Hi, I am a young married frum guy with 2 kids.
I have been masterbating for many years. Right now my struggle is mainly motivation. Being that I've been doing this for so long and this has turned into the norm, I feel very little motivation to stop because my dandy life is just going on like this for so long. I feel I have lost sensitivity towards this as being a terrible thing etc. I don't feel very bad whenever I am done.

I'm very new to this site so I'm not sure if I'm using it correctly. I've been in touch with people from GYE before and I was told about smart recovery. I was told that I should get myself a partner and my partner suggested that I reach out on the Forum. So I hope I'm using this forum right. I'm reaching out to whoever can guide me to making a proper plan of action and thereby renewing my motivation and then hopefully finally ending this lifestyle of mine. 

There's allot of stuff on this site so if someone can give me guidance where to look etc, I'd greatly appreciate it. 

bitachon28 wrote on 27 Jun 2021 22:33:

Welcome - you’re ahead of the game!!

Was that a mis-spell.
Do you want guidance where to look or where not to look??

The handbook has some basics. 
There’s some good stuff in my signature below too. 

But the idea of the forum is posting often to build connection- so maybe start there...

Hey!
Welcome to GYE!
It's awesome that you came here, it's an amazing place to be.
I definitely can relate to what you seem to be going through. I also had a 'wonderful' life which included masturbating 3 times a day. Everything was great, I was a well liked person, I was a masmid, etc. I got married right away, and have two kids bh. Life was just really fine. 

So I just needed that kick in the pants. Because deep down we know that life is really not fine like this. 
We know that it's really bad.
Are you really able to look at your wife in the eyes and feel like she is the only one in your world? Chances are you're masturbating while thinking of other women. So life is not fine, as much as life is going good and you feel like this is just part of your life, that doesn't mean that deep down you know what's right. You know you can't go on like this. Things can get very bad cv if you don't stop. Check out this story which is fiction but can happen to anyone.
As far as where you should look, yeah it could get overwhelming in the beginning but look around the forums, see what others are writing and slowly you'll get the hang of it.

I wish you best of luck!
You can do this!
Stay connected- that's the key to stay clean (for many).

HappyYid

Welcome aboard!
I am also pretty new here, 
I feel that we (and many  others here) have a lot in common. I also felt kind of numb at the whole thing...
The question you gotta ask yourself is 'What AM I doing here on GYE, if I don't really care?' 
Something probably happened that made you reach out for help. 
A lot of us convince ourselves (me included) that everything is fine and dandy...
But really...
Its not.
And thats why we are all here...
to get help.
(I personally get tons of chizuk reading through Ish MiGrodno's forum guardyoureyes.com/forum/17-Balei-Battims-Forum/356161-Gardener-of-Grodno among others)

Yes I defiantly struggle with this too, I used to feel very down after every fall which did me no good so over the years iv'e gone to the other extreme and i don't (allow myself to) feel too bad.

Perhaps we can start a list of motivational reasons to stop:

#1: It only gets worse, If we don't stop now you can/likely will really end up in situations you would never imagine. 

​#2: There is no greater satisfaction than a true meaningful relation/connection with someone. P & M is the complete opposite, it pulls us away from that. It's utter emptiness. When interviewed, they all say they don't feel good afterwards.



Any other ideas....? I know there are many but I just chose what iv'e been thinking about recently..  

 

Hi after a little break of giving up, I’m back and this time I really want to make this work and get rid of this.
I’m trying to still figure out though where to start which is why it’s a bit difficult for me because being that I’m lacking consistent motivation already, it becomes very hard to push myself to try to figure out where to go and how to navigate etc.

Basically I’m trying to make a plan of action based on the 6 steps of smart recovery. I really need help and guidance with making this plan etc. 

I think I’m ready to actually listen this time. 

Is there someone that’s able to coach me on this? (Heads up, I feel like I’m a pretty tough customer at this point cuz I’m pretty deep in the game).

And don’t get too excited about me having a 37 day streak it’s just that for some reason I can’t figure out how to update the chart…it’s not updating for me for some reason.

Anyone can give me a crash course on how to update it? I know it’s not rocket science but I’m trying to and it’s not going for me.

I’m going to reiterate what others already wrote, and that is that if you are here, it’s because you DO care. 

Psychologically we often stop caring not because we don’t care but because we care so much that it hurts to care. We, therefore, stop caring to protect ourselves from that feeling.

When we have tried to stop for so long and haven’t succeeded, we feel hurt again and again and again. And subconsciously, we need to stop feeling that hurt, so we become lackadaisical about it and just stop feeling anything.

On this website, under the Other Tools section, there is something called the W.I.T.Y. Exercise which you may find helpful.

withgdthereshope wrote on 07 Oct 2021 01:28:

Wow! Solid gold post!

For some reason I can’t find the the other tools section

I want to reiterate: I obviously care which is why I am here. The issue is that i don’t care consistently enough to even fight with myself to stop when i have a slight urge. 

bitachon22 wrote on 07 Oct 2021 23:26:

If you click on the box on the top right of the screen that has three lines, it should show up.