Intensity vs. Intimacy: Sex Addiction, Controlling Truth and Closeness – Part 2

Continued from Intensity vs. Intimacy Part 1

As a 42-year-old wife and mother of two, Rachel appeared to have everything going for her. She and her husband owned a sought-after apartment in the city and her youngest went to an elite prep school while her oldest attended Princeton. With her husband working nearly 70 hours per week, she was virtually free—to spend and do as she wanted. While Rachel recognized on some level that most Americans had no idea what it was like to live with so much access, she was still overwhelmed with frustration and sometimes, depression. She despised her husband; they rarely spoke. Her daughter, the youngest, came and went as she pleased and spoke to her mother rarely. When she did, it was in an accusatory or dismissive tone—the same one she used to speak to her husband. And her son, the Princeton boy, was too consumed in his world of subatomic physics to speak unambiguously to anyone.

Rachel had few girlfriends she’d kept in touch with after her husband’s company had moved them from Chicago, and now on her own, she spent her days shopping, at the salon or in a new gym she’d discovered. She’d grown more than fond of a spin class instructor. It felt like he saw her as she was in her 20s—beautiful and wild, willing to do anything. She became embroiled in an intense affair with the man, but when his attention roamed elsewhere, she became enraged and cut all contact.

Soon she met a man who was shopping for his girlfriend in Bergdorf’s. While seemingly trying to help him find the right piece of jewelry, they flirted. Hours later, he was back at her apartment. The affair lasted only a few weeks before Rachel grew disappointed and bored with the man’s guilt and confusion. After the shopper, she started having drinks in hotel bars—perfect places to meet men. Sometimes her experiences involved only intense but casual sex, and other times Rachel became more emotionally involved, but only briefly. Once or twice she believed she was in love. The chemistry of each fling flamed out as quickly as it had ignited—burning up like so much white phosphorous. After nearly 20 affairs in a two-year period, Rachel didn’t know what she wanted—not her husband, not these men—she only knew she was desperately unsatisfied.

Grounded in Attachment

Regarding the concerns of people who worry that simply living in a culture that surrounds us with nearly unfettered access to pornography and sexualized images will create sexual addiction, Robert Weiss told Vixely.com: “The reality is that those of us who are fairly emotionally stable and grounded in attachment—in relational experiences growing up that were safe and rewarding—will always see those compensating experiences as two-dimensional because in our deepest selves we long to connect with a person or people in a meaningful way.” In other words, availability alone does not addiction make. As humans, we need true, multi-dimensional intimacy.

When there exists a deficit in quality emotional attachments with caregivers early on, emotional stability is more likely to be threatened later. People who experienced abuse or neglect in their families of origin, whose parents were simply emotionally unavailable—who did not provide necessary hugs or soothing words when needed—or who experienced particular life traumas such as sexual abuse, are more likely to develop addictions later on—and to conflate emotional intensity with true intimacy.

A “Thinking Problem”

In her blog post for Huffington Post, Therese Borchard, author of Beyond Blue and The Pocket Therapist, wrote:

Even though I only drank for three years, I will forever have a “thinking problem” that, if I’m not careful, could dump a bunch of unwanted pain unto my lap. It means that as I form important relationships, that I need always remember my propensity to mix up intensity with intimacy–that the rush I feel from scoring 100 followers on Twitter can in no way replace the intimacy I share with my husband and kids–that even though it feels like a high profile career can provide a world of glitter that won’t bore or disappoint me, that any accolade that I win is going to be a fleeting and unreliable high, and should not be depended on. Intensity is not the same thing as intimacy.

Part of the intoxicating high behind sudden sexual affairs is their ability to keep an addict distracted; the intensity numbs the deadening feelings that existed just days, or even hours, before it started. When the sexual experiences inherent in sexual addiction lead to chaotic emotional experiences, all the more distracting and numbing. The chaos can itself become addictive.

Bringing this realization into focus, recognizing that emotional chaos is the antithesis of emotional health, is a big step the sex and relationship addict must take in becoming well. For Rachel and others, becoming open to admitting how destructive sexually addictive patterns are is not the only step, however. Choosing to focus on and heal, when necessary, the most important relationships—family and friendships—and accepting intimacy over intensity is also key. Sex addicts can tend to distance themselves from people who matter. Bringing those relationships back into focus, and creating and nurturing new and genuine friendships, is just as much a part of the process of recovery as any form of abstinence or bottom line behavior avoidance might be.