I’ve been practicing matrimonial law, mainly in the frum community, for fifteen years. I think I know a big about the subject. The truth is there is no one cause or reason why frum people divorce. We are like the rest of the world, and all the reasons people divorce apply. Sometimes people have differing expectations of marriage that cannot be reconciled. Oftentimes, it’s a matter of rank immaturity. People sometimes grow apart. Another big cause is a trauma to the marital relationship brought about by one spouse’s conduct. But there is no one cause, and anyone who thinks that the issue can be successfully addressed by identifying one root cause and “fixing” it, is deluding themself. Marriage is not panacea for what ails the soul. No one’s life gets easier, or better simply by dint of marriage. It is a social institution; one we deem necesary to preserve root and fibre of our social ethos. But since it is predicated on interpersonal relationships, it is fraught with risks. People are people, they have moments of greatness and (hopefully rare) instances of depredation. Both, the good and bad, influence a relationship. But we frum Jews, who in one form or another must relate to the world around us, are not immune from that which can infect and even kill a marriage, the same pathogens that assail non-Jewish or non-frum marriages, attack ours as well.
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