If someone has repeated affairs are they an addict?

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 If someone has repeated affairs are they an addict?

Is someone who has multiple affairs a sex addict? That’s an important question because you have to make that distinction to determine the treatment. So, when we talk about somebody who is addicted to sex, say, who has multiple affairs, we are usually looking at somebody who feels compelled to break the vows of the implicit or explicit relationship, and they are in conflict about the urge to do so but they can’t stop themselves. And they’re compelled to seduce, flirt, get into their pattern, and act it out. And they regret it, they try to stop they can’t stop; they do the pattern all over again.

When we see that kind of pattern, that pattern of regret and shame and the desire to stop but the inability to stop, you almost always are looking at some addictive issue.

In comparison, sometimes a serial cheater, if you will, who has no regret, no shame, doesn’t try to stop, is completely an opportunist and exploitative. So, we are usually talking about somebody who is an opportunist and has a character disorder. In other words, the character is not congruent, the value system they profess to have doesn’t match their behavior and they tend to lack empathy, shame- appropriate shame, and regret over behavior that hurts people. In fact, they often are surprised that they hurt anybody.

When you see that kind of repeat pattern of affairs, that is a much more difficult person to treat. Because of the lack of empathy, and the lack of remorse, there isn’t a lot of leverage to use in a clinician’s office, a therapist’s office to work with him. Not impossible, but more difficult. This is in contrast to the treating addict. The addict brings in the shame and regret, and that assists us to work with him better, and there tends to be better outcomes with them.

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