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He did actually. he said it was always about not feeling “good enough”. He always felt that he didn’t deserve anything good so he would turn to the phone sex gals and let them tell him how bad he was ( not bad in “haha naughty boy” but bad as in “you low life blah blah blah”). Then he would switch into “I deserve ” whatever and go bang a hooker. Then he would troll bars and pick up random women because they found him “interesting”.
Sick shit…. Any way, I know this is true because he told me and I snooped thru the workbook stuff he had from Minwalla. He wrote it all down and I read it and copied it and put it back where I found it.
He wrote a lot about his childhood and how it all started….
He now says he was an asshole. He also says he lived his life with anger. He says he missed so much and regrets it. I don’t know if that is true or not.
Well, I can’t remember the chronology exactly right now (PTSD thing) but I think it was a week after Discovery Day, when my SA and I were standing eye to eye, he stood with head hung with tears in his eyes telling me he had gone to a counselor and they told him he had a sexual addiction and THAT’s why he “had to” contact all those whores even though he swore he was 100% happy with me and didn’t really want anyone else, etc. etc.
I told him I didn’t believe him. I said he knew this meant war and he was just diving into the nearest bunker thinking I would be compelled to go easier on him because he had a “diagnosis”. I told him then it was NOT a diagnosis, and he’d best drop that idea because I didn’t buy it at all.
I still don’t. He knows it.
Oh, thank you so much for clarifying that, JoAnn and Bev and all of you! I was confused, because you call them your “SAs” — I just assumed that it was taken for granted that they are addicted.
The thing Bev’s husband does/did with the phone sex – not the phone sex itself, but the need to hear how bad he is so that he can counteract it with “I deserve (fill in the blank – hookers, strippers, porn, whatever)” — that is the same pattern I see, too. It’s like they beat themselves up so badly that they have to beat themselves off to make the pain go away.
Yuck.
MFPOS? Or POS for short? That works for me!
And that having them tell him they are bad so that they feel they deserve a hooker? That is some fucking messed up shit. I wonder if that’s why my MFPOS STBX always messed things up- came home late, messed up anything he tried to do around the house, etc.- so I’d be mad at him, he’d feel bad, and he could deserve an orgy? Hmmm….
You know that is actually in some book I read, lost in the sea of SA/NARC/PD books I read. That they create their own pain to be able to soothe, and if they can cause others pain and feel guilty about that, it’s even more effective because that makes them “worse’ in their own eyes, and causes even more exponential pain/guilt. Says something for those we keep asking “why in the hell did they get married when they could have lived the porn/whore/stripper life much easier alone?”
Remember, the DSM also listed homosexuality as a pathology until 1986. PTSD used to be classified as a character disorder. The DSM itself is controversial and extremely political. Just keep that in mind.
I remember writing something about how they possibly create and induce shame in order to then sooth themselves with their addiction/behavior. I had read a quote about it. It made me question whether all the unnecessary drama that they cause with us is simply part of the cycle – so we call them bad names etc, then they give themselves permission to use/act out.
I know pornography is addictive. Very addictive. I consider porn addiction real – regardless of the DSM (they aren’t always right – they disregard most partner trauma experiences from fitting the criteria for a traumatic event – yet, we all know what we’re going through is very REAL and very traumatic). Can these men stop the strippers and the hookers? Yeah, I think they can, but it’s extremely hard to stop the porn if that is their problem. My SA’s addiction is porn – everything else that followed with real women (strippers, webcams, nude beaches) bundled into the term sex addiction, was simply escalation from porn. Chasing the high, yes, but it was all an extension from the porn. If the porn addiction wasn’t there – I don’t think he would have done that shit. Along with his mother and attachment issues, I believe the porn is what further fucked up his mind and personality, and stunted him developing. Just my thoughts.
I agree with Victoria on that one…..porn is a whole other animal, IMO. The pleasure center is activated and away they go into addict land.
IMO (and I’m no expert – just have read a lot), most of the other SA activities are an intimacy disorder…probably started with an attachment issue following a childhood trauma (although Barbara Steffens says, and I believe her, that not all SA is from a childhood trauma)…. They don’t have a secure attachment, shame then pain ensues – and they are afraid of intimacy (both emotional and sexual). Those that love anonymous sex are fulfilling a need/self soothing without becoming too close (so as to not get hurt). There are also others who do it out of “trauma repetition” or a combo of both. Shame is a big component of both – Bev – that’s what likely is why your husband needs to be “shamed” by the phone sex gals….and then try and build himself up.
I believe that mine did both. His needs weren’t met from his parents (mother was a narc and incested him and his father was bi-polar) He turned to porn, frequent masturbation, then masturbation outside the house – then obsessive sex and then anonymous sex to soothe himself. He also likes to go to older women to replicate the destructive pattern of taking care of/having sex with vulnerable and needy women (like his mother).
It’s all very sick. The question of the hour is can they stop? And the biggest question of all is can they ever become emotionally (or physically) intimate? The two are very important questions for me and is the crux of making my decision whether to stay or go. I don’t know the answer to it – and I have yet to hear anything empirical to back it up. I would like to ask those that have seen hundreds of these guys. (but would they be honest?). I think that Dr. Minwalla would…so I need to ask him.
BTW – the best sex I ever had with my SAH was when he was binging (unbeknowst to me), he had just asked for a divorce (all my fault) and he said afterward: so, this doesn’t mean that we are going to remain married. He was free to be emotionally connected because I was “safe”….
That was my first clue that he was one fucked up human being (too kind a phrase). I certainly wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.
Deb
I don’t think he felt free to be emotionally connected, Deb; I think he felt like he could have dirty NSA sex with you–all he really wanted anyway.
Good point, March.
It’s sad that I interpreted it as something else….geeezzzzz…. my therapist at the time also said that it probably wasn’t what I thought it was. Blech.
It all really comes down to senamtics. As I have said countless times, it doesn’t matter what you call it, these behaviors are devastating.
My opinion is that as long as the Carnes camp and other experts keep treating it as an addiction there is little to no hope of them changing in a positive way. It’s like putting a band aide on a hemorrhage.
And it doesn’t work. I have yet to see a truly recovered Sex Addict. And no one seems to be able to find one.
If treating it as an addiction worked we should be able to find those success stories, those men who can honestly stand up and say, I’ve been sober and clean for xx years.
And that was the original question of this thread. ‘Can they get better?’
My opinion is that a very few can learn to manage and control their behaviors if they get the proper treatment. But, I don’t think that the usual measures used to treat true addictions works and I also believe that treating it as an addiction rather than a symptom of an underlying disorder is a disservice and a waste of time and gives false hope to everyone involved.
My two cents for the day. ~ JoAnn
I agree with you, JoAnn, that treating it merely as addiction is a waste of time. But I DO think you have to treat the addiction–or whatever you want to call it–in ADDITION to the underlying disorders, trauma, whatever, because by the time we discover the problem, their brain chemistry has been altered to the point that they are compulsive.
A LOT of psychologist and psychiatrists are really frustrated by the DSM revisions. They took out ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ (NPD). They were shocked by this. Because it’s not in the DSM does that mean it doesn’t exist. It sure does exist and it racks havoc all over the place. My NPD mother sure tried to fuck me up starting really young (she probably did I ended up marrying her) and still continues to this day. She’s so cruel to me it’s sick. You think I’m going to say she doesn’t haven’t have NPD because it’s not in the DSM. Hell the fuck no. It was in there for 100 yrs ( a guess) and now it doesn’t exist???? Many professional are upset by that because it’s such a problem in our society.
The question of whether or not it’s an addiction is an interesting one and quite frankly, something I haven’t really given that much thought to. I just assumed he was a Sex Addict b/c that was the only name I had for it and we just operated from there. My H accuses me of being an arm-chair psychologist and maybe I am but I’ve done a hell of a lot more reading on the subject than he ever will. I think he has intimacy issues stemming from childhood molestation incidents when he was 7 or 8 that involved him & his brother and an older boy in the neighborhood. (His brother is a NARC for sure) My heart breaks for that little boy (my H) – my youngest daughter is 7 and it scares me to my core to think of something like that happening to her – but at the end of the day, it may help explain why he became the way he became but it doesn’t excuse it.
right. that is the bottom line fc. it doesn’t matter why. and i’m sorry, but man up — just stop. it may be hard. it may be really hard. but ultimately that’s what it comes down to — just stop. and if you can’t stop — you can choose to not bring other people down with you. these guys are so fucked up that there is really no point in trying to sort it out.
My H ‘s sponsor has been sober ( or whatever you want to call it) for several years. They have a whole group that hang out together and visit his home with their wives and children. We were invited to the last shindig but the thought of it made my skin crawl. This is just to say that there are “sober” guys out there. I cannot speak for the wives. I haven’t met them but they have offered to speak with me…
I am afraid I will meet the type of women March describes. I am pre judging them and I am not proud of myself for that. I am going to eventually meet them out of curiosity….I will absolutely let you all know what I think.
YES-they can get better.I however dont know if I can EVER recover from this pile of shit that was dumped on my head.I have been forever altered by HIS actions.Yes they can get better-but as far as I am concerned the damage is done-no going back.
The question is more will they get better?
My dad used to drag us to hangout with his 12 step buddies. It was creepy. No one else brought kids, so it was my brother and I and 15 middle aged men. Who does that?
I don’t blame you for not going, Bev. I want as little SA in my life as possible. I do not want to be surrounded by it. Who wants to normalize this? Ugh.
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