Every single week for the last 42 years I have spoken with one or more clients who have cheated or been cheated on.
Survey data regarding cheating keeps changing as social definitions of cheating evolve. And the invention of cars, telephones, and the internet—not to mention mixed-gender schools and workplaces—have multiplied people’s opportunities for a broader range of physical and emotional relationships.
I do believe I’ve heard every possible reason for infidelity, and…
“Sex addiction” treatment understands nothing about sex, lets one or both partners evade responsibility, and assumes “addicts” are out of control.
Its handling of infidelity, porn use, sex workers, “emotional affairs,” desire, fantasy, and masturbation damages people and their marriages.
Today is National Psychotherapy Day. Every year, it comes seven weeks after National Psychic Day (yes, really).
Psychotherapy involves a wonderful set of tools. Every year, skillful therapists save marriages, facilitate divorces, educate parents, ease trauma, and help people overcome depression or anxiety.
But one of American psychotherapy’s main weaknesses is in the area of sexuality. Most therapists…
Jonas and Marge have been married for 17 years.
This week they had sex for the first time in 10 years.
They had stopped when she found out he had been seeing prostitutes all over the country while he travelled for business. She was too angry and hurt to let him touch her.
Sex addiction is a convenient explanation for the destructive behavior of people driven mad by shame and Christian demands for sexual purity.
But the problem is shame, not sex. Treating shame, sexual ignorance, and relationship problems can actually cure people–so they don’t have to be addicts in recovery for the rest of their lives.
When they came to me they were getting “sex addiction” treatment. As the spouse of an “addict,” she was in S-Anon, endlessly talking about her trauma and her “co-dependence.” He was going to Sexaholics Anonymous meetings and reading about the 12 Steps.
She wanted me treat his “sex addiction,” and he was willing to do almost anything to end their nightmare of mistrust and chronic conflict.
But in the very first session, I told them that I don’t use the category of “sex addiction.”