I just passed 40 days on the 90 day chart. I was on this website once before about 1.5 yrs ago but left. So what made me come back? I've been corresponding with another member of GYE and I've shared my story with him and I'm going to share my story with the group. I need help to deal with a lot of pain.

I'm a 47 year old BT and married with a 13 year old child. I've always struggled in my marriage to the point where I didn't care anymore. I let myself get emotionally involved with a woman at work (WAW) and I thought my marriage would be ending soon. We would tell each other about our problems and support each other with advice, etc. We would talk every day and have lunch once a week. I definitely felt strongly connected with her emotionally. I wanted to do all kinds of things for her: buy her gifts, give her compliments, other things, etc. I held back from doing these things knowing that was totally inappropriate.

I was very confused - thinking I was going to get divorced and get more involved with this woman. Then I decided that I have to stop masturbating b/c that was definitely interfering with my thinking and was preventing Hashem's divine light from shining on me. I didn't like what I had become. I also decided to do for my wife what I wanted to do for this woman.

So on Monday the WAW wanted to discuss a guy she is dating and I told her that it's inappropriate for us to discuss each other's relationships anymore since she's a single woman and I'm a married man. She was shocked, but understood. I'm experiencing a lot of emotional pain because I still feel a strong emotional connection to her. It upsets me a lot to think of her dating other men and that's one reason why I set up these rules between us. In addition, I've never felt such a strong emotional connection with my wife. She is often very harsh and critical of me and I don't feel safe discussing any negative feelings with her. It's this emptiness that contributed to my having an emotional relationship with the WAW. So I'm giving up the one person that I can share my feelings with to focus my positive energies on my wife. This is causing me tremendous pain. I don't have a best friend and I don't have a shoulder to lean on, but I'm putting my faith in Hashem to change my situation for the better. I took my wife out for dinner on Sunday night (sort of a private Purim Seudah), bought her a nice gift and card and said romantic things to her. She loved it! I plan on keeping up this treatment of her and hope that she will change also.

That's my story. I need moral support at this point b/c I suffer and cry every night from the emptiness. With Hashem's help, everything will get better. I was using the masturbation to mask the empty feeling from my unsatisfying and failing marriage. Now I've decided to take responsibility for my marriage.

During the first few weeks on the chart I would have about 1 horrible day per week of just massive negative emotions including thoughts of suicide. I don't seem to have those anymore, but just a constant nagging feeling of emptiness that's worst when I'm alone.

I feel for you. I don't have any advice, I just want you to know that I feel your pain.

Welcome!!!!!

I don't get your pain because i am not married so i am not the one to give you advice but Skep's tips may help.

Its great to have you and great job on ending the emotional aspect to that relationship!

Wow (no pun intended!)

In all seriousness, while I have not been in the same situation, I do very much feel your pain - it can't be easy. The first steps are the hardest, hopefully what you have started doing will pay dividends and you will begin feeling better about your relationship with your wife. Keep it up!!!!!

I am sorry to hear about your situation and I can relate to it in part. I also used to think I had a hypercritical wife who seldom gave any love or support. At one point I had a female friend at work who I became close to and we shared a lot with each other. Though I never had any romantic feelings for her, the positive support and respect that she had for me was intoxicating.

All this time I was also totally into porn and masturbation. My marriage was in shambles, I was extremely unhappy, and basically not wanting to divorce my wife because of the kids, and I just refuse to quit anything. Also the memory of our past relationship was keeping me hopeful of a better future, if only I could find the way to fix her.

Then I got into GYE. I, for the first time in my life, started breaking free of myself. Because of the good people here I started to see my life as it was, not as I wished it would be, I left the fantasy world that I created around my life. I started to see the ways that my wife did express her love for me, even if they were not the specific ways that I would have chosen. In not trying to force my wife to be like I wished she would be, she actually started to be more pleasant to be around.

I recently read a book call "The 5 Love Languages". I learned from that book what kind of gestures of love that my wife appreciates the most. And conversely it made me more sensitive to those things that she does for me when she speaks to me in her love language. To love someone is a choice. To express love for that person is a choice.

By giving up on masturbation, letting Hashem into my life, learning to be a better more considerate husband, learning to let my wife love me on her terms and not mine, learning to express love to her in a way that she could appreciate, has brought my marriage back from the dead. It isn't easy, but man is it worth it. We are still not there, we have a very long way to go, but the progress has been astounding.

Stick around here, open yourself up to change and improvement. Try to learn from your fellow strugglers here. It is well worth it.

You DO have best friends. All of us here at GYE. Post more, get into conversations, and let the magic begin!

Thanks everyone for your support. I'm still in pain, but I'm becoming more focused on what is important in life. When I got home last night, my wife said hello to me like usual and, like usual, basically went back to what she was doing. Normally, I would go in the bedroom and be ticked off that she essentially ignored me. I was upset and then I decided to take charge. I said to her "let's go in the bedroom and talk for a few minutes." She was nervous b/c she thought it was something bad and I said I just want to talk about nothing in particular: my day, her day, etc. So we talked for about an hour about our days and concerns. It wasn't anything spectacular, but at least we connected. I told her that I want to do this every day. I felt good about that. It's progress.

Good move to distance yourself from WOW (shouldn't it be WAW?).

Investing in your marriage is a very wise invesment indeed. It yeilds the highest dividents by far.

Hatzlacha Rabbah!

Thanks gibbor! And thanks for pointing out the error in my post. I fixed it

YES - TOTALLY INTOXICATING! I experienced the same thing. And this woman is stunningly good looking and extremely charming, which made the attention all the more addictive and I mean ADDICTIVE! I don't think she realizes the power she can have over men. That's what makes this so difficult - the addiction to the attention.

Update (if anyone's interested):

Each day is better than the previous day. My addiction to my fantasy world is lessening. My move to not discuss relationship issues with the woman at work (WAW) paid off big time. She doesn't seem so interested in talking with me anymore. I still have a strong desire to speak to her, but it's slowly fading. The feeling of emptiness is slowly fading. I'm treating my wife like gold. I compliment her more, spend time daily listening to her concerns without judgement. I'm planning weekly outings with her. As a result, she's treating me much better.

Also, I haven't fallen. This allows me to keep in touch with reality and deal with reality as it is and not how I want it to be. I know that these effects are from Hashem's divine light shining on me. I always keep in mind that what I was doing was repelling Hashem's divine light.

WOW!! KUTGW!

Love it! Keep it going!!!! Focus on the woman that matters!! (WTM)

Please G-d and everyone in this forum help me! I just ran into the woman at work (WAW) in the hallway and it unbelievable how much I am attracted to her. When I see her, I feel like a magnet is pulling me - it's that bad.

No problem,take a deep breath. She's just a person, just like you trying to get her work done