If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.
When we are active in our sexual addiction, we organize our entire lives around sexual fantasy and the behaviors that follow. We spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about, planning for, pursuing, and engaging in sexual activity (with ourselves and/or others). Sex becomes an obsession to the point where important relationships (spouses, kids, parents, friends, etc.), interests (exercise, hobbies, creativity, etc.), and responsibilities (work, finances, childcare, etc.) are ignored. Oftentimes our behaviors escalate to the point where we violate our inner values and moral code, which both creates and intensifies our shame. And because we feel so much shame about what we are doing, we nearly always find ourselves leading a double life, keeping our sexual compulsivity hidden from family, friends, and everyone else who matters to us.
Just for Today
Identify three secrets you kept about your sexual life from the people closest to you.