The woman’s side:
For over three years now, one painful question has been occupying my mind. AM I AN AGUNAH?
I understand an AGUNAH is a women whose husband refuses to give her a get. An AGUNAH is a woman who has fled the evil and manipulative spider spinning her marriage but is still caught in the web. She is a woman struggling to free herself of her marriage and to eventually, start living
AM I AN AGUNAH?
An AGUNAH is the wife of a man beis din has demanded three times to set free. Her husband refuses to obey the jewish court and she is given the honorary title of AGUNAH. She is then assisted by various rabbanim and batei din until eventually, she is free to live her life as she wishes and not as her husband demands.
AM I AN AGUNAH?
The rabbanim I went to for advice while I was still living with my abusive husband refused to help me. I asked numerous rabbanim for assistance and for strength to leave my angry and abusive husband. They refused. I then asked them to help me be able to live with him. They refused. The therapist I was seeing every week, alone-my husband said that since I have a problem of not being able to live with him I should go for counseling- said I must, for my physical and emotional health and for my son’s safety, leave him. I called rabbanim nightly, crying and pleading for help, and was criticized, lied to and betrayed. One rav said that as a neighbbor of my father-in-law, he can’t help me. Another said that my husband needs someone to vent on. I asked if I’m his punching bag and was told that I “have the zechus to be there for him so he doesn’t vent on others”. Another rav misquoted gemorah and wrongly explained to me that I “will be getting a great mitzvah if I stay with my husband”. Another said “he needs a woman so how can you abandon him?” after these rabbanim asked what I was doing to anger him, to make him lose his self control and temper and then physically and verbally abuse me, I realized they would never help me. I would have to leave my house with my infant son, in any weather and any time and stay out for hours, praying that he would be asleep before I returned. With the love of my families, I was eventually able to leave him and try to build a safe and calm environment for my son and myself.
I begged other rabbanim for assistance after I fled and lived in fear and hiding (I still live in fear and the rabbanim gave him my addresss). The rabbis now can not and I feel will not help me. They say calling my husband to beis din to grant me a get will not accomplish anything since he will not obey them. I am told there is nothing I can do but wait patiently and calmly for him to decide that I “deserve” (his words) the get. My husband curses me, threatens me, attempts to intimidate me and use my two year old son as spawn in his selfish and evil threats. He uses the get as another pawn, especially when he demands that I respect him and “take the gamble of getting the get this year or in twenty years!” he even chased me when I walked to my apartment and did so with his hand lifted as if to hit me, reminding me of my disastrous and horrifying marriage to him, an emotionally, verbally and physically (though according to beis din, since he never slapped me on the face I wasn’t physically abused!) abusive person. Beis din wanted to know what I did to him when he chased me and when I was married to him! They won’t allow me to obtain an order of protection or go to secular courts for help and they will not help me because in their words, I am “not an AGUNAH”
AM I NOT AN AGUNAH?!
I always hear of and read about the man’s side but most studies and most real life situations involve those of abusive men who continue to abuse by withholding the get or using it to avoid giving child support and use to blackmail and torture their wives and children.
I wrote this personal journey entry years ago and finally received the get after he came through my son’s bedroom window and was arrested and I ceased following beis din orders. I pressed charges, got an order of protection and showed him and bais din that I will do for my child and for me,whether or not I ever receive my get. It was then, when they had no more power over me, that they ordered him to give the get and me to pay for the get and forgo child support for several years.
Hatzlocha to anyone in similar abusive situations.