Dear Dr. Yael,
I am a woman who comes from a home where being warm and demonstrative was viewed as a lack of strength. Baruch Hashem, I am married now, and I see that my husband needs me to be warmer and more loving to him. My young children also need more warmth. We love your column, and we would appreciate your response regarding this issue. My parents were good parents, who were children of survivors. This could have been part of the problem. My in-law’s parents were in America and remained frum in a time when it wasn’t fashionable. I do see my in-laws as healthier people. I appreciate your response.
A Reader
Dear A Reader,
As I read your question, I realize that Hitler, yimach shemo, still affects us till today. I see it in my practice as a therapist as well. Unfortunately, living in an antisemitic world makes it clear that these struggles remain today as well.
You appear to be a bright, intuitive person as you clearly have identified the problem and realize that you need to work on yourself to be warmer and more loving to your husband and your children.
This is not simple when you did not see this in your own home. There are people who work hard on being different to their families than the way they were brought up. You need to have a different mindset and can work on changing that mindset through telling yourself that being warm and demonstrative is a strength. It will take time, but just as you taught yourself (through your family’s values and upbringing) that being warm is a weakness, you can teach yourself that being warm is a strength. Once you are able to change your mindset, you will see that it won’t be as uncomfortable for you anymore and will become more of a second nature. You also can work on this behaviorally by being more warm even if it does not feel natural at first. Pushing yourself to be more warm will help you get used to it and it will become more natural over time, especially since you will be working on it cognitively as well through changing your mindset.
Baruch Hashem you appear to be married to someone who comes from a more demonstrative home and together you can build a bayit ne’eman b’Yisrael. This should also make it easier for you to work on changing your mindset as you and your husband have a shared goal.
I want to share with you a story of a young woman who lost her mother at 13 years of age, fled Germany at a young age with her parents and sister, and lived through HaKamat HaMedina. Her childhood was not easy, being brought up by a devoted father, who was nervous and dealing with a lot of outside stress as well as from the British and the Arabs. With sirens and food rationing, she tried to focus on the positives in her life and enjoy the camaraderie that she and her friends established. This helped her and her friends deal with the challenges facing them on a daily basis.
This woman married and raised a beautiful family. She read a lot of psychologically-minded books and worked hard on herself to create a warm, loving, and secure home. This did not come easy to her, but she decided that this is what she wanted, so she put in tremendous effort and created a loving, warm home, with a lot of love towards her husband and children.
She was a devoted mother and wife, even though she only saw a brief loving marriage between her parents that was not as demonstrative as the home she created. This woman is someone I know personally and she is, baruch Hashem, alive today and reaping the benefits of her hard work.
I tell you this story as a way of giving you chizuk to do what is not simple. As I stated before, you appear to be an intuitive woman and you must take the amazing things that your parents did for you and use it to build a more positive and loving home.
If you are following my column, I have spoken about how we all are dealing with different challenges. Some are wrapped in clear garbage bags while other challenges are wrapped in black garbage bags. Your difficulties are wrapped in black garbage bags and you do appear to have the ability to overcome these difficulties. Hatzlacha in building a warm loving home!!!
