Sex Addiction: The Partner's Perspective

A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding and Surviving Sex Addiction For Partners and Those Who Want to Help Them

Paula Hall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317660750
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Sex and pornography addiction are growing problems that devastate the lives of partners as well as sufferers. Sex Addiction: The Partner's Perspective has been written to help partners and those who care about them to survive the shock of discovering their partner is a sex addict and to help them make decisions about the future of their relationships and their lives. First and foremost, it is a practical book, full of facts, and self help exercises to give partners a much needed sense of stability and control. Like its sister book, Understanding and Treating Sex Addiction, it includes case examples and survey results revealing the reality of life for partners of sex addicts.

Sex Addiction: The Partner's Perspective is divided into three parts. Part I explores the myths surrounding sex addiction and provides up to date information about what sex addiction is and what causes it before moving on to explain why the discovery hurts partners so much. Part II is about partners' needs and includes self-help exercises and strategies to help partners regain stability, rebuild self-esteem and consider their future. The controversial topic of co-dependency is also explored with guidance on how to identify it, avoid it and overcome it. Part III focuses on the couple relationship starting with the difficult decision of whether to stay or leave. Whatever the decision, partners will then find help and support for rebuilding trust and reclaiming their sexuality.

This book has been written to help partners not only survive, but to grow stronger and move on with their lives – whether alone, or in their relationship. Readers will find revealing statistics and real life stories shared by partners who kindly took part in the first UK survey of sex addiction partners. This book will this book be a valuable guide for partners, but also for the therapists who seek to support them on their journey of recovery.

Part I Facing the reality of sex addiction

1 Does sex addiction really exist?

DOI: 10.4324/9781315766546-1

Most partners do not discover their partner is a ‘sex addict’. What they discover is that their partner has been unfaithful. More often than not, partners gradually drag out, or unravel, the painful reality that the person they most trusted in their life has betrayed them, not once, but repeatedly. The words ‘sex addiction’ may not enter the vocabulary for many weeks, months or even years after behaviours have been discovered. And when it is out there on the table, the first reaction of many partners is – really?

In the survey of 126 partners that was conducted to accompany this book, 30 per cent had heard of sex addiction before their partner’s diagnosis, 25 per cent didn’t believe it existed and 36 per cent thought it was just an excuse.

At the time of writing this book, sex addiction is still a controversial topic and, like many, you may be sceptical about the reality of the condition. In the survey, only 9 per cent believed sex addiction was a real problem when they first heard of their partner’s problems, compared with nearly 79 per cent today. Thankfully, public and professional opinions are slowly beginning to change as issues of compulsive porn use become more and more prevalent and other explanations make less and less sense. But nonetheless, doubts and myths still prevail, and for partners of so-called ‘sex addicts’, those misunderstandings can have profound emotional effects. Because if sex addiction doesn’t really exist, then what does that make their partners?

We have alternative words to sex addiction for people who have betrayed their partner multiple times; for those who have breached their partner’s trust and deliberately acted in ways that they know would break their heart; for the men, and women, who seem to be incapable of fidelity, or those who choose to stay up late alone every night to watch porn. These words are mostly negative and abusive ones, though there are still significant gender differences. A man may get away with the euphemistic label of a ‘player’ or some might call him ‘a typical bloke’, or perhaps simply a ‘bastard’. A woman may be called a ‘nymphomaniac’ or a ‘sex kitten’, or a ‘bitch’ and a ‘slut’. If the behaviours are outside of what is deemed to be normal or commonplace, additional terms such as a ‘freak’, ‘saddo’ or even ‘pervert’ might be applied. All are value judgements about the character of the individual, character traits that are assumed to be the cause of the behaviour.

Sex addiction offers an alternative explanation to the character assassinations that are often thrown at people whose sexual behaviour crosses a partner’s, or society’s boundaries, but for some it is hard to accept. There are two main reasons for that which we will now explore.

Common objections to sex addiction

Sex addiction is just an excuse for moral failure

At the root of this common objection is the belief that if you’re an ‘addict’ then you don’t have to accept responsibility for the mistakes you’ve made in the past or the choices you make in the future. That is simply not true and, if it were, it would make treatment a waste of time and money. Addiction is not the opposite of choice. Someone with an addiction has still made choices about their behaviour, but those choices have been driven by something much deeper and more powerful than willpower. There is a difference between what motivates addictive behaviours and what motivates selfish, immoral behaviours – but in both cases, ultimately the individual does make a choice.

When someone has an addiction, their ability to choose is impacted by the biological and psychological components of their addiction – something we will look at in more depth in the next chapter. But for now it’s important to understand that both the neurochemistry of addiction, and the unconscious psychological causes, can combine to make choice very difficult indeed. When you add the neurochemical dopamine (the common denominator in all addictions) to the reward-seeking engine of the brain, it’s like rocket fuel; unresolved issues and unmet needs from childhood can render the breaking mechanism almost useless. Hence, when it comes to choice and addiction, it’s like having the turbo-fuelled engine of a rocket, and the brakes of a bicycle.

However, when someone is able to recognise and resolve the damage to their braking system and learn practical ways of developing other fuels for their engine, then a far greater degree of choice can be enjoyed.

There’s no doubt that some people do misuse the addiction label. ‘It’s not my fault I’m an addict’, or ‘he can’t help it, he’s addicted’, but it’s not true. While it is accurate to say that an addict is not responsible for whether or not they have an addiction, they are responsible for what they do with it once it has been identified. And taking that responsibility is essential to overcoming the behaviour.

The myth that addicts have no choice, or are powerless and have no control, is sometimes compounded by a lack of understanding of the 12-step groups that help so many millions of addiction sufferers. Step 1 encourages accepting powerlessness over addiction and Step 2 recommends handing over that power to someone or something else. On the surface this may sound like a cop-out, but the spirit of the steps is to help people reach out to others and get help and support in overcoming their addiction rather than trying to do it alone. In essence, the steps can be seen as empowering as they provide a strategy and community within which to reclaim control of one’s life, rather than focusing on trying to control addiction.

Before we move on, it’s worth thinking a little further about the notion of ‘moral failure’. The questions around morality and sex addiction are commonplace and unique when compared with other addictions. As a society, we generally don’t make anywhere near as many moral judgements about drinking too much as we do about someone who is deemed to have too much sex. We may look down our nose and worry about the binge-drinking youth, but mostly we assume that people will get over it and develop a healthy relationship with alcohol. And we generally have more compassion for those who develop alcohol dependency. But when it comes to sex it’s quite a different matter. Sex has always been a popular topic for moralisers, not least because of the negative and limited views of most of the world’s religions and there are some psychological professionals in the US (Klein 2012; Ley 2012) who openly object to the sex addiction label because they view it as something that pathologises what some would consider as ‘normal’ and ‘commonplace’ sexual behaviour. What is key to understand here is that it is not the type or amount of sexual behaviour that defines it as an addiction, but the dependency on it. Whatever your moral viewpoint, some people have lots of sex, some people don’t. Some people believe in monogamy, some prefer open relationships. Some like lots of experimentation and sexual diversity, others are content with more familiar tastes. Sex addiction is not about sex, it’s about addiction, as we will continue to explore.

You can't get addicted to sex

This is another very common objection to the sex addiction term and depending on how pedantic and scientific you want to be, there may be some truth to it. It has been widely accepted for many years that people can become addicted to chemicals such as drugs and alcohol – substances that cross the blood-brain barrier and alter the brain chemistry. What’s known as ‘behavioural’ or ‘process’ addictions have also grown widely in acceptance (Hebebrand et al. 2014), but many still struggle with the word ‘addiction’ and choose instead, for example, to talk about pathological gambling or compulsive overeating. The reason for this is that there is not currently sufficient clinical evidence to prove that sex works in the brain in the same way as chemicals. We do know from brain scans that the same pathways that light up when someone uses cocaine also light up when we have sex. And there is recent evidence that the same areas of the brain are activated when porn addicts are triggered as when drug addicts are triggered (Voon et al. 2014). But these studies have not been replicated enough, nor has there been sufficient data collation of withdrawal symptoms and behaviour escalation to convince all the authorities. It is for these reasons, that ‘sex addiction’ and ‘porn addiction’ are not currently in what is known as the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistics Manual), which for many in the US is considered the final word on what is, and is not, a diagnosable condition.

Unlike some other mental health authorities, I choose to reserve judgement on whether or not the term ‘sex addiction’ is scientifically accurate, as the field of addiction is changing so fast as our ability to research and understand the human brain expands. In the field of addiction, the impact of attachment and trauma on the brain, as well as the psychological impacts, are increasingly being recognised as significant contributing factors (Fisher 2007; Flores 2004) and our understanding of craving, satiation, tolerance and escalation are also changing as we learn more about the neurochemistry of the brain. These findings are also affecting our understanding of compulsive overeating, which is increasingly being recognised as a type of addiction (Fortuna 2012; Hebebrand et al. 2014). As with sex, there are undoubtedly some people who simply overeat out of greed but, according to Frontiers in psychiatry (Meule 2011), food addiction is an increasing reality.

The American Association for Addiction Medicine (ASAM) has adopted a new definition of addiction in line with the latest brain studies, stating that ‘Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry’. The DSM has also changed its listing of addiction in the latest edition, to a single category heading of ‘addictive disorders’ under which are the subheadings of ‘alcohol use disorder’, ‘substance use disorder’ and ‘gambling disorder’, with ‘internet use disorder’ being listed as warranting further research. What is common to both is that the emphasis has shifted from the substance or process to the physical and psychological symptoms of addiction.

While research continues to determine whether or not sex and pornography can become ‘addictive’ in the same way as other substances and behaviours, perhaps what is most important is to decide whether or not the accuracy of the term ‘addiction’ really matters to you or not. While the professionals decide what to call it, it undoubtedly continues to be a growing problem. For partners, the pain is probably the same whatever you call it, but the routes to overcoming it – for both you and your partner – may be very different. It is time for an example.

Jenny

Jenny did not believe that sex addiction existed. She had worked for many years in a hostel for homeless men with alcohol and drug issues and her husband did not look, or behave, even faintly like her wards. They were a middle-class, respectable family; her husband had a good job as a teacher and was a good father to their two small children. Ten months ago she found a message string on his phone from another woman saying she was ‘looking forward to meeting him’. She questioned him immediately as she scrolled through other messages on his phone before he had chance to snatch it back. That’s when she found the pictures, as well as sexually graphic texts from a further six women. John crumbled and confessed to a long-standing porn problem that had recently escalated to visiting masseurs. It was six months later that I met them both, and having done some research, John was con vinced he had a sex addiction and was desperate for help to get back on track as well as save his marriage. But Jenny said it was too late. She had accompanied him to the meeting to see if I could convince her that the condition existed, but she could not believe that an upstanding man such as John could behave like that, unless he was simply a low-life fraud like her father who had apparently abandoned her mother when she was five. Like all of us, Jenny had her own story that influenced her response, and her choice was to blame John – not an addiction.

Before we move on, there is a further issue that is often raised which causes confusion.

But my partner's behaviour isn't really about sex

Partners of people with compulsive pornography problems often wonder if the sex addiction label can be accurate for them. Similarly there are an increasing number of people getting hooked on the adult hook-up sites, creating and checking profiles on a regular basis and chatting to potential partners. But they never meet – they have never actually had sex with any of them. Of course, for a partner, that is still a significant breach of trust and hence can cause a lot of pain, but is it the same as sex addiction? As said previously, sex addiction isn’t about sex, it’s about addiction.

There are many, many different behaviours that someone with sex addiction can engage in, for some it’s all online, such as pornography, chat rooms, web-cam sex, while for others it is also offline, such as visiting sex workers, multiple affairs or cruising. What defines addiction is the dependency on something as a mood regulator, the exact nature of that substance or behaviour is not relevant to the definition. In other words, if you are an alcoholic, it’s the alcohol you become dependent on, whether it’s gin or whisky, beer or tequila is irrelevant. Similarly, in sex addiction it is the dopamine hit of the ‘buzz’ that the person becomes dependent on, not the actual type of behaviour. Tastes may develop, as they do with alcohol ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Frontmatter Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• PART I Facing the reality of sex addiction
• PART II Caring for partners’ needs
• PART III The couple relationship – make or break?
• Conclusion
• References
• Recommended reading and resources
• Index