Episode Details

When a man chooses to have a secret sexual basement, he’s abusing his wife. Here’s why.

A secret sexual basement refers to a hidden life that a man conceals from his wife and children. This hidden life may involve activities such as pornography, prostitution, sexting, affairs, sexual assault, or workplace sexual harassment.

Having A “Secret Basement” Is Abuse

Here are all the abusive ways a man keeps his behaviors hidden from his wife:

• Manipulation
• Lies
• Gaslighting
• Emotional neglect

Did you know there are 19 different types of emotional abuse? Take this FREE emotional abuse quiz to determine if your husband’s secret basement qualifies as emotional abuse.

A Secret Basement Is Abusive

Even if a man is fully transparent about his activities – thus having no “secret” basement – if he feels entitled to sex, he is still abusive.

At BTR.ORG, we understand how difficult it can be to accept that your partner’s betrayal is abuse – especially if you have been conditioned to believe that your partner is addicted and needs your support to “heal”.

If your husband has been lying to you about his secret life, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY. Get the support you need.

Transcript: What Is A Secret Sexual Basement?

Anne: It’s just me today. I’m going to talk about the secret basement. A secret basement is when a man has an entire life that his wife and kids don’t know about. That life can include any or all of these things: pornography, masturbation, prostitution, sexting, affairs, sexual assault, sexual harassment at work . It could be why he’s on his phone all the time. He compartmentalizes his life so that when he’s with his wife and children, he’s an upstanding member of society.

Then he has this other part of his life. He participates in behaviors that would absolutely devastate and shock his family, colleagues and church community. The type of man who would have a secret basement is, at his core, a liar. He doesn’t live in truth, because there’s no truth in him. The character of a man with a secret basement has no respect or care for integrity. Meaning he doesn’t care if his actions are inconsistent with his statements.

He doesn’t have an integrity disorder. He just doesn’t have integrity. So this isn’t necessarily him breaking his marriage vows, although he absolutely has broken his marriage vows. It’s the opposite. Like he saw this public act of making marriage vows as a good way to deceive people about his true character. Let’s pretend for a minute that he was very genuine when he made his marriage vows, he did those honestly.

If he is honest, then when he wants to break his marriage vows. He would tell his wife, hey, I know I made these marriage vows. I now would like to break them and I’m going to break them in this way.

Traits Of Men With Secr