Has the Internet turned your relationship inside-out? Does it seem that your partner’s entire personality has changed since discovering the Internet? Does your Internet-obsessed partner suddenly demand privacy when using the Internet, ignore once routinely performed household chores, come late to bed every night and never has time for sex? Is your partner less interested in your relationship? Then Internet addiction has hit your relationship and a possible cyber-affair may be brewing.

When a husband or wife turns to the computer for intimacy and sex - sometimes even ending a long marriage to run off with their Internet lover - the cyberwidow left behind must confront rejection, abandonment, anger, and confusion about what happened and why.

The Internet is an amazing tool for reseraching and accessing all kinds of different information. The problem begins when the person finds the thousands of websites and chatrooms that are for sexual purposes. What seems innocent at first, quickly can become a cyber sex addiction.

It has been estimated that over 25 million Americans visit cybersex related websites between 1 to 10 hours per week and another 4.7 million visit cybersex websites 11 hours or more per week. Of those 40 million Americans, 70 percent keep their habit a secret and struggle in silence.

A cyber sex addiction may seem small compared to a drug or alcohol addiction, but it can have some of the same affects. A cyber sex addiction can ruin a person's life.

It doesn't just end up consuming their time. It ruins relationships, hurts families and can cause the loss of a job.

With the push of a button and the click of a mouse, a brand new world is at your finger tips.  But it's a world causing problems across the country.

Our center's sex addiction counselors hear from many of the spouses of cybersex addicts that they feel extremely cutoff in their marriage. One wife of a cyber sex addict told her counselor, "My husband spends hours online and he is so different after he gets off. He gets angry when I ask him to stop and he often does it when I am not home. He says its no big deal but he is spending more and more time on the computer rather than with me and the kids. I won't put up with this for much longer." The marriage is now in trouble of surviving.

This same spouse later discovered emails from her husband to a woman in another state. Her husband was having an online affair with a woman he never met. The spouse was devastated, confused, and didn't know what to do. When confronted, the cybersex addict minimized, rationalized, and justified the affair.

It's a story heard too often.

Rather than getting involved in porn images or movies, many men get involved with a partner that he never meets but shares intimate conversation via chatrooms, emails, instant messaging, or webcams.  Before he realizes it, he begins to spend hours online, ignoring family, friends, and jobs.  And at that point, it can be too late. He is hooked, addicted, and enslaved by the false intimate relationship. Just like other addictions, the behaviors will continue to grow and often lead to real life meetings and betrayal.

There are two ways to setup an appointment with one of our counselors:

1) Fill out the Contact Form and a counselor will call you with 24-hours; 2) Call our offices at 303-933-5800.