If only my wife knew.....
I wish I could tell her all my struggles
I wish I could tell her what I learn in recovery
I wish she could be my accountability partner
But alas I cannot tell her I am too afraid and I know she will be devastated
What hurts me the most is that I cannot access my recovery tools at anytime because she is around. I wish I could read the white book more often but she's always there. I wish I could call my sponsor late at night when I am struggling but I would wake her up and she would want to know who I am talking too. It would be so much easier if she knew....
Just wanted too share this with all those who are in the same boat and if anyone has any suggestions.

DEFINITELY DON'T GO INTO ANY DETAILS.

In a vague, round-about way just say whatever LITTLE you can just to get some space for recovery.

You don't have to say YOU KNOW, DEAR, I'M A SEX ADDICT AND I LOVE LOOKING AT PICTURES OF NAKED SHIKSAS AND MASTURBATING WHILE I'M AT IT.

Also, I am astounded at how many times I've seen people who, for hours at a time, can manage to look at porn etc without their wives finding out--she's of no concern at all, but then to do a little reading from the Big Book or to make a 5 minute phone call to a sponsor, suddenly they somehow can't escape their wife's radar for those few minutes.  What's up?

I think it's most likely the Yeitzer Hara, because when our wives find out, when we confess to them, before we have significant recovery behind us, IT MESSES EVERYTHING UP AND MAKES IT MUCH HARDER!!!  Usually.

And, our wives are the worst choice for our accountability partner.  First of all, they don't understand us.  Secondly, they're hurt every time we look at p*rn (and, it's likely to keep happening, we're not perfect) and, at some point we get sick of confessing everything to our wives (and they get sick of it too) so, as far as someone to report our slips and falls to, we stop reporting anything to them.

"Hello, dear, I slipped today and looked at a naked shiksa and mast*rbated while I was at it.  I hope you're not offended and I apprciate your support."

It doesn't work.

If you are TRULY working the program, and becoming a changed man, your wife will start to change by osmosis.  BUT, this takes time.  It works by example and NEVER by preaching.  And even by example it doesn't work if you're just making a show so that she will start to copy you.

--Eye.

Welcome to our community, you did a gute zach you have finally come home!

We're all in the same boat here. a lot of us cant share anything with our wives, including me Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama   Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up with them!

GYE Program in a Nutshell: (Right Click the link and press "Save Link/Target As" to save the PDF file to your computer).

'Guard Your Eyes' offers a unique approach to helping people by recognizing that there are many different levels in the struggle for "Shmiras Ainayim" and "Shmiras Habris". After studying the experience of hundreds of religious strugglers over the past few years, we put together the suggestions and recommendations that we feel are best for the various levels. We divided the tools, features and services that GYE offers into 8 different levels. This "GYE Program in a Nutshell can help people quickly identify at what level of the struggle they are at, and which tools and features would help them most at their particular level.

Here are some quick things you can do to help you jump straight into recovery:

1) Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best – and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"… See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information… We also highly advise installing "Reporting Software" such as webchaver.org to give you some accountability, because filters alone are usually not sufficient and they can often be bypassed.

2) Join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day.

3) Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here.

4) Post away on this forum! You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

5) GuardYourEyes also offers many free anonymous phone conferences where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See www.guardyoureyes.org > Tools > Phone Conferences for many different options. Our conferences are taking place every day, morning, noon and night… Joining a phone group would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps – which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but the daily call will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

6) If you need more general guidance, write to our e-mail helpline at gye.help@gmail.com or call our hotline at 646-600-8100.

7) Download and read the "Guard Your Eyes Handbook". This handbook outlines the GYE approach in detail, and makes our network much more effective and helpful for people. The handbook has two parts:

A) The first part, "Attitude & Perspective", details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth…

The second part, "The 18 Tools", detail suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. No matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

May Hashem be with you!

Welcome!

When you have some very good recovery under your belt (one day at a time, of course), you can address the issue as to whether or not to tell your wife.  Without good recovery, the question does not begin.

How to get into recovery?  Im not alone's welcome message discusses all the tools you'll need.

Hatzlacha!

Welcome, you sweet guteh zach, you!

Believe it or not, having your wife as your accountability partner is (1) the worst possible eitza....but at the same time, whether you like it or not, she already is your accountability partner (2)!

(1) It's a really bad idea because she cannot possibly understand what you are driven by - and as she is the one person most directly affected by your behavior in the entire world , it places a target on her psyche that she will need to walk around with the rest of her life. Silly.

Much better, take for yourself a real sick addict (in recovery) like me or a hundred other guys as your accountability partner - someone who really understands what you are struggling with and doing and all that.

You see, with a non-addict (though they are often initially very disgusted by how we could possibly be so screwed up and be plotzing to do such disgusting things) there is actually less shame for us, because they really have no clue what it means to be out of control of yourself and feeling the absolute need for our 'medication'.So though they are often shocked and disgusted at first, they are ultimately useless as partners as time goes on. All they can do is either cry and yell at us or sympathize.

We need understanding, not sympathy.

Furthermore, though I mean no criticism of you at all, c"v, - in fact, I love you simply as a fellow person with a lust problem - I see fear behind wanting to have the wife as the a guys only 'accountability partner'. We all know our wives are fantastic secret-keepers who will tenaciously preserve our precious anonymity - they stand to lose as much as we do by letting out your big ugly secrets! It becomes their dirty little secret, too, doesn't it...

That's fair? I think not.

Better have another addict as a partner in this - someone who is not affected by our acting out so does not stand to lose a thing if we go over the deep end. Only a person who is not emotionally hand-cuffed to us can be truly effective as a partner in our recovery.

The emotional entanglement ruins every single good thing that the recovery relationship can bring. We need another objective addict - not a bleeding heart sniffling religious do-gooder who thinks he can save us with his 'ahavas yisroel' or something. Any begging indicates that the person doing the begging thinks they have the power to save us - and the truth is that they cannot even keep themselves sober! Hashem does it (when we get out of His way). So, if my sponsor ever 'begged' me not to look at porn, I'd run to get a new sponsor and he knows it!

(2) But ironically, she already is your accountability partner! Indirectly, that is.
When we take the actions of lust, we betray our wives, period. If I discovered that my wife was staring at my buddies in shul and imagining how good they look without their nice yeshivish black suits on, it would drive me out of my mind. If I knew that she regularly fantasized about being sexual with them (just for fun, of course) I would be severely damaged by that, especially as time went on... 

My wife helped me understand that when Chaza"l taught us: "kol hanosein eynov b'mah she'eino shelo - af mah sheyesh lo not'lin heimenu" they were 100% on the money. I used to think that as long as I could keep the secrets from my wife I was not hurting her and our marriage. She helped me learn the precious truth that the  majority of the damage to our marriage actually occurs while I am acting out my lust - not when I get caught by her.

Believing this changed a lot for me. It was actually the first seed of integrity - the real fruit of the 12 step program. The truth is inescapable, if it is anything.

So even if you tell her nothing...whatever you do already affects her and your marriage in a deep and inescapable, whether you like it or not. So the quality of your marriage is truly the bellwether (look it up) of your sexual/lust recovery.

Hatzlocha rabbah and have a sweet Yom-Tov together!!

- Dov

Eye.nonymous wrote on 24 Apr 2011 06:48:


Eye,
I was having a miserable day and wanted nothing more then to give up and run away from it all, when I burst out laughing from your idea.  I have also wondered if it would help if my wife knew and was always wondering how that would play out if she caught me.  You described the scene so well if we were both really really high on something very good.  of course my wife wanted to know what was so funny and I was having difficulty exlpaining it to her considering I told her I had deadline tomorrow and was working.

Thanks
you should be a comedeian

hoplessadict wrote on 28 Apr 2011 03:09:


I AM a comedian...

                              under the right circumstances.

gutezach, I'm feeling your pain.

I've been hiding this from everybody (including my wife), for years. It kills me that i can't open up to her, and let it all go.

Listen to Dov on this one. He's been helping me with the same issue, and he knows of what he talks.

One day, years from now, when we're Iy"h clean and proud owner of a new life, maybe we look back on this episode with pride, and maybe then we can start opening up.