Dr. Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT
The Addict’s Partner
Alice is the wife of an active porn addict. When she and her husband Jackson met and married, she knew that he occasionally looked at porn, but she didn’t know how much or the intensity of what he was looking at because he kept the vast majority of this behavior hidden. As their marriage progressed, of course, she became more aware of his porn use, often finding evidence on his phone and laptop.
In therapy, Alice repeatedly tells me that she loves her husband (despite the way his addiction has affected them) and has no interest in leaving him. Thus, she’s done what any loving spouse would do: She has tried to handle addiction-driven crises as they’ve arisen by doing whatever made the most sense to her at the time.
At various points, Alice has tried to deal with “the problem” by controlling Jackson’s use of digital devices, by making threats and “nagging” him, and by doing whatever she can to prevent him from using porn. Unfortunately for Alice, she now feels overwhelmed. She tells me that her life is less about her needs and more about “managing her husband’s addiction.” She wants Jackson to get sober, but he seems uninterested in that. When she tries to talk to him about recovery, he tells her that he’s got things handled. Then he says that it’s Alice, with her endless attempts to manage his life, who’s out of control. He sometimes tells her, “If you just gave me a break about all this once in a while, I might quit on my own. But you just won’t back off and let me handle it.”
Sadly, Jackson’s accusation that it’s Alice’s behavior, not his, that is the real problem has been echoed in various ways by her friends, family members, and even the priest at her church. Alice’s mother tells her that Jackson is no good and will never change, and she should just give up on him, leave him, and find someone healthier. Alice’s best friend tells her that Jackson is never going to get sober if she keeps letting him use porn without relational consequences. Alice’s priest recommends prayer, pastoral family counseling, and attending CoDA meetings so she can learn to accept Jackson as he is.
When Alice finally comes to see me, she is frustrated to the point of tears. Very little of the advice she’s received seems to fit for her, and none of it has worked in any meaningful way. She tells me, “In counseling with our priest and even in CoDA meetings, everybody tells me that my loving and caring for Jackson is a big part of our problem and my behavior may even be keeping him in his addiction. Just like he says. The only advice I ever get is that I need to let him be who he is, no matter the consequences. Everyone tells me to stop watching him, stop worrying about him, and stop trying to change him. Or to leave. But how can I do that? I care about him and don’t want to get divorced.”
Obviously, Alice is discouraged and at her wits end. And why not? Anyone in her situation would be, mostly because nobody she’s talked to has even attempted to meet her where she is. Rather than understanding that she loves and cares for her husband and there’s no way in heaven or hell she’s going to stop doing that (because her natural instinct as a human being is to bond and intimately attach with the important people in her life), her friends, mother, and priest are pushing her toward the codependence “detach with love” model. What they fail to understand is that this approach causes her to feel blamed, shamed, and pathologized, even though she is not the one with the problem (the addiction).
Alice tells me that her CoDA sponsor says her issue is an unhealthy obsession with her husband and his addiction, but she does not feel that’s correct. “I still love him. Away from the porn, he’s still the man I married, and I want him back. And that doesn’t seem like an unhealthy obsession any more than love for anyone else seems like an unhealthy obsession.” Where, she asks, is the compassion for the pain and loss she feels about losing her husband to pornography? Where, she asks, is the understanding of the love she still feels for him? Where, she asks, is the appreciation for her willingness to care for Jackson no matter what? Why, she asks, doesn’t anyone seem to understand her willingness to stay with him?
As a therapist, and as an individual who has often played the role of a confused, overwhelmed, unsure of what to do to make things right caregiver within my own family, I feel incredible empathy for Alice when she tells me her story. Still, when Alice says, “After what my mother went through with my dad before leaving him, I swore I would never get into a relationship with a cheater, but here I am, and I’m doing exactly what she did by staying with him even though everyone I know is telling me to walk away,” I can’t help but hear the “trauma” and “codependence” bells and whistles ringing in my therapeutically trained brain.
However, as Alice’s therapist, I force myself to step back and remember that Alice, like every caregiving loved one of an addict, is in crisis. As such, she is likely to be emotionally volatile, confused, fearful, and angry, and to occasionally behave in ways that don’t make sense to an impartial outside observer such as myself. This does not, however, mean that she has a trauma-driven, unhealthy obsession with her husband, or that she needs to stop loving and caring for him.
What Alice needs at this moment is for me to accept her exactly where she is—in profound crisis—and to help her work through that stage of recovery and healing. So, instead of giving Alice the advice that my brain (and my training) is itching to give, I acknowledge and validate the love and care she’s given her husband, and I suggest that instead of walking away from her role as loving spouse and caregiver, she find more effective ways to provide that love and care. I say, “It must be confusing for you, when you know that you love your husband so deeply, and when you know that he needs your care, to hear people telling you that you need to detach from him. I suspect this completely violates your instinct to attach and love. And from what I’m hearing, you don’t want to walk away. You may feel that you couldn’t walk away even if you wanted to. So, instead of coaching you to detach, maybe I can help you walk through the immediate crises you are dealing with, and then we can figure out how you might love and care for Jackson more effectively while also taking a bit of time to love and care for yourself.”
When Alice hears this, she bursts into tears. “Finally,” she gasps between sobs, “Finally, I feel like somebody gets it and is willing to help me.”
Moving Treatment from Codependence to Prodependence
Prodependence is a term I’ve created to describe attachment relationships that are healthfully interdependent, where one person’s strengths fill in the vulnerabilities of the other and vice versa, with this mutual support occurring automatically and without question. As applied to caregiving loved ones of addicts, prodependence refers to extraordinary, loving attempts to care for and help heal a person to whom one is deeply attached and bonded, even when that person has become chronically dysfunctional because of an addiction or some other equally troubling issue.
A primary difference between the old model of codependence and the new model of prodependence is that codependence is rooted in psychological discussions about trauma and its longer-term effects, while prodependence is rooted in psychological discussions about attachment.
For many caregiving loved ones of addicts, the codependence model (and even the word codependence) feels negative, as if the loved one is being blamed, shamed, and pathologized for loving too much, or not in the right way, or for selfish reasons, or as a form of unconscious trauma repetition. Prodependence approaches the matter differently, choosing to celebrate the client’s need to love and to caretake when appropriate. Prodependence views the act of loving and trying to help an addict or a similarly troubled individual heal (or to make it through the day without creating or experiencing disaster) as an indicator of healthy attachment (or at least the desire for healthy attachment).
With prodependence, there is no shame or blame, no sense of being wrong, no language that pathologizes the betrayed partner. Instead, there is recognition for effort given, plus hope and useful instruction for healing. As a treatment model, prodependence does not automatically assign a pathology to family members of addicts (though it does recognize that family members of addicts may be dealing with depression, anxiety, PTSD, or any number of other very serious issues).
To treat loved ones of addicts using prodependence, we need not find that something is “wrong with them.” We can simply acknowledge the trauma and inherent dysfunction that occurs when living in close relationship with an addict, and then we can address that in the healthiest, least shaming way. If we find that loved ones of addicts have deeper underlying issues, as they very often do, we can address those issues after we’ve helped the client work through their immediate addiction-driven crises.
As with codependence, prodependence recognizes that when a caregiver’s actions run off the rails and become counterproductive—and yes, this happens quite a lot when a person is trying to monitor and assist an addicted loved one—measures can be taken to put the relationship back on track. However, prodependence does not imply that a partner’s dysfunctional behaviors arise out of any past or present trauma or pathology. Instead, prodependence views these actions as an attempt to maintain or restore healthy attachment.
Prodependence does not ever consider “efforts made to get the addict sober” as pathology. Even if those attempts to help are misdirected and ineffective. Under no circumstances does prodependence imply that love is or can become pathological. Instead, prodependence acknowledges that loving an unpredictable, addicted partner who blames, lies, manipulates, and gaslights loved ones can make pretty much anyone look and feel crazy over time. Because that is the type of behavior that puts people in crisis. And people in crisis can look and feel crazy.
I think about prodependent treatment with loved ones of addicts the same way I think about helping a client whose spouse just received a cancer diagnosis. First and foremost, I accept that my client is rightfully in crisis and is likely to behave accordingly. I understand that my client will show emotional volatility. I understand that my client is in a situation that would overwhelm anyone. I acknowledge that whatever my client has done to try to make things better was done out of love (and not pathology). If I discuss pathology at all with such a client, I discuss it only in terms of how the situation that they are in has negatively affected their ability to function (by causing depression, anxiety, poor self-care, etc.). I do not talk about this in terms of underlying unresolved trauma because, at this stage of healing, that would be counterproductive.
So, rather than leading by preaching detachment and distancing over continued bonding and assistance, as so many therapists, self-help books, and 12-step groups currently do, I believe that we should celebrate the natural and healthy human need to maintain and support our intimate connections, along with the provision of ongoing, uninterrupted support—even in the face of addiction or some other deeply troubling life issue. My job as a therapist, when working with the loved one of an addict, is to help my client provide this support in the healthiest possible ways.
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If you or someone you care about is struggling with sex, porn, or substance/sex addiction, help is available. Seeking Integrity offers inpatient treatment for sex, porn, and substance/sex addicts, as well as low-cost online workgroups. At the same time, SexandRelationshipHealing.com offers a variety of free webinars and drop-in discussion groups, podcasts, and more.