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I am stuck in a unhappy marriage and can get no support from any rabbonim because i have a family and i have to sacrifice my happiness for theirs. Any advice or support welcome.
Unless you are chassidish, most people don’t leave the decision to stay or go to their rav. We seek advice and counsel and then make our own decision.
Do you feel that you’ve exhausted all means of improving your marriage?
That’s not correct. In Torah Judaism one needs “cause” that is recognized by halacha as valid for demanding a divorce. Without halachicly legal cause, there are no grounds to demand a divorce. And “unhappiness” is not a legally valid cause for divorce. That is true for both husband and wife. A husband (in Ashkenazic communities) is precluded from it based upon rabbinic regulations (Rabbeinu Gershom); a wife is precluded from forcing a divorce based upon Torah Law itself. (IOW, her spouse can legally and morally decline to divorce and insist the marriage continue.)
You don’t “need” support from a Rav or family to make this decision. Would it be nice? Yes. But ultimately it is your decision. Does you wife/husband feel as you do? Have you gone to a marriage counselor and exausted other options? Only you know what is best for you. Good luck I hope everything works out as it should and you find true happiness.
Have you and your husband read Garden of Peace and Garden of Peace for Women (by Rav Shalom Arush)? These extraordinary books have helped many people (myself included). Regardless, may Hashem bless you with a happy marriage and family life as soon as possible.
As someone who has gone through it, do your utmost to fix yourself and overcome your michsholim. Encourage your spouse to do the same for him or herself. If you or your spouse can be helped by a rov or a professional to do so, great. Know one thing. You can only change yourself. You can’t change your spouse, and they can’t change you. If he or she isn’t able or willing to change, or you aren’t able or willing to change, together, it isn’t going to work. So at the end of the day, if you have made an honest effort, if it still doesn’t work, it is time to end the marriage.
It is 100x better to end a poisonous situation that isn’t improving than to stay together and let the wounds fester. Your children will not be helped by an increasingly acrimonious atmosphere in your household. Neither will you or your spouse.
Also know that if you are not happy – or if you are walking around disappointed, angry, despondent, depressed, or out of sorts, your children will pick up on it immediately. Your parenting will suffer. So this “sacrificing your happiness” for them sounds noble but is really negative. You want to sacrifice material things for them, fine, good. You want to sacrifice time for them, even better. But If you aren’t happy, they will be affected.
Do you have any close family or friend that can help you, first with just listening to you? and then maybe can advise you? Someone that will be there for you in the long haul? This will be a very exhausting and emotional time for you and you cannot do it alone.
Shlishi: Correct. You cannot force a divorce because of unhappiness. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t request that the marriage end and that if both parties agree to it that they can’t get divorced.
Unfortunately the stigma attached to divorce is huge in the frum communities due to the narrow mindedess and mad amount of peer pressure present. This causes many terribly unhappy couples to ‘stick it out’ for the rest of their lives.
Why can’t the ‘frum world’ be broader mineded as a whole and accept divorce as a very acceptable action nowdays (i’m not saying it’s commendable obviously).
If you think about it; why is the rate of divorce so much lower in the frum world than in the ‘non-frum’ world. Don’t tell me it is just because of the upbringing/outlooks that people are raised with – no one likes divorce! The reason is because a lot of ‘frum people’ are living FAKE lives and ‘living a lie’!
I empathise with you…
Its very fortunate that divorce carries a stigma. I’ve heard gedolim say that divorce should be considered a “dirty word” in a Jewish home. As it is, there is much too much unnecessary divorces. If it were destigmatized, you would witness many more unnecessary divorces.
kodesh +1. I can tell you that despite having been very involved in our community, giving shiurim, hosting many newcomers and BTs on shabbos for years, etc, much of the community dropped both me and my ex like wet rags when we separated.
Ohr Chodesh: It works both ways. Yes, there are far too many unnecessary divorces. But there are also too few necessary one.
Sam: Correct. Mutually they can agree to. (Whether it is a good idea even if it is mutual is another question. It isn’t necessarily.) Though, the OP seems to indicate it is not mutually desired but rather one-way, hence my above point.
I was told by a wonderful Frum therapist that people don’t even begin to realize the devastating effects of divorce on the children, and that unless there is actual abuse or infidelity or something equally as serious c”v, notch at the best course of action if you want to protect your children, is to try and work thru the problems and stay together. Ndivorce should be the very last option, as I said only in the case of severe, severe issues.
ohr chodesh
+557
And what if one spouse abuses the other divorce should be a STIGMA to the victim?
Sam: The pendulum has swung far in the other direction. There are only a very small number of times where a needed divorce is ignored. Yet there are many many unnecessary divorces. In fact, the vast majority of divorces are as such. Nowadays divorce is, unfortunately, considered just another option that’s no big deal.
Ohr Chodesh, once again you launch into a topic without firsthand experience and purvey your “expertise”. If you have gone through a failing marriage, multiple attempts to fix it with help from rabonim, family, and therapists, and you still hold your opinion, I don’t agree, but at least you are speaking from experience.
If, however, you are simply relating at second, third, or fourth hand generalizations from rabonim or gedolim who would NEVER suggest that an attitude should apply to individual situations, but would investigate the specific circumstances before making an individual psak, you are slapping a lot of people in the face.
It is not “fortunate” that divorce carries a stigma. It is certainly important not to take marriage lightly, with an “oh, well, I can always get out of it” attitude. But divorce is a very painful experience, for all involved. A pain I hope you never have to experience. A pain whose “punishment” is deep and long lasting. If Hashem is letting us know that divorce is something to be avoided (which if possible, it should be) that pain is perhaps his way of delivering the message, and it is enough in and of itself. But….
How you or anyone in any community can DARE to make any assumptions about the motivations, efforts, reconciliation attempts, agreements, disagreements, attitudes, and mindset of someone going through a divorce, and then to make value judgements on it is a vile and disgusting twist and reversal of veohavto loreacho komocho, and its corollary, that what is hateful to you, you should not do to your neighbor. Unless you are in the house 24/7 you don’t know and can’t know what the situation is. You don’t know and can’t know what efforts have been put into saving the marriage. You don’t know and can’t know what pressures and problems went into the breakdown of the marriage. You don’t know and can’t know what the effects of being ejected from social and communal circles are. You don’t know what effects that stigma has on the children, and you don’t know what effect it has on the spouses.
After a number of kids and almost 15 years of marriage in my case, and often more and longer in other cases, do you really think divorce is “just another option?” “that’s no big deal?” Child support is no big deal? paying huge sums to lawyers is no big deal? Standing in front of a beis din is no big deal?
You know nothing about this. Nothing. I discussed all aspects of my situation with the senior rov in the city where I live, a posek for 50 years, head of the beis din, and he agreed it had to move forward. And I have interacted with him since, and he hasn’t stigmatized me or my ex even if the community I used to be part of has. If I am going to take the example of a godol on this, I’ll take his. You can take yours. And you can once again examine the nature of ahavas yisroel in this week before tisha b’av. Hurtful speech is not ahavas yisroel. And there are many readers here who have suffered more through their divorce than I have, I am sure. so your offensive words are probably even more hurtful to them. Maybe you can learn something here, about shmiras Haloshon. Please consider it, and have a meaningful fast.
ohr chodesh -“Sam: The pendulum has swung far in the other direction. There are only a very small number of times where a needed divorce is ignored. Yet there are many many unnecessary divorces. In fact, the vast majority of divorces are as such. Nowadays divorce is, unfortunately, considered just another option that’s no big deal.”
I agree and this is what happenned to me. But my wife wasn’t influenced by therapists -it was her “Frum” friends. We have come to the point in time were you could be extremely Yeshivish on the outside and have totally No Torah Hashkofos on the inside.
Even though some posters here have blamed therapists for this situation -I’ve found the more “Modern” therapists to not push for divorce so fast. Why can people nowadays look so Frum on the outside and not have any Torah thoughts on the inside?
Perhaps this can be addressed with an Asifa?
kodesh:
“If you think about it; why is the rate of divorce so much lower in the frum world than in the ‘non-frum’ world. Don’t tell me it is just because of the upbringing/outlooks that people are raised with”
Why on earth not? Today’s society tends to view marriage in a much lighter way (to put in nicely) than we do; therefore they simply do not take it as seriously. Also, today the ideal of self-control is often a completely foreign concept, so people will do whatever they feel like doing at that particular moment; is it any wonder that a marriage will find it difficult to survive in such an environment?
Also, I am disturbed by your automatic assumption that the Frum society must have a lower divorce rate than everyone else because of some hidden defect of ours. Why can’t it be because we are more in tune with Hashem’s Torah, and higher moral ideals? Why can’t we hold this up as an example of the passuk “mi ki’amcha yisroel, got echad b’uretz” and being our an ohr la’goyim? Why must we assume the worst, instead of being dan li’kav zchus?
mw13 – Firstly, I assume that you agree to the fact that divorce is a huge stigma in the frum world. Taking that fact on board, logic alone dictates that there must be a significant amount of people who wish for, but are too afraid, to divorce. It has to be! If you were terribly unhappy to the extent that you really wanted to start afresh with someone else since you can’t get over the current issues which bother you about your spouse, and you know that if you divorce her the entire community will be murmuring about you, and because your community will assume that you must have issues it will be quite difficult for you to be set-up with anyone else in the future – there is a significant chance that you might ‘stick it out’ for the rest of your life and put on a show for the world. Do I hear you saying that it will be courageous of you to do that? Who says that doing THAT is courageous – Maybe divorcing her is the morally correct action to take!
Secondly, I know personally first-hand of a few people who have stale and rotten marriages but are too scared to take the plunge. These ‘few people’ are good friends/associates – Thus I can fairly assume that there are a load more people out there in the same boat as them.
Thirdly, I’ve heard from a certain Rav who is very involved in the NY communities. He estimates the number of broken (unfixable) marriages at a huge rate.
From the Rabbonim and counselors who deal with divorces frequently: Most divorces were avoidable. Marriages are being disposed of at a rapid rate in a disposable society.
Rabboisai, in previous generations, people had real problems, like pogroms, persecution, poverty, etc. They knew what was a problem and what was not. They did not divorce at the drop of a hat. Today, many of us are spoiled and think that if my spouse did not look at me the right way, or forgot my birthday, then the world is coming to an end. There are people today struggling with terrible illnesses who would give anything to trade the illness for a problem that can easily be fixed. Two mature people should be able to work out whatever it is that is bothering them. It is a lot easier to fix a relationship than a physical defect. If you are healthy, why are you not jumping for joy? If your spouse sees you jumping for joy, they may want to do so, as well.
I mean we can control our emotions, but cannot control our health. We are unhappy because we don’t appreciate the RBSH’s goodness that he gives most of us. Do you know what it is to see? Do you know what koach hadibur is? Do you know what it is to be able to hear? To walk? To have normal intelligence? Those who can’t would give anything to be in your shoes. If you have all this and are not happy it really makes one wonder if anything will ever make you happy. Other problems are so easy to fix by comparison. Just be kind and attentive to each other, and show interest in the things that are important to your spouse.
Bustercrown -“I was told by a wonderful Frum therapist that people don’t even begin to realize the devastating effects of divorce on the children, and that unless there is actual abuse or infidelity or something equally as serious c”v, notch at the best course of action if you want to protect your children, is to try and work thru the problems and stay together. Ndivorce should be the very last option, as I said only in the case of severe, severe issues.”
While I agree with this statement, I’d include things like addiction as a severe issue. Of course, the couple should try as a team to get the addicted party to stop, but if all else fails – divorce is a reasonable option. Addiction can be smoking cigs, alcohol abuse, internet addiction, etc.
Health,
you said,”While I agree with this statement, I’d include things like addiction as a severe issue. Of course, the couple should try as a team to get the addicted party to stop, but if all else fails – divorce is a reasonable option. Addiction can be smoking cigs, alcohol abuse, internet addiction, etc.”
smoking cigarettes is not cause for divorce. you decry divorce as an obvious option for frum couples, then go on to say that smoking is severe enough of an issue to end a marriage. that is retarded.
square peg- advice is, anybody can make anything work.. its a mind set. change the attitude. (unless you are talking about abuse or infidelity, which you did not mention)
first move should always be pinpointing the problem once you have narrowed down the issues you can try and work on them via marriage counseling and approach the topics with your husband/wife
and above all dont let your children tune into your unhappines try and be upbeat for them but honest too
I wonder how many people commenting on this topic are actually in truly unhappy marriages.
My guess is, there are a lot of people with opinions and a lot of people without hands on experience into true unhappiness.
Please do some introspection into the severity of your own issues before making the leap of commenting on how others should react to theirs.
mommamia, +1
I am constantly amazed by the capacity of people to assume, generalize, pontificate, postulate, and opine on matters with which they have no direct experience.
If we were just talking halocho, I understand – my rov says this, that godol says that, clear.
But here, people are discussing the motivations of people in broken marriages as if they had a clue. They are making assumptions about the “ease” of divorce (as if it were simple), they are making assumptions that the problems are superficial {forget a birthday? Seriously, Pashuteh Yid?}, and the worst of it is some are justifying a frankly revolting reaction among the community to the situation that violates everything I know about how one Jew is supposed to treat another.
You want to talk about the disposable marriage? Maybe there’s a couple with too much time and money on their hands, no kids, and a pretty vacuous or conscienceless existence somewhere in the velt. I don’t know. Maybe this is to whom the fictional disposable marriage happens.
For the rest of us, there are real issues in real situations, be they job loss, illness, bereavement, challenged kids, depression, debt, lack of communication, and more, not even counting the issues of addiction or abuse that were brought up above. There is real interaction with therapists, rabonim, family to try to salvage things. There is real potential for personal growth and learning lessons even if the marriage cant be saved. There are real interactions with the beis din. There are real and substantial costs with lawyers. There are real implications regarding custody of and access to children that have immediate and lasting effects. No one in the real world that I live in takes these things lightly. No one.
But hey, you all without firsthand experience know better, and your fantasyland perspective on imaginary disposable marriages is justification enough for stigmatizing all of us who live in the real world.
Toi -“smoking cigarettes is not cause for divorce. you decry divorce as an obvious option for frum couples, then go on to say that smoking is severe enough of an issue to end a marriage. that is retarded.”
Struck a raw nerve, huh? If you have ever read my posts regarding smoking this post shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I’ve been very vocal that a girl shouldn’t marry a guy who smokes. If s/o starts smoking after their marriage, the spouse should try to get him to quit. I’ve posted umteen times that this is done by a three-pronged approach. If he doesn’t want to really try, then she should use an ultimatum as a last resort. It can’t just be an empty threat.
Wow. “job loss, illness, bereavement, challenged kids, debt” are reasons for divorce??
Woe unto us who have fallen so low!
I feel bad for the OP. He did not post nearly enough info about anything to get advice on …anything….and yet there are all these replies on how to handle it….
Csar, you have no idea. Ba’h you shouldn’t experience 0.0001% of the issues I and my ex have experienced, and the impact they have on two individuals and a family. And as I said, I discussed the matter with the head of the beis din and the vaad harabonim in my city, a posek with over 50 years experience, and he didn’t have the callous, mocking, deriding attitude you have. Maybe you could learn something from him.
And as would be clear, if you bothered to think about it for even a minute, it isn’t the circumstances, (and that’s only a partial list) it is the capacity of the spouses to deal with them and other pressures correctly, and the implications if they can’t or don’t do so well, or in partnership. It is the capacity of the spouses to deal with each other properly when 2, 3, 4 or 5 of these things mentioned above are happening at once, and the damage done to the relationship when it is impossible to cope.
The clear issue isn’t the circumstances, but rather how much damage has been done? What, if anything can be repaired? Are the individuals prepared to change? If not, and they keep doing the same things that are drowning them, how is it going to be good for anyone to continue?
It is also a matter of what the spouses bring in to a marriage – their own issues, weaknesses, families, traumas, and how they deal with those, while also trying to deal with all of the other issues.
But of course, you know better. I would be angry and upset with you, if I hadn’t learned anything from my experiences, but truthfully, I just feel sorry for you.
I hope that you take comfort in your certainty, and that you never experience a tiny fraction of what many good people go through.
illness
Isn’t a wife allowed to ask for a divorce if her husband is afflicted with certain aliments (mukas sh’chin, for example)?
The Wolf
(I’m not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with your overall point, just nitpicking on this one part of your statement.)
smoking cigarettes is not cause for divorce. you decry divorce as an obvious option for frum couples, then go on to say that smoking is severe enough of an issue to end a marriage. that is retarded.
The Gemorah brings Raicho Ra as a reason for divorce. If that is the case, then that is the halacha (as usual, I’m not getting into details, just bringing a point it).
Toi maybe to YOU smoking is not a reason for divorce, but maybe it is for so
Someone else. I would never ever ever have married someone who smoked. My husband smoked before we met as do many boy recently back from israel and in yeshiva, I said that I would never become engaged and marry someone who smokes and it was tough but he quit.
Don’t sit here and tell us what you think is reason or not for divorce. Why should someone who is healthy and takes care of themselves be with someone who does not value their own life? In my opinion if you are a smoker you are asking Gd for lung cancer so why should your spouse have to have their life turned upside down to care for you when you are doing it to yourself. Smoking is definitely in some cases a deal breaker.
As some here already know, I’m one of those In a bad marriage with a spouse whose addicted to Internet. He denies there’s a problem and refuses to get help. We had seval marriage counselors try to help, my spouse rejected all their advice as soon as it didn’t suit him. He made promises only to break them. I’m trying to stay focused on my kids who love their father so much and doing lots of Davening, while getting therapy for myself. I seriously don’t know whether to divorce or not. One one hand I dream about having a 2nd chance at marriage with someone new and hopefully more “normal,” but theres no guarantees. The thought of being alone terrifies me. The thought of my children being c” v hurt by a divorce tortures me. Do I sacrifice my own happiness for the sake of my kids and wait until they’re older before I think of myself? Will it then be too late for me start over? It’s a heart-wrenching decision, not an easy one at all. I believe my spouse won’t get real help unless the kids and I leave him.
Bustercrown,
Since you asked for some advice, I will offer although I am far from qualified to deal with this issue.
First, make sure that your Husband has a Rav, its sort of insurance, if something goes wrong, you have someone to turn to. be it a Rosh Yeshiva or Shull Rav.
From your post it seems as if this situation is way out of hand. I do not know what your Husband does online, (it’s evident that you have a computer at home, since you post often). The best option might be to openly confront him and let him know that this cannot go on. Make sure that you have your Rav’s (or his Rosh Yeshivas guidance on how to confront him), but playing this cat and mice game might do more harm to the relationship than being open.
Make it clear to him that you are here to confront him as much as you would like to help him and more than that help yourself and your Family.
Make sure that you let him know that you love him and admire him, only that you want him to come clean of what happened and move on.
Hatzlacha Rabba.
you people are crazy.
“and can get no support from any rabbonim because i have a family and i have to sacrifice my happiness for theirs”
Is this conjecture on your part, or did rabbonim say this to you (for the record, I have a hard time believing rabbonim told you to “sacrifice your happiness for theirs”, what arent you telling us that you told these rabbonim?).
Bustercrown: not that I’m advocating it as it’s not something to be taken lightly, and you would need to work out the details with somebody experienced, but you are probably aware of the option known as separation , which might be appropriate in your case. The idea is for your husband to get a taste of how life would be without his family and hopefully reconsider his behavior. And you can still decide to go back regardless, just don’t turn it into a game. Hatzlacha, and forget the cr and get the guidance you need.
kodesh:
I do not denying that there is a stigma attached to divorce in the frum community (although I do think you’re making it out to be much larger than it it really is). I just don’t think this is half as big of factor in our lower divorce rates as you do. I believe the primary factor is that we have a completely different attitude towards marriage, and life in general, than does the secular society around us. Actually, I believe that the main reasons our divorce rates our going up is because the attitudes (about marriage, about selflessness, about entitlement, about self-control, to name a few) of the secular society are slowly seeping into our minds and hearts. That is why our society’s divorce rate is coming closer and closer to the level of that of the secular world.
“I know personally first-hand of a few people who have stale and rotten marriages but are too scared to take the plunge.”
There could be many factors causing that fear besides for this stigma you keep blaming everything on. They could simply be too scared to start again, similar to someone who hates his job but isn’t willing quit and start from scratch. It could be that they have decided that the odds of ending up in a worse scenario than the one they’re in now is too high to be worth the risk. It could be they don’t want to go through the heartbreak and travail that a divorce so often entails. Or it could be that they don’t want their kids to have to go through this. Or any combination of the above.
Wolf – not my illness.
MorahRach: In order to be able force a husband to give a divorce in Judaism, there has to be a halachicly valid “cause” that the Torah recognizes that one can demand a divorce for.
What if the husband “promised” he would quit smoking let’s say before they got married, or by a certain time?
You must do whats best for you
morahrach- then hes oiver bal yachel. I dont really get it. you guys are sitting here proclaiming with utter horror how comonplace divorce has become, and then as soon as an issue that you feel is important comes up, you change your mind. real issues, ones that should sometimes end in divorce, are about a ruined marriage, not something you dont like or think is unhealthy. if i really dont like plastic plates and cfcs thats not grounds for divorce.
I didn’t complain about how commonplace divorce is at all I was just asking about smoking, if you are referring to me. I don’t really know the rules required for a get. It is all new information to
Me.
I agree with Toi. Smoking, as bad as it is, isn’t in itself grounds for divorce any more than driving without a seatbelt or eating too much carbs and fatty foods. Dishonesty about it, or lack of effort in doing something about it when a commitment to do so has been made, IS an indicator that there is something seriously wrong in the relationship.
what do people think;
If one finds their wife unattractive (after being married for a short while) and it is causing their marriage to wither – is that grounds for divorce?
(Don’t ask ‘why did he marry her in the first place’ – let’s just say things wern’t bothering him as much)
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