As therapists, it is our responsibility to turn towards painful realities. It is our responsibility to name abuse when we see it. If I’m sitting across from a client who tells me he’s been lying to his wife for years about his infidelity, I am responsible to not only name the impact of the infidelity on his spouse but to name the emotional abuse that comes with it. You may be asking, “How is infidelity abusive?”
Imagine for a minute that you have a secret. A secret that if your spouse knew would be completely life altering. Imagine that in order to protect your secret, you have to lie to her both overtly and by omission. You are expending every effort to protect your secret, without consideration as to how that secret, if known, would destroy her. You are more concerned about protecting your secret, about protecting yourself from consequences, than you are about protecting her. Consider the impact of withholding life altering information from someone.
Imagine that she gets close to discovering the secret one day. She sees a text come through on your phone that you quickly explain away as spam, and then proceed to get mad at her for “snooping” on your phone. You know very well that she is correct and you are intentionally manipulating her reality (gaslighting) to ensure that she feels like the crazy one. Suddenly she’s apologizing, believing that she was in the wrong and you have just gained that much more control. Consider how these behaviors, your behaviors, are impacting her beliefs about herself and others. How she may begin to wonder if she can trust herself and her judgement. Notice how she begins to talk herself out of how she feels and what she needs.
It is not possible to emotionally meet the needs of someone when you are actively lying to them. Imagine now that she has a sense that something is “offf” between the two of you. She can feel the withdrawal and the disconnect. She starts again blaming herself. You persist in allowing her to believe she is the problem. Now imagine these patterns of behavior have been ongoing for years.
Abuse is considered any action or behavior that causes physical, emotional, psychological or financial harm. Patterns of lying, gaslighting, manipulating, gaining coercive control, withdrawing etc. cause emotional and psychological harm at a minimum. Naming abuse and trauma is not a feel good “reality” but it is a reality of secret sexual or secret relational behaviors. I used the example of infidelity but these emotionally abusive behaviors are connected to any secret sexual behavior. Abuse is often connected with an unhealthy “I deserve” entitlement that prioritizes our needs over the basic human rights of others.
The good news? It is possible to begin taking accountability and to heal from being a perpetrator of integrity abuse. It is often possible for partners to who have been victims to experience healing as well once they are in a safe space where they can metabolize the experience of ongoing relational neglect and trauma.
If you are in therapy and your therapist is endlessly validating your perspective, you are not getting the help you actually need. A good therapist will help you hold up the mirror and move towards those realities with accountability and humility. I deeply honor the clients I work with and I am so grateful for their willingness to do this work. I know it really does take so much high effort to consider our own role in our relationships, our decisions and the impact our choices have on others. To use Dr. Omar MInwalla’s metaphor, it can be incredibly painful to climb to the top of our mountain and look down at the village we’ve bombed. It takes a significant amount of courage and willingness to turn towards the existing realities of abuse and trauma.
We know that with the right help healing is possible. Being a person who has engaged in integrity abuse connected with secret sexual behaviors doesn’t make you beyond help or hope. An important part of treatment is providing accurate, however painful information. A therapist treating deceptive sexuality trauma without naming the emotional abuse is often unknowingly contributing to harm by not addressing a key part of treatment. Recovery is a two part problem: the secret sexual behaviors and the deceptive abusive behaviors. Our therapists have received training from Dr. Omar Minwalla and we would love to offer whatever support we can. We deeply honor you for doing this work and stepping into a space that is as full of pain as it is courage.
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