Posts tagged telling the truth about him
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
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
How Men Called Sex Addicts Abuse Their Wives and Partners

After discovery many wives and partners are too traumatized to recognize themselves as victims of abuse. Enter the treatment industry who calls all of it his “sex addiction,” instead. For most of us, that’s a whole lot better than being a victim of abuse. I was sucked so quickly into the “sex addiction” alibi that it took me a while to back my way out. But back my way out, I did, as what I was reading and hearing from the sex addiction treatment industry just stopped making sense.

Along the way I started a list—a list of the offences women face from these men called “sex addicts”. We experience physical, spiritual, emotional, financial and psychological harm that no one seems to name. I realized that if any parishioner came in my office with even some of these signs, I would have concluded she was in an abusive relationship. My first concern would have been for her safety. Only in this farce of a treatment industry is that long list of abuse set aside and replaced with the two words “sex addiction”. Actually, they don’t even bother making a list.

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Diane Stricklandsex addicts are abusers, partners look after themselves, therapeutic incompetence, telling the truth about him, telling the truth of your life, saving yourself, domestic violence of sex addiction, wives and partners pay the price, sex addicts hurt women
Mid-week Gotta Share from PoSARC

Lili Bee and her team at www.posarc.com have launched their second video set in their “Survivors” series. It features Tania Rochelle talking about her journey out of darkness into the light of new day in her life—where hope, joy, meaningful work, laughter and love all thrive in a life where she is safe from domestic violence endured from her compulsive-abusive sexual-relational disordered man. You can view Parts 1 & 2 here: http://www.posarc.com/blog Lili Bee writes an introduction and then if you scroll down you can see the videos there. Enjoy!

And here’s the link to the “Starting Over” post that Tania guest-blogged here on her new life, in case you haven’t read that one yet: https://www.yourstoryissafehere.com/blog/startingover

THANK YOU LILI BEE AND THE POSARC TEAM FOR THESE GREAT VIDEOS. THANK YOU TANIA, FOR OPENING UP YOUR LIFE TO SO MANY WOMEN!

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Diane Stricklandhope, survivor video, your strength, tell your story, telling the truth of your life, telling the truth about him, partners look after themselves, partners who challenge sex addicts
Trying To Do The Right Thing

We are women of integrity and caring. We think about the wellbeing of others, even when those others have hurt us. Our high level core values are real. They inspire us, guide us and constrain us. We may rant and cry and swear about the cruelty visited upon us by the person we loved and their treatment gang, but when push comes to shove it’s very hard for us to make a decision without asking “What is the right thing to do here?”

 It’s ironic. This is the very question about which our men called sex addicts have no concerns and never ask as they overtly and covertly abuse us (and sometimes our children, too). The core values that would give this question voice are not values that hold their lives together and interpret what their lives mean.

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making decisions, self-careDiane Stricklanddoing the right thing, the right thing for you, core values, partner integrity, tell your story, partners look after themselves, telling the truth about him, telling the truth of your life, overcoming fear of truth