Amazing!

Don't downplay it. It is HUGE!!

Take a minute to reflect on the greatness of this and of the power that you have and of how far you have come to be able to do this.
Internalize all that you have done to get here and you will continue to fly!

amevakesh wrote on 10 Sep 2024 10:51:

When I originally wrote these words, I knew they were true, but I didn't know how it would happen, or in what way it would express itself. On Wednesday morning I got my first taste. 

As I've written in the past, my marriage comes with a unique challenge. Suffice it to say it's hard.  It's not something I wish to discuss on the forums only to give context to what happened this morning. Over the course of the last week I've had a rare, deep and meaningful conversation with my wife. I owe a debt of gratitude to a couple of friends here which impacted the way I empathized with my wife's pain and understood her point of view. She felt like I really "got it" and the result was a significant uptick in my Shalom Bayis. 

On the day we usually have (scheduled) relations, my wife was exhausted. I told her that we can postpone it for a day. She told me that she feels it coming so she can't guarantee that it will be Nogeia that next night. I responded that it's fine, I'll be okay. The next night, she had a pounding headache, and relations were off the table. She would do it for me, but I wasn't going to accept her offer when she was in such distress. If it wouldn't happen for another few weeks, then so be it. We BH have a rambunctious 2 year old with boundless energy, going through a healthy dose of the terrible twos. He wakes up very early in the morning, and with his awakening goes our sleep. He isn’t content with waking us up, rather he jumps all over his tired mother. That morning, after the three of us were already up, I sat down on my wife’s bed, and she started rubbing my forearm softly. Nothing too intense, but for me, I felt the love of that caress pulsating through my whole body. It made me feel so complete and filled me with a sense of joy no sex could ever do for me. Now without my challenges, this is something I would definitely have taken for granted, but the challenge has taught me to appreciate the finer, more subtle gestures of love that marriage has to offer. The ability to find intimacy in a stroke on the forearm, to allow myself to feel her love through expressions of endearment (especially with 2 year old jumping all over us) was an eye opening experience for me.

So, is the challenge getting smaller, perhaps not yet, but I’m learning to embrace it, trying to allow it to build me in to something better. אבן מאסו הבנים היתה לראש פינה.

wow! a beautiful story! Thank you so much for sharing.

The fruit of your hard work that you keep on putting in. Stunning! You are an inspiration and a superb husband.

Keep rocking it!

Palti x2......

Impressive work, brother...

Muttel

amevakesh wrote on 30 Sep 2024 16:34:

This post is the stuff of heroes!! Every chassan rebbi should give shiur on it!!

Don't know what's happening to me. Since after Rosh Hashana, I've been bitten by the fantasy bug. The urges are coming and going the past 2 days. I know we aren't responsible for the actual urges, only with how we deal with  them, but right now I'm having a hard time doing so. It peaked last night. Usually when I go to bed, it takes me less then 30 seconds to drift off into lala land. Last night I was exhausted, but strangely enough when I lay down I didn't fall asleep. Instead I began lusting like crazy. The fantasies were so real, I had trouble letting go of them, which almost resulted in ejaculation. I had to white knuckle to get myself back to normal, then it repeated itself. At a certain point I told myself, if I'm not sleeping in 10 mins. I'm getting out of bed to call someone. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was four and a half hours later and I awoke hard but still dry, and still lusting. So I called the one GYE friend that I know wakes up at the unearthly hour of 3:45 and he promptly picked up. Once I got through, the urge subsided and I was able to begin my day. Tired, yet somewhat happy that I didn't go all the way. If anyone has any advice on how to get rid of unwanted thoughts, once they're already in the head, I'd appreciate it.

amevakesh wrote on 08 Oct 2024 18:54:

Humanize them? Pray for them?

I had this on RH, vivid dream right before I woke up, couldn't get it out of my head. Trying to remember what i did.
Breathing it through can help (imagine letting go of the thought as you breathe out). Thinking about other interesting thing can help too. Staying calm! Do something (especially if it requires some thought). Grounding techniques 

Shalom Brother,

Sorry to hear about your uninvited brain guests.
Rosh Hashana, esp 3-dayer is intense. Have you had a chance to decompress? Maybe exercise, a leisure walk, music, or something might interrupt the cycle. Perhaps if it happens in bed you could turn on an interesting shiur, or a moving zemer? The mind can't really focus on two thoughts at once. Focused breathing and calming meditation could go either way, but worth a try. I find certain thoughts that work to push out other thoughts. Picture yourself dancing with the Sefer Torah on Simchas Torah - hug it tightly. There is a weird tug-of-war, but I can never focus on impure thoughts while 'holding' the Torah. Maybe your Rebbi is dancing with another Sefer Torah across from you. All your chaverim are holding hands in a circle around you. Hear your favorite song being shouted by all present. Immerse yourself in that image so thoroughly that nothing else has space in your mind.
You can make your own scenario, have it clear and detailed, rehearse it, and when needed, summon it to banish those unwanted thoughts. If they push their way back in, immediately do it again until you can focus on something else.

Sometimes I add special effects, like the images going up in flames as I try to incinerate them from my conscious. 

Hoping that you find peace from them soon.
Hatzlacha

Stop thinking about how to get them out of your head.... just start thinking about something else.... for instance:  

"Wow, I'm freakin awesome!! I've gone 442 days straight without falling!! I've made 442 (or more) friends on GYE and have helped each and everyone of them tremendously!!! I have 442 people out there who mamesh care about me!!!"

I'm sorry that you have this bug, it ain't no fun. But kudos to you for fighting it.

I find reading a book helps me. Also, thinking about the work I have waiting for me the next day or anything that will require me to focus on detail and might stress me out a bit.

I think the last time I was in your predicament I almost cried and asked myself and Hashem to just help me be clean for that day (night). I would ask Hashem "please help me just go to sleep, I'm so tiered and exhausted and I've put in so much effort to stay clean, can you please just help me here to stay clean and fall asleep"
Hope this helps

Keep on Trucking, One Day At A Time!!

Before discussing how to get rid pf unwanted thoughts, I want to make a few quick points. 

1. It’s normal and natural for thoughts to pop up in your head. It’s not even Assur. (The issur is to dwell on and explore the thoughts. לא תתורו means don’t explore). 

2.  A thought is just a thought. Nada (Hirhur is a stronger level, and unwanted hirhur is barely more than a thought. Which is just a thought). 

3. Based on the above - theres no guilt or negativity in the fact that the thoughts  popped in. You don’t have to worry about them. 

4. Ok. So no guilt. But you want to think about other stuff. Proactively. Not in a reactive way-  to “quickly eradicate the scrounge of horrific evilness rah rah! “. Just cause you want think about something better. 

5.  Ain’t nothing better to make you fall asleep in the whole wide world than thinking in learning! 

6. If you’re hard and uncomfortable and can’t think of other stuff, getting up and calling someone is the right plan. 

If it’s not such an issue, it won’t be. Magnifying the issue magnifies the issue. 
This is how I think about thinking about thoughts. (Meta-meta-cognition!). It’s what works for me. 

Gmar Chasima Tova!

באה״ר
חיים

Thank you to those that gave advice.

Thank you to those that responded.

Thank you to those that texted.

Thank you to those that called.

I couldn't have done it without you.

A few months ago, during a conversation with HHM, he told me a priceless Vort on this weeks פרשה that speaks to the struggle. I think that it’s a מצוה to share so here goes.

The פסוק in this weeks פרשה says when אברהם and שרה traveled to מצרים, he told her הנה נא ידעתי כי אשה יפת מראה את. Rashi is bothered, why does it say הנה נא which implies that he only realized that she was pretty now. רש"י gives 3 answers. The first one  is, עד עכשיו לא הכיר בה מתוך צניעות שבשניהם, ועכשיו הכיר בה ע"י מעשה .

רבינו בחיי explains that from here we see that אברהם never looked at שרה up until that point. Astounding!

Some אחרונים ask on רבינו בחיי, isn’t there a הלכה that אסור לאדם לישא אשה עד שיראנה? Various answers are given in the אחרונים. Some say that if the whole problem is that she won’t be pleasing to the husband, then אברהם knew that for him it wouldn’t make a difference. Others say that he really did know what she looked like, it’s just that he never gazed at her, hence the לשון of לא הכיר בה. Others say that until now he only saw her face, but now he saw her thigh.

זאגט HHM in the name of someone I forgot, that the מדרש תנחומא relates, that as they approached the gates of מצרים, they passed by a body of water, and אברהם saw שרה’s reflection shining like the sun, he saw her beauty and he realized that he had a problem on his hands. Of course אברהם knew what she looked like, perhaps he even gazed at her (this wouldn’t fit with רבינו בחיי). But until that moment when he looked at her, he saw “HER” - her essence, the radiance of her נשמה which shone forth so brightly it eclipsed any physicality one could possibly attribute to her. However, when he saw her reflection in the water, all he saw was her image, because he wasn’t looking at שרה herself. Suddenly, he realized that it might be possible for lowly people to see her through a lens of desire for the physical beauty, that when he realized the problem. The lesson is self evident. Good Shabbos!