BACK FROM BETRAYAL: Recovering from His Affairs

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 8, 1988

A curiously unfocused look at women involved with compulsively promiscuous men. The latter, says Schneider, are ""sex-addicts,"" while the women are frequently ""coaddicts."" In her preface, Schneider mentions that her compulsively womanizing second husband ""cured"" himself at a sex-addicts' self-help group, while she gained insights into her codependency (a compulsion to validate self-worth through others) and her coaddiction (an addiction to a relationship with an addict) via attendance at Al-Anon meetings. She then links sex addiction with alcohol addiction. Women involved with alcoholics and sex addicts, she says, blame themselves for the addict's behavior while also trying to control it. The female coaddict usually feels worthless, believing she has failed at what she has been conditioned to achieve: a happy husband and thriving children. After much delving into the risks of sex-addiction and coaddiction (social ostracism, emotional and physical collapse, venereal disease), Schneider moves on to her solution: the self-support groups of her preface. These, she says, should be based on the ""Twelve-Step Program"" of A.A. plus professional therapy for both parties. She supplies some advice on how to select a therapist but none on where to find a sex-addict's self-help group. Schneider may have set out to write a fairly scholarly treatise on the similarities between the behavioral syndromes of mates of alcoholics and of compulsive womanizers, only to be persuaded to produce a more sensational book. The result is a mishmash.

Pub Date: June 8, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION