“Marriage counseling hastens divorce far more often than it saves a marriage”

Joseph- There are lots of people who stay married and the kids also suffer and feel guilty believing they are responsible for their parents bad relationship. The only good solution is for the parent or parents to improve. Divorce isn’t a solution in itself and neither is staying married. But if the marriage isn’t getting better it’s probably time for divorce.

Joseph………………..
More second marriages end in divorce than first marriages…………
Having seen that divorce ended an untenable marriage the first time and life goes on, people will end a bad second marriage more quickly than the first

Failed marriages are very unfortunate. They are a symptom of other issues. The solution to which is not to keep people in unhealthy relationships. Those which aren’t being fixed should end.

If a person leaves their house after a hurricane instead of rebuilding, does that mean they found their house disposable?

Based only on my experience with divorced friends and aquaintences, i think the divorce problem starts before marriage. People getting married are not ready, and don’t know what to expect. Divorce rates are rising as the social fabric deteriorates.
Unrelated question: has anybody ever met someone who divorced, and then wished they had stayed married to their previous spouse?
Unrelated question 2: Joseph, are you married? If so, how long? (If that’s over the line mods can delete)

Having observed many more divorces than I am happy about, there are multiple causes for it, and it is rare that two cases are the same. There are many factors that enter into the equation. Some are grounds for therapy, modification, and change. This includes either or both of the individuals (referring to needed individual work) as well as re-education on how to handle marriage (communication, learning to respect and cherish each other, etc.)

There are other matters that are not so simple. Here are just a few examples.

Family interference. One cannot blame a young recently married man or woman from sharing their issues with their parents or other family. However, this is often a tragic step. The tendency is that family takes such information as a battle cry, rather than a cry for help. Instead of helping the couple reconcile differences, they often take oppositional stances, and introduce a level of conflict that may not have been in the picture before. This triggers a counter response, and we now have a war where the issues might have been reconciled. Once at war, it is a very steep climb to convert the situation to something manageable.

Either of the couple may have some latent issues that were not known before the marriage. More often than not, this is a condition that was not disclosed during the shidduch phase. I have known of this involving medical conditions and psychiatric disorders that were simply kept secret. On occasion there was rabbinical support for this, which is hard to fathom. I do not take to a hechsher on dishonesty very well.

There are more ways than cheating than the most commonly understood one. While I am not the one to blame technology for everything, it does become a tool that makes communication easier, and it also has addictive qualities. These can push the spouse away from his/her priority status, and this can become such a wedge that restoring a marriage is almost impossible.

Dishonesty and secret keeping are horrible ingredients to a marriage. If one cannot trust their spouse, there is no basis left to feel safe, loved, or valued.

Support systems can be lifesaving for many people. But they can also be toxic. When a couple hopes to restore a loving relationship, but either has a group of peers who are convincing them to do divisive things that undermine the repair of a relationship, the match of forces may be a recipe for disaster. Therapists often complain that their best efforts are thwarted by these support systems.

Bottom line – no one gets divorced for fun. It is not recreation, and it provides pleasure for no one (except the therapists, toanim, lawyers, and dayanim who can milk the two parties for their personal gain). The decision to end a marriage is because it is assessed to be the lesser of the two evils. Perhaps it is true that some reach that decision in haste. But the wrong helpers contribute much to the overall problem.

It is also its own dialogue – are our chassanim and kallahs properly prepared for marriage? If someone wishes to open a new thread on this, it might elicit some useful ideas. I would say that the best efforts of those engaged in teaching chassanim and kallahs are still wholly inadequate.

The little I know – some great points. Family and friends can often make things worse. Instead of helping the marriage they stoke the flames and encourage war. Same can happen with therapists. Also the part about not disclosing is also a huge one. People don’t want to share negative things about them selves and references don’t want to be responsible for breaking a shiduch. Mental health is another big one.

People know that divorce isn’t an easy way out. They speak to people they know who are divorced who tell them it’s hard
They know what it does to kids. People get divorced as a last resort.

@all THERAPISTS, rabbis, rebbetzins, friends, family who are giving advice* …. PLEASE READ this book : The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce by judith wallerstein, a 25 [!!!!] year landmark study!

[* or just thinking aloud]

How many respondents in this thread are writing from experience. By experience I mean are or were in marriage counseling or any type of relationship therapy. Experience in my context does not mean I know a neighbor, or I heard from relative or acquantaince.

Joseph:

You wrote: :Divorce is a Mitzvah in the sense that it’s a Mitzvah to follow the correct Halachic procedures in carrying it out when unfortunately necessary. Just like the Mitzvah of carrying out a Misas Beis Din.”

That comment is appreciated, and is very accurate. The reality is that marriages are seldom terminated over a minor spat. If you ask therapists, it is close to universal that the opening issues brought into the process are ho-hum and trivial. However, the true issue is that they have chosen a microscopic issue to haggle over, and the underlying conflict is me against you. The untrained third party will easily get sucked into the right versus wrong issue relevant to the subject of the argument. But no one comes to the professional to resolve the argument. They come to seek an ally, to be the “right” one and to make their own position two against one. That alone is terribly divisive. The trained professional redirects the process to core issues and away from the nonsense that was the subject of the latest fight. The more solid relationships are not swayed by these arguments, and there is no investment in winning or losing.

Most rabbonim have zero training in shalom bayis guidance. If anything, they are taught to pasken shailos, and they focus on the subject matter of the argument. Suppose the couple discovers that they differ in terms of holding from the local eruv. Halacha directs the wife to follow the minhag of the husband. There can easily be an argument that holding from an eruv that is against halacha is not a minhag, and that a wife need not follow a husband in that matter. Yes, this is a real point of conflict. The average Rov will address the technical aspect of the conflict, and is most likely to be oblivious that the eruv is not the real issue at all. They can pasken the eruv issue, perhaps the matter of the wife following the husband’s accepted psak halacha. But they will nearly always miss the real point of conflict, and their well intentioned efforts will be useless to the couple.

Back to the crux of the comment. The laws of gittin are not there to seek its fulfillment. It is a tragic end to something that all wish could have been full of enjoyment, hatzlocho, and simcha. I know it is the obvious, but the cavalier attitude that has crept into our community mandates that we reiterate that divorce is a last resort.

DY:

Absolutely correct. The greatest ingredient in the preparation for marriage is a healthy role model from one’s parents. I wish we all had it. However, among the crowd of younger couples (in older ones, too, but a bit less so), there are many whose role models were either absent or unhealthy. Similarly, the messages from one’s community and culture have a profound effect, and there have been many such messages that are negative.

So the role that chosson and kallah classes play today is far greater than in generations passed. Years ago, nearly all such preparation was done by parents. It is comparatively new that this has become an outsider giving hadracha. But today, the concentration on halacha is still the main focus (no one would minimize its importance), and too little attention is given to the cardinal rules for how to manage relationships. We are all aware of someone whose parental role models were clearly impaired, while they themselves chose to behave very differently. When the entire culture values entitlements, marriage fails to succeed if such attitudes are brought into the home.

Approaching marriage as a sport is a fatal error. How many people seek marriage because their peers are getting married or because they turned that magic age of whatever? These are poor motivators, and they divert the focus to midos that are not conducive to the forming of a shlaimus of a couple.

Yeshivos and schools are notorious for either being obsessed with academic excellence, with midos being nearly ignored. Or the mussar that is promulgated in the yeshiva and school is academic, as opposed to practical. I do believe that yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs could do more here. But these are supplements to a healthy upbringing at home.

In past generations, there were far more orphans. Therefore fewer role models.

The facts don’t depend on experience.

Read the excellent article in yesterday’s NY Times addressing the growing number for frum Yiddeshe women coming forward to report domestic abuse. There is more willingness among rabbonim and askanim in the frum tzibur to affirmatively address these issues, provide access to resources and counseling and when needed, assist in obtaining a divorce as an option where the women are provided a needed support network for life afterwards. This is not the only reason for the changing trends, but certainly a factor.

Joe -“They are a symptom of a disposable society. So many divorces were unnecessary and the marriages were very savable”

In my case, others convinced my ex that our marriage is disposable. it’s interesting how many Frum people have goyishe thinking, but aren’t exposed to TV, internet etc.