habaletaher wrote on 24 Dec 2009 00:00:
I also want to know how you are so open with your wife, and how she seems to really be helping you. I wish I could have that, but I can't imagine my wife's response to finding out about my problem! I've been back and forth on this dilemma for months, do I or do I not involve my wife? Could you describe to me what it was like and how you guys have been able to tackle this together?
I think the topic came out little by little.
We've always been discussing the dangers of having a computer with internet in our house against the benefits.
We needed to upgrade to high-speed internet (to keep up the the 4-meg family pictures coming in our E-mail box). Besides that, I have convinced myself that we need the computer for parnoso. We asked our Rav about it. He said we shouldn't have internet without a filter. He had actually had a recent encounter with Rav Twersky, and he told us that internet has been ruining fine Jewish homes like a plague.
It did take a while for me to admit that we needed a filter, though.
I got involved with GYE, at first really to find info about different filters. It just seemed so complicated (but really it's very easy)
Considering I had a problem (which I only admitted then really to looking at women on the street) I signed up for the daily Chizuk E-mails.
I'll also say that my wife and I have been pretty open about discussing se*uality. We both had some baggage coming into marriage, and we discussed it even on shidduchim (probably against the rules).
Neither of us really understood the danger of the internet, but we have both heard that families have been ruined by it.
[I think this could be a good starting point for other people to open up this topic with their wives]
From GYE, we learned exactly how.
I admitted that we need a filter. My wife, who isn't stupid, suspected that I have had some exposure.
I admitted the truth (along with all the addict rationalizations, which softened the news). I really only look once every so often, and even then it always seemed somehow unexpected. But, of course I love you, and I'm not interested in the other women.
I told her that I wasn't looking all the time, but I had a specific fettish which got the best of me once in a while (these fettishes we had already discussed previously).
She wanted to throw out the computer.
(Especially after we installed a filter and I admitted right away that I had played the "beat the filter" game.)
I insisted on having another chance; that I needed to work on overcoming the addiction, and not just avoiding it.
She gave me a two-week trial period. But if I didn't improve after that, we had to get rid of the computer.
Now I think we would both admit that I have recovered far more from my involvement in GYE than I ever would have if we just threw out the computer.