Sex addicts usually seek help because their behavior has caused deep harm to themselves, their partners, their family.  Sex addicts come to the office overwhelmed with shame, self-hatred, out-of-control obsession and an inability to stop acting out.  They feel possessed.  They are grasping at any lifeline they can find to get  ahold of themselves.  Obsession and compulsion have taken over their lives; if sex addicts are not thinking about acting out, they are acting out.

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 Can addicts develop empathy?  Do addicts naturally have empathy but are so self-focused they refuse to see their partners feeling side of an issue?  Is it appropriate to expect my addict partner to empathize with my pain?  As a sex addict should I have the capacity for empathy – and if I don’t is there something wrong with me? 

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A “healthy” expression of love involves safety, trust, holding the other as dear and precious as well as maintaining a balanced sense of give and take in relation to a valued other.  Love involves the experience of truly knowing and holding the other spiritually, emotionally and physically.  Love deepens over time as a couple grows to understand one another from the “inside out”.  The reciprocity of love involves holding a sense of loving oneself as well as the other.  Love is expressed healthily through the process of holding, accepting and valuing  oneself.

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At one time or another in treatment, a partner of a sexual compulsive (addict) will say in a moment of deep despair “I feel like a fool for staying”.  What is she really saying?  What is the deeper  meaning beneath her words?  For many “I feel like a fool…” is an expression of a complexity of thoughts and feelings - involving pain, fear and love – competing with familial loyalty, shared memories, a deeply held ethical system of beliefs and values living side by side internally with a desire to rescue a crumbling marriage and world.

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I am reminded of  the AA  (Alcoholics Anonymous) slogan “One drink is too much and a thousand are never enough”.

When the “discovery” of your partners’ secret life is uncovered asking questions about the behavior is the surest method for feeling safe.  Questions serve to empower a partner amidst a deeply disempowering time.  Questions enable the partner to “wrap their head” around the shocking information as well as  allow the partner to control the flow of information.  The shock is impossible to describe here.  How is one to make sense of and integrate such a discovery? 

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