Polyamory and sex addiction - is there really a difference?

I have struggled with this concept for a long time.  I don't think I'm sex (or love or relationship) addicted, but sometimes I've wondered about that. 

I have visited sexual and relationship addiction websites, but I don't feel like they describe me at all, though I've always had extra relationships. Yes, I'll share my story sometime, but just not yet.

I found a really good article about the distinction from Kathy Labriola I'd like to share with an excerpt from it.

Sex Addiction and Polyamory, and How to Tell the Difference 

I feel it is important for "poly" people to understand both sex addiction and love and relationship addiction, for at least two reasons, First of all, being knowledgeable allows us to articulately counter charges that all poly people are addicts. Second, if we know and recognize the signs and symptoms of sex and relationship addiction we can avoid getting involved with addicted people.

Some people who claim to be polyamorous are really sex or relationship addicts using polyamory as a philosophical excuse to act out compulsive and destructive relationship patterns. Just as some people choose monogamy for unhealthy reasons or to hide their dysfunctional relationship behaviors, people may choose polyamory as a cover-up for their addictive behavior. People who have an addictive relationship with sex or love make very poor relationship partners in general, and they are not good candidates for successful poly relationships. They are too self-centered and too caught up in their own addictive disease to be capable of real intimacy or of truly loving anyone. If you recognize the warning signs, you can save yourself and your other partners a lot of grief by avoiding involvement with them. If you recognize some of these traits in yourself or in someone you are involved with already, you can minimize the damage to your relationships by seeking counseling or other types of healing support.

While I tend to be a little self-centered (after all, aren't all writers self-absorbed, just a little bit anyway?), I do care quite a lot about other people, my husband, my children.  I recently 'broke up' with a new friend because it was hurting my husband.  It wasn't worth the pain it was causing him.  Even though it was a little difficult at first, I don't think I would have been able to end it if I was truly sex or relationship addicted.

She goes on to say:

Healthy poly people prioritize sex and intimate relationships in their lives and devote a significant amount of time and energy to creating and sustaining love relationships. Some focus more attention on emotional intimacy and relationships, while others are more oriented towards recreational sex and emphasize sex more than long-term relationships. However, despite our focus on sex and/or relationships, we are not addicted to sex or relationships. I don't mind getting personal and using myself as an example. I often jokingly explain "I am a sex maniac, not a sex addict," and I often describe myself as a "relationship enthusiast" rather than a love and relationship addict. I use the terms "sex maniac" and "relationship enthusiast" despite the negative connotations, as I feel they convey that I love sex and relationships and make them a priority in my life. However, sex and love are not the only focus in my life and I have a fulfilling and well-rounded life outside my relationships. Sex and relationships enhance my quality of life and bring me physical, emotional, and spiritual satisfaction. However, I am a whole person on my own, and could live a happy and meaningful life without sex and relationships. I call myself a sex maniac because I find that intense and loving sex makes me a warmer, more compassionate, and more open person in every other area of my life.

I find this to be true.  I have a high priority on sex and intimate relationships  I devote a significant amount of time and energy to creating and sustaining relationships.  I do focus more on emotional intimacy and relating and and I would like to enjoy more recreational sex.  However, I am a whole person on my own.  I do have quite a few rewarding activities outside my relationships: I write, I photograph, I do art, I research a lot of things and attempt to take care of the emotional well-being of my husband and children (not always successfully).  But I do enjoy my outside relationships too.  They have enhanced my life and have brought me physical, emotional and spiritual satisfaction.

But they also brought me other things: emotional and spiritual pain, physical exhaustion and stress as well, knowing I was hurting my husband to trying to have these outside relationships without his full knowledge and consent with my intentions.  It was not fun at all when I'd get into trouble for taking too much time away from my husband, or from trying to hide questionable text messages or emails from him.  Slimy on my part, I know.

I had been deceitful trying to maintain outside relationships, and that is not the route I want to take anymore...which is why I am blogging about it...rather than pursuing some damaging course.

I don't want to be that way anymore.  I don't know that the poly life is what I want. What I do know is that the cheating life is something I definitely do not want to participate in anymore.

Have a great weekend!

My vision for this blog

This blog will be a snapshot of my journey through my life exploring the themes of love, madness, friendship, relationship, creativity, sexuality, monogamy/polyamory, spirituality and my own interpretation of feminism, with the hopes of discovering my values, exploring my boundaries, and see how my personal dreams might coexist comfortably enough with the reality of raising a family.

Who am I?

I am a mother of three beautiful daughters with a very supportive, loving husband with whom I have come through some very difficult trials throughout our nearly 17 year relationship. I come from an upper middle class suburban family.  I went to college and had enough determination and intelligence to pursue a fairly challenging scientific career in the biotech field for a number of years before I came home to be with my daughters.

I have experienced a LOT of things in the course of my life that have influenced my current life-view:

Childhood emotional, psychological and sometimes physical abuse from my narcissistic mother, my alcoholic step-father and my oldest and youngest sister, abortion, miscarriage, co-dependency while my husband struggled with binge drinking, mistreatment during his binges, affairs (mine), and one attempt at a threesome with my husband and a male friend.

My husband and I came pretty close to giving up on each other more than a few times as we tried to navigate some of our very painful relationship concerns. I have been going through an identity, morality, and spirituality crisis.  He had been coping with some deep-seated esteem issues as well as my issues.

I share these things to give a little bit of background context, not to throw a pity-party. I may talk about some of these issues.  I may not.  It depends on if it's relevant to my thought process.

There is a quote that I just adore:

Religion is for people who are afraid of Hell.  Spirituality is for people who have already been there. ~ Bonnie Raitt

This blog arose out of a conversation with someone I have long admired, but keep fighting with, because I keep misunderstanding what he tries to tell me.

One of the last misunderstandings I had was about this exchange:

I've been trying to tell the truth to people, but I'm still dishonest.  I try to tell the truth as far as I can go with it. My husband is right.  I'll say one thing to him - with the intention of not just sparing his feelings and his ego, but also our marriage - but telling other people something else.

To which, he replied

If this is a realization, it is a poignant one. Remember what I said about the chameleon? You look like a shapeshifter to me--regarding your heart/soul, anyway.

And it hurt.  It hurt because it does seem very true.  It hurt so much that I didn't hear the caring underneath what I perceived as condemnation.  So much did it hurt that I said something mean to him, because I can't keep my damn mouth shut when I feel ashamed.  I can't just ask for clarification - I end up jumping the gun and saying rather mean things, rather than simply stating how things make me feel.  That's a shitty habit of mine.

But if I am a shape-shifter at all, it's because I had been struggling with co-dependency, and I hadn't determined who I am now, what it is I really need, what is I want and how to ask for (and accept I won't always get it), and how I am going to conduct myself in the future.

I am, at times, greatly ashamed for the choices I have made.  I am not a victim of my upbringing, or any life circumstance - though they've influenced my feelings- and I've never been at the mercy of anyone else in my relationships.  I suppose I had been (at times, anyway) at the mercy of my own intense emotions as I tried to cope with the trouble that I managed to get myself into.

I lived my life the best way I was able to, clouded at times by my own fears and insecurities.  I've missed out on having really good role models to emulate, though I've looked for examples in my real life.  I have also not had a clear understanding of what healthy boundaries are, and I compromised what weak boundaries I had established in order to be close to people I admired.

My behavior has resulted from my own inability to be truly honest about what I needed and wanted and to ask for those things, my inability to delay gratification of those needs and wants and saying no to the things I did not need and want.


I was not willing to let go of things that are not working for me.  I hadn't fully developed the capacity to do so.   Things that work, flow freely, uninhibited.  Things that don't, get caught up in a logjam.  And the things that don't work need to change, or be released.  It's that simple.

For most of my life, I was rational in my professional decisions.  My personal decisions were another story.  I was not committed to making fully conscious, well-thought-out choices in my relationships with people. And because of some number of years with logjammed communication with my husband, I was fearful that if I told my husband what I really felt, what I really thought I needed, he'd reject me.

I think too, with the way his esteem was for the longest time, he wasn't able to cope with some of these complex needs.

I had always assumed that there were only two choices. What family, society, religion, my husband expected me to be, or how I felt I wanted to be.   This created a terrible internal conflict at times.

In some ways, I'd successfully chose my path.  I was true to myself in some key ways.  My career and my decision to leave my career was my choice - but I really wasn't prepared for the reality of the identity crisis that ensued.  When children arrive, the choices are not without sacrificing something and this was always one of the key issues of feminism.  So is a women's sexuality. 

Each woman has to make peace with this conflict.  Whose needs are more important?  The individual's needs or the family's needs, the husband's or the wife's?  Here's my take - they are equally important.  Learning to compromise gracefully is the task that needs to happen.  I don't think many of us have found that to be an easy one.

I've been wrong about a lot of things, but one of the biggest things I'd been wrong about was the capacity of my husband to adapt to new information about me.   As more of the 'real' me comes out, he's a little surprised, but he's not running the other way.  After a period of adjustment where he has needed to assimilate new information, he is able to offer me  more empathetic support and I'm feel more safe to explore and discuss my hearts' wishes.  In turn, I'm finding myself more in awe of him, and realizing he is turning into someone I like very, very much again.


For the time being...I am considering myself to be a recovering relationship addict.   I'm also considering myself to be polyamorous.  Though, for right now, I'm not sure which it is.

I am in no official sex/love addiction program (but mostly because there aren't any around here). 

I have no sponsor.

I only have my husband...and this blog...and, a belief that I am competent and capable of making some decisions about how I want to conduct my affairs (pun intended).

I am not sure I want to get 'fixed'.

I simply want to learn how to change what's not working for us into something that can work for us.

My husband and I are in discussions about polyamory, so that cheating and secret-keeping won't be necessary.

Because of  my new commitment to live with emotional honesty in my relationships, I am committed to determining just what my values, my wants and needs are and just where my boundaries lie.v  And I'm learning that delaying gratification is imperative while I figure this out (learning the hard way, I might add, not because these things are self-evident to me).

I know there are a few blogs out there about polyamory.  This is my personal space to write out my thoughts and feelings regarding exploring new frontiers in words before acting on them and honoring my husband, who has been phenomenally understanding even though I have challenged his once conservative values, feelings and beliefs.


Welcome to Unmasked.

Feel free to shed your masks and comment.  No throwing tomatoes, though.  I tend to throw them back.