I was drawn to this topic because a friend of a friend of mine recently got divorced within just a year of getting married. The tragedy shocked me. I am not sure how long they dated for or even if they met through a shiduch, and personally, I do not think that is all that relevant. I think it is silly for us all to sit back and guess which type of community is more at fault for a rise in the number of broken engagements. The facts are young couples are breaking engagements and marriages more frequently than ever before.
I was the first of my circle of friends to get married. My husband’s parents and my parents grew up as neighbors, so in a sense we go way back. But now I am seeing all my friends navigate through the stressful world of shiduchim. They often explain that they feel lost and confused.
In my opinion the real problem is that young people nowadays have had more influence from the outside world. That is not to make a specific charge against feminism. Smaller influences, like the way in which we approach a topic like a relationship is altered because of the modern world. Young people then are in almost a unique situation in which they are trying to stick to a torah approach while subconsciously having to struggle with modernity as well. What we really need to do is education people dating and getting ready to get married, not necessarily through pre-marital therapy, but simply to let them know what they are getting themselves into. Marriages are never simply a happy ending; they take work and effort.
I know that I felt, when I was younger, that marriage meant everything was perfect. Before I married my husband, we met with his Rabbi from his yeshiva in Israel. The Rabbi gave us the greatest piece of advice I had ever received. He told us that we must remember arguments happen and it is the way in which they happen that we can use to work in our favor to better our relationship. I think messages like this are what young people need to hear. We need to let people know that its more than just having the same opinions, goals and hopes for the future. They need to know how to communicate.