Hi

I'm a frum, married and with 5 children.

All my life, i have been very carefull with women and never touched another woman other than my wife....but i inadventurely discovered nude images at yeshiva...and i continued for 20 years to increase the use of non kosher images on the internet.

It is now 20 years that i cry every yom kipur to stop. But no result.

This year i have intensified my willpower to fight my addiction.

I dedicated almost 80% of my time to fight the addiction : reading, seeing a therapist, reading tikun haklali...

But in the middle of this fight, the yetser harah caugth me and...i went with another woman...
In the middle of this forbidden relationship (5 min), i still made teshuiva and left the room.

Since i live with culpability and shame. I can't tell to my wife, i can't see myself in a mirror, i don't know if there is any teshuva for that...

Since i have been clean, and i feel the progress...but still having gone with a woman make me a great posheah.

Is there any tikun?
Thanks
Binyamine

Dear Benyamin43,

Welcome to our community, you have finally come home!

GuardYourEyes (GYE) is a vibrant network and fellowship of Jews of all affiliations, struggling to purify themselves and break free of lust related behaviors. For the first time, there is somewhere to turn to for help in these areas. We're all in the same boat here. 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!
 
In the last couple of years, the GYE network has helped roughly 1,000 Jews get back on a path of sanity, self-control and healing and has touched the lives of thousands more. GYE has become known throughout the Jewish world as the number one address for dealing with these challenges which have reached epidemic proportions. 

The tools of our recovery program were developed with guidance from the best experts in the field, such as Rabbi Dr. Avraham J. Twerski, and through the personal experience of hundreds of Jews who successfully broke free. We use a unique approach that recognizes that there are many different levels in these struggles.

Our network is comprised of a website, a pulsating forum, phone conferences, daily Chizuk e-mails, support hotlines, therapists, live 12-Step groups and a program of recovery for all levels of this struggle/addiction.

All our work is free of charge and we zealously protect the complete anonymity of all our members.

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

1) See the "GYE Program in a Nutshell" (Right Click the link and press "Save Link/Target As" to save the PDF file to your computer) that can help you quickly identify at what level of the struggle you are at, and which tools and features would help you most at your particular level.

2) Install a strong filter (see this page for more info). It is hard to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away.  The filter gabai at filter.gye@gmail.com will hold the passwords for you. We also highly advise installing "Reporting Software" such as webchaver.org to give you some accountability.

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

4) Join the 90 Day Challenge. Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change the neuron pathways created by addictive behaviors in the brain.

5) Post away on this forum, where hundreds of yidden like you exchange chizuk and post logs of their journey to recovery. You will internalize that you are not alone, and you will learn the techniques and attitude that work for so many others.

6) Join our free anonymous phone conferences, led by an experienced sponsor.

7) If you need more general guidance, write to GYE’s helpline at gye.help@gmail.com or call the hotline at 646-600-8100.

8.) Download and read the "Guard Your Eyes Handbook" (a hard copy can be purchased for cost price over here). 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, "The 20 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!

The second part, "Attitude & Perspective", detail 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…

Our souls cry inside of us, but we have accustomed ourselves to block out that cry. Today we can begin to be who we really want to be.

We are here for you.
www.GuardYourEyes.org
GYE E-Mail Helpline: gye.help@gmail.com
GYE Phone Hotline: 646-600-8100

...That was the official GYE welcome package.

Personally, I wanted to say a big yashar koach to you for joining the forum.  Keep on posting.

There is definitely hope.  Look around the forum, read other people's threads, you'll see for yourself how lots of other people have come out of the dark into the light.

It sounds like you are trying so hard.  Winning here is not about trying harder, it's about LETTING GO.  Surrender.  Giving up our lusting and lust-related behaviors.

Stick around, read the GYE handbooks, follow the tools of recovery and read the attitudes for recovery, and you can only get better.

It is not about being a bad person trying to be good; it is about being sick people trying to get well.  And, knowing that already makes life easier.

I struggled for so many years--most of my life.  Trying to stop m*sturbating, trying to stop looking at p*rn.  But, no matter how hard I tried to stop, and no matter how sincerely I wanted to stop, it just kept getting worse.

That is, until I joined GYE.  I learned I have an addiction, a lust-addiction.  I started with the forum, which helped.  But I was still having problems.  Little by little I got deeper and deeper into recovery.  I joined the anonymous 12-step phone conferences here about 2 1/2 years ago, and joined live SA (Sexaholics Anonymous) groups about 9 months ago.  Life has only been getting better.

I still struggle with lust, but I learned the real problem is the underlying Restlessness, Irritability, and Discontent (RID) I feel about life.  I am in pain, and I need pain killer, I need to feel better, so I learned to use lust to fill that need.  But, that RID is ultimately fueled by my EGO; I get upset, primarily, because things didn't go the way I wanted in the past (anger), or because I think they won't go the way I want in the future (fear).

I have learned to become increasingly less selfish and self-centered, to cope much better with life and with other people.  A lot of my fears and resentments have healed.  And, when they re-surface, I have learned new, and mature ways of dealing with them.  I am learning to enjoy life on life's terms, and to feel serenity and contentment no matter what may happen.

I have a long way to go, but I am definitely much better off than when I first joined this forum.  As I moved forward in recovery, my focus shifted from struggling with acting out to, instead, struggling with the activities--and then the thoughts and feelings that preceeded such acting out.  As I move along still further, I can detect such seemingly indirect triggers at subtler and subtler levels.  I feel I am in a much healthier place today.

Feel free to visit my thread (link at the very bottom of this message). 

And keep on posting.

Lots of luck to you.

You've come to the right place.

--Elyah

Nothing to add to Elyah's beautiful words, but I'd like to welcome you into our holy community, like the welcome package says, "You've finally come home!"
Welcome!

WELCOME Binyamin! Stick around and you will see there is much hope.  Although the specifics are different for each of us, we are all in the same boat.  Many have been helped, you will be too!  May this be the first positive step of many for you.  Willpower is not enough, you need the right tools.  Many of us tried and failed for years.  Many are now in recovery for years.  Hang around here, read the handbooks.  Many people did worse than you and are now sober leading happy and free (from the shackles of lust - that is).

Welcome Binyamin43

I can relate.  I was lost in my lust addiction for 30 years.  I fought hard.  Often I won, but too often I lost.  When I came here, I learned to stop fighting, as Elyah describes above.  It made all the difference.  I learned that the only way to stop lusting was to avoid it entirely.  No looking at women.  No entertaining lustful thoughts.

We've done it and so will you.  Read a lot here and learn what you need to do to give up lusting.  Life really will be so much better.

Hatzlacha!

Alex

Binyamin,

Of course you can do Teshuva. Hashem believes in you (that's the first thing you say when you get up in the morning). If He didn't, your heart would stop beating because He'd have no use for you...

You can be happy b/c you've been led to GYE where people like you and me get better!