imho....call again.

b'hatzlachah

I have personal experience with lying and hiding to my wife, to therapists, and to others. I also have used a therapist for my relationship with a son once, and opened up (of course) to her that I am a sexholic in recovery (I was sober about three years at the time) even though you two would wonder why it is relevant. But no therapist would wonder why it's relevant! Of course it is.

Yet here you are talking about your OWN therapist. Gevalt.

For us guys - especially for frum chronic porners and masturbaters - our elaborate hiding and coloring is really the main issue of early recovery/addiction/GYE-falling, rather than 'The Yetzer Hora' . So I sympathize, but can ask you the following, at the same time:

Exactly what is your wife's reasoning for not being honest with your therapist? I assume you mean the issue is whether to tell your therapist about your sexual acting out...correct?

It's funny. We find safe people - and yet shame still doggs our every step. Too bad...

- Dov

PS. You can have my cell# again, just email me at wequithiding@gmail.com

Another thing: She does not seem to be allowing herself to see that condoning/suggesting dishonesty (lies of ommision) with your therpist out of shame, IS condoning/suggesting that you lie (ommit) to her out of shame, as well.

Am I misreading your email? Please correct me if so.

Thx

I don't know what you mean Dov?

I am not hidding actually. My wife is the only person that knows about my problem. She is acutally not bothered by my addiction that much. I really try to grow each day and I am giving all I have, so what acutally bothers her is, that I am opening up to unknown people.
The therapist is not my "own", I mean the therapist I am talking about has a 12 step group, modified only to the extent, that this group demands daily workout, running at least 3 marathons yearly, reading and so on. But it really does function like a 12 step group...

Well honestly I don't know, I never went to this group and never spoke to the therapist (ex-AA). They handle all sorts of addiction...

But hidding is a problem, to that I agree.

Tnx for the mail address.

Btw no slips no falls.

I am still struggeling, lust is on me... I try not to fight it and not to give in. It is hard these days.
I have also decided if I don't go through with the programm satisfactory (at least partly follow the set program), I will go without food for a day. If that doesn't work, I will have to call the therapist and join his group.

Awesome. Work it! You're worth it!

Hi there!

On the chart I clicked a fall for 14th of may. I didn't masturbate, I was slipping badly, viewing videos of women verbally humiliating the viewer and videos of wifes humiliating their husbands while being intimate with some other guy. There was not much excplicit material and I didn't masturbate. But this was a fall, cos I couldn't stop viewing and it slowly progressed...

I called Dov, thanks for the number. And he said I am sick and I am not taking this seriously, I should stop playing. I cried, a big step for me, but as Dov says it is really nothing, it is only the beginning.

I called a therapist already that day, but he rejected me, because our whole family would have to go into treatment - and I don't want that, cos my wife is not codependent and has nothing to do with my illness.

I am now preparing (reading her book) to go to another female therapist that specializes in lust addiction. I will contact her to see if I can afford financially to visit her (her program last at least 3 years).

I also found a SA group opened in our town, but they are under the catholic church, but that is just an excuse, I have already called them, I didn't reach them and when they called back I couldn't answer. But I will contact them today - I can't control myself, I have no choice...

If anyone is tempted, please don't cheer guys, this realization feels heavy.

All the best to You guys!!!!

Was that just a paradox!?

6 days clean. I didn't make contact with the SA group in Ljubljana yet. I am afraid.

But it is also true that I just had a slip. On facebook I clicked this image of a "friend to be" and there was a picture of a woman showing her stomach and she "liked" there a facebook site with women in underwear, and I clicked that. I opened it and then I closed it - i must admit that I have a problem with feminization and I imagine myself wearing what she is - my addiction is really progressing. I closed that tab and opened a page with stories of sex addicts.

I am ashamed to be admitting in such detail what I just did. I usually don't admit it even though I have been here for ages.

Perhaps again the trigger was frustration at work. I have some video material to prepare for a student and usually i act out because I don't have all the material (not that I am supposed to have it, I just want to be "master of the universe" and have it all)...

I just called the SA group, nobody answered. They'll call back. I will I answer, I hope....

I am not hopeless.

SA called back, I have a meeting with them on monday. One week. What about my wife?

I don't know. I am powerless.

THe guy on the phone said that this group has nothing to do with the kat. church, but I found the info on the group on the site of the kat. church of our country. I am looking for excuses, ok... But I really want to know if they are real!

Am I real?

I have to go to that meeting. It feels like a big step. Only it isn't.

The story I read after my slip was about Bill, a big strong guy, who one christmas didn't spend with his family, he dressed in female clothes and went out and pleasured men orally. Lust was more important then the biggest christ. festival.

And I have the same illness. I am sure Bill loves his family and I love my family too.

It is scary though. What will my wife say if I start going to this group regulary!? What shame!!!

I am not hopeless. My marriage is not hopeless. My relationship with my wife and my daughter is not hopeless.

Wow, man. You are for real, thank G-d.

The wife: my wife hated SA, and for a long time we would get into a fight whenever I went to my evening SA meetings (which I very rarely missed besides any other meetings I went to at other times that would not affect the family dinner, etc)...but after I was sober for a few years she admitted she preferred me the new way I became. She told me that the best day of her life was the day I got sober in 1997 - and the second best day was the day we got married. She also has said many times since I got sober for a couple of years, that she knows she finally got the man she originally thought she married. All along those he knew something was 'off' with me...) So patience is needed, a lot of faith in G-d's goodness even if things are horrible for a while, and the acceptance that I have no choice - for if I continue this porning and compulsive way forever (which of course, I will), I will be left with no real life, at all. And also the acceptance that I haven't the power to change myself any more than I have the power to change her. Neither do I have the power to protect her from her feelings regarding reality, just I haven't the power to get myself all better just by 'guarding my eyes' and protecting me from myself without taking real, uncomfortable action.

The church thing: Your SA contact guy is right. Churches are used because they are free. Where else is a group that makes no money for rent to meet every week or a few times a week or every day? No place allows that but religious institutions. And Synagogues either do not allow it because of the 'shame', or because why should they have a non-religious-based group meet in them at all? And besides, I have started meetings in shuls, but there is a huge problem: mincha/maariv is right at typical meeting time for at least half the year! So there goes your anonymity outside the fellowship!

In European countries where there is SA, there is just an assumption that if there is an awareness in G-d involved, why not do it in a religious place? With Christianity being their innocent and culturally accepted awareness of G-d. For them there simply is nothing else. I find nothing wrong with that - as long as they keep SA traditions as made clear on the White Book and never use non-SA approved texts (like the epistles or catechism) in meetings. I have never been in an SA meeting where members used the name Yoshkeh...but i would not be surprised if in Europe the sensitivity to others is a bit looser than we are in the US...

In any case, good luck with that. And I like to remember that thee is nothing more 'goyishe' that I could ever do, than put my brain or penis where they do not belong...if you know what I mean. I have met too many guys who will talk explicitly about the genitals of the girl they are on the phone with while masturbating themselves to pornography - yet when asked to consider an SA meeting say they'd never do that because it is goyishe. Seriously. And too many who have shrugged it all off by grasping for the silly-straw of: "Oh, so then two wrongs make a right?!" Silly boychicks...

You are on the right track. May you gravitate to the most sober members of your group, find fellows to talk with on a daily basis, have no shame in the group, and finally find a safe place to let it all go and work these steps with a sponsor.

If that's what you want.

Yehoshua

I don't believe I commented too much on this thread, and I do not have the time now to check it out, but your last few posts brought out our similarities.

eventually, I will need to refresh myself of your history, but I am an older family man with very similar fetishes to what you described. I acted upon it as well. After I joined this site, I too was against goin' to SA groups. When I finally realized that I needed to, I went, and it was in a church, and the groups changed my life. My wife still does not know.

I do somewhat understand the argument about goin' to a church even for recovery, although one is steeped in porn, but that didn't deter me from goin'. I will not go into psak halachah, for I did that on another thread and one can look there (search for church on this site).

My email is thenewme613@hotmail.com

You (and others) can email me there especially if you wanted a somewhat open discussion about your fetish. You don't have to....I don't know if I can help, but I will try what I can.

It is a tough one.

b'hatzlachah

So here I am. It is monday. The moment of truth. Today is the introduction meeting with SA in some bar.
I am scared. If I a begin this, it has begun. The disclosure. And it does feel like freedom, like weight coming off. Still what shame, how will my wife ever forgive me? I have to see how these meetings are and then talk to her honestly. I will not hide anymore. And if this isn't the right thing, I will have to find something else. That simple.

Kol hakavod! You sound determined and brutally honest.

Hatzlacha

MT

And like I wrote in the email, it doesn't seem so far of a jump as to what your wife already knows.

Yes, it is a mehalech as well to go first, and after a few times, when you feel more comfortable, and many times it happens to people that you will feel much more at ease with your problem, you can then tell her - if you so choose.

Let us know.

It's a grand step.

b'hatzlachah