How one Sex Addict Saved His Marriage

I cannot compare what it’s like now to what it was like back then. Program has literally saved our marriage and our lives.

Hi, I’m Kevin and I’m a sexaholic.

Let me a little bit about what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now.

What it was like

I was a hopeless romantic — I must have fallen in love dozens of times before I met my wife Sally.

I was also a hopeless sex drunk

What we call an intimacy cripple.

Emotionally stunted from a very early age

A full-blown addict and anon.

I married Sally to fix her which was absolutely insane and the real insanity was that I then took this precious person and broke her even more.

I always compare it to replacing the glue that would be needed to help heal the open wound in order to close it, with good strong sea salt, and then rubbing it into the wound repeatedly.

Overall we had a very sick relationship when it came to both communications and intimacy.

We would get into discussions about things (general ideas) and they would always end in an argument — I would learn in recovery that feeling not heard and feeling criticized were massive emotional triggers for Sally.

For me, the trigger of feeling rejected would trigger me into a spiral that I just simply couldn’t bear and in trying to fix and make things better I would invariably make them worse and worse.

My sex addiction plagued our intimate life, I would cajole and manipulate my way into sex, not letting go till I got what I wanted. For me, sex was compulsory and a basic requirement.

Holidays without payment of sex were not even a possibility.

Going more than 2 weeks without sex was not an option, and this was asides from all the acting out I did outside the bedroom.

Sex equaled intimacy.

Now I say all this and I have to say at this point that somehow asides from all this we had an amazing marriage. Maybe it's denial or maybe it's just who we are — but we were best friends and we also had fun together.

We are both very practical people and the result of that was that we were great at making decisions about big things together and there were many ways we communicated that worked for us.

We are both deep thinkers and here was someone who could understand me even when I was completely unintelligible to other people. Which thanks to my second primary addiction, marijuana was pretty much most of the time.

As practical people, we both had very defined roles for a long time, albeit a role that suited me perfectly. I was able to be a workaholic and I was successful at what I did which allowed me to sit in my office for 18 hours a day working like a crazy man.

Sally says often that as a result of that she was able to have lots of time to herself, especially at night — unless it was time for me to build the pressure again for sex — basically, we both isolated in our own ways.

When I didn’t get what I wanted — I would be in a sour mood — a manipulation tool that seemed to eventually get me what I wanted.

The broken codependent cycle we lived in would flare especially on Saturdays when we had no other distractions and I remember many times we got into such a fight that she would have to literally lock herself behind a door.

Of course, my codependent rage would then go into a spiral since I needed to fix it NOW and a stupid door wasn’t going to stop me.

I am grateful my younger kids never saw that side of me.

There were certain points in our life that Sally was able to draw a thick red line.

Several years before I came into recovery she drew a red line on me drinking whisky on Saturdays which was the day I couldn’t smoke weed and invariably that was the day that the flare-ups would be the worst.

The mesh between healthy communicating and healthy intimacy was most apparent in the hundreds of hours we spent talking about our sex life, me trying to fix it with words and manipulation which was insane because the most critical piece, the fact that I was a sex and lust addict was never discussed in all those discussions, and it wasn’t a secret.

While the gravity of my sexual acting out and the lengths that I went to get my fix was still a secret during that time, my constant porn and masturbation were well known by Sally from the start of our marriage.

How could she not see me leering at everything that moved... She gave up snooping on my browser many years before she would hear it called “an sanon slip”. Just like she gave up looking where I was looking.

Another codependent part of our shared disease would be me not being able to hear her say stop talking about this now. And I would just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on. The more she pushed for me to stop the more I would try to be heard.

I’m grateful those days are over.

So what happened.

The biggest red line came approximately four and a half years ago after 17 years of marriage.

In a show of strength through tears, Sally was able to tell me that she could no longer go on like this, and she didn’t care if we never had sex ever again this life was over.

The miracle was that I actually heard it! And that’s what happened.

Combined with several powerless lust actions I had taken over the previous couple of weeks I had come to my bottom. I could no longer live like this anymore, and I didn’t even realize it yet. I just knew I was hopeless.
So as a typical addict I quickly found a new addiction!

But for the first time in my life, this addiction was something positive.
I remember saying several times that this was the first time in my life I was really actually investing in myself.

I threw myself into full-time recovery and the physical withdrawal was so painful that Sally often says the first year of my recovery “doesn’t count”
For me it counted.. it was the hardest year of my life but so rewarding.

I grew so much in that year and the pink cloud of recovery which is defined as a kind of euphoria some people feel in early sobriety after detoxing kept me very busy. Some things started to change immediately.

We actually stopped arguing.

In fact, we have barely had a real fight since I came into recovery. A simple result of me being willing to actually listen and as a result, her feeling heard.

We also moved to a minimum level of sexual intimacy. It was time for me to learn that sex is optional — and it was a lesson that had taken a long time to come.

I remember those early months being really eye-opening for me as I was slowly internalizing this new reality. I remember us also learning a new language of intimacy one I call physical not sexual intimacy, where we were able to be close to each other and even snuggle but it didn’t mean sex.

I had spent so many years making sex compulsory that this new dance is still something we are learning 4 and a half years later.

I remember being resentful because I hadn’t yet had a spiritual experience — the experience of step 3 and step 11 where God is running Kevin’s life, and at that time Sally was the one who held the key to me having a sex life.

I had to work a very in-depth fourth step to get to that understanding.

Nothing happens in God’s world by mistake and ill never forget the day that Sally found part of my fourth step on the desk,

It just happened to be my inventory of my sexual harms to her. She finally had some validation and saw how aware I was of everything I had done over the years. It was a good thing for our relationship — of course as per tradition I advise all sponsees to keep those papers hidden and out of view — but I am grateful she was able to see it.

I now know that God holds that key to my sex life just as I have given Him charge over all of Kevin.

I had a good strong early recovery and I remember clearly asking Sally if she was noticing me not looking at women anymore. She turned to me and said I gave up years ago looking at what you were looking at.

I wanted a medal for finally doing what I was supposed to be doing all along and as we know that's not a medal I deserve to get.

That first year I did the steps three times — and each time I made a new step 9 amends to Sally. She was very accepting and told me to just keep doing what I was doing. I kept trying to push her to join SANON but she wasn’t ready yet and I learned several things as a result of that.

Firstly, suggesting something once is enough — I read in a book this week — just like I would suggest a good book to a friend, I wouldn’t keep reminding them…

Secondly, I was beginning to learn to do the opposite of what I am compelled to do. This is one of the secrets of recovery from my dis-ease — the 180 — if I am compelled to do something it's most likely better to surrender it completely.

The biggest learning curve came for me about six months into recovery. I was furiously writing a journal about another new obsession within our relationship over something that I would not even notice today just a few years later and I was writing and writing and writing about HER and then the lights went on — and I had my eureka moment — YOU ARE THE CODEPENDENT!!!!

It was mind-blowing for me.

As my sponsor likes to say you spot it you got it — and boy did I got it!
And so began my anon recovery. While she may not be an addict — my beautiful wife is an anon from birth and well so am I — and I get to call her my qualifier even though she’s not an addict.

As one of the founders of SANON-ANON I am proud of that distinction today.

So I learned several things — especially in couples therapy. This codependent dance we were in that ruined our communications and intimacy from MY SIDE were all constant triggers of rejection and abandonment. As a result, I would end up suffocating her trying to escape that feeling of rejection.

And as I learnt from scratch, to listen and hear and watch my speech and accept that I wasn’t being abandoned or rejected and she was still with me for a reason, our whole lives started to change as a couple-ship.

I wasn’t perfect at this, and as an addict, I had to learn many lessons hundreds of times until I really got them. But I got many of them over time and I’m still getting them.

How can I forge an intimacy with my wife if at the critical moment that she asks me to stop talking about something or to return to my side of the bed I then ignore her? It's irrelevant why I’m ignoring her. It's irrelevant that I have just hit an impasse of powerlessness or rejection.

And many of those lessons took a while to take effect.

I also made a decision early on in sobriety which I have often compared to the third step decision. That decision was to be faithful to my wife not only with my eyes but also in my heart.

As my sponsor says and I repeat as a mantra my job today is to be faithful and present, and it is through practice that I become able to build a real relationship based on true intimacy and real open communication.

So what is it like now?

I would like to suggest that there are actually 5 types of intimacy — physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and sexual.

And they all start with In To Me See (intimacy).

For me what that means is that My own personal recovery is the foundation stone of building intimacy with a fellow human being, especially the most important relationship of them all which is the one with my spouse.

Looking after my own physical needs — watching how I eat, taking care of my body — physical intimacy. Working therapy and mindfulness to get in touch with my own emotions, as an emotional cripple I didn’t even have any feelings at all when I came into recovery — emotional intimacy.

Slowly clearing the brain fog of being drunk on so many things for so many years and learning how to get in touch with my motives as I take actions throughout the day — mental intimacy.

And building a relationship with a Higher power through working steps daily and learning how to be honest. This results in finding and gaining access to that power deep inside of me which is where it can truly be found.

All this brings me to a greater intimacy with myself which then allows me to have intimacy with my wife.

I was taught and it is my experience that through the fellowship, by learning how to become vulnerable I then learn how to take those newly learned behaviors and become vulnerable with others, beginning and ending with my spouse.

And I believe that as a result of these first four levels of intimacy I can get to sexual intimacy. As my sponsor says — anything that brings us closer and makes us feel close to each other is healthy sexuality.

Physical intimacy — being physically close to each other in a healthy way where the aim of that connection is not a selfish orgasm or sexual whatsoever.

Mental intimacy — where we can share common goals and common thoughts and meaningful conversations that come as a result of hearing and listening to each other.

Emotional intimacy — where we can share our fears without fear of triggering each others emotional baggage and childhood traumas.

Spiritual intimacy — where we can have a common purpose with God as our partner.

Sexual intimacy then becomes an optional result of that new connection that exists on all levels.

So what is it like now?

Well, I always prided myself in having a relationship with Sally that is full of very open communication but the elephant in the room — active addiction — caused it to be flawed and broken.

Today it is incomparable to how it was before recovery.

Today we are able to share openly with each other about most things, and we know that we can bring our problem to our sponsor or fellows and our solution to our relationship.

Pretty much most of the time I do not use magical thinking anymore to guess what's going on in her mind and create a narrative of my own making. That's a miracle.

There have been several things that we have practiced over the past few years... A big one is a therapeutic exercise often used for couples in recovery called FANOS.

It’s a way to share openly our inner selves in a safe way. We each take turns to share without cross-talk.

FANOS stands for feelings, affirmations, needs, owning, sobriety/struggles.

We each take turns to share how we are feeling right now, affirming positive things about our partner, what we need from the other person right now, owning behaviors in a sort of mini 9th step, and finally where and how sober we are today / what we are struggling with.

It’s an amazing exercise that allows for intimacy and open communications in a very safe way and I suggest it often to people.

A few weeks ago we started our own mini-meeting once a week going through the 12 traditions together as they relate to a relationship and marriage, the worksheet we use comes from tradition work done by al anons.

Its been the most amazing eye-opening experience for me as we are able to share and talk about how we see these traditions working in our lives and how they should work.

What would have been easily a trigger for both of us to end up in an argument within a few minutes in the past is actually a meeting of partners with a shared purpose and respect that each one hears the other's thoughts without criticism or judgment.

I cannot compare what it's like now to what it was like back then. Program has literally saved our marriage and our lives.