Dear Elyah,

As they say in some circles, "Tracht gut vet zein gut", i.e. think good and it will be good.
Remember that wherever you go and whatever your situation, Hashem is always at your side watching over you and ready to help as soon as you invite him.

גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי

So greet each new day with a smile and make the best of it. Focus on the message of Elul - Ani ledodi vedodi li - I am connected to my beloved G-d, and He is connected to me.

ה' ישמר צאתך ובואך מעתה ועד עולם

Hatzlacha

MT

R' Elyah,

I'm rooting for you.

You never cease to impress so many of us.

We'll be in touch,

Chaim

Perhaps in these next few weeks you might benefit from a technique called rational emotive imagery. You can google it. The idea is to rehearse a situation that you fear might occur in the future. For example, you might fear conversations with your in-laws, say. There is a way to sit down and imagine - rehearse - the whole situation unfolding in the way that you fear, and then you rehearse it again with a different outcome that you like. I guess it's a bit like training for combat, except here the opponent is your own beliefs.

I guess it's intuitively true that if you can't even imagine a good outcome for a situation then it probably won't happen, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. This behavior of being sure that a future situation will unfold in a negative way is a know cognitive distortion called negative prediction, or fortune-telling. For a complete list of cognitive distortions read the book Feeling Good, by David Burns. It also includes a very effective chapter about anger management.

Well, you have lots of good people to call and share with every day...that's already a great gift He gave you, right there.

Continued hatzlocha, friend.

I have only read read the past couple of pages and Elyah you are truly amazing!!

JJ

Just got back home!

Some of the big monsters--the difficult people--that my wife and I needed to face seemed to us now a lot less scary. Part of it was because, up close, some people look better off than when imagining what they are like from afar (and painting them black-and-white). And some people were purely difficult, but they seemed less scary because we are in a healthier place now.

We also had an opportunity to clear up some misunderstandings with people--and now we don't look like big monsters to them, either.

My wife and I had great support while in the states. She called her sponsor frequently and got helpful advice--especially to make sure and take time for ourselves. We took the opportunity to spend time together and just enjoy each other's company. My wife was also very supportive of me--she also noticed when I seemed to be getting stressed out and said, "maybe you should call someone." I had the SA phone list along with me and found a few trusty fellows who were available to take my calls. I even managed to attend a meeting while in the states (my wife said, "I know--you've been looking forward to attending a meeting in a church!)

What I liked most is that we had very few responsibilities and distractions of every-day life. Our mission was fairly simple, "Spend time with family as much as we can, be quite, be nice, and smile." Basically (as directed by our Rav). That helped us navigate through many difficult situations.

It was overall a very positive experience.

--Elyah

A separate point that I wanted to mention is that I am very confused right now about lust in marriage. For a while at the end of my previous long clean streak (1 year 2 months) I had been getting a feeling like, "How much am I really sober and how much am I just holding out to satisfy my lust with my wife?"

So, a few nights ago we definitely weren't going to be having marital intimacy for certain reasons. I was really disappointed and angry about it, though I was trying to accept it. Still, I had this feeling, "well, I'm going to try to get SOMETHING, after all." We got a little bit, shall I say, involved, and this lead to z"l--but I was surprised, as we weren't really doing anything THAT involved. So, on one hand, my wife was involved--this wasn't p*rn or m*sturbation and it was a bit unexpected, on the other hand, my intention was definitly not pure.

I am inclined to call this a fall, but I don't know if that would be being extreme. On the other hand, I don't want to go too easy on myself either. So, any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

--Elyah

Eye.nonymous wrote on 06 Sep 2012 16:55:


Heartwarming! Thanks for the update & welcome back.

MT

Welcome back, Elyah. I'm looking foward to you continuing your's bite-size big-book thread.

All the best!!!

Hi Elya and welcome back. I'm glad the trip worked out well for you.

Keep On Not-Monster Trucking!!! :D

Gevura!

Eye.nonymous wrote on 06 Sep 2012 17:02:


In general, intentional hotzas zera livatala is considered a fall if there was an orgasm, regardless of how it happened.

If it wasn't fully intentional or there wasn't an orgasm, efshar lehakel

Regarding lust in marriage and bedroom life in general, I uploaded a shiur specially for you - which you can listen to with your wife.

www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=5652.0 (FOR MARRIED GUYS ONLY)

The link doesnt work, Can you please fix it, or Pm it to me.
Thanks!

The link works for me so far. Sorry to hear it's giving you trouble SSTC (I mean your real name, not the fake username, of course).

And I rarely listen to such things (I will explain later in this piece) but this is a workshop not a schmuz, and maybe my wife and I will work it together soon, iy"H. We talk about life a bunch...and that includes our sex, too.

Which brings me to the ikkar of Eye and his troubles. And thank-G-d for Guard! He is not a nutball...what a compliment! (He knows I love him and respect him a great deal, so I can get away with those compliments! ;D But it's true, he really isn't a nutball...and I know nutballs... :)

It's about communication! That's intimacy...though we do not really believe it a shred. Even though we are sexaholics, the stuff our sexual peace is actually made of is not in Cosmopolitan Magazine's sex-advice columns, nor is it in the really dirty magazines, R"l. And yet I always believed with my entire heart, that it was! That if only she and I could get really, really dirty together, then I'd be happy. Gevalt, how backward and primitive I tend to be!

And what a shock - it's not really that way. Sure the mussar sforim and shiurim (like this Rabbi Pemensky recording) told us all the mushy stuff about love and communication and intimacy.

But our problem is not that we do not have the right information!

Our problem is that we don't believe it!

At all!

Nu, so we discover in marriage that the lust way is a bottomless pit. It brings us some pleasure but no peace. Instead of a ride through the 'Tunnel of Love' it is a ride through the 'Funnel of Love'...(how's that for punny? I couldn't resist.) As in Pirkei Avos - a talmid who is like a funnel - "yotzo schoro b'hefseido"! Everything that is invested gets lost and all I get left with is more desire...and all she gets left with is more disappointment. Yuch.

And lust addicts who do not get into some form of real recovery (including real sobriety) are saying "I choose gambling for my Pleasure (even if I never really get it), over settling for Peace (even if it will give me more pleasure). The gamble and the search is just too much fun, sorry! I gotta run the show!"

OK, so what am I saying practically? Simple:

1- Stay sober at all costs, period;

2- Instead of trying to communicate my desires and my sex struggles with my wife (that is a very stupid mistake we make early in recovery if we don't listen to advice), take time as often as possible to listen to her. And listen. And listen some more.

3- Open up to our wives about our daily life - not the lust stuff, but everything else!

What?....do I hear you saying, "....what else?...you mean there is stuff going on with me that is real besides the sex and struggles and the ladies on the buses and office?"?

Ohhh. So that's the problem. As addicts we wrap our entire lives around our giant sex struggles. We wrap our entire Yiddishkeit around our giant sex struggles. "Gevalt! What else is there that matters more to the Ribono shel Olam than that I keep my sperm inside me and that I do not metamei my eyes, c"v?! Tell me!"

That's the problem.

Not for normals. For normal Yidden, that attitude might work just fine. R' Aharon Rotteh zy"a might tell you it's right on the money! Rebbe Nachman zy"a will tell you that kedushas Yesod is the Final Frontier and that everything is tolui on it! But they were not talking to sexaholics. For chronic perverts like us it the worst poison, and most likely completely ossur. For us it is complete insanity and ensures complete churban. For it strengthens our romance with "beating this yetzer hora" that we do not beat.

For now our lust to 'finally win' is "backed by the full faith and credit of the" Torah! So it's apikorsus to focus on anything but my eiver kotton and it's taharah!

Hashem wants me to focus on my what?

OK, so the sober am ho'oretz in SA is sober for three years and growing better....who is the kadosh now?

Sorry for the digression....whew, where did that come from? Your marriage and the lust in it and your misadventure with sex that was not really sex...oh, right.

Well, what do you really expect? Perfection. Our sex - real sex - is the last thing to get fixed up, probably. Patience. Stay sober, work your shtepps , and open your life up to your wife! "Ein ish meis ella l'ishto, v'ein isha meisah ella l'ba'aloh..." Chaza"l say. That must mean that we and our wives are supposed to be total partners. More than any other person on this planet, even more than our rebbis.

It's very hard for us. We were taught through high school that noshim are the big enemy...then they told us to go marry one! And our sexual acting out has convinced us that they really are the enemy...hasn't it? Their bodies (especially when unclothed) cause us to get all kookoo and do terrible aveiros. How the heck is sex with our wives supposed to work as long as we are all meshugeneh with females bodies all over the place?

Patience.

Was that useful?

Eye.nonymous wrote on 06 Sep 2012 17:02:


You like sex. Be happy that Hashem allows you to have this wife. If she is happy to make you happy, enjoy. Don't read Hashem's mind (Chet hameraglim) because you are probably going to get it wrong. If anything ask yourself if there are other things you could be doing with your time and energy. That might be a reason to abstain. Lust is not the problem, the problem is lusting after the wrong thing or lusting at the wrong time, or in the wrong place because the world must be exactly the way you need it to be or you are not going to make it. You are going to make it.

But when you do it remember she's there too.




If you know she is not available it would probably be best to stay away from her. She should know better. I thought my wife was the only one who missed class when they taught this ...

lookingforwardtochange wrote on 06 Sep 2012 22:40:


The link only works for Married members.