A Couple's Guide to Sexual Addiction (7 page)

Linda and Tom

Tom’s way of coping with the frustrations in his life was to go to men’s clubs. As he got older, he wanted to settle down and wooed a very sexy dancer from one of the clubs. They had a fantastic sexual relationship until Linda got pregnant. Then, for Tom, Linda moved into the category of mom, which meant he could no longer be attracted. Growing up, Tom had seen his father seek women outside the marriage, and that was his model. As a result, Tom had grown up in a household without real connection and had no models of intimacy on which to base his behavior. Tom knew something was missing, and he had always felt less than some of his friends who were able to maintain “normal” relationships. Yet here he was, married, no longer wanting to have sex with his wife, and going back to men’s clubs in search of lap dances and possible sexual partners.

Linda had also grown up in a household lacking in intimacy and in which the men made sexualizing and objectifying remarks about the women. By the time she was a teenager, the behavior she was most familiar with was being seen as an object.

In counseling, Linda and Tom were both able to discover and identify the way they saw themselves and what they expected in sexual relationships. Although it was not an easy or comfortable task, both were ultimately able to break from their past associations and forge a new and more intimate relationship with each other.

Sexually Compulsive Behavior Using Pornography

Men who act out sexually by viewing pornography and masturbating never get enough to be satisfied for long. They may or may not have regular sex with their partners, but usually become more attached to the fantasy than the reality of sexual contact with a real person. Therefore, their close relationships are lacking in intimacy.

Some sex addicts pose as single men on dating sites, where they interact with live people, but again, this is not real intimate contact. Even when a man relates to a woman via a chat line or the Internet it is not a real encounter. There are also men who pose as women in online chat rooms so they will be sexually degraded by other men. All of these situations are based on fantasy and are fake, such as when the man is pretending to be single or the woman is being paid to act interested in the man.

Josh and Lisa

It was two in the morning and Josh was wide awake, lying in bed next to his beautiful young wife. As usual, he was torturing himself with memories of preteen sexual encounters and the guilt he felt about them. Seeking relief from the thoughts, Josh quietly slipped out of bed and went down the hallway to a guest room, where his laptop was set up.

As he had done almost every night for months, Josh logged into an Internet site and found a woman he wanted. She was live on the Internet and the site was set up so that Josh paid the website company and could tell the woman to do whatever he wanted—up to a point. There were certain acts that cost more to see. Men who frequent such sites typically masturbate while telling the women how and when to take off their clothes and how and when to move their bodies. Josh began by asking the woman to remove her blouse. He had been to similar sites for years, but thought he could stop after marrying Lisa. Like many men, he kept telling himself that he would just do it one more time.

Lisa woke up briefly and realized that Josh was not in the bed. She glanced toward the bathroom, but it was empty. Then she noticed a flickering light down the hallway. They had only been married for six months, but their sexual contact had diminished, and Lisa had not pushed Josh for more. Although she suspected something was troubling Josh, he had assured Lisa that it wasn’t her. Although it was true that she was not the source of the problem, and although he loved her, Josh was not able to be vulnerable with her by telling her what he thought of as his darkest secrets— secrets which were in the way of their marital intimacy.

Standing quietly at the door to the guest room, Lisa could see the naked woman on the laptop computer’s screen. Although Josh’s back was to her, she knew what he was doing. Sensing Lisa’s presence, Josh glanced back, saw her, and slammed the laptop closed. But it was too late. His secret was out, or at least part of it.

Shaking her head, Lisa turned away, ran back to their bedroom, and slammed and locked the door. Josh begged her to let him explain. He pleaded that he would tell her the truth. At first, Lisa would not listen. Finally, she opened the door and Josh cringed at her tear-streaked face. He thought he had shattered their love forever. “Let’s talk in the kitchen,” she said.

They made coffee and sat at the kitchen table. Lisa had known a few crucial facts about Josh’s childhood. Josh’s father was an angry alcoholic, frequently at the local bar, and Josh’s mother was not around much, either. This gave Josh plenty of time alone in the house, with only his little brother at home now and then. Lisa also knew that Josh had been teased at school and often felt like an outsider.

Now Josh haltingly told her that when he was ten years old, he and a friend began playing around sexually—and the friend was another boy. One day, Josh’s little brother came home and found the two older boys naked and engaging in oral sex. Josh allowed his younger brother to participate, which Josh believed later caused great emotional distress for his younger brother, who had difficulty maintaining any type of relationship. Lisa saw the shame on Josh’s face and knew this must be what had been torturing him. But there was more.

Josh felt even worse about what happened when a ten-year-old neighbor girl spied on Josh and his friend during a sexual encounter. She wanted to know what they were doing or she would tell. The neighbor girl followed Josh’s instructions to lie down. He clumsily climbed on top and began to “dry hump” her. Terrified, the girl pushed him off and ran back to her house. The neighbor girl stopped speaking to Josh, and about two months later, she and her family moved to another town.

Josh began crying. He feared that by telling Lisa the truth, she would condemn him as he had been condemning himself for all these years and he would lose her forever. But Josh’s honesty and vulnerability were having the opposite effect on Lisa. She felt closer to Josh. Yet, she also knew that their marriage had real problems.

In counseling, they gradually understood how, because of the situation with Josh’s parents and his early sexual encounters, he had no grounding in how to have a truly intimate relationship with a woman. He loved Lisa, but had unresolved shame that was in the way of allowing himself to be with a real woman. Lisa also examined how she was brought up with alcoholic parents and saw her own fears of intimacy. It took many months, but together they were able to learn to be vulnerable and how to take concrete steps toward a more intimate relationship. They both faced the shame and pain they felt around intimacy, including sex. Rather than punishing him for his past behavior, Lisa took steps to initiate frequent lovemaking with Josh, and they began to enjoy each other more than either ever thought possible.

Sexually Compulsive Behavior with a Real Person

This type of sexually compulsive behavior includes contact with prostitutes, emotionless dating, and affairs that are more sexual than emotional. Because this behavior requires contact outside the boundaries of a marriage, the consequences can be more severe than some other types of behaviors. As has been mentioned before, the first step toward recovery is for the acting-out partner to completely stop his sexually compulsive behavior. Then, if both partners are committed to stopping blame and shame and to examining the root causes of their own behaviors as well as the foundations of their relationship, they are often able to not only keep the marriage but to reach a new and more satisfying level of closeness, connection, and intimacy.

Tanya and Brandon

Brandon engaged in addictive behavior long before he met and married Tanya. While they were dating, he overcame his drug and alcohol addiction, but he still had a gambling addiction and, unbeknownst to her, a sex addiction. At times of stress in his life, such as when a relationship was not going well, Brandon’s addictive behavior would become almost completely out of control.

As a child, Brandon would hide until his parents were frantic to find him. He craved attention, and negative attention was better than none at all. Brandon grew up with an angry alcoholic father and, rather than intimacy, what he saw between his parents was warfare and mistrust. Brandon’s concept of a relationship was that he needed to be on guard, and he was quick to argue or attack.

Tanya grew up in a family in which her father was a good provider but distant. Although this is a simplified view of what was a complex set of factors, on one level Tanya craved love from a distant man. Brandon fit the bill perfectly: He was a very successful stockbroker and although he felt love for Tanya, it was difficult for him to express himself or be romantic.

Even after five years of marriage, Tanya was not sure how much Brandon loved or trusted her. Although she knew about his drug and alcohol addictions, she suspected he had others. However, she was afraid that if she confronted Brandon, he would leave her. Only when she began examining the family finances did she realize that Brandon had spent over $50,000 in one year at massage parlors and with prostitutes. She knew if their marriage was to survive, they needed to start being honest and face their problems.

After they started counseling, Brandon agreed to stop acting out sexually. But if he sensed the mood of the relationship was uncertain or that Tanya was pushing him too much to change, he would feel a strong need to stop at a massage parlor. Brandon would go inside, pay, accompany a woman to a room, but then stop himself from going further and leave. Although Brandon’s behavior still angered Tanya, Brandon felt he had taken steps to break his addiction. Yet Tanya and Brandon both knew the truth. If the relationship got too difficult and Brandon was too uncomfortable with being emotionally vulnerable, he could resort to acting out sexually. If this couple was to achieve lasting intimacy, they had much more emotional work to do, on themselves and the relationship.

Sexual Encounters with an Emotional Component

Sexually compulsive behavior can include brief or long-term relationships or affairs with an emotional connection. These usually secret relationships occur outside the primary relationship. The person having such affairs may be seeking an intimacy he is not getting within the primary love relationship. Another reason is that the man’s view of his wife as sexual has shifted to one that is more maternal. As mentioned, this can occur after the woman has become pregnant, has children, or is even just regularly cooking for him as his own mother once did. Sometimes the man’s relationship with his mother in childhood was one where she acted inappropriately toward him and, for example, tried to treat him as an equal or a surrogate husband, rather than as her child. Such behavior by the mother frequently indicated a lack of intimacy between the mother and father, which meant the child did not learn to be intimate in a healthy way.

Barbara and Christopher

In the early stages of their relationship, Barbara and Christopher had an intense sexual and emotional charge. In fact, they forged a bond that they would never part. While Barbara pursued a degree in internal medicine, Christopher financially supported them both by teaching art history at a local university.

Because Barbara’s career path meant spending many hours studying and at classes, Christopher had a lot of time to himself. He had grown up with a mother who was raising five children and barely had enough time to attend to them all or her husband. As a boy, Christopher decided that he had to fend for himself, and when he was in his teens, saw his father as a model for finding sex and companionship either in or out of the primary love relationship. As a result, Christopher had always felt entitled to satisfying his sexual desires.

Early in his relationship with Barbara, she was the source of his satisfaction. But when Barbara’s career path took most of her time and energy, Christopher began to feel neglected. After finishing her medical residency, Barbara joined a group of other doctors practicing internal medicine. She quickly became a favorite of patients due to her unusually compassionate and attentive way of relating. She was, in fact, giving to her patients what Christopher had been craving.

In addition, as Barbara’s career and income took off, she began to attempt to “help” Christopher by needling him about his lack of career advancement, about his being content to teach art history. She was the doctor who “fixed” people, and she related to Christopher almost as if he was another patient who needed fixing so he could live his life in what she thought was a better way.

That’s when cute, twenty-year-old Caitlin became a front-row center admiring student in Christopher’s art history class. Although Christopher had previously briefly dallied with several students, Caitlin was different. Although he still loved Barbara and wanted a loving relationship with her, he fell in love with Caitlin. Christopher might have approached Barbara and told her how he was feeling, but he could not allow himself to be that vulnerable. As is the case with many men, it was easier for him to seek satisfaction outside the relationship. He thought he could just love both women, while having his sexual desires satisfied with Caitlin. However, because this time Christopher had fallen in love, Barbara ultimately realized that her marriage was in jeopardy. Chris-topher’s realization was that the most important pact in his life was not with Caitlin, but with Barbara.