Editor’s note: Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud’s Professional Resources Guide.
Rebecca Potter works as a licensed mental health counselor in West Palm Beach, Florida. She can be reached at: tlc211@gmail.com.
Surviving betrayal and trauma
By Rebecca Potter
Rebecca Potter profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide
I recently attended a workshop by Dr. Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., author of The Betrayal Bond. I was shocked by the denial of the psychological community regarding the trauma experienced by survivors of emotional and sexual trauma. I took my worn and used copy of The Betrayal Bond to Dr. Carnes for his signature. He signed my copy and asked, “Why used?”
Dr. Carnes’ work has helped me surface from the web of pain and confusion developed while trying to safely escape an emotionally, verbally, financially abusive husband. When I left, I was further damaged by my exposure to the legal system and Family Court. There was no place that I could go to receive treatment, attorneys took advantage of me, insurance companies lied and hid fraud that they had committed with my former mate. Need Dr. Carnes ask why my copy was used and battered, somewhat like me?
Just get over it and move on
This was the attitude I faced when I tried to find professional legal help. The pain in my body was so real, yet invisible to anyone else. I couldn’t explain the terror that I felt when I had to sit in the same room with my former husband: The intense emotion I felt when he told the courtroom lies and the court believed those lies without evidence. The permission that the Court gave to him, which allowed him to further abuse me and how I was ignored and told, “Just get over it and move on.”
The impact of sexual addiction induced trauma
The field of treatment and intervention for disorders related to compulsive sexual behavior and sexual addiction is a new emerging field. Research has focused on the sexual addict, creating models for diagnosis and treatment, while the partners of sex addicts have been neglected and ignored.
Current clinical treatment models prefer to address the partner of a sex addict as a codependent or co-addict, which basically implies that the partner has their own disease termed: co-addiction or codependency. Codependency is in a category of a process addiction—an addiction to certain mood-altering behaviors, such as a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively care-taking ways that negatively impact one’s relationships and quality of life. Other process addictions include: gambling, food, shopping, spending and hoarding.
The clinical needs of partners of sexual addicts continue to be ignored, minimized, obscured and gravely misunderstood. Partners actually often experience clinically significant sex addiction induced trauma. These traumatic symptoms are a result from the direct impact of sex addiction:
- chronic patterns of sexual acting out
- relational perpetration
- emotional abuse
- deception
- betrayal
- psychological manipulation
Traditional therapists continue to ignore the symptoms of trauma. These partners often present with symptoms that match rape trauma syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder. Sex addiction-induced trauma is a highly specific type of trauma that involves symptoms of fear and panic of potential disease and contamination, fear of child safety and potential of child molestation, social isolation, embarrassment, shame, guilt and intense relational rupture and attachment injuries.
Neglecting the treatment of trauma and focusing instead on co-addiction and codependency are inadequate and clinically contra-indicated, wrought with moral and ethical challenges. Partners and spouses of sex addicts are a profoundly and clinically traumatized population requiring informed care and ethical treatment.
Recovery
I know, because I experienced similar trauma. Recovery has been a long road. I still experience flashbacks and have adrenal fatigue when my symptoms are triggered. I have started women’s and men’s relationship recovery groups. We meet each week to support each other with the withdrawal of leaving a chaotic relationship and help each other process the deep brain injuries from the exploitation and trauma.
I also suggest that survivors participate in online support groups if they are not able to find a trauma therapist in their area. One online group : www.adultchildrenofalcholics.org. There are phone meetings daily. The websites will list the phone meetings. The pain that you are experiencing is real and must be processed with those who understand trauma.
I look at my marriage as an educational process that I needed to experience to assist others in healing. Yes, my ex will marry others and commit the same abuse. There will be many women and children harmed by his manipulation.
Dear Mags,
Welcome to Love Fraud…sorry you have experienced the common thread that brings us all to this “club”–it isn’t a club you would want to have to join, but if you need to be here, it is the BEST!
Knowledge is power, so keep on learning about what he is, and what you ARE….God bless.
Mags,
I’m glad you escaped with your life. Mine also decided to end my life as soon as I told him I was out of money. I wish I had told him that earlier!!!
We’re both still here, so that means we won! Welcome to the only place that “gets it”.
Thanks for the response Ox!
I do definitely bond to a sexual partner. I always have, I always will.
What I’m trying to get at is that I was also frequently sexually objectified without my consent and knowledge. I didn’t even realize that he was using my body as a sex toy until after we parted and the fog lifted so I could finally see the big picture. Combined this with lies about celibacy and monogamy, and it feels like the ultimate in sexual violation.
I’ve lived my whole life NOT objectifying myself and refusing to be with men who did overtly objectify women–and this farking sucks.
DawnG,
Yep, “rape by stealth and fraud” is I think what it amounts to. It hurts to realize you have been victimized while you thought you were being loved. The ultimate mind-fark.
I love Kathy Bates, and was watching her new show “Harry’s Law” where she is a lawyer. Her firm represented a woman who was accused of “Fraud” for being involved with several older, rich men, and taking “gifts” from them (actually, I think in the REAL WORLD of justice this woman would NOT have been prosecuted by the DA’s office for “fraud” in a case like this) anyway, these men who were buying her the gifts felt defrauded because each one thought he was the ONLY BF even though they all admitted that she hadn’t told them that they were the ONLY. LOL I love Kathy Bates.
Panther,
It seems to be difficult for a lot of us to talk about the sexual trauma/damage done to us, or even difficult to recognize that there is sexual trauma and lasting damage. It isn’t easy for me to talk about but I gotta start somewhere. I want to have sex again. Good, healthy sex. 😀
I’m not ashamed to tell you all he sexed me up non-stop for 4 months and I was the happiest woman on the planet. I’m pretty sure he drank lots of beer so that he could maintain an erection for long periods of time. I was hooked! Then it tapered off and it wasn’t so great. By February of this year he was a lazy bum. When he could manage some sexual activity he insisted on a position that required so very little body contact between us. He stopped kissing me and touching my body. He made no effort to arouse me with foreplay. If I did manage to start feeling pleasure he hurried up and finished and left me hanging. And he didn’t care one bit.
I can’t prove it, never will be able to, but I’m convinced he was getting it elsewhere when I wasn’t around. There’s too much information suggesting it’s all true for me to try to deny it.
And all this, yeah, it messed me up pretty badly.
“rape by stealth and fraud”
Yep. That’s it, rape minus the physical violence or coercion. It doesn’t matter though, I still have symptoms of PTSD from all the shite he did to me, just like any other rape and/or abuse victim.
Dawn,
it’s really amazing how they zoom in on the things that matter most to us, then they proceed to pulverize those values.
Whatever it is about you that gave you your self-esteem, they zoom in like a laser guided missle. I have heard so many people on LF say it. Whether it is your integrity, your faith in God or humanity, your money, your beauty or your intelligence, they sniff it out like a blood hound. Then they proceed to pound on it until it’s gone – or they think it is.
They have no values and they have no self-esteem, so they innately focus on people who do. They envy those and since they can never hold those things, they don’t want you to have them either.
I know it seems like they value money because they are always taking it from others. But they don’t. They just don’t want you to have it. They will burn it at the craps table or in the fireplace or they will toss it out the window from their car, like my spath told me he did when I gave him over $1000 for bills.
It’s their pathological envy that drives their behavior. If you had one million dollars and gave them $999,000.00 and kept one dollar for yourself, they would envy that one dollar. I’m not kidding. You must be left penniless and destitute for them to feel satisfied. And BTW, the look on your face is what they use to judge what they will take from you.
“It’s really amazing how they zoom in on the things that matter most to us, then they proceed to pulverize those values.”
You’re spot on. He tried to devalue *everything* that mattered to me.
“BTW, the look on your face is what they use to judge what they will take from you. ”
And sexual pleasure is one of those things that always reflects in the face.
,skylar, Oxy, Meg and all,
Skylar you really hit it when you said they want to make sure you don’t get what you most want. He left me in California while he wnt on a west pac, with the illusion of a small, but lovely wedding in a chapel somewhere…He was SO in love with me, and I was so very happy. I knew this was the one!!
So I waited, and when he got back, it was good for a while. We left Cal just over a year from the time he got back, and, as planned, we drove to Washington State for our wedding. But, he was totally detached from the idea, and I could feel it. He brought his brother out from PA and they spent the whole time hiking and climbing mountains. He set me up to wait, and to feel dejected and dissappointed. I nevr quite forgot that. Then, he can’t perform with me….that’s a good way to withhold affection, intimacy, and self esteem from someone. His job was stressful and demanding. I lay thee blame on it and waited. After 2 years of this, I started my involvment with AA, counseling, and a return to college, and this gave me a social net-work, a phylosophy to live by, and a supporrt system. It helped me deal with my own issues, and kept me busy. I asked him to see someone about his problem, but he didn’t. So I waited. He promised, covertly, and overtly that it would all come together at the end of recruiter duty. Then, true to form, he brings in a third party to defuse pressure and intimacy…and even though he doesn’t leave me, he ruins my second chance, the same way he ruined my wedding.
After we made it to Florida, and sh%t hit the fan, I intensified my efforts to get myself well. I was SO hurt, and I was seething with anger and resentment. I went to treatment for substance abuse and depression, and when I came home, the Navy provided us with 8 couples therapy sessions. I was also in long term out patient treatment, where we touched on co-dependancy, and adult child of alcoholics issues.
But the onus on all of these methods of treatment is to keep the focus on one’s self…and AA’s a stickler for resolving resentment, because, resentment keeps us unhappy, and unhappiness leads us back to the bottle. Likewise, couples therapy is all about keeping couples together, so, while I learned to recognize a lot of manipulation tactics, and I learned how to draw better boundries, expect better treatment, etc. etc. etc. No one ever suggested that he might be a spath or an N. The word nver came up!!! I had had a coule of Psych classes, so I was familiar with the word, and I thought narcissism as quite possible, but continued to focus on my own problems and take care of myself.
When I left him, every thing had slipped back into indifference, and the monotony of it all was killing me. I DID believe it was resolved. Now, I find myself grieving all over again. This time around, I’ve come to believe that he was probably cheating through the whole first half of the marriage, at least!! and I also believe that he chased that girl around, having an emotional affair, and fanticizing and wanting hr, a long time before he actually bedded her.
And I just kept hanging on….
I think I know what’s up with me, though. I’m not so much grieving the relationship with him, as I am grieving the possibility of ever having one with anyone.