The Home Front: How to Live a Happy Married Life - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Abramov

[Music] hello and welcome to the home front you know relationships are tricky and especially after a while things get stale in the beginning we have so much to talk about and everything is new and fresh but with time sometimes that can seem to dissipate and it's not so exciting it doesn't seem to be what it was in the beginning how do we deal with that how why does it happen we're very honored to have with us today Rabbi abov I wonder Rabbi could you share with us maybe some of your thoughts okay Shalom to all um there used to be a term called the seven-year itch and this goes back maybe 30 40 years ago where uh sociologists uh tracked that marriages started running out of steam after seven years um more recently there was a study and they determined that the numbers dropped to about two years after two years things start petering out um and that's really is something very of grave concern to a couple remember a couple com to marri marage uh with uh maybe sometimes OV exaggerated illusions of romance and that life is going to be one long Bliss and their love for each other is going to grow and develop and um after a short while they find that uh things are just petering out they're just losing Steam and um it's something that needs to be related to so there was a very great Sage called the kazon is he was a great one of the great leaders of uh Judaism here in in in Israel going back about 4 50 years ago more 60 years ago and the Kish gave us a formula and he said the following he said that in all human relations um it's the small things that count that ultimately determine the quality of the relationship but he said that's in general human relations but when it comes to marriage it is absolutely dominant in other words um the Kish said that people need to be focused constantly on the little gestures the little um fine details of romance in a certain sense to keep the relationship happy and Alive well that sounds like a lot of work well um it is a lot of work in a sense because someone who is constantly uh behaving in a in a in a forthcoming sensitive uh loving manner towards his spouse it becomes second nature and that second nature is something to cultivate so of course it's a lot of work um the Dividends are very high because um someone who has a uh fruitful happy exciting life at home he his whole functioning on every front is accelerated he becomes a a better father um he certainly will function outside of the home in a much more um uh productive manner um he's a happy man so it's worth the investment uh just pouring some Energies into cultivating and developing this relationship what you're saying is not a popular message today everyone wants everything right now I want everything just to work I you know let's get married right off into the sunset and uh everything's fantastic and uh from now we all live happily ever after you're saying is that there is no happily ever after without hard work people today don't want to hear it work hard yeah you're right you you hit the nail on the head one of the great fallacies is all the great novels and movies in in the good old days used to end and they lived happily ever after and as you say riding into the sunset for a lifelong Bliss and that really is a terrible fallacy and I think it destroys many many marriages um people need to understand that it only begins with marriage in the period of the courting um the couple are getting to know each other they're experiencing together they're having a lot of fun together and then when they ultimately so to speak TI or not and they get married um it then Begins the challenge if keeping this vibrant alive and growing there's a principle in Judaism that if you're not going up you're going down there's no such thing the the essential nature of the human being is that there's tremendous dynamism there's movement all the time because he's been driven by a very powerful inner soul and this inner soul doesn't allow someone just to Mark time so if you're not growing and developing things inevitably going to start going down now throw into that formula a lot of challenges and issues that go into marriage there's many common decisions to be made um they're sometimes coming from very different places um there's all sorts of challenges that are presented to marriage so the key is to keep the momentum moving upwards and if we again cite the konish it's affected and achieved by a series of small little gestures just imagine the following scenario I once heard from a very great Rabbi an old sage he heard that I was giving lectures about um establishing homes so said I've got a great little uh anecdote for you he told me he actually showed me I think it was from a Reader's Digest article and he show told me that um there was a couple in their midlife already that had married off their children and they were both pretty financially stable and settled and they found suddenly their nest is emptied out and they're sitting at home and they just have no communication and they used to glumly sit together at breakfast in the morning murmuring a few comments about the daily news but they really were both disturbed by the fact that there was no relationship depressing absolutely depressing enough to and you know it's an interesting thing there are marriages that that become unraveled after the big challenges of bringing up children and establishing oneself uh economically and financially Etc many marriages get unraveled well I suppose often you've been through all of that and you know people stay together for the kids they never address whatever issues they have and then uh when it comes time to really sit down and address the issues they realize they don't have much in common anymore so this particular fellow saw things going downhill and he he was dreading breakfast every morning with his wife because there was nothing to talk about they were talking a few platitudes and I really felt it was empty after a life of 20 30 years of marriage um so he decides going to do something about it one day arrived at breakfast and he said to his wife you know dear I made a calculation that since we married um you must have folded maybe 20,000 pairs of my socks and they were ready in my drawer I never thanked you thank you um she looked at him in shock and you know they went on the next morning he arrived with another gym you know he said you know I made a calculation how many sandwiches you actually made when they were very tasty I never thanked you thank you she began to think maybe sidity is sitting setting in this poor guy is losing it but every morning he came up with another Gem of something very basic and very very simple they said you know I never thanked you for keeping the check checkbook well balanced you know it's not really a female virtue and um I want to thank you for that and this woman was in shock every morning she found herself looking forward to the morning's compliment so she found herself having to respond because that's an old principle of Judaism at King Solomon's wisdom he says that positive feelings which are projected from one to another evoke a positive response back so here he's every morning saying something nice to her she's got to say something nice back she's got to say something nice back and they found these breakfast became the most exciting thing possible they were both blasting each others with compliments and they walked onto a life of golden years of bliss so what you're saying is something which is really even more than what you were saying before before we were talking about the fact that in order to build the relationship in order to build a marriage we have to start off behaving like that to each other communicating doing small things but you're saying this could even fix a marriage that's broken yeah absolutely people that's the human nature people like Rec recognition um people like hearing nice things about themselves but how does someone change their habits I mean you know history repeats itself right I've done it Mark Twain famously said history doesn't repeat itself but it Rhymes right at least I do the same things again and again similar so you get into a habit you get habituated into doing certain things how do you I mean this guy very nice he he says thank you but to to make that effort to really change all those little things to constantly be thinking about that again it seems like it's very hard work and is it really going to pay off is it really going to well okay your question is very good but it really really isn't such hard work you know I want to give you another one of my the secrets of of the trade right I hope no one's listening um and this secret is little pieces of paper now buy yourself a little notepad the smallest you can find and sit down for 2 minutes and think something nice and positive about your wife right something like I love you right or thank you very much it was delicious and write a few of these notes and tuck them into all sorts of places where she's where they're unsuspecting just imagine um in the early years of marriage when there's a pile of children in the home and she's got a lot of burdens of housework and she's sort of into you know facing mounds of of dishes and and washing and if she finds in the pile of washing that she needs to fold and put away she finds a little note tucked in there thank you so much for what you're doing that's quite an amazing thing and now using this little tactic of of stashing little notes all over the place in the most unexpected places so it's not a great effort um but it's remarkable what it does so I can imagine how someone will respond Bond like imagine having a a husband in front of me to whom I'm giving this advice imagine let's say there isn't that much uh Harmony between husband and wife at the moment bit of Discord in the house I could I could imagine him saying listen it's her responsibility why should I do all the work yeah why should I make all the steps towards why why can't she do something for a change okay so um we have to evoke again that principle that one person's positive um form of action towards towards his his spouse or whoever it might be will evoke ultimately the question is you're asking who's the Catalyst who's got to be the leader in this so the Judaism says that this is really the role of the husband um the husband's role is and it's very interesting thing you know there is a commandment in the Torah which is governing the relationship between husband and wife and it's a very strange thing it's a one-sided commandment only man only the husband is obliged with all the issues of um closeness um on every level uh in this marriage why isn't it dumped on the women also that's not fair sounds rather the sexist well it takes two to tango in it so the attitude of the commentaries is that well um man uh by virtue of the fact that um his uh he has a certain stability of of of emotions um you know he doesn't have builtin uh areas which could uh change his mood um so it's been placed squarely on his shoulders um but the moment he begins this process um the response is forthcoming the response is forthcoming but um he can't say well why doesn't she um now I suspect my wife who teaches women about the art of marriage I suspect she says the other the other way and I think that she's telling the women it's all on your shoulders lady so let it be that way that both husband and wife should feel a sense of responsibility for keeping this marriage alive and vibrant and exciting and fun and and profound and once you have this um Dynamic flowing between husband and wife um it becomes a natural thing it's it just becomes natural um so um I I advise men that's my you know that's that's who my audience is usually so I tell men guys just be very very concerned um with the the way you um with your with your with keeping your wife happy and pleased and uh and um uh fulfilled um you know I'll give you another little trick of the trade we appreciate all these tricks Rabbi yeah you'll have to pay for them but the uh one of the tricks of the trade is um there's a little nasty device called the telephone now um this device can be a lifesaver um and it's certainly heavily used today um it's if it's a telephone or if it's sending messages over the uh um you know over the sming or whatever it is but um at the most unexpected moments pick up a phone and say you know dear I'm in the middle of work or or study or whatever I'm doing um but I just can't get you out of my mind I just want to say hi I'm missing you see you tonight took 30 seconds but this little message to her is has been embedded somewhere and suddenly you know the burdens of her life are just a lot lighter and she suddenly finds herself kind of humming a tune to herself hm he can't wait to get home isn't that sweet even if it's not true well um you know there's a an old Jewish uh philosophical principle that external actions if a person constantly is performing positive or negative external actions they ultimately seep in and become part of a person so when a guy is praising his wife many times and saying nice things he begins to internalize but it is true he should put some thought into it before he writes that little note think about it for 30 seconds before you pick up the phone and say hi I'm missing you see you later think about it for two seconds two three 4 seconds and uh these things actually can um inject um a a a real excitement so how do we characterize the difference between excitement or or appreciating liking your spouse yeah knowing what it is they do for you and loving them how does one translate to the other are they different and and and how so okay here we have to get into a real Jewish uh basic issue um we believe that marriage isn't just a contract between two individuals some kind of legal contact theyve they liked each other and decide well let's check up together and let's uh let's live together let's spend our lives together let's build a family together we believe it's a lot more profound we believe that marriage is something on a very deep soul level that there really is a soul a connection it goes Way Beyond physical intellectual um it is really something deep in the most profound deepest recesses of an individual on the spiritual level and there's a fascinating um piece of talmud Aging a few thousand years ago and this piece of talmud says that when a husband and wife get married they get a gift from the almighty and what is this gift this gift is what's called a beautiful Hebrew word called kenen is charm and the gift is that um God is putting into the hearts of both of the couple that's God's Gift his wedding gift the potential of charm for each other the potential of love for each other um so we believe that it is inherent and the potential of Love Is there absolutely um but what one can uh you can disrupt and Destroy This Love um which is built in you can destroy it or disrupt it if um you constantly are being insensitive if you're constantly misconduct yourself between each other if there's any form of abuse be obviously even even even verbal abuse of any sort so therefore um what we have to try and do is try and make maintain um a healthy wholesome decent sense of relationship now it is a challenge because um you know they say the the old phrase familiarity breeds contempt well you can't be more familiar than you are husband and wife they're very familiar so um people may say you know I'm a guy will conduct himself or a lady will conduct herself with dignity with charm um with sensitivity you know when you're in the marketplace when you meeting other people but once you're at home you let your hair down and you can afford to uh to to just uh um you know snap or be in bad mood um this is this is the big challenge that um these little nuances these little actions um of the small things it's the words it's saying words now words um take on a meaning as um as they as they are said um so and when a person is constantly saying and being sensitive um the there will be a certain atmosphere which permeates the home and this will um excite and evoke this inherent love that exists between a husband and wife so you're painting an idealized picture of you know the fact that every single marriage really is made in heaven and that uh God gives and implants in everybody this this this this love potential to develop further but there are marriages that end in divorce and there are marriages which which seemly weren't meant to be how do we reconcile that I mean is that always because people have messed up okay so again the Jewish perspective of this is uh without a doubt there is built into Judaism um a concept of um an escape hatch meaning divorce because the torat tells us that um if things get out of hand because of this familiarity breing contempt um then things can get out of hand and it can develop into real hatred and they're actually not allowed to stay together absolutely if there's real deep deep SE hatred there's a beautiful um take off on the Hebrew word man and woman ish and Isa these are the two words ish is a man Isa is a woman in Hebrew so um they got they've got two common letters alif and shin right and what what separates them is the yud of is Alin and the he of Isa Al Shin but two of the letters are common now these two letters which are not common is the yud and the hay which is one of the expressions of God's name the yud and the hay if you remove the yud and the hay if people are conducting themselves in an ungodly manner they remove God from their lives then all you left with the two letters Al if and shin you know what that spells h is fire so on the one hand where there's tremendous potential for love and charm and and uh and growth um the the same potential of real fire you know when things sour they sour very badly you know it's no secret in the Western World divorce rates are soaring and the vast majority of divorces are very painful and very sad all those concerned there's tremendous energies there's tremendous um pain involved in um in these divorces so um the Torah built in an escape hatch called divorce uh um but this escape hatch is only evoked in a few circumstances one is if there's a lack of loyalty loyalty disloyalty is the absolute Redline um a husband and wife have to understand that um they are only for each other and any form of deep profound relationship certainly physical can only be between husband and wife now the moment one of crosses that line and there's a lack of loyalty right um then this is grounds for divorce without a question so that I think most people would understand but let's say one of the two is just not happy or they're both they're just they're just not so happy does it really have to be that extreme surely you know a person has a right to be happy and if he's not happy yeah so right okay so if they pour a lot of energies into the marriage um they can definitely uh Kindle that flame but it takes you have to you have to takes an effort sure it takes it it takes a great effort um you see this is based on a very basic premise and here we getting very profound and very cabalistic I'm sure our viewers will excuse us okay A little bit of cabalistic thought okay so the the cabala tells the following that when God created the world on the first day of creation he created all the souls ever to be introduced into the world and these Souls were kept in a place called the treasury of souls now the cabala says that every soul is comprised of two parts there is the um male aspect of that soul and there's the female aspect of that soul but there are one whole entity a male and female aspect of that Soul soulmates soulmates exactly and at some point when the decision of the almighty is that the soul should be introduced into the world so the soul is split into two parts male and female and not NE at the same time the male soul is introduced into a male embryo and the female soul is introduced into a female embryo so they were two halves of a whole and they're now going their merry way and they will spend their life however long it is until the great um marriage Matchmaker called God Will orchestrate things in such a way that these two Souls will actually meet up and when they meet up it's a reunion they were once part of one and now meeting up sometimes under the strangest circumstances sometimes I mean I can tell you some of the wildest stories they're always the wildest stories how people meet us always strange stories coincidence after coincidence after coin a great one sure why not okay one of the greatest stories that I ever heard took place a couple of hundred years ago the chief Rabbi of Vienna um who was a great sage and a great scholar and um he was already getting on in yours he was respected by all in the town Jew and non-jew alike um he had a son who was basically designated as the Crown Prince he was going to take over from the father as an as as an next Rabbi this fellow was a very good-looking very aristocratic um very sensitive and very uh clever individual he had become already a great scholar in his own right and um he and his study partner were standing in the garden of their home and they were studying and at the time uh this was like a little fom in Europe when each little city was a was a little fom um the non-jewish um the non-jewish uh um ruler drove past on his wagon sitting next to him was his daughter young marriageable girl and as they rode past on their Carriage she noticed this fellow and there was something so aristocratic a handsome young fellow so aristocratic that she asked the the uh coach driver to stop and she riveted her eyes in this man and watched him while he was engaged in this talmudic discussion with his friend and then she turned to her father and said I want to marry that guy and her father said shocking how can you he's Jewish we're non-jews it doesn't go together um absolutely not and he proceeded um but she had this fellow in mind and she became as they say lck for this young man and she was p she stopped eating and uh she was pining for this fellow to the point that it got completely out of hand the medical advisers of this King said to him you have to either succumb to her request or you're going to lose your daughter so he made a decision on the spot I'm going to forcibly take this fellow force him into a conversion because obviously she can't marry a Jew and that well I'll save my daughter the next morning we're going to send a Garrison of troops to the rabbi's house and forcibly take this um young man um there was someone in the court who was close to the rabbi who was one of the courtiers over there so he came in then in the still of night to the rabbis home and said you know tomorrow morning a Garrison of troops are arriving to take your son and forcibly convert him and marry him off to this non-jewish girl the rabbi was in total shock what are we going to do and as um he can't resist um it could cause a pogram you can't um so they were in tremendous U there was tremendous consternation until the rabbi's wife smart young lady or old lady um said I got a great idea let's marry him off right now because everybody respects that you can't take a married man those are the days huh those are the days right so say that's let's marry off right now so but it's 11 12:00 at night uh where do you find a perspective Bride for this young man so the mother sat and thought I've got a great idea we've got this handmade called Blum blumer and she's an orphan who is an is the Char lady who's working for this uh who they graciously took into their home and she's the she's the servant of of the home blumer let's wake up blumer and marry blumer it's a Jewish girl let's marry blumer off to the to our son Yak that is his name so uh on the spot they woke up blumer and they explained to her what's what it's all about and the rabbi performed a proper ceremony of marriage blumer married Yak um so the uh next morning when the troops arrived and they said we want your son I said what do you want my son for he's going to marry my the the the King's Daughter I'm sorry he's married he has his wife pluma so they had to you know go back and relent and obviously this also would um satisfy the young princess because uh she knows he's you know it's unable those were the days those are the days okay so now they now come back to bloa the the dangers been averted and they said okay Blum now my son is going to give you a divorce document uh he going to hand you're divorce and you'll be divorced and go back and life back to usel said bluma said no he's my husband you you married I married him last night it's myart girl so so she said no Blum it is all just the ruse for the you know for the for this danger she said no absolutely not why don't you ask why don't you ask Yak they went to yak and Yak said listen I'm going to cause such sadness uh to a young Jewish girl we got married that's what Destiny has it we got married and blumer remained yak's wife now um she bore him nine sets of twins and in fact this became one of the most prominent Rabin families called the Hebrew word for twins toim and there's a many great rabbis around the world who are descendants of these 18 children that blew mro to to Yak now if we if we an analyze this little case the chances of bloomer the the the poor impoverished Little Orphan um marrying this Aristocrat are almost nothing right and yet it was orchestrated that way and sometimes in the strangest of ways there many many there many many um virtually every couple have their Little Secret Story how we met unexpectedly and we you know we never thought so um God the Great orchestrator of of matches the Matchmaker he will find ways of moving and manipulating around uh circumstances and such a way that they will actually meet and there's a great very great Sage called the ramban one of the great early philosophers and the ramban says when two people get married all you're doing is you are evoking the original love that there was between them and that is the reunion so now based on what I'm saying now marriage seems to be a cinch marriages are made in heaven we truly are a couple are truly suited to each other and therefore the potential is inherently there and this coupled with this gift that they given that they'll have this great charm and love for each other um uh it seems all in place all you need to do to keep this alive and let this grow is constantly be aware and alert of um these little subtle nuances these little subtle Expressions because they these expressions are based on on big foundations of marriages made in heaven and that there is a God grace built into the couple and now they have to just uh make sure that they they conduct themselves properly let let's say this happened let's say you know the great M Matchmaker in the sky made the match everything was wonderful in the beginning and it started to get a little tired they were trying but you know life was busy there were diapers to change there were car pools there were life you know the the daily uh the drudgery and the the the grind of Life got in the way and they gradually grew apart they had different interests let's say one of them started taken interest in becoming a little more in touch with his Jewish roots the other didn't oh they took they took on different uh just different hobbies and they really don't have as much in common as they had back when they got married so they genuinely grew apart is that grounds for a divorce um halachically speaking um a the the efforts are to try and if there are no real violation of this marriage and I say violation of the marriage can be as we said before a lack of loyalty also violence um if people lose themselves and perp violence these you know there are certain things extreme situations which are grounds for divorce right but if it's just the question of they kind of just lapsing into going in different directions um efforts should be made since the potential exists to try and bring this couple back together and there's a the tal would says a fascinating thing that divorce is legitimate according to Judaism but it says so to speak God weeps when a couple get divorced he says my handiwork you guys blew it so to speak God says says the M God the the the um the altar so to speak is weeping so um of course divorce is legitimate but every effort should be expended and sometimes in the most surprising way when uh people are told you know start doing things even if they're mechanical even if initially they don't make so much sense they don't necessarily reflect my feelings but if a person um uses compliments in a fine way speaks positive things in a fine way perpetrates or does gestures which express a certain element of love so this should begin to restore because as we said earlier the um um the external actions have a an intense bearing on the actual internal and love can be ignited and grown especially since the the potential exists there thank you Rabbi you know I think uh one thing that's been very clear throughout our whole talk today RAB is that marriage takes work a lot of us are accustomed to thinking that you have a wedding and uh that's what we we say for it we spend a lot of money on the wedding and all the whole family comes but marriage is not a wedding marriage is a marriage it takes effort it takes constant awareness of the other person's needs on behalf of both parties and uh sometimes it's good to bear in mind in fact all the time it's good to bear in mind that uh in our society of easy come easy go some things are really worth working on thank you Rabbi thank [Music] you