Your Sexually Addicted Spouse

by Barbara Steffens

  Thus it was that early pioneers in the sex addiction field—Patrick Carnes and a researcher named Carmak—came to view the partners’ responses as a parallel addiction to the addict’s addiction. From that parallel addiction mindset they coined the term co-addict/co-addiction.

  Since they viewed partners as co-addicted (addicted to the addict) they logically believed partners need treatment and recovery for their addictions, just as the sex addicts do.

  It’s a fact that we, the partners of sex addicts, need help and often treatment because of the tremendous pain that addiction creates in our lives. Without help, our trauma can become chronic and result in PTSD and can keep us and our marriages from healing. Many of us need help to overcome our enabling behaviors as well. As partners of sex addicts, we owe a huge debt to those who care enough about our pain to search for ways to help us. Yet as authors, we believe that this view leaves most partners feeling misunderstood, unheard and often invalidated by automatically labeling their painful emotions and erratic behaviors as their own illness.

  We believe that the partner’s emotional and behavioral responses to living with a sex addict are better framed and understood as attempts to find safety and security following the most devastating of all traumas: the betrayal of trust.

  On A Personal Note. Does the word “safety” resonate with you? Do you find yourself looking for ways to feel safe again, only to find that it remains elusive?

  We also believe partners of sexual addicts often get lost in their own attempts to survive and to protect themselves from further injury. Susan’s story reflects how panic—a by-product of the trauma in her life—swamped her and then trapped her on an island of fear as she considered the possibility of future pain if she did not leave her husband. Stranded, she was unable to find hope or receive help.

  Lauren had just finished sharing how, during the twelve years since she confronted her husband’s sex addiction, he has experienced two brief relapses. She explained how she chose to deal with those relapses and talked about the written Boundary Contract she has with her husband and his accountability partner. Although Lauren and her husband now have a happy marriage, minister to other couples who need help with sex addiction and have successfully navigated the challenges sex addiction catapults into a couple’s life, all Susan could hear was hopelessness.

  “It sounds like you’re just waiting around for him to screw up!” Susan commented loudly.

  “Oh, not at all,” Lauren replied calmly. “My husband demonstrates his love for me every day in dozens of little ways, including letting me know he’s working his program.”

  “Can you guarantee me my husband won’t screw up again?” Susan interjected, her emotion building to a crescendo. When she heard Lauren’s “No” response, she came right back with a determined, “Then I can’t spend the next ten years in this marriage only to have him screw up later! I think it’s time for me to get a separation!”

  Rather than believing Susan and other partners demonstrate characteristics of addiction, we believe partners of sexual addicts engage in attempts to seek what they can no longer find: safety in unsafe relationships with sex addicts to whom they feel their deepest attachment bonds.

  Our personal and professional experience, along with Barbara’s research study, has led us to our alternate view of partners of sex addicts. We believe that, yes, partners are very much affected by their spouses’ addictions. And yes, like all human beings, many of us have work of our own to do. However, not all partners are co-addicts/codependent or have co-addiction. Rather, we have found many partners experience natural responses to trauma in their lives.

  Yet in spite of what we perceive to be its shortcomings, the 12-step model has provided help, support and recovery for millions of sex addicts and many of their partners. The 12 steps are rooted in solid, life-changing principles that, when applied, truly can—and often do—change a person’s life for the better. The 12 steps have added greatly to Marsha’s healing and life. Even now, in the aftermath of enormous personal loss, she knows that, in part, it’s the work she did to integrate the spirit of the 12 steps into her thinking and their foundation in strong spiritual principles that enable her to live life with peace and joy each day, no matter what future days may hold.

  On A Personal Note: Have you been part of a 12-step group for partners of sex addicts? If so, how did it help you? Are there areas that were not helpful? What are your thoughts about the 12-step model as a tool for healing your betrayal wounds?

  Under-Treated Trauma

  We believe the automatic co-addict or codependent labeling, along with the “two heat-seeking missiles theory” and the view that “she’s just as sick as the sex addict,” minimizes a partner’s trauma. While the addiction model might focus on past trauma in a partner’s life, it overlooks and misses the fact that disclosure/discovery is a traumatic event in itself and that many partners report they experience ongoing trauma at a myriad of other times as they share their lives with sex addicts.

  In our experience, many men and women do not find the addiction model helpful, particularly early in their healing. Instead, they find it deeply hurtful. And many partners express feeling offended by the automatic co-addict labeling they receive, even when the labelers know nothing about their personal trauma histories. That was Ashley’s experience:I went to a COSA meeting, a 12-step recovery program for partners of sex addicts, to seek support and encouragement from other women going through circumstances similar to mine. The first thing we had to do was state our name and say to the whole group that we were co-addicts. I felt like I had been labeled as a “sick” person who needed recovery and they didn’t even know anything about me!

  According to the group, I needed to figure out why I chose to pursue a relationship with a sex addict. But I’m just a wife whose world got flipped upside down when my husband disclosed his porn addiction and his attraction to other men. I felt scared, frustrated, confused and hurt by that meeting. I knew it wasn’t where I belonged.

  We hear from many partners who, like Ashley, never find the help they need within the 12-step process to move beyond their raw trauma pain. Such was the case for Sue, a woman in the large 12-step group Marsha helped start in Seattle, Washington, (1999) for partners of sex addicts. Marsha tells of Sue’s search for help:Sue’s story was filled with pain. An older couple who appeared to have it all, she and her husband sought help from the best treatment the world had to offer for his flagrant, out-of-control sex addiction. But nothing seemed to help. Then they stumbled onto our work in Seattle, hopeful that they had finally found the tools that would free them from the torture this addiction had created in their lives.

  I wish I could say they did. Hundreds of times I’ve seen Sue’s pain-filled face in my mind’s eye, even now, nearly a decade later. I gave her the best I had to offer at that time, which, besides twelve weeks of early healing meetings in a small support group using my workbook, was the 12-step group meeting we held each Monday night for spouses.

  She couldn’t seem to focus on “working her own program,” but instead recounted his latest sexual encounters every week. It saddens and embarrasses me to admit that I soon began mentally labeling her “hopelessly codependent.” Sitting across the circle, I listened as she shared and watched as hurt and anger contorted her countenance.

  Won’t she ever get it? I wondered. My mental solution for what she needed to do was to “draw a line in the sand” with her husband—most likely via a marital separation—then quit enabling him and focus on recovering from her own co-addiction. I failed to recognize that those of us who live with the fresh trauma Sue lived with each week as her husband participated in new and degrading sexual encounters live in constant states of panic, especially late in life when aging makes loss of security an even greater fear. No human being is exempt from responses to trauma when he or she lives with that kind of pain and abuse, year after year. Nor is he or she exempt from the learned helplessness that often develops because of dissociatio
n and freezing responses to such trauma.

  Sadly, Sue was one who never found the help she needed to move beyond her raw trauma pain, because nowhere in the 12-step program in which she participated was her trauma dealt with in a way that would enable change to take place in her life.

  THE TRAUMA PERSPECTIVE

  We view the partner as a person in a relationship with a sex addict; someone with human reactions and behaviors in response to discovering his or her most intimate relationship is not what it originally seemed. In one moment of life, security is replaced with betrayal and the death of life-long dreams. Such a discovery causes adrenal glands to dump cortisol into the body’s system, triggering the “fight/flight/ freeze” response to danger, in this case the inherent danger of loving a compulsive liar. At that point, the partner knows that the person with whom he or she lives, sleeps and invests time and feelings in participates in hidden sexual behaviors that jeopardize his or her finances, safety, health and even her life, not to mention their children.

  Prior to this discovery, the person believed his or her partner loved only him or her and remained faithful. Suddenly, their relationship holds danger and dark secrets. Discovering that much of your life is built on lies proves traumatizing and destroys one’s sense of safety and security. Vicky struggled hard with that reality as she searched her soul for the strength to forgive her husband so she could return to peace and joy in her life. As she shared her story, her voice broke and tears began to flow:I’m having trouble with the whole forgiveness thing. I can’t seem to stop reacting to what he did, even though he’s doing everything right now to get help and truly change. My thoughts get out of control and I can’t seem to stop them. And when they do, I yell terrible things at him and I throw things. I know my anger crosses a line and becomes abusive. My greatest losses in all of this are my innocence and my long-held belief in the sanctity of marriage. I’m cycling through emotions like crazy. This is worse than when my mother was killed in a car accident.

  That loss of safety and security often presents a host of safety-seeking behaviors. These might include checking the partner’s pockets, wallet, cell phone and computer history, trying to verify the person’s whereabouts when not home and even utilizing GPS tracking devices to monitor the addict’s location throughout the day. The addiction community views such behaviors as evidence that the partner is indeed addicted to the other spouse’s addiction.

  Rather than label traumatized partners as co-addicts for their safety-seeking responses, we see them searching for ways to keep the traumatic event from occurring again. If one lives through a terrible earthquake, he or she will feel terrified when the ground shakes again, even if it is only a minor tremor.

  Just as living through a bad earthquake produces trauma, so, too, does living through the discovery that one’s partner is a sex addict. Sex addiction produces a life-quake, leaving traumatic effects on a relationship and on lives. When new tremors—or even perceived tremors—occur, an already traumatized partner almost always has a stress response, just like an earthquake survivor does. Ironically, Rusti had both kinds of quakes happening in her life simultaneously and she felt the similarities between her inner and outer worlds:I live near the epicenter of an ongoing series of earthquakes that have been rattling our home and town for three long months. Today we were once again jolted in the middle of the night by earthquakes big enough to wake everybody up, make the coyotes howl outside our window and our dog curl up right by my husband. Quite a slumber party between 1:00 and 4:00 in the morning! Though most of the quakes are small, they have left our family and other residents nervous, fearful, anxious and traumatized. We feel constantly on edge, not knowing when the next one will occur or what damage it will produce to our already damaged home.

  Concurrently, I am living through a “personal quake” because of my husband’s sex addiction. There never seems to be an end to the earthquakes and aftershocks in this process, either! I start to heal from a disclosure of betrayal or relapse, only to have him disclose another one a short while later. Every time there is a new quake my pain and trauma returns and with it comes depression, anxiety, fear and a mix of other emotions.

  It seems I can never stay on level, solid ground long enough to heal. I often wonder if this pattern will ever end. The continual “unknown” dramatically slows the healing I need and my ability to move on.

  Looking at Rusti or the other partners’ stories we share here, someone could mistake the symptoms and responses for those of a co-addict or codependent. If one has been trained to evaluate a partner’s responses by looking at the person through a co-addiction lens, it’s going to prove challenging to view the partner any other way. However, we propose a shift in the way mental health professionals, clergy, loved ones and most of all you look at partners of sex addicts so that true healing becomes possible in their lives. Let’s take our comparison between the co-addiction perspective and the trauma perspective one step further before moving on to our proposed shift in focus.

  Next, we present a chart that compares the similarities in behavior between the responses of the partner viewed as a co-addict by the addiction community and people’s natural responses to trauma. Note how many ways the responses mirror each other.

  Co-Addiction and PTSD Comparison Chart

  The list that follows compares and contrasts Patrick Carnes’ co-addiction characteristics with the symptoms experienced by people with post-traumatic stress disorder. 5

  Look at the following “co-addiction” traits listed. After each of the traits, we give its definition and beneath the definition we’ve placed post-traumatic stress symptoms that mirror the co-addiction trait above it. After each pairing of a co-addiction trait and a trauma symptom, we list an example of an illustrative behavior.

  Co-Addiction Trait: Collusion - Helping perpetuate the person’s addiction (colluding with him or her in it) by using behaviors such as helping to keep it a secret from others or by participating in addictive behaviors

  Trauma Symptom: Avoidance - Avoiding activities or other reminders of the trauma event

  Example: To avoid being told that YOU have sexual problems because you’re too “straight-laced,” you may choose to look at pornography with your partner to avoid conflict, hoping that if you do he or she will turn to you sexually instead of the porn. Or, avoidance can cause you to avoid sex with your partner because it triggers painful memories and feelings you’re not yet healed enough to handle. Such avoidance is about trying to feel “safe” in the relationship.

  Co-Addiction Trait: Obsessive Preoccupation - Persistent thoughts of the addict and that partner’s behaviors

  Trauma Symptom: Re-experiencing - Recurrent and intrusive recollections, thoughts and memories that you can’t control or stop

  Example: You go through your day and you can’t stop wondering what he or she is doing. Is the person acting out online? Cheating outright? These thoughts consume your energy, and you may find difficulty paying attention to other things. Your lack of safety and vulnerability to more pain create constant anxiety.

  Co-Addiction Trait: Denial - Avoiding evidence of the partner’s addiction; or the belief that you can control the addict’s behaviors

  Trauma Symptom: Avoidance & Arousal - Ignoring your “gut” or new evidence that your partner is acting out again; or the opposite—attempting to control the environment; hypervigilant behaviors (we believe both behaviors are an effort to control further pain)

  Example: Perhaps at times you felt sure something was wrong, or you found a phone number or Web site that was suspicious. Then, you remembered that your partner had told you repeatedly that he or she loves you and would never cheat on you. Even though you have some kind of evidence, you talk yourself out of thinking or believing the worst, so you can avoid the source of more pain.

  Co-Addiction Trait: Emotional Turmoil - Feeling anxiety, shame or that life is out of control

  Trauma Symptom: Arousal - Intense psychological distress

 
Example: This can demonstrate itself in your life in dozens of ways. Most partners experience depression and anxiety. Perhaps you are nervous and fearful—you may have panic attacks. Even though you didn’t do anything wrong, you may feel shame. You may wonder: What’s wrong with me that causes my partner to go outside the relationship? You may believe that you can’t let anyone know, because it is too embarrassing and shameful.

  Co-Addiction Trait: Manipulation - Efforts to control the addict’s behaviors

  Trauma Symptom: Arousal - Efforts to control the environment

  Example: This one can also demonstrate itself in dozens of ways, from your choosing where he sits in restaurants to prevent him from looking at a certain woman you spotted as you came in, to staying up very late so you can keep him away from the computer. In another scenario, you may threaten that you’ll leave if he acts out again, but never follow through when he does.

  Co-Addiction Trait: Excessive Over-Responsibility - Selfblame; keeping the addict dependent upon you to avoid future pain