Dov, you hit the nail on the head (once again).

I'm trying to get this through my head but it's tough to paint her in this light after trying to convince myself otherwise for so long. I've tried overcoming hurdles in this relationship. The hard thing to understand is that she was a wonderful giver to others. She gave of herself to her family, her work and her friends in ways which I never experienced. I believed that only if I could do X,Y,Z correctly then I could become worthy of such giving and acceptance. Unfortunately, I was never privy to such support. I just worked on myself and worked on myself and subdued my personality, my wit, my sense of humor to try and do no wrong... And that killed me inside. It really really hurt. I can't wrap my mind around why she couldn't give to me in this most basic way. She cared too much about others and I cared too much about her. I wanted our relationship to revolve around giving to one another and she wanted it to be a partnership of giving to others. I was there for her in ways that no one else ever had been and she wasn't there for me.

I admit that I have trouble swallowing this condemnation of her. It's hard when there is so many demonstrations of her good to dismiss her as a evil entity, unworthy of my love. She did want my presence and not me. and that really hurts to accept.

I think that you are 100% right about the self-esteem issues. That I'm trying to work on. I think that self-worth is hard to develop unless you can accept that Gd believes in you. Sometimes I know it and other times i dont. i guess it is supposed to fluctuate.

I'm gonna keep coming back to your post. Can't seem to get this through my head. Have a hard time not believing that your post is only in response to whatever filter I've put on her by only explaining the relationship from my point of view.

no matter what though, commitment, giving, an interest in me for me, support or acceptance was lacking. Call it what you will, it was lacking - which is why I had to coerce her to end it.

thanks so much for all the support. this has been incredibly helpful

I was suggesting actually that the poseter recognize his addiction, and proeceed in a positive manner. I think that your view of physical intimacy between a husband and wife borders on the demeaning .

Re: confidence - Hey, keep posting, you are gonna make friends here and it will help, be'H. Thanks for the chizzuk and the honesty.

Re: SIB101854 - Thanks for your feedback, too. If you want me to erase it, I'll consider that. But please understand, I was not talking about "sex between husband and wife," but between addict and wife. And yes, I think that sex between what I refer to as a sex/lust addict and his wife is actually often demeaning, though it may not seem that way to either of them yet.

Now, you may define 'addict' as practically any guy who masturbates every now and then and struggles with his yetzer hora. But that is certainly not what I mean by 'addict'.

In contrast, sex between most normal husbands and their wives - regardless of their religion - is probably not usually demeaning, but rather sweet and loving. I was referring to sex for the man who is actually a lust addict and in his active addiction. And if you wish, I will give you examples of many sex addicts like myself, who have slowly come to see our sexual 'neediness' as the cover over our damaged attitudes toward sex and toward women in general - even toward our own wives, and what that means practically speaking, and what happens to our sexuality after that.

You and I are probably defining addict differently, that's all.

Incidentally, no matter what the GYE Handbook may imply, I do not ever suggest to anyone here that they need to 'recognize their addiction'. Who am I, to make such a determination on anyone else? All I can do is share my experience as an addict, with them, and let them see if it fits.

I would suggest that an addict in the sexual sense is someone who is obsessed about sex, masturbation and porn to the point where his normal sex life almost is nonexistent. I can only tell you that since I have been clean with the support of my Eshes Chayil and this chevra, that the emotional and physical intimacy between myself and my wife is great.

Glad u see success, chaver!

I, for one, see sex/lust addiction not as being 'in a sexual sense', but always 'in every sense'. In other words, I never saw my problems as mainly sexual in nature - except when I was still in active addiction. Then, all I could see was my sexual and religious/moral struggle - and I assumed that recovery would mean sexual healing above all.

But I didn't get better for years, even though I did all kinds of things to try to fix my sexuality and sexual morality...until things got worse and worse and finally after about 15 years of isolated struggling, found Sexaholics Anonymous and a real, live chevra of people openly staying sober working the 12 steps. Since then, I have been sober one day at a time and personally met hundreds of other frum yidden as well as thousands of gentiles, all with the same exact basic issue and all with the same basic solution.

People who see themselves as addicts and work the 12 steps, generally do not differentiate much between one addiction and another. I'd be perfectly comfortable in an AA or NA meeting simply introducing myself as "Hi, I'm Dov and I'm an addict," and have done that when no SA meeting was available while we were somewhere on vacation, for example.

But more to the point, we generally do not see our basic problem - or our basic solution - as a sexual one. For this reason, none of the 12 steps addresses sexuality - or in the case of alcoholics, drinking. Instead, the only place drinking or not drinking is even referred to is the 1st step. After that, for the next 11 steps, we talk about sanity (step 2), about our relationship with our G-d (steps 3,5,7,11, and 12), and about self-honesty and our usefulness to G-d and others (steps 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,and 12). The steps and recovery is not about 'not drinking or lusting', and the sexual healing that definitely occurs in most cases, is just a small part of the journey.

And I want to say that while my wife and I have seen great healing and progress in all aspects of intimacy (including sexually), I don't see that as the main fruit of my recovery, by a longshot. It's overshadowed by my newfound sanity! And I mean that seriously, not being kitch.

But it's great that you have found some sexual healing and real intimacy through the work you are doing! All I am saying is that I see addiction as an issue affecting my humanity and sanity, in general, rather than as a thing focused on my problem: sex, alcohol, cocaine, or whatever.

Does that distinction help us understand each other better? It's an important one, to me, so thanks for letting me share it with you, chaver.