I just saw this quote from Dan Ariely, author of The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves

If people get caught lying, do they tend to become more honest?

I do think it makes them more cautious. But dishonesty is selfishly rewarding in the present if you get away with it. And even if you don't, it's only negative in the future. We often weight the present over the future. There's also self-deception. We can't get caught lying when we think we're being honest.

is there a difference between lying, and just not telling a wife who never asked to be told?

It didn't help me.

Just made me try to hide better.

It didnt help me either, and i DIDNT get better at hiding... didnt exactly help my Shalom Bayis

I had a close call, it got me to come here. But I feel the effects of it waning.

Getting caught helped me to become a dry sex addict for a while, but my real recovery didn't begin until I found GYE.

what is a dry sex addict? what does that mean?

reallygettingthere wrote:

I think it really depends on the person... if their reaction to being caught is truly shock and dismay, then I imagine they'd at least try to become more honest. On the other hand, if they are driven to cover something up, or are so used to lying that they don't even realize it any more, then they would likely either try harder (to lie & cover it up) or just deny any wrongdoing.

As for a husband telling his wife about his problem... ultimately, I think this has to be done... I mean, they are sharing life together, two parts of the same (hopefully) greater neshama. Now, how much he tells her... that's a harder question... is telling the literally gory details necessary to get the point across to her that he has a challenge that he is now starting to try to address? I think more experienced posters than me have already said probably not... and my own experience agrees with that. I'll yield now to those more experienced...

Bob7667863 wrote:


It means although you are not acting out, you have done nothing to address the core issues that lead to the destructive behaviour. Such people are often "holding their breath" until they explode and act out again.

For the record, I was caught three times by three separate people and it didn't help me stop long term. It helped me stop only as long as the embarrassment of getting caught was fresh in my mind.

reallygettingthere wrote:
Exactly! I was fortunate enough to find GYE before I exploded - though I came awfully close .

A couple of years ago I almost got caught by a co-worker and I believed I will stop, I was so scared that I promised hashem to never do it again, but, i fall again the next day!

I didn't know whats wrong with me, now I know, I am an addict, getting caught will not help for me, I need to get real help!

"Getting caught"...

Some here have posted here that they got caught and it helped them hide better, Some have posted that it helped them get the real help they needed, but the getting caught itself didn't help them. Most seem to agree that while getting caught they'd stay clean at least for the time being...till their blown cover is restored a bit. I relate a lot. I ask anyone who was caught: if you really got caught with your pants fully down (literally or figuratively), did you feel a sense at the time of real remorse and imagine that you'd perhaps reform yourself now, and never return to this crap again?

...or did you just get a 'little' caught but not fully exposed as a porner/masturbater?

For those who got fully caught, I bet you honestly felt you'd reform yourself finally...

...till time wore on and your cover was restored, the trust came back or the dust settled a bit. And I bet it shocked you when you returned to the same exact old behavior again...

If you relate, so do I. The rest here is for you!

Gibbor120 knows the "Captain Kirk" factor...and he has posted in the past that he met recovering people face to face already and that doing that was very helpful to him. (Hey, Gibbor, correct me and sorry if I remember wrong, here, bud)

The 'Captain Kirk' idea (Can someone who knows how to do it find it and post a link here somewhere please?...it's been a while ) is about the power of getting caught and exactly how/why it works so well...for a while.

I want to expose a new kind of getting caught, and I think it is the real kind:

It's called, 'being caught', or 'living caught'.

People who get over the shame we hide behind and actually meet other real people in recovery who they come to really know in person, stop using these shame-ridden, silly fake (user)names, and stay open daily with their safe buddies about all that is really going on with them (instead of using meaningless fuzzy terms like "Oy, I fell..." or, "I, you know, am having 'bad trouble' with 'lust/the YH' right now,") often find themselves on a firm foundation to actually recover. The odds are now well in their favor.

It's not getting caught by someone else that works, but staying 'caught'. And it's not really 'caught', for it is really 'turning ourselves in. It's gotta be 100% voluntary. That's why 12-step groups do not charge money (to motivate members not to lose it if they stopped attending) and it is why no one 'checks up' on people, calling folks to pull them back in if they disappear. If we did, there would be coercion...and then it would not be real honesty, at all! That would make it a cult, too.

The goal of the 'living/staying caught' 12-steps is personal integrity. We frummies thought we had a G-d we would have integrity with. Then years of masturbating ourselves and desperate porn use showed us we really didn't have the integrity we thought we had. It was shocking to us, and depressing.

But in opening up to other real, safe people, who understand because they have the same problem we have and are clean - we started to learn integrity. The most precious thing any person can really have is that self-honesty that chronic masturbaters cannot seem to possess.

So real face to face honesty with other people led to self-honesty, which led to honesty with our G-d.

Sorry for the megillah, but I want to end with a Chaza"l I like to share about this:

Rabban Yochanon ben Zakai was ill and his talmidim came in to visit him. They asked to be bentched before he dies. He told them, "May being seen by G-d matter as much to you as being seen by people does."

They were not impressed, and said so. "That's all, Rebbe?! Shouldn't we fear G-d far, far more than we fear people?"

He answered, "Teyda (Know) that you do things and say to yourselves, "It's a good thing that nobody can see me!""

Who was RYbZ talking to, there? The smokers in the back of the beis midrash? The high school mechina boys of R' Akiva's nephew-in-law in B'nei Brak? No. It was "His talmidim". These men were young and old tanno'im! And he was saying to them, "Quit kidding yourselves. Your faith is much less real than you think it is. Relationships with real people are MUCH more powerful than your faith is. Integrity is very rare and precious.

And as long as we do things that we need to hide, we are still subject to self-deception and kidding ourselves about more than we realize.

I love remembering that, so thanks for letting me share it here!

Have a good Shabbos you guys, great discussion!

Dov wrote:
You got it right (hey someone has to agree with you from time to time ). Dov was the first one I met, and I was scared. My wife was even more scared. It has not been easy, but when she saw real actual changes in my personality, she could not deny that it was helping me.

Dov wrote:
It's the first post of the "Dov Quotes" and the link to it is in my signature. You might want to put a link to the 'Captain Kirkj' post in your signature too.

Dov wrote:
Very good point about staying caught and integrity. As soon as I feel as if I'm dispensing advice because I've made it, the ground beneath me starts to shake and I am in danger of falling. I have an amazing ability to forget where I have come from, and how easily I could end up right back where I started or worse.

I joined dov's phone call a couple of cycles ago and shared my personal story in full embarrasing detail. Paridoxically, it was liberating, and allowed me to accept myself, and beleive that Hashem could accept me with all my flaws. Life is a lot more manegable without all the self-flogging .

I re-joined the call recently because I need constant work. I recently rewrote my inventory (story) and shared it with a member of the group.

Getting sober was tough. Staying sober isn't always easy either. B"H I am sober today!

Thanks dov! I'm not sure where I'd be today without the help of GYE and especially dov.

And I would not be the same without our relationship and what you and I accomplished. So thanks!

...whether u believe that is not by business.