Divorce: Whose Fault Was It?

moi aussi: Most divorces are indeed initiated by women. The reason is that they are finicky and cannot handle marriage. Not with their ex and not with a future guy. As was mentioned earlier, Rabbonim have said the vast majority of divorces should never have happened and they could have and should have stayed married.

I personally heard from several dayanim (seperately and unaffiliated with each other) that handle divorce cases say that in the vast majority of the cases the wife was at fault for the divorce.

moi aussi -“If a man isn’t married, it’s not because the women are too picky, it’s because the man is bad news.”

Who decided this, you? My opinion is there may be lots of women, but lots don’t really want to get married!

“A man who calls his ex-wife’s friends “Reshayim” shouldn’t wonder why he’s not remarried.”

Your real name must be Chulda, the Neiviah, because how else would you know what you just posted!

First of all, who said I’m wondering why I’m not remarried – I’m not at all. Who said I even started looking yet?

Second of all, how do you know that her friends aren’t Reshayim?

“Most divorces are initiated by women, as a result of abusive husbands. Abuse can be physical or/and mental.”

How about giving us an example of “mental” abuse?

avhaben, there’s a difference between being at fault for the divorce, or being at fault for initiating a divorce for the wrong reasons.

I agree that there are women who give up too quickly, but there are more cases of abusive husbands than of impatient wives.

Ask your Dayanim if they would take a divorced guy for their daughter or their sister???

Let me try to explain the math. Rabbi Miller said that 99 percent are the fault of the male and 99% the fault of the female. That means one percent extreme on each end, and 98% overlap where both parties are responsible.

98 + 1 + 1 = 100.

Q.E.D.

everyone has a different threshold to crazy behavior.

I knew someone in my extended family who was abusive to her mother publicly, non stop. If this were my wife I would demand that she stop this but the husband seemed to take it in stride. And who knows how she treated him but maybe his character was such that he wants to stay non divorced no matter what.

so how does this be a partnership, isn’t this evil partnership yet they are not divorced.

There was recently a study done in which they concluded that it takes on average 10 years for a woman to leave a bad marriage.

She could have left by year 3 or 5 but us women keep on trying to hold down the fort and “make things work”. That is sometimes a fault of ours. We have much to gain by keeping it going if we can “get that dream off the ground”, for the kids’ sake, for the financial sake, and for the sake of the dream of a loving and mutually satisfactory relationship.

Unfortunatley we women may exercise poor judgment sometimes.

Many posters have written, eg. avhaben, that women are at fault. In other words, they might be initiating divorce because they think that they are being abused, but in Reality they are NOT!

Did you see avhaben’s creditials that you can decide that he is an expert?

avhaben thinks it’s perfectly fine for a husband to dominate his wife. In my view that is called abuse. You can agree with him and think it’s not, but doesn’t make either you or him correct.

R’ Moshe Meir Weiss says a story that a couple came to him to resolve an issue. The wife said her husband told her she can’t visit her parents. The husband told R’ MM Weiss, to tell his wife that it’s within his right and she must obey. R’ MM Weiss answered him, you are correct, but if you want your wife to stick around…….

Most women will not walk away from a good marriage. Those that do likely have big issues. Big deal! There are men with big issues and women with big issues. It’s not a womens’ thing to have big issues. It’s a human thing. There are a great many men who have big issues too.

Csar: if a woman separates from her husband, she has walked away from her marriage. And even if he’s a great guy and a good marriage, chances are he will divorce her.

Case- what woman walks away from a good marriage ? Obviously there are problemos.

ARWSF – “Unfortunatley we women may exercise poor judgment sometimes.”

Poor judgment occurs to both men and women. And women exercise poor judgment in getting divorced also.

To avoid bad judgment it’s best to seek counsel. The best is to speak with Rabbonim experienced with Sholom Bayis AND, not or, go to therapists who deal with marital issues.

First, What type of stupid question is who’s fault is divorce?

In most cases, two people came to a conclusion that they can’t live together, and ZE HU. Why is there a need in society to assign blame?

Secondly, my advice for couples who are thinking about divorce is to go to a therapist, not a rav. Speak to most divorced couples and they will most likely tell you that speaking to a rav just made it worse.

As far as I know, Sometimes it’s the fault of the Involved ones.

Regardless to feminists, the brain wash from the messages which they are sometimes getting from psychologists or psychiatrists on blaming one of the spouses, are having the power to destroy families.

Even-though the spouse is completely needless for help, is sometime that there is not to whom to talk to. Rather -Talk to the wall. Just because the huge and -powerful theory’s from the powerful…(remotely) on one of the spouses is being giving out to A so-called P’sak din!!!

Song of Blessing -“As far as blame… OMG.. why? If you’re looking to blame someone you’re surely the one at fault. Look at YOURSELF. If you work one yourself then it doesn’t matter who what when where how? If you feel you can’t work on yourself in your marriage – then you have a problem. Seek HELP not BLAME!”

Hypocrisy at its’ finest. You can’t blame the spouse, but you can blame a third party, like the teachers:

“One thing I don’t get is why the kallah/chosson teachers dont teach more PRACTICAL things during lessons. YES I know how important niddah is – but really…”

What happenned to “Seek HELP not BLAME”? Yes, it’s not these people’s job to teach you about marriage. If you didn’t get this from your parents or Mechanchim/Rabbeyim, there are mental health professionals that you can go to – even before marriage.

So Song of Blessing – “Look at YOURSELF. If you work on yourself then it doesn’t matter who what when where how? If you feel you can’t work on yourself in your marriage – then you have a problem.”

Health: Hypocrisy at its’ finest. You can’t blame the spouse, but you can blame a third party, like the teachers

Who said I was blaming the teachers for failed marriages? It was a side point – and completely not meant to blame them for the issues. I was just wondering why they don’t. Sorry for not making that clear…

And to say “If you didn’t get this from your parents or Mechanchim/Rabbeyim, there are mental health professionals that you can go to – even before marriage…” well are there alot of divorces these days or not??

There are..

And who do people rely on for the majority of pre-marital questions?

Usually kallah and chosson teachers. At least thats what I was told when I had the classes that they’re there to help you prepare for whats ahead.

Again I’m not BLAMING them just like you can’t BLAME the parents, or mechanchim bla bla for all the problems. Its golus – this is what the world is today whether we like it or not. I was just wondering how come its not a standard thing that they introduce marriage books and go over them thoroughly during those classes as opposed to just niddah books.

“A lot of women think that certain situations are abuse when they are Not.”

So right said, Health!

Also on what you said that sometime it’s the friends fault.

It’s a big c’hurban that some of the work places are mixing into employees life v’dei lehuvin!!!

Also, who says that always one are supposed to go to ‘Psychologists’ etc.? The psychologists are sometimes causing brain-wash to their clients, that they are getting Abused.

There are times that one could get her own therapy from S’efarim/books on h’ashkafa, for example one of like “Getting to know your soul/self”, Or Books from “Rabbi Twerski” etc. It’s more Kosher and from the T’orah which isn’t superficial and more deeply.

Health – I am a kallah teacher, & it’s part of my job to impart a LOT of hashkafa, and eitzas on behavior in marriage. This is not something I originated – it was taught to me by my kallah teacher trainers, & is widespread among Kallah (& I assume Chosson) teachers.

I know an odom godoil whose child divorced. when he was asked by a close talmid about the story a long time after – his child was remarried – he said listen, her tzu, chulent iz a gutte zach, glace [ice cream] is a gutte zach, ober tzuzamm klappen zei nisht/

[cholent and ice cream are both indivually good, but they do not go together.

i personally know the people involved and it is a good hagdoro

Goldersgreener anyone who can rise above his personal family and accept that his child’s spouse is not to blame is truly an odom godoil.

i find it ironic that health as a divorced man is recieving nothing but criticism for expressing his views on divorce, while i strongly assume that any woman on here in the same postion would recieve nothing but sympathy.

I’ve heard more than one godol relate that the vast majority of divorces were unnecessary and avoidable.

mommamia: You can say that men don’t divorce good looking women who act appropriately.

mommamia22 -“I also agree with my mother’s opinion that women don’t leave good looking men who treat them well.”

With the advent in the 20th century of the JAP, some think well means anything they desire.

There are a lot of unnecessary divorces because one spouse is more spoiled than the other.

It stands to reason that most gittin are the ex-wife’s fault, as it is the husband who chose to divorce her, since a wife cannot divorce her husband even if she wanted to and cannot demand her husband divorce her unless she has a legally justifiable grievance that she can prove in court (beis din.) Without that the husband is legally justified to remain married to her, if he so chooses, whether she likes it or not. On the other hand, a husband can legally divorce on much lesser grounds (and in Sephardic culture, which isn’t subject to R”G, even on no grounds at all.) So if a divorce occured, it must occur with the willing consent of the husband (otherwise it would be invalid) though not necessarily with the willing consent of the wife (especially in Sephardic culture which has no constraints from R”G.) Therefore it stands to reason that if a divorce occured, it is more likely the ex-wife is at fault since the husband has a far easier position to divorce an at-fault wife than a wife has to demand a divorce.

I think any man who chooses to force his wife to remain married to him when she has reached the point of wanting out (after reasonably trying to resolve the differences) is truly pathetic.

Health

You really seem to have such a negative view of women. Granted there are some who walk into marriage with unreasonably high expectations. However, when I say “well” I mean common basic courtesy. If a man is wonderful to a woman, speaks lovingly, kindly, considerately, she won’t be so quick to leave knowing what’s out there may not be better. We’re not talking about extremes here of life with a kind man living in horrendous poverty or a so called JAP who expects the unreasonable. We’re talking about regular people with typical life hopes and expectations of basic commitment to frumkeit, overall kind behavior, and general responsible attitude towards life. Perhaps I don’t know common expectations, but the women I know would never leave a man who offers the above. They might lament not having more, but they would never leave.

mommamia22 -“Health -You really seem to have such a negative view of women.”

Where in my words did you get such a conclusion?

It seems Toi was right when he posted -“i find it ironic that health as a divorced man is recieving nothing but criticism for expressing his views on divorce, while i strongly assume that any woman on here in the same postion would recieve nothing but sympathy.”

Stop making generalizations. Your views Do Not represent All Women!

“Granted there are some who walk into marriage with unreasonably high expectations. However, when I say “well” I mean common basic courtesy. If a man is wonderful to a woman, speaks lovingly, kindly, considerately, she won’t be so quick to leave knowing what’s out there may not be better.”

On this we can basically agree.

“We’re not talking about extremes here of life with a kind man living in horrendous poverty”

What does this mean? A woman can walk out if the husband is poor?

Poor people shouldn’t get married and if they make the mistake of getting married -the woman should walk out?!?

“or a so called JAP who expects the unreasonable. We’re talking about regular people with typical life hopes and expectations of basic commitment to frumkeit, overall kind behavior, and general responsible attitude towards life. Perhaps I don’t know common expectations, but the women I know would never leave a man who offers the above. They might lament not having more, but they would never leave.”

Well obviously we walk in different circles. I admit I know plenty of women who would never leave their husband who treats her normally. OTOH, I know plenty of women who have divorced or made their husband miserable when they didn’t get what they want!

Not making enough money is no grounds for a Get. Regardless if the spouse feels he could or should do better.