One woman's story

I got an email from a reader who is having marital problems. She wants to share her story, and is looking for support and feedback.

As kallahs, we are told of the "male nature" and "a man's drives."
What happens if the man has very little "drive", and this was the reason you were not getting pregnant? How would you feel, coming home from the mikva, month after month, and have your husband reject you? He's had a long day, davening is so early, the mitzvah of mikvah puts too much pressure on him. He can't "perform" just because its a particular night.
You try and understand, be supportive. But when it happens month after month, year after year, and no babies...what are you supposed to do?
People give you broches, tell you about doctors, and assume that you, the woman, has medical issues. Inside, the pain is unbearable, the desire to scream almost overwhelming.
Divorce him? Who's to say I'd find someone else, or someone with different issues.

We do have relations later in the month, he sees a therapist, and we have also consulted with a rabbi (see below). The issue, which I had never heard of, seems to be mismatched libido.

Thanks for listening!

I'm moderating comments for this one.

My husband's (admittedly impractical) suggestion was to "fool" him into thinking she went to the mikvah earlier. I am wondering about medication that postpones ovulation.






Important information: Please read before posting.

This blog provides support for women in difficult marriages. It is not meant to take the place of professional marriage counseling or halachic advice. When commenting, please choose a user name other than anonymous.

Strength for the coming year

Yom tov is challenging for almost every family, but those with stressful family or marriage situations can find this time of year especially burdensome. I wish all of you the strength to get through the holidays. I hope they will be meaningful for you and your family.

I also wish you a good and prosperous year in which your situation will markedly change for the better. We never can know God's plan for us.

Ketivah ve-chatimah tova,
May you be inscribed and sealed for a good life,

Mother in Israel

What to look for in a shidduch

Sephardi Bochur (no relation to Sephardi Lady) sent me an email:

I know your blog is about shalom bayit, but I was wondering if you could please ask your bloggers what to look for in a shidduch.

Bloggers and commenters, here is your chance to help singles make wise choices.

Let's divide the question into three:

1. Defining the qualities you seek, in other words what to put on "the list;"
2. Whether or not to agree to an offered shidduch; and
   
3. Is the person across from you "the one?"

Send links to blog posts at mominisrael at gmail.com

Warnings - what we do and don't want to see

A reader commented on a previous post about how she had a friend who saw something one way before she got married, "It's so nice he's so close with his mother" and another way after the marriage "his relationship with his mother is sick and unhealthy."

I remember being told many times, both before marriage, during my first marriage, and after it ended, that the one thing you admire most about a spouse is also the one thing that makes you crazy. Every maala has it's chesron. Or more quaintly put, every cloud has it's silver lining.

I'll give you an example. My husband, Sky, is probably one of the most reliable, responsible people I know. If he says he's going to do something, he does it. What's the flip side of that very positive trait? He can be G-d bless him, extremely rigid. If he doesn't think he can accomplish something, he won't commit to it. This is how he does things and he can't veer from them. It makes me crazy! But when I think about what the opposite would be - someone who is more flexible, but potentially more volatile in other parts of his life - I shudder and am grateful for what I have. I can work around his rigidity because I value the stability that comes with it more.

One of the best things my rebbetzin suggested I read when I was dating the second time around was A Plate A Ring and the Time In Between because in the back of the book there is a chart that lists about four pages of attributes - and their flip side. For example (and this is not verbatim, because I'm doing it from memory)

assertive and aggressive or
happy go lucky and lackadaisical or
enamored and obsessed

Love (and lust) can easily blind us to our spouses' less than stellar traits. But that's where parents and Rabbonim and Rebbetzins come into play. Their job is to point these things out to us BEFORE ENGAGEMENT and MARRIAGE. Somethings a person can deal with. Somethings a person cannot deal with (mental illness, abuse, and drugs/alcohol are at the top of that list for me).

One of the best ways, in my opinion, to help us deal with our disappointment in our spouses not being perfect, is to look at ourselves and figure out what is our own personal biggest maala and what is the flip side of it? I know that one of my maalahs is that I have a very lively and dramatic personality. I can entertain many people and I can switch moods quickly. The flip side? I'm often moody and I feel my emotions very deeply. When I'm happy, the whole world sings. When I'm angry, watch out. I feel pity for Sky at times.

Can you identify the positive and negative sides of the traits of you and your spouse? Can you see how they fit together?

Important information: Please read before posting.

This blog provides support for women in difficult marriages. It is not meant to take the place of professional marriage counseling or halachic advice. When commenting, please choose a user name other than anonymous.

Married Too Fast?

A reader finds herself in the following situation and is asking for advice:

We got married very quickly. We were very much in love and got engaged after about four weeks. Both our parents, being very religious, were very supportive and not at all skeptical that this was right for us. Four years down the line, one 2 year old ds, and a co-owned home, we realize that we probably did not know each other well enough and there are many things about each other that we just can't stand, certainly don't love, and this gets in the way of every aspect of our life together.

We do try to work it out, and put on a happy face especially in front of our son, but how do we get out of this? We are very committed to the marriage, but have gotten burnt by therapy. (Perhaps tips for finding a therapist too? In the orthodox world, its not like you can just ask for recommendations. And in Israel, just finding someone from the Kupat Cholim [health fund] is not enough). We want to stay married and can't imagine life without the support and help of the other. But I feel that we don't love each other like we should. I know that it's not like it was at the beginning, never is, but I don’t think that its supposed to be like this.

Signed,

Married Too Fast

Important information: Please read before posting.

This blog provides support for women in difficult marriages. It is not meant to take the place of professional marriage counseling or halachic advice. When commenting, please choose a user name other than anonymous.

Would a warning have helped you?

Some of you have written that you had second thoughts after you got engaged, but felt under pressure to go through with the marriage. Were any of you warned about your future partner? Sometimes, people withhold valuable information because they feel it will be ignored anyway. feelings can result no matter the outcome.

Did anyone tell you the truth about your husband before you got married? If so, what was your reaction? If not, do you think it would have helped?

Important information: Please read before posting.

This blog provides support for women in difficult marriages. It is not meant to take the place of professional marriage counseling or halachic advice. When commenting, please choose a user name other than anonymous.

Should parents tell shadchan about the son's bipolar disorder?

I have copied an excerpt of a letter to Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis. See the link for the entire question; she doesn't seem to have responded yet.

. . . Now, here is our dilemma: Are we obligated to tell the shadchan, the girl and her family? My husband and I are conflicted. I say “yes”, but he argues “no”. According to him, the moment we say the words “Bi-Polar’ we terminate all his chances of a decent shidduch. Moreover, my husband feels that since he has been totally well since he started on medication (and that has been five years now) there is no reason to announce a problem which is no longer present. He also argues that if the girl and her family find out about this and as a consequence she refuses to see my son, it will devastate him and he will regress. On the other hand, I am not comfortable leaving the situation as it is. To me, it borders on deception. My husband and I have been literally fighting about this. The conflict has destroyed our shalom bayis and I really don’t know what to do. I was thinking that we should consult his Rosh Yeshiva, but my husband pointed out that the Rosh Yeshiva is the first person people turn to when they seek shidduch information, and if he is made aware of this problem, he will have to reveal it – and the same holds true of the Rov of our shul, so as you can see, we are in a terrible bind.

What would you tell this couple to do?

I posted some comments about this here.

Resource in Jerusalem

Amy left the following comment on A Mother in Israel:

I think a blog is a great idea. It might also be a good place to let women know that there are resources for those women who need more than just a blog. Lev Habayit, in Jerusalem, is a Counseling Center for orthodox and Charedi women (although no one checks) who are in difficult marriages. They provided short term counseling, consultation with a Toenet Rabbanit or with a lawyer, and consultation with an education specialist (for child-related issues).There is a nominal fee of 30sh. per visit. Lev Habayit can be reached at (02)622-2339.

Important information: Please read before posting.

This blog provides support for women in difficult marriages. It is not meant to take the place of professional marriage counseling or halachic advice. When commenting, please choose a user name other than anonymous.

Grappling with my Father's Mental Illness

One of the commenters mentioned a husband with a mental illness.

From Aish.com:

When my parents met, he showed some red flags but in her innocence, my mother thought he was fun loving and eccentric. He was good looking, charming and had a great sense of humor. My mother says to this day that they truly loved each other. As time went on, his symptoms grew worse and when I was born, the pressures of family life became too great. He went from doctor to doctor, physiatrist to physiatrist and they each prescribed him different cocktails to curb his moods. So began his lifelong chemical dependencies.

I think that either Aish or the author was dependent on the spell-checker and thus ended up with "psychiatrist" instead of "physiatrist."

That aside, please share your thoughts on the article.

Important information before commenting:

This blog provides support for women in difficult marriages. It is not meant to take the place of professional marriage counseling or halachic advice. When commenting, please choose a user name other than anonymous.

Rabbi without a Cause on Shalom Bayit

Rabbi without a Cause responds to a comment on Shalom Bayit:

I do want to respond to a particular comment on the Shalom Bayit blog: “Most of us have sought rebbinic authority in regards to our marriages, and have decided to stay married. That being said, most rabbis are delighted at the decision and that it is for them.”

I’ve heard this theme before: “The rabbi just wants the couple to stay together.”

I will acknowledge that there are several reasons why a rabbi might be biased against divorce. . .

Read the rest here.

Important information: Please read before posting.

This blog provides support for women in difficult marriages. It is not meant to take the place of professional marriage counseling or halachic advice. When commenting, please choose a user name other than anonymous.

A joke for Tzipporah

I found it here, at Harry Leichter's Jewish Humor site.

Rabbi Rabbi Albert H. Friedlander of England's Westminster synagogue, who is known for his soft, melodious voice, often tells this story when visiting a community and preaching a sermon.

"Before I begin my sermon (talk), I must make a confession. It is not really a confession, because you have already begun to realize that I have a soft, quiet voice. To be honest: IT PUTS PEOPLE TO SLEEP. And why not? A fifteen-minute snooze might help a congregant far more than anything else I can do for him or her.

However, I really object when the president of my congregation always falls asleep within two minutes of my starting the sermon. Once, I challenged him: "Max, WHY do you always fall asleep as soon as I begin to preach?" "Rabbi," he said firmly, "I trust you."

Source: Rabbi Albert H. Friedlander

Parents disagree about kids going to gan

A request for suggestions and support from "disfunctional." I believe that this commenter does have an issue of shalom bayit, because the wife is dissatisfied with decisions the husband has made about raising the children.

Where does someone go if their problem is not so much overt shalom bayit.

in my situation, we send our kids to gan, husband learns and works, we get help from my in-laws. But i'm left pretty much useless. While I had hoped to spend these years raising the children, being a stay at home mom and all that goes with it... the fact that i needed some help here and there when the baby was a baby already deterred my husband from allowing me to have the kids at home. As time went on, my confidence wanned. Now I just sit at home. Me. A people person. I know this may not seem like a real problem, but try feeling useless -especially unfulfilled in the area you hoped to be fulfilled in-and you'd understand.

Its like for me everyone seems insensitive to help me -even myself!

I feel like i'm gently forced into the only option- work. Forget what I wanted work -not that i'm afraid of work. I was in corporate America for a long time. I just wanted to raise my children.

well, I hope to hear from somebody about this. Thank you.

Blog critics

I have been asked whether I consulted a rabbi for a psak (halachic ruling) before starting this blog. I don't feel I need one, because I am not going to be giving halachic advice or even directed guidance. I am not responsible if people write things in the comments section that are against halacha, any more than if someone turns on a light in my home on Shabbat. Every Jew should ask his or her own rabbi before following advice that might be against halacha, whether suggested on the Internet or anywhere else.

There already seems to be a core group of posters who know what they want out of this blog. In my experience, when people write things that are out of line, others step in until it gets straightened out. If that doesn't work, I will delete comments.

Impact on the children

s.t.f.t.c. asked about ways to minimize arguing, and another commenter mentioned discussing with her daughter what to look for in a marriage partner.

What are ways that women in difficult situations can a) encourage a positive atmosphere in the home to help the children grow up emotionally healthy b) overcome an unhealthy marriage model, in order to choose wisely when the time comes? and c) accomplish this while allowing the children to maintain respect for their own father?

We are your neighbors and friends, sisters and cousins

In one poster's own words (via Babylox; emphasis added)

There is great, silent dignity in the choice to stay married. There is also great dignity in divorcing if that is deemed best. The point is that there are those who have commented about Halachic approval on your new blog. There are those who are squeamish about this completely. I would just like all to know that we are your neighbors and friends, sisters and cousins. We do not share this with you. If this blog for us does not work out, at least I hope you will come away knowing that we exist silently among you and that our experiences are never, never talked about openly. For those of us who are experiencing it, I hope we can help each other for the time being.

Welcome!

This blog was inspired by some comments on Babylox. Many women in the Orthodox community suffering through difficult marriages lack an outlet to discuss their challenges. The purpose of this blog will be to give these women a home for them to share their stories and get "chizuk" (strength) from one another.

I am going to try to keep my voice out of the discussion as much as possible, so the success of this blog depends on you. Please post suggestions for future posts in the comments or send them to me at mominisrael@gmail.com with the subject line "shalom bayit."

As most commenters will be anonymous, please assign yourself some kind of code name when you post here.