Partners of sex addicts often need treatment for trauma.

The field of sex addiction has been overly focused on the nature of sex addiction, how to describe and classify it and how to best treat the addict. In this process, there can be neglect of partners and spouses of sex addicts.

Traditional treatment for sex and porn addiction has typically excluded partners. Current clinical models that actually do address the partner or spouse of sex addicts have developed and are fundamentally organized around the single concept and diagnosis of co-addiction or codependency, which basically understands the partner as having their own disease termed co-addiction or co-dependence. The concept of co-dependence comes directly out of Alcoholics Anonymous and was adopted by the sex addiction field and applied to partners and spouses. Codependency is defined as a process addiction – an addiction to certain mood-altering behaviors, such as a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively care-taking ways that negatively impact one’s relationships and quality of life.

The sex addiction field vacillates between either no substantial model or the co-addiction model for understanding and treating partners. However, the reality of what partners experience continues to be minimized and misunderstood. Partners actually experience significant trauma that results from the direct impact of the sex addiction and the associated patterns of sexual acting out, emotional affairs, emotional abuse, deception, betrayal, gaslighting, and compartmentalization.

The extent of psychological destabilization, ego fragmentation, relational and social ruptures and post-traumatic symptoms seen among partners are obvious. This is particularly acute around discovery (finding out about sexual acting out, deception and relational violations), disclosures (being told about sexual acting out, deception and relational violations) and the continued traumatic incidents that result from the presence of sexual addiction in an intimate relationship and family system.

Partners often experience replaying the trauma, social and emotional constriction, constant triggering and reactivity, significant anxiety, emotional arousal and hyper-vigilance. What most people outside the field do not know is that despite the significant symptoms of trauma that partners experience, the traditional sex addiction field to this day still ignores these trauma-related symptoms and focuses instead on diagnosing partners as “co-addicts” and emphasizing treatment of codependency. It is common for trauma to never be mentioned. In fact, often a partner is “educated” that her responses and symptoms are actual “symptoms of co-addiction” that need treatment and management. In fact, few practitioners in the sex addiction field even know the term “sex addiction-induced trauma.”

Partners and spouses of sex addicts are a profoundly and clinically traumatized population who are disenfranchised from adequate, informed care and ethical treatment. There are many, many partners and spouses who continue to be further harmed, confused, disoriented and re-traumatized by traditional co-addiction treatment interventions that focus on educating and helping partners with their “own disease” called co-addiction while ignoring the treatment of trauma.

I highly recommend this book for sex addicts and their partners to work through together, it’s great at building empathy and becoming a team again.