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I get the sense some people don’t want to believe it, even if it is true that divorce has proven negative health consequences. Throw away the data cause I have an anecdote!
I’m not as creative.
Lol
I was thinking
Also good for statistical analysis.
perhaps poor folks get divorced and die young. Or getting divorced is a risk factor for growing up poor.
Do you mean and?
Because then getting divorced does cause a shorter life span, albeit with an intermediate step.
Do you mean and?
Two different arguments.
1. Poor people get divorced more, and also poor people die younger, so its correlated with the same cause, instead of one causing other.
2. Divorce makes people poor, which makes them die younger.
Because then getting divorced does cause a shorter life span, albeit with an intermediate step.
Right, but then you should focus on the important factor. So that if you’re rich, then it’s ok. Or if you’re poor anyway, then it’s also ok. Like eating pizza and dying young–you only need to worry if you’re not fat anyway.
Divorce exists because it is an industry, just like many other things. There are several people who actually profit from it. The batei din that take money often litigate much of it, hence profit. Toanim – all profit. Lawyers, more profit. And the side that has the upper hand might actually make some money off the deal. None of this means that the action involves honesty or moral values. But several people have parnosoh from divorce. I did not even list therapists, counselors, and mediators, though these generally have a better moral standing than the others listed above.
I thought we were talking about children of divorced people.
It all comes down to pizza at the end.
What about a case were the husbend is not as frum as the wife and is a bad influence on the children be it not gowing to minin or watching videos
Would you suggest a divorce if it was the mother who wasn’t as frum as the father and she was a bad influence on the children, mordern?
How does divorce help in that situation? The divorce is between the husband and wife; the divorce is not between the father (or mother) and children. The father (and mother) will still see and influence his children even if he’s divorced.
This thread is off in so many ways. Chief being they didn’t compare the lifespan of those in a difficult marriage (or the kids’ lifespans) versus those that divorced; just married versus non married/divorced. Secondly, virtually all marriages have ups and downs that can be termed difficult, while some are unbearably so.
Well, it was fascinating to see at least four incarnations of Joseph (Englishman, Shlishi, Droid, and Joseph) create and defend his diatribe against divorce. Split personality? Or just trying to rile up good Jews? Who knows.
That said, even at a distance of 4 years from the original post, it is nonsense. It is absurd, it is hurtful to those who don’t share Joseph’s ignorance of the matter and those who have experienced the painful circumstances firsthand.
It seems that the coarseness of public discourse that Donald Trump has brought to the political process was anticipated by Joseph years ago. Who are you, who has no experience in the matter, to call it criminal, as you did? Who are you to judge? Your opinion is hanging like a bright autumn leaf on a solitary tree. Soon it falls, and crumbles to dust, and, as the tfilo says, Kachalom yauf.
Divorce is not desirable. If there is any constructive way to avoid it, to return the relationship from the brink, that should be tried. If there is any way to heal the relationship, it must be given some time to see if it works. But what the irresponsible OP known as Joseph and many other names doesn’t know, because he has no experience, is how a relationship that is broken and where both parties haven’t invested in fixing it or have ultimately found it unfixable, poisons the life of both parties, the kids, the grandparents, and the circle of friends and family. Life in a miserable marriage is THE most unhealthy circumstance for ALL.
I’ve BH encountered many Rabbonim -chariedi, MO, and others, who utterly reject Joseph’s characterization of divorce when necessary, and who have demonstrated a compassion and kovod habriyos that he seems patently incapable of emulating.
Criminal? only in the clouded mind of a poster who could wear terms like foolish, antagonistic, robotic, plagiarizing, judgmental, hateful and ignorant as readily as he wears so many fake identities.
To paraphrase a well known Author, You know nothing, Joseph.
Mammele, I believe the study actually did measure that. You could look at the study to see a breakdown of all its conclusions.
Rav Avigdor Miller, among other gedolim who made similar points, said that 99% of the divorces in the frum world could and should have been prevented as they were unnecessary.
In most case’s the wife will get primary custody
mordern: Even if that’s the case, the father and children still see each other and he has influence with his children.
yichusdik, well said.
Rabbi Avigdor Miller’s ten commandments of marriage
4) Never say the word get
Because the word was mentioned, from now on it has entered the realm of possibility. It should be unpardonable to say that word.
When on party hase adhd it culd me gehnim maybe its beter for everyone to cut and run
^Huh?
Divorce is a very personal issue.
Of course there are the general “klolim”
that we are used to hearing V’al Royshum,
R’ Miller Zatza”l…..
That being said, each situation is unique
and at times complicated and therefore should
be dealt with by itself.
Al todin es chavercha ad shetagia limkomo.
May all yidden be zoiche to shalom vshalva.
Many people get married for the wrong reasons and when the MAJIC wears off they say what did I get into. We live in a throw away generation. You bought something and it doesn’t work throw it in the garbage.
People don’t realize the financial cost of divorce. There are two homes to maintain. Unless you are very wealthy alimony, child support and legal fees can take up 75% of your income leaving you very little to support yourself with. As far as not paying alimony or child support. If you work in the US you can be tracked by your social security number and your wages garnished unless you work off the grid. No bank account and no assets. You still run the risk of going to jail for failure to pay alimony and or child support. Many states have units that hunt these parents down as the state is usually the one that has to support these families.
The first step in avoiding divorce is after every fight try to be the first to say your sorry and never go to sleep before apologizing even if you think your right apologize. It will make for a longer marriage.
Q: Why are there so many failed marriages today?
Rav Shteinman
Joseph, anecdotes are meaningless and prove nothing. Two close friends of my wife divorced controlling, verbally abusive husbands and remarried with happy outcomes. My anecdotes don’t prove anything either
“Why are there so many failed marriages today?”
Joseph quotes the question. Given Joseph’s history of plagiarism and multiple personalities, he has ZERO credibility in presenting this as the advice of R’ Shteinman or R’Kanievsky.
“People think that the reason things are not going well for them are because of their spouse specifically.”
Well, maybe. Certainly if you are talking about an individual who has no self awareness and takes no responsibility for their actions. Of course they will say its because of their spouse specifically.
But given the simplistic, robotic nature of his world view, the complexity capacity and imperfection of most people and most Jews is lost on Joseph. People with a modicum of self awareness will realize that they have to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, both within a bad marriage, after the divorce, and in any new relationship. If they don’t make change in themselves, they will make the same mistakes (and almost no marriage breakdown is the sole responsibility of one spouse only) in a new relationship.
I am surprised that a gadol would not recognize such a simple truth. That is another reason why I question the provenance of what the multiple-namer has shared here.
One last thing – interesting that though Joseph-of-the-many-names asserted at the top of this thread that divorce was criminal, here are the purported words of a gadol about divorce and he makes no mention of criminality at all.
Rav Shteinman’s advice is very meaningful.
Rav Shteinman’s point is borne out in the statistics. Read the article by Dr. Mark Banschick M.D. in Psychology Today titled “The High Failure Rate of Second and Third Marriages: Why are second and third marriages more likely to fail?”, Feb 06, 2012, that begins with “Past statistics have shown that in the U.S. 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second, and 73% of third marriages end in divorce.”
Not only is their no assurance that one will be able to remarry after a divorce and not only is their no assurance that a second marriage won’t be worse than the first, but even once remarried the divorce statistics are notably higher than first marriages. So what does one do after a second divorce? Move on to the third marriage with an even higher divorce rate than second marriages?
As Rav Shteinman suggested – stick it out with your zivug rishon and “make the best of the situation”.
That’s Rav Shteinman’s take. You decide.
Of course second marriages have a higher divorce rate than first marriages.
They’re mostly populated by people who already had a failed marriage.
Yichusdik, I have no idea what you are railing against, other than the name Joseph.
R’ Steinman is simply telling people that they need to try working on their marriages, not just blame the other, and they’ll be happier for it. What is remotely controversial about that?
From a financial point married couples are better off because they don’t have to support to homes. From a health stand point the aggravation from child support and or alimony takes a heavy toll on their overall health. while I don’t condone abusive spouses, one who remains in such a marriage merits that they wouldn’t have to go to purgatory in the next world.
Staying in a bad marriage can harm the children.
Divorcing can harm the children. This has been demonstrated in numerous studies.
At a 5-year follow-up, one study of divorced children (Wallerstein, 1985) showed:
1. Persistence of anger at the parent who had initiated the divorce.
2. Intensity of longing for the absent or erratically visiting parent.
4. Moderate to severe clinical depression in over one third of the original sample.
At the 10-year follow-up with those same children of divorce (Wallerstein, 1985), the following information was gathered about the participants:
2. Quotes from the young adults themselves:
3. Physically, these participants reported poorer physical health than children from intact families.
4. Emotionally, they indicated persistent problems with the following:
Tell that to the kid whose parents are always fighting.
The aforementioned studies, among others, have shown that overall the repercussions are generally negative. Sure there are exceptions to every rule and no one said divorce is always the wrong path, but more often than not divorced couples would have been smarter sticking it out through thick and thin. Rav Shteinman said so and the studies show so. Even when there is fighting, in most cases that isn’t as bad as divorce.
Joseph, what you meant to say was that the studies you selectively chose prove your case. Undoubtedly, were I inclined, I could probably find anequal number of studies showing the opposite.
Bad marraiges are bad marraiges, both espouses and cgildren
Abba S, are you for real? Advocating staying in an abusive marriage to protect your olam habah?
There’s a difference between bickering and fighting.
Divorce is bad / unacceptable / shameful, etc. only when it’s someone else’s daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, etc. who is getting abused, beaten, or neglected. The moment it’s close to home, everyone’s song changes. So, enough pontificating. Every case is it’s own tragedy about which most outsiders do not fully grasp the context and the ramifications. The damage one spouse inflicts on another (generally, but not always the man against the woman) harms the children in a huge and often irreparable way. Often, divorce is a salvation for the abused spouse and children. Urge troubled couples to get quality guidance from frum counselors. Do not tell a battered woman (or man!) to remain in an abusive relationship. No one outside the marriage is in a position to dictate to a suffering spouse how much physical, emotional, financial abuse is “acceptable” or when it’s “too much.”
So you’re arguing that Rav Shteinman was wrong to have advised that woman not to get divorced before she got divorced and later regretted it? Do you have even a tenth the experience of Rav Shteinman in advising troubled people?
A/Y: Finally someone talking sense!
Joseph: you weren’t present in the room to hear precisely what Rav Steinman said. In any case, ?? ??? ?? ???? ??. Each case needs its own evaluation. Every case has to be examined individually. It’s impossible to extrapolate from one couple’s situation to another. Let’s say a Sanhedrin executed someone for chilul Shabbos . Does that mean if another case of chilul Shabbos arose a few weeks later, aside from the matter of ??? ??? ??????, theoretically could the second court simply say, well, a few weeks ago the dayanim paskened skilah, so this second guy also should get skilah. That would be foolish wickedness, that no Sanhedrin would ever contemplate. Matters of divorce are no less “dinei nefashos.”
Less Chumras
While in theory one can insure not having to go through hell in the next world by going through an abusive marriage, I wouldn’t advice putting yourself through that ordeal. Most divorces start out as a slight insult by one of the parties, the other responds and before you know it the loving couple turn into a fighting couple.
While I will agree that having parents that fight all the time is not ideal for the children. The civil divorce process ie alimony child support and the division of assets will bankrupt the parents and may result in the children living in poverty for years to come. Each parent is stuck supporting the child either by paying child support or raising the child for the next 18 years, which is a financial burden that any future spouse will have to bear making it harder to remarry.
AY: You’re singing a different tune in your follow-up. First you opined that “No one outside the marriage is in a position” to a advise a couple not to divorce. Unless your consider Rav Shteinman a “no one” he did exactly that regarding the woman.
And, furthermore, Rav Shteinman related the above told story of that woman and her regretful divorce precisely to teach us a moral lesson about this very subject.
Joseph, do you actually think that Rav Steinman was talking about an abusive husband?
Joe -“mordern: Even if that’s the case, the father and children still see each other and he has influence with his”
Not always! Not always! You don’t know what you’re talking about!
DY: Abusive husbands represent a very small percent of the overall divorce rate in the frum community. And then there’s the abuse of the term abusive as well as the abuse of claiming abuse. For example, just a few comments back someone referred to “financial abuse” as a justification for divorce. These ambiguous usages open the possibilities, which are often exploited and applied to every slight real or perceived, to claim abuse for either silly, inaccurate or unjustified claims that a party then uses to solicit external (community or legal) support. This, of course, doesn’t negate the situations where abuse is real. But we also must acknowledge how widespread the abuse of the claim and term have become in the real world and how little real abuse represents as a portion of the outrageous divorce rate that has more to do with a spoiled and disposal society than anything else.
Joseph – at the beginning of this thread, you said that 95% of divorces are criminal. Now you are saying “no one said divorce is always the wrong path”. While I can see that you left yourself 5% wiggle room, you seem to have changed your tune.
DY – My biggest problems are threefold.
First, this thread is the handiwork of a demonstrated plagiarist and serial fake-name artist.
Second, he made the false, absurd, and infuriating assertion that almost every divorce is criminal.
Third, He brings up as rationale for his position examples like the “If you don’t like it you can divorce me.” Its a simplistic straw man. Do you think a statement like that comes from a healthy marriage or mature husband or wife? No. If it is ever uttered it comes from people who are oblivious, selfish, completely self-unaware, or unprepared to take any responsibility for their actions. In short, its useless rhetoric, and it insults the intelligence of the vast majority of people struggling in their marriages.
The question in a marriage breakdown is: is it fixable? and are both of the participants prepared to take responsibility and do the work necessary? If not, it will eventually fail, and the poison already there will spread and get worse. The children will have to live in an increasingly tense, angry and eventually hateful environment. Don’t tell me that anyone – Rav Shteinman, another Godol, or anyone else thinks its a good idea for anyone to endure that.
I’ve met poskim, many of them BH, in myy life. And they pay attention to the particular circumstances before they answer a shailah. Divorces are the most particular of particular circumstances. Divorce is awful. it is gut wrenching, it is a reflection of personally not measuring up to ones own and others expectations, it is terribly hard on kids, it is incredibly expensive, it is a last resort. But it is NOT criminal 95% of the time as OP-Joseph wrote, nor 1%.
Such malicious slander by such a demonstrably dishonest poster deserves the reaction it is getting from me.
Tomorrows daf
I’m frum today because of my parents’ divorce. Had they remained married, I would not be a Shomer Torah U’Mitzvos today.
(Of course, some would consider the fact that I proclaim myself to be Orthodox to be an embarrassment to the movement…)
The Wolf
yichusdik: You are attributiong to me what I quoted gedolei yisroel as saying. It isn’t I who made those statements, it is they. Take it up with them. I am merely the messenger.
And furthermore you misunderstood what the gedolim said, as evidenced by your statements giving it a different context than they put it in.
And it was one of the Gedolei Yisroel that stated that 99% of the divorces in the frum world were avoidable and unnecessary.
Now in the past on this site you’ve frequently expressed great disdain for gedolim. You’ve made clear more than once that you think you know better than them. You have an entire history of such negative comments. (In addition to multiple entire threads you’ve created to tell the gedolim what they must do and condemn them for not following your instructions.)
But there are very many deferential Yidden who love and accept Klal Yisroel’s gedolim and take their words carefully and seriously and accept their rebuke. It is to them I relate. Your repeating the same talking points as above for the fourth time won’t change that.
* Stands up and applauds *
Thank you, yichusdik.
The Wolf
Yichusdik, #1 is irrelevant to the actual discussion. Credibility is an issue only when you need to take his word for it.
#2, Second, he made the false, absurd, and infuriating assertion that almost every divorce is criminal.
I don’t know how you know it’s false and absurd. If both parties would work hard, it’s very possible (although I honestly don’t know for sure) that the majority could be salvaged. It’s infuriating to divorced people because it seems to implicate them, but, a) they may be in the 5% b) it might be that they were not to blame, only the other spouse c) the point isn’t supposed to be laying blame, but motivating both parties to do their best to work things out for the kids’ benefit.
#3, I disagree, it could just be carelessness, and spouses/parents need to know how damaging it is.
Wolf,
Your situation was exceptional. You can’t build a rule from it.
I’m also surprised that you haven’t taken yichusdik to task for his ad hominem attack, which seems to be a third of his argument.
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