Posts in fake regret
What’s With Adult Children Turning Against Their Mothers?

For the last three blogs, we’ve been looking at family impact of the secret life of sexual and sexualized activities conducted by a father or step-father. In creating and protecting this secret life as his priority we have seen the devastating consequences to children and teenagers. It is clear that he abuses the whole family, not just the wife or partner. He does this with his deceit, misogyny, lies, blameshifting, gaslighting, denial, abandonment, humiliating behaviors—betraying the family unit as the primary priority for authenticity, intimacy, safety, respect, nurture, honesty and love. He violates the family’s core values multiple ways, multiple times, with multiple destructive consequences to the other members.

This week we are dealing with an outcome that is the second trauma for so many women. This is about adult children who turn on them while protecting and supporting their compulsive-abusive sexual relational disordered fathers. Why does this happen? How does this reveal what is truly at stake for families? And what can wives and partners who are innocent victims of these men do to avoid becoming fresh victims of their misguided adult children? How much loss are wives and partners really absorbing?

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fake regret, Post-traumatic stressDiane Stricklandadult children of sex addicts, low bar for recovery, intimate partner abuse, telling the truth of your life, telling the truth about him, tone-policing, infantilizing sex addicts
My Family, Eight Years Later

Last week’s blog generated significant response. Thank you so much for letting me know when topics help you validate your experiences and ongoing concerns. One reader sent me the following piece about her family’s trauma and how they lurched along together and ultimately chose to put themselves and each other first instead of the man who continued to lie, gaslight, blameshift, and deceive them all through his fake “recovery” years.

The author and her daughters require anonymity but the daughters, in particular, want other kids to know they aren’t crazy and they deserve better from him—and to ask for counseling trauma care support! Don’t count on the treatment industry to be proactive on anything that might suggest their men called sex addicts may have harmed the family so deeply that children should receive immediate and ongoing attention for trauma care. FYI: This not an account of any father sexually abusing children within his own family.

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expectations for recovery, fake regret, making decisions, Post-traumatic stress, self-careDiane Stricklandsex addicts harm families, sex addicts hurt women, sex addicts are abusers, sex addicts manipulate, partners are priority, families are priority
The Whole Family. His “Addiction.” We're Soaking In It.

Hello again! I’m glad to be back posting after two weeks absence due to other professional commitments. As my earlier post said, I also was dealing with technical bugs at the same time.

But there’s always lots stewing on my front burner, and it took some time to decide where to begin. One of the questions I’ve been thinking about is whether the almost singular focus on the relationship between the man called a sex addict and his wife or partner is actually how everyone avoids facing the damage to the family as a unit and treating it. In so many cases there are children in the story. The whole family is affected by the man’s behavior, not just the relationship with the woman. Little is said about this. What do children suffer? What does their father teach them about family when he uses it to protect another secret life he values more than them? Is salvaging something of the family wreckage yet another task that falls to the woman, so that he can continue to present as “normal” instead of the deeply damaged human being that he is? What if he involves them in his “operations” of deceit and risk-taking? I’ve heard more than one story of how he used the children as “chick-bait”, securing coffee dates, play dates and shared rides to events. I know from my own experience that these men will blame porn on the computer on sons and quickly offer to have “the talk” with them.

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self-care, making decisions, expectations for recovery, fake regret, Post-traumatic stress, therapeutic abuseDiane Stricklandreality check, telling the truth about him, telling the truth of your life, therapeutic incompetence, the right thing for you
You asked for more: Boundaries and Consequences

Your feedback from “The Big Boundary Bluff” (posted two weeks ago) kept me busy for days as messages poured into my inbox. Thank you for taking the time to write. The blog travelled widely and much discussion ensued: women were screaming “YESSSSSSSS!” and panicked men called sex addicts got busy mansplaining boundaries to me—at least till they noticed too many wives and partners on the forums were walking through the prison door they’d just realized had been unlocked all the time. Too late! Too late! They’re getting away!

1.     Why are these men so panicked when you stop making up boundaries to curtail and direct their behaviors?

The moment you stop creating boundaries that men really already know, the jig is up.

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making decisions, Post-traumatic stress, self-care, fake regretDiane Stricklandboundaries, boundaries for partners, sex addicts manipulate, sex addicts tricks, infantilizing sex addicts, partners who challenge sex addicts, partners look after themselves, codependent
Magic Words

They aren’t the same for all wives and partners, but they have a lot in common.

Magic Words are the words you try to imagine your compulsive-abusive sexual-relational disordered man saying that would “change everything.” They are the words that would tell you he was different now—but not just different because some of his secrets were exposed and he has to do massive damage control. The magic words would tell you he was no longer cruel, that he was trustworthy, that he was who you thought he was instead of who he turned out to be, that he wouldn’t lie again or play Russian roulette with your heart, soul, body and mind.

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self-care, fake regretDiane Stricklandsex addict regrets, recovery ploys, sex addicts manipulate, sex addicts tricks, sex addicts feel sorry for themselves, core values, lying