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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“I feel utterly unprotected” one of the women said in group this week. Her sexually addicted spouse is either unwilling or unable to work and their debt is mounting. She feels absolutely powerless to change her situation. He is not working. There is no money coming in. They are living on credit. She cannot physically force him to work. She is afraid she will loose her home. She is afraid she will loose her car. She is afraid.

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The moment of the discovery of the betrayal of trust and relational vows by the sex addicted partner have been described as “a moment of profound shock”, “like a landslide or mudslide falling on me”, “an experience of disbelief where I wasn’t sure if I was alive or dead”, “the most frightening moment of my life”.

At that moment the partner has been traumatized by the discovery of the sexual acting out.

Most people have no awareness that their trusted partner has been sexual either with self or others outside of the relationship. It feels as if they have uncovered a “secret life” or a separate personality.

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