Your Sexually Addicted Spouse Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Authors’ Note

  Introduction

  PART I - WHEN YOUR PARTNER’S SEXUAL ADDICTION SHATTERS YOUR WORLD

  Chapter 1 - What is Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress?

  What is Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress? Trauma Defined

  Trauma’s Symptoms and its Long-Lasting Effects

  Post-Traumatic Stress and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

  Relational Traumas

  Infidelity and Relational Trauma

  What We See in Our Work with Partners

  Partners’ Descriptions of Their Betrayal Experiences

  Chapter 2 - A Study in Contrasts: Is it Co-Addiction or is it Trauma?

  THE CO-ADDICTION PERSPECTIVE

  THE TRAUMA PERSPECTIVE

  Chapter 3 - Why Your Partner’s Sex Addiction Hurts So Much: Attachment Bonds Betrayed

  Our Deepest Attachment Bond and Trauma Attachment Bonds: What They Are and ...

  Fear of Abandonment: The Fundamental Human Fear

  When Attachment Bonds are Betrayed: The Impact of Relational Trauma

  The Destructive Effects of Repeated Relational Trauma

  The Painful Effects of Delayed Reconnection

  The Betrayal of the Marital Promise

  HIV and STD Risks

  Chapter 4 - How the Addiction and Trauma Models Differ in Helping You Heal

  Many Partners Do Not Enable Once They Discover the Reality

  A Messy Exterior Does Not Equal Codependency

  The Addiction/12-Step Approach to Treatment

  Strengths of the Addiction/12-Step Approach

  What We Believe Gets Overlooked in the 12-Step Approach

  The Importance of Knowing the Whole Truth

  Partners Seek Truth, Not Control

  Recognizing and Understanding a Partner’s Motivation

  Why We Believe it’s Important to Re-Frame a Partner’s Reactions as Trauma

  Is 12-Step Recovery Work a Good Adjunct in Your Healing Journey?

  Chapter 5 - Trauma Impacts on Every Level: Potential Physical and Mental ...

  Trauma, PTSD and Your Brain

  Fear Activates the Amygdala

  Where Does Stress End and Trauma Begin?

  Action’s Countering Force

  The Power of Powerlessness

  The Mistake of “Emotion-Focused” Change

  Neurochemical and Physiological Differences between Trauma and PTSD

  Enter PTSD

  The Chemistry Behind Indiscriminate Fight or Flight Responses

  PTSD’s Impact on the Brain Can Skew Your Judgment

  PTSD Interferes With One’s Ability to Self-Sooth

  “Speechless Terror”

  Nature’s Just-As-If Response

  PTSD Can Interfere with Your Therapeutic Process

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

  Trauma’s Body-Wide Damage

  Trauma’s Impact on Mental Health

  Trauma’s Supercharged Hormone Baths and Our Health

  Cortisol: A Critical Culprit

  Common Conditions that Trauma can Trigger

  PART II - YOUR JOURNEY TOWARD WHOLENESS

  Chapter 6 - Healing from Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress

  Caveats in Healing from Betrayal Trauma

  The Starting Point: Find Support Immediately

  Consider a Specialized Counselor Who Can Provide a Directed, Supportive ...

  Consider Including a Polygraph Test in Disclosure

  Re-Establish Your Safety

  Find or Build Good Support Systems

  Consider Family Members or Close Friends If They Are “Safe”

  Consider Your Minister, Rabbi or Other Clergy if He or She is “Safe”

  Find a Counselor Who Specializes in Sex Addiction or Trauma if Possible

  You May Need to Educate Your Support System about Trauma’s Effects

  Join a “Partners of Sex Addicts” Support Group

  Qualities Found in Healthy Groups

  Seek a Doctor’s Help if You’re Struggling with Depression or Anxiety

  An Additional Word about Suicidal Thoughts or Feelings

  Create the Boundaries You Need to Feel Safe in Your Home Again

  Triggers

  Boundaries

  Safety

  A Shift in Focus from Making Your Partner Stop to Creating the Boundaries You ...

  What Do I Need?

  Identify Your Triggers and Consider Boundaries to Block Them

  Plan for Triggering Situations

  Do You Need Sexual Boundaries With Your Partner?

  Do You Need A Temporary Separation? In-Home Separation

  Actual Temporary Separation

  What Other Boundaries Do You Need?

  Practice Good Self-Care

  The Three Components of Self-Care

  Mental/Emotional

  Physical

  Spiritual

  Good Self-Care Can Help You Continue to Care for Your Children and Continue ...

  Chapter 7 - From Crisis to Stability

  The Paralyzing Power of Fear and Grief

  The Power of Fear

  The Power of Grief

  Creating Boundaries Between Yourself and Trauma’s Fear and Grief

  Learning to Self-Soothe and Renew for Greater Self-Control and Peace

  Mental and Physical “Loosening Techniques”

  Distraction

  Processing

  Build the Quality of Resiliency in Your Personality

  Understand and Conquer Dissociation Dissociation

  What Causes Dissociation?

  Countering Dissociation with Grounding and Impersonal Energy

  Impersonal Energy

  Eliminate Cognitive Distortions

  Eliminate Negative Self-Talk

  Learn and Use Positive Self-Talk

  Begin Emotional Processing and Grieving

  Get the Help of a Counselor if Possible

  The Steps that Lead to Healing

  Possible Methods for Processing Your Pain

  A Closer Look at the Healing Methods Listed Externalize the Problem by Sharing ...

  Nature Based Healing

  Expressive Therapy

  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

  Renegotiating Your Trauma with a Counselor’s Therapeutic Interventions

  Body Therapies

  Chapter 8 - From Integration to Triumph

  Cultivate Personal Empowerment

  What Empowerment Is

  The “F” Word: Consider Forgiveness

  Integration and Transformation

  Finding New Hope by Transforming Past Pain Into a Positive Purpose

  PART III - STORIES FROM THE OTHER SIDE

  Life After Trauma’s Impact

  Chapter 9 - From the Hearts of Sex Addicts Who “Get It” and Care

  Story One

  Story Two

  Story Three

  Story Four

  Story Five

  Story Six

  Chapter 10 - From the Lives of Partners and Former Partners of Sex Addicts

  Story Seven

  Story Eight

  Story Nine

  Story Ten

  Conclusion

  Appendix

  Acknowledgements

  Resources

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the many courageous women and men who openly shared their experiences in the hopes that others might receive the help and support they need. I’m grateful for the privilege of serving
as a witness to your journey through such difficult places. I have learned much from you. I also dedicate this to my husband who is the bravest man I know, and my daughters who are my delight. Ultimately, this work is dedicated to the glory of God; He is the one who can make all things new.

  —Barbara Steffens, Ph.D.

  To my mother, “Rusti” Eloise Farnworth, who rolled up her sleeves and helped me in practical ways; who listed as I dealt with my own trauma and grieved my painful losses; and who continues to be my biggest fan and my prayer warrior extraordinaire. Lord, what will I do without her when you take her home?

  —Marsha Means, MA

  Authors’ Note

  This book is based on our research, a thorough study of the available literature and experience counseling patients, as well as our clients’ own real life experiences. Fictitious identities and names have been given to certain characters in this book in order to protect individual privacy and some characters are composites. For purposes of simplifying usage, the pronouns his/her and s/he are sometimes used interchangeably.

  The information contained herein is not meant to be a substitute for professional evaluation and therapy.

  Introduction

  Unlike most books written for partners of sex addicts, this book is not written to help you understand the addict and his or her addiction. Rather, it is written to help you survive, recover and thrive, no matter what your partner does with his or her addiction.

  Another distinct difference separates this book from others written for partners of sex addicts:1 Nowhere between these covers will you encounter information that automatically labels you a co-addict or a codependent. And nowhere will we tell you that you have a co-addiction, simply because you married a person you have since discovered struggles with sexual addiction.

  These terms are often automatically used to label you by those who believe that you, along with your partner, have a problem or even an addiction from which you need to recover simply because you chose your partner in the first place. In past sex addiction literature, if partners of sex addicts compulsively check up on their spouses, become emotionally numb, feel anger or rage, placate their partners or isolate themselves, among a long list of other behaviors, many view them as showing signs of their own addictive tendencies and loss of self.

  Nevertheless, we categorize your pain, confusion, distress, reactions and fear as natural responses to trauma. As the authors of this book, our deepest desire is to help you understand how you have been wounded and most likely traumatized so that you can bravely begin to heal. After years of experience and research, we believe that healing the pain from the trauma provides the shortest route to emotional and physical health and wholeness. We know many of you will comment, “Finally, someone is saying what I’ve intuitively known all along!”

  We hope that, in time, these observations will empower and equip professionals hoping to provide alternate ways to understand and aid you in processing your pain so they can help you completely heal from its effect in your life. While not all partners of sex addicts are female, most of those who seek help are women married to male sex addicts. Little research exists that focuses on the male partner of a female sex addict. We believe that the material and suggestions found in these pages will help, encourage and bring healing to both men and women who are so deeply affected by the reality of sex addiction in their spouses. Even as we write, other mental health professionals incorporate Barbara’s study on the relationship of trauma and sexual addiction into their Web sites and practices. We believe that true hope, help and change will come, though it may come slowly.

  In the meantime, information is power and we hope this information will empower you to recognize your needs and find help to heal your ongoing pain so that you can once again experience true joy in your life. This is our prayer for you.

  PART I

  WHEN YOUR PARTNER’S SEXUAL ADDICTION SHATTERS YOUR WORLD

  Chapter 1

  What is Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress?

  The deep relational trauma Katherine experienced in her relationship with her husband is evident in her story.

  Sitting there on the narrow staircase with a blanket wrapped around me, I couldn’t stop shaking. The sergeant and a female officer had just spent an hour and a half grilling me about my husband, Neil.

  Unable to move, I listened as they repeated the whole process with my seventeen-year-old son. Only moments before he had returned from band practice and walked into this bizarre scene. Numb, I heard my son asking the same questions I had.

  “How is any of this possible?”

  “If this is true, wouldn’t I have seen it?”

  “Why can’t I stop shaking like this?”

  The sergeant and five others arrived to our home at 8:00 P.M., April 1. Ironically, April Fools’ Day. I thought it was a prank at first—a cruel prank—but as three of the officers began to scour our home computers as the sergeant and the female officer focused on me, I realized they weren’t joking. I took my youngest son to his room and turned up his television set.

  My husband had been missing for twenty-four hours. He was on his way home from a business trip, but he never showed up.

  “Your husband was arrested as he entered the country,” the sergeant said. “He’s been charged with possession of child pornography and he’s in jail.”

  He was relentless as he began to grill me. As time went on, I think he must have realized I was going into shock and attempted to be gentler, but it didn’t change anything. What he said—what I heard about my husband—was not gentle.

  The female officer never said anything. She just kept watching me, never taking her eyes off of me. Watching me intently.

  I felt myself dissociating from reality. It felt like I was having an out-of-body experience, as if I was observing the whole scene, rather than participating in it. But mostly I was numb. Cold and numb.

  What will this do to my children? I kept wondering. My two older kids were on their way to the house only to be told news about their father that was going to devastate them. They needed to know, but what was I going to say? How could I break the news that their father was in custody?

  Eventually, the officers left. I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep, even though I was exhausted; more tired than I’ve ever been. I curled up in a ball and cried and prayed all night. I couldn’t think. I just cried and prayed.

  Neil’s actions wounded Katherine deeply and left emotional scars—scars she must integrate into her life if she wants to completely heal from the experience.

  Although trauma and post-traumatic stress have been recognized as common occurrences in the human experience for over a century, the acknowledgment of relational trauma evolved later as researchers began to note the extreme emotional pain and psychological damage we experience when betrayed or victimized by someone close.

  As researchers studied relational trauma, they observed that its intensity increased when inflicted by someone we believe we can trust—someone we believe we can go to for support, like a parent, friend or romantic partner. In those times, the person we trust becomes our source of pain, as did Neil in Katherine’s life.

  To gain a better understanding of trauma, let’s begin by looking at its general forms: trauma, post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We’ll look at what comprises these diagnoses of clustered symptoms and how they impact our ability to cope. Then we’ll take a closer look at relational traumas, the trauma category we believe partners of sex addicts fall into.

  What is Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress? Trauma Defined

  Two kinds of trauma exist: physiological trauma and psychological trauma. Each involves an injury that takes place during an extrinsic (or external) event. Physiological trauma damages our bodies and our psyches. In this section, we will focus only on the psychological form and its impact.

  Reports and vividly colored photos and video footage of traumatic events fill our newspapers and news shows every day of our
lives. All who watched as airplanes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, know how a traumatic event looks and feels. Our awareness that thousands of family members with loved ones trapped in those buildings experienced unspeakable horror as they watched the same drama unfold inflicted us with a measure of their pain. But only a measure.

  For the family members themselves, the trauma was far more devastating. Author Abigail Carter was among them. She writes:The phone rang. It was my husband telling me that he was at Windows of the World in the World Trade Center.

  “There’s been a bomb!” he said. I had been preparing my six-year-old daughter for her second day of first grade, balancing my two-year-old son on my hip, and I was distracted. “Okay...” I managed to say. It was 8:49 A.M. on September 11, 2001. He never came home. 1

  Before 9/11, Abigail believed she had everything she wanted in life, including a loving husband and two precious children. But in one destructive moment her life was forever broken into two starkly different chunks: before 9/11 and after 9/11.

  Though we felt her faceless, nameless pain from a distance that morning, our lives were not irreparably altered forever. Abigail was at the personal epicenter of that traumatizing event. Our secondhand observations could never enable us to grasp the extent of what she endured that day or in all the days that followed it. Trauma remains a very personal experience.

  Though psychological traumas don’t generally involve blood, their wounds can damage and cripple us just like those that wound our flesh. Actually, in many ways, their damage can be more severe and less likely to heal, because psychological trauma wounds remain invisible. They are often overlooked, mislabeled or misunderstood.

  Psychological trauma frequently accompanies natural disasters and catastrophic events, but it also accompanies personal and relational traumatic events, such as sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence, ongoing emotional and verbal abuse, long-term extreme poverty and sexual betrayal. Such events cause intense psychological pain and overwhelm our ability to cope or to readily integrate the violations and emotions produced by these experiences.