Your Sexually Addicted Spouse

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Your Sexually Addicted Spouse Page 11

by Barbara Steffens


  My husband loves thriller movies: the kind with cops and robbers, chase scenes—movies that are usually somewhat violent by my standards and usually include at least some sex. Because his sexual addiction hurt me deeply and because I lived through an abusive first marriage, I worked hard for years to free myself from the dissociative disorder that resulted from my PTSD. To take care of myself, I had made it clear to my husband that I no longer wanted to accompany him to thrillers that might trigger any old response.

  One evening, a new thriller he was dying to see was playing at our local cinema. He wanted me to go with him and make it a date night. He had already read the book the movie was based on so I felt fairly comfortable with his knowledge of what I could expect on the screen. But I asked him to read the movie reviews online to make sure it was one I could handle without being triggered. He did and he reassured me it would be okay, so off we went.

  A lot of in-your-face-violence and some sex soon filled the big screen. This stuff is too much for me on a television screen, but on a bigger-than-life movie screen, it totally overwhelms and overpowers my ability to stay grounded and not dissociate. Sitting there, struggling to stay present, I was filled with anger at my husband for intentionally putting me in this situation yet again.

  Within moments, it was as if I was back in time, trapped in my own pain all over again. I knew I had to get out of there. I leaned over and told my husband I had to leave, but he just kept on watching the scenes in front of him. Before I knew what was happening, I got up and hurried through the darkened room and out the exit door.

  By the time I hit the cold, drizzly night air, I was operating on primal survival instincts. I might as well have been a wounded animal searching the darkness for safety. Home was five miles away. My husband had the car key. It was raining. None of that stopped the panic, the force that propelled me forward.

  In an out-of-body experience, I began working my way through dark streets, up hills, to the highway and through neighborhoods, always trying to avoid being seen; always fearful of being caught, trapped, exposed again. Sensible? No, but that was beside the point in those moments. My need for safety pushed me onward.

  It turned out to be a very long walk, and the next part is really embarrassing to admit. As I got closer to home, I knew enough time had passed for the movie to be over. That meant my husband could pass me on his way home. The thought of him seeing me walking home left me feeling exposed and petrified, even though he would never hurt me physically. Every time a car drew near I ducked into the darkness, hiding like a frightened animal. If the shape of the car could possibly be his, I ducked further into the cover of the night.

  Suddenly, one of them was his. I darted into a housing development and crouched behind the corner of a stranger’s home. The primal force within grew stronger still and my heart began to pound in my chest.

  Then my husband turned into the development, too. Had he seen me? I wondered. I scurried to an island of dense shrubbery, crouched down and buried my form in its midst. My husband circled around slowly, with the window rolled down, calling my name into the night. But I stayed still, watching him as he drove back toward the quiet highway that took him home.

  It’s strange to look back on that night now, knowing how I behaved. To many and to myself—both then and now—it looks and sounds like pure insanity. Or at least co-addiction. Yet I know that if I were to place myself in a triggering situation—one that for me remains “dangerous”—and not do proactive self-care immediately, it could happen all over again. That will always feel both scary and strange.

  Such is the fingerprint of PTSD on a life. Is it any wonder that those who don’t understand trauma’s impact may also misunderstand what it can do to the psyche and body and mislabel it?

  Principle 8: Behaviors that may seem like outlandish or codependent reactions might very well be your body’s PTSD response to triggers (information stored during a traumatic event in your life). Research shows that these automatic physiological responses often extend beyond your conscious control unless therapeutic interventions can enable you, the PTSD sufferer, to integrate them into your larger story.

  On A Personal Note: How have your responses to triggers affected you? Do you have a story similar to Rochelle’s where your response was intensified? Talk to someone about your experience.

  PTSD Can Interfere with Your Therapeutic Process

  This motley assortment of symptoms—the “speechless terror,” skewed judgment, inability to self-soothe and the indiscriminate fight-or-flight responses—can make navigating post-trauma life akin to driving at night without headlights in a foreign country without a map while drunk. Not an easy task to say the least.

  Symptoms such as these can also interfere with the therapeutic process. While high levels of emotional and physiological arousal whirl within because of triggers they can’t control, some partners find they are unable to use words to process all that whirling. As we discussed earlier in this chapter, their ability to articulate their pain may be handicapped by the Broca’s area of their brains.

  Your trauma can trap you in a catch-22: While your whole being is bound by the ropes of PTSD and screams for freedom, the language-generating region of your brain has been bound by the PTSD, too. You can no longer adequately talk about and use words to process what you’re experiencing. Now the usual talking version of psychotherapy doesn’t even help!

  Earlier Life Trauma Can Set You Up for Trauma Later in Life

  As we saw in Rochelle’s story, trauma earlier in your life can set you up for later bouts with trauma by leaving you with an innate susceptibility to its influence and power. This tendency is often strongest for partners who suffered betrayal bond damage or trauma in childhood. A quote from the Healing Resources Web site explains this well:Children who fail to receive an adequate attachment bond with their primary caretaker because of abuse or unintentional neglect lack neurological means to calm, focus and soothe themselves. This lack of resiliency makes such individuals more at risk for traumatic experience in the future.

  Without the ability to remain calm and stay focused in the face of painful, difficult and threatening experiences, we are overwhelmed and become traumatized.17

  Events that can traumatize children include, among others, forced separation from their primary caregivers, poor care giving in general, living with physical or mental illness, depression or grief, extreme poverty, as well as emotional, verbal, physical or sexual abuse. Child trauma specialist Bruce Perry adds that “Simply stated, traumatic and neglectful experiences…cause abnormal organization and function of important neural systems in the brain…”18

  As we search for ways to help ourselves and others, we need to take into account our childhood histories as well as our earlier adult life histories as we attempt to make sense of our trauma reactions and process and integrate them into our larger life stories. Seeking to heal from trauma without taking a look at our histories can severely handicap our healing process.

  Principle 9: As you seek healing from trauma’s impact on your life and health with the help of a professional trained in family-of-origin issues and trauma, examine and consider your childhood and previous adult-life experience for trauma that may play a role in your current reactions to new trauma.

  Trauma’s Body-Wide Damage

  Sadly, both research and the everyday life struggles encountered by millions of trauma sufferers bear testimony to the all-encompassing impact that trauma can have on human health. One study reports that “Strong associations between betrayal trauma exposure and negative physical and psychological status were found in this sample of ill adults.”19

  Let’s look at the ways trauma and PTSD can impact your health, both mentally and physically.

  Trauma’s Impact on Mental Health

  Many mental health professionals have long been aware of the psychological effects of traumatizing experiences. And every partner of a sex addict has endured at least some of the long list of mental health ailmen
ts that trauma has been known to cause. The depression and brain fog alone can almost cripple a life with their symptoms.

  Trauma specialist Daniel Sweeney, Ph.D., cautions that “It is important to realize that chronic exposure to traumatic stress affects the adaptation of these [neuro-] chemicals. In other words, it may permanently alter how people deal with their environment on a daily basis.”20

  Sweeney’s strong words give us warning: to avoid such devastating damage we must take responsibility for dealing with our circumstances proactively, rather than letting traumatizing situations continue indefinitely.

  Principle 10: It is up to you (with the help of the professionals who support you) to protect your health by courageously stepping out of traumatizing circumstances that can damage your body and mind.

  Trauma’s Supercharged Hormone Baths and Our Health

  The supercharged hormone baths that are set off by the amygdala do extensive damage, especially when these baths become chronic, because fear and trauma continue in the circumstances of your life.

  “Over time,” says Christine Horner, M.D., “the continual stress reactions your body produces…become disastrous. This psycho-physiological response leaves us continually with chronic excess cortisol levels that cause high blood pressure, insomnia, anxiety, depression, frustration, anger, tension, depress the immune system and increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes and stomach ulcers.”21 Harvard neurologist Martin Samuels adds that “Norepinephrine is toxic to the tissues—probably all tissues, but in particular the heart.”22

  Clearly, prolonged stress, fear or trauma can take a major toll on your health, even without the onset of PTSD. It dampens the immune system, leaving us more susceptible to everything from colds to cancer. According to studies’ data at the National Institutes of Health, approximately 90 percent of all illnesses—mental and physical—are caused or aggravated by stress. And certainly stress is present to the extreme when we experience the trauma of sexual betrayal.

  Principle 11: As you seek to make decisions on your own behalf, you must take into account the massive toll that ongoing trauma may have on your and your children’s health.

  Cortisol: A Critical Culprit

  When trauma continues over time, cortisol is a major culprit, producing disastrous effects on our bodies. Dr. Horner cautions what can happen under chronically stressful conditions:…cortisol can be continually elevated in our body and can have damaging effects such as thinning of bones, diabetes, inflammation, cancer, fat deposition around the waistline and a weakened immune system. And cortisol can be extremely toxic to brain cells; high amounts for long periods of time can even cause brain cells to die. In addition, as we age our ability to turn off the cortisol response to stress slows down and this leads to elevated levels for longer periods of time…

  Some of these chemical reactions also create oxygen free radicals, which are tiny molecules of unstable oxygen that can cause lots of destruction to cell membranes and DNA. The damage free radicals cause ignites and fuels most chronic degenerative diseases including heart disease, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, aging, wrinkles and cancer.

  …When cortisol goes up, blood sugar levels rise, inflammation levels go up. The blood becomes thick and sticky, and cancer cells spread more rapidly.

  No wonder cortisol levels are correlated with increased cancer risk, particularly breast, as well as premature aging and diabetes, one of the fastest-growing diseases in the industrialized world today.23

  Certified nutritional consultant Tarilee Cornish adds, “Our nervous system and endocrine systems communicate bi-directionally with our immune system in the ‘language’ of hormones and neuropeptides. This means that our emotions can induce health or illness and, in turn our state of health can induce emotions.”24

  This pattern—physical inducing emotional and emotional inducing physical—becomes circular and can complicate our attempts to break the self-perpetuating cycles it sets up in life.

  Common Conditions that Trauma can Trigger

  Trauma can foster a long list of common effects or conditions in emotional and physical health. Professionals who make trauma the focus of their work tell us: “Sometimes these responses can be delayed, for months or even years after the event. Often, people do not even initially associate their symptoms with the precipitating trauma.”25

  This resource goes on to reveal a long list of symptoms that can affect us physically, emotionally, cognitively or behaviorally, as well as affecting our ability to maintain healthy relationships. Complications from trauma are more likely to occur if there were earlier, overwhelming life experiences.

  In our work with spouses, we’ve encountered other physical symptoms repeatedly. Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, hypothyroidism, adrenal exhaustion, inflammatory responses and susceptibility to infections appear often in partners’ lives. As we can see, trauma—particularly when it continues over time—can spell disaster to our health.

  Recognizing the impact that trauma has on our bodies provides help to understand why many of us have experienced devastating health changes since discovering our partners’ addictions. In the face of all the evidence, can we, as partners, as mothers, as fathers, as daughters, as sons, afford to sink into powerless and “emotion-focused” thinking, rather than seeking help and taking positive, proactive steps that empower us to protect ourselves, even if our spouses refuse change or help?

  Our desire is not to frighten partners of sex addicts with information about the danger their trauma imposes on their health. Rather, as members of this throng ourselves, we aim to empower partners to take charge of their lives and to find the necessary resources to get help, to move forward and to heal. In the next three chapters, we look closely at proactive steps you can take to protect your emotional and physical health from trauma’s destructive impact and simultaneously advance your progress along the partner’s healing journey.

  On A Personal Note: Take some time and consider the effects of trauma you are experiencing. Do you have increased physical problems? A conversation with your medical professional can help to resolve these problems.

  PART II

  YOUR JOURNEY TOWARD WHOLENESS

  Chapter 6

  Healing from Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress

  Katherine shares her need for support in order to regain a feeling of safety:“I’m struggling with pornography,” my husband calmly said. “This is not a new thing; it’s been going on for years. I want to stop, but I need your help. I need you to hold me accountable.” With that brief confession, my husband of three months shattered my dreams and my world.

  Growing up, I was a goody-two-shoes and I stayed out of trouble. I was only eighteen when I married Neil, who, at twenty-six, was eight years older. Nothing in my short past had prepared me for the words that had just come out of his mouth. Suddenly, I felt so inadequate, so “second best.”

  His confession began our Friday night routine. At his request, every Friday evening I asked him one question: “How was your week?” Each week I heard a similar response. He told me how often he gave into sexual temptation, how many magazines he bought, what porn movies he watched on business trips. I tried to understand and be supportive of his attempts to overcome his addiction, but every few weeks I broke down and had a good cry. I could never measure up to those pictures. How could he say he loved me, yet continue to damage our marriage and our intimacy?

  Nonetheless, my questions found no answers. Our Friday night ritual continued for fourteen years, through the birth of four beautiful children and the building of a full life. His addiction did not get any better for a long time.

  Then one day Neil told me he was free from all temptation in regards to his pornography use. It was hard to believe what he was saying, but he was so convincing. To my knowledge he had never lied to me, so in the end I believed him. Yet I knew something was wrong because our physical intimacy completely stopped.

  In every other way, I loved my life. We were very active in our church. I volunt
eered in another ministry and also at the school our youngest attended, where I eventually became the administrator. Though Neil traveled a lot for his employer, he was well respected in his field. Life was good! Everything but our sex life, that is. It remained non-existent for eight long years. I begged him to get help, but he always said he was getting help, and he always gave reasons for not wanting sex.

  Then came that fateful day, April 1, which I described earlier in chapter 1, when the six police officers knocked on our door, came in and began their investigation. When they finally left late in the night, sleep eluded my exhausted mind and body. All I could do was curl up in bed, pray and weep.

  Though I had tried to protect my twelve-year-old when the police had come to our house by taking him to his room and turning up his television set, he heard the police anyway. He later told me, “When the police came in our house I prayed, ‘Please don’t let my dad be dead; anything but that.’” Somehow the fact that the bad news wasn’t death left him feeling partly responsible for the real reason the police were there.

  The next morning my seventeen-year-old asked, “Mom, are you going to divorce Dad?” I hadn’t even gone there in my mind! I just knew that my two older kids were on their way to the house to be told something that could devastate them. My children…they needed to know, but what was I going to say? How was I going to break the news that their father was in jail?

 

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