most sex addicts are men, this book speaks of addicts in the masculine and partners of sex addicts in the feminine. However, women can also be addicted to sex. Regardless of gender, this book gives direction to addicts, their partners, and those who love them.
This book is written in part to address frequently asked questions (FAQ) that have been supplied by others—primarily sex addicts and their partners. These questions were generated by more than 270 people who completed questionnaires sent to those who signed up for the Hope & Freedom newsletter and via links posted on several websites. These respondents contributed over 4,000 questions. In part, because there are so many questions and concerns shared by people exposed to sex addiction, quite a few of these questions were similar in nature. Approximately 190 of them are directly addressed in this book.
Many of these questions are posed and answered directly throughout this book, and many more are addressed within the narrative. Most of the remaining questions that were contributed on the questionnaires are duplicates of, or similar to, other questions already asked. Appendix A: Finding Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Answers at a Glance will allow you to prioritize the areas and questions that are of greatest immediate interest to you and give you the opportunity to focus on other areas later.
I am very pleased to have Marsha Means as my coauthor for this book. Marsha’s outstanding work with wounded partners of sex addicts has brought hope to many women who did not know where to turn. She and I have worked collaboratively with many clients over the past decade. The insights she contributes to this book further help partners navigate the stormy waters of healing and show them how to move from wounded to healthy, from pain to joy, and from fearful to hopeful.
Some of the time when Marsha and I use the pronoun “I” for the sake of clarity, we will insert our name in parentheses. In those cases, we are relating our own experiences or our own point of view. The “we” pronoun indicates either collaborative writing or a point of view that we share.
This book is the fourth in the Hope & Freedom Series. It is my firm belief that sex addiction is not only treatable, but that sex addicts can live free from all acting-out behaviors—forever. It is also possible for relationships that have been badly damaged by sex addiction to heal and be completely restored. I have the privilege of working with couples each week, many of whom had previously given up on their relationships. Through the hard work of recovery by both partners, these couples have been able to rebuild their relationships.
Hope can be yours today. Freedom comes only through persistent, unrelenting recovery.
Milton S. Magness
Wilson’s Story __________________
“Shut the hell up! If you open your frigging mouth again I’ll shut it for you!” Wilson cowered in the corner as he did every time his dad got drunk and started finding fault with every member of the family.
“I’m sorry.”
“I said shut the hell up. You’re just like your mother, you sniveling coward. You’ll never amount to anything.”
Sometimes Wilson got hit. Other times, like tonight, he was pummeled by his father’s words. He was reminded again that he was worthless, that he didn’t measure up to his father’s expectations and would never succeed at anything.
Wilson often deliberately became a target to keep his father occupied so his drunken rage would spare his mother and his little sister. The scars on his back and legs were not as memorable as the deep psychological wounds his father inflicted. Whatever the problem, whatever was broken, whatever was missing, Wilson knew it was his fault.
Just once he wished he could see his father sober and hear him say kind things to him. Just once he wished he could hear his father say, “I love you.” But not tonight. Tonight Wilson was angry too. He thought to himself, one of these days I am going to be big and I will make you pay!
By the time Wilson was ten, he had seen pornography many times. He discovered his father’s hidden stash of sexually explicit magazines. Then an older girl that lived down the street introduced him to physical sex. What Wilson realized was that as long as he was engaged in any kind of sexual behavior he didn’t feel alone and unloved. He began to live for the moments when he could slip away and live in fantasy.
By age eleven, Wilson discovered masturbation by accident. He realized that if he rubbed his penis, it felt good. Every time his father started raging, Wilson would escape to the bathroom or the garage and masturbate. He could escape into fantasy and for a few moments block out his father’s anger.
By his thirteenth birthday, Wilson was masturbating every day, sometimes several times a day. Regardless of the dysfunction at home, he could escape into his fantasy world of sex and, for a while, forget the daily pain of his life. He often had open sores on his penis where he had rubbed the skin off from his constant masturbation.
As Wilson matured physically, emotionally he seemed to remain stuck at ten years old. By the time he was fifteen, his father had deserted the family. Even in his absence, Wilson could hear his father’s voice in his head telling him he was not good enough. When Wilson was not being sexual with himself or someone else, he nursed his rage. His anger always seemed to be just below the surface. He got in fights at school and destroyed other’s property.
As an adult, Wilson continued to use sex to medicate and to escape reality. After several failed relationships, he gave up on the idea that he would ever be in a loving and fulfilling relationship. Sex partners seemed plentiful. He didn’t have to pretend to care about someone in order to have sex with her. He felt like he invented the term “friends with benefits.”
What Wilson had a hard time admitting was that he longed to have a special person he could love and then be truly loved by her. He scoffed at one partner who told him that he was looking to her to find the love his father never showed him. How could he still want to be loved by his father after being so abused by him?
As Wilson entered his mid-twenties, he achieved significant success as an investment banker. He thrived on work and found that people trusted him. But his professional life and his personal life were very different.
Wilson spent few evenings without being engaged in some sexual activity with someone. He began to have two depressing thoughts. First, he realized that his life was dominated by sex. He now felt alone even when he was having sex. He was always looking for the next person with whom he could start a relationship. And it didn’t matter how much sex he had; it seemed like it was never enough. Second, Wilson felt he would never be able to live a monogamous life.
These thoughts and
