Our Story

Sex addiction is a selfish disease that has robbed me of nearly everything that I have held dear in my life. My husband's battle against the disease has been progressive. As is the case for all addicts. It happened in such incremental shifts that before I knew it we were in the thick of an active sex and love addiction. What a ride it has been! My relationship with my husband has experienced all of the following:

- Emotional affairs with co-workers and female friends
- Creation and participation of profiles on dating websites
- Unhealthy relationship with pornography
- "Sexting" & flirtatious texting with individuals met on dating sites
- Physical/Emotional affair including unprotected sex resulting in sexually transmitted infection (that  he gave to me)
- Posting ads on Craigslist seeking sexual encounters
- Inviting strangers met online on "dates" at his place of employment
- Flirting with women met in social settings
- Sexual anorexia (with me)
- Substance abuse (sexual acting out increased after he stopped smoking pot)
- Eating disorders (me!)
- Anxiety and depression

When I think back on all of the experiences that we have been through I am filled with such a heavy sense of sadness. This isn't the way our life was supposed to go. These were not the plans that we made together.

Mr. C and I have been together for 5 years and we were married in July of 2013. Long before we were a couple we were friends. Best friends. You see, Mr. C and I met in a chat room when we were about 13 years old. We lived in different areas of the country and did not meet in person until 2009. We spent the first decade of our friendship in a catfish-ship. I lied to Mr. C for a very long time about what I looked like out of fear of rejection due to being overweight. I am only just now beginning to work out my issues with food. I am a compulsive over-eater. A binge eater with intermittent periods of anorexia or severe food restriction. Part of addressing Mr. C's sex and love addiction has been taking a long and hard look at myself. He is not the only one with skeletons in his closet.

When I told Mr. C that I had been lying to him about what I looked like we decided to still pursue a relationship because our feelings for each other were genuine. We met a short while later in person for the first time. After which we continued to date with the intent of moving in together eventually as we still lived 6 hours apart. Mr. C loves me and he loves my body. I love Mr. C and together we began to build a life.

In 2010 we moved in together. It was not an easy transition for Mr. C and as I look back I can see that the development of a serious and committed relationship with someone that he truly loved began to breath life into his sex and love addiction. We must remember that at the core of sex addiction is an intimacy disorder. For the first time in Mr. C's life he was in a relationship where he wanted his partner fully and this ironically began to set into motion an entire series of dysfunction.

In 2012 Mr. C asked me to marry him. I ecstatically agreed and we immediately began to plan our happily ever after. Sadly, a few months later Mr. C had his first serious emotional affair with a co-worker. This catapulted us into couple's counseling. We addressed communication issues and intimacy concerns but nothing was ever mentioned of sex or love addiction. In a few months our relationship totally transformed. We created a much deeper connection and intimate issues between us improved. It felt as if we had gotten over our relationship hurdle and life would be wonderful. We proceeded forward with plans to marry.

The entire next year was a great one for Mr. C and me. We married in a beautiful ceremony surrounded by friends and family. It was a dream and a day that I will always remember. Life felt as if it could not get any better. Unfortunately immediately after returning home from our honeymoon I discovered Mr. C was having a sexting relationship with a woman he'd met on a dating site. I was devastated but as addicts and co-dependents often do, he apologized and I believed him. A few months later he began another flirtatious relationship with a classmate.

In January 2014 I began noticing what I have come to term as his "red flag" behavior. Addict Mr. C is a very obvious persona. He makes himself known in very clear mannerisms. I knew something was up and ended up catching Mr. C chatting with a female individual in a park. Ironically, this was January 27th which was the 6th month mark into our first year of marriage. I immediately confront them both but they denied knowing each other. My intuition screamed differently but since they were just talking I didn't have any concrete evidence and found ways to talk myself out of my convictions.

This dysfunctional dance continued between Mr. C and me for the next two months. He would go missing for hours at a time. He wouldn't answer his phone. He wouldn't respond to text messages. He would create elaborate but entirely nonsensical stories about his whereabouts. I don't know if he realized how stupid and full of holes they were but he tried to sell them to me with conviction. Deep down I knew he was having an affair. I knew he was lying to me and it made me feel crazy to have him lie to my face when I felt deeply that he was being dishonest. I could never quite understand why he didn't just admit it.

By March I'd had enough. I barged in on him while he was using the bathroom. He'd taken to asking to use my phone when he would go out to smoke or use the bathroom because I didn't trust him to take his own phone as he'd used it in the past to secret message females. I opened the door on him under the visage of needing something out of the bathroom. He was acting very nervous and a long dramatic story short I ended up yanking my phone out of his hands to discover a text conversation. Yep. Discovery time.

Since March I have caught Mr. C posting sex ads on Craigslist twice. I have caught him starting text relationships with other girls and I caught him trying to text his affair partner from March. The one who told us she was pregnant when he broke it off with her. She wasn't. The one who gave him chlamydia, which he gave to me. You don't always realize how insane and out of control your life can become with a sex addict until you spend your 28th birthday getting tested (and told) you have a sexually transmitted disease given to you by your newlywed husband. The nature of sex addiction robs you of your dignity as a person and as a couple. It robs the addict of their integrity and morals.

Addiction is a disease. I hate Mr. C's addiction. I hate Addict-Mr. C but I love Mr. C and Mr. C loves me but Addict-Mr. C is terrified of intimacy with me and acts out in despicable deplorable ways to avoid being vulnerable with me. There are a lot of couples out there struggling through the grip of sex addiction and sexual anorexia. We are just one of many but this is our story.