Do We Need to Take a Break from Dating to Get Better?
Most approaches to treating sex and love addiction include a period of “abstinence,” where you take a break from dating, porn, masturbation, etc. For the purposes of my specialty and this post, I’ll solely address the idea of taking a break from dating. In general, there are benefits you might get from taking this time, but I would argue that this would also be a period where you would be making almost no progress on working through the issues of your sex and love addiction. The benefits would include a few things:
Withdrawal - if you’re a person who struggles to be alone for a bit, without the promise of someone new, without a small harem of people you keep in your phone just in case you need them to fill your alone time, spending a bit of time without sexual/romantic engagement might be worthwhile. Sex and love addicts experience withdrawal like substance use addicts in that we feel terrified of being without. Those people you keep in your phone who you know you can call if needed are like bottles of alcohol hidden in the house if you were an alcoholic. They feel like safety. So to cut them out - to delete them/block them/tell them you aren’t doing this anymore - can be quite scary. Likewise, to delete apps and accounts on dating apps, to go out with friends and spend the night focusing on your friends instead of the possibility of meeting someone, these can all lead to some hefty despair for sex and love addicted people. The longer you go, however, in this manner, the more you’ll habituate to the new circumstances and the more you’ll come to experience yourself as a worthwhile person, even without a romantic/sexual partner.
Insight - in many cases, sex and love addicts have never spent even a week without sexual/romantic prospects or without a partner, and they have no idea that they’ve arranged their lives this way to avoid certain feelings. Spending some time away from sexual/romantic others allows people the space to find out what they like, dislike, and fear about being alone. There is nevcessary insight to be had there.
I would argue, however, that this break from a sexual/romantic life isn’t necessary to recover from sex and love addiction and, in certain situations, may even slow down progress. This is because the most opportunity you have for growth is in relationship with a sexual/romantic partner. This is where all the juice lies. This is where almost every question that must be asked is, and also every change that must be made in both your emotional and behavioral self is put to the test. You will either get what you want in your romantic/sexual life or you won’t, and it is entirely up to you, regardless of what you’ve been told or what movies and tv shows suggest. You can’t recover on your own and suddenly be attracted to a different kind of person who will magically meet all your needs. If only! You have to do extremely hard work, and you have to do it both when the stakes are high, i.e., interpersonally, and, more importantly, when the issues you have are showing up all the time.
These issues will show up in all phases of relationshipping - when you are pursuing one, when it doesn’t work out, when you really like someone and you don’t know how the other person feels, when you’re physically intimate, when you get "serious,” etc. And it is almost certain you will fall back into old ways and make mistakes. If you do the real hard work, though, those stumbles shouldn’t necessarily destroy something viable, and if they do, then I would say it wasn’t truly viable. Get ready. If you are really ready to change your life in this way, then this will have to be a time of tremendous self-reflection. You won’t be happy with all that you find out about yourself, and you will also at times find that you have to do things you’re terrified about.
If this question concerns a couple - usually a love addict/love avoidant couple - wondering if they have to take a break, then the answer is possibly. Your work is to withdraw from the addiction. This is usually the hot and cold, overly dramatic nature of such relationships, found often in arguments. Sometimes it’s found in the fantasy that’s attached to the relationship. Sometimes it’s the part that holds all the intense pain. Wherever the addiction is, that’s what needs to stop. If you find you can do this and not take a break from each other, then go for it.
I hope it goes without saying that this does not include abusive relationships. If your “type” is people who physically harm you, steal your resources, or harm children in any way, then this doesn’t apply to you. Most of the people I’ve seen in my therapy work have histories of relationships with love avoidants, people with narcissistic and borderline features, people that successfully provide them with that push-pull experience sex and love addicts get off on. By the time they find me, they are in immense pain, have essentially destroyed their romantic lives with their sex and love addictions, and have received minimal to zero help from SLAA’s step-program approach. Those are the people I’m addressing in these posts. I hope you’ll find some help here as I put them up on the site.