Dear Dr. Yael,
I am writing in response to the letter-writer who wished she had listened to her ex-husband when he wanted to see you for marriage counseling (Dear Dr. Yael, 5-22).
I had the complete opposite experience. I wanted to go to you for help, but my ex-husband refused. He said he was “fed up with the whole counseling scene – secular counselors, religious ones, and rabbeim” – and that our marriage was hopeless and it was time to get out. We had wasted enough years, he said, on a marriage that had been doomed from the start.
I decided to go for counseling on my own, and the therapist I saw recommended that both my husband and I go to see you. I explained how he felt, and she then said counseling would most probably not help.
So I prepared myself to be alone with my young son. With that counselor’s help, I worked on rebuilding my self-esteem, but nothing could prepare me for single motherhood. For the past ten years my son and I have both suffered – something I feel could have been avoided if my ex and I had come to see you. There was no dysfunction in our marriage, just issues of incompatibility like parental dependence, money/budget, religious level observance, communication problems, and intimacy difficulties – all of which could have been helped by the right caring therapist.
I hope your readers will not let this happen to them. I urge those couples experiencing marital unhappiness to do everything within their power to try to save their marriage. There are already too many divorces in our community.
Sorry I Did Not Seek Your Help
Dear Sorry,
I feel your pain and wish there was something I could do to alleviate it. It is true that sometimes people are not willing to take another chance and spend more money on therapy. That is very shortsighted as getting divorced is much more expensive. I always find it interesting that the same couple who could not afford “more expensive therapy” will somehow find the money for the “best and most expensive” divorce lawyer.
I agree with you that in general the divorce rate has risen considerably and the shidduch crisis is extremely challenging.
I think couples in their 20s and 30s often see marriage as more easily disposable. In my own generation, we worked hard, even when things were challenging. Nowadays, you see couples who divorce after their youngest child gets married; they stayed together so as not to affect his or her shidduch prospects.
Sometimes people are penny wise and pound-foolish. Putting aside the money, the emotional damage that divorce causes to adults and children is hard to comprehend. I have worked with many adult children of divorced parents who find it much harder to build successful marriages. But they do work at it. I wonder about those who don’t. What happens if they don’t seek out therapy – do they end up divorced as well?
It is very hard to build a healthy marriage when you do not have good role models. And yet, strengthening one’s marriage and raising healthy children is an important way of keeping Klal Yisrael strong as a nation. Mental illness and emotional problems affect the way future generation will turn out.
As far as your own situation, is your ex-husband remarried? If he is not, is there any chance of reconciliation? It has happened more times than you think. However, if he has remarried, you must work on building up yourself and your son so that you stay healthy individuals with good self-esteem.
I appreciate your letter and I hope that it will influence others to seek the help that they need and to realize that it can ultimately make a difference in their life. Hatzlocha.
