Hi chaps,

I was a frequent poster (and struggler) when I was still single. B'H I've been married for nearly 3 years and was clean for about 966 days or so.

I fell for the 4th time last night in the past 5 weeks or so.

We had twins about 10 months ago (b'H both healthy and well), so the time has been quite difficult - lots of sleep deprivation, frustration, adjustment. My wife's cycle has also been completely out of whack, we have now been apart for about a month.

I feel like a complete idiot. I keep looking at things and falling expecting it to make me feel good and balance me, but it does the opposite. I feel awful and scared about what I've just done. This weekend was really bad - our twins were sick and Shabbos and Sunday were very difficult. I've found I have real issues with my anger, after a while I lose my patience and get pretty angry, throwing things and kicking toys.

Last night I lost my temper again (in private at least) - I tend to have to do most of the housework (or so it seems to me) and really got pretty mad about it last night. I think I acted out also in a way to 'get back' at my wife.

I think I should be posting here more often - I don't have anyone I feel comfortable talking to about it so I might as well be here.

Does anyone know of any anger management resources? I think I need some help there - it's probably the cause of my acting out more than anything

Thanks, kol tov
sR

Hi, u r not alone by a long shot, sir! It hurts a ton, I know. And BTW, I remember your posts, too! I was always impressed by your fake name - it is very cool. My real name is Dov. Maybe you will establish some real relationships - they are always based on using real names and being real in general and specific...a thing GYE and open posting is not really geared to, of course. NU. But it's a start! U can also just PM me if u want to talk, of course.

About your recent adventures:

Hey, cut somebody some slack, man. Twins are the roughest. I know. And stuff does pile up when not dealt with using gifts on honesty and humility...and they are dearly bought, like all precious and effective things.

What price do you need to pay to get enough of those to walk away from the resentment or whatever else u r carrying everywhere with you? I do not know. It always hurts. But when you pay a bit, and set your fears or resentments aside, you will have a lot of relief for that one day...and you will probably be clean that day, too.

If you want to elaborate here or by PM or on the phone, just go for it! That's why GYE is here.

Peace,

Dov

Hey, mate! We are real people. Whether your name is sonicReducer, Charlie or shmendrick, your post tugged at my heart. Like Dov alluded to, resentment can really mess us up. Keep posting!

Hey - you remember shmendrick? I spoke w him at least once on our first Desperado step call. My family and I were on vacation in atlantic city and I ran off and called in!

Thanks chaps - bH last week or so has been good. I've changed one or two things in my schedule that have helped me control where I'm looking. Got some time off work, spending it with the kids and my wife's family

SR

Keep up whatever you are doing

Stay positive

I have twins as well

They can be a handful

Keep us posted please

KUTGW!!

thanks for updating

Maybe there should be a thread for people who have twins...

Dear SonicReducer guy,

Every time a lust temptation comes along whether in reality (one of Hashems people He made and loves whether Jewess or goyess), or in your brain cell (those 'ol fantasy tapes), I suggest you quietly sing:

"Ssssooonnniccc Reduuuuuuuuucer....." a few times with a familiar and spooky tune. I am dead serious.

Have you tried it yet? I promise it will help you smile. And smiling is the doorway into simple calm joy. And that's reality - as it says in Mishlei: "Leiv chochom mishteh tomid".

Not to get too heavy, and even though this is not the marrieds' ('ba'al habatim') side of the forum, I want to say this about sex just to clarify something important and bust a myth or two, be"H:

Our problem is the same in sex, too! We are way too serious about it as a subject and in actual practice...and the struggle with lust we have endured, certainly makes that soooo much worse. It scares the hell out (sorry) of our wives. Trust me (trust my wife, too).

My wife enlightened me during my early recovery that I was just too damn serious about sex! It was after all, such a big deal for us porning-men! We 'know' how mind-blowing and intensely sweet this sex thing is 'supposed ' to be!! Well, shouldn't it be? In my heart, this was the tape playing during foreplay, sex, and even afterward: "Will this work!? Or is that gonna feel better for me?! Will this 'get her in the mood' - or should I be touching more over there or somewhere else?! Aye! Is this gonna 'work'? This is serious business! It's gotta work, you know!!"

Oh, boy. And it really didn't work, in the end...sex never 'saved' me. Surprise.

What woman wants that heavy load put on her? ...and while she is in bed, too.

No woman would - except the ones getting paid for it!! Porn really confuses us, doesn't it. We do not even know how to love.

All my seriousness about that most important thing for me (getting good sex) was a huge turn-off to her. I was shooting myself in my own foot! But she was young and didn't know how to say that, nor why I was behaving that way, nor that there was a better way! I was her sex teacher...or Rebbi. Really. Most of us husbands are, you know.

OMG.

On the 'Torah'-side, she was told (as I was) how meaningful sex is, how holy, how serious a matter it is...concepts all way beyond us and probably way beyond anybody here in this generation. Basically useless information. What did the teachers think? That we wer going to be having sex in public or something!?

But the teachers really do not have a CLUE. And amyhow whatever they say, we sex-hungry, porn-exposed guys end up hearing that sex really is - and should be al pi Torah - a huge, big, fat deal. Hellloooo! This isn't helllllpinnnng, Rebbi...

Make it enjoyable - fun! Collaborate on it, you two. The Zohar hakadosh calls Z'eir Anpin the 'mekor hasimcha' for Nukvah, particularly when they work together as partzufim are supposed to do, called zivug. And 'working together' for us is the midah of Yesod in all endeavors and with all people, not just married people and not just sexually. But anytime people work together and collaborate to produce a tachlis (learning, working, discussion about anything, really). Yesod is of course particularly demonstrated in sex itself, between husband and his 'nukvah'.

And that area is one in which he can be her mekor hasimcha. So: make it happy! It is not easy for us. And that's OK. If you have no clue how to do that, ask your wives! They may not have a clue, either - but probably have some ideas that are far better than anything you or I could ever come up with. Be brave. Lo habayshon lomeid. You may need to talk with a therapist, maybe even a sex therapist. Not all of them are perverts and resho'im, you know...

[ A caution: Any guy who is still hiding from his wife and feeding himself with sweet porn on a regular basis, masturbating himself, etc...will not succeed in circumventing the issue and saving himself from the rotten sex he is having due to his porn-brain, by (finally) just collaborating with his wife to try and make sex more happy and more fun for them both. It will just not work until you get clean and start living honestly with yourself and with her. You may not need to tell disclose to her the stupid things you did in the past (or you may), but you can't fix life up if you are still living in drug-land. It will collapse. The one person you can never escape from will alaways be yourself. And she can smell your mess, she may not know what she is smelling, but it does stink. ]

But regardless of whether you are married or not, WORK ON IT NOW! How? By learning how to take life in general more realistically. Get and live right-sized. RMb"M's emotional 'shvil hazahav' of Sh'moneh P'rakim. We addicts (and semi-addicts) take so many things way too seriously...and so many things not seriously enough. It's the work of a lifetime. A real-life time, not a fantasy-life time.

Balance takes tefilloh, practice, and more tefilloh and more practice and tefilloh. And it takes time. We never get it perfect, but we improve. And when we do improve, everyone we come in contact with has a nicer life.

this is more like the right place

Thanks Dov - great post, gave me a lot to think about. Definitely my approach to sex at the beginning of my marriage was very frustrating and confusing for both of us, b'H things have improved.

Clean for 13 days (according to the 90 day wall)

Lost my temper last night and this morning. My boy doesn't finish his last feed and coupled with the fact he is quite snotty and congested he woke up shrieking at 2am for food. By the time we had picked him up and were cooling a bottle, his sister had woken. After she was fed too (unusual for them, to be honest), he was screaming again as he was wide awake and wanted to play or not be left alone. I shouted at him "Go to bed" - my wife ran in and pulled me out of their room. I was fuming, exhausted, and embarrassed What a night

Again this morning at breakfast, he was screaming while I tried to give him porridge (he wanted a bottle). Lost my temper at a comment my wife made - threw a niggel vasser across the room (empty thankfully) and snapped at her.

Not good for our shalom bayis! She doesn't like me losing my temper, but when I'm exhausted and have hours of screaming kids I just run out of patience. At least I take my frustration out on inanimate unbreakable objects

oi vei

Oh, and she bled randomly on Shabbos, at least a week before she's due. Again.

sorry to hear all that

all thru your posts, your positive attitude still comes out

channel that throughout the day, I guess

we hope and daven that things will work out for you

b'hatzlachah

The 12 step people generally believe that our addiction is not The Problem.

It is our (poor) solution to our problem.

Our problem is living the life that G-d is giving us today. Finding it unacceptable based on either emotional reasons, religious reasons, or practical reasons...in other words, any reason. It all boils down to lack of true acceptance of reality, and it sucks. So, life sucks. It has to, without our favorite thing! That's not a yetzer hora problem, see? It's reality as we see and feel it.

Now, it is apparent to any thinking person that G-d is probably doing the absolute best He can to give each of us the very best day He can give us today. But accepting that is a huge, huge problem for all of us. Normal people just get uneasy...addicts eventually just have to escape.

So...

Now that you are clean for x # of days, all you are really accomplishing is that you have removed your medication. Congratulations - now you are out in the freezing cold in not much but your birthday suit...just like all the rest of the sober addicts all over the world.

'Good luck!'

So the alkies got the 12 steps. Why do they help, if there is nothing in them at all about resisting desire or drinking? In other words, why do none of the 12 steps talk about how not to drink again?

Because they are only about this one point you are at right now: How to accept, make real peace with, and even enjoy life as it is being given to us, today...in other words, G-d's Will for you and I. That is not the same things as 'the mitzvos', by the way. Not at all. Rather, it is the myriad things that express His Will in all the things that are divrei r'shus - all the stuff that happens to you and in you, is all His Will for you. (And it is all m'rumaz in the Torah - yet it is not the mitzvos themselves.)

So, now that you have been stripped of your 10+ year-trained and ingrained favourite coping mechanisms, what tools are you using to accept:

this crying baby you have?

to accept this imperfect wife you have?

the boss, the chavrusa, the mother, father, whatever....

to accept the yetzer hora you have for porning, raging, and whatever esle you do that's not good for you or your family?

to accept each little (and big) thing?

Guilt is a common substitute for our coping mechanism (masturbating ourselves or fantasizing our brains out), and so is 'complex thinking' (really just mental fantasizing about things other than lust), and so is blaming. All stinky coping tools I and many of us have turned to when our bottles ran out on us and we couldn;t afford to drink any more.

Life is full of stuff we do not naturally like (per Messilas Yeshorim, very full of pain). Recovery is not about not spilling seed. The 12 steps are a beautiful set of principles to live by that take a lot of written work and real-life practice for regaining the sanity that your baby has right now. Trust me, he is perfectly sane, honest, and right-sized. You and I had some of that, till we found the escape hatch from life using our sweet, beautiful-feeling schmutz and sex with self.

Make sense, or not?

Awesome!!!! Awesome!!!! Awesome!!!!!!

Thank you so much Dov, that was awesome!!

And anybody can relate to that!!! both addicts and NON-addicts!!

SR - Mazel Tov on the twins. BTW I do remember your name and shmendrick too. I know different people found different ways to work with porn etc.. As for the anger issue - I will highly recommend the 12 step concept. It can really help with the anger, control and resentment - Its a cheshbon Hanefesh+ .

Btw - Dov great posts - keep em coming while your on fire