What are the symptoms of sex and love addiction?
Sex and love addiction are widely misunderstood intimacy disorders characterised by destructive sexual behaviours that can have a devastating impact on your life, as well as on the lives of those who care about or depend upon you.
Treatment for sex and love addiction at Priory involves a variety of inpatient and outpatient based behavioural therapy programmes, which can also include Priory's Addiction Treatment Programme. The comprehensive treatment will help you to develop healthy patterns of loving and relating to others, setting you up for continued recovery with the help of support groups once treatment is finished.
Also sometimes referred to as, 'compulsive sexual behaviour' or 'hypersexual disorder', sex addiction is characterised by excessive urges to have sex or engage in other sex-related behaviours, even when such actions may jeopardise your physical health, emotional wellbeing or social standing.
Of course, sexual desires and urges are a normal and healthy part of life. But in the case of sex addiction, these urges become overwhelming and the resultant decisions and actions can be extremely destructive.
Love addiction, which is also widely referred to as ‘co-dependency’, shares many of the same characteristics of sex addiction, although the intrusive thoughts and preoccupations of sexual urges and fantasies tend to be focused on one person, with the aim of repeatedly reliving the initial ‘rush’ of new romance without any desire to progress a relationship further.
The problem for people who struggle with sex and love addiction is that these disorders do not yet have formal diagnostic criteria that all mental health professionals agree upon.
However, continued research has expanded experts’ understanding of these complex challenges and has led to the development of specialised programmes that have helped men and women to regain control over their urges, thoughts and actions.
Find out more about sex and love addiction treatment
If your life has been affected by sex and love addiction, please know these essential facts:
- You are not alone
- Help is available
- You can regain control over your life
This page was reviewed by Stephanie Chick (FDAP) in July 2018, and is scheduled to be reviewed again in July 2020. To view all Priory sex and love addiction specialists, please click here.
What are the symptoms of sex and love addiction?
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Sex addiction and co-dependency are associated with a wide range of signs and symptoms. Whilst there is no single action or behaviour that will definitively establish that you are struggling with sex or love addiction, the symptoms generally fall under the following criteria:
- Experiencing overwhelming, persistent sexual thoughts and urges
- Acting on these thoughts and urges, not in order to experience joy or pleasure, but because you feel compelled to do so
- Continuing to engage in these behaviours even when you know that they are harmful to yourself or others, and even after you have experienced negative repercussions from similar actions in the past
The following are among the more common examples of specific signs and symptoms of sex addiction:
- Having persistent and unavoidable sex-related thoughts, urges and fantasies
- Having unsafe sex with multiple partners
- Being incapable of refraining from having sex with others, even when you are involved in a relationship
- Having unprotected sex, anonymous sex, sex in public places or otherwise engaging in sexual behaviours that can obviously jeopardise your health or social wellbeing
- Typically feeling guilty, ashamed or disgusted with yourself after acting on your sexual compulsions
- Spending significant amounts of time viewing pornography
- Trying but being incapable of stopping or significantly reducing any of these behaviours
It is important to understand that there is a significant difference between sex addiction and having a high sex drive or enjoying frequent sex. If you have been struggling with sex addiction, your actions are not motivated by pleasure, but by ceaseless compulsion. Instead of providing you with a sense of joy or pleasure, behaviours that result from sex addiction will bring you shame, guilt and pain.
The following are among the more common examples of specific signs and symptoms of love addiction:
- Mistaking sexual experiences or romantic intensity for genuine intimacy
- Feeling lonely and isolated when not in a relationship
- Missing out on important commitments with friends, family or colleagues to search for a new relationship
- Seeking the euphoric ‘rush’ of a new relationship while in an existing one
- Feigning interest in activities that aren’t enjoyable or manipulating a partner or someone new through sex in order to maintain contact
- Relying on romantic intensity as a way to escape from underlying emotional or mental health difficulties such as depression and stress
Effects of sex and love addiction
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The specific ways that sex and love addiction can affect your life will vary depending upon a variety of personal factors, but the following are among the more common types of damage that this compulsive behaviour can inflict:
- Strained or ruined friendships
- Inability to form and maintain healthy romantic relationships
- Separation and divorce
- Health problems, including increased risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV and AIDS
- Legal problems as a result of exhibitionistic sexual behaviours
- Job loss related to unacceptable behaviours
- Substance misuse and addiction
- Onset or worsening of co-occurring mental health disorders
- Diminished sense of self-worth
- Persistent sense of shame, guilt and self-loathing
- Suicidal thoughts
When you choose to enter a comprehensive treatment programme to get help for your sex and love addiction, you remove yourself from danger, avoid future harm and have the opportunity to begin healing from any past damage.
In a programme such as those that are offered at Priory hospitals and wellbeing centres, you have the professional support that you need to identify, address and develop strategies to overcome the negative thought patterns that have prompted you to engage in compulsive sexual and co-dependent behaviours.
Sex and love addiction is a complex challenge, but it can be overcome. With effective help, you can regain control over your thoughts and actions and can once again live the healthy and satisfying life that you deserve.
