Gotta love these idealistic young couples...

sequoia

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 1:16 pm

What are some specific scenarios that could come up that would make the relationship impossible?

Say the husband works full time, makes time to learn, davens, sincere person... what specifically would make him incompatible with a “very frum” girl (whose own father is presumably working)?

amother

Seagreen

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 1:18 pm

sequoia wrote:

I didn't say that it would be impossible, or that they would be incompatible.
I said that such kind of boys DO NOT EXIST. (Or very few of them do.)

amother

Aqua

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 5:23 pm

Exactly, there are very very few who fit this profile.
Those who do have lists of girls willing to date him. Unless you have something that propels you to the front of the list, unlikely you will even get suggested to him. If you are a nice, regular girl from a nice regular family but without an "outstanding" factor such as yichus, family money, or whatever, very unlikely.
This is totally one of the shidduch crisis myths, that there aren't enough learning boys. No, there aren't enough regular type frum boys for the amount of corresponding girls. Probably 75% of them would be happy to end up with a sincere frum normal type, they don't specifically need a kollel type. Especially once they get past their early 20s and there is less peer pressure since lots of their married friends are starting to move on from kollel.

amother

Lime

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 5:30 pm

Wow, my poor DDs. We don't have $, Yichus, and they are only nice, regular looking girls, not size 2 and drop dead gorgeous. Maybe I should just get them cats right now.

amother

Mauve

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 5:41 pm

amother [ Seafoam ] wrote:

I’m from a very yeshivish community where it’s the norm for a girls parents to support the couple for the first few years.
I knew that this wasn’t an option for me since my parents had NO money.. nothing extra, ever!
I think it would have been cruel for me to insist that they take loans just so that I can live the lifestyle all my friends were living. How could I have been so selfish? Bh I was raised with middos and I felt it was just a lack of basic middos to insist my parents give me money and support my husband.
The thing is, I wasn’t willing to give up the kollel lifestyle I always dreamed to live. I also didn’t have a job paying enough that could support it.
It left me in a bind when it came to shidduchim. I couldn’t get a normal date when they found out that my parents couldn’t support and I wasn’t earning enough.
Unfortunately I ended up going out with either social misfits or people who didn’t have the same hashgafah as I had. It was many years until I finally found someone who had the yiras shamayim I was looking for. By that time anyone I was dating was already so much older and usually wasn’t only learning but also had some sort of parnassa too.
I’m upset that the expectations when it comes to shidduchim makes no sense.
What is a girl supposed to do when her family has no money?? Insist her parents give her anyway?? I suffered many years being alone because I refused to do that. I have a relatively small family of my own now and one thing I wonder is if I had gotten married earlier, perhaps I would have been blessed with more children? Only Hashem knows...
It’s unbelievable and true that a girl who is receiving money from her parents each month to cover her rent and basic expenses actually expects her parents to give her even more money to pay for clothing or furniture!!
I once had a young married girl visiting America at my house for a shabbos meal. She was complaining that she was hoping to do lots of shopping while she’s visiting from Israel (she had one baby) but she couldn’t believe that no one was offering to sponsor her shopping! My mouth fell... here she was living off someone else’s money and was visiting on a paid ticket by her parents but she was still complaining that her parents or in laws weren’t paying for her to do shopping here!
I understand that it’s hard for an American girl to find a job in Israel easily but can she not babysit for a while to cover some extra expenses? Maybe she won’t be able to find her dream job, but she should be willing to do ANYTHING so she doesn’t have to take even MORE money from her parents when she wants to buy something.
Very often, there’s an opportunity for a girl to have a better paying job in America. If that alleviates the financial demands from her parents, why would she even consider living a vacation lifestyle off her parents hard earned money in Israel?
Something is very, very wrong and I’m waiting for rabbanim to speak up against it. My whole life is not the way I ever imagined it would be because I refused to follow something that seemed wrong.

Reading through your post I applaud you for being mature for seeing life the way it I and I commiserate with you that the system pUT you at a serious disadvantage. There is only one thing that didn't quite sit so well with me about the way you wrote that because of your good middos you didn't insist that your parents support you. Because you refused to be selfish you had to follow a different path. I am just curious- do you mean to tell me that the decision to not insist on support was entirely in your hands ?
That because you were raised well with good middos you didn't push for it? However if someone had bad middos they could have yes insisted on support and would have been given it? - does that mean that the decision is entirely in the hands of the daughter? And the parents must do what the daughter wants? And hope and pray they raised a daughter with good middos? Do the parents have no say at all? Are there some girls out there that knowingly insist on support even if it comes at their parent expense and the parents have no choice but to give in?
And that leads me to my next question - are there some girls out there that know their parents have no money- know their parents took out loans to be able to support them and happily take the money anyway?? Because they feel it is their right ?

amother

Aqua

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 5:42 pm

Yes, there have been threads like that here.

amother

Mauve

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 5:52 pm

and what happens if it doesnt exactly matter if the daughter has good or bad middos- what happens if the parents say there is no money so we can not support you?
the daughter will scream and cry and tantrum but it makes no difference- the money is simply not there.
what happens then?
how is the decision left in the hands of the daughter if the money simply doesnt exist?
I am so boggled at the idea that its up to the child to decide and the parents have no say but must fork it over.

amother

Aqua

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 5:54 pm

amother [ Lime ] wrote:

Wow, my poor DDs. We don't have $, Yichus, and they are only nice, regular looking girls, not size 2 and drop dead gorgeous. Maybe I should just get them cats right now.

Are they looking for very yeshivish guys with a job? Then, yes, be aware unless you are looking for the Ner Israel type, you will be looking for a needle in a haystack.
If they are looking for guys still in yeshiva but planning to get a job after marriage, those do exist. (Now whether or not that pans out is a different story.)
Make jokes all you want, but see some of the other posters' stories. It's not really a laughing matter if it affected the trajectory of your life.

amother

Seagreen

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 5:56 pm

amother [ Mauve ] wrote:

C'mon. Enough. This doesn't happen.
Mature adult girls ready to get married don't scream and cry and tantrum and force their parents to hand them money.

This system is definitely broke, but please let's not make things sound crazier than they are.

amother

Aqua

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 5:59 pm

No, a lot of these girls end up marrying older/staying single for awhile. That's what happens. People don't want their daughter to be the older single so they somehow scrounge up some extra money. Sometimes.

amother

Fuchsia

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 6:03 pm

amother [ Seagreen ] wrote:

It is as crazy as it sounds. Obviously, the girls don't scream and cry, it just works in a passive aggressive way. No shidduchim suggest for these girls which equals to the pressure building up on the parents, and so many cave. What are they supposed to do? Watch all their children become older singles?

amother

Seagreen

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 6:09 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

I know. Trust me. I get it.

But I was responding to the poster who was saying the the daughters are the ones forcing their parents to support.
That makes it sounds like this is the girls' faults. It's not. No sane mature daughter is having a tantrum to get support.

Its the fault of this crazy system that our society as a whole has somehow created.

amother

Mauve

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 6:09 pm

amother [ Seagreen ] wrote:

Thats exactly what Im asking.
seafoam kept saying quite a few times that because she had good middos...
bcause she didnt insist...
because she wasnt selfish...
she didnt get support.
which makes me draw the conclusion that there are some girls who DO get support because they dont have good middos?

amother

Aqua

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 6:16 pm

No, they don't insist. Just, some make it clear they will never accept a penny from their parents (like seafoam) while others may silently assent once their parents start to insist.

amother

Seagreen

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 6:18 pm

amother [ Mauve ] wrote:

I don't know her specific lifestory, and I don't know if her parents would have been able to support her even if she had "bad middos."

My point is that most young girls are not forcing their parents to support. They are probably working hard to save up money.

Their parents might choose to support even though they cannot afford it, because they feel pressured by the system and see that their daughter isn't getting any shidduchim. But that is not the fault of the daughter.

And in such cases, the daughter will probably feel guilty and horrible about the whole thing.

amother

Seafoam

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 6:43 pm

amother [ Mauve ] wrote:

I didn’t say a few times that I had good middos.
I was saying that don’t think it’s good middos for a girl to ask her parents to support her when she knows they don’t have money.
Yes, I know many girls who did insist that their parents support but to be honest, in most cases the parents had all intentions to borrow (or go completely broke) because they were part of the system and this is something they were used to.
It was not something that my parents were used to and they were appalled that it was expected of them. I let them know they didn’t need to worry and hopefully I would find someone without those expectations.
What would have happened had I “insisted”, you ask? Well, I could have sat them down and explained that the only way for me to get married is if they take a loan and support us because otherwise it didn’t look like I would find anyone to marry...
Or I could have had one of the rabbanim or rebbetzins I was close with call my parents and explain the system to them and let them know that they really had no other choice if they wanted to see their daughter married any time soon.
My heart went out to my parents and I just couldn’t do it to them.
I personally know of a family whose water got shut off a few times during the years they were supporting their married daughter! Is that normal???
I didn’t come from money, had no yichus, pretty average looks... I was hoping I would find someone who just liked me for who I was...

amother

Seagreen

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 6:45 pm

After nine pages of fighting and bashing does anyone have an actual solution to this problem?

I know, there are no easy answers to the complicated things in life.

But maybe discussing solutions instead of arguing might bring us closer to doing better for our society.

amother

Aqua

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 6:57 pm

Solution?
Rabbanim need to take a stand and speak up about it.

amother

Yellow

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 7:02 pm

To everyone who has been hurt by the system in one way or another, I'm sorry to hear about your pain. No one should feel like they need money to marry a boy with the same hashkafos as them and no one should have to go into debt to marry off their children if they don't want to support and feel forced. I know both those things happen a lot, unfortunately.
To everyone who isn't in kollel, doesn't want to be, and isn't actually affected but is 'horrified' that anyone takes money from their parents who willingly give it, it's beautiful that you are so worried about the finances of all these in-laws. [insert sarcastic emogi here]. It drives me crazy how none of us are concerned about other people's debt but suddenly when it comes to kollel it's a moral issue and we all need to talk about how disgusting it is. If someone makes a decision to give their children money because they value Torah, that's their business.
I've never been supported by my parents or inlaws, but I don't begrudge my friends who are.

As an aside, I never even heard of parents having to commit to a certain amount of support before a guy even goes out with their daughter until I went to seminary (I didn't grow up in-town), and I was shocked. Again, if someone wants to commit to support their daughter because they value torah, the more power to them. If someone feels forced to support or their daughter won't get married, that's awful.
When I was in shidduchim, this only came up once with one shadchan who told me I couldn't marry someone learning in kollel without support. Needless to say, I didn't follow up with her. I guess the rest of the shadchanim I went to and boys I dated were more 'out of town' type that don't have this mentality.

amother

Fuchsia

Mon, Feb 17 2020, 7:11 pm

amother [ Seagreen ] wrote:

On a community level - Make adjustments to the educational system. Boys should learn some life skills, and boys & girls shouldn't be taught there is only one path to Torah. Make finances and budgeting a core class for 12th graders.

On a personal level - parents need to buck the system and do what's right for their children. It will be difficult at first, but if one by one parents do it, the societal pressure will just fall away.