Way to go

mstrbtd again i the morning same as last week- not much else to say my alarm was on but not strong enough to wake me up- i was kinda tired last night....maybe in the mornings if i wake up late i shud turn to a book bec that might keep me focused on reading and away from mstrbtng...

OK, so I think I rarely do this, but here is some plain old advice:

1 - Get far, far more connected to people than you are right now, SG. This will take time, but it starts right this minute. You are way too isolated though you may not see it.

Funny thing, being married actually creates more loneliness for us types, rather than feeling more connected. For we chronic masturbators know and love isolation and mis-connection only too well. In marriage, the differences between us and our spouses that may have seemed insignificant while we were going out and engaged - get progressively clearer to us as we are married for longer and longer. Sexually, our spouses are always more different than us than we'd like to think. And that's really the tip of the iceberg! The monetary, philosophic, religious, and familial differences between us become more apparent with time. And they are real.

Welcome to real life! Marriage is about how we deal with differences, not about whether they exist.

Marriage is supposed to be a new connection. A connection that leads to what Chaza"l say, "ein ish meis ella l'ishto, v'ein isha meisah ella l'ba'alah". Heck, it is created by a monetary connection, legal connection, or sexual connection (kesef, shtar or biyah) and consumated by the most intimate of connections, sex. But after watching total strangers having sex with total strangers - in front of cameras used by total strangers - for years, as we have...the relationship and intimacy associated with sex is all but reversed! But that's sick, not the truth about sex. And the detachment we cultivate in our own marriages by hiding and faking, is not the truth about marriage, either. It's poison.

If we are normal, we work life's natural problems out with whatever help we can get. We talk about them with our spouses, we go to a rov, friend, parent, and/or shrink and we work on it - whatever we need...and it remains OK to be alive. Sometimes it is even fun!

But if we are addicts, we have this handy-dandy set of tools that are always ready to be used for immediate, fake relief from 'pesky' real life. And we have been running to our fake best friend for years and years! We have one of the tools on our bodies every morning in bed. We have other tools inside our minds from the second moment in the morning till the last moment before we fall asleep each night. We discover other tools when we walk out of the house and see real people on the street or in the office. We discover well-honed tools made out of our resentment, fear, and obsession in shul, the beis midrash, work, our families and in our own homes. These 'bad' tools only multiply - they never get fewer or shrink...until we start to recover from our craziness and self-centered way of seeing everything.

So you have nothing to lose by confronting more and more things that you prefer not to communicate about, not fewer. And that means really connecting with more people in your life, and banishing isolation and self-pity. They suck. And then life will get easier, not harder. It's all about relationships.

Along those lines, I suggest your mornings to be spent with a chavrusa as early as possible for a few minutes before shacharis in the same shul every day so you have a routine. Davening with the same group of guys so you can daven for them is very, very helpful. The nameless, faceless minyan factory is almost as bad as the closet, for me. The connections early in the morning help people like us, a lot. I have a short chavrusa with another recovering pervert in the morning before shacharis. It's a good thing. And we actually learn (when we are both there at the same time!) :.

2- Minimize the time you spend thinking. Mulling things over while you drive, daven, walk places, talk with someone else, are going to sleep...is usually a bad idea. We are never more alone and isolated than when we are deep inside our our thoughts. And they are usually just obsessions, obsessions, obsessions. Replaying stuff, worrying, gnawing thoughts about matters we are not yet willing to actually do antything about....

We need to have something else to do than think our useless and obsessive thoughts. Praying to and talking to our own G-d and really talking to people, are therapeutic. Even thinking about what it is that I am doing right now is a great alternative to the usual stewing and gnawing obsession, that is so typical for us. They say that someone once asked the Kotzker what he should be willing to actually give his life up for. The Kotzker told him, "Whatever you are doing right now." Real life should be one in which we are connected to (that means loving) what we are doing - cuz it is supposed to be precious to us. Right now.

Obviously, any guy (like I can be) who can be on the way to the supermarket, see a pretty woman and go and follow her like it is real important, drooling - does not appreciate the value of going to the supermarket and buying food to eat. Any guy (like I can be) who can be studying for a test and get distracted by a thought of "Hey, wonder who is really pretty on the internet, right now?" and just go check it out...back at athe races - does not appreciate the value of studying for a test. It's precious! What we are doing is precious. There is eternal value in it - Rav Noach, zt"l always talked about how that is just basic yiddishkeit, not 'madreigas'.

That's also the fruit of recovery. For an addict, it is just the entranceway in the lobby - the bottom floor. It's part of his 3rd step (see AA's 12&12 on it).

3- Give up at least a bit on perfectionism.

Especially in recovery, yiddishkeit, and marriage, I need to surrender my goofy and childish perfectionistic expectations. It kills me. We need to be allowed to screw up here and there - be honest and open about it, and go on. All I need to do - all we can do - is keep trying to do the next right thing - not to "be good", or to "be recovered".

4- Don't take unsolicited, free advice from strangers.

1 and 2 seem to be two sides of the same coin. 

1) Do connect to people - Mitzvas Asei
2) Don't mull things over in my own head - Mitzvas Lo Sasei

thx dov- i need to read over and internalize what you said- but your points look salient as always

After a long time being able to keep GYE and related issues hidden from my fiancee/wife - as per the personal advice of a respected Rav/psychologist- my wife found out more abt me and gye yesterday. (she already knew i got the emails but nthng more) She found a message I was writing to someone AND she also  discovered that I put k9 on her computer. Her computer is newer than mine and so I decided to put k9 on her comp since I used that one much more than my own. At first I did not want to tell her abt gye which upset her. then i told her that it is an anonomys website where guys help each oether, etc.)
I thought it would have gone worse but after about 10 mins we were joking abt other stuff and the gye seemed to pass over.
i shold not make as a big a deal over it- i need to focus on letting Hashem help me.
on another note - i fell yestrdy with literature right before i left for a class in the afternoon- since the k9 does not block everything...

Not giving you advice...but:

You two are very young together yet - maybe there is still 'time' to change and keep your communication real and open as a couple, to the point that you two never get to where my wife and I where after the first ten years of our marriage: me the victim of my own growing mass of secrets...her struggling to keep us happy and in the dark about my world.

It sucked.

Getting caught did not get me sober, either. I finally gave the fight up and got sober a year and a half after getting caught. See, the weight of my secrets grew and fed on itself, till there was no value left in the relationship - so losing it could not save me, any more! The pain of my acting out and unmanageability had to grow much greater for me to have any motive to finally give up. That sucked worse. But nu, the rough ride got me where I needed to get, and here I am, alive and getting well, b"H. And here we are - our marriage is alive and getting well, b"H.

Hey, at least your facade and pekk'le are not too complex and huge, yet. It may feel that way to you, but it is not....yet. Seize the opportunity to open up to her, if you think it is right.

Hey SG,

Does marriage help in any way (regarding p&m)? Does it make things worse? Just curious...

Chevra,
I'm reading this and telling myself that it's all so relevant to me. My biggest problem is when I am on vacation and have a lot of spare time, and sometimes get a little down, so I resort to this terrible stuff. I tell myself I should occupy my time with other things but it's very hard for me to leave the computer and pick up a book for instance. What has worked best for you guys?

Ummm....vacation is supposed to be for fun and rejuvenation. Your immediate problem here is not lust or kedushas habris, sir. I suggest that your main and most pressing problem is that you do not know what to do with yourself  on vacation.  I need to be busy with living this life, not taking t laying down.

If I take life laying down, I will eventually be on my knees in the bathroom masturbating to porn again. Now, that's no place for a nice Jewish boy like me, is it?

Relate?

Then get busy living. Now. Contrary to popular belief, life doesn't just 'happen'.

You will be matzli'ach.

installed wrote on 27 Dec 2011 03:10:

See here www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=4915.msg128992#msg128992

Hijacking my forum!!!! .... JK

To answer Installed... I dont know if it has helped, but I do believe I am having less encounters with p and m since marraige about 4 months ago. i have not been totally clean as you seen in these pages, but i think it has been less, yes. was it the marriage? i dont know - id have to think abt it more...

- seeing espn.com having a movie ad with one maidel caused me to want to see what was out there. despite the k9 on my wife's comp (it is on a low setting) i found pictures. this lead to mstrbtn in middle of night. today i watched a little bit of not so kosher movie and then after about 20 minutes switched to another movue which wasnt so bad (but still prob not the greatest for me)

heading to beis medrash now friends

May I lovingly and caringly ask what the hell you are doing?

what u mean what was i doing? what was i doing watching a movie or what was i doing going to the beis-- ??

OK, not the beis midrash! But the movies...the ESPN...the low-setting on the filter computer....the middle of the night business...

I may be very different from you, but I cannot afford these things. They are luxuries that the earth-people - the normal people can afford, but I cannot. It's as simple as that. If I want to remain in life, part of rather than apart from all those around me, G-d, myself, and everything...then I simply have no business looking at women on the TV, movies with pretty women in them being friendly in any way to men...the entire venue is meshugeneh for me to be involved in. And I do not mean it's an 'aveira,' or that "I better not look, or I'll spill seed" as a result.

All I mean is that I cannot handle it, while all the normal people can.

It's over. The game is up.

And the hiding from the wife is sick, if you ask me. It's just more lying and insanity. If she'd be doing - and hiding - such things from you, you'd go out of your mind that she has an entire hobby and life compartment like this that she is hiding from you and lying about.

The game is over. Getting caught is not the thing that does damage to your relationship, at all. It is when you and me hide and do it, that we are turning our back on our best human friends and on our marriages. That is when the damage is actually done. Actually believing this is a huge step toward 'accountability' and growing up.

Sure, she'll be PO'd and hurt. But this seems to me like it is all shekker. It's struggling and hiding in order to keep struggling and keep the game in play. It's totally unfair to you, to her, and to your marriage.

I am not saying you must tell her now. What I am saying is that this running and hiding that we all do is sick, immature and damaging, and that it must eventually stop.

Stopping is the ikkar here. But if 'being honest and fully open from today on', is not working for you (which is most likely the case) then it may be time for a little reality.