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Spilling It All May Be More Harmful Than Not

By Marie Woods, LMFT, CSAT, Primary Therapist, Gentle Path at the MeadowsIn light of some of the recent public disclosures of millions of individuals’ personal indiscretions online, one question many people may be asking is, “Would I really want to know?”

Based on the overwhelming amount of media coverage, it seems that people do want to know—although, of course, most would prefer that there isn’t anything to know, and that their partner doesn’t have any secrets or unknown sexual behaviors.

What if your partner actually does have secrets, though? How much would you really like to know?

At Gentle Path at the Meadows, we are flooded with questions from addicts and their partners about this. Addicts ask how much detail they should share, and partners often don’t know whether having all the details would be helpful or harmful.

The idea that a partner should know everything may seem obvious, but considering the depth of betrayal that accompanies sex addiction, the answer is not necessarily that clear. On the one hand, a partner needs to know the truth in order to make an informed decision about how to move forward with his or her life and the relationship. On the other hand, knowing all of the details can sometimes create more traumas for partners rather than assist in their healing.

Five Ways to Uncover the Truth and Begin Healing

Here are some of the guidelines that we use in helping addicts and partners share the truth while promoting healing:

1. Share information in the presence of professionals.
In the initial stages of recovery, most couples are too volatile to process the discovery together. Couples should make their best effort to seek professional guidance before “dumping” information on to their partner. The disclosure sessions can include the addict sharing their behaviors as well as the partner sharing their anger and frustration. A professional therapist can create a safe container for information to be appropriately shared.

2. Avoid disclosing new information without consulting with a therapist first.
As times goes on, more and more questions develop for both the addict and the partner, and the answers to these questions can be complex. When both individuals are so emotionally volatile (and often exhausted) having a therapist to navigate the situation alongside the couple can be helpful.

3. Recognize that knowing all of the details will not justify the behavior.
Addiction involves irrational behavior. The decisions that were made in the midst of active addiction do not make sense in a rational state of mind. It is likely that even when the partner has all of the details, it still will not make sense. Rather than focusing on the details, partners should focus instead on leaning into their feelings and taking care of themselves.

4. Focus on themes rather than specifics.
Partners have a right to know the nature of the addict’s behavior in an effort to ensure their physical and emotional safety. This includes things like the potential for sexually transmitted diseases, anything that may have occurred in the home with knowledge of the family, or financial impact. This does not typically include things like names, graphic details of pornography or sexual acts, or specific places where acting out may have occurred. Those details create a mental picture in the partner’s mind that cannot be erased, and could continue to leave them feeling unnecessary pain.

5. Recognize that this is a slow process.
It is human nature to want to avoid pain and guilt. Partners want to stop feeling pain as quickly as they can; Addicts want to get out of their guilt and shame as quickly as they can. People often want to skip over this part of the healing, but it is essential. Partners will need to move through the stages of grief, including anger and pain, in order to heal. Addicts will need to experience healthy levels of guilt and shame to get into recovery. So while it may seem easier to “get it all out on the table” right now, true growth and change is an evolving process.

Get the Support You Need

So, as a partner, before you go digging for more information to help you understand “why they would do this,” and, as an addict, before you decide that “if I just tell them everything then I won’t feel so bad, and they will feel better” – think again. If you are the partner of an addict, find some support: someone who, initially, can just hear you vent. Take a step back, knowing that you are taking care of yourself by not exposing yourself to more pain at a time when you are already struggling. If you are an addict, know that you will need to share and accept appropriate accountability for your behaviors when you are in a mature place with healthy remorse. To prevent any further hurt and pain, it is essential to do this in a very measured way, as described above. The ultimate goal of this process is honesty and healing.

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How Finding out About a Spouse’s Affair is Like a Death

Originally posted at: https://drlorischade.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/how-finding-out-about-a-spouses-affair-is-like-a-death/

Tears.  Lots of them.  “I am just so tired of hurting.  I want the pain to go away.”  As usual, my heart was breaking for the spouse sitting across from me who had recently discovered that her partner had an extramarital affair.  Like many spouses before, she declared, “Of all the things I thought I knew in the world, I was certain that my spouse would never in a million years be unfaithful and now I don’t know which way is up.  I can’t count on anything anymore.  All my safety is just completely washed away.”  “I am so sorry that this is so painful,” I offered, “I wish I could make that better for you—I really do, but the truth is that it is going to hurt for a long time.  Eventually, it won’t hurt as much, but when I say eventually, I mean that a year is short in affair healing time.”  Even though I’ve been doing therapy for a long time, the emotions still impact me.

I hate seeing people in pain.  I feel things deeply and enduringly, which is what drew me to the therapeutic profession.  I wanted to alleviate emotional suffering for people.  However, there are certain types of pain which need to be healed over the course of time, and sometimes tender emotional scars never go away.  Some of the deepest emotional pain I witness occurs in cases of grief and loss in which relationships with people are ended or intensely damaged.  The loss of human relationships through death, divorce or other means just hurts.  A lot.

Infidelity and Intense Grief

In cases of betrayal, sometimes people don’t understand the principles of grief and loss that are at play which complicate recovery.  Here is a typical presentation I’ll encounter maybe three months after the disclosure of an affair:

Betrayed partner:  “He couldn’t understand why I was still crying about the affair, and I tried to explain that it still hurts and he just got mad and asked why I couldn’t see that he was sorry and just focus on our future.  I don’t know why it’s still hurting so bad.  I’m embarrassed that it is still making me cry.  I don’t want to make him mad, but it hurts.”

Oh dear.

People who have betrayed their spouses don’t like to witness the pain they have caused because it makes them feel shame, which is uncomfortable.  They also commonly feel fear that this might be the emotional episode in which the spouse decides to leave.  Frequently, they get defensive and upset with their spouses for not healing fast enough.  Men in particular, as a general rule, have an aversion to tears and emotional pain resulting from something they have done in relationships.  They want to run from it, regardless of the cause or validity of the emotion.  They feel almost panicky and search for ways to “fix,” the emotion, which means make it stop.  I think it’s because they get so socialized out of feeling vulnerable emotion themselves that they literally have no idea what to do with it when their spouses display strong vulnerable emotion, at least in many instances.

How Infidelity is a Loss Issue

In cases like these, I normalize the intensity of emotional pain for both partners, but also try to help them understand the deep grief.  I have explained to many husbands, “This is a loss issue, and loss is always painful.”  “What do you mean loss?  I’m still here.  Why can’t she see that I’m trying to fix it and I’m sorry,” the husbands fire back.  I’ll explain, “She can see you, but first of all, she has no idea who you really are because you’re not who she thought you were, so she needs time and safe experiences with you to be able to even think about trusting you.  Second of all, she is still grieving the marriage she thought she had but doesn’t have and will never get back—the marriage in which her partner stayed faithful to her.  She married you with that expectation and has lost that dream.  She needs time to be sad over losing that marriage.”

When I explain this, partners can be a little more tolerant of the deep expression of emotions.  However, for some reason when it comes to emotional injuries, we want people to be better faster than is reasonable to expect—mostly because we don’t like feeling our own uncomfortable emotions when seeing emotional pain.

Physical Pain as a Metaphor for Emotional Pain

Sometimes if I compare the wound of infidelity to a physical injury, partners understand a little better.  “What if you had run over her with your car and she ended up in a body cast?  Would you be getting upset that she wasn’t walking in a week?  No, you wouldn’t, because you would know that the injury takes time to heal.  If while she was in a body cast she told you her pain was flaring up, would you say, ‘It’s been 6 weeks since I ran over you.  Why do you insist on focusing on the pain instead of looking ahead to the future?’  No, you wouldn’t, because you would realize that sometimes pain flares up.  Emotional injuries are the same.  You don’t get to argue with her about whether she is in pain.  Your job is to move toward her and say, ‘Show me where it hurts,’ as if it were a physical injury.  You can’t fix this for her, but you can just be with her and ask if there is anything you can to do reassure her or help her feel more comfortable or safe.  If there isn’t, you just sit with it.  If you want, you can talk about how uncomfortable and sad it is for you to see the pain you caused, but you can’t argue about whether the pain is valid or demand that she heals right away.”

Relationship loss is searing, no matter the type, and infidelity is a type of relationship loss.  Partners need time to grieve and be sad.  Most importantly, they need to be validated and comforted in their pain.  As long as it takes.

Lastly, people always want emotional pain from infidelity to heal faster than it does—both the betrayed partner and the offending partner.  My experience is that in affair time, it’s not uncommon to see people have deep emotional triggers regularly for at least two years.

If your partner betrayed you, know that the disorientation, fear and hurt are normal.  Give yourself time to grieve the loss of the marriage you thought you had, just like you would give yourself time to grieve the death of a loved one or a lost relationship.  Eventually, grief diminishes in intensity, but if grief is criticized and shut down by a partner instead of honored and respected, it will last longer.  Clinically, I tell people to write when they are experiencing episodes of grief.  Articulating pain through writing is a way to manage emotional intensity.  Intentional self-care and deep breathing and meditation can also be helpful.

You’re not crazy if you’re in intense pain months after discovering a spouse’s infidelity—you’re just a human with a big attachment injury.  I don’t know if time heals all wounds, because some wounds can persist for decades, but usually time does decrease emotional intensity.

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Some Men Can’t Stop Exposing Themselves Online

Roughly one-third of all men arrested for sexual offenses in the U.S. were caught engaging in exhibitionism, which generally involves exposing one’s genitals to a non-consenting stranger. Many psychologists and sex addiction experts today believe that the internet presents an overwhelming temptation to act on impulses and can escalate exhibitionism. Additionally, the increasing popularity of taking exhibitionism to the online world has almost normalized the behavior. This may, in fact, be a factor in the case of former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, who resigned from office in 2011 after multiple sexting scandals became public and made the news again recently when he checked himself into a treatment center for sex addiction.

In Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction, Gentle Path at The Meadows’ clinical architect Dr. Patrick Carnes describes exhibitionism as a Level Two addictive behavior. Level Two behaviors are considered intrusive enough to warrant legal action. Often the risk and potential consequences of exhibitionism play a role in the addictive process.

However, the internet has significantly reduced the legal and personal risks of exposing and exhibitionism. It almost seems commonplace these days for people to send nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves via text messages or messaging apps. Online video technologies and new social media platforms like Periscope and Facebook Live allow people to broadcast provocative images of themselves in real time from the safety of their own homes.

People who use dating apps and websites like Tinder or Match.com often complain of being sent these types of images without having consented or having asked for them. Not all people who engage in these behaviors are exhibitionists and/or sex addicts. But, some exhibitionists do like the “thrill” of exposing themselves in this way to people who did not consent to see the images and are shocked or disgusted by them.

Of course, although people are more likely to avoid consequences for this behavior in online environments, it is not completely risk-free, as Anthony Weiner’s example has shown us. What goes out into cyberspace stays in cyberspace, and nothing there is truly “private.” Weiner lost his career and his marriage because he either could not or would not stop. And, for every Anthony Weiner, there are many other men struggling with the same compulsions and experiencing similarly catastrophic consequences. In some cases, they are also victimizing others, especially when the person on the receiving end of their photos, videos, or explicit messages are underage, or did not expect nor consent to sexually explicit communication.

Why Some People Can’t Stop Sexting

If there’s anything that the dawn of social media has taught us, it’s that most people have exhibitionist traits—think selfies! We all sometimes crave attention and validation. The internet and the seemingly ever-increasing options we have available for online communication—social media, text messaging, video chatting—offer endless possibilities for such feedback.

For men who struggle with exhibitionism as part of a larger problem with sex addiction, however, these needs can be much more pronounced, and much more problematic.

So, what drives the exhibitionist to such extremes? According to Dr. Carnes, part of the problem lies in a distortion of courtship. Again, from Out of the Shadows:

“To look and be looked at are normal parts of adult courtship. To show “yours” to people who do not wish to see it…means that the person has eroticized a part of courtship that leaves other aspects of intimacy and sexuality underdeveloped. It is about how the person was damaged growing up.

The excitement of illicit victimization is rooted in the addicts’ anger about that hurt. Breaking the rules is a way to retaliate for hurts, real and imagined. The anger stems from a set of beliefs, family messages, and self-judgments the addicts use to interpret the world. Most addicts do not connect their behavior with anger. The excitement and arousal of the trance block the feelings, along with the rest of the pain.

The greater the anger and pain, the more excitement is required to block it. This dynamic is the key to understanding how escalation works within the addictive process. If the current behavior within the addictive cycle is no longer supplying the excitement necessary to block the pain, something with greater risk is attempted.”

All in all, addiction to exhibitionism is similar to any other process or substance addiction. It becomes a way to numb oneself from feeling the pain from their emotional wounds, and a substitute for real intimacy and connection—something the addict both longs for and fears.

Exhibitionism in Not a Victimless Crime

Being the target of by an exhibitionist, either online or in the outside world, can be very damaging and frightening. Most exhibitionists carry around the image of a person they know they have hurt. However, the addict often underestimates the danger their addiction presents both to others and to themselves.

Exhibitionists often lead double lives. They may live in constant fear that their identity will uncovered and their secrets revealed. They may also judge themselves with the same harsh criticism—weird, nuisance, irredeemable perverts. But, most can change their behaviors with the right treatment.,p> Men who take the time to face their pain and trauma, and take responsibility for their actions can heal and can stop the behaviors that are so damaging to the people they act out upon, their loved ones, and themselves. We see it happening every day at Gentle Path at The Meadows.

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Is Your Family Too Friendly?

Genesis 2:23-24 – “The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

When some individuals begin to develop boundaries, they say, “But my mother (or father, or sister, or brother) is my best friend.” They often feel fortunate that, in these times of family stress, their best friends are the family in which they were raised. They don’t think they need an intimate circle of friends besides their own parents and siblings.

They misunderstand the biblical function of the family. God intended the family to be an incubator in which we grow the maturity, tools, and abilities we need. Once the incubator has done its job, it’s supposed to encourage the young adult to leave the nest, connect to the outside world (see Genesis 2:24), and establish a spiritual and emotional family system on one’s own. The adult is free to do whatever God has designed for him or her.

Over time, we are to accomplish God’s purposes of spreading his love to the world, to make disciples of all the nations (see Matthew 28:19–20). Staying emotionally locked in to the family of origin frustrates this purpose. It’s hard to see how we’ll change the world when we live on the same street.

No one can become a truly biblical adult without setting some limits, leaving home, and cleaving somewhere else. Otherwise, we never know if we have forged our own values, beliefs, and convictions—our very identity—or if we are mimicking the ideas of our family.

Can family be friends? Absolutely. But if you have never questioned, set boundaries, or experienced conflict with your family members, you may not have an adult-to-adult connection with your family. If you have no other “best friends” than your family, you need to take a close look at those relationships. You may be afraid of separating, individuating, and becoming an autonomous adult.

This devotional is drawn from Boundaries in Marriage, by John Townsend and Henry Cloud.