Marriage/partnership and behavioral addictions
Marriage and partnership dynamics can be significantly impacted by behavioral addictions, which encompass issues like gambling addiction and sex addiction. These addictions not only affect the individual but also have far-reaching consequences on their partners and families. Behavioral addictions are characterized by a loss of impulse control, similar to substance abuse disorders, leading to manipulative behaviors that can erode trust and security within relationships.
Common forms of behavioral addiction include gambling, sex, shopping, and technology use, with gambling and sex addictions often cited as particularly destructive to marriages. The compulsive nature of these behaviors can lead to financial instability, emotional distress, and a breakdown of familial responsibilities. For example, individuals with sex addiction may engage in extramarital relations, while compulsive gamblers often place bets without financial backing, risking their partners' well-being.
The rising prevalence of online gambling and the accessibility of explicit material complicate these issues further, making it essential for partners and families to navigate the effects of such behaviors carefully. Effective treatment and recovery strategies often involve addressing underlying emotional issues, with spousal support playing a vital role in the healing process. Understanding these complexities can help affected individuals and their loved ones seek appropriate help and foster healthier relationships.
Marriage/partnership and behavioral addictions
DEFINITION: Behavioral addictions, which include pathological gambling and sex addiction, affect not only the individual with the addiction but also their partner or spouse and other family members. Much like substance abuse disorders, individuals with behavioral addictions often perpetuate their actions with manipulative and deceitful behavior, much to the detriment of themselves and those close to them.
Behavioral Addictions and Relationships
Behavioral addiction causes a person to lose control of the impulses that lead to negative actions. The most common behavioral addictions include gambling addiction and sex addiction. Less common but prevalent impulse control disorders include kleptomania and pyromania and addictions to food, online gaming, technology use, shopping, and exercise.
Behavioral addictions are far less common than substance addictions. There remains a significant debate among mental health professionals as to whether impulse control disorders should be technically classified as addictions because they do not involve the consumption or use of a chemically addictive external stimulant.
According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, approximately 6 to 8 percent of American adults have some form of sex addiction. It is also believed that around 1 percent of Americans have a severe gambling problem, meaning that they lie about the frequency of their gambling and place bets with little or no financial backing to cover the costs, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling. Another 2 to 3 percent of the population have mild or moderate gambling problems.
While all instances of addiction can have negative consequences on interpersonal, family, and professional relationships, few impulse control disorders are as corrosive to marriages, partnerships, and families as gambling addiction and sex addiction. Each of these disorders can have extreme effects on the foundations of trust and security. Like individuals who abuse substances, many individuals with behavioral addictions fail to see the negative ramifications of their actions on those closest to them until after severe damage has been done.
Neurological Similarities to Substance Abuse
The neurological causes of behavioral addictions remain unknown to medical professionals and sociologists alike. A widely held theory states that individuals with behavioral addictions become hooked on the euphoria-producing chemicals in the brain that impulsive behaviors such as gambling produce. These patterns of addiction are similar to the neurological stimulation experienced by those under the influence of drugs.
Sex Addiction
Sex addiction is classified as the inability to control sexual thoughts, impulses, and behaviors. Exhibitionist and voyeuristic behavior are both symptomatic of sex addiction, as is sexual promiscuity. Some individuals with a sex addiction habitually seek sexual gratification through sexual interactions with others, often including those outside their partnership. Other individuals with a sex addiction require constant immersion in sexually explicit material such as pornography.
The proliferation of online sexual material makes Internet sex addiction one of the fastest-growing segments of sex addiction. Because many individuals with a sex addiction engage in inappropriate extramarital relationships, violation of trust is the most frequent negative impact sex addiction can have on marriages and partnerships. An individual's preoccupation with sexual activity also can lead to the neglect of family, professional, and social responsibilities.
Much like individuals with substance abuse disorders, individuals with a sex addiction often distance themselves from those closest to them for reasons of both shame and defense of their addiction. Undisclosed promiscuity by individuals with sex addictions may also put them and their unknowing domestic partners or spouses at higher risk for sexually transmitted diseases. Research has shown that these individuals also respond to confrontation about their sexual activity through verbal and physical abuse of their partners. Children also are harmed by the consequences of sex addiction. Domestic stability and the safety and well-being of loved ones are often of little or no concern to those with a sex addiction.
While sex addiction often leads to the dissolution of domestic partnerships and marriages, research indicates that spousal support in the sex addiction recovery process can be helpful in eliminating such behaviors. Sex addiction treatment plans focus primarily on ceasing risky sexual behavior through close monitoring, examining the root causes of the desire for ritualistic sexual behavior, deconstructing the underlying motivations of sexual fantasies, and coping with the emotional despair and shame that often result from deviant or risky sexual behavior.
Gambling Addiction
Gambling addiction is classified as an obsessive preoccupation with betting money in hopes of achieving financial rewards in return, no matter how slim the odds. Compulsive gamblers partake in any number of gaming activities, including sports betting, video game-based gambling, and casino gaming. Men are diagnosed with a gambling addiction twice as often as women. Because legalized gambling has been one of the fastest growing industries in the United States since the mid-twentieth century, incidences of compulsive gambling have continued to rise, and as technology improved, online gambling became accessible to more patrons, easier to use, and more difficult to resist for individuals with a compulsion for gambling.
Forty-eight of the fifty US states allow some form of legalized gambling, while forty-four states have either commercial or Native American Reservation casino gaming. Many state governments face severe financial burdens, expanding payrolls, and dilapidating infrastructures, making them unable to refuse the tax boon that the gaming industry provides to state budgets. Online gambling is more strictly regulated but ever increasing in popularity.
Whereas the majority of people gamble infrequently for pleasure, an expanding number of Americans view the slim odds of gambling as a reasonable path to financial stability. As part of their never-ending quest to increase profits and attract customers, many casinos have theme parks, golf courses, and amusement rides, and many gaming cruises include stops at these attractions. The result is a family-centric gaming experience, where gambling no longer takes place away from spouses, partners, and children but becomes a group experience. The concept of gambling to please one’s partner or children indirectly supports gambling as a way to mask a lack of self-esteem and the daily stresses of raising a family. These circumstances, coupled with the neurological effects of gambling on the brain’s pleasure centers, often lead to impulsive gambling.
Most compulsive gamblers participate in several avenues of gambling activity simultaneously. The proliferation of Internet-based sports betting allows bettors to place wagers on thousands of sporting events occurring worldwide from the comfort of home. Much as sex addiction shakes the foundations of interpersonal trust and intimacy, pathological gambling can jeopardize the financial stability of a marriage or domestic partnership, often without the knowledge of the gambler’s partner.
Unlike substance abuse, which often involves years of abuse before the individual with the addiction admits to having a problem, pathological gambling can swiftly snowball from a difficult-to-control compulsion to a ruinous problem in a matter of days, as compulsive gamblers seek that one final payoff. While certain financial peril may be the most obvious risk that the individual with a gambling addiction poses to their partner and family, the downfall is not always swift. Many partners of individuals with gambling addictions learn to adapt to the behavioral addictions of their spouses, even to the point of enabling their partners’ impulsive behaviors. The stresses of covering up a partner’s compulsive gambling problem are often detrimental to the entire family.
Hiding the behavior of a compulsive gambler from family and friends only delays the consequences of the behavior. Attempting to control gambling through moderation is simply a way of supporting an individual's habit. Notably, more than 95 percent of individuals with a compulsive gambling problem also have another psychiatric disorder, most commonly substance use, impulse control, mood, and anxiety disorders. Addressing all an individual's mental health conditions can help improve their well-being and the success of their relationships.
The rise in impulsive gambling has been paralleled by the founding of several nationwide advocacy programs designed to provide resources for intervention and treatment. Among these programs are the National Council on Problem Gambling and Gamblers Anonymous.
Bibliography
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