hopefull,

Here is something to help you think about when you get jealous.  Maybe you saw my wife and thought I was the lucky guy.  Well, I haven't had sex with my wife in about 2 months.

having a beautiful wife does not solve our problem.  I find my wife very beautiful and very attractive.  I would rather be with her than anyone else but it doesn't help my porn addiction one bit.  Porn for me is no different than cocaine for a drug addict.  It makes me forget my pain (only during - after it hurts worse than before) and takes me away from whatever is going on at the moment.  Street lust is no different.  Lust is not about fulfilling a normal need, it is about wanting what you don't have yet. So as soon as you get something lust hast to move on to the next thing.

The other thing is that just cause you marry a gorgeous woman doesn't mean she is going to want to have sex whenever your interested.  Now THAT is frustrating!! Maybe more so than not being married and having sex at all.

Classical addictive thinking is that everything would be better if just I had..........a wife, no wife, a different wife, sex, no sex, a new car...........

As an addict I don't naturally enjoy the moment I want something outside of me to change first and then I'll be happy.  For me recovery means accepting everything around me and changing the one thing over that I real don't want to change - ME.

Jooboy-

Wow. All I can say is, respect for keeping with it.

Also, as of lately, many posts Ive been seeing have been making me, a single guy, pretty nervous. Im not even sure what to say or think. we singles want to get married so much, for companionship, to grow, to live, love, and yes sex probably wouldnt hurt either. is it all an illusion? unattainable in todays world? is anyone happy in marriage? are there any decent amount of good relationships? do women just decide, thats it, no sex. how does this all work? its so confusing. i know it takes work, hard work. im not delusional at all, and i hate to be negative, im just in wonder and very nervous, for myself, for my friends, for everyone here, and for klal yisroel. Whats gonna be?

shmiras,

don't let me scare you off too fast

There are a lot of nice things about being married including all the things you mentioned and yes even sex.  It's just that getting nice things out of marriage is an expectation that is a setup for disaster.  All those sheva brachos speeches you hear about giving instead of taking are true.  You do get good things from marriage but only from the giving never from the taking.

Marriage is not about two totally whole, developed and emotionally helathy people getting together to make babies, go on vacation together and enjoy life.  It is about growing into the people that we can become but only through the trials and tribulations of living with a spouse.

Yes it is work, sometimes painful, much of the time enjoyable and we do it not because it is easy but because GOD wants us to.

bardichev wrote on 22 Jun 2010 22:42:


Hello shmiras and jooboy

I wnat to remind you both of the purpose of this thread

I realize you are answering "hopefuls" question

But I am trying to keep this thread simple

It does not discuss p+#n or s#x its

Simply the trials and tribulations. Of keeping shmiras einyim

NOT in front of the computer or TV. Etc


Good luck

And keep on truckin

B

jooboy and shmiras thank you for that chizuk

shmiras i love what you said it made me smile and gave me hope

hopefull

A thought. I am sometimes out and I see someone else looking to long at a woman and I find it revolting ( funny how we see our faults in others) I usually walk away from that inspired to be stronger myself in what I look at.

Bards- sorry about that, its easy to get caught up in discussion, I'll move it to pm or another thread.

Jooboy- thanks so much for the insight and advice- I'd like to talk to you more about it, either in pm, but also I think the "singles- were in a different boat" thread would benefit from gaining more understanding from you. You're realistic and honest, I really agree with what your saying, just hard to face sometimes.

firstly i cant write about the main topic with out saying shmiras and jooboy spot on good posts. shmiras its hard but very rewarding work that gets more rewarding with time, but jooboy is right even the pretties wives will not let their husbands benefit from it!

Now on to the main topic, ifeel the same way, lately i fell after 120 days and picked myself up and started again, now bh i have managed to stay clear of big trouble but really really bad on the smiras einayim issue, i also seem to justify to myself that its ok, but i notice that the more i look at htose legs and covered parts the more i crave and then i need more, so yes although we know its wrong and ossur it may seem harmless to our screwed up little minds but we have to avoid it because it leads to terrible things, its the start of falling again, it is so hard, so in our face sometime but we CANT take that second look, we have to be strong...for our own sakes

Taking a second look is really painful but we are too caught up in the moment to remember that

I am not a posek

But I "think"

The pain one feels by not taking the second look,is a kapparra for the first one

Most poeple can not avoid "reiah" seeing something

The issur is histaklus. Gazing or staring

If u "catch yourself "before staring. That's great. Even if u cant stop TURN AWAY even slowwwwwly

Now try try try. To avoid the second look

B

what works for me is thinking ,this is dangerous toxic poison ,it looks good but after a few bites i will get sick and it will kill

and thats true once you take 1 bite you will take more till you find yourself on the bottom of the pit

R' Bardichev,

Excellent topic and thank you for creating a thread on this area.
Despite being of "Newbie" status, I am going to add my two cents.

Part of why this is so challenging, in my opinion is:
#1, the Y"H says, "this stuff is publicly on display, without embaressment, how bad can it be?"
#2, You can't help but see some stuff sometimes and the Y"H convinces us (me) that this is part of the unavoidable looking and not really intentional looking.

What helps,
#1, Obviously reminding ourselves of the basic isur
#2 especially for members of this forum, we should realize that if we are not careful in this area, it is almost impossible not to slip back into the depths...
#3 focusing on the successes that we do have.

Nite tip,
aish kodesh wrote on 02 Jul 2010 01:40:


What may help is to visualise something horrible when you do look. After doing this a few times, it will start becoming automatic and you will eventually relace the nice sensation of looking with an unpleasant one

maybe we should take a trip to a shochet for some ammo...

Great topic bard.

For me, knowing the damage done to the Neshamah, or understanding the dynamics or underpinnings would probably be very interesting to be shown. But I've got all I can handle just keepin on truckin, keeping my eyes on the road, and not slamming into anybody's rear end.  Who can think???

Without getting cryptic, what I want to share is that I got down so low, lost so much, so much shame, lost my good name, jailtime, I just can't indulge my "gotta have it'.  I know exactly where one thing leads to another.  Been there.  It's tzelmavet.  So for me there's a living breathing palpable feeling of dread, and fear that has gotten paired up with that "gotta have it" intense feeling. 

If it's out there with the summer attire, or the mannequin in a store window, if there's something my yetzer can get me to wrap my head around and the rush of "gotta have it" fires up into my chest and brain, right next to that rush comes the fear.  The fear of where I've been.  This isn't Yiras H" I'm talking about.  This is real p'shat.  For me it's play with fire, got burned before, gonna get burned again. So keep your eyes down, or on the road if you happen to be truckin.

BTW, I tried truckin while being in analysis, therapy, and reading Tanya--all very wonderful things to do, if appropriate.  But for me I kept rear ending the car right in front of me.  (three marriages, three divorces, with three kids).  After enough wreckage, lots of help and chizuk from you guys, and Hashgacha Pratis of the undeniable kind, I just practice keeping my eyes on the road.  It's pretty hard to do.  But it's improving.  And at least it's something very simple to do.  Hishtadlut has to be simple for me:  Opportunity pulls up next to my cab, bad memories and bad feelings, keep on truckin.  P'shat.

Hashem knows an am ha'aretz when he makes one.  I've suffered plenty.  Not suffering is better.  Please trust me.  Bottom out from on top, as the Guard teaches us. 

R' Bardichev,

I want to sponsor a L'chaim for everyone on the forum at Bardy's.

This past Thursday, I was flying back home from the "Out-of-town" city I was visiting and unfortunately the person sitting next to me on the plane was a woman was obviously not makpid on Rabbi Falk's standard of tznius (she was wearing what 1daat generously referred to as "summer attire"). It was not practical for me to change my seat, but B"H I managed to keep my eyes where they belonged. The first half of the trip I kept my eyes closed/slept and for the second, I put my sefer by the window and looked out the window/learned.

I credit much of my success to the inspiration picked up from the Oilam on the forum and I want to thank everyone for it.