Shalom everyone,
A quick post on something that "I" started doing a number of weeks ago that has almost surely helped in my current clean streak (one day at a time)... and that is, some of you might recall me mentioning that I would get on my wife's work laptop after she went to sleep (she typically goes to bed before me) and view assur things. My wife's laptop is unfiltered, and I knew (back then) her password.
You're probably thinking, "Just get her to put on a filter! Just ask her to change the password!" And in a vacuum, these suggestions make sense, of course... the thing is, in my case, I am about 99.999% sure that asking my wife to do something like this, that would impact *her* use of the computer, would cause her to feel resentment... after all, this is *my* problem, not hers (at least in a pashut sense), so have I done all I can just myself first, without having to inconvenience her?
I don't know why it took as long as it did, but a number of weeks ago, Hashem put the idea in my head to suggest to my wife to unplug the laptop and take it with her into our bedroom, keeping it on the night table between our beds... we have a wireless router in the house, so she can still do work from bed, and just as important, I am fairly sure I wouldn't take the computer from the night table to another room to view assur stuff... and if I did, c"v, she would likely know that I was doing it... a sufficent deterrent so far.
And b"H, my wife was ok with the suggestion, and I think she appreciated the fact that I was suggesting to her what I thought was the least intrusive measure from her standpoint (every married man knows this already, but any time you can demonstrate your *genuine* concern for your wife beyond yourself, your wife will appreciate it).
As I said above, at the time this step was implemented, I did know the password to her computer... during the last few weeks, she's obviously changed it because I now can't unlock when she's not there (found out when I went to do something legit on it during the middle of the day, when I am much less challenged, b"H). So now there's an extra layer of safety for me as well that didn't require me to impose on my wife, b"H.
And be'chasdei Hashem, I have not viewed assur stuff on her laptop since then... you might have noticed that I typed "I" (in quotes) above near the beginning of this post... that's because I could not have done this without my wife's cooperation... so, of course, she gets lots of credit (maybe all of it, for all I know)... but I don't care who gets the credit... being a better eved Hashem is what matters. And between cutting down the lusting and making my wife happy (I think), this one was a win-win in that regard.
I hope this is helpful to the olam. Gosh, this wound up being longer than I thought it would be... sorry for that.
Have a great Shabbos!
