Title: Love Over Lust – How Love Overcame the Power of Sexual Addition
Author: Karen Valiant
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9780595091775
Pages: 168
Genre: Psychology / Human Sexuality
Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott
Pacific Book Review Star
Awarded to Books of Excellent Merit
Saving a marriage from complete destruction is one of the most difficult challenges that a couple can face, and can only be accomplished if they face it together. Author and educational counselor Karen Valiant came from a typical family and had reasonable, responsible goals for her life. Yet after eleven years of marriage and the birth of two children, she found herself totally enthralled with Mike, also married. Both became obsessed by love and less than two years later, had divorced their former spouses and started a new life together. When Karen met Mike, he was a recovering alcoholic. She admired him for the willingness to change his habits. But later, both alcohol and illicit sex would return to overpower him, and once she learned of it, Karen was plunged into rage and despair.
They had been together 14 years when the couple decided to move to Arizona. Mike went first, for employment, while Karen stayed back to sell their old house and secure a new job. During that time, Mike’s behavior altered, deteriorated. It wasn’t long before the lies began about where he was going and what he was doing. He stayed out late; he spent long hours in his basement “office.” He once got “lost” in the desert and never called her to tell her where he was, causing her hours of fear and tears. When she found a credit card statement with charges to what turned out to be nude bars and other, unnamed establishments, it seemed that the marriage they had fostered for so long was completely over. Yet, with determination, counseling and other interventions, Karen and Mike have gradually regained some of that lost ground, and are committed to rebuilding a shared future.
The author offers useful advice for recognizing the kinds of behaviors that Mike and other sex and alcohol addicts may indulge in, and for dealing with them. She recommends resources such as COSA (Co-Dependents of Sexual Addiction), Al- ANON, and NCSAC (National Council on Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity). She had Mike take a lie detector test; she considered having him followed by a private detective. She wrote numerous letters to newspapers that advertise nude bars as though they were no more harmless than movie theaters, and even sent a letter of commiseration to Hillary Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky affair.
The author writes with compelling honesty about the humiliation, anger and depression she has suffered, and the methods she used to cope. She has carefully compiled lists of sexually addictive activities and warning signs, and clearly differentiates between the loving sexual companionship of a positive relationship and the destructive workings of cold, selfish lust. She reminds the reader that anyone who finds themselves in the situation she and Mike are dealing with should “move toward complete forgiveness and understanding while enforcing honest, realistic boundaries.”
Written by an experienced counselor who has “walked the walk,” Love Over Lust was specifically written to address the destructive consequences that may result when someone chooses to involve themselves in lust (pornography) rather than love relationships. Reading it could make the difference between a failed relationship and one that can be salvaged and transformed.
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