constructive back and forth the addict will simply try to convince you of their own point of view.  If you are right they are wrong.

Approaching a question or topic as something to be decided together by a back and forth of ideas is new behavior for many recovering addicts.  But even if it is hard to believe that your partner could be right about anything, you can still practice listening and responding to what the other person says.

This is not the same as arguing your point and trying to convince the other person.  The point is to take a breath and allow the other person’s ideas to stimulate your thinking.

It is obvious how mutual process supports intimacy.  The “we” is greater than each of you alone.  In mutual processing you are building something together.

Shared experiences

It has been said that “love is not gazing into each other’s eyes, but it is gazing together at something else.”  When you can share and experience with someone you are automatically providing fertile ground for intimacy.

People who share intense experiences like being in combat in the armed services know that there is an automatic intimacy of a sort just from having gone through the same thing.  When we share something we re-affirm our common humanity because, to a great extent we have the same reactions to things.  This is especially true for powerful experiences like joy and triumph.

But sharing a joke or a sunset or a silly cat video can help feed intimacy.  This does not require any particular skill; simply that you make sure that you include times when you share experiences in your daily life together.

Fake it ‘til you make it

Fake it ‘til you make it is an idea that is often heard in 12-step meetings.  It means that you engage in healthy behavior even before you have fully embraced it.  And the theory is that in time you will come to feel that it is part of who you are.

In relationships it is also important to engage in specific caring behaviors and ways of relating.  Otherwise couples can end up endlessly talking, reading and “working on the relationship” without really getting anywhere.

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

Partners Need to Know the Secrets and Lies of Sex Addiction

People generally do not want to disclose their sex addiction to their intimate partner.  And yet in sex addiction treatment we believe that couples cannot begin the process of recovery as long as the addict is still keeping secrets or telling lies.  Hence the saying in treatment circles:

“Tell it all, tell it soon!”

This is not to say that we cannot have a private inner life or that we have to tell our spouse or partner everything we think or do.  But telling the truth about sex addiction is an essential part of recovery.  It is essential for the addict, for the partner and for the relationship.

When disclosure is not necessary

Disclosing the full extent of a sex addiction is not generally advised when the couple are planning to divorce or separate.  Couples in the process of separation and divorce are dealing with a lot of emotional and real life upheaval.  The disclosure of the details of sexual betrayal may be detrimental to the process of separating.  It can fan the fires of resentment and conflict around settlement and custody issues.  Often a partial disclosure has taken place which is part of the reason for the divorce.  Disclosure can add to the traumatization of the partner who already feels betrayed, without serving any useful purpose.

Disclosing to a partner is often partial and disorganized

Partial disclosure, or disclosing in “stages,” is the norm although it is not considered a good idea.  The addict feels the pressure to come clean but wants to hold back some facts about the sex addiction, usually those that are most damaging or shameful.  The addict who has been partially found out is in a crisis state and is most often very afraid of abandonment by a partner.  The feeling is that if the spouse or partner knew everything they would surely leave.  This is not necessarily a true or rational idea.

However, full disclosure sets the stage not only for the addict to begin a new way of living but for the relationship to begin on a new basis of honesty and trust.  Every time another little piece of information about the addict’s past behavior trickles out it makes the partner feel like it is just more than they can take.  This is because the partner feels the dishonesty may have no end.

The commitment to truthfulness going forward

Holding on to secrets is a sign that the addict is not in very good recovery.  “Rigorous honesty” is considered to be at the heart of the 12-step model of addiction recovery.  There is a level of self hate and shame in the addict who feels he cannot be honest.  He is continuing to act on the core belief that if someone really knew him they could never love him.  It is a way to hang onto control but it is unfair.

Dishonesty about who we are sexually is a way to keep ourselves apart from our partner.  It is a fatal barrier to true intimacy, which involves allowing ourselves to be known.  It also gives the addict unequal power.

To the partner, the fact that they do not know what is going on or has gone on means that not only do they not know their addict partner very well but they do not have a view of their life that is based in reality.  Partners cannot find contentment and happiness if their reality is being manipulated by someone else.

What not to disclose

The optimal way to disclose the facts of a sex addiction to a partner is thought to be through a “planned disclosure.”  This is one where the couple prepare separately with their counselors and carry out the disclosure in the presence of a treating professional.

As part of the preparation, the partner or spouse will decide what it is they want to hear.  This is very important.  The addict may want to tell more than the partner wants to know.  The addict will have to take direction from the partner as to what to disclose.  For example, the partner may or may not want to know how many times the addict did a certain thing, or with whom, or what the details of the act were.

Planned full disclosure may be the ideal, but people are human and it is often not that neat.  We need to accept that both people may be afraid and mistrustful.  The addict may try to get away with holding onto a few key pieces of information our of fear, and the partner may resort to spying on the addict’s email in order to deal with the crazy-making feelings of mistrust.

But even if it is not perfect, the disclosure must take place for the relationship to survive and thrive.

How to Get Your Spouse into Sex Addiction Treatment

As a porn and sex addiction therapist I am often contacted by the spouses looking for sex addiction treatment for their partner.  I will look at the reasons for this and give my views on why the role of the spouse or partner is important in getting treatment for the addiction.

Why partners do the initial reaching out for help

  • The sex addict usually resists treatment for the same reason any addict does—part of them would really like to keep doing what they are doing no matter what the consequences are.  Hence it is easier to let the partner do the leg work of finding help.  At this early crisis stage immediately after disclosure the addict will be inclined to say they want help but will not want to be proactive in seeking out what might actually be an effective intervention.
  • The spouse of partner of the sex addict may be the one who is experiencing more of the distress in the situation.  The addict will surely be feeling shameful and remorseful when the addiction is disclosed, but this is nothing compared to the trauma of the betrayal usually experienced by the partner.  This in turn motivated the partner to go into crisis mode and begin trying to find solutions.
  • The sex addict may resist being the one to reach out for sex addiction treatment because he is too embarrassed to call up and admit to a stranger that he has these problems.  I often hear this discomfort in the voices of addicts who do call me and I hear them groping for a way not to have to state the problem directly.

Why the partner’s role is so important in getting help

Most often a sex addict or porn addict is in the grip of a strong compulsion to “act out” in their addictive behavior, whatever it is; porn, sexual hook-ups, infidelity, prostitutes, online sexual encounters, etc.  They may engage in this behavior frequently or less frequently, but the main point is that they are doing it addictively, meaning they are leading a separate sex life, they cannot stop, it is going to escalate over time, and it will have negative repercussions for their life and relationships.

The untreated sex or porn addict is in a state of denial.  Very often it will take some force from outside to get his attention and to convince him to get some serious treatment.  That force may come in the form of getting in trouble with the law, losing a job, or losing a marriage.  But whatever it is it will exert the necessary pressure on the addict. 

When spouses and partners discover a sex addiction they are in a unique position to use the crisis to force the addict to get help.  Addicts tend to panic at the thought that they will lose their wife and possibly alienate their children.  The spouse needs to recognize that very often they and they alone can lower the boom on the addict and cause an effective intervention.

Spouses should not expect that the therapist, even the most expert therapist, will be able to force treatment on an addict.  In the simplest terms, the therapist has no ammunition compared to the spouse. 

What the spouse needs to do

Spouses and partners seeking sex addiction treatment should be prepared to draw a line in the sand about the need for the addict to get help.  They need to say that they will live with a recovering sex addict but not with a practicing one.  And they need to mean it, in other words they need to be prepared to separate if there is inadequate movement.

Spouses need to be realistic about the kind of help that is required.  Often sex addicts will promise to quit, attend a few 12-step meetings, engage in an online program, install blocking software or get some couple counseling.   Sometimes addicts try to convince their partner that the addiction is really the partner’s fault, which it never is!

These can be ways to diffuse the situation while still having no real motivation to change.   A serious sex addiction requires a serious treatment program, often a one or two week outpatient intensive or a four to six week residential program followed by active12-step participation, and follow up therapy. 

Ultimately the addict will have to become engaged in their own recovery for it to work.  But the initial impetus can often come from the desire to hold on to a partner.  And in the long term, the relationship can get on the right track if both partners are engaged in recovery both separately and as a couple.  Find Dr. Hatch on Facebook at Sex Addictions Counseling or Twitter @SAResource