In 27 years of working with addicts and dependents, I have rarely encountered a completely healthy partner of an addict who does not take some responsibility for the state of their relationship. Although an addict’s partners are not unequivocally responsible for the addiction, and certainly for its consequences, they certainly bear responsibility for the shared relationship problems that contributed to the addiction. The nature of shared relational responsibility is most evident in the sex addict/addict (partner) relationship.
All addiction therapists have witnessed how the addict and his or her partner participate, either actively or passively, in their dysfunctional relationship. This is not a new idea. For over 40 years, pioneers of family systems theories and adult children of alcoholism (ACOA) have embraced the various relational systems that play a role in the addictive (or family) relationship.
The relationship between a sex addict and another addict is a closed system in which two people participate voluntarily. Even if the addicted partner denies guilt in the addiction, a detailed social history will reveal his or her long history with narcissists or addicts. It seems to me that healthy lovers rarely fall in love and commit to an addict. The two are combined through a dynamic I refer to as “Human Magnet Syndrome.” They both engage in a relationship dance of sorts. Each person needs the other to feel complete in the shared dysfunctional relationship. More about this can be found in my article “Codependency, Don’t Dance”.
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According to the theories included in my book, Human Magnet Syndrome: Why We Love People Who Hurt Us, codependents and narcissists almost always coexist in a relationship. Conversely, narcissistic sex addicts are attracted to codependents. If one accepts this statement as true, then it is reasonable to assume that codependent sex addicts are attracted to narcissists. According to the Human Magnet Syndrome theory, all people, healthy or not (or in between) magnetically attract us to the personality type that fits the mold of their relationships – over and over again. These dysfunctionally compatible partners “dance” together because their personalities fit like a hand in a glove. The person in need of care needs a caregiver and the caregiver needs the person in need of care.
The co-occurrence of sex addiction and codependency can be traced back to a person’s childhood. The codependent sex addict was the child of pathologically narcissistic parents. This child, who may be codependent, has experienced childhood trauma during which it was necessary to deal with some form of dissociation or self-medication. A child who has developed a compulsive self-soothing or disengagement strategy to cope with his harmful childhood environment is likely to develop sex addiction in adulthood. Moreover, if this child develops along the path to becoming dependent (as depicted in the Human Magnet Syndrome and Alice Miller’s Drama of the Gifted Child), the adult he or she is searching for will look for someone who matches their playful, self-sacrificing relationship. Guidance.
It is normal for a codependent sex addict, or all codependents, to feel resentful, angry, and unloved in their relationship with their narcissistic partner. Hence, they will rely on the drug of choice, sex, to treat their experience of emotional isolation, deprivation, power differentials, and control that they experience with their narcissistic spouses. When sexual acting out develops into addiction, we have the co-occurring disorders of sex addiction and codependency.
With this type of sex addict, codependency is not obvious because it is masked behind the narcissistic pursuit of the addict’s compulsive pursuit of his or her preferred sexual representation. As such, addiction takes on the appearance of a full-blown narcissistic personality disorder. However, as with any addiction, you can only diagnose a co-occurring disorder after a significant period of recovery has passed. During recovery (sobriety) we see the sex addict as either a narcissistic sex addict or a codependent sex addict.
What makes for an accurate statistical representation of these two possibilities (codependent sex addict vs. narcissistic sex addict) is that most sex addicts who stay in treatment tend to be the codependent type. As most clinicians are well aware, people with narcissistic personality disorder or severe narcissistic traits tend not to realize that they need help and are not motivated to seek psychotherapy and/or therapy. This explains why at least 75% of all my sexually addicted clients were also codependent at the same time.
In sexual addiction recovery, the sex addict’s codependency appears midway through the recovery process, usually taking six months or more. When a recovering addict learns that his cycle of sexual behavior is directly influenced by feelings of neglect, invisibility, powerlessness, and neglect, he begins to assert himself through direct communication and reasonable boundaries. Therefore, sex addiction and codependency recovery simultaneously enable the addict to be empathetic, emphasizing basic and reasonable boundaries. Thus, the imbalanced unconscious balance in their relationship is threatened.
According to self-continuity theory and the concept of zero-sum equilibrium (Human Magnet Syndrome, 2013), these relationships struggle to overcome the stress that recovering codependency places on the relationship. Because the narcissistic partner often reacts with anger (narcissistic injury) about his or her contributions to the relationship’s problems, the relationship naturally becomes unstable. These narcissistic injuries are particularly evident in marital therapy.
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Telling the truth and setting boundaries is intolerable for the pathological narcissistic partner. This codependent/narcissistic dynamic is particularly complicated by the trauma the partner has suffered at the hands of their sexually addicted partner. As the recovering sex addict continues to set boundaries empathically and fairly, the relationship begins to unravel; The codependent person no longer holds back or extinguishes his or her reality for the benefit of his or her partner.
In conclusion, the sex addict is entirely responsible for the consequences/harm he causes to others due to his sex addiction. However, for the codependent sex addict, there are countless factors to consider when dealing with his or her primary relationships. My theories of dysfunctional attraction, or human magnet syndrome, explain the shared responsibilities of a poor relationship.
