I Used Sex as a Weapon Against My Own Pain.
When sex becomes insurance, intimacy disappears. A reflection on betrayal, self-abandonment, and the slow return to truth.
Part Two: Reclaiming Intimacy, Embodiment, and Forgiveness After Betrayal
This is Part Two of a series exploring the long journey from sexual trauma and people-pleasing to embodied intimacy and self-reclamation.
For seven years, I believed that if I just had enough sex with him, he would never cheat again. I thought I could out-perform the pain. I thought I could control the outcome by controlling my body. I was convinced that availability equaled safety and that desire, once fully fed, would quiet itself.
I was wrong.
Day to day, this belief looked like abandoning myself in an attempt to never feel that level of betrayal again. I believed that if I offered enough sex, any temptation to step outside the marriage would simply dissolve. I didn’t pause to question that logic or listen to what my body was saying. I was focused on prevention, not presence. Fear was running the show.
I traded quality for quantity. I stopped asking whether I wanted to be there and started asking whether it would keep me safe. Sex became something I endured rather than something I desired. Something I participated in without enthusiasm. Something that wasn’t fun… if it ever truly was.
It was survival.
Misplaced.
It looked like checking a box on a daily to-do list. The transaction was simple in my mind: he gets off, I get a temporary sense of relief. One less thing to worry about for the day. One less spike of anxiety.
It also looked like straight-up sadness dressed in begrudgingly sexy fishnets 🖤
I Convinced Myself Quantity Meant Safety
I convinced myself that quantity meant safety because I never slowed down long enough to understand his actual sickness or his motivations. I decided the issue had to be sex addiction. It was the only explanation I could reach for at the time. A color I simply couldn’t see.
He had always had a much higher drive than I did, and I filled in the blanks with my own fear. Years later, after multiple rounds of therapy and finally working with a specialist in love, romance, and sex addiction, we learned that he did not meet the diagnostic criteria for sex addiction. At my request, in year seven, he attended SA and worked all twelve steps. I attended the SAA Al-Anon chapter and worked the steps myself.
Ironically, that work ended up healing more of my childhood wounds than anything else. Eric fits the profile of someone with a high drive and someone whose past meth use altered neural pathways related to sex and validation. Hypersexuality, yes. Sex addiction, no.
This is not an excuse.
Not for the cheating.
Not for the harm that followed.
Some of these physiological changes explain pieces of the story. They do not absolve it.
Back to the Early Days
With no real evidence, I decided addiction was the problem. And then I decided to feed it. I believed safety meant constant availability and that fulfillment was my responsibility alone. I was determined to be the only one who met those desires, no matter the cost to myself.
This did not keep me safe.
Eric physically cheated once. I know this in my bones. But over the next seven years, there were other betrayals tied to sex and validation. Inappropriate messaging. Secrecy with porn. Searching outside himself and our marriage to feel wanted.
No physical cheating… but still betrayal.
Of me.
And of himself.
You cannot sex your way into safety.
The Work He Had to Do (And Why I Couldn’t Do It for Him)
A lot of our healing involved his willingness to change, and much of that is his story to tell. He has given me permission to share it. He eventually entered individual counseling. He completed a brutally honest fourth-step sex inventory that changed his life. He got sick of who he was becoming.
He could no longer ignore the pain in my eyes or the dissonance between his values and his actions. As a sober, spiritually seeking man, his behavior stopped lining up with who he believed himself to be. He also began to see how much his choices were jeopardizing his own life.
The twelve steps in SAA became part of his transformation, even without a sex addiction diagnosis. The work still mattered.
The Work I Had to Do
I had to look at myself honestly. At how I was cold, unaffectionate, afraid, unforgiving, distant, and entitled. I had to own my side of the street without minimizing what had happened. That was uncomfortable work. Necessary work.
Real change didn’t begin until we sat across from each other as actual human beings, not roles. We stopped seeing the other as someone responsible for our happiness. We started seeing a person with flaws, fears, desires, insecurities, hopes, and dreams.
We chose curiosity over ego. We said the hard things. We put down the masks and allowed ourselves to be seen. Transparency and vulnerability became normal parts of daily life.
And slowly… everything changed 🌱
(Okay. I’m drifting into the recovery chapter here.)
The Moment I Realized What I Was Doing
It happened after another “check the box and be done” encounter. I felt profoundly empty and still unsafe. Nothing had been fixed. Nothing had softened.
And suddenly, it was clear.
What I was doing wasn’t just a disservice to me. It was a disservice to him. I was being dishonest. I was being manipulative, even if I didn’t mean to be.
I had invented a game. A two-player game where only one person knew the rules. And somehow, the person who made up the game was also the one losing.
What My Body Felt Like During Sex I Didn’t Want
My body was tense and rigid. Sometimes there was a pit of nausea and resentment in my stomach. I held my breath without realizing it. I waited for it to end.
My body wasn’t present.
It was bracing.
It was afraid 😔
How Long This Phase Lasted
Longer than I care to admit. It took seven years for both of us to become willing to do the kind of honest, uncomfortable, soul-level work that real repair requires. Much deeper work than we had ever attempted before.
Work that demanded truth instead of performance.
What I Want You to Know
If you’re in the performative sex phase right now, I see you. If you’re offering your body as insurance or checking boxes instead of connecting, I see you. If you’re trying to control the outcome by abandoning yourself, you’re not alone.
You cannot sex your way into safety.
You cannot perform your way into trust.
And the game you’re playing, the one where you believe if you just do enough, give enough, endure enough, he’ll stay… that’s a game you made up. You’re the only one playing it.
And you’re the only one losing.
The next post goes into the turning point, the day I decided sex was stupid, and what it took to flip that belief completely. But for now, sit with this:
You are not responsible for controlling someone else’s choices by sacrificing your body, your pleasure, or your peace.
What would it look like to stop weaponizing sex and start reclaiming it? ✨
Love,
Heather
If this piece resonates with you, I would love to have you join my email list! I write one email a week, 0% fluff and 100% raw.
