Does My Husband Need a Sex Addiction Therapist Near Me?

 If you’re thinking your husband might need a sex addiction therapist near me, you’re not alone.  So many women have discovered their husband’s betrayal and their husband has claimed that he’s an addict.

I’ve done over 200 long form interviews with women who’ve been betrayed. Many of these women were told their husband had a sex addiction and he needed to go to treatment. Here is what I’ve learned matters most: The impact his behavior has on you matters more than the label. Below are the most common patterns to pay attention to when you’re searching for help. If you need live support, join our daily betrayal trauma support group

PATTERNS TO IDENTIFY BEFORE GOING TO A SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME

1. EVIDENCE OF GROOMING IN THE RELATIONSHIP

 Is there evidence that your husband has used grooming to manipulate you? Grooming is a type of manipulation that uses deception to build trust and connection.

So, if he’s hidden the fact that he engages in behaviors that would get him diagnosed as an addict and presented himself as like a healthy, responsible person, that might be considered grooming and it’s a separate issue from “addiction.”

2. HE HAS A HISTORY OF SECRET INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

 Does he have a history of secret sexual behavior?

Hiding something from your spouse actually takes intention and planning It requires him to lie day after day about how he spends his time, where he goes, what he is doing on his phone. And that means it affects you on a daily basis.

If you’re discovering hidden accounts, secret inappropriate media use, online sexual chatting or affairs, you’re not looking at single momentary lapses in judgment. You’re looking at a pattern of lies and behaviors that helped him sustain a double life.

3. HE MAKES YOU FEEL CRAZY

If you have a gut feeling that something’s not right, and he’s like, “Everything’s fine,” but that gut feeling doesn’t go away.

If he is lying, everything is not fine. Because if he is having an affair or he is doing something on the computer that he knows you definitely would not appreciate, it can feel like you’re going crazy.

What happens when you sense that something isn’t quite right? Does your husband invalidate your feelings or accuse you of being “suspicious, paranoid or imagining things?” Does he question your memory of facts and events?

A man who has nothing to hide shouldn’t feel threatened by your intuition.

4. HIS REACTIONS TO SIMPLE QUESTIONS ARE INAPPROPRIATE

 Are his reactions to simple questions appropriate? If you say, “Hey, how was work?” And suddenly you’re in a big fight that lasts for hours. Or you ask him to take out the garbage and he gets upset, that might be a clue that something else is going on.

He might chalk it up to addiction, but is he hiding something?

Many women quickly learn to “stay in line” to prevent outbursts like these which accomplishes his goal of controlling you.

5. HE USES A SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME TO AVOID ACCOUNTABILITY

 If he does start sex addiction therapy with a sex addiction therapist near me, is he using therapy language in a way that kind of feels off? Maybe to avoid accountability, maybe to blame you, maybe to excuse his behavior.

Here’s the thing: an addiction diagnosis might explain why he’s doing what he’s doing, but it doesn’t actually explain how his behavior is affecting you.

If he’s lying to you constantly making you think you’re crazy, what you are experiencing isn’t necessarily his addiction. It might be time to consider that it’s emotional and psychological abuse. If he’s using his addiction as a way to sidestep responsibility for the feelings you have about the harm he has done he’s created an emotionally unsafe environment for you that the label of addiction can’t erase.

Real accountability sounds like specific ownership of past harm and present change. It doesn’t sound like clinical language used to explain away betrayal.

DOES HE REALLY NEED A SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME OR IS THIS SOMETHING ELSE?

In the addiction model with a sex addiction therapist near me, your next steps are often going focus on helping him through a 12-step program, addiction therapy, or recovery support which often discourages women from calling his behavior emotionally abusive and it desensitizes them to manipulation.

The way you define what’s really happening matters in determining your next move.

Start by asking yourself:

• Do I feel emotionally safe?
• What boundaries do I need?
• What support do I need?
• Is he trustworthy?

You do not need to diagnose him to know whether you feel safe.

If you are unsure whether your husband’s behavior qualifies as addiction, manipulation, or emotional abuse:

• Take our free emotional abuse quiz.
• Enroll in the Workshop to determine your level of safety.
• Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session for validation and clarity.

After nearly two decades of helping women thrive after betrayal, one truth remains clear: You don’t need to figure this out alone.

TRANSCRIPT: THE TRUTH ABOUT BETRAYAL TRAUMA & CAUSES OF ADDICTION

Anne: I have a member of our community on today’s episode, we’re going to call her Cindy. Welcome Cindy.

Cindy: Good morning, thank you, Anne.

Anne: So Cindy, why don’t you just start with your story wherever you want to start?

Cindy: Sure, last February, I had what I now call my third and final D-Day in my relationship with my husband. I basically witnessed some behaviors that when I confronted him, it became evident to me that he had relapsed quite a time before. So basically, I found out again that he was in his addiction and lying for the three years prior. Being that I had some bottom line boundaries for myself, which was that I would not be in a relationship with an addict not pursuing recovery or thinking my husband needed a sex addiction therapist near me. And that I would not be kept in the dark again about my reality.

And after talking to him through this, it became evident that it was now time for me to say we couldn’t continue. We had been in recovery for 10 years post my initial D-Day, and I was comfortable calling it quits at this point. So since August, I’m legally separated. We are heading for divorce. It’s not a therapeutic separation.

Anne: So for women who just started listening to the podcast, let’s talk about a couple terms you brought up. Can you define D-Day for us?

Cindy: Yes, that’s a shorthand way of saying the day of discovery. Usually we use that term to describe the first day something was discovered. The BTR coaches tend to use it for any discovery that has kind of redefined reality.

RECOGNIZING RED FLAGS

Cindy: The original discovery when I first discovered his pornography use last February. I realized he had returned to using it. I talked to many women. Who, like myself, before I had the education I have now, think some of their relationships are on a path to healing. And some are.

But, until we know the signs, learn to trust our gut and pay attention to the red flags, we can put faith in the fact that our spouses are on the right road. Or that good start is gonna last. And so, I’ve heard many women say, I knew about this, I found out about this, and I thought X, Y, and Z. I thought we were on the road to recovery. I thought he was doing well. Things seemed better. And then I discovered this.

Anne: Yeah, there are some people out there, some professionals that will say women know he’s lying and they’re in denial. I 100% do not agree with that. I think that’s victim blaming. Sometimes we really don’t know. Sometimes we might sense something, but we take it to our abuser and he manipulates us.

And that’s why I wrote The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Workshop. it takes women step-by-step through a process that allows us to see the truth. Because he purposefully hides it from us sometimes. He wants us to be separated from our gut feelings. Do you want to expand on that a little bit? Cause I’ve heard so many people say she’s just in denial, or she knew in her gut. Or she wasn’t in touch with herself. And I think women are in touch with themselves. It’s just the manipulation has caused such a fog. And a sex addiction therapist near me may not help that.

BOUNDARIES & TRUST WITH A SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME

Cindy: I could expound on this for days. Because I’ve been in the same boat, and you’re absolutely right. We are put in a position where no matter what we do, somebody can criticize it no matter what we do. I wanted my marriage to make it, to give recovery a chance. I don’t have any regrets. Because I know that to have given my marriage a chance, I had to learn the boundaries, recognize the red flag. I had to learn to trust my gut. And know about the causes of addiction, rather than trust a sex addiction therapist near me.

And at the same time, if it’s going to work, there’s going to come a day when I have to make myself vulnerable again. To say, I’m willing to extend my trust again, I’m not stupid, knowing that trust could be betrayed again. But if I’m not willing to take that risk again, I may as well call it quits in the beginning.

I remember one professional saying, you knew when you walked down the aisle, and I was like, no, I didn’t know. And he said, no, you knew. And I knew right then, and there I couldn’t get help from him. There’s no way I knew. I don’t know how people working with men with addiction or women for that matter can say that, because they know how successful men are in their deceptiveness. So how can I know what is deliberately and systematically being kept from me?

Anne: Yeah, that’s exactly why I created the Workshop because these are the same professionals you’re talking about. They’ll admit he lied. They’ll acknowledge that. But then they believe what he says after. Like, how can we determine what is the truth? It’s so hard.

A SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME SHOULD KNOW ABOUT EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Cindy: Right, and I get in trouble with those same professionals after that person accused me of knowing and marrying anyway. Now I’m being accused of not trusting, not forgiving. Why am I assuming there’s a lie? And I’m left confused and thinking nothing I can do is right.

Anne: It’s also just flat out not logical that we are the causes of addiction.

Cindy: Right, it’s not.

Anne: I’m so sorry that happened to you. I mean, they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth, and it makes no sense. With a sex addiction therapist near me. Within the context of BTR, when we say the word recover, we’re talking about recovering from the injuries we’ve received from our husband’s abuse through his sexual coercion, using pornography without our knowledge, deceit, manipulation, gaslighting, emotional and psychological abuse. All the abuse that we talk about here at BTR.

RECOVERY & HEALTHY LIVING

Anne: So many women who listen to the podcast or come to BTR for our services. They’ve done pornography addiction recovery with their husbands, just like you have with a sex addiction therapist near me. And then 5, 10 or 20 years later, maybe after a therapeutic disclosure or 4 D-Days later, they realized like this is not working. So when you’re talking about your husband being in recovery, the causes of addiction, and an addict’s recovery can you define recovery in that context?

Cindy: To me, recovery is the process of becoming healthy. The goal is to lead a life of integrity, healthy emotional coping skills. I’ve always felt like recovery is nothing more than living a healthy life. Recovery is not just now. To get to point B. Recovery is the rest of your life, because once you’ve got it down, it’s about healthy living.

So why would we limit healthy living? We want that for the rest of our lives.

Anne: In pornography addiction recovery, they’ll tell you to observe if he’s going to a 12 step group, or going to therapy. And that’s an indicator that he’s in recovery.

IDENTIFYING ABUSIVE BEHAVIORS

Anne: But they don’t actually talk about abusive behaviors generally. Did anyone including a sex addiction therapist near me ever identify the problem as abuse, in your experience?

Cindy: No, when I had my D-Day. I kind of stumbled across the term trauma, and not right away. I never stumbled across the word abuse. To be honest, it wasn’t until Betrayal Trauma Recovery that I can look back on my own situation now and definitely see a cycle of abuse. You know, most people think abuse, and they think physical or even verbal. My husband was always calm and quiet, and he made me look abusive compared to an outsider who didn’t know what was going on because I was very expressive of my anger.

Never physical, but I verbalized it, whereas he would maintain a kind of silence. But I know the abusive nature of gaslighting and there was a lot of that. In the end, there was no denying that he knew he was robbing me of my reality. At one point, I told him, if you keep secrets from me, knowing how damaging it is to our relationship and to me, this is abusive and cruel.

Anne: And I think that’s what’s hurting victims of abuse. We’re trying to get help, but the professionals are digging in the wrong place. When they focus on the causes of addiction. That’s a reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark for you kids of the 80s, like me, who watched it 10 million times. They’re digging in the wrong place! So a lot of women, when their husband seems interested in change, are looking for benchmarks.

SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME: BENCHMARKS VS. SAFETY BEHAVIORS

Anne: Many of the women we talk to, their guys are going to a sex addiction therapist near me. They’re going to a recovery group. But because they’re also gaslighting their therapist, many of them are just getting a big ego boost. Or like narcissistic supply from their therapist, and they’re not improving at all. The therapist bases it on perceived causes of addiction.

And similarly, with either 12 step group or their accountability group, they go there and they’re like the hero, and they’re not telling them the truth. They’re just getting more narcissistic supply there. We see that all the time. So I want to warn women that what you need to look for, rather than benchmarks, is actual safety behaviors. I teach women how to do that in The Workshop. And to get more information, click on this link.

Cindy: That’s what I meant in the beginning when I mentioned integrity. Because those benchmarks can just be check boxes that get checked off. They don’t add up to anything. There’s no real change in the relationship at home and in the way I’m treated.

Anne: I’ve heard women share how, when they weren’t being treated better. Even though he was “in recovery” with a sex addiction therapist near me. That he was like, well, I’m working on it, but what can you expect? I’m an addict, kind of a thing. Which basically amounts to he thought he had an excuse to behave that way.

WHEN SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME ENABLES EXCUSES

Cindy: It’s really not an either or situation. It implies that either sex addiction is real, or people engage in hurtful behaviors using addiction as an excuse and figuring out the causes of addiction. But in my opinion, both of these can be true. If your husband’s using this as an excuse, it’s not an excuse. It no more justifies the addict’s behavior than alcoholism justifies crashing your vehicle head on into another vehicle and destroying the lives inside. That’s not going to get you out of the consequences for that. It doesn’t mean you’re not responsible.

You can accept or not accept that there’s such a thing as sex addiction and go that route with a sex addiction therapist near me. And what are the causes of addiction. Either way, we’re affected

Anne: it would be like a smoker saying, I’m addicted to smoking. And that’s why I smoke in your face, car, bedroom and kitchen. None of those are excuses. So what? It’s not acceptable for you to smoke in my face.

Cindy: We need to protect ourselves.

Anne: Yeah, when an addict blames his family of origin, his wife, stressors of his job, oh man, like that happened all the time. I’m cranky and I’m irritable and I’m immature because I have a job. It’s like, no. That’s what I love about Betrayal Trauma Recovery is that we’ve all been there.

CONFLICTING EMOTIONS

Anne: Like the therapist couldn’t understand why I told her my husband is abusive, and he has a pornography addiction, and I don’t want to get divorced. She couldn’t hold those three things in her brain at the same time. Yeah, it was like, well, if he’s abusive, then you want to get divorced. It was sort of like she thought I was crazy. And I thought, no, this is what’s happening. He is abusive, and I don’t want to get divorced.

That’s where I’m at. And so many times people, even when I got divorced, they said, oh, well, congratulations since he was abusive. And I’m like, no, not congratulations. I didn’t want to get divorced. That’s where I was. At Betrayal Trauma Recovery our coaches understand that from the beginning.

Cindy: Most of us have experienced these conflicting things. When I found out about my husband’s addiction, I had been a stay at home mom for several years. In the midst of this, I remember personally feeling like I didn’t have any love left. But still not wanting to divorce.

I don’t feel guilty about that. That’s part of the trauma I was going through. I had a small child at home. I was lucky that I had a degree to fall back on. But there was a part of me that was just angry and thought, fine, that’s the life you want to live. You live that life, and I’ll continue to let you financially support me, and I’ll live the life I want.

CAUSES OF ADDICTION: STRENGTH & RESILIENCE

Cindy: That sounds kind of cold, and I eventually came to the conclusion that wasn’t how I wanted to live my life. When you have financial considerations, and you have children that you don’t want to live apart from, even part time. It’s something that weighs on your heart. People come to all kinds of decisions about how they’re going to handle this based on many reasons. You may wonder what you need to know about reunification therapy. I agree, your coaches are well trained to understand, because they have been there.

What I’ve found over and over again is that we are amazingly strong. It takes a lot of strength to pick yourself up from a situation you didn’t cause, you didn’t contribute to, and may not even have been aware of, and go get help for yourself. It’s unfair what we’re going through. But when people hurt us physically or emotionally, the person who hurt us can’t heal us.

Anne: You know, what’s sad about that is so many women feel they can’t live in their current situation. It’s untenable. But climbing out of the dark deep hole seems so difficult financially and emotionally. The prospect of getting help is scary and overwhelming. I wish life wasn’t like that. But it seems like the only option is either sitting in misery or working ourselves out of it. But there’s no magical thing that’s going to happen that’s going to make everything better once you figure out the causes of addiction.

Cindy: That’s the part that seems so unfair, but that’s where we find ourselves. I like the way you put that sit in misery or work our way out of it. It’s for us to decide, and we’re the only ones that can make it happen.

RECOVERY FOR VICTIMS: SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME

Anne: Now at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we define recovery for victims as like physical therapy. Or someone recovering from an accident or injury. So not that they’re sick or have some sort of mental disorder or something needing to recover like an addict. But more the recovery from the frame of reference of you’re injured and recovering from your injury.

When we use the word recovery in the betrayal trauma context, we’re talking about recovering from someone else’s harming you. You said if you’re not willing to trust again sometime in the future. I also want to share that many women aren’t sure if they’re willing to trust again, but what they’re willing to do is leave the light on. They’re willing to leave the door open just a little bit. Now interestingly enough, many victims, including me, are actually leaving the door open.

Not leaving the door open for like remarrying him or anything like that. I don’t think I’ll ever unblock him for my phone. But no matter if you’re still married, wondering how to know when to leave, separated, or divorced. You can move forward with your life and live in reality, and see what he’s going to do is exactly what the Living Free workshop is about. You can move forward with your life focusing on your own dreams and goals. And if he wants to step into reality, awesome.

He can at any time. But in the meantime, you’ll have emotional safety. You’ll have psychological safety. And those safety strategies are in my Workshop teaches. Thank you so much, Cindy, for sharing your story today. I appreciate you being here.

Cindy: Thank you, Anne.

GROOMING

Anne: We have another member of our community, we’re gonna call her Naomi.

Welcome, Naomi.

Naomi: Thank you

Anne: Let’s start at the beginning of your story when you were dating. Looking back, how would you describe it? Was there anything happening that would’ve helped, you know, if your husband has a sex addiction? Assuming you knew then what you know now.

Naomi: I think it was a pretty typical grooming process. He was just really kind. We were friends at first and then it progressed into more. He was very attentive, he was in contact almost like hourly. He was constantly in contact with me. I was always getting text messages and he was always complimentary and kind. Swept me off my feet.

After we got married, there would be these huge outbursts and this anger, and he would say these horrible things, but I quickly learned that if I was in line with what he wanted, that those did not occur as often.

And so I very quickly learned to anticipate what might cause angry outbursts. To avoid the name calling and the yelling and throwing things and stuff like that.

Anne: Which is the purpose of abuse, right? To coerce someone to do what you want, rather than a healthy way of interacting, being honest and asking them nicely and giving them the ability to choose for themselves. Often when you know your husband has a sex addiction, they’ll use coercion in really subtle, even kind ways to stop you from talking about it.

When did you discover your husband’s sex addiction? About three years into our marriage, I discovered he was involved with a woman. At that point, I was willing to take most of the blame.

A SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME: DISCOVERY OF A SEX ADDICTION

Naomi: I had said, “Obviously I’m not meeting your needs. We need to go see a counselor and talk to the bishop. Let’s work this out.” At that point he acknowledged pornography use. I am pretty smart and I’m quick with computers.

So I would check up on him a lot and He’s also very smart and good with computers. He quickly learned how to avoid getting caught. So we played this game for a while where I would check up on him a lot, but eventually I couldn’t catch him anymore. He figured out all the ways that I was checking up on him and found ways around them.

About four years later, I found him involved with a girl at work and there were other women in between and so we separated. I was staying with my parents and the two bishops I worked with, wanted me to work it out with him.

I didn’t know what else to do. And he was very good at convincing me at times that he was going to change things, we’re going to get better. Then I caught him involved with a girl again she was staying in his hotel. I said, we need a separation. So for the very first time, addiction was brought up.

Anne: So was this from a sex addiction therapist near me? They didn’t identify the abuse, but said he had a sex addiction?

Naomi: We went to therapists the whole time, through 11 years.

I didn’t know I was being abused, or that it was an addiction either. It was just a pornography problem. Something he needed to address. At that point, I discovered a lot more about addiction. How do abusers gaslight, table turning, grooming.

GASLIGHTING

Anne: Can you give some examples of how he would Gaslight you?

Naomi: One of the first ones, I always felt like something was wrong, but every once in a while I would just feel it really strongly.

And so I’d be like, is everything okay? Is there something going on you need to tell me about? He would say, you know, eventually you’re going to figure out that that’s just your paranoia or he would question everything I said. Because he is genuinely a very, very intelligent person.

It would leave me feeling like I was crazy. Maybe it was me. He would turn things around and say other people could see it as well.

We were separated. And he was claiming it was going to get better. But when I started to set boundaries, he decided that I was holding him back and he left.

He did not file for a divorce, but he asked me to do it. I didn’t want a divorce, but I did what he wanted.

It did end up being good for me, to let go and say, this isn’t my problem anymore. But I didn’t want to at the time, and I was devastated.

I didn’t recognize gaslighting as abuse. It took me until after the divorce that I really started to recognize that there was abuse that there was anything other than pornography use.

I was reading one of the articles that you had put out there and it was talking about ways that you could recognize someone that was working addiction recovery . As I was going through, I started recognizing just a whole bunch of different things that had gone on and that were still kind of going on even in my interactions with him after the divorce.

WHEN THE SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME MISLABELS YOU

Naomi: Before that, I had therapists advise me to read a book, and I read the book, and it was just after we had separated.Two to three months after, and I read the book, but I thought, you know, this doesn’t really seem like me. And then, after I had read your article, I read it again and I was like, holy cow, this is exactly me.

He would attack me, but at the end of his attacks, when I was upset, he’d be like, You just hate that someone else thinks differently than you, and you can’t control what they think.

And I would believe him because I was feeling upset by that point. And so I’d be like, yeah, I feel upset about what he’s thinking. I didn’t recognize the attack that had happened. That was actually the cause of what I was feeling. He never said anything directly, like you’re stupid.

He just said, “Everyone else gets it and you don’t.” But there were times when I had really great clarity and I started to realize that I didn’t deserve because I would feel guilty. And then I started listening to different things, your podcasts. And I started recognizing slowly. He wasn’t very nice. It wasn’t very good. And I started recognizing my feelings and emotions.

I just had to bury them deep so that I could just get through each day. So they started coming out, you know, as I’d remember things. and think about things or things would be different and I would notice that I was happy in it. I hadn’t felt that in a while. I would recognize why and it was because as I got away from his abuse, I started to have more confidence in myself.

REALIZING THE TRUTH ONCE YOU’RE OUT

Naomi: I didn’t feel like I constantly had to please someone else or there would be huge repercussions. I started to gain confidence in myself and my relationship with my children became better. They were struggling and we worked through it together and found ways to talk about things that were hurting them inside. I began to gain confidence in my mothering skills. I hadn’t realized I didn’t have confidence before listening to podcasts I started to recognize more and more,

Oh my goodness, this was way worse. When you’re in the situation at the time you can’t think about how horrible it is because that would be too hard to handle and recognize just how bad it is. For a lot of people, it comes after.

Anne: Yeah, the most trauma I ever had was after he was out of the home. And I realized how bad it really was. Yeah, it’s shocking.

Naomi: And it was your podcast. It was the BTR podcast that helped me to recognize. I think the professionals, it’s hard to say abuse, to say those words and talk about abuse like grooming, gaslighting, things like that. But it’s important for the survivor of abuse to hear those words and understand what happened to them.

And once they hear those words, it’s life saving. It helps you recognize why you had the reactions you did, that it was really that bad. That’s why you’re feeling the way that you’re feeling. It was really important.

Anne: Naomi, thank you so much for sharing how discovering your husband’s sex addiction helped you realize that he was abusive to you emotionally, psychologically, and even sexually. Your story will help other women struggling to know if their husband has a sex addiction too. So thank you so much.

AN ADDICT CAN ALSO BE ABUSIVE WITH A SEX ADDICTION THERAPIST NEAR ME

Anne: I have my friend Kate on with me today. We are just hanging out, chatting. About what is a sex addict called? Like what are you going to call your addict husband? If he’s got a sex addiction, are you going to say sex addict or will you call it something else? We are talking about that. So to put words in Kate’s mouth quickly, we both agree that pornography is addictive. We both agree that its use is abuse.

And then also the behaviors around it, the gaslighting, the lying, the manipulation. All those types of behaviors around it constitute emotional abuse, psychological abuse, and sexual coercion. So we both agree on that point. I prefer to use the word abusive. When we were talking before, Kate said, “No, I actually like the word addiction.” So Kate, can you talk about why you like using the word addiction?

Kate: I actually like both. I know there are some people out there who are like, maybe it’s not an addiction, maybe it’s a compulsion. So we’ll just get rid of the word addiction and call it all abuse. It does fit the definition of addiction. The research on the brain shows it is an addiction. I like to call it addiction simply because if you call it a compulsion, like some people have been doing, well, anything could be compulsive.

Did he eat a cake? Is he compulsive with a cake? Does he bite his nails compulsively? When you say, “Oh, my husband has a compulsive issue.” It just doesn’t hold as much seriousness as addiction does.

THE SERIOUSNESS OF ADDICTION

Kate: It’s as if somebody who had cancer, were to say, “I have an illness.” Some people might be like, “Oh, is it a serious illness?” Other people might be like, “Oh, maybe it’s just a common cold.” The word addiction has more seriousness than compulsion. As far as either abuse or addiction, I just use both because they feed off each other so much.

I don’t think you can have sex addiction without some type of abuse. I don’t know about other addictions. I’ve heard from other people who said their husbands were maybe alcoholics, weren’t sex addicts, and weren’t abusive. I even did a poll once. Ninety-nine percent of betrayed wives experienced some type of abuse from their husbands.

Anne: I think the pornography use in and of itself is abuse. It’s abusive for trust, it’s abuse of your marriage contract and vows. To be faithful, for example, and not cheat on me. And I consider pornography use to be cheating, and so therefore it’s an abuse of those vows.

The reason I’ve dropped the word “addiction” is not because I don’t think it’s addictive. I absolutely think it’s addictive. The reason why I prefer to use the word abuse in all contexts is because addiction, to me, says this is what he is experiencing. I’m not so concerned about what he is experiencing. I am more concerned about what the victim is experiencing. Maybe armchair psychology is affecting you.

There’s the cause, and then there’s the effect. The effect to her, what she feels, and the way she experiences all his behaviors is always abuse. There’s no other word for it. So that’s why I prefer to say this is abuse, because of its effect on the victim of this scenario.

THE MISCONCEPTION OF ADDICTION

Anne: Most of the time, I’ve dropped the word addiction completely, and I always call it abuse. I don’t want people to get the wrong impression that I don’t think it’s addictive, because I do. I just think the word abuse really gets to the heart of what the wife is going through, rather than focusing on him and what he’s going through. For me, anytime someone says the word “addiction”, there’s this, oh, poor him, he’s got an addiction.

If someone tells the story, “This guy stole this car, he rammed into this stuff, he went around and he did all these bad things!” People would be horrified. Oh, wow, what a jerk or something. But if you say, “They got addicted to cocaine when they were young. Then they stole a car, they ran over a bunch of people.”

You say the same exact stuff, and they’re like, “He was addicted to cocaine.” I just don’t want there to be any pity for the addict. because they feed off of that and use that to victim blame and groom other people. So I prefer not to use the word addict to help keep victims safe. This is abuse, and I don’t care if you’re an addict or not. Who am I to say how you are experiencing this? What I’m concerned about is how your behaviors affect me.

Kate: Oh, I love that. I love you said that. I use the word addiction mostly when I interact with other women. There are times to use the word addiction, but yes, the main focus is what is happening to you is abuse. It’s not addiction that’s happening to you, it’s abuse.

SEEKING SAFETY OVER MARRIAGE

Anne: Yeah, if a woman describes to me what is happening to her. And then she asks, Is my husband a sex addict? I’d be like, I don’t know. whether he’s an addict or not, but what I know is these behaviors you’ve just described are abuse. And we have thousands of women in our community. And my concern is that the words we use determine their next steps. The word addiction is dangerous because the first thing that comes to mind is 12 step recovery program.

She’s always been resisting this type of abuse. And she feels like a recovery program keeping her family together will be the safer route. She is doing what she’s supposed to do. She’s trying to get help. If she hears the word abuse, rather than try and keep her “marriage safe.” She’s going to think I need to be safe. How can I get myself to safety?

Kate: Completely different.

Anne: I would say it’s the victim’s first attempt to get to safety. She is trying to see if he goes to a 12-step program, or if he does this or that, will that make her safer? Meaning, will that change him into a safe person? She hopes through her attempts for safety, he will turn from being an unsafe person to being a safe person.

Technically speaking, if he did that, it would solve her safety problem. The unfortunate thing is, he just starts grooming more or lying more. It actually creates less safety. And she doesn’t know that.

Kate: If you think about it, you can even say, “Yes, your husband is being abusive.”

THE PROBLEM WITH THE ADDICTION MODEL

Kate: They’re trying to be proactive about their lives, so they’re going to go online, they’re going to search things like, my husband needs help. Where’s the help?” There will be more help in the sex addiction field.

Anne: For their husband?

Kate: Yes.

Anne: Because everyone uses the addiction model. Let’s talk about why it’s scary. How would you describe it?

Kate: I’ll start at the beginning. First off, when people think of addiction, they think, “Oh, he can’t help it.” That is actually not accurate. There were even people back before AA started who believed they couldn’t help it. Yes, they have a brain disease in some aspects. You can verify that with brain scans, but it is a self-inflicted disease.

If a smoker smokes 12 packs a day and got lung cancer, would that smoker be like, “I can’t stop smoking. The cancer is making me do it. I can’t go and get treatment because the cancer is not letting me.” No, everyone would be like, that’s insane. So why is it that we do that when it comes to addiction?

“They can’t because they got a disease. They can’t help it.” So that is like the foundation of many of the whole addiction world; especially sex addiction. No, no, no, they still have agency. They still have choice. It is a self-inflicted disease. Their choices caused it, not the reverse. The sex addiction world hijacks it and makes it even more ridiculous.

Anne: With the sex addiction model, they don’t really know what to do with the victim. They say they use the trauma model, but then they won’t admit where the trauma is coming from. They refuse to say she’s traumatized by abuse.

VICTIM DESENSITIZATION IN THERAPY

Kate: Yo, it’s awful. It is awful. You say the word abuse in the sex addiction industry, and they’re like, [gasp!] “How dare you say that! You’re shaming the addict!” What? I’m literally stating a behavior they’re doing. You guys are making it worse. The whole industry is addict centric.

Anne: Yes, it is not victim centric.

Kate: It is not at all. Even if somebody says they’re a betrayal trauma therapist, if they’re coming from the sex addiction industry, it means they’re still in the addiction industry, still addict centric. It’s like, “We’re going to help you handle your trauma so you can help your husband… or so you’re not shaming your husband… or so you’re not triggering your husband so he can get into recovery.” That’s not what it should be at all.

Anne: Or, so your husband’s abusive behaviors aren’t triggery to you. That’s the thing I see the most. For example, the husband is still abusive, and the sex addiction professional. Not somebody at our organization, Betrayal Trauma Recovery, but a so-called “betrayal trauma expert” will be like, “You’re just still being traumatized from the past when he used to use pornography. Now he’s not using it anymore, so I don’t know why when he says these things to you, it’s upsetting.

You’re just being triggered, so let’s work on your triggers.” They’re not recognizing he’s gaslighting her, he’s manipulating her, still emotionally and psychologically abusing her. And she’s still a victim of sexual coercion. You should not help a victim become desensitized to abuse. It feels like that is what the sex addiction industry is trying to do in their treatment of victims. desensitize you to this abuse.

THE DANGER OF MISLABELING ABUSE

Anne: “Let’s help you be tolerant of the abuse, because otherwise your marriage will fall apart. You want to keep your marriage, right?” Instead of saying, “You’re a victim of abuse. He is an abuser.” The worst case scenario is happening right now. The worst case scenario isn’t divorce, let’s get you to safety. They refuse to go there.

Kate: They refuse. I can’t even count how many friends I’ve had who have gone to very popular, and you know who I’m talking about. Very popular betrayal trauma companies, whatever organizations, and they’ve had therapists.

Anne: That aren’t us. Let’s say that.

Kate: She had just spent long months trying to convince her husband it’s abuse, and he finally believes it. Then you have a therapist saying, in front of the husband, “Your husband’s not abusing you. No, what your husband did to you is not abuse.”

What’s going to happen? I guarantee the husband will be more abusive. He’s going to be more entitled. He’d be like, “Oh, I’m not abusive. A therapist said so!” It is so dangerous and so damaging to do that.

Anne: Two of the things the pornography addiction recovery world asks of a spouse of an addict. Or a victim of abuse would be number one, to not shame him, and number two, connect with him. I think it’s all they’ve got. They can’t think of anything else to say.

SHAME & ITS MISINTERPRETATION

Anne: They have to pretend like it’s not that big of a deal, so that she’ll stay. Because they’re worried about her leaving. They don’t want his support system leaving him, because it could be bad for him. But they never stopped to think, is it good for her? In the pornography addiction recovery world, the main concern of these professionals is him. Their main concern is not her. At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, our main concern is her. Is she safe? Is she okay? Does she have her needs met?

Kate and I, again, I’ll put words in your mouth here, but we don’t actually think that shame is even a thing. Everybody feels shame. Some people feel shame, and they eat ice cream. And some people feel shame, and they go for a run. Some people feel shame, and they start crying. Shame is not the cause of someone looking at pornography.

Kate: It does not. It does not cause it. You have men who feel no shame for watching it. They did not grow up in religious culture. They did not grow up with any outside source saying it is bad. And yet they’re still having issues with it.

Anne: Exactly, they don’t feel shame, but they use shame to activate your shame to make you feel bad or guilty to manipulate you. The problem isn’t their overwhelming shame, it’s their lack of shame. Of course, to other people, they have to act like they have shame; otherwise, they would seem like monsters. There are also men who don’t look at pornography when they feel shame.

HEALTHY SHAME

Anne: Shame is a normal human emotion that should not be avoided at all costs or that we should be striving to reduce. It’s something that happens that we need to be healthy about. A healthy person deals with their shame in healthy ways. An unhealthy person deals with their shame in unhealthy ways, but it’s not the cause of anybody’s behavior.

Yes, I understand where people have become more obsessed about the whole shame thing. If you talk about the actual dictionary definition of shame, it is not always bad. Brene Brown’s definition, shame is not good. But it can be healthy.

Anne: To put this in perspective, Brene Brown is trying to help people deal with their own shame. She’s not trying to help people deal with other people’s shame. But some people are actually bad people.

Kate: Yes.

Anne: If somebody skis every Saturday, they’re a skier. If someone plays tennis twice a week, they are a tennis player. If someone runs track and does baseball and all kinds of things, they’re an athlete. You are what you choose to do. So if someone is continually lying, they’re a liar. If someone continually uses pornography, they’re a pornography user. The Bible and whatever scriptures you use have a word for this. It is called wicked.

There is nowhere in the scriptures I have ever seen that says, “He was wicked because he felt shame. Then this wicked person stopped being wicked because they said, “You’re not a bad person; you’re not a wicked person, just these things you’re doing are wicked.” No, in the scriptures, it actually says they are a wicked person.

SCRIPTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON WICKEDNESS

Anne: They are wicked because they choose evil things over and over again. Part of the accountability, honesty and authenticity is for these men to actually recognize I technically really am a bad person.

Kate: “You can’t say someone’s a bad person! That’s not who they are!”

Anne: Your behavior defines who you are.

Kate: So you’re saying Alfred Kinsey is not a bad person? I’m pretty sure we can call him a bad person. I can call him a bad, disgusting person because he was. It doesn’t mean they were always bad, and that doesn’t mean they can’t change. But right now, yeah, what they did, they are a bad person. Like we can’t call them bad, it actually makes it worse and fuels the problem.

Anne: Listen to the scripture: “I say unto you, nay, except you make our creator a liar from the beginning, or suppose he is a liar from the beginning. You cannot suppose such can have a place in the kingdom of heaven, but they shall be cast out for they are children of the kingdom of the devil.” There are other scriptures that say he is a child of hell. That probably wouldn’t be the wisest thing to say, but technically speaking, their choices have created a wicked character.

They literally are a wicked person. It never says anywhere in the scriptures, “They were wicked so we did not shame them. We told them, no, you’re not wicked you’re not bad, You’re good. And then they stopped being wicked.”

Then the advice, our loving Heavenly Father cast them out. In the scriptures, you will find it. It is all over the place.

ADULTS VS. CHILDREN IN ACCOUNTABILITY

Kate: I will add, just in case, because I’m guessing some people might listen to this and be like, “Wait a minute, but I grew up thinking I was a bad kid and it didn’t help me.” We’re not talking about children. We are talking about grown men, grown people who know better.

Anne: We’re talking about people who genuinely are making very sad decisions and hurting people. Children are just trying to figure stuff out. Children aren’t wicked.

Kate: Children are not bad. Whereas, an adult with a developed brain who knows better, he’s choosing to. You can always tell when they know better, because do they do this in front of their boss? Friends? Do they mistreat you like this in front of somebody else? If the answer is no, he knows what he’s doing. Unless he has some anger issue where he’s angry, literally to everyone, then maybe he really does legit have some disorder.

I would also say it’s not because of his childhood either. I used to even believe this, but the research actually does not show that. The research shows that when someone’s abusive, it’s because of entitlements, misogyny, that there are choices, not because of their childhood.

Anne: We all know people who have had a hard childhood, who are healthy adults. The response is, “I know someone who went through a similar experience to yours, and they’re not abusive to their wife.” You may have had an abusive childhood.

Kate: Exactly, thankfully, the anti-abuse industry is starting to recognize this. They’re starting to teach us that. He’s not an addict, because he drank too much, or because he had childhood trauma; that’s not why he’s abusive. It is because of entitlements and misogyny.

IF HE’S LYING TO YOU, IT HURTS YOU

Anne: Yeah. Well, no matter what you call it. Those behaviors are abusive to you. And so that’s why I like calling it abuse. Comment on this podcast transcript below. Let me know what you think.

Kate. You’re awesome. Thanks for hanging out today.