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Please Help! I Found Out My Partner is Using Porn! By Traci Baxendale Ball, LMSW, CAADC

Posted by Featured Articles

Over the years, many worried people have reached out via email or made an appointment because they discover their partner was or is using porn. Reactions vary, but what seems to be common is a sense of betrayal or shock.

Here’s what I want you to know. Not everyone that uses porn is addicted to it.

Individuals or couples may use porn for many reasons without it being a negative in their lives. There are times when ‘porn’ or stimulating sexual material is prescribed by sex educators and therapists such as myself to help with arousal or other sexual difficulties. Individual values and opinions on porn vary widely. These values are set in the socio-political-religious context of our culture, as well as being influenced by familial or abuse histories.

When a client wishes to discuss the use of porn, I’m always careful to ask about their own values regarding porn. Some people are staunchly against it, while others welcome sexually stimulating material into their lives.

What Is It Like When You Find Out Your Partner is Using Porn?

Valid Emotions: (what you might feel): 

Examples – Shock. Betrayal. Sadness. Feeling distant. Withdrawal. Hurt. Worthlessness.

Automatic Thoughts (what you might think):

Examples – They cheated!  Porn is wrong! Are they addicted? I’m not enough.

Balancing dialects (what to do to manage emotions and thoughts): 

Practice breathing and repeating to yourself – “People are allowed to have an active fantasy world and distinct sexual preferences”.

As humans, we can never measure up to any fantasy. A person can have a fantasy AND be highly attracted to you and engaged as a sexual partner. We cannot extinguish our partner’s inherent sexual preferences and fantasies. They exist alongside us in our relationship. Our partner cannot extinguish their own preferences for the most part (what arouses them).

Ultimately, the goal is to practice radical acceptance:

I accept that my partner has an active fantasy life, but that does not mean I am not enough.

Sexual Addiction

Porn does not cause addiction. A person can, however, become ‘addicted’ to porn, using it as a crutch to escape stress or true intimacy. Eventually, the habit has its own set of related compulsive behaviors making it very much like an addiction to alcohol, food, or drugs. Early exposure in childhood to pornographic material or sex can be problematic in that it can lead to sexual behaviors outside of the normal developmental trajectory.

Clients suffering from sex addiction(s) are just as miserable as persons addicted to drugs, alcohol, and food. This particular addiction wreaks havoc in relationships and personal happiness leading to shame, isolation and impaired function.

It helps to conceptualize sex addiction as a fixed, powerful feedback loop (neural network) where engaging in the fantasy or behavior that produces the dopamine/adrenalin response initiates euphoria, temporary relief, and a return to baseline (feeling like your normal self). It is thought that the feedback loop is created in the substantia nigra with dopamine potentiating the response. The addict cycles quickly back into the urge stage with all its associated physical sensations, cravings, thoughts, anticipation, and expectations. The reward loop remains in place despite the consequences of the behavior. The risks and consequences become irrelevant until the stakes are too high for the risk. This is when most addicts enter treatment.

For some, the euphoric state is only achieved later in the addiction IF the behavior is more risky. This leads to riskier and riskier behaviors with more significant potential consequences. The ‘feedback loop’ is a physiologically based system, and I consider it to be a lifelong illness, which explains why attempts to quit/reduce behaviors are not successful and generally do not work without professional intervention.

In sex addiction, human relationships cannot possibly produce the same euphoria (exception: NRE) because the pleasure response is based on distortion and fantasy. This is how the addiction stays alive.

Like other addictions, over time (years) engaging in the behavior no longer produces euphoria. The sensation is more of a relief.

Porn Addiction/Porn Related Sexual Dysfunction

Recommended list of resources:

https://www.pornhelp.org/ways-to-quit-porn.html

https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/overview/

Get an App:

Non 12-Step Forums:

Sign up for VHC’s mailing list here. Look for a confirmation email in your inbox!

Non 12-Step Organizations, Sites & Programs:

12-Step Based Groups:

For the Partners of Addicts:

Books:

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Traci Baxendale Ball LMSW, CAADC is the founder of Vibrant Health Company LLC

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