HI,
I did not get a chance to browse the entire site yet, but i figure if i keep pushing off this post, it'll never happen.
Briefly, i'm kolell/working a liltle, wife works full time (which is neccasary, but lowers my self esteem since she's bringin in the cash). I've been srtuggling with the phonesex/ chat for many years. my wife has no clue if she would see my credit card bills she'd flip! after a while, it went beyond the phone etc. Tumah shmutz growing more and more. I needed to act on all the fantasies of the phone. I fell, I got back up and contiinue to fall and get back up. up and down! sounds familiar? I told my wife a little and of course she cried and flipped. We went for some help, it helped but you guessed not for long...
At this point, I think that this is the place for me. I need alot of chizuk. And I would like to be mechazek too.  Thanks for reading and I hope to become part of this great "family"
Meir

I am sure Guard will be by after Shabbos I am sure with the welcome package.  You took a huge leap to join and to post.  That right there is a huge step and a huge way to look at yourself in a positive light.  Everyone here will help you.  Have a wonderful Shabbos and take a look good look around.  You'll see you are not alone.  Welcome Meir.

Weclome, Reb Meir.

Check out Sci's thread, you might even want to read it from the beginning...worth the time!

I can certainly empathize with your temptation to take things offline (you can read my thread for my back story, just click the link under this post). And yet, you realize that it's not true pleasure.

Ideally, you could find a way to act out all your fantasies as a way of getting closer to your wife. But first, you need to get clean, and reconnect with your wife (and more importantly, with yourself) in a real way.

Joining GYE is a great step forward, and shows that you're serious about moving forward.

Stick with us, we're all here for you!

Dear Meir,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

For people who are struggling with acting out in "real-life" we highly suggest joining live SA groups in your area. After all, your acting out is not just "virtual", is it? We need the power of group support and the 12-Steps. See here for what Rabbi Twerski answered one addict who wrote to him for help.

Do not let anonymity concerns stop you. Your secret is everyone's secret in the groups. Get help fast before this destroys your marriage and your life.

If you need help finding an SA group in your area, contact me by e-mail at eyes.guard@gmail.com

And now for the standard welcoming letter that we post for all newcomers:

Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here...

Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best - and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"... See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information...

We get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and post away on this forum. You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week... This would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps - which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

May Hashem be with you!

May people, when faced with hearing a situation like the one you mentiones, try to "relate" to it. I have even seen people who try "relating" in a way that only causes pain! And despite my own addiction, and previous struggle, I have always kept myself in the anonymous veiwing world of cyberspace. I never had to deal with breaking and connections, other than the DSL router.

Although I didn't see it in your post, your pain must be terrible, the stress and personal anguish paralyzing. And being that you are married, it probably revisits you with every interaction with your wife. The guilt, shame, and torment, of what you have done - and even during your marriage.  

But despite the different levels our addictions may have taken, we all share the common ground of being rooted in the EXACT SAME yetzer hara. And with our own personal struggle to overthrow him hold over us, we will persevere. together. As one united group, a tzibbur, a rabaim, and a mishpacha.

Mybe this may help you: The gemara in ?kedushin? brings pesukim that call the Yetzer hara, firstly a heilach, oreish, and subsiquently an Ish. The context of those pesukim are repsesenting the YH as a foreigner who happens by your home, your turf, and then he gets comfortable and become your guest, whom you readily serve. And before you have finnished serving him, he is the 'Man' of the house.

So how does one use this peice of information? My chavrusah gave me a look for saying it, but being a bachur, I think it may be true! If you knew of a woman who needed a get, and it was highly advisable for her to get one, lets say. How would you advise her to get her stubborn and controlling husband to free her? Simple, make shalom bayis issues! In that he is presently the "man of the house", she must batttle him on that level. She must denounce his rule and conroll over her finances, nedarim, and chores. And then when he is merely a guest in his own home, she can now refuse to serve him, in theose areas that a guest deserves. And when he is subsiquently not welcome in "her" home, she must reduce him to a wanderer with no connection to her abode. This is how we must treat our yetzer hara. We must battle him within this spectrum of his shlita over us.  For those who are dealing with intimate and interpersonal aspects of the addiction, wrok on reducing it to the next level,  the occasional guest, but minus the intimacy. And for those who's P___ veiwing is an occasional guest in their home of kedusha, they must reduce it to an unwelcome intruder (k9  even fits in the mashal as a "beware of dog sign...pun intended).  And for those of us to whom the Yetzer Hara ihas no welcome in our homes, and is a total foreigner, we must be carefull to keep him like that. And not to Chas Veshalom buy our children an itouch or iphone, PSP, Blackberry, Laptop, or any other Wifi connected device!

Welcome holy brother. We are here to help. Keep posting and tell us about your ups and downs. Best of luck.

welcome holy brother!! Welcome.

Youve come to the right place. So many holy yidden just like you willing and ready to dispense chizuk at all times. So stick with us, and iyh youll get far.

wishing you much of luck and hatzlacha!!

IT25

Thank you all for your heartwarming messages.
Yes, the pain is real and it hurts. My emotions are locked up tightly inside. sometimes I share my emotions with my dear wife. but they are only a tip of the iceberg of whats inside. Its amazing, that after a few weeks /months of being perfectly normal, all of the sudden my emotions burst out. They are let loose and all it takes is a few minutes and i find myself doing terrible sins. I only feel worse after, but at least i got those emotions out and i'm good for the next few weeks. Since Iwas very young i discovered phone chatting. It was a great way for me to share my emotions with people especially the girls they were so sweet! and beautiful!
For years and years this was my therapy. Just chatting. Then only recently the last year/2 it lead to masturbation over t the phone. That slowed down recently with the terminiation of my credit cards but its still wasn't the soultion. I still act out in other ways.
This is my story. I'm a normal guy with lots of emotions. My wife is the one to help but she'd never understand how I can be doing this. I am her chashuv husband! No excuses! Thats just her additude. 

Reb Meir, I love you and respect you, and I think that you can grow past these issues.

However, although I may be wrong, I would disagree with a few of your points.

You say that you'remeir wrote on 16 Feb 2010 22:49:


Sorry - I don't buy it. What you're doing (and I don't mean you - I mean me, and everyone else here) isn't normal. Well, it's normal since so much of the world does it, but it's not right, and it's not good, and it's not healthy, and it's already well on its way to destroying your life. It's also not just a matter of "emotions" - lots of people have strong emotions. The issue is how you chose to deal with them (or escape from them).

More importantly, your wife is NOT the one to help - you are. True, building a healthy relationship with your wife is certainly part of the healing process, but your wife is not your therapist. 1) it's not fair to her, 2) you're taking the responsibility off yourself, and 3) it becomes her fault when you fall again.

We're all here for you, but it's up to you whether or not you want to change.

Do you?

What can i say?? My heart goes out for you, my dear friend meir!! :-[ :-[ :-[

Have you ever considered therapy?? You can just tell your wife that youv had so much emotional buildup over the years that you wanna learn how to deal with it?? Doesnt have to have anything to do with this addiction. Tell her you feel that if you can learn more about yourself it will make your marriage so much better! which by the way is true.

Wishing all the best!

meir, come on my dear friend, u gota open up, speak to me, where are we up to today, are we doing better than yesterday, was yesterday better than a day before, have u gotten a hold on ur triggers or not, let me help u, just read my thread & u will see where i have been, so i do relate totally with u, we just need to help each other