If you’ve discovered that your partner has a sex addiction, you may be wondering, “Can a sex addict be faithful?” The short answer is “yes,” but it requires dedication, treatment, and ongoing support.
Sex addiction harms relationships and breaks trust. But, with the right interventions, men with this addiction can heal, regain control, and build healthy, faithful partnerships.
Understanding Sex Addiction
Sex addiction, also known as compulsive sexual behavior or hypersexuality disorder, is an excessive preoccupation with sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors that a person can’t control. It causes them severe emotional distress and comes at a great cost to their mental and physical health, job, and relationships, but they still can’t stop the behavior.
Signs of sex addiction include:
- Non-intimate sex with strangers or sex workers
- Compulsive masturbation or porn use that escalates over time
- Failure to keep promises to change sexual behavior, despite a genuine desire to stop
- Feeling depressed or shameful about behaviors and an inability to control urges
- Avoiding activities that don’t include sexual outlets, including daily responsibilities and social events
- Low self-esteem
- Defensiveness
- An inability to maintain meaningful relationships or an aversion to intimacy
Can a Sex Addict Be Faithful?
Despite the consuming nature of sex addiction, your partner can heal from it if they choose to do so. A sex addict can become faithful if they want to, but they have to commit to overcoming sex addiction.
The first step in overcoming addiction is acknowledging the problem and deciding to get help. You can encourage your partner to seek treatment, but you can’t force them. They have to recognize there’s an issue and want to recover.
Whether they decide to get treatment for sex addiction or not, you can work on healing from their betrayal.
Healing From Betrayal Trauma
Betrayal trauma refers to the emotional pain a person experiences after someone they trust betrays them. The result is that the person may question their judgment and feel like they can’t trust anyone again.
If your partner was unfaithful, you may experience the trauma of infidelity. That means you have to work to overcome betrayal trauma and heal yourself.
To heal from betrayal trauma, you must:
- Recognize It. Acknowledging that you’ve experienced betrayal and may now be experiencing betrayal trauma is one of the first steps toward healing.
- Understand Trauma. Realize you did not cause the betrayal trauma. Instead, the event happened to you and is causing you pain, and your mind and body are responding to protect you in the only ways they know how.
- Avoid Blaming Yourself. You are not responsible for other people’s actions. The person who betrayed you is to blame for their actions.
- Accept Your Emotions. It’s acceptable to feel how you feel about the betrayal. And those feelings may change from day to day.
- Seek Support. Look to loved ones to bolster you during the healing process.
- Practice Self-Care. When your mind and body are going through a trauma, you want to do everything you can to care for yourself. Try your best to get plenty of rest, eat nutritiously, move your body, and participate in activities that make you feel valued and cared for.
- Get Professional Help. Reach out to a mental health professional to guide you through the healing process.
The Possibility of Faithfulness
If you and your partner take steps to heal yourselves, then you can consider together whether the relationship is worth saving. This is a decision only the two of you can make. However, the relationship may be worth saving if you both have:
- Strong Emotional and Physical Attraction. If your personalities mesh well and you still have strong sexual chemistry, it’s a good sign. Physical and emotional intimacy are indicators of a healthy relationship.
- Feelings of Happiness and Fulfillment in the Relationship. Do you have fun with your partner and enjoy the time you spend together? If you’re going to work to fix the relationship, it should be for someone who makes you happy.
- Open and Effective Communication. Honesty is critical to recovery. If you can have an honest conversation with your partner and allow yourself to be open and vulnerable, it’s a positive sign for your relationship.
- Willingness to Work. Rebuilding a relationship requires commitment to work on it. If you’re both willing to put in the work, it bodes well for the relationship’s future.
If you decide to work on your relationship, you’ll need to:
- Commit to Open Communication. What happened in your relationship? You’ll need to communicate honestly about what happened and what must occur now for you to feel safe in the relationship again. What will faithfulness look like for you now?
- Express and Release Anger. Express your feelings to your partner about their infidelity and how it impacted you. You won’t be able to process these feelings until you share them openly.
- Recommit. Recommitting to your relationship means defining what needs to happen to make the relationship work. Use “I” statements to communicate clearly with your partner about your needs. For example, say “I need to feel like I am a priority in your life” instead of simply accusing your partner of never putting you first.
- Work on Emotional Intimacy. Sex addiction often damages emotional closeness. Engage in activities that foster connection, such as date nights, shared hobbies, or deep conversations. Practice non-sexual physical intimacy (hugs, holding hands) to rebuild safety in the relationship.
- Be Patient. Both partners will have good and bad days. Healing isn’t linear, and setbacks may occur. The betrayed partner may experience triggers and need reassurance. The recovering partner should remain patient, empathetic, and committed to growth.
- Seek Help. The most important thing is to understand that you don’t have to do any of this alone. Both partners will likely benefit from professional mental health assistance, separately and together.
Establishing Faithfulness With BAI
If you and your partner are ready to heal from the trauma of sex addiction and establish an authentic, faithful relationship, Began Again Institute is here to help.
We offer various programs, including a 14-Day Men’s Intensive and a 14-Day Christian Men’s Intensive to help men heal from intimacy disorders, including sex addiction.
We also offer a free virtual Partner Support Program to help partners heal from the betrayal caused by sex addiction. And, for partners who want their own recovery program, we offer a 6-Day Partner Intensive to launch your healing from betrayal trauma.
Contact us today to get started.
Laurie is a Certified Partner Coach, a licensed Pastoral Counselor, and a certified Pastoral Sex Addiction Professional. Formerly President of the Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists. She is Past President of the Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists (APSATS) as well as a member of the International Critical Incident Stress Management Foundation and International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals.
