Reply To: Advice line in Mishpacha Family First

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A wife / husband has no business whatsoever being the other spouses referee in life. He / she is not the other one’s mashgiach. If one has good midos and is married with a normal healthy mindset based on simple, common love (yes, I said the dirty L word) there will naturally be respect, caring and unconditional acceptance of one another.

The very fact that this wife feels the need to ask what she should do about her husband who is sleeping late or missing daavening or learning clearly shows that she doesn’t understand what marriage is really supposed to be like. Marriage is not supposed to be a way to propel your own self image to greater heights of satisfaction based on the others accomplishments. If that’s all that its really about for you then you got it all wrong. Your being a self centered, selfish, egotist that demands those closest to you to perform in ways that fill your over-sized ego issues.

I had a great aunt who was frum her whole life. Her husband did not keep shabbos (in the early days of America, this was unfortunately very common) she continued her entire life living peacefully with him while she remained completely frum. Of course this had to be difficult for her to manage but from what I understand, despite the difficulties they had a happy marriage.

The point is marriage is not meant to be a list of expectations from one to the other if those expectations do not interfere with the responsibilities from one to the other. Not that providing a living for a wife is necessarily the greatest mitzvah in the world or not, but this would be an example of where the husband does have a direct commitment to the wife and he should keep it. On the other hand, he does not have a direct commitment to her that he go to shul on time or learn torah daily and as such, it’s simply none of her business to even keep track of it.

I hesitate to even suggest that a normal wife should be overly proud of a husband that gets up on time every day as that would suggest otherwise there’s a lack of respect. Marriage is not about pride.