So here's my story: I'm 25, married with a 3 yr old B"H. Unfortunately porn and masturbation are issues Iv'e been struggling with for over a decade. The truth is that from the time I got engaged until a while after my marriage I was free of all issues, even hirhurim for the most part. But the spell doesn't last forever, and slowly shmiras einayim/ hirhurim became bigger struggles. Then a little over a year ago, between having marital intimacy issues combined with the loss of an unborn baby I fell back into porn and masturbation. Since then I have not been able to break free from it for more than a few weeks at a time. I feel like crying after acting out and I really hate that other self of mine, but I don't know how to deal with the lust which bubbles up inside of me.

What do you do as an activity when you just want to relax a little bit?

Though I love the forum for starting the recovery process by starting people with opening up, I do not believe a virtual forum is a truly honest way of communicating about anything important. the forum is a place where real honesty is based on the admitters being hidden. I like to call it (a play on Descartes) actually cognito ergo sum! - " I am secret, therefore I am!" Funny? Nah, forget it. See, the fake name you are using together w the fake name the guy who may be answering you is using ultimately make for a slightly fake discussion. If you two would be in the same room together face to face and tried talking the emess, things might go very differently. Either:

1- you'd run out of the room altogether

or

2- you'd say, "Well, if he is not afraid of me, so I need not be afraid of him either!"...so you'd open up about much more truth of what's really going on than you even admitted to yourself and you'd find the real answers you need

or

3- you might see that the fellow giving you all the deep advice about marriage and life was really a newlywed avreich w little to no experience and yet a very great need to dispense advice so that he feels better about himself

or

4- something else.

This is not the end of discussion. I am just trying to open a more honest discussion so that things I appreicate as useful progress can really start.

dear BenTorah.BaalHabayis
what you wrote about how your issue died down and then came back again really resonated with me. When i was a teenager (i'm now 24 and married) i watched a lot of porn on the home computer (my parents put a filter on but it was easy to get around) then i went to yeshiva and the whole issue died down until after i got married when it returned to me. its not exactly the same as you but there are similarities.

abe2710 wrote:


Thanks for sharing that, Abe. Are you a long timer on GYE?