I have been sober for almost a year and for most of the last 3 years, because of this web site.
There is something that I have been mulling over in my head, and I guess I wanted to get it out and see where it takes me.
I started this journey with the lesson that sex is optional. Lust is not like breathing, I don't need it to survive. Now I am thinking that this has to go even further.
I know there have been discussions here of "el isheich teshukateich" and that it is not a sexual thing at all, though that is how I always read it. As someone who has not been intimate with his wife in almost 3 years, it still rankled me though, despite the fact that it is a general yearning for closeness, and not carnal intimacy.
Then I listened to Rav Lazer Brody's talk on Dovid Chaim's phone conference. He said a few wonderful things there, but one that really stuck with me was that when a man yearns for his wife, he reverses the order, he becomes the woman in the relationship. My wife does not want to be married to a woman, she wants to be married to a man. My walking around her like a dog waiting for a pat on the head is a major turn off. So I tried to incorporate this into my life, but I failed. I am still craving and yearning for her, her approval, her physical touch, yada yada yada.
A few days ago I came across a speech by R' Manis Friedman. He also was discussing the punishments of Adam and Chava. In talking about Adam he said how his curse was to provide for his family and do it with difficulty. The point he took out of it was that man, or more correctly a husband, is a giver, a provider. It is the very nature of man that he gives and THAT is how he finds his fulfillment. A woman on the other hand is a receiver. (He deliberately differentiated receiver from taker. A receiver has to open themselves up and make themselves vulnerable to accept what the giver is giving.)
Lusting is neither giving nor receiving, it is taking. It is pure selfishness. No one benefits but the luster, and since it goes against my real nature as a giver, I find no satisfaction in it, only an emptiness, which I think could be filled by still more taking, which really just makes the hole bigger and bigger.
I learned from the Tanya column in the weekly newsletter, that perhaps the tayva and lust is my nefesh habahamis, and the giver is my nefesh eloki. And feeding the behema is emptiness for my eloki.
Now to sum up. I am a husband. My wife's desire is for me. If I desire her I am reversing the natural order of things. The constant search for her affection is nothing for me. It will not fulfill me at all. It goes against my very nature. The only thing that can really fulfill me is my giving to her. Lusting is antithetical to who I am as a person. Lusting is not me. I am the husband - the person who gives. I provide for my wife, I provide for my family. I keep them safe, I provide order in the house. On some level it means I have to maintain an objectivity, an aloofness, because I have to see what people need on their terms, not on my terms. After all the best way to give is to give as they need it, not how I think they need it.
What I am trying to learn now, is that lust is anathema to me. Any form of lust and desire is not just dangerous, not just an allergy, but actually undermining me as a person. The lesson now is not just that I can live without lust, but rather I can't live with it. It is not an option at all. There is no such thing as lusting like a gentleman, since lusting is the polar opposite of what a gentleman is.
So what I am trying to do is give my wife what she desires, what she is open to receive, not like before - with the hope that she in turn will give back - but because that is who I am, a giver. Before GYE my attitude was, it has to be my turn, then it was I can wait for now, but eventually it will be my turn, now I am trying to learn that I don't get a turn, but that is OK, because I don't need one. In essence, when she has her turn I get mine too, since we are like two pieces of a puzzle. I give, she receives. A symbiotic relationship, where we both get what we need all the time.
Similarly, all lust from the outside, all foreign women, have to be completely shut off, not because it may lead to bigger stuff, it is more basic than that. My chasing after foreign women is directly undermining myself, something I never appreciated before.
