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1. Having few healthy boundaries, we become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.
2. Fearing abandonment and loneliness, we stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships, concealing our dependency needs from ourselves and others, growing more isolated and alienated from friends and loved ones, ourselves, and God.
3. Fearing emotional and/or sexual deprivation, we compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.
4. We confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or be rescued.
5. We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, we continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.
6. We sexualize stress, guilt, loneliness, anger, shame, fear and envy. We use sex or emotional dependence as substitutes for nurturing care, and support.
7. We use sex and emotional involvement to manipulate and control others.
8. We become immobilized or seriously distracted by romantic or sexual obsessions or fantasies.
9. We avoid responsibility for ourselves by attaching ourselves to people who are emotionally unavailable.
10. We stay enslaved to emotional dependency, romantic intrigue, or compulsive sexual activities.
11. To avoid feeling vulnerable, we may retreat from all intimate involvement, mistaking sexual and emotional anorexia for recovery.
12. We assign magical qualities to others. We idealize and pursue them, then blame them for not fulfilling our fantasies and expectations.
Or it could be that you simply devote all to a relationship, and it keeps getting thrown back in your face. Then we are foolish enough to try, try again.
I like sex, I like intimacy. Many people I know are the same way and either live unhappily to please Godly society, or because their parents would object, and their friends wouldn't understand.
The key is to be happy with who you are. If you want to change, change. If you like who you are, revel in it. Don't go to see your maker with regrets.
I can't relate at all. It shames sex too much for my liking. The purpose of sex for me and her is an expression of love and bonding and is pleasureable.
This list obviously did not come from a "neutral site" about sex addiction. There is a LOT of negative, shaming language there.
And while sex addiction is usually mired in shame, it can be discussed without making the person who suffers from it feel worse. And YES it can make you suffer.
There are many other websites that discuss the characteristics of sexual addiction with neutral language, just like any other addiction. In my experience, many of the same traits of narcissism show up in a sex addict.
Borderline and narcissistic personality disorder is much alike. One is more "I feel bad, it must be everyone elses fault" and the other is defined by "I feel bad, it must be MY fault"
Its why they attract one another so much. I know this, this was what my last relationship was. Yes, she used sex as a weapon. It still doesn't mean that just because you don't like being alone you are addicted to anything. It does self validate the narcissist, which is what I am in counseling for controlling mine now. My counselor knows I am dating, and that I am dating more than one woman, the key for me is not to tell these women I am committing to them, and not trying to take care of their problems.
That is not sexual/love addiction. I feed my monster a little bit, but the key is to be happy with myself, and to realize that its not always my fault to feel unhappy. I have to be happy with me, and I'm working on that, its a work in progress everyday. I am not perfect, but thats ok. Judging others, with statements like the OP, is not helpful to someone who has issues. I have a feeling it comes from a religious organization, when it says "drives away from God", and religion is all to powerful on judgement. Judge not, lest ye be judged.
Thanks for the feedback. As I'm going through a period of reflection and personal growth, I looked back at my past so as not to make the same mistakes in my future. Don't mind admitting that I'm also seeing a therapist to work on this. As indicated in other posts going through a divorce and this time in my life I'm very reflective.
@Memphis1979 - I totally want to change. Wasn't sure what or how to go about it hence the therapist. Every day a little bit better. And I definitely want to date again...EVENTUALLY. Coming off a 25 year relationship is difficult.
@Wsmn4life - For me, it's more love addiction than sex. But either way, it's unhealthy and I want to come out on the other side of all this in a better place and be a more heathy complete woman.
That came from the 12 step program SLAA - Sex and Love Addicts Anonymus. I could strongly identify with several of the of the characteristics which is why I posted it.
Thanks for all the feedback! I am so grateful for this forum!
This list obviously did not come from a "neutral site" about sex addiction. There is a LOT of negative, shaming language there.
And while sex addiction is usually mired in shame, it can be discussed without making the person who suffers from it feel worse. And YES it can make you suffer.
There are many other websites that discuss the characteristics of sexual addiction with neutral language, just like any other addiction. In my experience, many of the same traits of narcissism show up in a sex addict.
No. But i have always tried to connect intimately with my sex partners. It has frightened quite a few and they withdraw, confusing intimacy with love they don't want or else experiencing a loss of control that they also do not want. This should not be surprising. How many women can surrender completely to a new lover or stranger? It takes time, but some women are freer emotionally on first encounters than others. It is easy to tell.
You'd be surprised how much this has to say about a woman's personality, and for me, also her desirability as a partner in a serious, many faceted, relationship. It is not at all about how indiscriminate a woman is in whom she chooses to have sex with or how often.
But it took a long time to learn this about myself and about women.
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