Hows it goin buddy?

YetzerTov26 wrote on 12 Nov 2020 04:16:

^^

Hi everyone, I know it's been a few weeks.

As an update, BH I am 63 days clean, which is really wayyyy longer than I thought I'd get on my first try. BH things with my wife are pretty good, particularly with our emotional intimacy and our challenges with sexual intimacy have taken a turn for the better. I did end up starting to see a therapist, which so far is going well. I struggled in finding one that takes insurance, so I ended up going with someone who is not Jewish. That aspect is definitely a disadvantage, but I'm giving it a shot and he is very understanding of the fact that there are some religious things it would have been helpful for him to know without me having to explain them to him.

Anyway, I'm having a hard time in a few ways:
1. Continue finding time to take advantage of GYE resources and work on myself (as is evident by the delay since my last post). What could I say, life is really busy and this stuff takes time!

2. I find myself missing porn and masturbation and kindof reminisce in my head some of the scenes and people while I "half-masturbate" (I basically do it but don't finish). Unfortunately this has become a nightly thing over the last 2 weeks or so and I know it's almost as bad as the real thing because although my eyes are cleaner and I haven't spilled seed, I haven't really fixed the issue on a fundamental level. Also, I get so close that I'm afraid I'm going to blow it any day and I've come too far for that to happen.

Anybody have anything helpful to say?

Thanks in advance, I could use the chizuk.

Hey

Amazing that you followed through and started therapy, don’t feel bad at all ,Dov says that it doesn’t make a difference as long as the therapist doesn’t believe that porn/masturbation is good.

I was in a similar situation, I was clean from porn and masterbating for a long time .... but was still doing that touching thing, besides from it being self inflicted torture, it eventually will lead to full
masturbation, do yourself a favor and move the goalposts- set up gedarim for touching, you sound like a motivated person, you can get it done .

Hatzlacha

Thanks. Any specific recommendations for doing that?

Welcome! How's it going? Don't be a stranger (as cordnoy would say), post from time to time.

YetzerTov26 wrote on 06 Jan 2021 03:51:

Hoping you'll see this :-) 

Chazal knew of that which they speak!! When they say that we should avoid touching our eiver, it is because thats a sure-fire way to get turned on. I'm also an upper body guy and I used to use touching myself there as a soothing thing, but it almost always ended up in masturbation. I now only touch myself if we are already in the bedroom and it's clear we're going to be together. As an example - last night was a killer as i got really turned on (with my wife) and then the baby cried :-) Hence my regular posting today as I'm feeling VERY frustrated. if it can happen even from the good way, it can happen from the bad. 
Also, just throwing my opinion in as well - don't tell wives. My wife is amazing etc. etc. but she doesn't like it. And why should she.
Hatzlocho.