Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. My sobriety date is unchanged since my last post.
I have no desire to overburden you with every detail from my addictive past. However, there are a few more vignettes that are worth sharing to round out my addictive behavior as it was prior to my marriage to Amy.
As I approached 30, my biological clock began to tick loudly. I never thought I’d feel compelled to settle down just because I reached a certain age, but I did.
At that precise moment, a beautiful young lady named Marsha (not her real name) appeared at my church and I immediately began to pursue her. It wasn’t a predator/prey kind of thing, but what seemed like a normal interest between a guy and a pretty young lady. However, it was probably only the second date with Marsha that I found myself in bed with her. She seemed truly interested in me and I felt loved and accepted. I was hooked.
We immediately developed a full-on sexual relationship. I felt fulfilled and invigorated. We were engaged to be married within a month and set a wedding date six months later. She moved into my place, but kept hers as a cover. I had finally found the one who completed me and would fill my needs forever.
Things were fantastic until she realized that I was truly hooked. She had a big diamond ring on her finger and a fiancé who was a rising star in his organization. So, in her mind, she was set for life. Simultaneously, her interest in sex began to taper off. I felt empty and abandoned. She couldn’t possibly love me and withhold sex from me, could she? I maintained some level of dignity, but practically groveled before her to get sex. Every thought was about getting her to have sex with me.
I knew that everything about what I was doing was wrong, but my thinking was so convoluted that I was trying to make it right. I asked God to look at my situation (living with a woman I was not married to, in a sexual relationship with her, and misleading friends and family about both) and BLESS IT. After all, we were GOING to get married.
Surely God could overlook my current sin, look forward a few months to when Marsha and I would stand at the altar to tie the knot, then retroactively make my sinful behavior OK. As I write that now, I realize how screwed up I was, but it made sense to me at the time.
It didn’t take long before I realized that I was in a hopeless situation with Marsha. This was not a healthy relationship for me in ANY way, since it was based SOLELY on sex, but I saw no way out. How do you tell all those friends and family that you’ve invited to the wedding that it ain’t happening? The embarrassment alone would kill me. I had ruined my life.
With the help of several friends who loved me in spite of myself, I broke the engagement and ended my relationship with Marsha. I walked down the aisle at my church the next Sunday and confessed my “sin”. Not my “sins”, mind you (see the list above), only that I had “sinned”. That way I made it right with God but no one had to know what a screwed up mess I was.
Having narrowly escaped a terrifying form of emotional death, I resolved to never do it again. Only to repeat much of the same story with another young woman a few months later.
Now that I’ve started recovery, I can look back and see just how screwed up I was.
For me the equation was simple: SEX = ACCEPTANCE
And so was the converse: NO SEX = REJECTION
I’m still fighting those inner feelings in recovery, but at least now I can own them and face them head-on. And like many things in life, just knowing is half the battle (OK, maybe less than half, but still a good portion of it).
My prayer is that someone reading this might come to realize that they are fighting the same battle and get a good head start.
Hope to see you again soon,
Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)
Jacob The Addict 