# Any recovering sex addicts?



## Jayne.P

I was wondering if anyone out there in recovery for sex addicition can maybe help tell me how they're getting on? What are the chances of slip ups? My husband may be an addict and I wondered how the success rate is for recovery or if it will be something that is always with us? I guess I want to know what I'm letting myself in for if we stay together.....


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## Hope1964

My hubby is one. He's been in a 12 step program for over a year and has been 'sober' since June 2010.

I have no idea what the chances are of slipping up. I never really thought to try and find out. I know my hubby is perfectly capable of being 'sober' for the rest of his life, and he knows if he 'slips up' one more time we are done. So it will be a choice he makes at that point. He has coping mechanisms in place and is doing really well.

I expect it will always be with us, but as time goes on it will be less and less in the forefront.

What you are letting yourself in for depends on whether he is actively trying to get better or not. If he's using sex addiction as an excuse, then forget it. If he's getting the help he needs and putting a plan in place and staying sober, plus doing everything a wayward spouse needs to do to reconcile after cheating, then there's a good chance you guys can make it work.


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## fearful55

At the SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) meetings I attend, there are men and women with years of sobriety where others who attend are having 'slips' regularly.

Long term sobriety and positive healthy change is certainly possible. It requires a commitment and daily vigilance.


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## Jayne.P

Thanks for the replies both of you, much appreciated. Hope 1964 - how has it been for you? I don't have any children so wonder if it is worth all the hard work I imagine it will take to put everything back together as it's only me to consider. He has been to see a therapist a few times and has stopped all the negative behaviour. He says he now recognises his reasons for doing it and so doesn't want to continue but how hard is it to forgive the past and try and live with everything that has happened? Sexually I don't feel the same towards him, I also have lost respect and love for him although I appreciate I only found out everything quite recently so it is all still fresh (a few months ago). Do you still worry about what your husband is doing or can you trust him again now some time has passed?


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## Hope1964

There's a saying on here - trust but verify. I pretty much trust him now, but I do still verify. Every time I snoop and see nothing, a little bit more trust builds up. I doubt I will ever trust him 100% - I doubt I would ever trust ANY man 100% - but things are good.

If he's serious about recovery, he should look into one of the 12 step goups. There's 6 - Sexaholica Anonymous (SA), Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA, the one my hubby attends), SLAA as referenced above, Love Addicts Anonymous, Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA), and Sexual Recovery Anonymous (SRA)

12 Step Programs for Sexual Addiction and Love Addicts | Sex Addiction

There are also some excellent books by Patrick Carnes about sex addiction, and by his wife for the spouse.

Only you can decide if it's worth all the work. Living with any addict is hard - there's a constant vigilance associated with it that I have found dies down over time but I don't know if it will ever go away. For me it's worth it because in every other way, my hubby is the man of my dreams and pretty much always has been. He's proven over and over that he is truly remorseful.


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## fearful55

Hope1964 said:


> For me it's worth it because in every other way, my hubby is the man of my dreams and pretty much always has been. He's proven over and over that he is truly remorseful.


This struck me.

What I would give to hear my wife say this...


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## Jayne.P

Things sound good with you, I am glad you are making it work and the fact that your man is right for you in every other way makes it worthwhile fighting for. 

My husband doesn't seem to know where to start to make amends. He doesn't show remorse but I think he would just rather it all went away. Now he has stopped the behaviour he just wants to distance himself from it. Although he has read the Patrick Carnes book and it was very helpful, we don't have any groups around to help (based in a rural location in UK). He just seems to not know how to relate to me or how to reassure. He has never needed to do those things before and I am not sure he knows how, he acts like a rabbit in headlights if I bring anything up I need to talk through, I don't want to talk about it all the time but I still have questions that pop into my mind and I need to ask. He is even going away on a man only holiday just several weeks after all this came out and hasn't even thought to ask if I'm ok with it. I know he is a good person but he is so emotionally barren it makes it ten times harder to feel ok with everything and hard to see a way forward. We had a strong relationship but I feel it was based a lot on trust and independence, I am not sure those two things can work anymore. Maybe it's just not meant to be, I am sure my answer will become clear in time. Thanks again for your comments.


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## Hope1964

My husband described the way he felt at first as 'hanging on by his fingernails' or 'white knuckling'. He felt like he could drop back into it at any time. He didn't want to talk to me about it - he thought if he just forgot about it, it would go away. But it didn't. 3 months after Dday he was walking home and on the spur of the moment he took a hooker home. I had kicked him out but we were just starting MC, and he had been in IC for those 3 months and thought he was all better. And even then he rug swept it. He didn't tell a single soul. It was 5 months after THAT that he told me about it. Only when I was tearfully throwing everything I could get my hands on at him and I cried something at him about 'yeah, sure, you're only a CYBERsex addict and not a SEX addict' did it finally click in his head that he needed help. Up till that point he kept insisting that a cybersex addict was not a sex addict, which is completely false.

Anyway, I did a ton of reading and I printed out and/or emailed several things to him that explained how I felt and what he needed to do. We continued in MC (still do) and he finally completely owned his addiction. Once he did that it was a huge relief. 

Your husband cannot sweep all this under the rug, whether you stay with him or not. If he does it will just keep popping up again and again.


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## Jayne.P

Thank you, it really helps to hear from you knowing that you are making it work. It sounds as if you have been through it but are still able to move onto a good relationship. Do you still have times when all the bad feelings come into your mind? I am still living with my hubbie but I feel a separation may help me to see things more clearly and decide what I want as I find it occupies my thoughts so much and so its hard to think of the future and I see you lived apart for a while - did that help you to deal with things better? How do you deal with the bad times? I struggle I think because I saw so many images and emails, even videos that he had made for other women which makes it so hard to think about forgiveness. I don't want to be stuck with these thoughts for too long and think maybe if we were apart for a while I could stop focussing on the bad bits so much.


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## Runs like Dog

Sex Addiction: Why You're Not Addicted To Sex, According to Dr. David J. Ley


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## Hope1964

Runs like Dog said:


> Sex Addiction: Why You're Not Addicted To Sex, According to Dr. David J. Ley


I also believe sex addiction is over-diagnosed today, just like ADHD was in the 90's. And some people do use it to excuse their behaviour. But that certainly doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. 

Many sex addicts, like my husband, act out when something stresses them. They aren't having sex just for the sake of having sex - they're acting out as a coping mechanism. 

And saying it isn't recognized in the DSMMD is correct, but apparently it IS going to be included in the next issue.

Anyway, if being diagnosed as a sex addict means that someone ends up getting the help they need, that's a GOOD thing. 

Jayne, to try and answer your questions:
*Do you still have times when all the bad feelings come into your mind?* Oh yes. 

*did [living apart] help you to deal with things better?* It did. I hated him the day I found out. I went straight to anger and stayed there for a coupe of months. He tells me that the day I kicked him out he could see how much I hated him written all over my face. If he had been physically around me it would have just fueled that fire. But HIS reaction to me kicking him out was the main thing that enabled us to get back together. He decided it was the wake up call he needed to get on the road to recovery. If he had continued acting out and not caring, and used being apart from me as an opportunity to just act out more, that would have been the end of us. The blip with the hooker happened because he still hadn't quite admitted to himself the depth of his problem, and he needed to keep delving, which he finally did.

*How do you deal with the bad times?* Through my IC and now MC I have developed a few strategies. They all involve letting the feelings flow out instead of keeping them bottled up. I envision my hurt flowing out of my body, where I throw it away, seeing it go into the trash in my minds eye. Or I bring out a giant eraser and erase it right in front of myself (figuratively of course). But again, what's more important is how my husband deals with me during these times, when I tell him, because I don't always. He apologizes to me all the time when he knows I'm feeling bad about what he did. Profusely. He owns what he did and never hesitates to tell me again how wrong it was and how sorry he is and what he's doing to make sure it never happens again. He wishes I didn't still get like that, but he also knows it's going to happen. And every time it does it takes away a little bit more of the pain.

And the fact that we've basically fallen in love with each other again helps too


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## Jayne.P

Thank you for sharing your story & for your honesty, it really helps & it's very nice to hear you are happy together now


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## exhausted55

Runs like Dog said:


> Sex Addiction: Why You're Not Addicted To Sex, According to Dr. David J. Ley


I don't know if this was supposed to be serious, but this article was written by a tabloid scribe who apparently had to meet a quick deadline. It is uninformed, misinformed, unscientific, simplistic, and mocking. Unfortunately, people who don't know better will read it and think that it is 'the real story of sex addiction'. 

Huff Po is nasty anyway. When I go to that site, I feel like I should shower.


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