Question about codependency…

Oh shoes…YOUR role in his addiction? Maybe enabling, rescuing, but you did NOT cause it, CANNOT cure it and CANNOT stop it. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT

My husband is a recovering alcoholic and finally sobered up (from alcohol) in 2001. Two months ago, I accidentally discovered his escalating cybersex addiction. I have found out a few other things since that time and will probably have some new discoveries in the near future. Anyway, I started seeing a therapist at least 15 years ago and attended Al Anon meeting regularly for a few years. I still do but not as often, maybe every few months, as part of the 12th step principle, which is helping other people who have finally been willing to admit that someone they love and are in a relationship with has a substance abuse problem. Most of these people are wives, husbands, parents and children of alcoholics who are trying to deal with the insanity that accompanies any addiction.

I, too, have a problem with the co-dependent/co-addicted label. (I’ll be using a hyphen only for emphasis for the rest of this post). I think these two terms have been overused, misused and abused for at least the last 20 years – mainly by day time talk shows, Cosmo “journalists” and even by some therapists and the addiction community.

There is some very good information out there that does use the label “co-dependent” and many people, myself included, have problems getting the message because of the usage of co-dependent/co-addicted. The way these terms are thrown around carelessly these days, co-dependent and co-addict could, or should, be included in the Code of Laws of the United States, specifically Section Two, Title 18, which refers to being an accomplice to a crime or aiding and abetting a crime or criminal.

I have no idea who originally coined these terms but lets just look at the original intent. The prefix co has been used for hundred of years. It can mean joint, mutual, common, with or together. Co is attached to hundreds of nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives. Some examples of the words formed using this prefix are: co-determination, co-educational, co-operate, co-chair and co-mingle – just to name a few. I suspect that the terms co-addict and co-dependent were first used because the real term, as in: “I have been traumatised and abused by a low down, lying, basically wonderful and kind, SOB that I love, and still do, who would screw anything on one or two legs, and probably has, and has broken my heart, deeply wounded both of us and is trying to make me feel like I’m the crazy person in our relationship” is too long. Using co is much shorter. And they should be viewed as just words that have morphed into negative words with very negative connotations, not labels.

My family was not dysfunctional but his was. For many years our lives revolved around his addiction(s). Did I exhibit some typical “co-addictive” behavior? Yes – but only because I loved him and didn’t have the tools or knowledge to deal with addiction and was trying to restore some sanity to our relationship. After learning that my attempts to control and change his behavior were not only helping, but aiding his addiction (and making be doubt myself in many ways), I was finally able to try and take care of ME and understand why he was making our family’s life a living hell. It was also why I immediately recognized the symptoms of cross addiction in November and, even though devastated, hauled my ass back into therapy, found this web site and had the fortitude to tell him if he didn’t deal with this problem right now, I was out of here for good. Addicts don’t think like the rest of us.

I’m currently reading “In the Shadows of the Net,” by Patrick Carnes. To address his thoughts or theories on why we are crazier than the SA, well, the SA thinks that he is perfectly normal, all men do it. Wrong. They almost always think that we are the ones that have a problem. They make, or try to make, us crazy. Crying nonstop, having difficulty getting out of bed and obsessing about what they did or are doing is not exactly normal, but it is not crazy. Carnes used the wrong word. He should have used variations of trauma and shock. Take the good advice and ignore the rest. You have to understand the pathology of addiction before you can take care of yourself. Two chapters of this book were really helpful to ME, “Family Dynamics and Cybersex” and “Courtship Gone Awry.” Cybersex could easily be replaced with any aspect of SA. Find your own word for co-addicted or crazy and only think of it as an empty word instead of a label.

I’ve tried to think of a term or a description of who we, the women who are trying to understand and cope with SA, are. But I haven’t come up with anything yet. Any ideas, ladies?

Hi shoes,

I highly recommend the Marsha Means and Barbara Steffens book on the matter. I started out desperately seeking help when my D-Day came last July. I looked into COSA meetings and read as much as I could on the subject matter and I got increasingly upset. I thought I was in a perfect marriage and had no clue any of this was going on. I chose to stay after the first D-DAy because when my husband and I were in marriage counseling he told me he cheated because I pushed so hard to have another baby and wouldn’t listen to his not wanting one. I pushed for it until I drove him away. I could see where I had pushed and he did not want it so I did the marriage counseling. We learned to communicate better and I learned to fix my faults that made him feel less of a man and made him feel belittled. I dealt with PTSD and post partum depression. I became hypervigilent, always looking for clues he was going to hurt me again. I became fearful that I would again do something to push him away. I tracked him and had D-Day number two. He was so adament to the professionals that he was behaving that I bought it. They bought it, or at least seemed to so I went back to a third round. Now I know. I would have never gone through with all of the marriage counseling and listening to “fixing” myelf to be a better wife if I knew he would leave a session and quickly start his next pursuit. Some even while I was in having my time with the therapist. If I knew he had been cheating our entire marriage. I wouldn’t have been following therapists advise on how to fix my marriage. I did a Mort Fertel course and sung its praises back then. i told Mort that I was concerned he was an addict and Mort told me that he didn’t really believe in addicts, just spouses that felt unloved and under appreciated. One of his therapists even told me if I continued to follow their program to a T, I wouldn’t ever have to worry about him straying again. To give it six months and he would be so happy in his marriage he wouldn’t feel the need to stray. I did it. I moved back in and spent six months following every suggestion. Never knowing he was still out screwing other women at every opportunity.

I don’t beleive I am co -dependant. I am traumatized. I have nightmares. I have flashbacks. I left. I wasn’t desperate to be in a relationship with him or addicted to him. I thought I had a happy monogomous marriage. I reached out for help when I caught him cheating the first time because I had no clue what the truth was. None, and then when I was told what to do, I did it. I felt marriage was forever when you brought children into the world together and that one affair was forgivable and a sign we needed to get to the bottom of why. I didn’t allow him to cheat. I didn’t cover for him or enable him. He was sneaky. Crafty. Manipulative. Cruel. Evil. I do not have a history of abusive relationships. I was married before and yes, he cheated and I walked right away and never looked back. We had no kids. I was not dependent on him. My parents are still happily married and I came from a “normal” home. No one had any addictions. No one was abusive. I don’t have any of the past history they equate to co-dependent. I loved my husband and my family. I wanted to save it. I wanted to fix my part of the problem that led him to stray back when I thought I had a bigger part to play than the truth has revealed. After the Mort thing, he was showered in attention and doted on. I made sure to be a good wife. Not to cure his sex addiction. I did not know about it. But to keep my family happy and I loved him adn wanted to make him happy. Not because I knew I was being abused and had to keep him happy. Not to control his behavior. Not to enable him but because I wanted a happy family. When he could cheat even with being doted on and loved. Even when I was the absolute best wife I could be and the best mom I cold be, that told me he had a problem. Even then I didn’t know a fraction of what I know now. He has never ever been faithful. He cheated on his ex wife and every girlfriend he ever had. LONG before me. I have never before been involved with an addict and have had several long term relationships. Being labeled a co-dependant because I loved my husband. I was being a good mother to my children and was happy to makes me ill. The second I knew, I left . Despite threats and attempts at suicide. At begging and pleading for me to stay, I left. When he called me to say goodbye I told him his choice made me sad and that my son would be forever haunted by his suicide, but it was not my problem to fix. I hoped he would chose to get help and not kill himself, but that he wasn’t threatening suicide because I left him. He was threatening suicide because he is sick and needed help and that his actions brought him to this point in his life and his actions alone would or wouldn’t save his life. I didn’t rush to his aid or fold. I told him repeatedly if I ever caught him cheating again, I was gone and I followed through. I left. How does that make me a co-dependent? I am raising my kids. I am working. I gave up my lifestyle of staying home with them to leave a bad situation and I have made it clear I will not return until he is in long term recovery, it is safe and I heal. Until I know he will not put me through this again, or our kids. And I am following through. And that if it ever gets to that point I feel safe enough to return and he stops his recovery and returns to acting out behaviors, I will once again leave and immediately file for divorce. This is his last opportunity and I mean it. Opportunity does not mean he gets me back. or our family back without question. It means I am allowing him to proove to me he can change. It means I am working on my own healing. And if he does stay in LONG TERM recovery, and I am able to heal enough to let him back into my heart I will CONSIDER re-entering my marriage. He gets no guarantees, even if he does everything right because I can still not guarantee I can heal from the pain and feel safe with him ever again.

How is any of that co-dependent. Who do I have to make ammends to? What part of his sick twisted addiction did I play? He had it long before me? Why do I have to fix my own shortcomings? I tried that and it didn’t work. All in all I am a good person. Loving, caring, honest to a fault. All in all I was a good wife. I cannot fathom going into a place where I have to find the people I have wronged in this and make ammends. I know there is more to the 12 steps, but I am not a wife who bought her husband alcohol to keep him from being angry. Or wiped his vomit when he passed out in a pool of puke. Or made excuses to his boss why he wasn’t going to make it in yet again. Or to my family. I never allowed his behavior and looked the other way. I am sure there are women who are co-dependent and find help in the COSA groups, but I now know I looked through his cell phone records and bugged his car because my instincts were screaming at me, and I needed proof. Because I was trying to protect myself against being hurt and deceived and lied to. I was trying to protect myself from STD’s. I never used it to control his behavior. I needed it to protect and plan to leave as soon as I had the information I needed.

Anyhow, That’s where I am today. I was manipulated into falling in love with this man. I was manipulated into marrying him. I loved him. I was honest, faithful, and loyal. I left as soon as I realized my reality was in actuality an illusion. Enable I never did. Allow I never did. and I don’t deserve this.

Check out the book and the trauma studies. That was the first book I read that I felt truley understood and the first time I actually thought there may be help for me because someone finally “got” what I was going through.

Lori

Ann,
Loved that you bashed the screen. I think once anyof this is found the computer should be removed from the house of an addict or his access should be restricted. I put passwords on ours. Anyway. I think that we are recovering from probably the greatest deception in our lives. The co-addict and co-dependent things still drives me nuts. My therapist buys it all hook line and sinker. I really just don’t discuss it with her, as we say, take the good leave the rest.

Many writers really push the limits of our respnsibility in this, and as Diane said I think there needs to be along histroy fo staying in a relationship with a known addict to imply or comprehend co-dependency. In many cases as we all have noticed, we never comprehended any of this existed or even ever heard of this addiction. And you don;t know to watch for the signs as we did not learn about this in school. We did however learn the signs for drug addiction and alchoholism.

Hi everyone,
Ann, I think perhaps I enjoyed your screen bashing story a little too much! The worst I did was smash a Royal Doulton figurine that his mother gave us for our 25th anniversary. But I used a hammer which doubled the pleasure. I have no interest in figurines and she did nothing but try to ruin our marriage for 25 years. In the end it took her 30 years.

Also, when you talked about being surprised that your husband didn’t recognize his sex addiction after so many years in AA, I did some thinking about that in relation to another thread about personality disorders. A number of people, including me, believe the critical difference between SA and other addictions is the link to underlying personality disorders. In other words, it is possible this addiction comes from a slightly different place in your husband’s wiring. This is why 12 step only gets you so far in SA recovery. And often, a sober SA is more horrible to live with in the end. (Without medicating himself, the personality disorder traits of lying and narcissism, for example, are unregulated). It is this connection that also affects why the co-whatever terms are improperly applied to partners of SA’s. Someone with a PD is just someone with a PD. There is no enabling going on at all.

About anger and hurt:
There are several levels of anger involved. One is the personal betrayal story. But anger is entirely appropriate when bankrupt theories are applied to partners of SA’s, and they are asked to declare their lives “unmanageable”, or advised to stay for a year with the SA regardless of the porn brought into the home and the exposure of children to its destructive and damaging power to their developing psyches, regardless of the emotional abuse still endured by the roller-coaster life with an addict in the shallow end of recovery. This seems to me to encourage the very co-dependence the partners is being labeled with. So anger about this is appropriately felt and expressed. It is, in fact, part of how women take their healing in their own hands and refuse to allow SA’s or their recovery programs and therapist to continue the abuse. There is nothing wrong with being angry when it is appropriate. It is inappropriate, however, to visit this anger ad nauseum at those who are not responsible and can not change anything. As women have been heavily socialized into feeling ashamed of their anger, and needing to deny it or hide it, I would suggest this position again reveals a co-dependency with an abusive power. Isn’t it strange how the more we accept the label, the more co-dependent we actually become? And the more we challenge the label, the more we reveal we are not.

In all of my reading, i read books on co-dependency, several books on sex addiction from several different authors, books from AA, and books on dysfunctional families. So to summarize what all of these books said. Anyone who is a child of an addict, in a relationship with an addict, family of an addict (kids, parents), in a dysfuntional relationship, grew up- in a dysfunctional family (i guess which is anything less than perfect)…you in fact are probably a co-dependent. I wrote a peice on this on the old site. But after reading the book on dysfunctional families, i get the feeling that what they are calling a co-dependent or co-addict is really more the norm now. In other words show me the person who is not co-dependent at this point. To me it appears that so many people fit the bill, i beleive there are more than not. So really in reality when so many people are “co-dependents” it is then not different per say as it is the norm. When something is the norm, is it really an affliction or disease?

Where I really started to get an ill feeling about all of this is when I attended a coda meeting. There were a few new members there, myself included. A set of parents were there, whose daughter was at an intensive program for depression. They had just returned from visiting with her, where they were told they were co-dependents by the program. First of all statistically how is that possible, what are the odds of this, and how does this make sense? (Typically c0-dependents do not seek each other out as well)So now we have parents of any child with an affliction or disease are co-dependents??

Another situation that really hit me, is when i read an AAbook marriage with an alchoholic and how that looks. It looked nothing like marriage to a sex addict does. In this marriage the alcholism is known, she covers, she drives around and picks him up, calls his work…on and on. Just to keep the mirage going that everything is fine, just to keep this person that supposedly “loves” her, because no one else will.

This is not the case with us. They have even said in some books that being in a dysfunctional relationship can bring about the co-dependency. (This could be us). In this they are saying stressful and unusual circumstances or relationships can bring it about.

But here is the thing. If you are in a relationship where someone starts displaying odd behaviors and you don’t check up on them…then you are just dumb. If you find out your husband is a drug addict and you make no effort to help them get better and just accept it…again stupid idea. So I think the control issue is taken out of context and used to much as well. I have read some books where yes the women are very controlling and try to change things…everything. They are dieing because of how much they do for others, never to pay attention to themselves for one second or day. But in the case of the addiction who would not want or hope for it to change? to get better? I guess where we have to make up our minds is when we realize nothing will get better and we move on.

i don;t think any of us are co-dependent. I think we are trying to make the best of the most awfull betrayal we will probably ever feel in our lives and on top of it dealing with one of the worst addictions.

On my wedding day had I known the truth, i never would have married my husband. Had he told me he had an addiction, I would not be here. That day my choice was taken from me, i was not allowed to make an informed decision on all of the facts. We are simply human beings dealing with extraordinary circumstances. Its what we do with it and where we go from here that counts.

Hi Ladies,

Here’s my advice about being labeled as co-addicted, especially when dealing with SAs: find yourself another therapist or support group a.s.a.p., unless you have have been involved in some other things. Then you might want to start looking for a lawyer. As far as therapists and the co-dependent thing, a really good therapist, one who knows about most of the latest information/research about SA, will NOT label you as co-dependent, unless there are really some co-dependent issues going on. One reason a therapist might use codependent is to give you a swift kick back to reality, so you can start getting your finances and other legal matters in order, thus allowing YOU to make a better decision about staying or leaving. If a therapist has to make a “diagnosis” for insurance purposes, make sure what that diagnosis is before signing off on anything. I have no personal experience with support groups, such as COSA, mainly since there very few where I live, as far as I know.

To, kind of, answer a few questions recently raised on this thread: I’ve recently discussed the same issues concerning SAs and PDs, both on the record and off the record, with a few psychologists specializing in addiction and and also a few psychiatrists, internists and neurologists who both do and do not specialize in addictive medicine and research. (Upcoming Super Bowl Sunday parties should be interesting – maybe not). So far, this is what I’ve learned, which certainly isn’t written in stone: In the U.S. there is an organization for Certification in Addiction Medicine by the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Their web site is ASAM.org if anyone wants to check it out. There has been much more research done on chemical addictions, including food addictions, than sex addiction. Sex addiction research is decades behind any other addiction research. Is this addiction rooted in childhood trauma? Did the trauma change brain development or alter neurological pathways, possibly causing impulse control and many other issues? Is addiction embedded in DNA code? No one really has a definitive answer. There have been many studies on the different ways the addictive brain reacts to, not only their chosen addiction, or I should say cross addictions, but can also be related to other factors, such as gender and age. Bottom line – there are many theories but no hard empirical proof about sex addiction. Why does one man view pornography a few times and decide it’s rather “silly” while another man’s reaction results in often dramatic escalations? Why can some men recover and some can’t? Again, no one really knows. There sure are many theories but that’s all they are – theories. I guess. If anyone has any more information, I sure would like to know about it.

I’ve noticed many women posting on here comparing their SA’s personalities as descriptive of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde “syndrome.” All too true but that doesn’t quite explain their utterly foreign behavior to non-addicts. I do know know there is ongoing research to develop drugs that might rewire their brains – still too early in development and one study often contradicts another study. It’s enough to make your head spin, as if it weren’t spinning enough.

As for my husband’s recent SA problem or triggers, there have been some suggestions that they might very well be related to stress. There are many different stress “tests,” but it seems like the basic model, linking stress to various illnesses, was created way back in the 1960s and is called the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. Using that model, or any other models out there, both of us should have been dead and buried over a year ago. But I’m not sitting around with a bottle of gin, a bag of cookies and a crack pipe. Then again, I’m not an addict. When dealing with an addict, more often than not, they have been self-medicating for a very long time, in many different ways, and when faced with a great deal or any amount of stress, will find a new way to self medicate, unless they get LOTS of help. Great.

Oh, and about the hammer thing, PLEASE use eye protection. I put on a pair of ski goggles.

Hi Ann,
Interesting information, thank you.
From what I had understood prior to coming here, was that man and woman usually bond during sex, especially during orgasm.
For someone who constantly watches porn and masturbates to it, he then starts to bond with the imagages – meaning he kind of falls in love with them.

I am not good explaining, so I will search for the link to the site and post it later.

NAP, while that might be cathartic for US (and other spouses that were there for the day), in reality we’d probably be spilling our guts to a room full of self-absorbed, don’t-give-a-crap SAs….sad but true. They just don’t care.

I unequivocally reject the co-dependent label. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t enable it, except to the extent that I kept all the balls in the air while he was playing with himself….literally….which I didn’t know was occuring. I was mother, father, investment counselor, lawyer, CPA, house keeper, cook, teacher…….while he was “working late.” I am strong, resilient, self-reliant. I am not co-dependent. Those who perpetuate the co-dependent model can just kiss my ass.

Excellent Betty…!!