I am posting this so I don't forget it. If no one gets it that is fine, I have my own cheshbonos.

My marital status is, as always, a matter of record here, and while there are subtle improvements, nothing major has changed. That is the background.

I know how to be a good husband. I may not always be a good husband, but I know how to do it, and when I put in the effort, I know I am doing my job well.

Nevertheless, I always have a huge amount of angst and uncertainty about how to conduct myself in my marriage. Yesterday I finally realized why that is. Like I said I know how to be a good husband, so that is not the source of my confusion. I realized that what I am confused about is how to get my wife to be the wife that I think I deserve. In other words, I don't know how to manipulate my wife to get her to do what I want her to do.

So I found the perfect solution to remove all confusion. DON'T TRY TO CHANGE HER. I can't change her, only she can. My trying to change her only leads to me to doubt and resentment, which are of course the deadly antecedents to lust. Instead of trying to change her, I should just work on making myself better. I should also work on appreciating her as she is, and not as I wish she would be. Lastly, I have to trust that if I do my part, the rest is up to G-d and He will make sure it all works out to my benefit.

Of course, as I have stated elsewhere, my own history proves that when I try to meddle with her to much it always blows up in my face. When I just work on being the best husband I can be, everything goes so much better.

Nothing here is new to me, I just brings me to a new level of appreciation for the motives behind my thoughts, and how I can go about cleaning them up.

Like Rabbi Shais Taub writes or quotes or something regarding a co-dependent [essentially an addict that's not addicted to anything]: Find a person that's outwardly attractive to you, create a personality for her, and STICK TO IT!

Every time that I have the urge to do or say something that I feel will make my wife a better wife, I crush it. I say I'll do that later, next week, next month, maybe never. Not meddling with her is a wonderful thing.
Last night my wife was sitting next to me on the couch, and we were both tired after Purim, she leaned over and rested her head on me. This was the first time in I don't know how many years that she did that without any prompting or urging from me. It was beautiful. I said nothing and did nothing but put my arm over her shoulder. Millimeter by millimeter things are improving, but only when I am not trying to fix her. Amazing concept.

In a less happy note, I was trying last week to lust like a gentleman. Never a good idea. So I came dangerously close to falling once, and had too strong urges a few other times. I have put that behind me for now having learned my lesson for now. Now I have to make sure that I don't unlearn that lesson.
So many lessons to learn, and so many of them are against my nature. Makes for difficult work. That is why it is good to stay here, it keeps me grounded.

Freilechin Shushan Purim to all the Yerushalmis out there.

We lovingly refer to them as "Sweet Kugelheads".

Thanks for keeping me sober in chat MBJ!!! Thank you!

There is something that I have been mulling over in my head, and I guess I wanted to get it out and see where it takes me.

I started this journey with the lesson that sex is optional. Lust is not like breathing, I don't need it to survive. I won't die without ejaculation.Now I am thinking that this has to go even further.

I know there have been discussions here of "el isheich teshukateich" and that it is not a sexual thing at all, though that is how I always read it. As someone who has not has sex with his wife in almost 3 years, it still rankled me though, despite the fact that it is a general yearning for closeness, and not sex.

Then I listened to Rav Lazer Brody's talk on Dovid Chaim's phone conference. He said a few wonderful things there, but one that really really stuck with me was that when a man yearns for his wife, he reverses the order, he becomes the woman in the relationship. My wife does not want to be married to a woman, she wants to be married to a man. My walking around her like a dog waiting for a pat on the head is a major turn off. So I tried to incorporate this into my life, but I failed. Like I wrote earlier, my wife has become more open to me, but I recently took it further than she wanted and it made her upset, justifiably. I let my penis do the thinking and I got in trouble. I am still craving and yearning for her, her approval, her physical touch yada yada yada.

A few days ago I was surfing YouTube and I came across a speech by R' Manis Friedman. He also was discussing the punishments of Adam and Chava. In talking about Adam he said how his curse was to provide for his family and do it with difficulty. The point he took out of it was that man, or more correctly a husband, is a giver, a provider. It is the very nature of man that he gives and THAT is how he finds his fulfillment. A woman on the other hand is a receiver. (He deliberately differentiated receiver from taker. A receiver has to open themselves up and make themselves vulnerable to accept what the giver is giving.)

Lusting is neither giving nor receiving, it is taking. It is pure selfishness. No one benefits but the luster, and since it goes against what my real nature is as a giver, I find no satisfaction in it, only an emptiness that I think can be filled my even more taking, which really just makes the hole bigger and bigger.

I can get into now what I learned from the Tanya column in the weekly newsletter, that perhaps the tayva and lust is my nefesh habehemis, and the giver is my nefesh eloki. And feeding the behemis is emptiness for my eloki. Maybe I am wrong in that, but is sounds good to me. Chassidus and Tanya is completely foreign to me.

Now to sum up. I am a husband. My wife's desire is for me. If I desire her I am reversing the natural order of things. The constant search for her affection is nothing for me. It will not fulfill me at all. It goes against my very nature. The only thing that can really fulfill me is my giving to her. Lusting is antithetical to who I am as a person. Lusting is not me. Desiring is not me. I am the husband the person who gives. I provide for my wife, I provide for my family. I keep them safe, I provide order in the house. On some level it means I have to maintain an objectivity, an aloofness, because I have to see what people need on their terms, not on my terms. After all the best way to give is to give as they need it, not how I think they need it.

Really, I see this as true, because when my wife and I used to be intimate, all I really wanted was for her to enjoy it. I just wanted her to enjoy it like I thought she should, i.e. what I learned from porn. But I was trying to give and lust at the same time. That doesn't work.

What I am trying to learn now, is that lust is anathema to me. Any form of lust and desire is not just dangerous, not just an allergy, but actually undermining me as a person. The lesson now is not just that I can live without lust, but rather I can't live with it. It is not an option at all. There is no such thing as lusting like a gentleman, since lusting is the polar opposite of what a gentleman is.

So what I am trying to do is give my wife what she desires, what she is open to receive, not like before with the hope that she in turn will give back, but because that is who I am, a giver. It has given me a new attitude, even better than before, when in the back of my mind, was always when will it be my turn. Before GYE my attitude was, it has to be my turn, then it was I can wait for mow, but eventually it will be my turn, now I am trying to learn that I don't get a turn, but that is OK, because I don't need one. In essence, when she has her turn I get mine too, since we are like two pieces of a puzzle. I give she receives. A symbiotic relationship, where we both get what we need all the time.

Similarly, all lust from the outside, all foreign women, have to be completely shut off not because it may lead to bigger stuff, it is more basic than that. My chasing after foreign women is directly undermining myself, something I never appreciated before.

This has been pretty long winded, I don't know if people agree with me or not, but I am curious to see where this takes me.

I am posting this because I don't want to forget it.

After a week of not cutting her nails due to chol hamoed and chag, my wife was sitting on the couch two nights ago cutting her nails. Now for me that brought memmorys of her getting ready for mikvah. It is getting to that time again, though I doubt she will go as she hasn't gone for quite a few month now.

So the last two days has been filled with fantasies of her and me. Last night I was sitting with my son putting him to bed when I was being completely assaulted by fantasies of her and I couldn't push them aside.

So I started thanking Hashem. I thanked Him for giving me such a wonderful wife. I thanked Him for her not having sex with me for 3 years. I thanked Him for helping me stay clean for over 8 months now. I thanked Him for a few other things. The fantasies when away, the frustration went away. b"H I stayed clean for another day.

[REMOVED CONTENT DUE TO BEING EXTRANEOUS]

One more time. Thank you Hashem for my life, my wife, my family, my job, my sobriety, my health, my everything.

WOW

WHAT A HEILIGE YID

WHAT AN INSPIRATION TO ALL OF US SEX CRAZED LUNARTICS

THANK YOU

YYASHER KOACH

MAY YOU CONTINUE TO RISE IN AVODAS HASHEM FOR MENNY MENNY YEERZ TO COME

Wow E.
יישר כח יוסף הצדיק
Keep it up, in ur zchus, we who are much smaller בעלי מדריגה pushing thru another clean day. what a נחת רוח u are making for our Holy רבונו של עולם.
עשה מצוה, מכריע את עצמו ואת כל ישראל וכל העולם כולו לכף זכות

Your Real Friend
A.

A true inspiration for us mortals.

Thank You for sharing!!

I always need a reminder of all the privileges that Hashem bestows upon me. I had a real insight into that over Yom Tov, I'll write it in y thread (sometime soon).

Full disclosure and honesty are important here so here I go. My last post had two big achievements of maintaining sobriety in them. The first which was my fending off fantasies by thanking Hashem was a wonderful moment for me and I wanted to share it. I wanted to remember and wanted others to see the power of reaching out to Hashem for help. When I started composing that post, that was all I intended to write.

However, when I was typing it up I decided to add another "feat" of mine as a last second addition. (I have since deleted it.) At the time I told myself that I just wanted to illustrate another point of the power of thanking Hashem.

People responded very favorably to my post, and I was flattered. However, since I wrote that post, I was in a bad state. I was horrible with my shemiras eynayim. I was getting frustrated with my wife. I was very short tempered with my wife and kids.

So yesterday I sat down to talk to Hashem to figure out what was going on. Something was nagging me about my last post, and with Hashem's help I figured it out. I legitimately wrote the first part of my post to help myself and others. The second part however was only written for my kavod (honor). People called me Yosef Hatzadik, a Malach, an inspiration. Oh it was beautiful, I was running after kavod and I caught it. But what does a lust addict like me do when I get the honor that I want? Well, I want more. After all I am such an amazing human being, better than anyone else, I deserve it all. I deserve my wife's affections, I deserve the girl on the street, I deserve anything I want. So I started to spiral out of control.

Thank you Hashem for teaching me another beautiful lesson. Thank you Hashem for letting me learn the lesson before things got too far.

There are some fellows runnin' away from kavod with their head turned backwards to see if the kavod is 'taka' runnin' after them; you, my friend, are not one of those.

May God continue to be with you and provide you the strength to continuously be an inspiration to all of us.

b'hatzlachah

It's funny, chaver. I feel as you do. And when I read the (I think quite silly-sounding) posts giving you accolades of 'holiness' and whatever, I chuckle. We sober people know we are only staying clean/doing whatever it takes to be free of resentment and self-centered fear because we have no choice! For us that is not a pep-talk. No 'chizzuk' is needed for us, of course. There is a fire under our behind's called misery. And we have had enough.

As you put it so well, praise twists us - cuz it is just not true. We are great people, just as everyone is - sober or not. We have just had enough and r willing to get a little out of G-d's way so that we can stay clean.

In fact, if porn use, fantasy or masturbation were a mitzvah - we would not be able to do it! We'd have to leave it for those more qualified. It would be an 'eish zara' for us. Just as Yibum, korbanos, and other things are no longer done, just as many other things are not done because doing those good acts is detrimental for other reasons when it is a mitzvah habo ba'aveira.

So I usually just stay out of it when those dramatic posts start flowing. Cuz I am afraid people will read jealousy into my response! For some good folks cannot imagine anyone NOT desiring to be called a 'kadosh', etc...and many see this a battle with evil, rather than simple enlightened self-interest that works.

It's so great to be sober and recovering today!!

OY DOV!

YOU'RE SO HEILIG!