Thinking of you!! I hope all is well!

Hi REM

Thanks for your message. It has been an especially hard few days and I could barely sleep last night. It feels like I am barely pulling through. Focusing on 5 months on Shabbos.

It is so unbelievable following your journey and seeing how you keep preserving despite the incredible challenges you are going through. 

Thanks Dave

Feeling really down today. My wife is ever so slowly creeping towards actually implementing our divorce. She has made an appointment with a family member who is also a child psychologist to discuss arrangements for the children and how we will tell them. She also sent an email to a rav we have been dealing with over the years stating very emphatically that divorce is the path she has chosen. I no longer feel that I have any way to influence her decision and therefore this is going to happen whether I like it or not (hint - not).

I really feel that while she is clearly acting out of pain, she is not being fair about this. We have an otherwise very good relationship and it's not like this isn't an issue I take seriously and am / have been working on. I feel like I deserve support, compassion and empathy from her, not separation and rejection. I have had some really depressive feelings over the past months, and recently they have been getting worse once again. 

I no longer feel that lustr will make this be or even feel any better, so that's one positive right now, but I am feeling a lot of sadness, anger and bitterness towards my whole situation, so would not say I am in a great place.

Hi Pickamoniker,

I was getting nervous about you and am thrilled to hear from you again! I am sorry that things are still status quo, but am very happy that you are still clean. Hashem gives everyone different challenges and I have no doubt there is a huge smile from Hashem for the way you are facing yours right now.

Depression is probably the biggest challenge Hashem gives us. It always seems like that isn't a challenge and maybe its not even in our control, but the reality is that it is in our control to try and stay positive and have emunah.

One time in my life, I was extremely depressed. I won't go into the details, but I was pretty much lying on the coach in a horrific mood for about a week. I literally wouldn't do anything productive and refused to smile. I spoke to therapists, rabbeim, and friends, but no one was really able to help...it was a very sad time in my life....

Then I realized that I was the only one who actually had the ability to help my situation. It was possibly the single most significant moment of my life. I realized that if I wanted my life to be better I had to make it better. My situation was what Hashem wanted, but it was up to me to make it better. I literally made a chart of the weeks in the month and hung it up. My goal...was to just be positive for atleast 50% of the day. I knew I was sad, but I had to atleast try to not let it overshadow my life. I checked off every day that I was positive most of the day and within a week I was back to myself.

What I realized that day is the same thing that enables me to come on to GYE and successfully count days (and sometimes fall and get back up and count again). I realized that Hashem gives us challenges and that's okay. I realized that we are the only ones who can actually conquer those challenges. Other people can help guide us or give us chizzuk, but ultimately it is our life and we can live it or destroy it. I realized that if we are doing our best we have every reason to be proud. I realized that we should judge ourselves by ourselves and not by other people. I realized that Hashem loves us and that knowing that is as much an attitude as it is a fact. I also realized that the sooner I accept my situation, the sooner I can make it better. While I was in denial, I was a depressed coach potato. As soon as I accepted my reality, I was able to find the good in Hashem's plan and keep making my life the most incredible gift Hashem gave me. 

We are all here for you and I hope you are able to get through this challenge and find true happiness. Please keep in touch and stay strong so you can continue to inspire all of us! 

Hey Pickamoniker,

How are you doing? Are you alright?
I know this is not very related to GYE and sorry for barging in but I too was on the brink of divorce, and couple's therapy, with a frum Therapist has done us wonders. It has saved our marriage. I think you have a right to demand that. Like a last shot or something. Perhaps try talking to her and the Rav and discussing that alternative. Usually the rebbeim will also be against the get if everything has not been tried yet. In your case, you're doing an amazing job, it's not like you don't care about your problem. It's really not fair.
Once more, I and I think all members here are in awe, for the tremendous nissayon you're going through and holding it together. You're an inspiration to us! Again, sorry for barging in but certainly things would be easier for you if you weren't going through this situation.

Hi Pickamoniker,
You are a true inspiration! My heart is with you!

Hi Pickamonicker,

You should just know that its in your zechus that I am holding everything together despite difficult challenges. Your staying clean despite your situation is a tremendous Mechayev to many of us at GYE. So Pickamoniker we need you to keep it up bec at this point you're carrying us all!!!

Hi Pickamoniker,

Hope all is well by you! I know I got a lot of chizzuk from your story and updates, and would love to hear how you're doing - even if you fell. Hatzlocho, friend.

AGREED! Please come back and give us chizzuk. You are a hero no matter where you are up to at this point. You are part of the crew now. 

Hey Pickamoniker, 

Thinking of you and hope all is well!

MY GOSH COME BACK AND POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been on and off GYE for years struggling with ups and downs. I just want you to know that you have been such an inspiration for me and in your zchus I am really pushing for 90 days.
I hope and Daven from the depths of my heart that everything is well with you. 

Hey guys

I didn't have any intention to come back here and post, and even as I type this I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that I do, but the replies dropped into my email inbox and I felt an urge to give some closure to a bunch of people I have never met (the world is weird like that), so here goes...

I dropped off this program after my previous post. My wife made a final decision to divorce and I moved out for good. In my heart I know that easily the biggest reason I was "sticking with the program" was in order to save my marriage and family, which I valued above all else, but ultimately that failed. At that point I made a reassessment of y priorities and found that being "sober" really was not very important to me. I discussed it with my therapist, who agreed with me. I know for a lot, probably most, people here this is a very spiritual issue and tied to the whole "aveira" thing etc. For me it once was, but over time I have moved far from that way of thinking. The only guilt I felt in acting out towards the end was the guilt of betraying my wife's expectations of me and the fear that it would lead (as it did) to the end of our otherwise amazing relationship and the breakup of our truly beautiful family. Once that fear and guilt were gone I really didn't feel the need to stay sober and just walked away from the entire attitude.

I know that everyone has their own life, their own journey and their own (often very mutually exclusive) core beliefs, but for me looking "back" it seems that the entire enterprise of treating this area like an "illness" and even more, the putting a moral spin on it in the first place was simply unhealthy. I was in a constant catch 22. I could be "sober" and struggling with every tiniest temptation lest I "fall", which led to a life of constant almost unbearable struggle, or I could be not "sober" and mired in shame and self loathing. Neither option was fun and life was at best tolerable for short periods.

So where am I now? I'm single (technically not yet divorced, but it's a formality) living alone and see my kids from time to time. My kids, my (soon to be ex) wife and I are each damaged by this in our own ways. I certainly am not happy with where I am in life and spend much of my time pretty depressed. However, while my life has generally been pretty lousy recently I would say that not living in a constant state of either guilt or fighting myself has been one breath of fresh air. I'm going through a period of reappraisal of what is and isn't important to me in life in general and I don't know for sure where it will end up. I don't suspect that I will go back to anything like GYE, SA etc. again (although I don't have the best track record of keeping away from things that are bad for me so who knows lol). Certainly I doubt that posts on my current approach to life is really what GYE is about, so I suppose I should consider this my last post on the site.

On the off chance anyone particularly wants to talk to me you are welcome to reach me on my g mail address, which is the same as my username here.

I truly wish everyone here only the best for the future. I hope you all find a way to be happy with your life as well as comfortable for yourselves. Nothing less than I wish for myself too. Thank you for being there when this is what I wanted.

Shalom to all

So sorry to hear. I'm from a divorced home and that word is my biggest fear, like one day I'll just stuff it all up..

Thanks for your chizuk and play by play through your personal nightmare. You'll always have a home here should you wish to return