Michelob says:
" If a woman says she's done, very rarely will you be able to hold a gun to her head and live happily ever after. ... If she is not into it, and is dragged to the therapist kicking and screaming, you are both wasting your time and energy.
Michelob; Your words are very rational, BUT ONLY TO A CERTAIN POINT.
The fellow here does indeed seem to be faced with two very unpalatable choices:
A. Be over and done with it.
B. Fight for fairness, family integrity, reputation, the fact that someone so close to him is waging a smear campaign & using tools that clearly include some extremely serious Halachic & Hashkafic transgressions.
But in actuality, I think that there's actually a THIRD option, too:
To understand the third option, we need to "back up" a bit, and we need to ponder:
What's REALLY behind the current epidemic of broken homes. We read comment after comment of hair-raising מעשה רשעות. How can it be?
Men & women that have lived & built lives together for decades, been through so many joys and sorrows... to have everything disintegrate before their very eyes.... the men here grapple to understand the sudden change - in reality & feel understandable wrath & frustration...
These women [usually] weren't evil when these men married them. What did someone surreptitiously put into their woman's drinks? What changed these women into veritable WITCHES? The man knows that he WASN'T abusive, and if he was, nobody's interested in telling him where he went wrong, and how he should fix it...
I posit that behind this phenomena there is usually ONE simple motivator:
THE WOMAN IS SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS, OR AT LEAST SEARCHING TO ESCAPE HER OWN EMOTIONAL TURMOIL, whether depression, anxiety, etc, etc.
She cried out & expressed her pain to others; perhaps relatives, perhaps strangers ... and those "helpers" connected her with "professionals", and those "professionals" based on their own inflated egos, personal vendettas, political agendas, etc. KNEW the source of the woman's pain.
The "professional" instinctively knew whom to blame:
THEY BLAMED THE WOMAN'S PAIN SQUARELY ... ON THE HUSBAND.
These "professionals", trained in the art of influencing others, succeeded in changing the woman's world-view. The woman's friends, influenced by popular writings, easily concurred... empathized with her... offered her "resources" in her "plight"....
But they forget to hear the husband's side of the story..... So self assured were they in their world-view, that it wasn't necessary to hear his side.
But everything I've written thus far isn't really my main point, because even if they HAD attempted to mediate between the two... even if the woman HAD gone to therapy ... chances are that it would be too late - as the damage had already been done.
And this leads me to what I believe is the REAL solution....
Please read on...
Concerning men & women that have lived & built lives together for decades, been through so many joys and sorrows … & the woman was convinced that it’s time to go…. I posited that …
THE WOMAN IS SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS, OR AT LEAST SEARCHING TO ESCAPE HER OWN EMOTIONAL TURMOIL, whether depression, anxiety, etc, etc. … and that her pain is being blamed on HER HUSBAND.
The woman’s mindset seems to be that “happiness” is something she needs to receive from the outside - her husband, or “someone” needs to “give” it to her, and that she “deserves” to receive it… Once the marriage is irrevocably broken, perhaps she feels that her husband CAN’T and / or surely doesn’t want to give it…..
Might she be mistaken?
Could it perhaps be that…?
… The only AUTHENTIC happiness she’ll ever have is the type she’ll find INSIDE HERSELF. Perhaps someone can convince her to stop looking OUTSIDE for something missing INSIDE?
Perhaps she’s looking for the wrong KIND of happiness… and the RIGHT kind is actually free for the taking?
Here are the 5 types of happiness, according to Martin Seligman (I’m cheating a bit, because he talks about well-being, while I’m calling them happiness).
Perhaps she should stop looking for types 1 & 3, and start looking for types 2, 4 & 5?
In fact, maybe they can still … look…. Together?!
1- Positive emotion: pleasure, rapture, ecstasy, warmth, comfort, and the like. A life lived with these aims; he calls the “pleasant life.”
2- Engagement: is about flow - being one with the music, time stopping, and the loss of self-consciousness during an absorbing activity. Engagement is different, even opposite, from positive emotion; for if you ask people who are in flow what they are thinking and feeling, they usually say, “nothing.” A life lived with these aims; he calls the “engaged life.”
3- Relationships: He doesn’t explain it here, but I think it seems self-explanatory.
4- Meaning and purpose: belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self. Humanity creates all the positive institutions to allow this: religion, political party, being Green, the Boy Scouts, or the family. A life lived with these aims; he calls the “meaningful life.”
5- Accomplishment: success and mastery. People try to achieve just for winning’s own sake
THE WOMAN IS SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS, OR AT LEAST SEARCHING TO ESCAPE HER OWN EMOTIONAL TURMOIL, whether depression, anxiety, etc, etc. … and that her pain is being blamed on HER HUSBAND.
The woman’s mindset seems to be that “happiness” is something she needs to receive from the outside - her husband, or “someone” needs to “give” it to her, and that she “deserves” to receive it… Once the marriage is irrevocably broken, perhaps she feels that her husband CAN’T and / or surely doesn’t want to give it…..
Might she be mistaken?
Could it perhaps be that…?
… The only AUTHENTIC happiness she’ll ever have is the type she’ll find INSIDE HERSELF. Perhaps someone can convince her to stop looking OUTSIDE for something missing INSIDE?
Perhaps she’s looking for the wrong KIND of happiness… and the RIGHT kind is actually free for the taking?
Here are the 5 types of happiness, according to Martin Seligman (I’m cheating a bit, because he talks about well-being, while I’m calling them happiness).
Perhaps she should stop looking for types 1 & 3, and start looking for types 2, 4 & 5?
In fact, maybe they can still … look…. Together?!
1- Positive emotion: pleasure, rapture, ecstasy, warmth, comfort, and the like. A life lived with these aims; he calls the “pleasant life.”
2- Engagement: is about flow - being one with the music, time stopping, and the loss of self-consciousness during an absorbing activity. Engagement is different, even opposite, from positive emotion; for if you ask people who are in flow what they are thinking and feeling, they usually say, “nothing.” A life lived with these aims; he calls the “engaged life.”
3- Relationships: He doesn’t explain it here, but I think it seems self-explanatory.
4- Meaning and purpose: belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self. Humanity creates all the positive institutions to allow this: religion, political party, being Green, the Boy Scouts, or the family. A life lived with these aims; he calls the “meaningful life.”
5- Accomplishment: success and mastery. People try to achieve just for winning’s own sake
===============
DT. An example a couple came to me seriously considering divorce. The husband though a brilliant and successful talmid chachom and businessman was very focused on the lack of respect he got from his wife and children. He had become very controlling - insisting for example that the whole family sit attentively for a half an hour drasha every Friday night. His wife took the children's side when they got bored in the middle and left the table. The wife objected to the control he insisted over every aspect of her life and that of the children. At the same time he had become very hurt by her criticism and claims that he was unreasonable and out of touch with normal human feelings. In short the husband and wife blamed each other for their unhappiness and that of the children. The obvious solution was they should get divorced after 20 years of marriage. But they couldn't do that because several of the children were either looking for a shidduch or would soon start.
Solution. I suggested that the husband was too focused on getting respectful for his genuine spirituality from his family in a manner which was inappropriate. I suggested he spend more time with genuinely spiritual people that would appreciate his insights and analysis. That he did and his need to control and demand respect eased up. At the same time he became more sensitive to his family and realized that he was not presenting appropriate material and issues for them to be able to appreciate. This backing off actually produced the respect he had been craving all along.
At the same time both the husband and wife felt that the other would let lose an emotional attack at inappropriate moments - such as at the Shabbos table or at a time when they didn't feel up to defending themselves. The normal response was to yell back which only escalated the conflict. I suggest a simple technique. No matter how strong their upset - they could not lecture their spouse if the spouse raised up an index finger to signal now was not the time - but later. Surprisingly that was really all that they needed to create a sense of control and respect and the yelling and screaming disappeared.
In sum, this family of genuinely loving and generous people - who were imbued with deep spiritual feelings - was self-destructing because their spiritual and psychological needs were not being fulfilled through each other. A rather minor adjustment from 2 sessions created the proper conditions for mutual growth and appreciation. It didn't solve everything - but it did enable them to get nachas from each other and for the children to regain respect for their parents.
update December 30, 2013 - Ploni added important clarifications that I put in the comments section