Addictions are a difficult burden to bear, whether you are the addict or married to the addict. When the affair you are dealing with is driven by an addiction, it requires different handling. For this reason, it is important to understand the context of the affair. An addiction does not mean that the cheater is ‘off the hook’. They need to be held accountable. An addiction means that the affair was not about rejecting you. With many affairs, the cheater rejects their spouse in preference of another. That is not what happens with a sexual addiction. With the sex addict, they see an opportunity and they take it, often without thinking.
When the cheater is being driven by a compulsion, they are often unresponsive to talk, even from you. They are like robot that is executing its program. They want to stay ‘high’, ‘alive’ or ‘turned on’. They just happen to use sex as a way of staying in that frame of mind. Sex for them is a way to chemically stay wired. When you are dealing with this kind of thinking, you enemy is not the lover. Your enemy is the addiction. Your spouse needs your love, not your rejection. When you learn to love them and hate the addiction, you will have begun to make the necessary steps to dealing with the addiction.
In reacting to the affair, you may be addressing the wrong problem. When the root problem is an addiction, you will need to deal with the addiction. You will need to understand the brain chemistry behind the addiction, understand the cycles of addiction, along with knowing the triggers for an addictive cycle. When you know these things, you will know when and how to intervene in order to break the cycle of addiction.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
2 Responses
What do you do when you beautiful affluent wife finds married lovers who will hide with her in the middle of the work day and she just denies when she is caught… its every day. For three years. At home our life is very normal with our kids and even our alone time etc… we are together almost 18 hes a day. And all weekends. Holidays.. people think we are the perfect couple… bur she sneaks off with these married men during the work day…every day….we have discussed it all. Including addiction.. but she won’t get help and wants to just keep going. Its killing our family me and worst of all herself. Her guilt that she tries to hide is crazy…. its still a secret from everyone .. after 3 years… what do I do????
itsbeen so long,
That is one tough situation. The affluence often keeps them from hitting rock bottom and seeing the destruction that their addiction brings. She definitely needs help. Since she is open to talk, you may want to purchase a copy of Patrick Carnes’ book, Out of the Shadows. First read it for yourself, then go over it with her and have her read it. At that point, she may be ready for an intervention or be willing to seek help. I suspect that if you had her get help now, she would fight it.
You may want to find out when and where the local SA (Sexaholics Anonymous) meeting is in your area, so that you can tell her.