A Small Breakthrough

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. My sobriety date is unchanged since my last post. I’m still sober.

You probably realize that I’m still very new at this recovery thing. I’m learning new things about myself and my addiction every day. I don’t pretend to be wise about any of this, but I’m figuring stuff out.

I attend a 12-Step meeting one night a week and am trying to work in a second one. I attend group therapy one night a week and I have individual therapy every other week. In between all that, I’m reading every day and doing work toward Step One.

In short, I’m filling my head with the right stuff: tons of information about addiction, codependence, intimacy disorders and such. Now, I have to sort through it all and make some sense of it.

Last weekend, I escaped to the family farm and did some manual labor. In my eyes, nothing clears the mind like hard outdoor work. Amy was not too excited about my running away, but I’m glad I did because I made a minor breakthrough while away. It’ll take a little background to help you understand what happened.

At the recommendation of my therapist, Hank, I’ve been reading ”Facing Codependence” by Pia Mellody. I knew nothing about codependence before reading her book, other than the fact that I made fun of my sister when she felt she was struggling with it years ago.

I came away from that book realizing that I lived in a codependent relationship with my mother from birth until the day she died. I knew she was a bit unstable and had a Jekyll/Hyde streak in her. She’d be loving one minute and rip your head off the next. One of my jobs was to be responsible for keeping her happy – or at least not angry. I learned a great number of other dysfunctional behaviors from her, as well. I came away afraid of and angry with women in general because I projected her onto virtually every woman I met.

Soon after I married Amy, I realized that I was projecting my mother onto her, but seemed unable to keep from doing so. Anytime she would express the least bit of frustration with me, I would recoil from her, wanting to crawl under a rock. To say that’s caused problems in our marriage would be an understatement.

Let’s label that Factor One in this equation I’m developing. A factor that leads to a painful and unfulfilling relationship with one’s spouse.

Now Factor Two is inherent to sex addiction. The addict’s life revolves around sex. Sex is like oxygen. Without it you will die an agonizing death. Or at least that’s what the addict inside tells you. And so if you can’t get sex from your spouse, you must get it somewhere. For me, it was porn and masturbation, i.e., sex with self. But for the grace of God, I could have found it in other women.

In recovery, one of the standard readings in my 12-Step group reminds us that we eventually learn that sex is optional. Who would have ever thought that sex was optional? Certainly not this addict.

But when I stopped acting out and began to “dry out”, so to speak, I started to get some clarity in my thinking. I went through a withdrawal period and on the other side, it became easier to do without constant sexual stimulation. Amy and I have made love a handful of times during the time of my recovery, but I have stayed “sober” by not acting out in sex with self. So, I really am learning that sex is optional and life doesn’t end without it.

On to Factor Three, which is being a people pleaser, a definite codependent characteristic. I can’t stand for someone to be upset with me. So, to avoid that, I give in, retreat, cower, grovel or whatever in order to make the other person “not mad“. I’ve done that with Amy since Day One of our marriage.

So how do these three factors interrelate? Well, it works like this (and it is as bizarre as it seems when you go back and read it again):

• Amy constantly wants to know what I’m thinking, feeling, how I’m doing, etc. That’s part of her definition of intimacy. (I don’t have a definition of intimacy that doesn’t include the word “sex” three or four times.)
• Now, let’s say that she’s done something that frustrates me. That might be what’s going through my head when she asks me “what are you thinking?”.
• But I can’t tell her that I’m frustrated because she will get mad (because that’s what my mother always did). That will be horrible. I’m a people pleaser and can’t let that happen.
• Besides, if she gets mad at me, she won’t want to have sex with me.
• And if I don’t have sex, I will die. (It’s oxygen, remember?)

So that’s what’s been happening in our relationship forever. I won’t approach any conflict with Amy because it might lead to no sex and my figurative death.

But here’s the flip side.

• If I don’t tell Amy about my frustrations, we can’t work on the underlying issues and the frustration continues.
• Then I get mad at her because the things that frustrate me continue.
• But I stuff those feelings because I’m afraid that Mom (or my projection of her onto Amy) will rip my head off.
• I reach a point where I am unable to deal with all of the repressed frustration – or more accurately, anger – and I need something to dull the pain.
• So I turn to my drug of choice and act out in my addiction.
• And then the guilt and shame set in, which add to the repressed feelings of anger, along with other guilt and shame, which in turn need to be medicated.

And that is how sex addiction becomes a real thing in a seemingly “normal” marriage.

So, I shared that entire cycle with Amy earlier this week and she wasn’t shocked or surprised. She was hurt, but followed my distorted logic quite well.

But, for me, knowledge is power and now that I recognize this bizarre pattern, I can do something about. Now that I’m starting to realize that sex is truly optional (from a physiological standpoint at least) then I need not fear addressing conflict with Amy for that reason alone.

I’ll still have to work through the projection of my mother onto Amy, but the fear of dying from lack of sex because she might get angry is much less scary than before.

Now, Amy and I can start working on potentially contentious issues and I can learn to let her be mad – if necessary – and not feel like I have to fix it.

None of this is easy, but it feels like missing pieces of a puzzle are turning up everywhere. Who knows, I might eventually find enough pieces to see what the puzzle is supposed to look like.

Please let me know if any of this speaks to you.

God bless.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)