Your Sexually Addicted Spouse

by Barbara Steffens

  Nor does forgiveness mean “It’s okay,” “It doesn’t matter,” “I must forget” or “I must act as if this never happened.” Rather, forgiveness acknowledges great pain and offense, then releases resentment, bitterness and revenge. Forgiveness recognizes that release allows us to move closer to our own healing.

  Robert Enright, a researcher on the subject of forgiveness, says that when we forgive “we are no longer controlled by angry feelings toward this person [italics added].”6 In essence, forgiveness can set us free when we are finally able to offer it. Forgiveness is a process as well as an event; it requires an act of will and often, much time.

  Integration and Transformation

  Each of us, when we are ready, must do the work required to integrate the losses we’ve experienced into our larger life story if we truly want to heal and move on. If we fail to do the work integration requires, we risk remaining fixated on, not to mention controlled by, the trauma, as specialist Peter Levine explains:Through transformation, the nervous system regains its capacity for self-regulation. Our emotions begin to lift us up rather than bring us down…We are able to learn from our life experiences…We will no long view our world through fearful eyes.

  Though our planet can be a dangerous place, we will no longer suffer from the constant fear that creates hypervigilance—a feeling that danger always lurks and the worst often happens. We begin to face life with a developing sense of courage and trust…Every trauma provides an opportunity for authentic transformation.7

  We know that integration and the process of turning old wounds into transformational experiences that build character presents a daunting challenge to those still early in their healing and perhaps for those who aren’t. We hope Levine’s beautiful picture of integration in nature will enable you to grasp the goal:When a young tree is injured it grows around that injury. As the tree continues to develop, the wound becomes relatively small in proportion to the size of the tree. Gnarly burls and misshapen limbs speak of injuries and obstacles encountered through time and overcome. The way a tree grows around its past contributes to its exquisite individuality, character, and beauty. I certainly don’t advocate traumatization to build character, but…the image of the tree can be a valuable mirror.8

  Finding New Hope by Transforming Past Pain Into a Positive Purpose

  In talking about her work with students, parents and teachers following the Columbine School tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, Clarissa Pinkola Estes said that those who had lived through the horror asked again and again how they could escape the terrible memories and the ongoing pain that the trauma left in their lives. Her response was to tell them to “Create your way out, I say. Love your way out. It is the same. Through prayer, through the story you have lived; through dance, through invention, through loving and serving others, create your way out.”9

  We wholeheartedly agree. We know of no other way out of the deep anguish and loss sexual betrayal trauma produces in partners’ lives than to create your way out, to love your way out and to serve others. Estes’ perspective holds true in each of our lives, even though our betrayal stories ended very differently. Barbara’s marriage not only survived, today it thrives; while in Marsha’s life, nearly every element she once held dear vanished with the changes wrought as the consequences of the addiction played out over time. Yet in each of our lives, new hope, new beginnings, new passions and new purpose did come. To illustrate that reality in her life, Marsha shares a final entry from her journaling:The long winter of my healing is finally over. Though as I reread an old entry that was written early in the darkest nights of my loss, I find it hard to believe that the sun has come out again. In the midst of my deepest pain I wrote these words: “It’s as if someone has torn open my chest with their bare hands, yanked out my heart, ripped it in half and stuffed only half of it back in while muttering these words: ‘There now! Just see if you can go on beating!’”

  Oh, there remains that dull ache from time to time, the awareness of the loss of one-time dreams forever gone. Finally, spring bursts forth. New hope and new beginnings are unfolding in my life like the season’s fresh green leaves.

  And we know springtime will come once again in your life, too, as you move forward, one day at a time. Clarissa Estes captures well the truth that we must participate in our forward motion by actively pursuing the healing when she describes a student who lost his best friend in the shootings. This young man had not been able to escape the mental torture the trauma and loss left on him. But in one of the parables Estes told how he was able to finally grasp his release, let go of the past and move on.

  I remember one particularly haunted young man who had lost his best friend in the shootings …“I have been tortured out of my mind for days now. Today during the story I was free for the first time in a long time. That story about the mouse who could hear the roaring in his ears, who went to live in a new place where he could see and hear his soul? Since I heard that story, I feel I am free to go; to not stay in the old story any longer.”

  In creative life, his words are considered holy: free to not stay in the old story any longer. To not stay where sorrow always looks backward, where worry always looks around to see what else might go awry, but instead to look up, to take the leap, so see a fresh new world, lifting up one’s eyes to new life now and ahead…10

  This is our hope for you: There will be a moment when you, too, are free to not stay in the old story any longer, but to look up and take the leap to new life. Press on in your healing until your life is your own.

  PART III

  STORIES FROM THE OTHER SIDE

  Life After Trauma’s Impact

  The process of healing is a long journey. It is difficult, life-changing and oftentimes gut-wrenching work. However, the difficult journey is worth the price. Our colleague Milton Magness shares with you these words of encouragement:When will you get over the hurt? When will you be ready to move on with life? It is important to note that ignoring the trauma or determining you will not think about the past or talk about it only results in creating an incubator that allows the wound to fester to the point of becoming debilitating. Be patient. Though the journey is not quick, it is well worth the effort. Take a courageous stand today and look through the trauma lens; find healing on the other side.

  In the following pages, we present stories from both men and women. Some are from those who have struggled with sexual addiction, then watched as their partners experienced the devastating pain of their sexual betrayals. Others are from the betrayed themselves.

  In their own words, these men and women describe their thoughts, feelings, experiences and journeys. Many share the things that did not help them, and all share things that brought hem hope and healing. It is our hope that these letters and the stories contained within validate your experiences, give you encouragement and let you know that healing is possible.

  Chapter 9

  From the Hearts of Sex Addicts Who “Get It” and Care

  Story One

  The pain I have caused my wife cannot be explained in a short letter. It would probably take an entire book. In any case, I will try to give you a little insight from my perspective as to how I hurt her. To get a true sense of the immensity of her pain, I must first give you a short history of our relationship and how I hurt her through the years:• Abandonment: I abandoned her after we returned from our honeymoon to focus on my other passion: architecture. I effectively put her on the shelf. While she and I were dating and engaged, we talked at length about all kinds of things. She told me about the pain she felt all her life from being abandoned. I don’t think she used that word but that was the subject matter. I knew she was adopted as a baby. I knew of her adoptive mother’s death when she was still a baby. I knew of the troubled relationship she had with her stepmother and of the rejection she felt from that. In hindsight, I think I, more than anyone else in her life, should have understood the impact of my putting her on the shelf. Unfortunately I didn’t. I hurt her over and over
and over again.My wife didn’t have a choice with the others who abandoned her, but with me she did. She chose to love me and I let her down. When we were engaged, I gave her all my free time. Once we were married, I ignored her needs. She trusted me to love her and protect her. I didn’t deserve her trust. Instead of protecting her, I turned my affections over to another passion. I effectively rejected her night after night as I studied for the professional licensing exam. I should have balanced my study time so I could give my wife what she needed and deserved, but I didn’t. Out of a false sense of self-sacrifice, I stole my time from her and gave it to architecture. It would have been okay if I had sacrificed my personal time to invest in my studies. Unfortunately, I took the time she deserved. There are so many things in my married life that I wish I could undo. This is one of the big ones. The domino effect of this one choice, made over and over again, has rippled down throughout our marriage and caused immense pain to both of us.

  • Using her: Many times after we had sex, my wife cried. She could never say why she cried. I thought it had to do with other men who had hurt her in her past. I couldn’t believe her tears were because of me. I believe I finally understand. I was the one hurting her. I was effectively rejecting her daily by my ignoring her need to spend time with me. She felt used by me for sex. It was the feeling of being used that caused her tears. All those times she cried it was entirely my fault. I was hurting her. I will never totally get over the idea that I was hurting her like this. I thought I was a good person. I thought I loved her. It is obvious from my actions that this was not the case. I failed her miserably!

  • Blame: I blamed my wife for our sexual problems. I thought that if she could just touch me and let me hold her, everything would be fine. We would naturally have sex more often and I would be more attentive to her. If only. If only. What a joke! The real issue was my selfishness! I was deceiving myself. By blaming her, I didn’t have to search myself to find the problem. Because of this, I couldn’t address the real issue and seek help to solve it. This meant we both had to suffer for twenty-eight years of marriage until I could come to grips with this pattern and honestly seek help.

  • Lust: When we lived in a different city, I lusted after any good-looking woman I saw. This included most of my wife’s friends. At some point while we still lived there, I told her about this in a moment of guilt. She was extremely hurt. She told me that if I did this again she would leave.

  • Deceit: I was often not truthful with her. I was a coward. I often said whatever I had to in order to avoid conflict. I would not tell her what I honestly thought when I anticipated it would result in angering her. When we moved, there were many days I planned on working a little late, but then lost track of time. I often hoped for traffic congestion so I could blame my late arrival on traffic. I know she didn’t believe me when I gave my “reason” for being late, but that didn’t stop me from lying anyway.

  • Rejection: I didn’t effectively support my wife in raising our boys. I assumed she felt I was not just rejecting her, but our boys, too. I was almost never home and when I was there, I was too tired to do much of anything with my family. This must have been very painful for my wife. When I was unwilling to spend money on either her or the boys, she probably felt I was rejecting all of them again and again and again.We always fought over how to discipline the boys. I was afraid we were raising kids who could not obey since we were not effectively disciplining them. Since we could not agree on how to discipline them, I just withdrew and let her carry the entire burden. I knew she was exhausted but I didn’t help out.

  This list is not all-inclusive of the injuries I caused. They are just the ones that come to mind today as I write you this letter.

  Recently, my wife found instructions for how to clean the history off of the Internet browser. I had printed them out so I could cover up a search I had done on the word “sex”. She asked me if I had been looking at things on the web that I shouldn’t have. My first response was to lie to her. I basically said no. She then walked out of my office and started folding towels in the family room. I realized my answer was not only untruthful, but also simply ridiculous. I then went to her and told her I had lied to her. I became more truthful, but not totally honest. I told her I had viewed some pornography advertisements, but that I had not gone into the advertised Web sites. This was not the truth. Even though she begged me to be completely honest, I just couldn’t do it. I believed that if I were completely honest, she would leave me. In addition to that, I was not willing to take full responsibility for my actions. In my heart, I believed my actions were caused by how she treated me. Today I categorically know this is not the case. My unwillingness to take full responsibility lasted for quite some time. This resulted in me sporadically spewing out a little more truth. This hurt her deeply. Each time I gave a little more truth, I was re-injuring her. She was traumatized all over again. Not only did this cause more pain, it also gave her tangible evidence that I cannot be trusted. It got to the point that she told me the lies were worse than the truth. Here are a few examples of the trauma I caused my wife:

  • After we had gone through about eight weeks of my revelations, I felt I had confessed everything. She and I had been doing much better for several days and perhaps even a week. By that I mean she could see I was actually taking responsibility for my actions and was actively working on recovery. I had finally come to understand that I was 100 percent responsible for my sinful behavior. (If you’re interested in how I came to that understanding, read Edward T. Welch’s Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave.) I was actually showing by my actions that I cared for her and had empathy for the pain I had caused her.We were lying in bed talking. She was crying. She was afraid—afraid to trust me, afraid to trust my recovery. She knew of men who had been sexually sober for several years and had eventually fallen back into sexual addiction. She spoke from deep in her heart as she tried to express her fear. She knew she could not handle going through the pain again. While she wouldn’t say it, I believe she was having feelings for me and that was what was generating her fear. She didn’t want to feel again, because it would open her up to being hurt again in the future. Looking into my wife’s eyes, it was not hard to see the emotional pain she was in. It is hard to admit I am the cause of that pain. Sometimes I wonder if she isn’t right. Would it be more compassionate of me to let her go? I don’t think I can do that. I don’t ever want to hurt her again! I pray that God will take me home in a car accident before I ever hurt her by acting out in my addiction again.

  • I hope I never forget the Saturday morning when she asked me what I regretted most about my sexual addiction and what we were going through. I was in my home office at the time. I thought about it a bit and said what I regretted the most was how I used her cousin to fantasize about. I don’t remember her direct response to my comment. However, she came back into my office about a half hour later with another question. When she came back, I was working on my computer so my back was to her. She asked something to the effect, “So was she the only one you have been fanaticizing about for the last several years?”While still facing the computer I said something like, “For the most part, yes.” At this response, I heard the most blood curdling scream I ever heard in my life. It scared me to death. I turned to see my wife with her hands to her mouth continuing to scream. The object of my fantasies is not just a cousin. In all of my wife’s family, both direct and distant relatives, this one young woman is dearest to her. This has so traumatized my wife that she cannot fathom me ever seeing her dear cousin again. When she comes to visit, I will find an excuse to be out of town, even if that means I find a hotel for the weekend. This issue caused my wife great emotional pain that transferred into physical pain. She has been on strong pain medication for back pain and sciatic nerve pain for the last three months. I believe this pain was solely caused by my revealing this truth to her.

  • One evening recently we were watching TV. All of a sudden she was angry with me. She didn’t have a reason
for her anger that she could describe. Her body language just exhibited disgust for me. She was upset all weekend long. It wasn’t until the middle of the following week that she was able to understand the cause of the anger. Something on the TV rekindled the pain of my sin on her. I was thankful for the advice I received from a woman whose husband has dealt with sexual addiction effectively for years. She told me my wife will have bad days for seemingly no apparent reason. She told me I cannot fix it. I need to be with her to comfort her. This has turned out to be great advice. My being with her through these times has shown her I care. Even when she doesn’t want me there, she knows I am there for her.

  My wife’s traumatic pain has been unbelievable. The fact that the pain is not easily overcome is very difficult for me. I hate seeing her hurt. I pray that God will take the pain I have caused her off of her shoulders and put it on me. I should be the one to carry the hurt. This is enough about me.

  Story Two

  I don’t really know when it began. Or even why.

  I was brought up in a wonderful home with two parents who fully imparted God’s love to me and nurtured me in faith…

  I didn’t struggle with most of the temptations urban teenagers encounter: drugs, alcohol, cheating at school, fighting, stealing. I had a superego the size of a department store. Yet, sexual fantasy was a challenge for me, a source of incredible guilt and torment. Fortunately, through high school, I had limited exposure to explicit material.