Unless an addict wants to get help, there’s not much you can do for them. You might want to join a group like Al Anon, a “fellowship of relatives and friends of alcoholics who share their experience, strength, and hope in order to solve their common problems.”
Even if your addicted friend is not an alcoholic, you can learn much wisdom from Al Anon.
The best thing you can do for your marriage or for yourself is to get healthy by going to a good therapist. We don’t form relationships with addicts for no reason. There’s something about the drama of relating to an addict that feels good to us. There are no victims in relationships (short of criminal behavior). We chose to relate to that person. We chose to bring him into our life. A therapist can help us understand why.
Can a sex addict ever resume a normal healthy relationship? Certainly he can, just as an alcoholic or drug addict or food addict or debt addict can pull himself together.
Is any sexual contact outside of marriage breaking sobriety for a sex addict? Different 12-step programs for sex addiction have different perspectives. According to Sexaholics Anonymous, any sex outside of marriage is breaking your sobriety. For another program, any sex outside of a relationship is breaking sobriety. For other programs, the individual chooses his own bottom line behaviors he wants to avoid (such as the use of porn or prostitutes) and chooses his own adventure.
Many 12-programs use the term “qualifier” to denote the person who triggered the addict into realizing he had an addiction. In sex and love addiction 12-step programs, addicts generally regard contact with a qualifier as a bad idea.
I know there are lots of women out there who just drive me crazy. I get with them and get on that emotional roller coaster and I lose my emotional sobriety. I get nuts.
What should you expect when an addict tells you he’s been working a 12-step program and he wants to make amends? It means he wants to list off the bad things he did to you and to apologize for them. If he stole from you, he should want to pay you back. If he did you any harm and he can repair it, an addict in recovery should want to make those repairs.
If you had a relationship with a sex or love addict, you may not want to see him again. You may not want to hear his apologies. That’s your right. There’s nothing wrong with saying no. In some cases, such an addict will realize that making a particular amends will do more harm than good.
I recommend the book The Ex Factor by Stephan Poulter and Pia Mellody‘s books on codependency and love addiction.
And these videos and podcasts:
http://www.youtube.com/user/familytreecounseling
