Your Sexually Addicted Spouse

by Barbara Steffens

  There were days and nights when there were nothing but tears and mostly quiet between us. I remember with deep sorrow how much I hurt her, how I was the cause for her tears. Just seeing her cry was a very sobering experience. But somehow she was also able to be vulnerable with me in expressing the level of pain that I was causing. She could have chosen to minimize, to turn inward as a way to protect herself from further pain. Or she could have said it was my issue that I should go and get tested. But she was able to express the depth of her pain in a way that wasn’t shaming or condemning. What she said held up a mirror to help me see the depth of my betrayal, but still concerned me. She was able to be honest, acknowledging the truth of my betrayal.

  All of these early responses helped me see that I was responsible. Her hurt was all because of me; it was my fault and my failure. There was nothing that she had done that was any excuse for my decisions. I couldn’t place any blame anywhere else but on myself. So then I needed to verbalize to my wife that I was at fault. I’m sure that wasn’t any consolation to her in the beginning. Big deal, so I didn’t blame her. I don’t think she really cared that much at the time that I blamed myself. It didn’t change anything that I had already done, didn’t lessen the pain.

  However, for me, for sex addicts, it is the first, maybe most important truth to understand: that this mess is my fault. I couldn’t lay blame anywhere else. And then since it’s my fault, I’m the one who should start to take responsibility. And once I could see that, there was something I could do; something I had to do. I’m the one to look at ways to change the situation. I wanted to do whatever I could to save our relationship. That was an important idea for me to grasp.

  Another aspect of owning the problem was that I couldn’t really demand much from my wife. I couldn’t say, “You should be patient with me” or “You should try to understand” or “I need you to help me fix my behavior.” I was the problem, not her. I made the bad choices, not her. I was the source of her pain. So my wife wasn’t the one who needed to do anything to change me. I was the one who needed to go to work.

  To the wives who are partners of sex addicts:• You didn’t do anything to cause this. It isn’t your fault.

  • Be as truthful as you can about your anger and pain.

  • Hold him responsible, but you can’t fix him.

  • It’s okay to grieve the loss.

  To the husbands who are sex addicts:• Suck it up and take responsibility for your behaviors.

  • Quit lying to yourself that no one is being hurt. Even in the secret, there is a barrier, a lie between you and your wife.

  • Become truthful, to an excess.

  • Open up your life, be accountable.

  • After you work on the behaviors, start working on the underlying problems.

  Story Six

  As a man in recovery who is also a therapist specializing in helping those with sexual addictions, I always tell clients I like to help them both from a professional and personal standpoint. I’m happy to offer my own story around that with my own wife.

  First, let me just acknowledge and validate the pain that wives go through when hearing of their husbands’ infidelities whether that’s actual adultery or a figurative form such as pornography, compulsive masturbation, habitual, willful fantasy or any other kind of compromise to the sacred and holy marital covenant. It’s been my experience in treating hundreds of men and marriages for such sexual and relational problems that there are few things that are more painful for a woman than sexual unfaithfulness.

  Sadly, this pain is often compounded by dishonesty and lack of forthrightness. In fact, more than once a wife has told me after learning of her husband’s mistakes that she felt confident she could handle the trespass but devastated by the lack of truthfulness about it. It’s as if the lying far overshadowed the sin itself. Conversely, when men have been honest with what’s happened to the degree that a wife requires, more often than not, I’ve seen wives able to not only handle the truth but also be extraordinarily gracious and forgiving. On behalf of all men who have sinned against you, I say to you wives, “I hope you can come to a place of forgiveness for how you’ve been harmed.”

  I think we as men, less skilled in relationships, tend to project our own condemnation, fear and shame onto our spouses, which makes sense why we would be hesitant or less likely to come forward with the truth and more likely to isolate and hide. This is no excuse but rather a challenge: we as men have our relational and character work cut out for us!

  I have seen these same dynamics to one degree or another in my own marriage and recovery story. In fact, my wife is the main reason I finally chose true recovery and why I remain open, honest and accountable today as I work out my integrity and healing from pornography and compulsive masturbation. Not that she forced me, but she was real with me in showing me her pain.

  I’ll never forget the first time my wife ever asked me, “When was the last time you acted out?” Now, up until then she had always just prayed for me and tried to hear me out whenever I came to her with my slip, choosing to believe that “This is between him and God.” After going to a seminar for wives and getting empowered to be more responsible for the marriage and the integrity therein (not that that made me any less responsible on my end), she decided to ask for the first time.

  Well, to that date, I had always just brought things to her when I failed and did so within a day. This was largely out of a sense of wanting to be honest and open but also out of shame and a desire for her to “fix” me by forgiving me and praying for me. This time was different: I had a slip a couple days before and hadn’t gotten around to telling her yet, because I was getting more and more desensitized. So, when she asked me for the very first time, unfortunately, I had bad news!

  After telling her what had happened, my wife had a simple yet profound, calm yet pained response: “The Bible says that when you commit the sin of lust it’s like committing adultery in your heart.” Wow. There it was. It was like getting hit in the face with a skillet. I was instantly grieved for my wife’s heart—I never wanted to see that look on her face or hear her have to say those words again. So, I immediately got online that day and found some resources and made a call to get myself into a group that week. While I have been in recovery ever since (five years now), I am not perfect. While I have come a long way, I still make mistakes. Besides not making those mistakes as often or to the degree I used to, the main difference now is that I am accountable and this gives my wife comfort and a sense of safety. When I make a mistake, I still need to confess it to her and to my accountability group brothers. But I also need to tend to her heart. She needs someone to talk to about this so we’ve arranged for counseling for her when she needs it. She sometimes needs space or to express understandable anger in a healthy way before she can forgive and before we can be reconciled. And I can’t shame or condemn her for that.

  I’m still honest but I want more for my wife than just honesty—I want success in honoring her with my sexuality. I want her to know that she is the only one for whom that special part of me is reserved. And in that, we not only honor each other, we also honor God, our creator.

  Chapter 10

  From the Lives of Partners and Former Partners of Sex Addicts

  Story Seven

  It was early May. I was going online to prepare for the coming worship service. My husband and I were worship leaders and it was our Sunday to lead. I found the perfect song for my husband to sing. I thought, He will do it well and with real integrity. What a special Mother’s Day this is going to be!

  I went to my computer and got online to look at a Web site. I was going back to a site I had visited previously, so I clicked on the history button on the Web browser and the drop-down box held lists of all the sites I’d visited in the past two weeks…only there were sites that I didn’t recognize. Not only did I not recognize them, also the names of these sites were of a sexual nature. My heart began to race and a tingling sensation spread throughout m
y body as I selected one and clicked. Then I sat there breathless as a Web page filled my computer screen. The page was a full-size photograph of a naked woman. My hands began to shake and my heart rate increased even more as I went back to the history list and clicked again, only to have yet another pornography Web site load onto my computer screen. I don’t remember how many I looked at, but it was enough for me to see that the sites were many and filled the week’s history. This was no accidental download; this was evidence of intentional seeking out and viewing pornographic materials on my computer in my home—the place where I felt safest.

  I no longer felt safe at all.

  I shook uncontrollably and cried. I called my husband at work. He answered the phone and I said something like, “Someone’s been viewing pornography on the computer”, which was met with silence. The silence answered the question. I told him we’d talk about it when he got home from work. I was filled with rage, with incredible fear and shock. I’m a therapist. I knew about compulsive sexual behavior, and I knew that’s what I was seeing on the computer. Things started to make sense: the times I had nightmares about him having an affair, the times I found him early in the morning in front of the television, quickly changing channels, the times I had walked into our office when he was on the computer and he quickly minimized the webpage. “What are you doing?” I asked, and he always said, “Just shopping” or “Sorry, I didn’t change the channel quick enough… looking for the news” or something like that. Of course, I believed him. He’s my husband and he would never involve himself in something so degrading to women or to marriage. He’d never do something he knew would devastate me or shatter my trust.

  But reality set in and it was clear that he would and did. Again, being a therapist, I knew that compulsive sexual behavior was less about sex and more about pain management or escape. Knowing this in my head didn’t have nearly enough effect on my heart, which was broken and terrified. If he could hide this, lie to me this way, what other things might he be doing? Is he having affairs? Does the pornography include child content? Am I at risk of an STD or AIDS? Is my marriage at risk? What about my girls? Our daughters…are they at risk? As much as I wanted to slow my thoughts down, they did not stop. They were racing, along with my heart.

  Over the next few weeks, we had many conversations and sought out help and accountability. These were life-saving actions. But the racing thoughts, racing heart, anxiety, fear, dread, irritability, flashbacks…all of that continued for a very, very long time. I could not allow him to touch me some days and others I needed his touch. Yet his touch felt very unsafe. I paced the room sometimes, got lost when driving or when in strange places. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t control the timing of my tears and I felt a seething anger that I could not let out. It left my chest feeling so tight, so sore, I thought (and wished) I was having a heart attack. This was real, physical heartache.

  I noticed things that didn’t stand out to me before. I couldn’t walk through the mall without seeing sexual material, all of which felt like horrible reminders and current threats. Even standing in line in the grocery store with the glossy-covered magazines triggered fear, anger and dread. Watching television could initiate waves of sadness or fear. Walking past my computer or going into my office brought pangs of sadness and grief. Anything and everything seemed to rip open the wounds; there was no healing. I felt raw.

  An acquaintance who ran groups for men gave me a box of books. I read and read, trying to understand. How did this happen in my marriage? What could I expect in the future? As I read, I found very little that helped me. It all explained about my husband’s behaviors and recovery or gave a little information that validated that I was in crisis. I knew that. Then I started reading materials with the term “co-addict.” I read what were described as the characteristics of a co-addict. Then I found the definition or criteria for being this “co-addicted” person. All you needed was to be in a relationship with the addicted person. Well, again, I’m a therapist, and I know you just don’t diagnose or label a person based on with whom they are in a relationship. Yet the materials written by sex addiction professionals all called me a co-addict. They assumed I was codependent. They assumed things about my personal history that, of course, “set me up” for marrying a man who would have a sex addiction. So on one hand, the books said there was nothing I can do about his addiction and I did not cause it. Then, the books said that my co-addiction helped fuel and maintain his addiction. I was a co-conspirator! So my pain and trauma and incredible fear, according to these books, was destined to occur—I was just as sick as my sexually addicted husband. If I didn’t believe this truth about myself, it was evidence of my state of denial. Everything within me knew that, although I do have my issues, in no way am I or could I ever be responsible for how my husband chooses to act out his pain. I am not and will not accept that I am responsible for his actions. I bear no complicity. Any denial I may have entertained was shattered when I discovered my husband’s dark secret of sexual betrayal through compulsive sexual behavior.

  My husband allowed this crisis of discovery to propel him into health. He did anything and everything he could to demonstrate to me his intention to change and to become a man after God’s heart. And he has consistently done so. He never blamed me, and he worked to discover where and how his emotional wounds led him to this place. He tried with all his might to help rebuild what was shattered in our relationship.

  Early on, we both realized there was no rebuilding…we were building anew. Our relationship had to be a new work because the old relationship had been shattered. It no longer existed. And although he was doing well and feeling stronger every day, my sadness, anger and fear became almost constant companions for a long while. And now, some twelve years later, I still have scars and even soreness in places. I’m not sure these scars will ever heal. I still cannot stand naked in front of my husband. I will not allow him to see me dress or undress. The innocence is gone. I do not want to share that part of myself, because I cannot be totally open to him. I trust his heart towards health and towards me, but I also know deep in my bones that he has the capacity to act out again and I would again be left to pick up the shattered pieces. I don’t know when or if that fear will ever go away.

  And through my own healing of this traumatic betrayal, I have found safety in other places: in God, in myself, in friends and in my abilities to seek out what I need. I feel safer now with my husband than I did, say, ten years ago. But totally safe? Not yet. Will I ever? I know I will be safe at last when I am finally home with Jesus. There is no other totally safe place.

  Story Eight

  I am entering my sixteenth year of a relationship with a sex addict. That part of the story includes porn, incest and multiple affairs. I know firsthand the depth and breadth of the emotional challenges, the financial consequences and multifaceted damage a family incurs when such a challenge enters a woman’s life…a family’s life.

  In the beginning, I had a false sense that somehow I could fix the damage or that somehow, if I worked hard enough, it would all get better. So I focused all of my energies into making sure that my husband and my family got all the counseling and support they needed. I mistakenly thought that if my family was okay then I would be okay. The biggest mistake I made early on in this journey was not making sure that I got the support I needed to allow healing to occur in my heart and mind. It wasn’t that I didn’t look for help; I looked, but discovered that at that time in my recovery, no one—either Christian or secular—knew how to give me the help that I needed. After a while, I just stopped looking.

  But the bigger story in all of this is what God has done and is doing in my life. One of the first challenges I had to resolve was figuring out whether or not God really loved me. Were the promises in the Bible for me or were they just meant for people and families who lived better lives than I had, people who were somehow part of God’s “inner circle”? Our pastor gently explained that either I would have to accept everything the Bible h
ad to say or I would have to reject it in its entirety. I couldn’t pick and choose and decide for myself what God meant for me and what he intended for other people. Knowing I couldn’t throw out the whole Bible, I decided to believe it all.

  Through these sixteen years the hardest thing has been realizing that my husband has not yet—and he may never—understand the depth of the damage his actions have caused. I used to believe that I could not be in a relationship with him unless he came to that realization. And I used to believe that I could not heal until he was willing to enter my pain, to know my loss and to walk with me from that place of understanding.

  Perhaps the greatest thing God has shown me is that my well-being can exist totally apart from my husband’s behavior and totally within God’s sphere of care. It has taken a great deal of time to come to this realization, time that included a lot of personal growth and self-care. I have learned that my responses to situations have to do with me and my choices. I have learned that I get to be who I choose to be in spite of others’ actions or the circumstances that life presents. I can choose to find healthy people who are able to support what I believe God has called me to do. I can choose to enter deeper into the mysteries of forgiveness and reconciliation and in so doing, come to know my Abba Father in a way I had not known Him before.

  Your journey will be unique, your story sacred. I cannot tell you how your story will progress or how it will end. But I can tell you that God will be faithful to you, even when it doesn’t look like He is anywhere to be found. The desert places will be dry and oftentimes lonely. But each step on your path will have purpose, whether it leads you through a desert place or to a mountain top.

  Work towards surrounding yourself with a support team. This step holds such importance that you must make it a priority, both with your time and with your finances. Wherever you are right now, you can heal only if you decide not to stay where you presently find yourself. Know that you have many brothers and sisters who know this place well. Pray that God will help you find them or bring them into your life.