High-Risk Behavior Increases With Sexual Addiction
A young married mother hooked on the rush of new relationships risks the fallout of her addiction on the lives of her husband and daughter.
Kerstin discloses to her therapist that she is on a binge, which has her feeling excited, validated and a little uncertain about what will happen next. She tells her therapist that she knows she’s on a high, and that she “should be” concerned about her current rash of behavior, but that she doesn’t feel worried or ashamed—those feelings will sink in later. Right now she’s reveling in the ecstatic rush and sees no signs that she’ll decide to curtail her behavior. Kerstin is a married mother whose daughter is entering kindergarten. Her family means everything to her—she loves her husband deeply and wants to give her daughter everything she never had. But since shortly after her wedding nine years ago, she has been having affairs.
Kerstin is sucked in by the romantic intrigue—a man’s attention, adoration and validation through compliments and sweet nothings. But as soon as the intensity begins to wane, usually after a period of three months, she goes in search of “another diversion.” Four years ago, she signed up on a dating site for married people looking to have affairs, and the glut of messages and “likes” on her photos “felt like what heroin must feel like for people who use it for the first time.” She was instantly hooked, and says she’s been chasing that initial feeling for a long time.
Her husband has been suspicious throughout, but he’s never left, and Kerstin no longer does much to conceal her activity. At first she’d lied in response to his demands to know whom she was always chatting and texting with (and has never been entirely honest), but she has since told him that she talks to male friends sometimes, and that it’s merely superficial. She loves him and he shouldn’t be worried. Kerstin is the breadwinner for the family, and her husband feels isolated in their new town, with few friends and no supportive family. He’s unlikely to leave her in the immediate future, and she allows this to cloud her judgment. She recently invited one of the men she’d been chatting with online over to their house while her husband was away with their daughter. She’d been talking to this man a lot recently, and says they’d established “a real connection,” one she intends to keep. But as soon as he left, she invited another stranger—one she knew she had no real interest in, explaining, “He liked me and I liked that. I wanted to feel even more validated.”
Kerstin explained that she had not used protection with either of these men—same as for most of the others in her past—because her tubes were tied after the birth of her daughter and she “really, really wants these guys to like having sex with her. Condoms,” she said, “usually prevent that.”
STI Risk Increased for Many Sex Addicts
About 19 million new cases of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) are identified each year, and there are more than two dozen viral, bacterial and parasitic infections that can be transmitted during sexual activity. Some of the most common and potentially damaging STIs can be asymptomatic (i.e., show no signs), like chlamydia, gonorrhea and HPV (human papilloma virus). Other STIs, like herpes simplex, can be quite obvious (and irritating or painful) to those who initially contract them, but can be harder to detect later on, even when the virus is at its most infectious. And HIV/AIDS has devastated millions, despite major improvements in medications used for the disease.
High Risk and Impulsivity in Sex Addiction
But “high risk” in the context of sexual addiction is not just about infection (many sex addicts protect themselves and others during sexual interaction). There are many other risks addicts take through sexual acting-out behaviors, risks that impact their own and others’ lives. In the case of Kerstin, we can see that she continually yet knowingly risks the painful revelation her affairs will have on her husband. She loves him deeply and does not want to hurt him, but she says she fits the bill for addiction in that she is “powerless to stop.” Addiction is simply not about willpower; it is a disease process occurring in the brain of the addict, revealing itself through behavior.
Sex and relationship addicts like Kerstin risk the fallout of their addiction on the lives of family members, on their health and on their jobs. Impulsive behavior is common in sex addicts, making dreams and goals difficult to impossible to achieve because risk-seeking asserts itself again and again, sabotaging any efforts the addict asserts to maintain control. But recovery is possible, and treatment methods are getting better and better as we learn more about sex addiction. For a sex addict who finds him or herself repeatedly placing health, family, career and other dreams at risk, recovery should not merely be thought of as possible, but absolutely necessary.