I’m 49 and have been re-married for 6 years now. I have 5 children from my first marriage and my wife brought another one into this marriage.

My first wife became a sexaholic after our 10th year and I eventually couldn’t deal with it anymore and left that marriage.

Before then, I had never struggled with porn or frequent masturbation. I had masturbated a few times in my teen years, but the habit never stuck. Only after I was divorced did I start seeking some sort of consolation from porn. Eventually, I became an addict and frequently gave in several times a week, and sometimes a few times a day as well!

Fast forward eight years after the divorce. I remarried and the addiction faded into the background for a while. The excuses I gave for looking it up again was that I needed more attention than our busy lives could give. I mean, six kids, full time jobs, and sleep! Oh, I had three girls who were epileptics and with varying degrees of mental/physical handicaps.

My oldest passed away from seizures almost 6 years ago, and that is when I really started trying to get a handle on porn. Her death was a wake up call to me - no one is promised tomorrow - but I still couldn’t get the bad habits under control.

Eventually, I ran across this group and tried to follow the ideas “from a distance” never really participating. I only read and tried to “fix it” all on my own. As you can imagine, it didn’t work.

Fast forward again five years later. I had quit my version of the GYE program, tried mussar and worked on some other bad habits of mine, like anger, and lack of faith. My marriage is hitting a rough patch, and porn and masturbation has once again become a recurring consolation attempt. Negative speech towards her, and my always making the decisions without including her has been a big factor in her separating from me and the girls. Depression has set in and I’m struggling.

However, there is at least one good thing about our current separation. I am serious about getting my life under control and being Torah observant. I have a lot of knowledge, but it’s time for me to actually put what I’ve learned into practice! So, I’ve come back to the GYE program.

I want to be really successful this time, and I’ll need your help. I realize I can’t do it on my own anymore!

Sorry to hear your story - Welcome!!

Have you checked out the phone conferences yet?

                                                                                                                                       

Hi,
I'm 56, and in Recovery for almost a year. If you want, I would be happy to be a program partner.
RobFloyd

Welcome. You have alot on your plate. Tough. And even so you want to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Wow. As you can see the guys here want to help. It should be with hatzlocha.

Welcome!  You have been through a lot. Have you been to therapy?  Has it helped?  Who can you talk to?  You have a lot of things to sort out.  Stick around.  Keep posting.

Thanks for the encouragement! It really helps. 

Earlier this week I saw a comment that said, "I'm not sure confidence is what you need" and then something along the lines of follow the program and talk to real people (I think my memory got it right?). I think the comment was deleted, maybe thinking it was too harsh, but it wasn't. I think it was spot on. I've tried recovery by myself, and it just didn't work. One step at a time, I plan to follow the program and talk to real people.  

Markz, I haven't tried the phone conferences yet, but I intend to in the next few days. 

Thank you for the suggestion!

Gibbor120, I've had some therapy, and it does help. Right now, the wife and I are going to counseling together. Other than that, I have a couple of close friends who I can tell everything to, which is big help. Thanks for your suggestions, and I intend to stick around and start a "My Journey" Log. I didn't really think getting involve on these forums would help, but once I'm actually typing, I find that it really does help!

RobFloyd wrote on 05 Dec 2017 12:40:

Rob, sounds like a good thing. I won't pass this opportunity up. Sure, I'd like a program partner.

Hello yyys, I saw your question about medical evidence that masturbation isn't healthy. I don't have any info on that but I decided to see if you had a thread with more information about the problem you are dealing with. I will admit that I'm not too clear on what your issue is. What is the motive or intent behind your wife's question? You write here that you are separated from your wife and you also write about other issues either past or present dealing with anxiety or depression. It doesn't say that you connect the porn and masturbation to any of your problems. And maybe it's in fact not connected. Just wondering why you want to stop. Is this a religious issue or is messing up your life. Also you write " Eventually, I became an addict and frequently gave in several times a week, and sometimes a few times a day as well!" Just because you "gave in" several times a day doesn't make you an addict. I'm not saying you are or aren't, but I don't see that in what you have written here. Not that I'm any kind of expert. Also you mention having problems in your marriage and you are trying to have your wife help you with your problems. So your bringing problems to the table? Why? Are you trying to get empathy? Do you think it will bring your wife closer if you bring her into your problems? 

Btw, I'm not at all trying to be critical. I don't know you and I know little to nothing about your story. I'm just trying to help you have some dialog with yourself. One issue with this forum is that people try to answer people up and sound smart and try to defend themselves. So pls don't feel any obligation to answer me up. The better thing would be for you to share more about what's going on and probably with a professional other than your wife .

You are way ahead of most people who have no one to talk to and nowhere to turn.  Close friends are more precious than diamonds.  Keep us posted.

Serenity, thank you so much for your reply. You bring up some great and thought provoking points.

a. The motive behind my wife's question about masturbation: From what I can gather, she is purely seeking knowledge about how it can be harmful from a medical point of view. She isn't connecting it with lust. We have a young son and gathering information will be helpful for the times he "explores" himself as most toddlers and adolescents do (there is probably a better way to put this). However, her question creates a dilemma for me, because I cannot answer her apart from the religious point of view. Like someone else replied, the medical community mostly doesn't find anything harmful from the act of masturbation. 

b. Separation: she recently moved back in (tentatively) yay! (continued in next thought)

c. Reason I want to stop: Well, this is an interesting experience. One, for religious reasons, I don't want to be impure in thought or body, and masturbation leads to that. Also, what I have experienced is that almost every single time I masturbate, I end up fighting with my wife. I feel guilty and out of control because of my prior action, and then because I'm irritable, I give in to fault-finding and blaming for little things that "she" does. So, on weeks where we fought more, I typically had spent more time in the bathroom. 

I use masturbation as an attempt at consolation. I'm either bored, or anxious about something happening in my life, and with the separation I had some serious depression going on. I depended on masturbation to help me through these and prior times. It feels good for the time, but each time it never ultimately fulfills, instead, my life worsens. I use it like drinking alcohol. I mistakenly think it will make things better. I want to stop because it feels like I have no control over my actions. I mean I know I am in control, but when I'm "sober" I know that I don't want to watch porn. Also, porn corrupts how I see other women. It's horrible to look at a stranger and see in my mind thoughts that just aren't true. It feels like I've entered into a different world at that time, one of my own imagination, and I'm not Alice in Wonderland.

d. Including my wife in my struggle: Well, honestly, I didn't think this through completely before I enlisted her help. I asked her because the first person I asked, my best friend, after six months of keeping the password to my phone restrictions completely forgot it and I "needed" it to access the fingerprint pass for my bank - somehow it had become disabled. I ended up needing to factory restore my phone. So, I figured that I would ask someone who is closer to me at home. Also, it has been helpful having her keep it because I am honestly embarrassed to say, "hey, can you enable porn websites for me?"

I hadn't thought about the whole bringing problems to the table in this instance, and that's an interesting point that I'd like to explore more. Empathy might play a part of it, but when I look at the why, I really just want her support. We haven't discussed this issue since.

Again, thanks for your post!