Dear Mrs. Bluth,
I can’t tell you how overjoyed I am to see you back, albeit under a new heading, but still dispensing the same logical and truthful advice you did previously. I was only fourteen at that time and wrote to you about the suffering and humiliation I felt as a child going through my parents’ divorce. You printed my letter and your reply carried me through the wretched months and years until my father finally gave my mother a get and went on with his life, leaving ours in shambles and struggling to survive. But it’s never over, is it? He still finds ways to torment my mother with threats of getting full custody of the two youngest kids and he’s always finding new ways of opening up legal issues and dragging her into court. Six of us are older, three married, but our home life has carried over to ours and all three of us have marital problems. This is the reason for my letter and I hope that you can, once again, give me some more chizzuk, sound advice and resources. You were, and still are, my only lifeline.
My childhood was turbulent, volatile and abusive. My mother was meek, submissive and unable to stand up for herself, much less for us, against my tyrannical father. There was always fighting, yelling and crying in our house and we grew up thinking this is the way it should be.
And then, after weeks of begging and pleading, I was allowed to spend Shabbos at my best friend’s house. What I saw there was Gan Eden: A mother who hummed as she set the Shabbos table with lovely dishes on a snow-white cloth, her face smiling, radiant, and filled with love as she embraced her children as they helped. When I brought her the salt shaker, I, too, received the warmest embrace I had ever felt and found it hard to break away. I know she felt it too as she kept me close to her a bit longer than the others. There was laughter in that house, something I had never seen before, love everywhere and even the children’s occasional rivalry was more in jest than in earnest. When the father came home from shul, all the children flocked to him and he embraced them, and when he bentched each child, he signaled to me and placed his hands over my head and blessed me as well, his warm, loving eyes looking so deeply into my own that I felt the tears rising. I wanted to stay there forever. But forever ended on Sunday when I returned home to Gehenom. I promised myself that one day I, too, would have a home like that and four years later, when I turned eighteen and started dating, I thought I had finally found the way to make it happen.
The young man, whom I will call Yigal, seemed nice enough and we came from similar backgrounds – both sets of parents were divorced. Thinking this was a great commonality on which to build a wonderful, loving home, and perfect the diseased model we both came from, we got engaged and married soon after. My father did not come to our wedding and I couldn’t have been happier.
At first, everything seemed fine, although Yigal did have a temper when things did not go as he wanted. Then, when I did not become pregnant after three years of marriage, the beatings began. Every time a month went by and I was forbidden to him, he became violent and cursed me for not being with child. He screamed and ranted that I was just like his mother, never listening to his father, always doing things to upset him and make him mad. He had become the laughing stock of all his friends, who already had a number of children, while we had none. Finally, I decided to go to a doctor to see what was wrong with me. To my great surprise, the doctor, after numerous tests, told me I was 100% fine; the problem was with my husband. When I came home with the name of a physician for him to see, his faced turned from white to burning red in a matter of seconds. He tore up the reports and then turned on me. I lost consciousness as he yelled that only a woman doctor would have come to this conclusion. When I woke up, it was three o’clock in the morning and my face and body were black and blue. I took three sick days and did not return to work until make-up could cover the damage. I understood then, finally, that my married life was, is and always would be an extension of my childhood home.
I finally opened up to a fellow co-worker who had gone through a bad marriage. She advised me to pack a bag and get out as fast as I could. Frightened and not knowing what the right thing was, I reached out to my older sister. We shared our marital woes and she told me to stay put, that these things happen in every marriage, it’s just the way things were. She has four children and her husband cannot take the noise; he loses his temper, hits the kids, yells at her and sometimes hits her as well, when his anger isn’t spent. She told me how lucky I was I didn’t have children – and have to watch them get beaten and not be able to do anything about it. I went home completely dejected because I knew she was wrong. I remembered that Shabbos so long ago and a home with two loving people, happy children, laughter and warmth. And I want that. Please help me find a way out of my misery and find the dream life I want.
Me again
Dear Child,
Going through my ancient archives, I did indeed come across your letter and part of my reply to you, at that time, seems almost prophetic. It seems to me that you were unable, or too afraid, to reach out to someone – a teacher, a community member, a rabbi, etc. Maybe you felt there was no one you could trust.
But that was then. Today there is help all around you, be it in school, in the community or with the authorities. No child should have to suffer physical, mental or emotional abuse – and over the past few years the world has become more aware, proactive and protective of its children.
You, unfortunately, have graduated to the next step, the one I had wanted to protect you from. Dysfunctional homes produce dysfunctional homes. You now find yourself in an abusive marriage, a carbon copy of the childhood one you left. Marrying someone from an equally dysfunctional home does not guarantee that he will share your vision of a loving, respectful environment the odds are that he will repeat what he witnessed growing up. This is because children tend to normalize dysfunctional behavior and carry it into their adult lives. Unless you and your husband begin intensive couples therapy, I see little hope for your marriage.
I do not hold out hope that your husband will ever except that your childlessness is something he needs to deal with, and that means that the chances of advancement in familial happiness are none to zero. My suggestion to you: pack up and leave, fast! There is no doubt that this will be a hard and emotionally painful path, but barring a miracle, I don’t see any other way. You will need very specific direction on how to do this, so please be in touch with me and I will put you in contact with those who will help you get out safely and continue to assist you throughout the process. Most important, you must get emotional support in the form of a good therapist, who will begin to help you heal. This will give you the strength to lead a healthy life and make better choices in the future.