ploni seems we have some common ground.
The mitzvah of ona'a is for the wife's desire. There is no mitzvah to force sex on an unwilling partner, so I think you are correct. What I have found for myself is that there are other ways to be close to your spouse that do not include sex. I will guess that she wants to have a relationship with you, you just have to find out where that is and learn to experience pleasure from that. Isolating yourself from her is not a solution or a marriage. It just increases the feelings of loneliness. I view it as my job as her husband to find that place of communication and be there with her.

ploni.almoni@gmx.com wrote:


I'm sorry you weren't warned before chossing your avatar, I tried warning newcomers here. Funny is our avatar's have really become somewhat part of us.

ploni.almoni@gmx.com wrote:


If someone would tell you that they have a method to stay clean forever, would you pursue it?

If yes, then I have good news for you. There are people on this very website (and hundreds not on the website) that have been completely sober for 16 years!!! Could you imagine?!!

There is just one catch, we need to listen to what they tell us, not what we think sounds "right". We are used to "thinking our own way out of it", that hasn't helped us until now, and that is exactly what continuously gets us back into the problem (Hint: we are only clean for x amount of days, they are a few years clean, who is right?).

Join the club, it's an extraordinary ride!!

What would I have to do to be clean forever?

ploni.almoni@gmx.com wrote:


Yes, and to think that he was also Miracle Max

Now i got myself in trouble

First let it be clear that I am no where near 16 years sober. I am clean today and have been for the last 115 days.

I can't really give someone else a guidebook, what has helped me is reading, writing, and speaking, the 12 step terminology that I have seen here on the forum. Words like "powerless", "acceptance / surrender", "Higher Power (Hashem for real)". trying to internalize it all.

Maybe others who are more into it can line it out more.

Hatzlacha Rabbah!!

So what you really saying is you are grateful to certain other people for giving you some actions or thoughts that cause you to successfully change your behaviors and give you back your self-respect, and you are so happy about this that you think these people must possess perfect insight and that these actions must be the right ones to take. And I think you are also saying that what I wrote is either not clear, or it's yet another abortive attempt at recovery, and that you don't believe it one bit Is that about right?

I am sorry you don't understand what I am doing, I am sorry that I probably didn't explain it too well and that I can't sell it to you. But I think that this all normal because the biggest challenge in life is das, and therefore when a person doesn't investigate and doesn't explore and consider, he should come to the wrong conclusions.

But I am very happy that you dream of convincing me to do what you do because I know you are doing that because you think it's the best for you and you want me to have the best stuff

So thank you!

If later on you get to know your recovery method better I would love to hear more about it.

Pidaini told me he is going to feel closer to me if I write here, so here it goes.

Last night something new happened. I went back to my bed to settle in for an independent life while my wife is pregnant and is afraid to have sex. And my wife got anxious at the thought that I am not going hold her and comfort her and keep her safe at night for the next nine months. Basically she is panicking when she thinks I am going to slip away from her. I don't exactly know what she is thinking deep down, because I can't know, but I know it's causing her anxiety. Maybe for the first time in her life she fell in love and she is afraid of what that might mean for her.

As a result we had a discussion (which I really didn't want to have) and finally I went over to her bed and we lived together so she could feel better. I feel better about it too. I am more willing to turn myself off while sleeping next to her because I know it's an important thing, it's not a perk for her.

This is going to make the next ten months a lot more interesting for my sexual sobriety.

Yesterday it really hit me how I had allowed myself to take on responsibility for my wife's happiness over the last few weeks. That is not good. I can influence, but I cannot control. Ultimately it's her thoughts that will determine how she feels.

This morning I gave her a big hug and told her to think good things. She was pretty happy.

ploni.almoni@gmx.com


Hi Ploni,

I have known Pidaini (on here, as well as over the phone) for quite a while now and I think you may have misread his intentions.

I don't think he is pushing his ideas on you, and I don't think he ever would. People should do whatever they find works for them.

He is just suggesting that if there are people on here who have been sober for such a long time, there may be something to what they are doing. As such, he himself has tried it, and it seems to be working for him.

People can only share what works for them, for that is all they really know. On this site, we are encouraged to share those methods, for someone else may find them helpful, as well.

Hatzlacha!

ploni.almoni@gmx.com wrote:

Dear חשוב'ע Freind! welcome to our geshmake club!
I have something good to tell you about this para. would y' mind if i write it in hebrew or yidish, since typing english takes me hours? or maybe would somone volentere(?) to interpete?

I am not fluent in either. Maybe you could write it in hebrew and someone could post a translation below, so if I have a question about specific words I can look at the original.

Just because you and your wife have separate beds( like eveyone else here who is married!) doesn't mean that you have to inhabit your bedroom as if you are on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall or the 38th Parallel-like some sort of undeclared war zone. I don't know or have heard of any minhag or chumra not to have sex eith your wife when she is pregnant. Having that discussion with your wife was a major step forward.

Let's see where it goes from here. Let's hope it's a good thing. But if it's not, whatever, sometimes the fastest way to getting better is to fall hard. Look at the US economy. With all the money printing it still feels like 2008. If they just let it fall apart we could finally move on.

I held my wife in bed last night, but I did not bother her for sex. I decided to turn myself off. Yesterday I wrote to myself during my regularly appointed time of solitude and I realized what a burden it is for your mind to have relations with your wife. No wonder it's a mitzvah to do it. It's not a burden to do it one night for your own sake, for the pleasure, but it is a burden once you start doing that regularly, because you are subject to her ups and downs, you start believing you need it, discussions, sometimes you climax too soon, sometimes you can't climax, etc. I see it when I write to myself in the morning because when I have sex I am constantly writing about it. And in the end you end up with nothing, or it feels like nothing. If you do it right, you just get pleasure (well, if your wife knows how to make love it brings you closer too, not my case though.) It's basically about tahara. In order for it not to stick to you you have to do it with the right intentions. So you end up persuading yourself to do it less because it's impossible to be mindful about it when you do it all the time and it just takes over your mind. Which I guess is why prishus comes before tahara.

It always amazes me how self-consistent and subtle the Torah is, and how far its true understanding is from my first take on something (thanks for nothing tree of knowledge ...) After a while you just start to get the belief that that the Torah is where you are going to find not only a good answer, but the best of all the good answers, if you are lucky enough to find it.

>> You could look at it that way, but usually I don't label my
>> life as "surviving." If I did that I would get bad feelings.
>> Maybe we would be better off divorced, but I think it's better
>> not to do it. The real love that matters is being loyal,
>> watching out for each other, building something together. So I
>> am not so sure I am missing much. But it's easy to think that
>> happiness comes from being loved.

I can not give anyone any advices. I was in a similar situation for a long time -- I wanted to separate from my parents.

I do not know if I should ever get married -- from what I understand in modern world most men are controlled by their wives much more then adults who live under their parents' authority. At least my parents provide me with good house and food and allowance money. But a married man has to work like a slave.

No actually. A married man does not have to work like a slave. But if you believe that, then it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and you will make it come true.

You never answered any of my questions about kind of therapy you did. It's obvious that your therapy doesn't work and you need to find something that does.