I recently received an email from someone, that with their permission, I’m going to share a portion of here.
Last week I caught my husband cheating. Not just cheating, but he was meeting with escorts. I’m devastated by his infidelity, but also find myself extremely angry that he would engage in illegal activity that could potentially embarrass our family and kids.
What if he had been caught? Our kids would have had to likely endure the ridicule of those news stories being out there.
He blames sex addiction for his behavior, which apparently he has been seeking counseling for, also news to me. I feel like sex addiction is just an excuse for his behavior. Am I wrong?
There are a couple of things to breakdown here. First, let’s start with your anger about him engaging in illegal activity that could potentially embarrass your family.
I don’t want to make you feel like you do not deserve to be angry. You certainly do. However, if he was truly seeking the company of escorts, there is nothing illegal about that.
There is a big misconception out there that escorting is illegal. It’s actually legal across the country, with some states having slightly different rules about it. This isn’t a new phenomenon either. I can search for Los Angeles escort services and find ones like this one that has been operating since 1994.
Here in California, it is actually a pretty highly regulated industry. Escorts are registered with the state.
There is a distinct difference between escorts and prostitutes. Escorts are paid for companionship, to spend time with clients. Prostitutes are paid for services that are sexual in nature.
In either case, whether he was seeking out other women for companionship or for a relationship that was sexual, it is still a violation of your trust, and for that you have the right to feel everything you are feeling right now.
Now as for the second part, is sexual addiction real?
There is a lot of skepticism around sexual addiction and probably for good reason. It seems like every time we see a celebrity or public figure caught being unfaithful, the fallback excuse is sex addiction.
The result is that a lot of people tend to roll their eyes when they hear someone claiming they are afflicted with sex addiction. After all, how can someone really be addicted to something we generally all enjoy doing and that doesn’t have the same kind of easily recognizable negative physical or emotional impact of things like drugs, smoking, or gambling can have on our lives?
However, sex addiction can cause problems for someone when they let their sexual activity, whether it is sex itself, excessive masturbation, or watching porn, interfere with professional and personal obligations. It’s consequences are certainly more relatable to gambling addictions that drug addictions.
There has been research that indicated that the same reward system in our brains is activated in sex addiction as in many other addictions, including drug addiction. This research does support the idea that sex addiction has a similar physiological and psychological process as other addictions.
Whether sex addiction is definitively real or not, the fact is that if an individual is making decisions that are hurting themselves and/or people they care about in seeking to satisfy that perceived need, then they need to seek out help for their behavior.
Good luck to you and your family.
