Should You Stay or Should You Go When Your Sexually Addicted Partner Refuses to Change
Everyone knows that marriages or partnerships have their ups and downs. Even the language in traditional wedding vows includes the phrases “for better or for worse,” and “’til death do us part.” Most people don’t expect the worse to include things like addiction, especially sexual addiction. Once you discover, or suspect, that your partner is a sexual addict or has a sexual compulsion – including having extramarital affairs, that’s a gut-wrenching feeling. You may think you can never recover from it fully. Naturally, you want things to go back to the way they were before the addiction. But what if your partner refuses to change? Should you stay or should you go?
Not an Easy Decision
There’ve probably been some pretty horrific and tension-laden arguments over the subject already. Sometimes just an off-hand or casual comment can be taken the wrong way by the sexually addicted partner and things just escalate from there. Not only do you feel betrayed, hurt, angry, fearful and total loss of trust in your partner, but you also sense that he or she is experiencing profound emotions as well. The tendency is to deny the problem exists, to try to ignore it, to run away from it, or to rationalize it. All are natural and expected first reactions. But they’re not the ones that will get you through this.
Recognize that this is going to be a life-changing decision. If you decide to leave, there are all kinds of consequences attendant to your choice. Ditto if you ultimately choose to stay. If there are children in the family, your decision becomes infinitely more difficult as you weigh and balance what’s the right thing to do for all concerned.
You need time to make the right decision. Don’t rush into anything prematurely. It will not be easy, and you do need counseling to help you evaluate your available options.
But He (or She) Won’t Change
While it may be true that your partner refuses to change or even seek help to deal with his or her sexual addiction – now. That does not mean that he or she will never change. It just means that they’re not ready to deal with it now. Denial is one of the first reactions of the sexual addict. “I don’t have a problem,” or “It’s not true. Someone’s been telling you lies” or “It only happened one time” are some common statements. You might buy it the first time, but certainly the declarations wear thin as the behavior continues.
What you can take from this is that your partner wants to be left alone. He or she cannot face the fact that the out-of-control sexual behavior is causing serious jeopardy to the family unit, to the relationship with you and any children in the home.
If you do nothing, however, don’t expect the situation to get better any time soon. It won’t. In fact, it will get progressively worse, since that’s what happens with sexual addiction. The behavior may have begun with surfing pornographic sites online, buying sexually explicit materials or telephone sex. Gradually, it escalated to other thoughts and behavior that occupied greater amounts of time and cost more money – and posed potentially serious negative consequences with relationships, job, health, finances and/or legal problems.
What should you do?
Get Counseling for Yourself
In order to make an intelligent and well-considered decision about whether to stay or go, you need to have all the facts first. Not the specifics about your partner’s extramarital affairs or all the sordid details about one-night stands, paying for prostitutes, or other blatantly offensive and objectionable out-of-control sexual behavior – but the facts about what sexual addiction is and how to cope with a sexually addictive partner.
Of course, you may be the type of person who wants to be in charge of exactly what, when and how your partner reveals his or her sexually addictive behavior. If this is the case, you have every right to control that release of knowledge. Before you ask about specifics, examine your own tolerance to know such details. Sometimes it may be better to not know everything – unless to not know will put your family at further jeopardy, such as matters of health, finances, social, job or legal issues.
How do you learn about sexual addiction? Go to websites for partners of sexual addicts or sexually compulsives. These are 12-step organizations or fellowships that are dedicated to helping the partners of sexual addicts deal with the grief and realities of their situations. They provide support to you as you try to understand and cope with what’s happened in your life, how to shield and protect the children, how to make the hard choices about what to do next.
Some organizations include:
• Codependents of Sexual Addicts (COSA) – COSA is a 12-step recovery program for men and women whose lives have been affected by another person’s compulsive sexual behavior. The site has a wealth of information and resources, including how to identify behaviors, recovery tools, books, literature and CDs, how to find a meeting and more. COSA’s website offers the following to newcomers in its More About COSA page: “COSA offers hope. In COSA, we begin to experience relief from our isolation, in the safety of an anonymous gathering of others who share our stories. During every meeting – little by little – sanity, clarity and our own truth begin to emerge.”
o COSA is a partner program to Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA), a program for sex addicts who want to change their lives.
• S-Anon – This is a program of recovery for those who have been affected by someone else’s sexual behavior. It is a fellowship of relatives and friends of sexually addicted people who share their experience, strength and hope in order to solve their common problems. S-Anon’s site, on its Is S-Anon for You page, says: “If you have been affected by someone else’s sexual behavior, you can find help in S-Anon, whether or not that person seeks recovery from sexual addiction.” See also their Hope & Help page, which offers these words of encouragement: “…no situation is really helpless, and we can learn to see our problems in a new and more hopeful light. Our experience has taught us that we do have choices, and we need not feel trapped in an impossible situation.”
o S-Anon is a partner program with Sexaholics Anonymous (SA), the strictest of the 12-step programs for sexual addicts, primarily men. The group is most popular in Southern California and the Southern states.
• Co-Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (Co-SLAA) – This is a partner program to Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA). Co-SLAA groups are forming in several states.
• SRA-Anon – This is a partner program to Sexual Recovery Anonymous, and is linked from their site. SRA-Anon is a program “for spouses, relatives, friends and significant others – when the sexual behavior of someone you love troubles you.”
These organizations have face-to-face meetings at many U.S. and international locations, and also provide for telephone or online meetings. In addition, their websites have a lot of information that you can obtain online, or order books and literature. Most have newsletters that you can subscribe to. All the meetings are anonymous and of no-charge. This is a great first step. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Most of all, you will realize that there are other partners of sexual addicts out there who have gone through exactly what you are now going through. It helps to have someone to talk with when you need it, someone who’s nonjudgmental and cares.
Private Therapy
Perhaps you’re not ready yet to share your own, or to hear about others’, experiences. If this is the case, you may benefit from private counseling. Start by locating a therapist trained to deal with partners of sexually addicted individuals. Ask your family physician or contact a treatment center that specializes in treating sexual addiction for a referral to a psychiatrist or therapist that can help you.
Be Open To Your Partner Changing
Don’t close the door on your partner’s potential and eventual recovery. He or she may yet realize that they do need help, and be willing to accept it. In the meantime, do all you can to ensure your safety and that of your children. If the situation becomes untenable at home due to your partner’s mood swings, behavior or domestic violence or child abuse, by all means take refuge somewhere safe. No one should put up with danger to themselves or their family members – for any reason.
Be alert to signs that your partner may be willing to read literature that you obtain, either books, downloaded documents, magazines or other literature. Only you can decide if the time is right to leave any of these materials in plain sight of your partner – but out of reach of minor children. It may be enough that your partner knows – and you should definitely inform him or her – that you are going to seek help to deal with his or her sexual addiction, independent of whether or not he/she is ready to do so.
At some point, you may decide, in conjunction with your therapist and after weighing and balancing your options, to issue an ultimatum: either your partner goes to get help for his or her sexual addiction, or the marriage/partnership is over. You may say that you plan to leave until this becomes a reality, but that you are fully supportive of his or her intentions to change. This, however, is not a decision for you to make today.
For now, work on healing yourself of the wounded pride, loss of self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence – and your sanity. Just because your partner has a sexual addiction does not mean you are doomed to a life of sadness, hurt and betrayal. You can and do deserve more. Get the help you need, from whatever resource you decide works best for you, and take it one day at a time. Although it may not seem like it now, there is hope for tomorrow.
Act today and set your mind at rest.
