What is Sex Addiction?

Sex Addiction is not yet recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5), though it is anticipated that it will be included in the next edition and it is considered one of a handful of “process” or “behavioral” addictions. Process addiction is a medical term that refers to addictions that are not related to substances, but rather to a behavior such as sex, gambling, and gaming.

The individual is not addicted to a substance but the behavior or the feeling brought about by the relevant action.

In sex addiction, the sexual behavior is no longer associated with pleasure or enjoyment in the relationship or with the development of intimacy. The sexual acting out becomes intertwined with the management of feelings—escaping painful dynamics in one’s life, relieving anxiety, avoiding primary relationships, punishing one’s partner, and an out-of-control arousal system that is never satiated or satisfied.

Having a sex addiction does not mean you are addicted to sex, but rather you have a compulsive relationship to sexual behavior and it is interfering with your life.

Sex Addiction Behavior

The behaviors exhibited in sexual addiction can be wide and varied, ranging from chronic infidelity, compulsive masturbation, or pornography use to voyeurism or constant demand for sexual behaviors within the primary relationship. Though the specific behaviors may vary, there are many common traits amongst those struggling with sex addiction, including, but not limited to:

• chronic, obsessive sexual thoughts and fantasies.
• compulsive relations with multiple partners, including strangers.
• lying to cover behaviors.
• preoccupation with having sex, even when it interferes with daily life, productivity, work performance, and so on.
• inability to stop or control the behaviors.
• continued acting out despite negative consequences, personally or professionally.

Dealing with Sex Addiction

If you or your partner identify with one or more of these symptoms, you may be dealing with an addiction. If an addiction is present, it is important to understand that the relationship to the addiction is the primary relationship in that person’s world. One of the hallmarks of addiction is there is always an escalation of behavior—increased time, cost, and risk—that, if untreated, will get worse.

Seek a clinician who has specific training in addiction, ideally a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT) to evaluate and assess your behaviors and history of acting out to determine if there is an addiction and to help identify a course of treatment.

It is important to recognize that not everyone who lies about their sexual behavior is an addict, nor is everyone who cheats a sex addict. But, if you do have a sex addiction, you will need specialized help and support in overcoming these damaging behaviors and addressing the toll it has taken on you and your relationships. We at the Marriage Recovery Center would love to help you do that!

For more information, please contact us at (206) 219-0145.

The one who had the affair is the one who stepped out of the sacred bounds of the marriage. Feeling intensely betrayed, enraged, and resentful, the “victim” often attacks the “villain,” creating even more distance than existed before. While it is tempting to vilify the one who had the affair, we must examine what led up to the affair.

Before we embark on this journey to examine why it happened, I must be clear—nothing justifies an affair. This is a form of acting out in a most egregious manner, a most hurtful response to inner and outer stress. It is a failed attempt to find peace that only leads to even greater pain.

Affairs Have Meaning

While it is never justified, an affair often has meaning, and understanding that meaning can provide insurance against it ever happening again. Most affairs occur in the context of significant marriage issues. A skilled counselor can help the couple look deeper at the marriage problems that existed long before the affair took place.

Marriages susceptible to affairs often struggle with the issues below. If you find yourself with some of these “symptoms,” seek immediate, deep help. Your relationship may be vulnerable to an affair.

• A lack of functionality—fighting about the same issues again and again.
• A lack of intimacy—ineffective communication, with feelings of distance, resentment, and turmoil.
• A lack of acceptance and significance—ignoring your mate’s need for acceptance, appreciation, and significance.
• A lack of excitement—allowing the relationship to become stale, with little “spark” or adventure.
• A lack of sexual enthusiasm—allowing their sexual life to become boring and routine or perhaps nonexistent.

Steps for Recovering from an Affair

1. Be with your feelings and make every effort to understand what your mate is experiencing.
   Both the one who has been victimized and the one who had the affair have feelings about what took place. If you had the affair, make continuous effort to understand your mate’s feelings of betrayal and be patient in the healing process. If your partner had the affair, work at seeing the larger picture. Try to see the affair as a symptom of a larger, more complex problem.
2. Recognize that both partners played a role in the affair and both must take an active role in healing from the affair.
   This doesn’t mean the victim “caused” the affair or must take responsibility for it. What it means is that both are responsible for creating an environment in which an affair could occur (short of being married to a sexual addict.) Subsequently, both must be diligent about taking responsibility for their part and both will need healing and changes to their patterns of relating to ensure that an affair doesn’t recur.
3. Understand that it will take time and effort to restore trust.
   Trust can be restored, but this will require time, effort, and wisdom. Healthy boundaries must be restored to the marriage. The one who had the affair must show, repeatedly, that they are truly sorry for the damage they have caused. Both must be committed to long term healing of the marriage.
4. Consider therapeutic work with a professional.
   Should you fail to move through recovery from the affair, this suggests further intervention is needed, and that IS available. We will help you determine what is blocking and impeding growth and recovery.
5. Agree to grow through this trauma, not simply go through it.
   Locking arms, dedicated to healing, you both can work diligently with a trained specialist to heal and become stronger and healthier than ever before. Notice the gains and reinforce progress.

We’re here to help!

I fully recognize that this is an incredibly sensitive topic. It is so easy and tempting to become adversarial, shift into blaming and shaming. Recovery is best done with expert help, and we at The Marriage Recovery Center are available for this process. Please contact our Client Care Team for more information or to get started with one of our therapists or coaches.

No person has ever said, “I cannot wait to fall in love, give myself completely to my spouse, and then find out one day that he or she has cheated on me!”

In marital relationships, sexual betrayal elicits a trauma response. Sexual betrayal is extraordinarily significant and causes deep wounds because it involves an offense against the body, mind, heart, and soul. In a conjugal union, each person is vulnerable and trusting. Because of this, the act of betrayal violates the recipient’s sense of safety and elicits a trauma response. It can destroy your ability to relate to your family, friends, and children. It can affect your ability to function at work and at home.

Is this your story? Do you remember the day and the hour when you discovered your spouse was using pornography, having an emotional affair, or having a full blown physical sexual affair with another person? The shock is jolting, and the wounds are deep. Whether this was a one-time event or it is an ongoing problem in your relationship, sexual betrayal may be causing PTSD symptoms in you.

Trauma Symptoms

The following are all symptoms of unresolved trauma and PTSD. If you are experiencing several of these symptoms, you may want to be assessed for PTSD. Leaving traumatic experiences unresolved can negatively affect your relationships and your physical and mental health, so don’t wait too long to reach out for help.

Do you…

• Have intrusive thoughts about the infidelity?
• Have nightmares or other sleep disturbances?
• Have ruminations about the event or events?
• Feel constantly on edge or hypervigilant?
• Avoid triggers that remind you of the initial trauma?
• Detach or feel detached from others?
• React to daily events with over-exaggerated emotions?
• Have trouble focusing?
• Feel hopeless, numb, guilty, shameful, or bad about yourself, others, or the world in general?
• Not want to participate in activities you used to enjoy?
• Not trust anyone anymore?
• Feel out of control?

Getting Help with PTSD

If you have been betrayed by your partner through sexual infidelity, know that you can heal these wounds and move forward with your life! We here at the Marriage Recovery Center want to help and walk with you through your healing. We provide PTSD assessment and trauma counseling that can help you resolve your unprocessed traumas. We provide you with a safe place to be heard, tell your story, process trauma through EMDR or CBT/Narrative therapy, work on forgiveness, restructure your life by identifying how to be safe, and regain trust in yourself and others.

If you’d like to learn more about our trauma counseling or other options at the Marriage Recovery Center, please contact our Client Care Team. Remember, you are a valuable person and worth the effort!

On one hand, we’re taught that sex is a very private, personal matter where you can decide what works for you; what you do in the privacy of your own home is up to you. Our culture certainly promotes detaching sex from relationships, claiming it’s not hurting anybody, especially if it’s consensual.

On the other hand, we clearly see that sex is a very private, personal matter that is sacred to us. If someone invades that personal space without a healthy, trustworthy context, it eventually destroys our relationship with that person.

Sex is Meant as a Gift to Reflect God

It is true that the power of sex is profound—God created it to be! But it is easily twisted into something very different than He meant for us to experience when it becomes an act of coercion, manipulation, and entitlement. He meant it as a gift to reflect Him—love, intimacy, vulnerability, connection, joy.

I doubt those words describe the sexual experience of those who are in a broken relationship, separated, or divorced. There is no love, intimacy, vulnerability, connection, or joy where there is deceit, abuse, silencing, or contempt. Sex becomes just a physical, meaningless release which leaves at least one person feeling used, unloved, betrayed, and abandoned. This is especially true in the context of separation and divorce when it begins to feel like sex is a false sense of reconnection, a pastime in which each goes back to their own space with no responsibility to follow up with emotional care.

Emotional and Sexual Connection

What if it seems like sex is the ONLY connection you have? What about what the Bible says about “not defrauding” each other?

If you are serious about changing the trajectory of your marriage, you will have to take a hard look at these questions. If you are using sex to fulfill a need without addressing the need of emotional connection, you are using sex to harm, not bring life. Sex was meant to flow out of an emotional relationship, not dominate the relationship. In fact, when sex does dominate where there hasn’t been a solid foundation built emotionally, trust and love quickly erode.

If your sexual experiences end in shame, sorrow, or disgust, something is very wrong. Continuing to participate will make it harder, if not impossible, to heal from whatever has caused the emotional break in your relationship. It will compound your confusion about what’s happening and what to do about it.

Maybe you’re afraid that if you stop having sex with your estranged husband, he’ll simply go find it elsewhere…and maybe he will. That would be really sad. But, in reality, maintaining sex with your spouse just to keep him from going elsewhere misses what God designed it to be, too. Imagine how powerful it would be to see him honor you with his sexuality without you controlling it?

Maybe you feel coerced by not wanting to dishonor God by keeping your body from your spouse. I would challenge you to take another look at what it might mean to honor God sexually. If He created sexuality to be within the context of a relationship that reflects Him, what would that say about a husband demanding sex without caring for your heart?

If you can maintain a sexual relationship in the context of an emotionally broken space, and if that is something that is providing a healing space for both of you, there is probably not a good reason to stop. But, if it is creating more heartache and confusion, it’s worth putting it on the back-burner until the emotional connection can be tightly rebuilt. If you want to experience what God really intended for sexual intimacy, you cannot keep it separated from emotional intimacy. Allow yourself to get back to building a solid foundation in which both of you can thrive relationally.

We’re ready to help rebuild your relationship!

Here at the Marriage Recovery Center, we work with couples and individuals in all different stages of relationships. If you have questions or feel confused about your sexual relationship or you want to rebuild your emotional connection with your spouse, please contact us. We’d love to help!