- Maya Golden is an Emmy-nominated multimedia journalist.
- Her non-profit, the 1 in 3 Foundation, provides recovery and counseling resources to survivors of sexual trauma.
It was during a writing retreat with a group of strangers that I shared a personal piece about recovery and sex addiction. "I don't think of you as an adulterer," one of the women I'd met two days before said after reading my story.
Her words brought with them a sobering clarity. I am, in fact, an adulterer. The rest of that trip became an internal retreat into my misconduct during my thirteen years of marriage. The word replayed in my head on a loop. Perhaps, for the rest of the world, I should stitch a scarlet "A" to my chest.
My husband had never called my behavior adultery but we had tearfully and angrily acknowledged the two emotional affairs I'd had online. The first came five years into our marriage in 2013. The second was during the summer of 2021.
My husband was patient throughout my addiction
My sexual addiction and PTSD diagnosis did not come until after the first affair. One of the symptoms of PTSD is sexually impulsive behaviors. I'd been abused from the ages of five to eleven. I'd developed the ideology in my twenties that my hypersexed yearnings were my own sexual revolution and not a byproduct of trauma. Therapy helped me connect the two. I learned that I was reenacting the abuse by latching onto toxic men.
It was that diagnosis that got me a get out of jail card the first time. My husband has sat through therapy with me multiple times.
"I know you weren't doing it to be malicious," he said. "You felt you were out of control."
I did. When I entered sex chat sites I was seeking highs with strangers that had nothing to do with my sex life at home. It wasn't that sex with my husband was vanilla or boring. I was seeking something that no person who truly loves you willingly gives to you: harm. All I knew during my developmental years was danger. I didn't know how to function sexually without fear until I met my husband.
At the time, my husband knew that. Maybe it was his minor in psychology that helped him realize he had married his own case study. My sex addiction wasn't emasculating for him and it was no barometer on his performance ability. I was conditioned for abuse even when I found it repulsive.
Trauma led me to have multiple affairs
There are a number of reasons I still feel guilt and shame on the other side of my relapses. My husband had known I was a sexual abuse survivor when he proposed in 2008, but neither of us knew how deep the trauma was embedded in my bones. I betrayed my vows. Chatting in sex rooms, sexting with strangers on apps like Kik, and having prolonged connections with two men earned me that "A."
"If there's something you aren't getting from me, I wish you'd say it," he said after I confessed to the second affair. My online lover had put me through psychological warfare under the guise of bringing me into the BDSM community, and I lost every battle with him. I was so weary from the experience, so worn to my emotional breaking point that I told my husband in hopes of feeling less awful. It wasn't that I felt sorry, though I did. It was that I felt low.
My husband gave me space. He didn't try to hide his anger but he didn't take it out on me either. That's what made him different from every other romantic connection I'd had as an adult; he's stayed. He has attempted what anyone hopes a partner attempts — understanding. Society and stigmas around sex would probably urge a man to leave a woman like me, "an adulterer."
"I know you are still hurting. I know part of you is still that little girl. I feel like I would be no different from anyone else who hurt you if I walked away and didn't support you in healing," he said.
Through recovery, I hope to help others
My husband is also stubborn. His parents have been married more than fifty years and believe in toughing it out for better or for worse. Neither of us wants the other to suffer and I don't want to inflict any more of it on him. This is the, "for worse."
The "for better" is beautiful. We change song lyrics into bad marketing jingles for products in our pantry. We explore caverns or take boat rides at sunset to refresh our spirits and our marriage.
It helps us to share our journey together. Sex addiction is often only associated with men. In the online sex chats I once visited, there were herds of men with "married" in their username looking to get off with someone. It's part of their game, the "unattainable" man.
My husband has watched me work to heal and provide recovery to other survivors of sexual trauma acting out. He knows I'm trying everyday to stay sober. Not for him, for me. Because when I love me enough to stop seeking out hurtful men, I'll feel worthy of my husband's unconditional love.
Maya Golden's memoir "The Return Trip" will be available for purchase on November 14, 2023 (Rising Action Publishing, 2023).