Sexual Addiction and The Spouse: The Trauma Model

If your spouse is coping with a sexual addiction you probably have found yourself searching the web to find answers, understanding and support. With all of your searching you also probably came across the term coaddict. This term basically means you are consumed with your spouses behavior, make excuses for, enable, try to control and more or less have your own issues to attend to.

For some, coaddiction/codependency fits and offers a good frame for understanding their part in the sexual addiction. However, for some spouses this frame doesn't fit which can leave them feeling helpless, lost and alone. The Trauma Model for spouses can offer a different frame that might feel like more of fit.

In the Trauma Model, spouses still exhibit codependent behaviors, however, their motivation is not to control their partner but to establish a sense of safety and control in their environment and relationship. So if you are "checking-up" on your spouse, snooping, having compulsive thoughts about the situation, in this model rather than it being to control your spouses it's framed as a means to obtain safety.