Did any of you have a Rabbi ruin your shidduch?

amother

Silver

Tue, Mar 31 2015, 3:32 pm

amother wrote:

My husband refuses to even greet this rasha when he sees him on the streets.

There are terrible, power hungry people in the world and we can't depend on a title or 'uniform'.

Or maybe that Rabbis are all human and not all have Ruach Hakodesh just because they know Halacha.

My dh still asks Halachic shailos to the Rabbi who broke up our Shidduch.

And btw, the reason was because I was divorced and dh was never married. So on paper ours is a terrible marriage. But he was obviously very very wrong. LOL

amother

Tan

Tue, Mar 31 2015, 6:11 pm

If you knew me, you'd know I'm the LAST person to defend "the rabbis", but with such awful stories on this thread, I have to tell you that a rabbi SAVED my shidduch.
When we were engaged, I made a really dumb comment to my now dh. Really, colossally, life alteringly dumb. Dh was very bothered by it, and asking me all the time what I meant. He was so disturbed, that he considered breaking the shidduch.
He went to his rebbe, who told him he was lucky to find a nice girl, a good girl, a girl he's happy to be around, and he should let it go. He told him he was being silly, and if he continued to hound me about this issue, I would probably go to the rebbe asking what kind of lunatic was I involved with!
More than two decades have passed since then, and I'm grateful that the rabbi saw the difference between mountains and molehills.

amother

Goldenrod

Tue, Mar 31 2015, 6:39 pm

amother wrote:

I was also going to say my story about how 2 rabbis saved my shidduch, but I thought it was inappropriate for this thread. But once you started...
Someone random called my dh's rabbi to say that he doesn't think my future husband should do a shidduch with me for such and such reason (dh knew about that reason- I had been open and honest with him and it didn't bother him). He had seen us on a date together, and decided to butt in. Dh's rabbi completely ignored this guy and told dh to go ahead because I'm a solid girl, and to ignore what this idiot said.
Also, for my part, my rabbi really pushed for this shidduch to happen. He spoke good things about me, he had meetings with some family members who were unhappy with my choice in order to try to get them to calm down... I am certain I wouldn't have been able to marry dh had my rabbi not been so involved in pushing it through.

amother

Chocolate

Tue, Mar 31 2015, 7:15 pm

I also had a rabbi help me ultimately get engaged but that wasn't the point of this thread. When DH and I decided we were ready to get engaged his parents disagreed. He had a prior broken engagement and they said it was the same pattern with me...he wasn't ready and then suddenly he was (so what that it was after a couple of weeks of marathon dating). They wanted him to give it at least a few more dates which would have meant more than a month more of dating (long distance with crazy work schedules). Dh spoke to his rabbi who told him not to wait because I may not be around anymore. He was so right! It's not that I wasn't willing to wait for the most incredible guy I had already decided I wanted to marry it was the fact that I figured he'd just keep doing it and I'd cut my losses short by not getting more emotionally involved and more devastated when it would ultimately end anyway. Thank God he spoke to his rav or we never would have married!

amother

Slategray

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 12:28 pm

shoshanim999 wrote:

I think we have to clarify what it means "ruin a shidduch?" Does telling the truth still count as ruining a shidduch? a few examples....

1. Rabbi tells one side that the other side has several divorces among the siblings.
2. Rabbi tells one side that he is certain that a few years back the boy/girl wasn't shomer negia at all.
3. Rabbi tells one side that in his honest opinion the boy/girl is lazy and not a hard worker.
4. Rabbi tells one side that there is a history of mental illness in the family.
5. Rabbi tells one side that the boy/girl has several siblings that are off the derech.
6. Rabbi tells one side that boy/girl has an anger problem.

The point is that if a rabbi is giving over factual information that may be important to a prospective shidduch, and that information "ruins" the shidduch, is that the rabbi's fault or does the rabbi have an obligation to tell someone asking, everything he knows?

How about this question: Did any of you have a rabbi that could have saved u many years of misery had they been honest and open when asked about ur eventual spouse?

This is a good point. A rabbi should inform someone if he knows for a fact that the person being inquired about is dangerous in some way, abusive, has mental or psychiatric issues or is a manipulative sociopath. In regards to health issues and family history, the person should bring that up and discuss that on their dates or tell the shadchan to let the family know before they go out. It is no place for a rabbi to decide if someone is frum enough or beneath you because they're BT or if they've been married before. If you don't personally have a problem with BT or someone who is divorced, that's your choice.

ohmygosh

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 12:46 pm

Quote:

I respectfully disagree.
Your husbands anger issues do effect your kids. He is their role model and any future wife should know about it.

Also, why do you mean you had great shalom Bayis for 15 years and then issues came up?
Unless there was a medical issue that caused personality changes, what changed after 15 years, people don't change drastically after 15 years of wedded bliss.
I do not like when people make light of shalom Bayis issues, they definetly effect the children. It's true most times we are not privy to it, but if it was bad enough that the Rav knew about it, it is something I would want to know.

I agree with this 100%. How many threads have we read on here where people are having major shalom bayis issues due to the environment DH was raised in?

Doesn't mean necessarily to break off the shidduch, but YES I would definitely want to know, and make my decision based on that knowledge.

amother

Cyan

Wed, Apr 01 2015, 4:35 pm

amother wrote:

. I agree with this also, however if my parents would've known about my in laws terrible shalom bais issues maybe they never would have let me date my husband. So for me its a catch 22. But asking about shalom bais in the parents house is a very normal question. I have 2 bil's on the market now and even though they are terrific boys and great learners, they are getting no after no because of their parents shalom bais issues(and other issues) there is a rav in my in laws neighborhood that told one girls family to "stay far away from these ppl" I can't say I blame him. But I know how amazing my bil's are and they deserve girls from nice normal families. It's really sad.

amother

Lawngreen

Thu, Apr 02 2015, 7:13 pm

Most Rabbis are good people who care about others but whenever there is a Rabbi that does something so damaging as to ruining a shidduch, it can really have damaging effects on a person for life. It hurts a lot that's why I am looking to add if I am the only one who had a Rabbi turn a guy against me and ruin our shidduch. Even though I am married to an amazing guy, it still hurts seeing how much people love this Rabbi who did this to me just because he is a popular speaker.

amother

Smokey

Mon, Apr 06 2015, 12:23 am

amother wrote:

The rav knew the issues because we went to him for help/counseling. And yes, we had shalom bayis for at least 15 years before things changed. The change was gradual, not overnight. And there were specific things that caused the lack of shalom bayis starting around the 15 year mark. And the anger was fairly recent (and turned out to be due to a major medical issue that we hadn't known about). So my older children KNEW what shalom bayis was. KNEW a reasonable father, not an angry one, and KNEW how to treat a spouse. So the Rabbi was ruining shidduchim for my son for wrong reasons.

zaq

Mon, Apr 06 2015, 3:39 am

I may be voicing an opinion that many here would consider scandalous if not downright sacrilegious, but rabbanim are human beings. They can and do make mistakes, and can and sometimes do have middos that are less than perfect. Studying the holy books for many years and proving proficiency in one or several areas of halacha do not automatically invest a person with good people skills, omniscience, saintly patience and all-encompassing wisdom, nor do they necessarily mean that that person can and should be giving advice on matters in which the individual has had no training.

G-d gave you a brain and the ability to reason. Don't park it at the door when you consult a rav, or anyone else for that matter.
ETA: And if you are dating someone who does park his brain at the door when he consults his rav--do you really want to marry such a person?

amother

Royalblue

Mon, Apr 06 2015, 6:53 am

amother wrote:

I apologize, I mistakenly thought the SB problems were ongoing or that you were separated now.
If you had a close relationship with this rabbi and he knew the medical condition that caused the anger, and did not disclose that there was a medical cause for the anger issue, he was wrong for not revealing that the issues were resolved.

Furthermore, if the SB change was triggered by specific things, ie addiction, mental illness, OTD, I think that as a potential spouse, I need to know that info, so I can decide if I want to get involved with someone whose father has those issues.

If you think that your children were not effected by the gradual change you are absolutely wrong. You may have been strong enough to stick it out, but not everyone is as patient as you.

What your rabbi gave was specific facts, not commentary and I am glad he did.

Talya

Mon, Apr 06 2015, 7:06 am

amother wrote:

If they were going to the raw for help/therapy it wasn't his place to say. Just like people may find out about someone's medical conditions but not from their own doctor!

amother

Gold

Mon, Apr 06 2015, 9:44 am

zaq wrote:

While I agree with what you're saying, a number of these posts (mine included) involved the rav going through the parents of one of the parties. You can have your head screwed on nice and tight, as can your DH, but none of that has any bearing on what your parents choose to do (or not do) with their own brains. All the common sense in the world on our part could not stop my ILs from choosing not to attend their children's weddings on the say-so of their rav. While we do blame them for putting a rav over their own children, that doesn't absolve the rav from having created the situation in the first place.

amother

Smokey

Wed, Apr 08 2015, 12:16 am

amother wrote:

Its amazing how things are switched from what was written. I said his anger issues were due to a health problem. I never said it was the entire shalom bayis problem. Or that they were over. Or that I stuck them out.

B"H I have married off 4 of my children, despite the rov and the issues btw me and my now ex. (see, issues were not resolved, and not resolvable). My children in law knew those issues before they married my children. But B"H they first met and got to know their spouse before hearing the negatives. After knowing a person, one can judge for themselves wether the potential shidduch is worth pursuing. Just hearing the negatives of the parental situation does not let one see how the child came out of their home.

Of course my children were affected by the changes in my house. But why couldn't the fact that they lived with shalom bayis for many years be emphasized rather than the more recent lack of it. Bring up both sides-not just the negative one! So the 'specific facts' you mentioned were still very lopsided and biased against my child.

In my married childrens cases, they know what went wrong and are working hard to maintain their shalom bayis.

As for the addiction/otd/mental illness, again, let the couple meet before totally ruining their chances together. The information should be provided before an engagement, but if it was up to you, no child with parents who aren't perfect should have a chance at a shidduch.