Now, think about how many guys you hear in group say, “I am doing everything right, I am going to meetings, therapy, staying sober, but she is still angry!” You might even be one of the guys saying this.

I guess the honest answer is, love isn’t possible while those things are going on. What you are describing, as you know since you mentioned the addiction cycle, is preoccupation. A better word may be obsession. I loved my wife deeply, but when I got into that preoccupation phase, I was obsessed with all the planning. It was more exciting that the acting out. Driving to my ultimate destination, there was nothing coherent going through my mind. Just a one track mind, focused on what was about to happen. But let me assure you of this and maybe it will bring you some comfort. No matter where I was going, who I was going to meet, or what I was going to do, I was ALWAYS let down. NEVER satisfied. Instead I was left feeling sick and disgusted with myself. And yet, I’d go do it again, sometimes even the same day, to try to take away the shame of what I already did. And every time, I promised myself, never again.

As time went on, one of my struggles was trying to figure out who my husband was. I saw our entire marriage as a lie. So what did that mean? I SO needed to figure out what that meant. What was real and what wasn’t? What parts of my husband were who he really was and what parts were a façade? Was any of it real? These were questions I was determined to find the answers to. For months I just wondered and asked questions, but doubted everything I heard, everything I thought, EVERYTHING. I went back and forth on whether I could ever heal, even if he didn’t ever cheat again. Had he just gone too far for there to be healing?

I cannot tell you how many women have communicated to me their confusion over being told by well-meaning therapists and COSAleaders that they need to stop thinking about their husband and focus on themselves. Um…..seriously?! We find out our husband is addicted to looking at pornography or having sex with others, and the fact that we can’t stop thinking about it is unhealthy?   

One Certified Sexual Addiction Therapists’s website states, “A woman in a relationship with a sexual addict is a codependent of a sexual addict whose self esteem comes from success as a people-pleaser.” The bold print is not mine, it is how it is printed on the website. Pretty emphatic. It does not say “some women”, or “sometimes”, or even “often”. It says “is” implying “always”. The website goes on to say:

Something must be done to stop these “experts” from causing even more damage in the lives of spouse’s of sex addicts.

The following are a few of the questions found on the  ”Co-Sex-Addiction Self-Test” on this therapist’s website. (I think the title of the test should be “Are you normal?”)