The Traumatic Nature of Disclosure for Wives of Sexual Addicts

Abstract

Wives of sexual addicts experience distressing symptoms in response to the disclosure of their husbands' compulsive sexual behaviors and often describe the disclosure event as traumatic. The results of this study suggest that a majority of wives of sexual addicts respond to disclosure with significant trauma-related distress. The data also reveal that years married at the time of disclosure and number of previous traumatic event exposures best predicted total trauma symptom severity scores. The study concluded with a discussion of the benefits of using a trauma model to understand and treat wives of sexual addicts following disclosure.