what does "Get refusal" mean?

“wishful thinking”

? DY, Joseph, Ubiquitin, and I all agree that Lenny should listen to Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen. Where is the wishful thinking? (there were probably others as well, and if so, I apologize for leaving you out – I can’t keep track of everyone).

sorry, I thought it had disappeared – I looked in the wrong place. And I already explained that there was no contradiction – sorry if you didn’t understand my explanation, but I’m not explaining again.

Lenny, did you get through to Rav S.B.Cohen yet?

“In the meantime, I’m goin to contact some counselors from a frum therapist referral website and see if they have experience working on wives who have “checked out.””

Lenny, can you hear me out for a moment?

You already asked a Rav (the Rav from the beis din) what you should be doing. After speaking to both you and your wife, he told you that you should get divorced. That really makes two Rabbis who told you to get divorced since your Rav had told you to go to the Rav from the Beis Din in the first place.

You told him that you would rather listen to the anonymous posters in the Coffee Room who do not know anything about your situation, and go to a marriage therapist in order to convince your wife that she is wrong for wanting to get divorced.

You then posted in the Coffee Room asking people what would happen to you if you refuse to listen to the Beis Din and give your wife a Get (in a situation in which their hands are tied halachically and they can’t actually FORCE a Get on you – they can only tell you that it is what you are supposed to be doing).

I found these last two facts rather disturbing. First of all, I was disturbed by the fact that you didn’t listen to the Rav from the Beis Din. And yes, even though I have never been in the situation, I do understand that it would have been a very difficult thing to do, and the natural thing to do is to try to rationalize and find a way out of listening. And no, I do not know what I would have done in the same situation, and perhaps, I would have done the same. So, no, I am not judging. It is not my place to judge, and since I am not G-d, it would be impossible for me to do so.

What I can do is look at the facts, and say what you should have done whether or not it is difficult and whether or not most people in this situation would have been able to stand up to such a difficult test and do the right thing.

So without being blinded by emotion, it seems pretty clear to me that if you speak to a Rav (or 2 Rabbanim) and they tell you to do something, you are obligated to listen to them (and to forget about what the anonymous posters in the Coffee Room said) even if they do not have the power to physically force you to do so.

However, I understood that your next step was going to be to go to Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen instead of listening to the Rabbanim with whom you already spoke. Even though, it is probably more appropriate to listen to the Rabbanim with whom you already spoke, I felt that I shouldn’t say anything at that point, since Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen is a very reliable and wise Talmid Chacham, and as long as you were willing to listen to him (the 2nd or 3rd Rav you are going to), and not keep searching until you find a Rav who will say exactly what you want him to say, I feel like it’s not such a problem.

My understanding was that you would listen to whatever he told you, whether it would be to go for marriage therapy or to give your wife a Get. I thought that if he did tell you to go for marriage therapy, you would go to the marriage therapist that He, as a Rav, recommended.

So I understand that you didn’t get through to him yet. These things can take time. First you have to be able to reach him by phone. Then, presumabl, you have to find a time when he can meet by you. He has to speak to both you and your wife. Then he has to make a decision.

Understandably, you are impatient. You want this taken care of already. But, you have to be patient. You can’t just look for a therapist online on your own. We have a Torah, and we have Rabbanim who guide us as to how to listen to the Torah. Not every therapist is someone who would be recommended by our Rabbanim. Not every therapy works according to ideas that fit with Torah, or with common sense for that matter. There are a lot of really bad therapists out there who can make things much, much worse.

I am not against psychology or therapy. I am very in favor of it. In fact, I almost went into the field. But, you can’t just go to any therapist. You need to speak to someone wise who can tell you which, if any, therapist you should be going to. That is why you are going to Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen. So be patient. Wait and see how he tells you to proceed.

And, yes, there are many things that one can get away with in this world. Look at Hitler, yemach shemo, l’havdil. Look at all of the Arab terrorists. But we do not live in this world in order to see what we can get away with .

We live in the world to do the right thing, to do Hashem’s Will. So please, Lenny, for the sake of your portion in the World to Come, which is ready and waiting for you, and for the sake of your wife’s peace and sanity, and for the sake of your children who deserve an example of a father who bends his will to Hashem’s Will, do the right thing. Wait till you have a chance to speak to Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen and he tells you what the right thing to do is, what Hashem wants you to do.

And, no you will not find the answers online. And no, Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen will not be found online. The real Torah Greats, the people whose advice you should be seeking and following will not be found online. (or at least it is extremely unlikely).

I don’t think there is anything more that can be said. I wish you hatzlacha in finding out what Hashem wants you to do and in having the strength to do it. I know it will be very hard, but the harder it is, the more reward you will ultimately receive although it may take a while in coming. But it will be worth it in the end. I wish you the best.

“Lilmod, if a wife wants a divorce, and the husband hasn’t done anything terriby wrong, would there ever be a valid reason for the husband to say no?”

You have to ask a Rav (a real one -not an online one). Every situation is different. As a general rule, if one person really wants to get divorced, I think it would be the right thing to do. And beneficial to everyone in the long run. As a certain Rebbetzin I knew used to say, “better 4 happy people than 2 unhappy people.”.

But again, you should be speaking to Rabbanim, and not to online posters. There are too many people here answering your questions, people whom you have no idea who they are, how intelligent they are and whether or not they have any idea what they are talking about. It is too tempting to choose to listen to those whose advice you like whether or not it is the right thing to do.

My understanding was (and is) that the shaela Rabbi was very strongly in favor of a Get.

“But aside from the Shaila Rabbi, the Rebbeim aren’t exaclty lined up & urging me to give a Get either.” What Rebbeim could possibly be lining up and urging you to give a Get? You only spoke to one (or two, depending how you count). And I think you should only be speaking to one (or maybe two, 3 at the most).

“The shaila Rabbi was all about what’s easiest… just give her a Get if that’s what she wants” It sounds like he thought this was the right thing to do. If he thought it were right to stay married, he wouldn’t tell you not to just because it’s harder. He may have presented it that way because he saw you didn’t want to give a get, and he was trying to convince you.

Keep in mind that when you ask a sheilah, you are answered according to the way in which the sheilah was asked. You didn’t ask “what is the right thing to do?” So the Rav didn’t phrase his answer that way since he saw that wasn’t your main concern. He sensed (from the way you asked the question) that your main concern was “what will be good for me?” so he answered you accordingly. I think that if you had phrased the question, “what is the right thing to do from a Torah perspective?”, he may have answered you differently.

I’m glad you are going to a Frum therapist. However,I do think it’s a good idea to go to someone who was recommended by a reliable Rav, since you never know. Just because he is Frum and a Rabbi doesn’t necessarily make him a good therapist. But the fact that he is Frum and a Rabbi and lives in Lakewood does relieve me.

You may want to call Relief to check if he is someone whom they recommend, and/or to find out who they do recommend. Relief is a Lakewood-based organization that gives therapist referrals. They are very well known and accepted, and they do thorough research on the therapists. The phone number is in the Lakewood phonebook and I think it is available online. If you can’t find it, I can look it up for you. I think the moderators would allow that – I think I have already posted it on a previous thread, actually.

Therapy is expensive. I’m not sure of price ranges, but I think that $150 may be considered a good price (or at least average).

I am glad you are being proactive. I don’t think that therapy is a bad idea. It’s what I personally would have recommended. But I am not a Rav, and unlike the Rabbanim you spoke to, I never met with you or your wife and don’t know the details and am not qualified or experienced in these matters. So my hesitancy comes from the fact that they are advising you differently. But in any case, it certainly doesn’t hurt to see a therapist one time and to see what he says while you are waiting for Rav S.B. Cohen to get back to you. Just try to check him out with Relief. Or maybe ask your Rabbi if he ever heard of him.

I would just add that I once spoke to someone from Relief about what they do and I am pretty sure that he told me that there are a small percentage of therapists who are good. So I really would recommend checking this therapist out. The wrong therapist could potentially do more harm than good (and take your money anyhow).

Hatzlacha Rabba!

“The Torah also disagrees with that being a general rule, as the Torah explicitly states a wife generally cannot get a divorce if she’s the only one wanting it.”

That’s not necessarily a proof. We don’t necessarily know the reasons for that halacha. One possibility is that women are more emotional and may be too quick to give a get without taking time to think it through, so the Torah couldn’t allow that. That has no relevance for a situation in which a lady has been wanting to get divorced for 20 years. Or even for several years. When I wrote that sentence about a “general rule”, I was not referring to a case in which a lady suddenly decided she wants to give a divorce on the spur of the moment. I was referring to a case such as Lenny’s since that is the situation at hand.

There can be many reasons that the Torah (Hashem) doesn’t think that a divorce should be something that a wife should have the power to force on her husband. But that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t be doing it. The fact that the Torah doesn’t give someone the power to force something on someone else does not necessarily mean that Hashem doesn’t want them to do it.

Maybe the Torah feels that it is better if the husband comes to the decision on his own and doesn’t feel that it was forced on him by his wife. Maybe it is better for a marriage if a husband doesn’t feel that his wife has a right to divorce him at any moment and if she doesn’t feel like she can do that. The point is that there can be many possibilities, and it is far from being a proof.

Joseph: “Lenny, keep bugging Rav Cohen till you get a conversation with him. It’s well worth it. And that’s often what it takes to get hold of an important Rov like Rav Cohen. And my advice to you is to take his advice to heart and follow through with it. He is a highly recommended and strongly held of Rov.”

+1 (with slight reservations on the “bugging” depending how literally that is taken)

Lenny,

May I ask who is the therapist that you and your wife are scheduled to go to?

I agree with Joseph and Limud that you’ll be better off getting hold of Rabbi Cohen and following his recommendations. You can’t afford to make another mistake at this point. Also, I agree with Limud that Relief is a good resource, although not to be totally relied on.

“Lilmod, how do you explain the super high divorce rate for second marriages?”

In at least some cases (and probably many), the person never worked on the issues that led to the first divorce. And this does not mean that the person was a bad person or even necessarily, the one “at fault” for the divorce.

I’ll explain what I mean. I am in shidduchim, and often divorced guys are suggested to me. Sometimes, while checking them out, I find out that they have been divorced twice. A very common pattern is that the guy was the sensitive type and his wife was too strong – both times. Seemingly, the wife is “at fault” for being too strong and not being sensitive enough.

I then ask the reference, “Don’t you think maybe the guy has a problem that needs worked out if he keeps getting into the same situation?” The response always is, “Of course, but it is very hard to tell someone that they need therapy if they don’t realize it themselves.”

I have had this exact same conversation several times when checking out divorced guys.

If someone goes through a divorce, they MUST go through some kind of therapy procedure. They can’t just say, “it was my husband (or wife’s) fault. It is never that simple. Each person is somehow a party to the situation – even if it was just a matter of “falling” for and marrying the wrong type of person (although I think there is usually more to it than that anyhow).

A relationship always involves two people. If you got into a certain situation once, it can and probably will repeat itself if you don’t try to figure out what happened, why it happened, and what you can do to try to avoid it next time.

Another important point that I think I should mention here – it seems to me that your approach regarding your situation is to try to figure out who is to blame. That is a very natural response, and the way that most people deal with most conflicts.

However, it is counter-productive and meaningless. The issue is not “who is to blame?” The question is, “Is there something that I can do differently?”

People don’t like to look at things that way, because they feel that it is an acknowledgement of guilt. But it is not. No one is perfect; we are all trying our best with the tools G-d gave us. If you think you are perfect, then that is a problem. Everyone can improve – not because they are bad, but because that is what life is about – constantly trying to see how we can be better.

If something is not working out (whether it’s your fault, her fault or both), you should be trying to see what you can do differently. Even if it is too late for this marriage (which may be the case), you have to figure this out so that things will be different next time.

If you do get divorced, it is crucial that you go for therapy afterwards. If you do get remarried, it is crucial that you go for therapy both beforehand and during the entirety of your second marriage. (to a reliable therapist, of course).

Lenny, it occurred to me that I may be able to get you information on good marriage therapists in Lakewood if you are interested. I know someone in Lakewood whom people often turn to for advice on getting divorced. I know that she is very in favor of therapy (she is divorced and remarried herself -that’s why people often call her for advice), so I would guess that she might know about therapists. I would still advice calling Rav SB Cohen and/or Relief about it, but if you don’t get through right away and I am able to find something out, I will let you know, bli neder.

Have you tried Rav Simcha Bunim Cohen again?

No, they had a good reason to get divorced. There are good reasons to get divorced. And she didn’t chime in. They asked her advice and she told them what they should do, the same way that you asked the Rav what to do and he told you that you should get divorced.

btw, did you try running the therapist’s name past the Sheilah Rav or your own Rav?

“Abba_S, you’re sayin even if I have a positive experience with my therapist and think others can benefit, i still shouldn’t share his name”

One possible problem I can see is that you may consider something to be positive that someone else may can consider negative, so it would still be a problem of loshon hora.

In general, there are just so many confidential and privacy issues involved in therapy, it’s not a good idea to give out his name in such a public forum, especially since you have shared so many details of the case. You might inadvertantly quote him in a way that he wouldn’t want to be quoted.

If you really, really want to give his name, the only way I can see it’s being at all okay would be if you asked him first and let him know exactly what you were writing.

I still wouldn’t recommend it though.

“And Lilmod, the sheila Rabbi we went to, who came highly recommended from our Rabbi, had your position on just giving the Get if that’s what she really wants.”

I’m confused. I thought you said in the last post that he did tell you to go for therapy. Maybe I am not understanding what you are saying. It sounds like you are saying now that you are not listening to what the Torah said to do. I may have misunderstood you, so please clarify. Thanks!

Meno – glad you joined the conversation since you seem very knowledgeable on the topic.

Any advice as to how Lenny can know if this is a good therapist or not?

Lenny I am advising you not to reveal the marriage counselor until you have finished using him. As far as waiting to X-mas to approach Rabbi Cohen my point was that you have to go down there and try to meet him in person and I was using those days as they are not work days. You could go any day but you would be missing a day of work.

If the marriage counselor therapy fails which is quiet likely then go back to the Rabbi in Bais Hora. Tell him you are thinking of giving your wife a get but you would like to know in advance what it’s going to cost you and what the custody arrangement is going to be. According to Jewish Law the wife is only entitled to the Ketubah which is somewhere between $50,000 to $75,000. Your wife will have to explain how is she going to be able to support herself and your children and maintain the same standard of living. She may come to the realization that the marriage wasn’t so bad. If this doesn’t convince her to remain with you, you can ask for a six month trial separation, but only do this once the financial and custody have been resolved. Perhaps living alone will convince her that she needs you. Otherwise I think you both need to get divorced. If you do not get divorced your wife may make your life a living hell. You are young enough that you can remarry and have a new family. If you stay to the bitter end it will cost you both financially and psychologically.

I agree with what you are trying to do and will back you in this forum no matter what you do. May Hashem give you the strength and understanding to overcome this.