Addictions wreck relationships. Addictions lead people to lie, steal from, and neglect the people they love. Sex addiction creates a unique havoc in marriages, because it strikes at the heart of the marriage commitment to sexual fidelity. But it doesn’t end there. Our addiction ultimately affects all the relationships in our lives. It creates sadness, anger, confusion, and a host of varied reactions from people who care about us.
Friends and family can heal during our recovery, just as we heal. Each person must concentrate on his or her own issues while learning how to detach with love. There are groups and therapists that offer support for spouses of sex addicts.
What makes sex addiction especially toxic for families is the wall of secrecy that is usually built around the addiction. Since sex is so personal, and fear of other people finding out about our struggles so overwhelming, many couples try to go about recovery while living in a bubble of secrecy and shame. Children, extended family, and friends experience various forms of suffering because of the addiction, and are often left in the dark about what is really going on.
Sometimes it’s necessary to withhold the truth of our addiction from people who were affected by it, because they can’t be trusted to handle the information. Discussions about how far to extend the circle of disclosure are ongoing and complex, especially during the early years of recovery. But even if we decide not to disclose the truth of our addiction to family and friends, we must honest with ourselves about the level of damage we have brought into these peoples’ lives.
Our addiction touches all the people in our lives, whether we realize it or not. It causes us to neglect people we should be attentive to, to isolate ourselves, to be withdrawn or cranky, and sometimes to sexualize people and situations that should not be sexualized. Our awareness of this damage will grow over time, and we must be careful not to drift into shame and self-hatred when it does. Our shame dissipates as we keep working our recovery, and as we make amends to the people we have harmed in whatever ways are appropriate.
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