I'm 40 yrs old with a wife and large family. I work out of town and spend long periods of time on the road. I have had sexual relations with multiple women during my years working away from home. I just fell tremendously last night and sinned with a woman I met online. I want to get help now and I realize I can't do it alone. Please help! P.s. imI familiar with the 12 Steps. I've got 11 years of sobriety from drugs and alcohol. I tried SLAA a few years ago but didn't stick with it.

I'm 40 yrs old with a wife and large family. I work out of town and spend long periods of time on the road. I have had sexual relations with multiple women during my years working away from home. I just fell tremendously last night and sinned with a woman I met online. I want to get help now and I realize I can't do it alone. Please help! P.s. imI familiar with the 12 Steps. I've got 11 years of sobriety from drugs and alcohol. I tried SLAA a few years ago but didn't stick with it.shalom and welcome,



firstly, know that you are not alone; we have all been there in one way or the other. know that there is help, and postin' here is a good first step, or perhaps second or third for you.



Some questions please:<*>why do you wanna stop?<*>besides for these women, do you act out as well?<*>how is your marriage?<*>does your wife know your struggles?<*>was it the 12 steps that helped you recover from drugs and alcohol?feel free to answer none, some or all of the above questions.



Godspeed to you



Cordnoy - the resident addict

cordnoy wrote on 09 May 2019 16:11:

it's nice that the quote button works now; but now, the numbered lists became wonky!

and now i just noticed that in that post, even the quote button didn't work properly.

I want to stop because I don't want to be cut off from Olam Haba. I don't want to be punished for.my aveiros. My wife doesn't know the extent of my addiction. She only knows that I had a problem a few years ago with an affair but that it ended long ago. She doesn't know that I'm still acting out. Out relationship when I'm home is great for the most part. I treat her well and she treats me well. We also have marital relations regularly like any other healthy couple. My acting out is pretty much limited to meeting women online and then meeting in person for casual encounters. Most often it's a one time meeting (or twice) that doesn't go all the way into full blown sex but sex HAS happened on numerous occasions. Even the meetings that don't end in sex will involve kissing or possibly oral sex. The 12 steps helped me get sober from drugs (weed) and alcohol.

Nate wrote on 09 May 2019 16:50:


ok; good reason to stop, i guess. I don't wanna be controversial, but if you daven 3x a day, learn torah, perform mitzvos, be good to your wife, raise your beautiful family, you'll probably earn a nice slice of olam haba anyway. - ok, everyone, pile on me!

next. sounds like your marriage is swell; thank God! why are you meetin' these women? do you know what's drivin' you? have you done this before your marriage? your wife was cool with the affair? I'm just probin' a little more; sorry.

and again, we are all here for you. some of us act out constantly; some get massages; some frequent escorts; some watch porn; some have fetishes, some go to clubs, etc. some are all of the above (thank God I included one in that list, so I can't checkmark 'all of the above.')

My wife was NOT cool with the affair. She was heartbroken! I've spent the last 4 years apologizing for it and telling her that it was a huge mistake that only happened because of a ruach shtus that entered me. Why do I act out if my marriage is pretty good? I wish I had a sophisticated answer to tell you. But I don't. I think it's just lust. And also the thrill of getting a new woman to want me. Before marriage in my late teens and early twenties I struggled with masturbation and I even went to hookers a few times. Now masturbation doesn't even occur to me as an option when I'm wanting to act out. I go straight to "let me meet a woman in person." Even if the meeting doesn't end in spilling seed, I still won't masturbate afterwards. It might sound backwards but I think i have more yiras shamayim for wasting seed then I do for hooking up with strange woman. My rationale is that when I meet them and there's no emission of seed, it's not as bad as masturbation.

Hi Nate,
It's great you're opening up about this and recognizing you have a problem and need help, It's not easy and just for that shows strength and progress!!
I am so sorry you are in the current predicament you are and you should know everyone here is willing to help you and lend a listening ear.
​If you want to contact me privately and just have someone to talk, i would really appreciate talking to you more and trying to help you through this. my email is 360gye@gmail.com (This invitation is also open to anyone else who wants to chat)

Welcome Nate!

Skep I haven’t heard from you for ages!!!!!

Hope you’re doing ok. Nice to see you back cheering from the sidelines :-)

Nate wrote on 09 May 2019 17:27:

We can question the sincerity of that apology; no?

Nate wrote on 09 May 2019 17:27:

And, by the way, my rationale is exactly the opposite. Masturbation is not anywhere close as bad as meetin' up with a real, live, fleshy woman. I guess it might depend on the definition of bad: to ourselves, our lives, our wives, God, olam habah, etc.

Nevertheless, for a variety of reasons, masturbation does not speak to me any longer; hookin' up does.

Sorry for a few more questions, but you're pretty good at answerin' and you are an engagin' fellow; kinda intriguin'.

let's try the number thingy again:

hmmm.... no option now. ok, forget that, I'll type out the number myself.

1. the title of your thread - what are you scared about? (you'll probably answer olam habah again.)
2. I'm curious - you haven't mentioned once that you feel bad for your wife, or you think it's against your kesuvah vow, or you wanna be straight up and honest with her.
3. do you think goin' to 12 steps or meetin's would help you?
4. an extra mussar seder perhaps; twice a week shmuess from your rebbe/mentor?

Godspeed to you!

Hi Nate thanks for your clarity. After graduating to new ways of acting out my fantasies, I, like you, found no serious satisfaction with masturbation. I'm just suggesting to you that it's not likely any sign of yiras Shomayim but rather there's probably just a lack of deep motivation to do it because you have graduated to something more exciting, a new ritual. 

In a very similar way, this is why getting married actually makes things worse for many of us, especially if we are sex/lust addicts. Once a guy who's full of pornography and desire actually breaks through the barrier of having real sex with a real woman - in this case, his wife - new vistas open up for him, unfortunately. I have seen this happen over and over again.

I also relate very much to your experience here, having masturbated for years and losing the compulsion for it after graduating to more extreme behaviors...finding new rituals. But, b'H, I've been clean for years so far because of working real recovery with real people... unfortunately, a forum isn't 'real relationships'. I was on the phone earlier this week with two guys in a very similar boat as yours...there's help. Over the past 7-8 years, I have met hundreds of guys with your story... There's help, I promise. And there's even more than just one kind. but I haven't found anyone get any kind of real help until they went about it in a real way.

I'm not suggesting to you that what works for me and others will work for you. But I'd be happy to share with you what has been working for me if you want to talk. Posting on GYE is a nice start and see how understanding everyone here is! But I want to suggest to you that the reason your wife isn't as understanding, isn't because she's not as nice, nor is it just because she is hurt. It's mostly because she is reality. Your real relationships - especially your marriage - have a pesky problem: they are real. There are real consequences to our choices. And to any real spouse the most real demonstration that's a marriage is a farce, is that their partner has sex with someone else.

That's going to have to be dealt with in a very real way, because as your wife reminds you, this is very real.

And I think it's pretty obvious that such a thing requires some real changes and some real honesty, which is only real when it's part of a real relationship...not just a forum-post or email to a person using a fake name and who is mostly nice, supportive, and understanding - because what you are doing doesn't affect them at all (which thank G-d, it doesn't). Rather, I suggest that you find people who have been through this themselves and are clean for some time, now.

If you haven't spoken face-to-face with a therapist about this matter yet, would you be willing to? Especially since this is now a family matter, I have discovered that a good therapist is a tremendous help in saving a marriage and helping it thrive after this kind of mess.

​If you haven't yet spoken to anyone who isn't hiding their identity from you (and is sober/clean), would you be willing to? I and some others here have been doing this for years and have met hundreds of people and helped share what we have with them - or at least helped them find real help somewhere else. 

I'm just suggesting to you that doing real things will probably be helpful to you, in contrast with just posting here, no matter how honest the posting and no matter how beautiful the responses.

If you have already done these things then I'm so happy for you! And I trust that things will start to improve in a real way once you stay on that path. But if you haven't yet, then it's probably going to take a bunch of Bravery. And I think that your marriage is worth it.

Thank you for reaching out. I'm willing to do REAL work to tackle this problem. I will send you a private message in the hope that we can talk on the phone.

Whatever you choose to do, hatzlocha! Different things work for different people, obviously, and my point is that there is help.