Shalom Aleichem my GYE friends and brothers. The end of today will be'h mark the completion of 45 days clean from P and M halfway to the 90 day mark. It also marks the entering into my second Rosh Chodesh clean. Rosh Chodesh is a time I usually fell in the past as I commented last Rosh Chodesh, so the cleanliness on this holy day is especially meaningful to me.

I've been posting more or less since I started 45 days ago. Some posts were more positive. Many were expressions of pain. But this post is decidedly one of joy and hope.

The last 45 days have been a time of growth like I haven't experienced since I was single, and in truth even greater, maybe the greatest in my life. I had become embittered, feeling like any past growth was just the taste of the naive idealism of youth. But I truly feel different now. I feel hopeful. I feel positive. I feel like I can be close to Hashem. I feel like I'm here on a mission. I feel like I can get better, I can learn to feel good about myself. I can become a giver. I can be'h when the time comes even help others to fight this fight with joy.

Not having PM or weed to comfort myself has given rise to some incredibly painful feelings. All feelings of low self esteem, of self loathing even. But with Hashem's help, and the help of some of Hashem's beloved messengers here on GYE, I am beginning to learn to deal with them, and maybe even to move past them. 

My marriage, which has been incredibly painful for these last 10 years, has taken a turn for the better almost too good to believe. My wife told me she was so happy in our marriage she felt like "we're on vacation." If someone were to have told me that she would say something like this to me a month and a half ago, I really wouldn't have believed them. She is even moving towards having more children, something which sadly has not been on the table at all for years.

To those of you just starting, (I'm also just starting, but still, 45 days has changed the way that I feel,) hang in there! Reach out for help. Speak to people. (Speak to me!) Understand yourself. Be compassionate towards yourself. Speak to Hashem. Find yourself.

We are mamash on the front lines of the hidden war between truth and lies, good and evil, selfishness and selflessness. We deserve to feel great about it. We are accomplishing things that were never accomplished before.

I want to post a 'PS' to the post above, but separately. I'm not under the impression that I was 'koneh' any madrega. But I am definitely on a good path, and I'm farther down the path than I was 45 days ago. And this is a very good reason to feel hopeful and positive. So before my YH comes and starts trying different tricks based on lulling my into a false sense of confidence, or of arrogance, let me come out and say I see myself completely as a work in progress, very much in need of support from friends, and very much in need of siyata dishmaya

My dear friend, you made my day! May you only know of Simcha and menuchas Hanefesh! Keep shteiging and keep trucking!

simchastorah wrote on 22 Mar 2023 17:56:

Incredible, I’m very happy to hear this, it is something sometimes bachurim or younger guys are unaware of that they should be seeing, the amazingly difference between having not had p* anymore while married and having it...... this is I’m sorry to express but a good example that many of us should appreciate and recognize, your ladder and path is charting upwards and sounds exciting. The difference to want to have children.. a bunch of positivity, I’m forgetting anything else but THAT IS SO MUCH of a reason to quit porn in marriage or before entering marriage.... how much POSITIVE THERE IS!! ( not including the other positives, and what negativity it would cause if having p*) 
keep at it very exciting!!

I'm tempted to tell my cleaning lady that she looks pretty. My yetzer tells me I'd just be giving a nice complement. But this is not the truth. The truth is my yetzer has some sort of fantasy that would start with a 'compliment' and end with an aveira. This nice 'chesed' of giving a  compliment is a 'chesed' indeed, 'chesed hu' lol. 

Btw I did ask a rav about yichud and he told me to leave the door open a bit, which I do.

The yetzer comes in so many different forms: relief from the pain of loneliness, desire for connection, relief from stress and other pains, and in this form - desire to do a nice thing. There is no efsharus whatsoever of anything good coming from following after this silly fantasy! I need to relate to women as human beings, just like me, deserving of kavod and proper boundaries. This must be the ikar way of relating to them. And the tayva must not define the way of relating to them. It is a foreign body which exists within me, to be used for a very specific purpose in the context of my marriage and no where else.

simchastorah wrote on 23 Mar 2023 06:13:

I identify with this urge very much, a friend told me where his boundaries lie:
He asks himself, "is this anything to do with lust? is this anything to do with anything to do with lust?etc."
you can click on me... I quoted this friend in my previous post.
One thing that happened with me was.. I was in an uber with a lady driver. I simply asked where she was from, talking about her language and the conversation somehow led her to believe that I was into her. I left the car with her waving to me awkwardly as if just after a good date. There was no doubt in my mind that if I asked her for a quick kiss she would have obliged. My mind went wild and I had to make a few calls to see what went wrong. I asked my Rabbi and he said that initiating conversation is very forwarding and is invasive. He said that when he goes into a taxi he says shalom and says can you take me here or there with no further conversation. If they want to initiate then they can, so be respectful and respond appropriately. Initiation is a problem. response is not.
Thing is, women need 3 A's Attention, Affection and Appreciation. I was giving her the first one a perfect opener and therefore initiation is a problem.
Now I have a 3rd cousin who is just too beautiful. I had to surrender this to others as I saw her looking at me, I don't know why she was looking at me but boy do I want to go up to her and start talking. She is not my type, she is frum but I can tell that we have a different hashkafa.

I pray that the uber driver finds her soulmate soon and she is able to tackle today with Hashems help. I also wish for my beloved cousin to find the person who will treat her with honor and respect, That she will be able to live her life with Hashem and that she is going to be able to tackle todays challenges.
Thank you all for letting me share.

simchastorah wrote on 23 Mar 2023 06:13:

Firstly, Kol hakavod on your tremendous achievements!! Keep on growing!

Just one point for thought: even if something is "Halachically" permitted, but if you know that it is a trigger for you, then "halachically" you must avoid it.... 

Gut moed everyone. Yesterday was the 60th day of being clean from p&m. I celebrated by having a pesach seder

Today I'm having something of an urge for porn. I believe that it's because of some inner contemplation I did earlier which woke up deep feelings of loneliness. I need to be mischazek in remembering that the porn would not make me feel less lonely, it would only make me feel more lonely. Although there would be a temporary feeling of relief, afterwards I would be struck afterwards with a worse feeling of loneliness, of uncleanliness. I would be tormented by the images I had seen, suddenly so disgusting and disturbing once the tayva for them was no longer there. 

It's amazing how when you have a tayva for this stuff, it looks like the most amazing thing in the world. But as soon as the tayva is gone it is so utterly disgusting. Like the tayva is able to be malbish (the arumim ) in some sort of veil that totally hides what you're seeing, and as soon as the tayva is gone, and the yetzer is no longer tricking you about what you're seeing you're struck by the truth of it. An utterly destetable display of the lowliness that human beings can sink too. To afilu yatush kadm'cha b'maaseh breishis. 

So let me take a minute and remember just how utterly disgusting porn really is. People acting like animals mamash. Completely degrading themselves. Pretending that they're on top of the world when really they're deep deep in the sewer. Because we all know that's what it is: the sewer, and no one is more sewer-y than those people themselves.

It's a lie! A downright lie! This is not malchus, this is shiflus. This is not love, this is self-centeredness. SimchasTorah, you don't need this thing. You have a long lived habit of trying to comfort your loneliness with this repulsive imitation of love. Don't worry, the urge won't last forever. Get through it, and remember, it's a trick. It's a sinister trick of the yh. You are not missing anything. You are holding by kdusha right now! You are with Hashem! It's the holy time of Pesach! It's a time to become free of this nasty klipa, it's a time to rip off the veil of tuma so you can see the world for what it really is. It's Hashem's briya. It's a living breathing world, sunken into the holiness of Hashem. You need to become really free of this garbage to see that.

Please Hashem! Please please please. I don't expect the urges to go away. If they do I'll thank you 1000 times. But what I beg of you is that at least I should know that the urge is not me. At least I should know that it is the advice of a foreign agent who lives within me, who does not have my best interests in mind. Who will shirk at nothing to try and convince me to do that which will do nothing but hurt me hurt me hurt me. Who will tell be the most brazen faced lies again and again as long as I am foolish enough to give a listening ear. Please give me the clarity to know that the y'h has no real power. He can not make me do anything. I have full r'shus to say no. To say no to this evil ruach shtus. Please Hashem I need the clarity 

Wow, what a beautiful post!! 

simchastorah wrote on 07 Apr 2023 11:24:

This amazes me every time. I have been struggling really hard the past few days. I needed to hear this now. Thanks! 

Next time the YH tries to get me to view porn, telling me how wonderful it is, I will respond, "Oh ya? So why are there thousands of people on GYE making every effort to never look at it again?"

EDIT - as soon as I wrote the above the YH told me it's because we are frum jews and we don't want to do an aveira, but really it is very geshmak. But the truth is reading through the forums the sense that I get is that for most people the desire to get free from this garbage is way more than just "it's an aveira," it's "this thing is killing me, I feel terrible, it's messing up my life in 1000 ways." So again YH, if it's so wonderful, why are there thousands of people on GYE complaining about how much it's hurting them?

BTW - the inspiration for this thought was seeing someone has 'never again' as their username. I thought wow, this guy hates this garbage so much he hopes to never see it again

Dov use to say that even if P&M would be a big mitzva he would skip this mitzva.
I was giving shiurem, mikarev and michazek others but myself I couldn't help. 
Porn destroyed my life and I wont let it happen again bezrat hashem!

simchastorah wrote on 09 Apr 2023 04:16:

Love this!!

Keep up the inspiration

Very happy to hear this from YOU, Battling....the Y"H, sounds like Defeating... the Y"H! Unbelievable simchastorah!!

thank you so much emes-a-yid for the support

Wow Rabbi Simchas Torah!
I am 1000% sure that some angle in Heaven is telling his friends what you wrote here and they are utterly amazed that we are still fighting the YH when everyone thought there is no way that today with this level of Tuma we will still be able to fight, the YH took out his last weapon of Mass destruction and this was supposed to be infallible! But here we are thousands of Yiden defying the YH and the whole dark side! If we would be able to see what we are doing every time we resist his advances, we would be dancing on the streets! 
Regarding what you wrote about the disgusting part, Reb Nacheen of Breslov writes this about sex in general that the whole taava is not real because the second it’s done, we are unable to imagine ever being interested in it when a seconds before we were so into it.
He says unlike any other taava where we almost never get to a point where we are disgusted by it even after we’re done with it like food, sleep, etc. 
So you were Zocha to say with your own mind what a holy tzaddik wrote 200 years ago!
keep it up!