How sex addiction harms a relationship.

When one partner in a marriage or relationship is a sexual addict, both partners suffer as a result. The extent to which each partner is impacted by the sexual compulsivity or addiction varies, depending on the type of addiction, how long it has been present, whether it has progressed to more blatant and potentially serious behavior, whether or not there are children in the family, if there are multiple addictions, and other factors. If the partner has a sexual addiction, it is already enough to seriously disrupt the partnership or family unit. Without treatment, the sexual addict will only get worse. So, too, will the relationship.

Some individuals reading this may wonder if what’s going on in their relationship warrants treatment or therapy. The sexual addict certainly needs treatment. But the partner who is not addicted most likely needs help as well. Why? Experts in treating sexual addiction counsel that the partner or codependent of the sexual addict often internalizes a tremendous amount of guilt, shame, anger and other very intense feelings. Without some counseling to understand the causes of their partner’s sexual addiction and how to cope with it, these feelings put the relationship – already under severe strain – at further jeopardy.

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What is Sex addiction?

Sexual addiction, also known as sex addiction, is a state characterized by compulsive participation or engagement in sexual activity, particularly sexual intercourse, despite negative consequences. Proponents of a diagnostic model for sexual addiction, as defined here, consider it to be one of several sex-related disorders within an umbrella concept known as hypersexual disorder. The term sexual dependence is also used to refer to people who report being unable to control their sexual urges, behaviors, or thoughts. Related models of pathological sexual behavior include hypersexuality (nymphomania and satyriasis), erotomania, Don Juanism (or Don Juanitaism), and paraphilia-related disorders.

The concept of sexual addiction is contentious. There is considerable debate amongst psychiatrists, psychologists, sexologists, and other specialists over the whether compulsive sexual behavior consitutes an addiction, and therefore its classification and possible diagnosis. As of 2017, sexual addiction is not a clinical diagnosis in either the DSM or ICD medical classifications of diseases and medical disorders. Some argue that applying such concepts to normal behaviors such as sex, can be problematic, and suggest that applying medical models such as addiction to human sexuality can serve to pathologise normal behavior and cause harm.

Neuroscientists, pharmacologists, molecular biologists, and other researchers in related fields have identified the transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms of addiction pathophysiology. Diagnostic models, which use the pharmacological model of addiction (this model associates addiction with drug-related concepts, particularly physical dependence, drug withdrawal, and drug tolerance), do not currently include diagnostic criteria to identify sexual addictions in a clinical setting. In the brain disease model of addiction, which uses neuropsychological concepts to characterize addictions, sexual addictions are identifiable and well-characterized. In this model, addictive drugs are characterized as those which are both reinforcing and rewarding. Addictive behaviors (those which can induce a compulsive state) are similarly identified and characterized by their rewarding and reinforcing properties.

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