Dear Mrs. Bluth,
How to begin? I’m not good at composing this letter because I’ve tried several times breaking into tears when I come face to face with the mess I’ve made of my life, so this will be my last and final effort and hoping you will grasp how urgently I need help.
I came from a staunchly Orthodox home and got married when I was just about eighteen and just out of a Bais Yaakov high school. It was the way things were done in my community and try as I did to ask for a little more time to spread my wings just a bit before I started the shidduch parsha, my parents wouldn’t hear of it. I met only two bochurim before my parents decided that #1 was too modern but #2 was exactly right for me because he checked off all the right boxes for them. He was older (almost eight years older than me), he came from a family with yechus highly regarded and well off. *Shaya and I met twice and I didn’t really like him. I don’t know why, but there were things I can’t really put into words that made me feel uncomfortable when we were alone. When he spoke to me, he sort of looked everywhere else but in my direction and when I tried to speak in turn I felt as though he wasn’t really listening or interested in what I had to say. So I tried to explain to my parents that this was not right for me. They both said I didn’t know what was good for me and that they wouldn’t let me throw away such a bekovodik shidduch and the l’chaim/vort was set followed by a wedding three months later. And that’s where my gehennom began.
Almost immediately after the wedding his cruelty and abusive treatment of me came to the forefront. My wedding night was filled with pain ad torture as he only took and when he was done he shoved me away as I wept, while he went to sleep in his bed. The next morning I could barely walk a straight line from pain and I had to figure out how to conceal the black and blue marks on my wrists and neck when we went to the sheva brachos, which were mercifully interrupted when my father-in-law suddenly passed away and my husband went to sit shiva at his home. I was too afraid and too ashamed to confide to anyone of the horrible situation I had to endure and when I learned I was pregnant three months later, I knew I would be a prisoner for life. My husband took what he called his obligation to me each time only the first night I returned from the mikvah and mercifully left me alone the rest of the time. I could not bring myself to confide in anyone about my horrible shalom bayis issues but at one point some things became very clear as to why he was so repulsed by me and treated me so cruelly. When I tried to remedy it by displaying warmth and caring, I instead, got pushed away with cruel and vulgar words and treatment. He only needed me for pru u’rvu otherwise I was nothing to him and he would never give me a get so I shouldn’t even think of it. One day, after I had been married for ten years with three little ones, I got a strange call. It was from a yungerman who would not reveal his identity but called me because he felt sorry for me. He told me I should leave my husband because he had been approached by him in an intimate manner. Not being that way he pushed his way out of the situation by threatening to tell the maggid shiur about him. I sat there holding the phone in stunned silence, not shocked at all but wondering why it took me so long to figure it out on my own because I was so naive. Seeing no way out, I decided to stay in my marriage and not divulge anything to anyone for the sake of my children, who are now all married with children of their own.
So why am I writing to you after seven children and thirty-eight years later? I became an almanah two years ago and now my children are pushing me to remarry. I don’t want to even hear about it! I had enough of a bad thing for so long and now I actually enjoy the peace and quiet of my own company. But they just won’t let me be, always bringing me prospects to consider and I always thank them for their concern but I’m not lonely and I don’t want to remarry. My heart hurts when I think of all those terrible years I spent with a religious imposter, where I was nothing but an acquisition he owned to cover his sinful life, and then I see the love and respect in so many marriages around me that I will never have. That’s the part that hurts the most, longing for such a relationship and experience with a caring and loyal spouse. Knowing that I will never have that relationship just adds to the pain, because I won’t chance falling into another bad marriage. Better alone! I guess I just answered my own reason for writing this letter, but since I finally compiled this letter, I didn’t want it to go to waste. Thank you for our thoughts.
Dear Friend,
You are one strong and amazing lady and I admire your courage, albeit your choice, for sticking it out in that horrible marriage all those years. I also understand your fear, shame and subjugating mentality in choosing to stay in that hellish environment. That you managed to have nurtured and raised seven good, loving and well-adjusted children without having them adversely affected by this twisted relationship only heightens my respect for your strong ability to override every awful thing that could have set off all sorts of harmful characteristics, were you not the superwoman that you are. Kol HaKavod from my end! But here’s where you lose me a little. After thirty-eight years of torture, servitude and self-abnegation, HaKodosh Boruch Hu has finally release you from your prison, so why are you still a prisoner of your past? There are still many good years left for you to find that kind of love, respect and devotion of a loyal and loving spouse. Break out of your ball and chains, you know what you want now and no one can force you to do anything you don’t want to do.
Your still young enough to build that kind of loving relationship, only this time, you get to listen to yourself and no one else. Your children sound like a great bunch of people who really want the best for you and deeply care about your happiness. Leave the past in the past, where it belongs, and start a fresh chapter with the right zivug who is probably also waiting for the same things you are!
To help you not make any mistakes based on past experience, first invest in a few sessions with a therapist so you get to know yourself better, feel better about your self-worth and use that amazing courage that got you through all those years of horror to help you find those hopes and dreams and make them a reality. There’s no time like the present to get started and I hope to hear from you again in the not too distant future with news that you have found Mr. Wonderful! Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles. L’chaim and mazel tov!!
