Shelly
Marshall thought nothing in the
addictions could shock her, until she stumbled on her husband’s secret
life. Patrick Carnes , Ph.D.,
author of Out
of the Shadows, and I have appeared
on the same seminar roster more than once. Having faced some
controversy in my
own work with adolescent addiction, I considered him brave for
broaching such a
controversial topic as sexual addiction. Yet, while considering Dr.
Carnes
courageous, I thought sexual addiction was a narrow problem pertaining
to a few
isolated deviants. I felt sorry for his patients, never entertaining
the
thought that the problem may some day be mine. My
husband, Bob,
and I met in a 12- step recovery program. He was the man of my dreams.
No
matter what happened, we promised each other, our marriage would be run
on the
same principles responsible for our recovery—honesty, integrity, and
service to
others. “I have never been unfaithful to a woman,” Bob assured me, “and
I will
never be unfaithful to you.” The conviction in his voice warmed my
heart and
fed my arrogance at marrying such a virtuous man.
I stumbled upon his secret
life
Almost
to the day of our four year anniversary, I
stumbled upon his secret life. Innocently
double-clicking a jpeg image on our computer, it revealed my husband
having intercourse
with a woman on our couch! I gasped. The next double-click revealed a
different
woman in oral sex with my husband. The third contained a buxom and
grinning
blond on our yard in a rancorous sexual encounter with Bob. “I
will never be unfaithful to you,” rang through my ears. Because
of his moral convictions and our commitment to 12-step principles, this
was a
crushing blow. What I didn’t know then, but would discover in Out
of the Shadows, is that “the addict’s
protestations of high sexual morality
are like a
smoke screen, obscuring the impact of sexual obsession.” Later, I would
blame
myself for not catching the warning signs during our courtship. Carnes
response: “Friends and family tend to reject suspicions of sexual
compulsivity
because of the addict’s ‘values.’”
My husband changed overnight
From the first day of the honeymoon,. my
husband changed into a
callus, angry stranger. And as a woman
in love and a human service professional, I believed I could change him
back. It
seemed though, the harder I tried to make life good, the more unhappy
Bob
became. Although he never hit me, his abuse was in the form of constant
unrelenting anger and criticism. Worse than my struggle to retain some
sense of
self-worth under the barrage, was the fact that he didn’t seem to
realize I was
a person. We did not connect. We were not friends. He made me an enemy. The
crisis that sent us to counseling came after we had spent
thousands on keeping his ex-wife from moving his son out of state. Bob
screamed
at me, “You’re putting too much stress on me. You keep asking me
questions and
preparing papers and maybe I don’t really want my son living with us.”
Since Bob
demanded we fight for custody, since he was the one who screamed and
threatened
his ex-wife, since I was only playing a supportive role in his battle,
what was
he blaming me for? In a
rare moment of honesty, my husband broke down, sobbing, “If
someone else lives with us, it will change things and I won’t be able
to be
comfortable, like walk around nude and things.” I focused on Bob’s
outburst
with me when the real red flag was a father not wanting his son because
he
wouldn’t be able to walk around nude.
In counseling I was
told to concentrate on me
In counseling, I was told to concentrate on me and my
co-dependency, not my husband. “Stop “fixing” him and take care of
myself,” Dr.
Beffa instructed. He explained where Bob ended and I began, defined
boundaries,
and insisted I not accept unacceptable behavior. After blowing up in a
session, Bob quit counseling, “because I’m not going to sit there and
listen to how
everything is my fault.” As I
improved in counseling, refusing to accept his abuse, Bobwent downhill emotionally, “Well, I guess you
found me out. I’m crazy.” Strangely,
I didn’t catch that he was trying to tell me something.
Instead, my efforts centered on not being Miss Co-dependent. “I don’t
think
you’re crazy but if you do, go to a psychiatrist.” The psychiatrist put
him on
medicine and our lives changed overnight. The all pervasive anger,
criticism,
and blame seemed to melt away, making it appear as if our marriage
might have a
chance after all. Bob began therapy for himself! Had his problem been a
brain chemistry
imbalance all along? Just
as my husband went on meds, our neighbor, Jean, approached me,
“I wouldn’t normally say anything but we all are fed up with your
husband
running around nude and riding the lawn mower naked. My granddaughter,
Amanda,
comes over now and asks about ‘that naked man’ next door.” He
denied it, accused them of lying, then claimed, “They just didn’t
see my skimpy pants.” And promised to be more careful about something
he maintained
wasn’t happening.
Even though his anger
stopped, we could not connect
Life
came to a standstill. While Bob controlled his anger and I
worked on me, not him, we
still could not connect. My gut told me
something was
wrong. Was he drinking, smoking pot? Finally, I dropped to my knees,
“God,
something is wrong with my marriage and I don’t know what. If it be
your will, please
reveal it.” The
computer screen in front of me answered that prayer. A cursory
search revealed, among other things, that my husband had photographed
himself
nude in our yard, found naked women on the internet, and digitally
blended the
images into them having sex. I was sick. What did it mean? As a
professional, I consulted other professionals before confronting
him. The support groups I found online, the work of Patrick Carnes, the
co-sex
addict’s literature, and our counselor made the implications clear. My
husband showed
clear signs of exhibitionism. A from of sex addiction. I
had always thought that sex addicts were people who couldn’t stop
having
sex—like nymphomaniacs. But sexual addiction (SA) is far more prevalent
than I
had imagined and many sex addicts are technically faithful to their
spouses. Brenda Schaeffer writes on her website
of Love Addiction, “Sexual addiction is a sickness involving any type
of
uncontrollable sexual activity that results in negative consequences.”
Is he really a
sex addict?
Not
wanting to believe the implications, I asked my support group
coach, is he really an addict? Jonathan Marsh, founder of www.understandingsexualaddiction.org
(not up now) responded:
Your situation is actually
more clear cut than most. Behaviors like, "...taking pics of himself in
our yard in all kinds of positions, cutting and pasting himself in with
nudes
from the internet! Did film of himself MBing in our yard...won't let
folks live
with us so he can walk around nude...neighbor's 'inadvertently' seeing
him in
the nude...took a weding pic of a friend of ours and digitally made her
nude --then
contacted her when I was on a business trip..."
These are all classic
patterns of sexual addiction. That he justifies his
behavior (rather than considering that it might indeed be
inappropriate) is yet
another sign.
Hold your head up high...ask
any and all questions that may help you deal with
this situation. You may not find the answers you want, but at least you
will
have asked the questions openly and courageously.
Armed
with this information, I confronted my husband and explained
how I was going to take care of myself. “I want a separation for at
least one
year in which you seek help and I seek help. At the end of a year we
will see
if we still a marriage worth working on.” As if
following a written script, Bob defended himself with every
excuse my online support group said he would:
You seemed to lose interest
in sex, what could I do?
It’s not a problem, I can
stop any time I want.
No one saw anything. Why
are you making a big deal out of this?
I was only trying to see
what my camera would do.
I was only testing the
Adobe software.
It only began four months
ago.
Every man does it.
After
I refused to “buy” any of his justifications, Bob broke down,
dropped his head in his hands, and whispered, “I knew it was risky. I
don’t know
why I took such a chance.” Soon,
everything was rampages, accusations, criticism, and blame
again. We couldn’t talk, we couldn’t work thorough anything calmly—I
again became
THE enemy.
Why didn't I see the
warning signs?
After
the shock, shame set in. I am a professional; why didn’t I
see the warning signs? One of the women in my support group wrote, “You
will
begin to remember numerous behaviors that you will now see as red
flags, but
what you are not going to do is beat yourself up for not recognizing
them.” During
our courtship, I recalled him nude sunbathing below two
story townhouses and assuring me, “no one can see.” He seemed
especially
flattered that his gay neighbor spied on him and gave him a box of
Poppycock
for Christmas. Bob pressured me to make love in chancy places outdoors
or in
rooms with no curtains. He took nude snapshots of himself frequently,
framed
them, made cards and gave them to me. I thought it was a guy thing.
Later, I
would discover that his “flashing” was the talk of other neighbors in a
former
town we lived in. The
more insidious red flags are what destroyed our marriage. SAs
are overly self-absorbed, objectify their partners, and have trouble
achieving
intimacy. Many SAs have anger issues and blame their spouses for their
unhappiness. I came to understand that all the work we had done in
therapy meant
little because we never addressed the core problem, his sexual
obsessions. My
co-dependency only exacerbated the underlying sickness in our marriage. Accepting the fact that I, an addiction specialist, married
an
addict without seeing the glaring red flags, has not been easy.
Learning to
overcome my need to “fix” my spouse and accept the fact that I am
powerless in
the face of his illness has been harder. Sometimes I think that if I
had been
just a little more co-dependent, I would still be married. At weak
moments, I
regret asking all those “courageous questions” that Jonathan Marsh
spoke of. When
I set my boundary for dealing with this devastating addiction my
husband chose
divorce, an easier softer path, I suppose. What
he said was, “You wouldn’t stand by me.”
But the truth is, I stood by myself.
The
course of this illness (sexual
addiction to pornography) may be slow and is nearly always
hidden from
view. It is usually a secret part of the man's life, and like a cancer,
it keeps growing and spreading. It rarely ever reverses itself, and it
is also very difficult to treat and heal. Denial on the part of the
male addict and refusal to confront the problem are typical and
predictable, and this almost always leads to marital or couple
disharmony, sometimes divorce, and sometimes the breaking up of other
intimate relationships.
