The Anguish of Sexual Addiction
If you’re a woman whose life has been affected by pornography or sexual addiction, you may feel all alone. Perhaps you doubt other homes could be dealing with sexual sin. Other families look so perfect and uncomplicated.
If you’re a female who personally is struggling with pornography or other secret sexual activity, your feelings are probably even more intense. You’re lonely and ashamed. You feel like you’re the only one. You’re terrified someone may discover your secret life. You wonder what’s the matter with you. If you are a Christian, you may wonder how it is possible to call yourself a believer and still indulge in this kind of behavior.
You may desperately want to change your life. To stop acting out. God knows you’ve tried! But you find you can’t stop, and you feel like a failure. . .a disappointment to those who care about you, to yourself, and certainly to God.
You know you need help, but you have no idea where to turn. Where do you dare confess this ugly secret?
My Difficult Story
I understand your pain, your fear, your confusion, your loneliness, your dilemma. I, too, am a woman who for years was actively consumed with sexual addiction. I know what it’s like to be powerless over out-of-control sexual behavior and to have my life become totally unmanageable. I remember believing I couldn’t go on living, but being too afraid to die.
I am the daughter of a pastor, and I was raised to be in church every time the doors were open. We had daily devotionals around the dinner table. I definitely was taught the distinction between right and wrong. As a teenager, a college student, and a young wife and mother I was active in church and sincerely wanted to serve the Lord. At the same time, I was involved addictively in promiscuous and then extra-marital sex, beginning from the age of 14 or 15. I carried on serial and even simultaneous relationships. In significant ways I violated my marriage vows and harmed my children. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I prayed often for the strength to stop – and stay stopped. But repeatedly I failed.
I was being driven by a powerful pain inside which I could neither identify nor name. My mother died when I was three, and my father was usually absent–tending to his pastoral and teaching responsibilities. I had felt abandoned all my life. I saw my first pornography at an early age and was confused by the images and the way they made me feel. Beginning at age five, I was sexually molested in a very romanticized relationship by a trusted family friend. I thought that sex was equal to love, and I spent the next 20 years in a desperate search for a man to love me. I would flirt, I would pursue, I would manipulate, I would do anything to gain a male’s attention and “commitment.” I found that giving sex was the surest way to get what felt at the time like love.
Even grave consequences from my behavior weren’t enough to make me stop. I lost my first marriage, my health from a sexually transmitted disease, my reputation, and my self-respect. Finally, increasing thoughts of suicide drove me to ask for help.
Getting Help
That desperate request eight years ago started a journey of healing that I would never have imagined. With the help of a graceful God, a Christian counselor, a 12-step program, and supportive friends, I’ve been given a new life. My husband and I have restored our marriage, and our children have healed from our family’s dysfunction. I’ve even been blessed with the opportunity to help others, especially women, recover from the problem of sexual addiction. God daily provides me chances to redeem the pain of my experiences by reaching out to other hurting addicts through a ministry designed especially for women.
If you can identify with my story, please know that there is hope! It is possible to be free from lust, sexual sin, and self-loathing. You can start today!
A key point is that you can’t recover alone. You must ask other safe people–such as Christian counselors and friends–to help you learn and practice a new way of life. Your private confessions to God may result in His forgiveness, but they won’t bring you permanent sobriety and transformation. Accountability and fellowship are crucial.
I’ve found in my own journey that God has been faithful to meet my every need. Whether you’re an addict or an addict’s spouse, He’ll do the same for you. Ask Him for the willingness to seek help. Dare to take that first step toward wholeness. Like the woman at the well, God will meet you and provide help and healing.
Marnie C. Ferree, a licensed marriage and family therapist, is the director of the Women and Sexual Shame Workshops. Marnie is rapidly becoming known as a leader in the field of female sex addiction recovery. As a recovering addict who has been sober for many years, she understands this problem from a personal as well as a professional perspective.
Marnie and a staff of master’s level therapists offer the Women and Sexual Shame Workshops exclusively for female sex addicts. A workshop is usually held from Wednesday through Sunday and consists of lectures, writing assignments, group processing, and worship. The women stay together in a retreat setting and benefit from the sharing and bonding they experience, as well as from the formal activities.
Women and Sexual Shame workshops are sponsored and underwritten by the Woodmont Hills Counseling Ministry in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition, the ministry partners with the Christian Alliance for Sexual Recovery (CASR), led by Dr. Mark Laaser. Dr. Laaser’s pioneering efforts and teachings about sexual addiction and recovery form the basis of the workshops. The Women and Sexual Shame ministry and CASR also provide consultation and training about sexual addiction.
