The 4 Reasons People are Getting Divorced - Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch

I was once giving a long lecture about the things people should do to improve their marriage and at the end of the lecture somebody got up and said to me rabbi why are so many people getting divorced today and I thought about four main reasons we're seeing an increasing divorce rate in the world number one is that we're living in a disposable lecture I was at a lecture about 30 years ago of Rabbi doctor Avraham torski he was talking about life and like people were having problems in the modern world and someone said to him why is there so much addiction in this world what's going on and he pointed to the cup it was a plastic cup and people thought oh people were having problems with alcohol because they're drinking too much he said no it's not what's in the cup he said it's the cup itself it's the world of plastic people buy things people have all types of little plastic items in their home and in their lives that he can just simply throw away in the garbage he said life is so disposable these days many years ago people had to work long and hard hours to buy their investments and buy their items which were important to them and they took care of them today we have a plastic Society things can be thrown away even cell phones could be bought for a few dollars and discarded a few days later everything in our lives today is just so disposable and fortunately that attitude about things being disposable has just filtered down into all parts of our life if my plastic cup is disposable if my cellphone is disposable then maybe everything in my life is disposed well maybe I can just get rid of a relationship and just buy another one it's really not true and that's where the negative thought patterns that's going on in relationships of today you can't easily break a relationship without damage to the relationship and most importantly people are not disposable what you do in your life how you treat each other has a deep impact on them and also on yourself it creates a pattern you start developing a certain relationship with people and things around you which is negative so disposability is one of the biggest reasons why people getting divorced learn more today another reason that marriages are failing today is because of instant gratification just look at what goes on in the Internet today versus what happened a few years ago years ago if you wanted to order something by a catalog you'd have to mail it in it took a few days to get there your order would have to be prosit processed they'd mail it back would take a few days to get back sometimes you would order something it would take a week or two to get back to that's all change today if you want something what do you do you go to Amazon you go shopping you go online it used to be had to wait just a few days for your package to arrive now packages arrive the next day and if you spend a little extra money monthly you can get your package on the same day today it's like people demand more and more of what we call instant gratification well that may be helpful in terms of the economy in terms of getting what you want as some of these purchasing items but it doesn't really help in relationships a person's not a computer a person's really not your cell phone they can't respond to you in a perfect way in a timely way and the way you expect your partner is a real human being with real feelings there's real quality in relationship to that other person you have to recognize that quality and the other person people are not going to insult aeneas ly gratify you it takes time to be gratified it's something you have to work on and in fact it's something we have to work on slowing down if we think our life's are too demanding in terms of objects we buy or vacations we go on or people we expect that we work with to respond to us automatically that's one thing when it comes home when you have to slow down this demand for instantaneous gratification go slowly with other people and recognize the quality of the relationship with them the third reason people are getting divorced more easily today is something called FOMO foa means the fear of missing out you know people think unfortunately when they use Facebook and they see these pictures of other people having a good time that hey the something wrong with their own life and they want to have a good time in that snapshot that they saw posted on Facebook the same type of FOMO mentality is invading relationships you know being married to one person for a lifetime takes an awful lot of work and there's gonna be ups there's gonna be downs there's gonna be difficult times is going to be financial stress there's going to be difficulty in raising your children there's gonna be difficulty in spending quality time together but if you stick with it long enough you're gonna find tremendous gratification unfortunately because of social media we watch these other people around us that look like they're so happy that they're getting so much out of life and hey I wish I could get that much more out of life do you know what happens when I see people in my practice that just get divorced because they want more from another person they find when they're married to that next person or have that next relationship they're equally is unsatisfied we have to all slow down appreciate what we have have something called how Karratha Tov appreciation for the good things that are presently in our life right now right here there's nothing that much greater waiting for people than what's in our homes usually we need to stick with it we need to avoid what we call FOMO and just focus on the positive benefits of what we're getting right now and the fourth reason people are getting divorced today on an increasing rate clearly in my for my perspective is the world of technology we are becoming so much part of technology today we don't even realize it you know when I started counseling years ago people didn't have cell phones okay they'd have to go to the pay phone to phone home to speak to the spouse or their family members about 10 15 years ago people started getting cell phones when they would come into my office they put their cell phone in their jacket and their jacket would be by the closet fewers later people started bringing their cell phones and putting them on the table in front of the couch in front of me and rarely would they have a message or a phone call or they'd turn it off then a few years later people started putting their phones on their laps as they were talking to me in therapy and most recently anybody let's say around 20 or younger today when they come through the therapy are often holding their phone in their hands and they're actually looking at their messages and even responding as I'm speaking to people we're getting more and more addicted to our technology today and I guarantee you it's only gonna get worse unless we say die unless we say that's enough we're putting down our technology for a few minutes every day I can tell you about what's happening today and technology is just around the corner and you may laugh at this people are going to be implanted with internet chips and cell phone Wi-Fi chips and just plugged in in a few hours from now you won't even have to dial a phone you'll just think about the number what's clearly happening is as technology is becoming more one with the human being and the human being it's becoming more into technology into the internet and living more in cyberspace and therefore we have to be very very careful right now when we get to technologically focused we're going to miss the human connection with other people we need to appreciate people's sensitivities we need to appreciate people's emotions they're not acting like computers we need to slow down our need for instant gratification and automatic results that we get in the Internet and through our cell phones we need to also appreciate that people cannot be as entertaining as the internet and it's so important for children I just read a major study from a very famous psychologist and and a professor of marketing at Columbia University who says we have to be very careful when we're in front of our children not to be on our cell phones all the time what we're telling them ultimately is they are not as important as your whatsapp they are not as important as the Facebook and unfortunately it's going to damage their sense of self-esteem and how much more SONA relationships there's so many couples that come to me and I say so what do you do at night before you go to sleep well they often tell me that each of them are looking on their iPads or looking at their cell phones and answering their own messages or watching their own videos it's so destructive to the relationship I suggest that we make a rule that we try to put away our phones as much as possible and don't look at all those posts on Facebook and all the whatsapp's that don't really matter in lie people need to focus more on each other on the quality the potential quality that everyone could have in a beautiful human relationship and those are just four of the reasons people are getting divorced more and more today but if we learn to changes things slow down or need for instant gratification forget about focusing on the FOMO and reduce our technology and have more of appreciation for not being instantly gratified but understanding the importance and the beauty of long term personal relationships and not disposing them I guarantee we can slow down the divorce rate welcome to this new series in HIDA Brut called marriage matters my name is rabbi daniel shomba and I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in New York and around the world via Skype on this important series I will be answering your questions you have about marriage relationships dating parenting and about any issue dealing with family relationships but more than what I have to say I want to hear what you have to say so please email to this address and send in your questions and I'll try to answer as many questions on this new show