The Good Wife, starring Julianna Margulies and Chris Noth has captured the attention of many TV viewers due to both the talent of the actors as well as the content. The writers have captured many of the subtle nuances experienced by both the person who acts out and the partner. Having worked with individuals and couples impacted by sexual duplicity, and writing Deceived specifically for partners, I’ve been following this show closely.
Today in every neighborhood throughout every community, people are being challenged by the addictive nature of their partner’s sexual behavior. For Alicia on The Good Wife, her husband’s sexual acting out was made public through the media. While they had been married several years she had not suspected his behavior. For others, it may be the young bride who just discovered her husband was with another woman within days of their wedding. It could be the mother of two young children whose boyfriend has just lost his job due to engaging in Internet sex during work hours, or the partner who has masked her shame and confusion about her husband’s chronic pornographic activity, and is now horrified at the thought that her children are going to find out. It may be the man who recently discovered hidden computer files of sexually explicit photos his girlfriend has been emailing to a great number of men. It could be the wife of 40 years, husband soon to retire, who has known about his affairs from the beginning of their marriage; there’s nothing particularly different about the current affair that she just discovered; it’s just the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back.’
Influenced by both culture and family, my professional experience tells me that coaddictive behavior was well learned long before their partner came into their life. As much as the socialization and empowerment of women in Western industrialized culture has changed, women are still more apt to defer to men by giving them the benefit of the doubt; take on false guilt, believe they need a man to be okay, prioritize his needs over their own, acquiesce, be polite, refrain from showing anger, feel inadequate about their sexuality, and have a distorted and shame based body image
Yet this socialization of women, by itself, is not the strongest factor in their coupling with a sex addict. For both men and women far more influential is their family history. Whether or not the writers of the Good Wife get to this depth, looking at family history and dynamics will be significant in the healing process for those in the real world. It’s critical to examine the beliefs developed about themselves and others, the ways learned to experience connection and/or protect self, and the behaviors that helped to garner esteem.
The behaviors and belief systems of both partners and those who act out sexually in repetitive ways are strongly influenced by individual childhood experiences. It is common that one or both parents were addicts themselves, alcoholics or sex addicts in particular. It may not have been called addiction, but they often say their father was a womanizer, or their mother had lots of affairs, drank a lot, etc. There may have been a history of extreme parental rigidity, strict all-or-nothing parental codes. Messages about sex were shaming or distorted, creating confusion as a child.
Trauma Repetition
Kate was raised in an alcoholic and violent family. She is divorced from two different alcoholic men, and is now married to an active sex addict. Her husband has had multiple relationships with other women and now he is flagrantly acting out in a manner that she cannot totally deny. She knows he visits pornographic bookstores, but on a recent visit he had their four year old son with him. Yet she still had the ability to rationalize. He is stressed by our two young children. He wouldn’t do this if he wasn’t on drugs. She would deliberately not ask questions. If she didn’t ask, then it was as if she wouldn’t have to know. She wouldn’t ask for help, because as she said − I just need him to stop. She wouldn’t assert any limits because her fear is he would leave her. In ultimate desperation she found herself left alone in a hotel room with a baby just a few weeks old and a four-year-old, no car, no food and no money while he went to get more drugs and meet up with a girlfriend; and she just wanted him back.
Kate didn’t get to this place overnight. Her childhood history was her training ground long before she entered any of her three addictive relationships. Dysfunction ruled her original family. As a child, she learned to:
She was reared to be the perfect candidate for partnering with an addict, one whose codependent traits enable him to act out his behavior with little disruption.
While the names change, the stories of repetitively partnering with an addict are common and span generations. What Kate and other coaddicts experience is referred to as trauma repetition. Trauma repetition means you create behaviors and situations similar to those you experienced earlier in life. You are reliving a story out of your painful history. Replaying your past trauma is often repeating what you know, the familiar.
Share what you are feeling with someone you trust.
Affirm your emotional self. Identify two affirmations that will support you in acknowledging your feelings. For example: "I have the right to my feelings" and "My feelings help me identify my needs."
Breathe deeply. People close off their feelings when they take shallow breaths. Check your breathing throughout the day and particularly at times of vulnerability. Take a deep breath in for three seconds, exhale slowly for three seconds; repeat five times. In time expand this to five seconds, five times.
Learning to own your feelings won't be easy because you have probably spent a lifetime not being safe with your feelings. It is likely that you gleaned your understanding of what to do with your feelings from people who denied them, people who contradicted your perception of reality and generally could not express positive or negative feelings in healthy ways. That modeling then became reinforced in your relationship with someone who sexually acts out. He is not there to listen, to validate, or to offer support. In fact he most often discounts, ignores, and denies your feelings. He rages in anger or walks away in silence. He tells you there is no reason for you to feel the way you do. It’s possible he tells you that not only do you have no reason to be fearful, angry, or sad, but in fact you should be grateful. With so many previous negative experiences, it is likely you have a lot of fears of what would happen should you show feelings.
Fears such as:
You may be at a stage where you have difficulty expressing your feelings because you have difficulty identifying them. You may not recognize anger as you stand with your fists clenched and arms tightly folded. I have worked with women who had tears rolling down their faces, and when asked what they were feeling, they didn’t know. Many coaddicts smile broadly through their fear, humiliation, and anger.
Feelings are cues that signal what you need. If you pay attention to your feelings, you will become more adept at knowing your needs. Feelings also help you determine the boundaries you need to set to provide security for yourself. They are your signals to comfort, safety, discomfort, and danger. A mark of recovery is the ability to know what you feel when you feel it; to be comfortable with your emotional self, and then determine whether or not and with whom you share feelings.
