Dear Mrs. Bluth,
I hope you can help me because my back is against a wall and I’m absolutely terrified. You would think that, at age 34, I’d have been able to overcome my fears of marriage, but the reverse is true. With each date I turn down, I see my parents’ disappointment on their face as their dream of walking me down to the chuppah dissolves. Shaddchanim no longer take me seriously – one or two of them have even spread the word that I’m a “career dater” and not marriage material – my friends have given up on me and most of the girls they have tried to set me up with have already married or are otherwise involved. Truth be told, while I am miserable in my own skin and wish I could commit (I almost did on a number of occasions) a fear sets in at the last moment and I turn away any and all prospects. I even thought, for a while, that I might be gay, and that terrified me even more, but, in truth, I know that is not the case.
I have gone for therapy to break my fear of commitment, but nothing has really changed, except that I’ve gotten older, no longer have any single friends to hang out with and the girls I do take out are not much to write home about intellectually or physically, which makes it easier for me to turn them down. I’m lonely and miserable and when I see my old school friends married with families of their own, I realize how much I’ve forfeited by giving into my fears. I would give anything to be able to free myself of the terrible anxiety I suffer that prohibits me from committing to a young lady with whom I can build a loving home and raise a family. But most of all, it kills me to see my parents wither away without the nachas of seeing me settled. They had such hope that I would be the son who would break the mold and find a wife who would bring them the joy that, sadly, they did not have with my two older brothers.
My eldest brother married right out of college and joined his wealthy father-in-law’s company. When that business went bust, my brother found himself out of a job, and being unqualified for any other line of work, had to borrow money to keep his children in yeshiva and his wife living in the style to which she was accustomed. After six years of struggling to keep his family together, his wife filed for divorce and left him, taking the children with her. My other brother’s wife left him and their young daughter. He now lives in my parents’ basement and they take care of the little girl while he struggles to make ends meet in a low-paying job. So, you see, I was my parents’ last chance for nachas and a solid, lasting marriage. In that respect, I have failed them as well. But most of all, I have failed myself.
I know you will probably suggest therapy again, but I’ve already gone that route without success. I’ve gone to seminars and read countless self-help books on anxiety, inexplicable fears and the like, and though I concur with much of the advice given, I cannot seem to apply it to myself. I really do want to get married and experience a loving, caring relationship with my wife, but at the eleventh hour, this terror comes over me and I turn around and run. Is their any hope for me?