Shalom Aleichem. Just read your story on GYE and am so moved and inspired. Thank you SO MUCH for being yourself and sharing with others. I am on my own SSA journey, currently going thru Jonathan Hoffman's SSA weekly conference call. It's actually my second round. Have been looking around on the GYE SSA forum for an accountability partner. Yesterday I was reading thru some posts there and found myself getting stimulated by reading about guys acting out with men. I felt awful and was really beating myself up about it, thinking that it  wasn't safe for me to read this stuff and probably not a good idea to contact another guy with SSA (didn't trust myself). Reading your story has given me the chizuk to reach out. Would welcome the chance to speak with you over the phone if you've got the time. For now you can email me at mgraiser613@gmail.com. (same goes for anyone else for that matter). And again, thank you for being you! - Michoel

Aleichem Shalom!! Welcome, it's always good to be reminded that we are not alone.
I was on Jonathan's calls in the past but the new Sunday schedule doesn't work for me.
I've also had the experience of being triggered by posts here, and I actually asked a big Rosh Yeshiva (one of the very few people I opened up to IRL) and he said that it would be worse if I went back into isolation again and that I should just be careful. Still there are some posts that I have an unhealthy urge to go back and read again and I try to avoid those threads.
I can't do phone but I'd be glad to keep in touch by PM or email. 

Just came across this, a great speech about our struggle. http://matzav.com/watch-never-ever-play-this-game/

Here's another link to the same speech that will work if you have Youtube blocked. https://www.torahanytime.com/#/lectures?v=52772

About time i bumped this thread

yeah hi, just in case you didn't read the thank you at our chat, thanks a lot. i saw just now that you posted that story 7 years ago. Well, if there aren't there any  new installments, does that mean a happy end? or at least a happy continuation?
either way, much hatzloche and i'll try to keep in touch,
dontwannabecynical

Have a good shabbos to all.

alexeliezer wrote on 06 Sep 2011 15:45:

Yep, it can and it will!

Wishing everyone a Ksiva Vachasima Tova, a sweet new year with lots of success in your “GYE” journey and in all areas b’Ruchniyus ub’Gashmiyus. 

Repost in honor of Sunday's Daf...
Gevura Shebyesod wrote on 17 Aug 2011 04:02:

Wow, Gevura Shebyesod,

I don't remember if I had read this post before, but I am glad it is still here for people to read and contemplate.  We have a similar background, but you were raised more frum and full of Yiddishkeit than I was.  I am also in my 40's, (at the time you originally posted I was 41, but now...looking towards 50 pretty soon).  I was raised "goyish" to be sure, and both parents were atheist, and my "sex education" was through public school, and their attitude even as a young teenager had always baffled me.  Their attitude was basically one of resignation that teenagers were going to engage in..er..s*x, and so just teach them about the biology and "mechanics" if you will, but nothing about the significance, the gravitas of it all. (Morality is not taught in public school, so they could have never approached it from that angle).

I had engaged in mz"l from a very early age, about 3, (as my mother as told it).  That must have been before I was conscious of it, because I never thought my mother knew, until one day when she had mentioned it. (don't ask about how that could even come up in a conversation!).  I had been always more SSA than not, although attracted to both male and female.   I too was a loner, and still am, (which I think has caused a lot of problems).  I always had only a few close friends.

I was in state college at 20 years old, when I started questioning my sexuality, but with no religious foundation, I was quite ready and willing to accept a g*y label.  And it was a deep, emotional crush that I developed on my roommate that started me asking those questions.  When I had c**e o*t, I hadn't had s*x, but felt sure because of the process of examining my feelings, combined with the g*y presence on campus, which was pretty strong.
I started to date men and yes, I had taken the "plunge" but gradually, (due to my own shyness, I think, and nervousness).  Since that time, I have at times, committed "the act", but luckily those times are few. I was involved in the g*y community for a long time, first in a more political way, and then less so, but still g*y identified.

The turnaround point came for me, when my p**n addiction became so out of control, that I was looking at it while I was at work, and I printed a picture, and it didn't go to the printer that I was expecting it to!  My heart was racing, because I didn't know where it had printed.  What if I couldn't find it?  What if someone else did?  Luckily, I found it, and I realized then that I had a problem.

Religion is the subject of another addiction or maladaptive behavior, but at the time, I had just become a Catholic, (my Dad is Jewish, mother is not: both atheist). So I didn't think I could even refrain from mz"l, since it had been a habit for a long time.  I remember praying a simple prayer: "G-d, if homosexuality is really wrong, then help me to stop mz"l."  -- Something along those lines...and I was surprisingly able to do it for 3 or 4 months --- Until a nisayon came along while I was looking for an apartment, and failed it.  

And so there has been a waffling: between g*y life and religious life is some form or fashion.  But now, as I approach 50, while I want to leave the SSA life, I don't know really how to go about it to where I would stay out of it.  The few people I talk with are all "g*y", and when I step into religious circles, I feel out of place.  Most people my age are married, and they have children.  I've never had any sort of dating/non-platonic relationship with a woman.  And right now, for a number of reasons, I'm not exactly prize bochur material.  

So I find myself, still in a place where I am asking myself: "What do I do now?"  Originally, when I asked that question, it was in regard to how I was to fulfill a g*y lifestyle, now it is in regard to how I would live outside of it.  

There are times when I think about "What if?" What if I just found the right guy?  Would I be happy?  I have to remind myself that it really is impossible to be happy in that sort of situation.  I would have to have a piece of myself die in order to be in that sort of relationship, namely the part that doesn't want to either engage in s*x or identify as g*y.  And for me, especially never being with a woman, it's hard to completely drop the g*y identity, but have made progress in that front.

I didn't intend for the long ramble, but here it is...

KoachCheshvan wrote on 28 Sep 2018 00:56:

I think you could pull this off if you go to 12-step (SA) meetings and keep going no matter what. Then start dating a woman, and be up front with her about what you are doing. I think 12-step could provide a fitting spiritual environment.

For the record, your mother is not subject to Jewish religious requirements so you are not either, unless you convert with a traditional rabbinic court.

Thanks MZL, 

I was just reading a Jewish pro-SA perspective, which made me reconsider my long-standing objections to it.  
As far as dating a woman, I will definitely need some advice on that one.  I wouldn't even know what to look for...In a sort of odd romantic notion, it would be a lesbian that is looking to change, and we both work together to become "hetero-normative". 

KoachCheshvan wrote on 28 Sep 2018 12:20:

You don't know what to look for. That is what you really need to always keep in mind while dating. If you speak to G-d sincerely and say "Hashem, I want to live out the rest of my life married to a woman because You can tell that living with a man is not good for me, find me a suitable wife," and then date, date and date again, I think success is likely. But you'll have to keep an open mind. G-d is not afraid to think out of the box.

You'll have to tell your date about your background and your plans and get through a lot of rejections, the sooner you get rejected by the wrong woman the sooner you'll get to the one you're going to marry.

Hello my friend.
90 days to go till you hit 2018?

Right now, I am working on the various areas that need improvement in order to be a good catch, like having finances in order and having some self-control...

In 90 days it will be 2019