Dear Aaron4,
Thanks for your words.
1- All I can tell my wife w/respect my to lust issues are the facts. She can't process the explanations/reasons in my mind for how/why I had the problem. The whole thing is way too scary and weird to her. I tried, early on, but learned that it was just cruel to do to her. She does deserve and need to know the facts, though. The rest I tell my sponsor and home group - and it is important that she knows that.
When it comes to the ups and downs of my day, including the convoluted and often self-absorbed and goofy things that are mostly going on inside my head, it is different - now. Used to be I could'nt share that with her either and she'd just say (angrily, sometimes) "you need to go to talk to your sponsor," or "you need to go to a meeting".
We needed to feel that out and with siyata dishmaya it is getting better. Interestingly, we are getting closer through working together to deal with the vicissitudes of life, which - without sobriety - I'd have escaped from into my brain, making my own issues up or acting out in lust, just to avoid them all...living in reality is no fun sometimes but it is 1000% better that being in "fake-land". It seems we get sober and finally can start really living. It's not the goal, just the ground level!
An idea from this: Get yourself more involved in HER world, instead of trying to get HER more involved in YOUR world. Your world is beaing taken care of just fine by Hashem. Now it's time to start worrying yourself with HER concerns...She'll know it and may respond to that well. Did that clarify anything?
2- Yes, it was a big impediment. Lo hamedrash haikkar, ellah hamaaseh applies more to addicts that to anyone, perhaps. Rule #62 of AA is: "Don't take yourself so ____-damn seriously". It takes lots of tefilla and siyata dishmaya to get better at focusing on doing what needs to get done for others and myself w/o getting lost in the reasons, motivations, and outcomes. Yes, I need to take what I do very seriously, but not myself. PIck anyone else who needs you and take them and their needs more seriously and you'll get more sobriety - and have more fun, too! This takes siyata dishmaya and I don't really understand it, but it sure makes a person more effective! Relationships w/others become very frustrating for both parties when too much power is given to details like what I am really thinking, if I am really a tzaddik or a rasha, what the deeper meaning of what I/they did is, the past/future, etc. I don't Chv"sh mean to trivialize, but does that make sense to you? Is this addressing what you were asking at all? Uh-oh! Am I taking this too seriously? Ahhhhhhh!!!!
3- You are probably doing fine for now but just aren't aware of it. But here is my two cents: Writing my whole acting out history; writing the fourth step as AA (the four columns) recommends, and doing the other steps with a sponsor and friends leads me (I hope) to gaining honesty and living honestly. Daven a few times a day to be led on only the right path; to be protected from lying and from sheker in general; from accepting counterfeit happiness (lust, hollywood, approval from others) instead of the real thing; for Hashem to show us what the real thing is; for honesty. And be aware that the very best Hashem will probably give you is just a bit more honesty that you already have. It seems to me that if He gave it all to us in one birthday present, our heads would blow up, or something! Or more likely, we wouldn't know what to do with it. Hope that helped. This journey is the big game - the only real game in town. It is really, really precious, and so: it takes time, lots of time...- Dov
