Abba_S, it was actually 20+ years, not 11. In other words, it was almost their entire marriage.
More importantly, as I wrote in a previous post, we have to be very careful about writing negative things about the other people involved. Even though we don’t know them, Lenny does, so it is Motzi Shem Ra to say anything bad about them. It also will not do anything to improve his marriage.
Furthermore, we don’t really know anything about them, and they are not here to present their side, so it really is not right to assume anything bad about them. I also think your conclusions about both the wife and Rabbi are baseless. It is absolutely ridiculous to say that the wife’s purpose is to torment her husband. For 20 years, she was complaining to her Rabbi about how controlling and abusive her husband is, and he didn’t know anything about it!!! She obviously is not out to torment him!! If she wanted to torment him, she would have been complaining to him, not to the Rabbi!!! She clearly was too scared to say anything to him, or else, she tried and was not heard.
The fact that she has not yet petitioned for a divorce does not mean anything. There can be many reasons for that. Many women feel that it is wrong to get divorced (if you don’t believe that anyone feels that way, just read Joseph’s posts) and they feel that it is their obligation to try to make things work no matter how miserable they are. Maybe she really thought she could find a way to make things work. Maybe she thought that the Beis Din would not grant her a divorce if her husband doesn’t want one (again, read Joseph’s posts).
In terms of the Rabbi, it is also not fair to write what you did. We don’t really know anything about what he has done or tried to do. We only have Lenny’s words and he did not go into too many details, so we don’t have much information to go on, and it is really impossible for us to know what the Rabbi did and why. I think that the Rabbi is a wise man who is going about things the way he is for a very good reason. He clearly has accomplished something, because Lenny is proceeding to go to a Beis Din which is what the Rabbi wanted.
The first two sentences of your last paragraph are well-said! I definitely agree!