How detachment helps you, and your porn-addicted husband
What's the best way to approach the husband or boyfriend who introduced porn addiction into your relationship, and turned things into a horrible mess?
'Clinical detachment' is an essential skill for people working in the medical or therapy professions, and it's certainly useful for partners of porn addicts too.
Wives and girlfriends experience a barrage of emotions and hurt. There's intense anger, fear, disgust, feelings of betrayal and neglect. A partner's destructive porn addiction can explode relationships, or gradually erode intimacy and trust over a course of years.
So how can wives and girlfriends even begin to address the problem?
Let's take our cue from the professionals who assist with tough personal issues every day. They demonstrate some valuable tips for taking a position of clinical objectivity, and really finding a way to move forward.
Here are four useful parallels with the therapist/client relationship:
1 - Don't pass judgement on the client
In any working or personal relationship, we all have our own values and opinions about the behaviour of others. It's our natural instinct. But therapists keep their emotional reactions in check. This is an essential part of the relationship, and progress can't really be made without it.
It's not about being cold or emotionally neutral though. In a counselling relationship, therapists are now encouraged to interact, and explain how they feel and interpret what the client is saying. The aloof, robotic analyst who only looks up from his notes to say 'ok... carry on' or 'and how was your relationship with your mother..?' is hopefully a thing of the past.
Therapists don't accuse or explode. It's tempting at times, believe me, but reprimanding the client has little effect in the long-term. Therapists keep in mind that destructive behaviours develop for a reason, and their objective is helping the client to discover that reason.
Of course, this is more than a challenge for the angry or desperate partner. So you've exploded and berated him. Now if the relationship is worth saving, it's time to pull together and explore, rather than go to war.
2 - Give permission
A client needs to talk. The answers might be staring them in the face, but something stops them from changing their ways. They might crave assurance and support in facing up to hard realities, having put up so many barriers of denial. They are trapped in a self-made cycle of compulsive routines and delusions.
We don't make excuses for the client. They need to become fully accountable for their behaviour. A client needs 'permission' to face reality and move forward, and the therapist grants it. But the therapist expects work and commitment in return. Along with talking and exploring, 'homework' is agreed and the therapist requires the client to co-operate.
Recovering partners should agree on 'homework' too. Words are not enough. Just like a client, your husband needs to demonstrate that he is actively on the case. If he's talking the right talk but still neglects you for porn, you'll see right through it just as a therapist does, and no progress can be made together.
3 - Set realistic targets
Both client and therapist need to agree on change, and a realistic, achievable way to go about it. This is a joint effort - in some cases the therapist needs to dictate the way forward, but unless the client accepts and agrees, it's going nowhere.
Partners should aim to agree targets for change, and set clear dates for when progress is expected. Just like a therapist, partners can't demand recovery by a set date, but should expect to see real steps forward in lifestyle, getting help and getting honest about the problem. Recovery is a long-term project.
If deadlines are missed, the relationship isn't working. A therapist will offer to help explore why, but will withdraw support and drop the client if targets are repeatedly ignored. Partners should take the same approach, and refuse to be strung along.
4 - Don't get into games
Honesty and openness are essential. Unfortunately, some clients lie to their therapists or try to involve them in their addicted routines. 'Serial' patients spend a fortune on therapy yet seem determined to ignore it. Some husbands try to placate wives with lies and continue their compulsive porn habits. In a similar way, they are wasting their own lives in relationship games, often oblivious to the misery inflicted on their wives and families.
Therapists won't put up with games, and neither should partners. Games can take many forms, but an addict usually seeks to play the role of victim, in order to justify or explain their habit to themselves. Games force partners to take the role of persecutor or rescuer, and just like the therapist, partners should avoid being drawn in. When you spot a game, simply explain that you refuse to play.
A classic porn addiction game is the desperate tactic of 'blame the wife'. It's a cruel game that's emotionally difficult to avoid getting drawn into, but partners are advised to treat it with the same clinical objectivity. Make it clear that you will not accept or play along with this offensive game.
Porn addiction realities
By staying clinically detached, the therapist maintains clear focus on the problem, and the client knows exactly where they stand. Of course, a therapist doesn't need to hold the family together or share a bed with an addicted husband. But if you are facing this issue, adopting a similar objectivity can help you begin a recovery journey together.
Just as some clients refuse to be helped, some relationships sadly aren't worth saving. The therapist pulls out when this is clearly apparent, and so should you. He's on his own with the problem now. You are entitled to make your own recovery from this neglectful and demoralising situation.
But from my working experience, the majority of relationships impacted by porn addiction can be rescued. It can be a painful and frustrating process, but the long-term life benefits for both parties are immense.
Porn Game Over is Jason's self-help plan for quitting the habit. Click here for a fresh approach to internet pornography addiction...
User login
Search
RSS Subscribe
13 comments
great post. just the advice i
great post. just the advice i was looking for tonite... how to even start with my husband. im going to try everything you say here.
The problem is that women
The problem is that women aren't men's therapists and the point of a relationship is not to be detached from someone - it's about a loving partnership. Porn use in a relationship is abusive and abuse shouldn't be tolerated.
This sounds like an updated version of Stand By Your Man.
Hi Jane, You've raised a
Hi Jane,
You've raised a valid point.
I'm not advocating ongoing detachment. I am suggesting a strategy for tackling the emotional neglect and abuse of living with a porn addicted partner. It is a strategy for a finite period of time, enabling both partners to establish a way forward, or confirm that things are beyond repair.
Women aren't men's therapists, and I make no suggestion that they should be. The objective is to rebuild that loving partnership, one delicate step at a time.
The Stand By Your Man role is applicable to partners who find themselves putting up, often for years on end. I am advocating a way out of this intolerable situation.
Best,
Jason
i took a deep breath and just
i took a deep breath and just tried to act rational as jason advises. i have bawled my husband out before amd i think he was suspicious at first with this different approach. we have just starting talking now, but i wanted to say that this really seems to be helping. he might be starting to understand how i really feel about his internet porn
Interesting ideas. When I
Interesting ideas. When I discovered the extent of my husband's secret activites, I naturally felt distant and detached straight away. This was more in cold, numbed horror though. I just didn't want anything to do with this man that I thought I knew and trusted.
Your advice about not playing games is important. My husband played one stupid game with me after another, and it took me a while to recognise this and not fall for it.
iam a porn addict and after
iam a porn addict and after reading this i realise that these things that i do to otheres and myself are just games but if i didnt read about it i would of just kept doing the same thing because i really thought that the world i had created was real
but the fact of the matter is i have to grow some balls and really take responsability for the actions i do
Porn "addiction" is only a
Porn "addiction" is only a symptom of something deeper and more serious. Often men who use porn for sexual relief, especially if this is preferred to partner sex are suffering from a deep seated fear of intimacy. And usually, this fear has its roots in childhood.
A history of short term relationships, often combined with sexual dysfunction which starts just as a relationship begins to get serious, is a clear sign of a fear of intimacy which itself can be caused by an "attachment disorder"
Often the person doesn't realize what is going on. They just find themselves beginning to feel uneasy whenever they get too close to another.
Often the heat of a new romantic relationship will over ride his feelings of anxiety and it is only after being married for a time that he finds himself withdrawing from his partner often seeking sexual relief masturbating to porn alone or visiting prostitutes, having one night stands, or short term extra marital affairs.
Reading this along with the
Reading this along with the posts helps me feel not alone in this horribly degrading cycle that my husband is in, and we've only been married six months. It's been hard. I cried again as i read these posts and realized how many other women live everyday with the same thing i do. I've cried and screamed and followed this advice. It's nice that the honesty is there and that he feels he can come to me but this last time i had just had enough. I couldn't hold my composure any longer. I couldn't pretend that it didn't hurt as much as it did. I feel that because of my blow up he'll never come to me again to tell me when he has 'struggled'. I'm not sure if i'm posting this for advice or just to vent...
I wish something like this
I wish something like this could work, but the things I would say to my counselor I could never say to my wife without destroying her. See how far the clinical detachment goes when you say "I look at porn because I'm bored with you sexually" or because "as beautiful as I find you, you are only one person and my sex drive demands a variety" etc. These ideas feed a woman's self-consciousness and I could only see them making matters worse
I wonder if you even realize
I wonder if you even realize that what you are describing is emotional detachment.
It is sad and also helpful to
It is sad and also helpful to read everyone's posts. My husband has been into web porn and porn magazines before that, for decades. Our marriage of 19 yrs has suffered 100% from it. I have been blamed so many times, and then on other occasions been told it isn't my fault, it was from the fear instilled in him by his mother and all she did or didn't do to him.
He has promised me over and over again for 19 years that he is stopping. It has never worked. Finally, I said that we will have no more physical contact - not even hugs as much as we love those. Something has to change for good and the time is now. It is painful, but I can't go on living like this.
He has now agreed to go on the 12 step program.
I've been battling my
I've been battling my husband's porn habit (what I thought it was anyway) but now know it is an addiction for only 6 years now. Very soon after my child was born he changed.
He yelled at me for the simplest things. I caught him one night online and was shocked at what I saw. This has happened several times now. We've been to counseling before and this last time I just could not take it anymore.
The only difference this time is that I asked him to leave the home. Just days afterwards he informed me that he has had this problem for decades.
Am I wrong to feel that my marriage is a lie?
HJ- He might consider sex or
HJ- He might consider sex or psychotherapy rather than a 12 step.
The trouble with 12 step programs of any kind is they can and do get people to stop abusing/acting out but they all have a terrible relapse rate. This is something you don't hear about much, especially from the biggies like Alcoholics Anonymous and all the various "sex addict" groups.
People fall back into old habits after 12 step programs because these programs do nothing to stop the "urge" to act out. They believe that if you stop the acting out the urge will disappear when in reality it is the other way around.
People eat too much, drink to much, get heavily into porn and masturbation, get addicted to drugs for one simple reason. These activities make them feel better albeit temporarily.
They feel better because these activities raise the levels of "mood chemicals" in the brain such as serotonin and dopamine.
Most of these people have lower than average levels of these chemicals and so suffer from a constant down regulated mood. Because of the discomfort this causes in their day to day lives these people, consciously or unconsciously attempt to change the situation by self medicating using the various activities I mentioned including porn and masturbation.
Partner sex will do it for some although those who use partner sex tend to have serial affairs with many people. If they are married this becomes a big problem. For married men who do not want to leave the house for sex, porn on the internet is their mood altering activity of choice. It is the variety of sexual experiences available in porn that tends to play a big part in raising feel good chemicals in the brain as well as the resulting orgasm itself.
These urges and the brain chemical imbalances that cause them can only be dealt with using psychotherapy and often, antidepressant drugs, even if the person has no outward sign of clinical depression.
The drugs will kill the urge and if you kill the urge, you stop the acting out.
Post new comment