I think I did a better job posing as a girl, though I didn't see the edited out parts...


Have you read the GYE handbook?

There are different levels of addiction and different solutions, you should give it a try.

Cheshbon Tzedek i just realize now about your thread. welcome to this wonderful site. you are all surrounded by friends that have similar struggles like yours. i dont have to be an expert my friend . i can drink today two beers and do not have the urge for it . if i want i drink i dont want i dont drink. but lust for me is different ball game . one look to the wrong place and the force of gravity will just pull me down yelling and kicking that i dont want , it will not help. if you are not addicted just stop masturbating , it is that simple. refua shleima for you and your wife.

Dear 'cheshbon tzedek',

I respect you a great deal, particularly for your candor and poignant descriptions of how you felt at different times and the inner struggles you had. Your pain and challenges in life are huge, and thanks so much for sharing all that. We can and will be davening for you and rooting for you.

I gotta point something out here, after carefully reading all your posts above from the first:

You very clearly wrote in an early post above that you "got married and stopped masturbating" - yet you later wrote that you masturbated soon after getting married and continued masturbating for years.

You wrote very clearly that you "resolved to never ever go back to porn, yet fell in other ways as you will later describe" - then wrote that you looked at photos of your chat girlfriend and talked sexually with her about them and her.

There is something fishy, here, sir.

Think about it. No need to try to explain yourself to me or anybody, just think about it please. Doubletalk means something.

As far as the idea you wrote above that "admitting failure is a surefire way to losing the battle", I beg to differ. If you are trashing your life in so many ways and faking who you are in quite a few, and pretending to yourself and others that you are 'getting better' - while doing yet crazier and more disturbing things in other ways...then I'd say there is a simple and liberating choice:

Either choose to pretend you are a great guy with a 'challenge' - until it bites you in the tush and ruins your life more and more bitterly....or just admit that you are obviously a little crazy, as i am. I am an addict - and admitting that MEVER made me worse. I have been sober for years one day at a time and it got easier, not harder as time went on, and i still work recovery in a 12 step program, and still admit I am a sexaholic. And I am clean!

And I am not the only one.

In case you are a chabadnik (you mentioned the ohel), there are plenty sober chabadniks I know personally, who are going to 12 step recovery meetings with other chabadnik sexaholics because they are failures at living without turning to sweet porn and erotica (as you appear possibly to be, now that i have read much more of your story) - in other words: addicts. And they are clean, too! I can introduce you to a few of them quite easily, if you like. Addicts are not evil. We are not sold to the YH. We are just ill, and Tatteh knows it - and there is a refuah. We don't need willpower, or any power, actually. We just get our sanity back as a gift from Hashem in recovery. You are a good man, but just a little goofy, if you don't mind me saying. It's OK. As long as we are willing to stay clean today and take real actions of recovery to do so, He will help us grow more sane, as well. And life gets to be good for a change. All of it. And for the people around us, too. You want to be good to your wife? I suggest getting sober and recovering for real by working some sort of recovery program for real, with real action.

Your honesty here will pay off in the end, chaver. Please don't give up now. You are not alone any more. Make it real.

- Dov

Dov , i was thinking maybe i should stop posting . You wrote so eloquently and beautifully the exact same idea i was trying to convey . i am not american born . so english is not mame loshon . i write what pours out of my heart . and sometimes i could be misunderstood . Anyways thank you for clarifying what i wrote.

Oy! Why stop pouring your heart out here because you like the way I wrote better? The things you write and the way you write them too - I feel sure that those are unique. You'd be surprised how much more valuable your writing here is than you think it is, chaver. There are surely some guys who read what they need to hear in your words, and see nothing at all in what I write. Zero.

So for yourself, please keep writing here, and for the others who read you (including me) please keep writing here. Pouring out the heart is always heard by other hearts, no?

The real shayloh is though, what do you need?

So I wish you hatzlocha, friend.

- Dov

One more thought for cheshbon tzedek.

The fact that you made up a story that her friend was killed, even though it made her truly hurt, was interesting.

Why did you not just write this woman (if it really was a woman and the pictures really were hers) the simple truth that you are really a man and have been fooling her all along?

Your choice meant (and still means) a great deal. Sure there might have been some disadvantages to 'coming out'...but did you really think the pros and cons through seriously before choosing to make up a story to cover up your story? I suggest to you that you suqndered an recovery opportunity there. A chance to accomplish some real change within yourself...gevalt. We all have done that, me more than many, I guess! But my recovery so far has been mainly about not squandering those opportunities as much as i could, be"H. And it's working.

But please consider the possibility that your preference to lie to cover up a problem and break it off was part of your problem itself, and perpetuated it rather than bing a tikkun.

You are a good guy, and a good neshomah too. Please think over what we wrote to you here and keep in touch w this chevra.

Hatzlocha!

thank you dov for your encouraging words . i need to fix my life and straighten my head.
and some Chizuk . So by being Mechazek others i also help myself . anyways wishing our best to CH.Tzedek. and thanks again

You are geshmak.

But where is the cheshbon tzedek guy?

My wife and i are traveling together and theres wifi here! yipee!! So i have time to post a bit, bH. Hey, I love the chshbon tzedek guy. Hope he sticks with this wherever it leads him...especially if it leads off the path he expects.

i was thinking the same , dont know where he is . hoping and praying for the best.

Hashem help me....

Cheshbon Tzedek


Many people fall into this trap that if it's not "porn," it's not so bad.

I understand the thought - I've been there.

In reality, it's all the same stuff - it's lust. I can look at a tznius girl with the SAME (or more) lust as when I would watch "real porn". Reading or writing erotic stories could also be worse than watching "real porn".

Bottom line is it's poison, in any form. There's no better or worse.

i wouldn't call masturbation a "slip". especially if it comes to nurture when in times of stress or the like. Or wife's low libido. it connects itself in the mind of the person and it has the same wiring in the brain cells like any other drug. and it is highly addictive. wishing you Hatzlacha .

newaction wrote:

I'm a bit confused by what you wrote. Masturbation is never okay (I'm a big talker here...), and it's something most people here are trying to quit, find sobriety from, etc.

Sometimes, it's difficult to control ourselves, like when we're stressed or not receiving attention from our wife, but it's always wrong, and we have to work on it.

If you meant that it's not a slip, rather a "fall," my apologies. It just doesn't seem that way from the hemshech hadvorim.

newaction wrote:


What statement was this directed to?
You wouldn't call it a slip; what would you call it?

.