Hello everyone,
I'm what you would call a "choshuve guy" chassidishe levush heimish upbringing and learnt in the "big" litvishe yeshivos including Brisk and BMG. I was in kollel for about ten years then got a job out of Lakewood as a rebbe in a mesivta.`i have b"h a great wife (understatement) and a beautiful family. I've been lusting ever since I can remember at least since I'm 12, in one form or another. It started i guess with magazines and catalogs that my mother didn't hide well enough and lusting after my sisters' friends who would come over to the house. I shteiged away in learning but bain hazmanim was a disaster as was late nights and sometimes even afternoons in yeshiva. (b"h no lust for boys "just" girls) eretz yYisroel was great in learning and horrible for my addiction. There i found erotic books and magazines easily and was the first time i got onto a chat line that cost a fortune.
i thought when I get married I'll be cured but no such miracle happened. my wife was a clueless sweet bais yaakov girl while i was a lustaholic. it took me yers for her to actually enjoy the relations physically (no thanks to the kalla teacher - she had no idea what orgasm is and definitely not what parts of her body bring her there.)
many years and many tears over elul r"h yom kippur and other spiritual times (read: shovavim) i thought I'd be rid of this only to fall again from some stupid trigger - something attractive in the store or whatever.
this past year i had the longest break of sobriety like from elul to purim. then it was back to the races. I was on the phone lines (thankfully no internet at home and phone and laptop have been disconnected since the big citifield asifa) and found a young jewish girl who was extremely shameless and begging for lust. She found a willing accomplice in me (among other men that fell with her) untill finally i was caught by a family member of hers trying to help her. I almost lost my job, my wife my kids and my life! thank HaShem there is a tzadik of a yid who knew me from the chinuch field and helped me. I'm now in therapy and also on the night call and working the 12 steps.
My wife is on board - she figured out that i was going to therapy - and I hope that I can remain strong!
b'ezer Hashem naaseh v'natzliach!

Welcome to the club Will,

My name is Eli. I too have been lusting since who knows when (single digit age) and learned in chashuve yeshivas, thought getting married would help, have tried to stop 100s of time, cried during Elul, tried all the segulas, tefillos, and tikkunim...

but nothing worked.

I was caught with porn more than once (wife, mother, boss - different people) and I still didn't stop until I found this place.

The oilom quotes Einstein saying "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

I really was am insane, and therefore I continued sinning.

ein adam choteh elah im kein nichnas bo ruach shtus

B'H with a very supportive wife and a dear friend who I began to share my struggles with and GYE the past 9 months have the cleanest that I've had in 20 years.

I have received a tremendous amount of chizuk from the incredible special chevra here.

I think you will too

WOW! Thank you for sharing that! You are in the right place. A group of addicts with similar stories all trying to encourage and help each other. There is something for everyone here.

Keep posting... and as they say here KOT (Keep on Truckin!). You seem to be on the right path to recovery.

WOW is right! Your story sounds so much like many of us (including myself, more or less). The good news is that GYE is here to help. And the even better news is that many have already been helped through GYE. So, welcome aboard and make yourself comfortable. It's a heimishe oilem of all sorts. The price is right. So it's worth the investment. Read the GYE handbook and find where you fit in and what you need to try. And, as a great man once said: Bris kerusah letaamulah, she'eina chozeres reikom.

Hatzlacha

MT

Machshovo Tova wrote:

What is "letaamulah"?

letaamula=לתעמולה
The shoresh of taamula is amal - עמל - effort

MT

Thanks, who was the great man?

I believe it was R' Yosef Yitzchock Schneerson zt"l of Lubavitch (de Rebbe de Shver - The Mahariyat"z).

MT

Welcome to gye, home of many choshuve people

inastruggle wrote:


you're really making me laugh today

I'm serious.

I think that a large percentage of people here are from the best part of klal yisroel.A lot of people come here for religious reasons (many find out that they need it for more than that), if you're fighting such a battle for Hashem then you must be gantz choshuv.

Even if you aren't choshuv when you come here, after hanging around such people then you can't help but become like them

Why are you still here? you're supposed to be setting up the leichters :p

Leicher was done in the AM

reallygettingthere wrote:

Good! We need to avoid P/M.

MT

Back again. need to continue my story. The most difficult days in my life was when my wife found out. I was caught chatting and sending inappropriate messages and pictures to someone. By the grace of the Holy One Blessed be He the "askan" who was made aware of the goings on was one I had dealt with in chinuch matters closely for a number of years. He made an emergency meeting with me ( quite a driving distance away made up a sory to my wife that an emergency chinuch issue came up ) He put himself out to help me but only btnai that I go for therapy and clean house. I was forced to go see a therapist or risk losing my job life wife et al. At first i told my wife it was work related that the askan arranged me to meet with s/o who specializes in these issues, but when the second week came and i told her i need to go again she lost it like I never saw before. (later she told me she was afraid i was doing drugs or stole money or who knows what and was in trouble with the law!)
She said she felt so alone and hurt knew I had no choice but to let her know the truth. I traveled to my Rebbe (chassidic) and told him what was going on, i cried like a baby in his room and he was mechazek me. He told me I'm still a good Jew and still welcome in his court i cried some more. He advised me to be honest with my wife and after returning from 2nd therapy (right after visit w rebbe)i was! it was horrible! We began a new life with me letting her in on all my life's secrets I FELT LIKE A SOILED DIAPER!
B"H she's been working with me and we've really startyed a new marriage together she now knows of my nisyonos and "understands" what I've been and am going through. I've been clean since B"H, (55 days today) but not without nisyonos though b"h I'm petrified to act out again!
We had a baby two weeks ago and I don't think i ever made it through a six week period without at least my wife to be with. As a bochur forsure not and after marriage though I had sometimes months of sobriety most recently almost 6! months it definityely would not have been that way without a normal *** life w my wife. Hashem help me that I make through the next 4 weeks, especially summer when the triggers are magnified and multiplied!
HaShem I'm in Your Hands!

What a story Will-b, what a story!

My Maggid Shiur used to say "s'geit nisht fallen veiter"- the only way to go is UP, and the good news is, you're with the perfect chevrah to do just that, so
WELCOME HOME!