About the Author
I'm mother of five who at the age of 46 discovered that her very Catholic, very conservative husband of 24 years was a sex addict with personality and mood disorders. In the years since, I have been on a journey of recovery and rebuilding. I am Resilient.
When I began looking for resources in 2010, I wasn't finding what I needed. (I wish I had found MarriedtoaSexAddict.com back then!) I read books about how to save my marriage, but found I wasn't getting a "full picture." Sexual addiction is complex, with roots in childhood sexual abuse, as well as co-morbid personality disorders and mood disorders. In my opinion, a woman who discovers her husband's sexual addiction needs to gather all the information she can about what she is facing at the moment and in the future.
The most important things I failed to understand at the beginning of my journey were:
What I discovered initially was just the tip of the iceberg. His addiction was much worse that I could possibly have imagined, and had been going on for many years, perhaps decades. My story is by no means unusual: many women do not discover their husband's sexual addiction until it is firmly entrenched.
HE is responsible for his own treatment and recovery. I couldn't fix him.
We find far more stories of spouses whose husbands did NOT recover from their addiction than spouses whose husbands appear to have actually recovered. Patrick Carnes describes a FIVE YEAR recovery for a sex addict who is getting individual and group therapy. Your addict is unlikely to admit the depth of his problem or commit to the necessary therapy. More likely he will do what addicts do: shift the blame in order to protect his addiction.
He's probably going to lie. A lot. About everything. He has been successfully lying for a very long time, and he's very good at it. Expect no truth, no cooperation. Believe nothing. Verify everything.
Most of the support groups out there for sex addicts are going to label wives as co-addicts, which will allow the addict to continue shifting the blame... and these groups will encourage the wife to treat her supposed addiction. (My opinion is that we're only co-addicts if we choose to stay with an addict. Now THAT's crazy.)
We need to focus on protecting ourselves and our kids.
If the man is going to recover, we will SEE it in his behavior. He will be open. He will be getting regular professional therapy. He will stop being secretive. He will not blame. Any secrecy or blame is a RED FLAG that he hasn't changed.
I have found some excellent discussion groups online, but I've found sifting through information is a challenge. Facebook has a number of support groups for spouses of Narcissists, and you may get benefit from these, keeping in mind that even the Closed Groups on Facebook are "public."
On this site I hope to bring together resources I have used in my own recovery, so that a woman who finds herself suddenly facing "This Awful Mess" will have a place to begin, where the terminology is explained, and where she can begin to deal with her harsh reality.
I have been encouraged to write a book. I prefer instead to offer this internet resource for two reasons:
I know that a woman in this situation may need to be spending her limited finances on counseling and an attorney.
I personally like having the ability to use the internet to click around for information from a broad range of sources, and dealing with the tangents one at a time as one is emotionally ready.
I am not an expert. I am not a professional counselor. I'm just a logical, sensible woman with computer skills and a couple of journalism degrees who wants to share information in the hope that it makes dealing with crisis just a little easier for someone else.