Cross Addiction????

[AnonymousAnnaXO]

I think I've mentioned somewhere on here before about how my partner can be obsessed with cars. We also thought at one point his porn addiction was turning into car addiction instead. For a while he got better, and now that we talked about it again, he realized that twice a week he gets strong urges to look at car parts. He admitted it was similar to a porn urge, and he said it was like in his head he just has to look up that part and find the price, and then he admits to finding the part and then just scrolling through other parts that he doesn't even need.

So my question is, does this mean he relapsed in a sense??? I am really confused about when one trades one addiction for another. My partner has been good with expressing emotion, being there, doing well at work , doing homework, so he has been recovering in all areas of his life....but does this car addiction mean that he lost progress? I told him to let me know when he gets those car urges and to think about what he was doing or feeling before he had that rush to look at cars.

He also admits to wanting to improve his car because he gets jealous and feels inadequate when he sees other people with nicer cars, so he said with his car addiction thing he says he is trying to be satisfied still in a way, like with porn....

I guess I am feeling quite confused, blind sided, and dismayed. I just don't know what this means for his recovery. I know his obsession with cars has had a negative impact on our relationship. Instead of being in a conversation with me, he is checking out the car outside the window! I mean at least he doesn't check out women, but he gives his attention to cars.... Cars. An inanimate object. We have had arguments about how he talks about cars too much, will check out of a conversation at times becuase he is distracted with cars outside the window. My therapist, who sees both of us from time to time when needed thinks he might have ADD.

So what does all this mean? Where do we go from here?

 

[stillme]

Is he currently in therapy? It sounds like he has an extremely addictive personality or basically - a pre-disposition to becoming addicted to things. Was porn his first addiction or were there others? Has he dealt with the underlying things that made him susceptible to porn addiction? Basically, it sounds like he has some intensive work to do beyond giving up porn - which was an excellent first step.

 

[AnonymousAnnaXO]

So he is 8.5 months clean of porn, was in therapy, but his therapist wasn't working for him because the therapist didn't ask too many questions, and this was the first time he's been to therapy so he wasn't sure what to talk about. He needs someone to guide him in conversation.

So, we ended up finding a therapist a couple days ago who has experience with sex addiction, the problem is the therapist is $150/session and my partners deductible before insurance covers therapy is $2,800. He is going to talk to his dad today about it and if the dad will help pay for therapy because it is essential for his recovery.

If my partner was addicted to anything else, I would say video games, but he wouldn't classify it as an addiction. I think if someone spends a whole day (from the time they wake up until late into the evening like 10-11pm) playing video games, and barely eating or going to the bathroom, I think that qualifies as at least a problem. But then again, we are in the day and age where EVERYONE plays video games for hours on end. My partner hasn't really video games since he quit porn because that would involve using his desktop which I wasn't okay with. He can use my computer, the work computer, and other computers but that desktop of his... I wasn't okay with.

I think his main problem was that he uses video games, porn, or cars, to escape the reality he is living in. We talked further last night about it, and we realized he wants attention from working on his car and making it look better. It wasn't only about feeling inadequate, but also the need for attention, hence why he will bug me to death if he is needing attention. It's like a child sometimes. He figured out that he really has a lot of issues that stem back to his mom abandoning him and their family. And given that the relationship with his mom right now is tense, and has been since December when she accused me of screening his phone calls, I think maybe subconsciously it was too much for him to really be able to deal with in a healthy way without therapy.

He has made lots of positive changes, and the healing is slow going. I am proud because the changes he has made, but also nervous because of the fact that he has been getting car urges for maybe 3 months now and only now realized that he was having car urges.

I just woke up, and I had a nightmare about him using and not telling me. I hate those nightmares. I couldn't fall back to sleep. He is still asleep. His mom still hasn't gotten back to him about switching his phone line, because we were supposed to do that this morning. I think the stress with his mom is one reason he has been so into cars lately, along with other reasons like feeling inadequate at work.

I just don't know what to do to help him. I've done everything I can, and I know it's up to him, I just hope he does in fact ask his dad for help paying for therapy.

 

[Emerald Blue]

I told him to let me know when he gets those car urges and to think about what he was doing or feeling before he had that rush to look at cars.

Anna, I mean this with the best of intentions but please, please, please resist the need to be your partner's accountability partner/addiction therapist. There is too great a risk of taking your relationship into unhealthy territory in the long term. There IS the risk of codependency where you build YOUR life around managing HIS addiction and inadvertently set up a parent/child dynamic. It's hard, I know. They did need kicking into touch over the porn issue and we do have the right to assert our boundaries about what we can and cannot accept in a relationship but we all have to know where THEY end and WE begin. That's the line between what we can be responsible for - our behavior - and what they are responsible for, which is their behavior.

My partner is also prone to these cross addictions. After d day he was eating too much crap, drinking too much, playing video games and yes, going on a bit of a virtual spending spree on various items of hobby gear, as you say, researching gear online, checking prices etc. He bought some gear and once he had it it was like he lost interest pretty quickly. Thankfully not too much spending and he does use some of it but it was nowhere near as essential as he thought.

At the root of these behaviors is an inability to manage difficult emotions, stress, change, etc. At times I wondered whether he was swapping porn for video games. I recognised a lot of alarm bells like the fantasy spending sprees (he only bought a few things), hitting the bottle after work just that bit too much (though not excessively) and eating crap during the working day (emotional eating, too much sugar and fat). After d day things were difficult, and that's probably the case for most of us when we open up the Pandora's box of porn addiction. It brings a lot of stress into our lives, no doubt. I think one of the reasons why partners feel so wretched is that suddenly we've got nowhere to hide. We're the ones who called time on their habit. We lived in the real world. We had different ways of coping, not always healthy or ideal but I bet most of us entered into the eye of the storm and endured the hell. We probably had sixth sense that it couldn't be any other way if we had to confront reality.

For the addict who managed their difficult emotions through escaping into porn, they still couldn't handle reality. They never learned how to hence the reason why alcohol, food, video games, shopping etc can be an addict's fallback. It's not healthy but they can't learn new coping skills immediately. And it's true, some people have a predisposition to addictive behaviors. My husband is one of them.

My husband is smart enough to recognise when he is drinking too much and for the wrong reasons. I can only suggest drinking less, rather than saying "it's no good". He tells himself the same. He knows it's his decision. Emotional eating ? at home our meals are healthful. I've always been mindful of the quality of the foods that I eat. I eat a plant based diet, lots of veggies, fruit, etc. I don't eat junk. He also wants to eat a healful diet but there are too many opportunities during the working day to high sugar, high fat junk. His blood pressure is a bit high and he needs to watch his salt intake, his total cholesterol was slightly high with too much LDL but he could get that down if he cut out the crap. All I can say to him  is remind him that he's at an age when he has to watch his health. I don't interrogate him about what he eats, I don't lecture him, I make suggestions that are easy and do-able. That's all. With his spending, I say it's his money and his decision on how to spend it. He realises now just how much these unnecessary purchases cost in the long run. He has to pay for it and it takes a long time to earn back what he didn't need to spend in the first place.

I try and gently nudge him away from the unhealthy behaviors. I'd like to think he's doing all of these things a bit less. He has a lot of work stress that he finds tough to deal with. I think he's getting better at facing up to difficulties, even relatively minor difficulties, and he seems less dependent on escapism. It takes a LONG time for an addict to learn these skills.

He also admits to wanting to improve his car because he gets jealous and feels inadequate when he sees other people with nicer cars

I just don't get this thing about cars. This attitude seems to be more prevalent in the US, so it's all a bit strange to me, status being connected with cars. Don't get me wrong, that attitude happens all over but here and in Europe in general there is a more anti car/pro environment attitude. I guess to your BF the car represents "a better life" in some way, but just what does that mean? A car can only get you from A to B. That's all it's for. It doesn't actually MEAN anything more than a mode of transportation. I don't get the "car culture" one bit I'm afraid, so I'm probably not tuning into this issue properly.

I've read some of the porn addicts on this forum implying that a (presumably expensive) car would make them more attractive to women and even more chances of "getting laid". Really? Somehow I think these guys have lost the plot. I'm not saying for one minute your BF thinks that way but what would he actually have with this "better" car? More debt? More expense? Or is it just an expensive way of finding out it wasn't what he really wanted at all?

 

[AnonymousAnnaXO]

Hey thanks guys. I know JKS that my partner does seem to want to fill this "hole" up with something materialistic to make him happy. I am not sure if he has realized it yet, but I know heseems to just want all these things becuase then life would be better he says.

Don't get me wrong, I daydream about us having a house, having a dog, having better jobs, but that doesn't mean I'm happy necessarily. Of course I want a job I enjoy that gives me fulfillment. Of course one day it would be nice to have a house, but having a house doesn't equate happiness. I think he doesn't realize that happiness comes from within, and that happiness is a state of mind, the emotion can be fleeting. I think he still needs to learn that. I think it's possible he may think if he has all these material things it will keep him happy, key word there being "keep."

Emerald, trust me my therapist has talked to me many times about this. She told me it's unhealthy to be his therapist, which I know. Hence why I am pushing him to get a therapist so much. We talked to his dad and he said he would pay for the therapy!! I am SO happy because now I don't have to help him understand his emotions so much. I can just enjoy being with him. My personality tends to be the personality that jumps in when things are chaotic and tries to help get the situation to managable. So since my partner originally wasn't in therapy, I had to help him understand a lot of things that were going on, and then he got into therapy and it got a lot better between us because I knew he was addressing things, which meant I didn't have to. Then since he hasn't been in therapy for maybe a month or 2, it's gone back to me trying to make sure he is aware of things going on. So now that his dad has agreed to pay the $150/session it means he can go and have his therapist, who has extensively worked with sex addiction and internet addiction, and I can just relax, sit back enjoy myself.

I do enjoy myself and the things I want to do, but I admit to overly worrying when he wasn't in therapy. Once he had a therapist it made me feel more relaxed and secure. I knew that he had someone to talk to, to open up to, to be able to process everything with. Of course, if he wanted to share what was talked about in therapy that's fine, but if there were things he was still working on, then he didn't have to share and that was also fine.

I guess, maybe lately I've started feeling like his therapist again and I've been annoyed at him for not initiating things as much. All I can say is I am happy that he has found a therapist, one that works with sex addiction and internet addiction, and that his dad will pay for it. There will be no excuses for no therapy anymore (not that having not enough money is an excuse, but he can always choose to spend his money on therapy instead of his car, or excessive amounts of junk food).

I have tried to be gentle with reminding him about things, and not being pushy. Not being therapist like. I have done my best. I honestly have done all that I can, and it really is up to him. We are coming up on our one year since d-day in june, and he has made lots of progress, but I think if he had a therapist the whole time he would have made so much more progress.

 

[Emerald Blue]

So glad he can have the therapy he needs, Anna. I really hope it works out for him. Paula Hall says in her book for partners that it's not a good idea to ask about what goes on in the addict's therapy sessions. I do believe it's important to allow privacy and headspace as far as someone's therapy is concerned. It's tough but they need their own private headspace to work it out, although I suppose it's different when the addict wants to share and volunteers to do so.

I also would agree that addicts do tend to see happiness as coming from outside of themselves. I think with my partner it started with wanting approval and validation that was absent from his upbringing. He never learned to deal with difficult situations in life. Or rather his role model, his dad, dealt with things by alcohol consumption and not saying anything. He equated being a good husband and father with buying expensive consumer goods. There was an awful lot going on in that family that was never spoken of. My husband never saw anyone who had proper coping skills. Hence this porn addiction problem. It's certainly a complex issue.