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Forum
-> Interesting Discussions
Are you more likely to divorce over chillul shabbos or belief in hashem?
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| I would probably divorce over chillul shabbos, even if mostly in private, assuming he was not likely to change. |
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21% |
[ 23 ] |
| I would probably divorce over atheism, even if he generally kept mitzvos, assuming he was not likely to change. |
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14% |
[ 15 ] |
| Divorcing over either shabbos or belief in Hashem is not an option. I would work it out, whatever it takes. |
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50% |
[ 53 ] |
| Other, please explain |
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14% |
[ 15 ] |
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| Total Votes : 106 |
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amother
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 Mon, Feb 20 2012, 10:56 pm
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My husband does not divorce me. I keep the mitzvahs. I don't believe in a lot of what I do. My husband is aware of my feelings. We actually have a really great marriage. Our children are being brought up in a frum environment in a loving intact home. If he also stopped believing, it would make it so much harder to live a frum life and start in our community.
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Merrymom
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:24 pm
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If it's just a stage it's one thing, but if the spouse suddenly is on a completely different wavelength than you, how can you respect them? How can all the religious upbringing suddenly just be on you? I don't think I could handle that.
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black sheep
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:33 pm
| eytse wrote: | | my husband just said that he would divorce me over chillul shabbos. hypothetically. |
what a terrible hypothetical discussion to have! oy!
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wereafamily
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:36 pm
I never thought about this before, but I am shocked at how many of you consider it an option to stay married...How can you be married to someone who disagrees with you on the most central aspect of life?
(you make it sound like being Jewish is just a "by the way" in your marriage, almost like what you do with your toothpaste tube -roll or squeeze it.)
To the one who wrote that she would stay married for the sake of her kids: I have a close relative who stayed married to his OTD wife for more than 5 years... it had the most horrible impact on all their children, they were raised confused and lost.
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amother
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:39 pm
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I have a close friend who's husband lost his faith. they live in a very frum community, send their children to very black hat schools, yet he (privately) is mechalel shabbos and doesn't pay attention to rules of kashrut. the most difficult time they have is when she is niddah for two weeks, he has no interest in following the rules, and this has caused a lot of tension between them. but she has no plans to leave him, because marriage is not about religion. it plays a large part in a marriage, but if you are willing to divorce over religion, well that tells me that religion is more important to you than your spouse.
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ElTam
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:42 pm
DH and I were just having this conversation because a family member's wife just left him to pursue her religious path, which is not his and which he is not interested in. They have two young children.
Of course, unless you are faced with the situation, you don't know, but I think that unless my DH were abusing me and/or the children or engaging in some behavior that threatened our safety and security and refusing to get help for the problem, I would stay. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard and painful if my DH and I were not on the same page spiritually, but I can't see breaking my family up over it. I guess I would just try to back off and give him his space to come back to whatever made Yiddishkeit (including Shabbos) meaningful in the first place.
So many variables though. If he were openly mocking Yiddishkeit to the children, when we had agreed to raise them this way, that would be harder than if he were sneaking up to the attic to log onto facebook. But I still think I would try to find a way to make it work. I hope I would have enough strength.
I think the whole situation is complicated by the way the community responds. Instead of saying, "Something must have happened to make this person change their stance on Yiddishkeit, I hope it works out for them," our response is to judge and condemn and demean, to a lesser or greater degree. So then the spouse has the community's condemnation of their spouse to deal with as well, which just makes things so much harder and lessens the chances that the person might find some peace with Yiddishkeit even if their faith/belief has changed and evolved over time as well as the chance that the family will be able to find stability in their "new normal" and work things out.
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black sheep
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:43 pm
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I can imagine that it is a tremendous nisayon to be married to someone who is not frum when you are. but I'm not sure that I could leave the man I love over it. maybe if there were other issues as well, this would be the "straw that broke the camel's back." but if everything else is good, and the love is still there, it's not a reason to divorce.
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wereafamily
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:48 pm
| amother wrote: | | I have a close friend who's husband lost his faith. they live in a very frum community, send their children to very black hat schools, yet he (privately) is mechalel shabbos and doesn't pay attention to rules of kashrut. the most difficult time they have is when she is niddah for two weeks, he has no interest in following the rules, and this has caused a lot of tension between them. but she has no plans to leave him, because marriage is not about religion. it plays a large part in a marriage, but if you are willing to divorce over religion, well that tells me that religion is more important to you than your spouse. |
Shouldn't t it be that way?
Which "religion" told you that your spouse should be more important to you than your religion?
(Oops, typo)
Last edited by wereafamily on Tue, Feb 21 2012, 2:30 pm; edited 1 time in total
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ElTam
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Mon, Feb 20 2012, 11:53 pm
| Quote: | I never thought about this before, but I am shocked at how many of you consider it an option to stay married...How can you be married to someone who disagrees with you on the most central aspect of life?
(you make it sound like being Jewish is just a "by the way" in your marriage, almost like what you do with your toothpaste tube -roll or squeeze it.) |
I think you totally misunderstand. I don't think people are saying it would be no big deal or "by the way." I don't think people are saying it wouldn't be gutwrenchingly difficult, I think they are saying they would try to do the best thing for themselves, their spouse and their children. As for the OTD argument, what affect would if have on the children to say, "Abba doesn't hold how I hold, so I threw him out." I think that would be likely to have repercussions for whether my kids stayed frum as much if not more so than what Abba might be doing. Would that really make my children love Yiddishkeit? Doubtful.
I'm reminded of the stories you hear about the great roshei yeshivot and roshei kollel and how they dealt with it when someone in their yeshiva/kollel was mechalel Shabbos. There is one story of the Chofetz Chaim holding a boy's hand who was openly smoking on Shabbos and crying with him. This was a student, not a spouse. Do our spouses, the person we are a ezer k'neggedo to, deserve less compassion and understanding?
I think trying to work it out is on a higher madreiga than tossing your spouse out like yesterday's garbage. I would hope HaShem would give me the strength to be on that madreiga.
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marina
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 12:22 am
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Everyone, thanks very much for your replies. I appreciate that everyone is providing varied viewpoints and that people are not afraid to speak up.
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amother
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 12:39 am
| wereafamily wrote: | | amother wrote: | | I have a close friend who's husband lost his faith. they live in a very frum community, send their children to very black hat schools, yet he (privately) is mechalel shabbos and doesn't pay attention to rules of kashrut. the most difficult time they have is when she is niddah for two weeks, he has no interest in following the rules, and this has caused a lot of tension between them. but she has no plans to leave him, because marriage is not about religion. it plays a large part in a marriage, but if you are willing to divorce over religion, well that tells me that religion is more important to you than your spouse. |
Shouldn't t it be that way?
Which "region" told you that your spouse should be more important to you than your religion? |
I certainly don't think it should be that way. you made a commitment to your spouse, and that means you don't walk as soon as things are different than you expected. being frum is a big deal, but once you're already married, it's not a reason to leave.
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grace413
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 12:41 am
I had an aunt and uncle in this situation. My aunt became religious on her own as a teen despite constant ridicule and sabotage from her parents. Then she married my uncle, a young man from a frum family. A few years later he walked in and said "I'm not doing this anyway." She actually thought he just wanted a divorce until he explained that he didn't want to be religious anymore.
She did consider divorcing him but decided not to. They were happily married for over 35 years until she died. Their son is not religious.
I know couples where one doesn't believe and goes along for the sake of the spouse. I don't think I'd like that for me but I don't think I'd divorce over it.
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amother
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 12:56 am
| Maya wrote: | | If the marriage continues to be very loving, stable, and respectful, and if my husband agreed to continue raising the children with religion and not do anything outright against to Torah in front of them, I'd definitely stay with him (if he wanted to stay, of course.) |
You realize he wont be able to touch wine, right?
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hila
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 1:08 am
In my opinion, there are three partners in a marriage.The man , the woman, and Hashem. Once one wont consider that one of thos partners is part of their marriage, the whole relationship falls apart.
If one partner refuses to keep mitsvot, or says he cannot keep shabbat, then the other partner has no backup, no way to bring that third parter, HKBH, into their lives.
If the woman refuses to keep TH, there there is no physical relationhip.
If the man stops davening and keeping Shabbat, or Pesach, or any other Chag, then the focal point of the family has been destoyed.
Can a couple stay together ? I supposes so. But can they live a full Jewish married life ? I do not see how.
Marriage is a spiritual relationship, as well as a physical, and loving one.
Without that there is a large gaping hole in the marriage.
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hila
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 1:08 am
| amother wrote: | | Maya wrote: | | If the marriage continues to be very loving, stable, and respectful, and if my husband agreed to continue raising the children with religion and not do anything outright against to Torah in front of them, I'd definitely stay with him (if he wanted to stay, of course.) |
You realize he wont be able to touch wine, right? |
that is the least of their problems ! (and there is yayin mevushal)
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black sheep
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 1:37 am
| hila wrote: | | amother wrote: | | Maya wrote: | | If the marriage continues to be very loving, stable, and respectful, and if my husband agreed to continue raising the children with religion and not do anything outright against to Torah in front of them, I'd definitely stay with him (if he wanted to stay, of course.) |
You realize he wont be able to touch wine, right? |
that is the least of their problems ! (and there is yayin mevushal) |
and there is beer. and all types of other booze.
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ElTam
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 2:03 am
| Quote: | | Marriage is a spiritual relationship, as well as a physical, and loving one. |
And yet we, as a community, encourage and pressure women to stay with men who are not loving (as in physically and emotionally abusive) and who don't provide for their physical needs, whether physical as in financial or support and help with the demands of running the household or physical as in "physical." Interesting, no? We raise up as examples men who make a korban of their wives and children in the pursuit of their own spiritual path, regardless of the cost to anyone else.
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hila
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 2:47 am
| ElTam wrote: | | Quote: | | Marriage is a spiritual relationship, as well as a physical, and loving one. |
And yet we, as a community, encourage and pressure women to stay with men who are not loving (as in physically and emotionally abusive) and who don't provide for their physical needs, whether physical as in financial or support and help with the demands of running the household or physical as in "physical." Interesting, no? We raise up as examples men who make a korban of their wives and children in the pursuit of their own spiritual path, regardless of the cost to anyone else. |
We as a community ?
Not where I am from. BH
I would never judge anyone who gets divorced for any reason.
However sometimes the alternative to being a single parent with no support may look more less attractive than living in a bad marriage.
And my statement was for the ideal world. I dont hold imamother as the ideal world, rather that the bored unhappy people end up here more than others who do not tell us what a terrible life they have.
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amother
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 2:48 am
| marina wrote: | Someone's answer to my previous poll engendered this offshoot. A poster wrote that if her husband denied God, she would ask for a divorce that day. If he was mechallel shabbos, she would try to work things out.
If you found out that your husband no longer kept shabbos and was not sorry and had no plans to change, would you try to work things out and stay married? Assuming, say, that he was generally home, generally ate meals with the family, generally went to shul and generally was not publically mechallel shabbos. But sometimes he would take an important work phonecall or use facebook in private, where the kids were not around.
Would that be grounds for divorce for you? What else would you factor in?
What if he kept everything as halacha requires, but it was empty, he did not believe in any of it, and did not believe in God and was just doing it to make you happy? Would that still be grounds for divorce?
I guess I am curious as to what level of observance we require from our spouses. I have always heard that belief is secondary and that actions are the key in Judaism, but maybe others feel differently.
As an aside, I want to emphasize that I know there are people on this site that have faced these very questions in real life and I do not mean to trivialize their experiences in any way or make light of them. This is an intellectual issue of interest for me. | This is such an interesting topic to me as I talk to my husband about this all of the time. Just the other day I asked him if he thinks he would be religious if we were not married. And he said probably not and if he kept anything it would just be the traditional stuff.
I know that my husband does not keep all of the mitzvot that he is supposed to and I know that he is mechalel shabbat (in private, but I know about it, ive seen evidence of some things) and it makes me very sad, not upset. I never thought that I would be married to someone who would not be keeping all of the mitzvot that he is supposed to and being mechalel shabbat (when he thinks that nobody knows) but so far, I guess because he is not doing anything aveiradick out in the open, we are together. I am very mixed about this. On the one hand, my husband's relationship with G-d is just that, for him and G-d alone. On the other hand, I am living with someone who definitely is doing things that I feel are wrong, but is it really my place to make him change them? No. it is not. So I live in this middle place where I am never sure about how I feel that my husband is mechalel shabbat in some things.
I do know that if he started doing things out in the open, it would all be different and divorce would be talked about. I married a frum man and want to raise my children that way too, so it is hard to know how it would be if he was mechalel shabbat in front of children, but I would think that I would not want to live like that.
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shabbatiscoming
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Tue, Feb 21 2012, 2:50 am
| ElTam wrote: | | Quote: | | Marriage is a spiritual relationship, as well as a physical, and loving one. |
And yet we, as a community, encourage and pressure women to stay with men who are not loving (as in physically and emotionally abusive) and who don't provide for their physical needs, whether physical as in financial or support and help with the demands of running the household or physical as in "physical." Interesting, no? We raise up as examples men who make a korban of their wives and children in the pursuit of their own spiritual path, regardless of the cost to anyone else. | That is a very sorry state of affairs for that community then. I, just like hila stated, do not live and never have lived, in such a community.
What a terrible thing to do to women.
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