doodlebug

Thank you so much :) I think there is such a need out there for something to help people understand and deal with sexual addiction. LDS Social Services is starting to recognize the seriousness of this issue through specialized group therapy sessions only for sexual addicts, but it is such a newly recognized issue that there is not much out there for wives to help them know how to deal with it. It is such a taboo subject and bringing it up nearly always leads to judgements by others.

Thank you chiKin :) I think you can be addicted to anything. In my mind, it becomes an addiction when it starts controlling you rather than you controlling it. I think it's important that you maintain control over your choices and addiction prevents you from doing that.

I don't think you understand the concept behind this idea. Let me see if I can explain it more clearly. We are trying to establish a SUPPORT group for wives of sexual addicts. We are not in any way trying to promote divorce or judge the husbands for their actions. There are no psychiatrists or psychologists. The only professionals that would be included would be counselors through LDS Social Services - counselors who are trained and have the answers that will help these women get deal with the problems in their lives related to this issue. My husband is the most wonderful man I know. He also has a huge problem that he is now receiving help for. I have seen the enormous difference that the group therapy provided by LDS Social Services has had on him. The addict is not the only one affected by the addiction though - and this is especially true in the case of sexual addiction. Although my husband's addiction began years before we ever met, I have had to work very hard to get over feeling like it's my fault. Having talked to other women going through the same thing (although they didn't know that I knew exactly what they were feeling since I have never told anyone besides our bishops about my husband's addiction), we feel like we must not be fulfilling their needs. Like we aren't pretty enough or sexy enough or trying hard enough. Like we aren't good enough and that is the reason they have to seek sexual gratification elsewhere. You mentioned that perhaps it was caused by sexual repression on the wife's part. Don't you think that each of us have asked ourselves what is wrong with us thousands of times? I have tried everything I can think of and my husband and I have a very healthy sex life. The two are not related, but it is very hard to understand that if you are not a sexual addict - and most wives don't understand that. It is very hard to deal with the self-esteem issues, but in order to help my husband and family to the best of my ability, I have to. How can I expect to provide him with support when he is going through his hardest times if it emotionally destroys me to hear about them? And sometimes it just helps to talk to someone who understands what you are going through. There have been things that have helped my husband and I and there have been things that have hurt more than helped. If there was a place where people could share the things that have worked for them, hopefully we could minimize the pain these families are going through.

When your husband is doing things that cause him to lose his priesthood or membership in the church, or lose his job, or commit adultery, it is a crisis. Until you have walked in shoes of a wife of a porn addict, you have no idea what it is like to live through it. It goes way beyond "looking at naked women on the Internet" because of "natural urges". Would you tell the wife of an alcholic that she was overreacting because her husband just likes to get drunk every once in a while??? There are a lot more problems with sexual addiction than you would guess. Grouping anyone who claims that they are dealing with sexual addiction under the heading of "overreactors who must be sexually repressed" is just another punch to the face of women who are dealing with one of the hardest things they have ever had to deal with, made even more difficult by the lack of support available.

Addiction involves placing your desire for something above everything else (i.e. family, job). Addiction is a very real problem and addiction experts have said that sexual addiction is harder to overcome than even an addiction to cocaine. An article by Elder Oaks in the May 2005 Ensign states: "Pornography impairs one’s ability to enjoy a normal emotional, romantic, and spiritual relationship with a person of the opposite sex. It erodes the moral barriers that stand against inappropriate, abnormal, or illegal behavior. As conscience is desensitized, patrons of pornography are led to act out what they have witnessed, regardless of its effects on their life and the lives of others. Pornography is also addictive. It impairs decision-making capacities and it “hooks” its users, drawing them back obsessively for more and more. A man who had been addicted to pornography and to hard drugs wrote me this comparison: “In my eyes cocaine doesn’t hold a candle to this. I have done both. … Quitting even the hardest drugs was nothing compared to [trying to quit pornography]”" (http://library.lds.org) While I am sure that there are many cases in which sexual repression causes problems in a relationship, I think that sexual addiction is a huge problem and should not be ignored merely because there are other problems out there. A husband's addiction to pornography does not imply sexual repression on the wife's part. In many cases the addiction was nutured before the couple even met. The pain that wives of sexual addicts have to endure is very real and very destructive. I would much rather have women request help for an addiction that doesn't exist than have women have to go through such a trial without someone to help them through it.

Anonymity is one of the main reasons we are trying this approach :) The message board we have set up is a private one (only members can see the posts) and members are carefully filtered to prevent trolls. We don't ask for any personal identifying information (name, location, etc.). Our biggest problem is trying to let women know this is available since as Winnie stated, most wives would rather suffer through almost anything than tell someone what is going on. We have a letter we are handing out to bishops in this area for them to give to women who come to them. If there are any bishops on this board that would like a copy of the letter, PM me and I will email it to you :)

I am working with LDS Social Services in my area to try and start a message board for the wives of LDS sexual addicts to provide support and understanding and guidance. I am trying to reach women who would be interested in joining. LDS Social Services (at least the one down here) has tried several times to start support groups for the women affected by their husbands' sexual addictions, but it's been hard to get women to come because of family commitments, etc. We are hoping that an online message board will provide women with the chance to log on when they can instead of having to work their schedule around meetings and that it will also allow them to talk anonymously so they may feel more comfortable revealing family "secrets" that have been hurting them for so long. If you would like information about how to join, please PM me.