Welcome to the Shalom Bayit (peace in the home) class. I believe this is class number 11, and we're continuing. I was looking through my notes and drawing from a class I had given based on the 10 rules for a successful marriage by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin. If my husband were downstairs, I would have photocopied the sheet for you, but I might do that for us next time. He lists 10 things to focus on in Shalom Bayit. The first thing on his list is giving versus taking, and how that helps promote Shalom Bayit. It says, “Keep your main focus on giving rather than taking. When your goal is to give your partner pleasure, you will always find opportunities to meet your goal. As a byproduct, you too will gain, since people tend to reciprocate positive behavior.”
So it's talking about being a giver as opposed to being a taker. We have to analyze that a little bit. I want you to know from the start that I know what problems I'm going to have here, and I know what's going to come from it. But we're going to talk about the ideal in giving, the reality in giving, and how to work with the reality to make it better.
So what's the ideal in giving? The ideal in being a giver? Really, we're told that we're supposed to emulate Hashem. We are supposed to copy Hashem. The way Hashem shows us His behaviors through the Torah and through the way He expresses Himself to us, we're supposed to learn from Hashem. Hashem is the ultimate giver. Hashem gives to every creature in the world. Hashem gives every human being their life, their breath, their sustenance, and their growth. Everything that exists in the world can exist only because Hashem gave. Hashem is the ultimate giver.
And what could Hashem receive? What could Hashem get back from us, whom He gave to? How can we reciprocate to Hashem? Really, we can't give anything back to Hashem because Hashem doesn't need anything. He really can't take anything from us. Hashem can't take from us; He can only give to us. So the essence of Hashem is giving and not taking. Really, we're supposed to emulate Hashem and want to be givers, complete givers, without even wanting anything in return, without even wanting to take.
Really, what makes a person happy in life: being a giver or being a taker? If you think of doing someone a favor or having someone do you a favor, what makes you feel happier: doing the favor? When someone does you a favor and you take, you feel—it depends on the favor; it depends on who it's from. Maybe when your mother does you a favor, you feel like you owe her something back. You feel like you were in a weak position, not a position of strength. You wish you didn't need it; you wish you didn't have to take.
You know, my daughter, God bless her, is planning on going just for Shabbat, and she needs it so badly. I want her to go so much. I really wanted to keep her four kids by me for Shabbat and have her go away with her husband for that little weekend she was going to have. It just happens that I wasn't feeling up to my strength, and I was worrying about it. My daughter called me and said—the other daughter, God bless her—“Ma, I'll come over. I'll help you. Don't worry.” I keep telling her—or she says, “I'll cook for you. I'll do whatever you need.” And I keep telling her, “I'll let you know. I'll let you know if I need it.” I'm hoping I'm going to feel good, and if I feel good, I don't need it. But I'll let you know, because the truth is, I don't want to need it. I don't want to need it. It's not going to make me feel happy to need all that help. It's going to make me feel happy to feel strong and capable and do it myself. That's the feeling that's going to make me very happy. I want to take care of her children and do it happily, with strength. That's what I want to do. I don't want to take the favors.
And God bless my girls. The two of them called me to tell me how they could help me out with it. I didn't say no, because I said, “If I need you, I'm going to call you.” But what feels better? It feels better to give than to take. When a person takes, they're feeling weak, and they're not feeling in control. But when a person gives, there's a power to giving. There's a chesed. There's a kindness. There's a happiness that comes with giving. So ideally, we should all try to work on being givers.
There's a way of being. There are two types of people, givers and takers. Really, what they tell us is that a giver could be a giver all the way through, even when they take, and a taker will be a taker all the way through, even when they give. So what does that mean? When a person's essence is giving, when a person's essence is to do for other people and make people happy, they just want to make people happy. That's their life. Their happiness is making other people happy. Sometimes they're in a situation of receiving. But the reason they'll receive, and allow themselves to receive, is that it makes the giver happy. All right? You're going to take the present because you know that the person is enjoying giving it, so you're going to take it.
Let's say you're making a dinner party for all of your family, and every good thing—you're making a dinner party, and the truth of the matter is, you have everything done. You have everything you need. You really prepared it all. It's all in the freezer; everything is done. But you have one very good-hearted friend who feels that she so badly wants to do something for you. She calls you and begs, “Let me bring something.” So you tell her, “I really don't need anything. I really have everything.” “No, please, I want to bring you something. I want to do something. I don't want to come, you know.” And you say, “Okay, bring me a dessert.” You really don't need the dessert. You have enough. But she really needs to give, and she wants to give to you. She loves you, and this is an expression of love; she wants to give. So you're receiving it to give her pleasure. You're taking in order to give her pleasure. You're not really taking because you need it so much, but you want to give the person the opportunity to give to you.
Some people take, and when they're taking, that's taking in order to give. But how do you give and still be a taker? Very easily: when you're keeping score. When you're keeping score of everything you gave because you want something back, and it had better be as good as what I gave. I also don't even like the concept of writing down every gift that comes in, like the brides and whatever, checking it off and making sure and knowing what it's worth so you can reciprocate with the same. I mean, there is a logic to that. But it's also too much about not giving for the sake of giving. It's giving because when it's your turn to get back, you have a record of what's coming to you. You have a record of what's expected. I'm not saying a person can't write down their gifts. But I'm telling you about a mentality. Sometimes a person gives with so much in mind about what they're going to get in return that the giving isn't a real giving. It's just a prerequisite to the taking that's coming next. It's just setting up the take, all right? It's giving so that something comes back.
When we give to our husbands in marriage, for the giving to bring happiness, it has to be giving for the sake of giving. It has to be giving for the sake of love and giving on a higher level. What does it mean to give on a higher level? We're told that in marriage it's not a twosome. It's not just you and your husband. It's you, your husband, and Hashem: a trio, the three of you. That's the combination; that's the partnership: you and your husband and Hashem. When you give, ideally, you would like recognition and appreciation, and you would even like to be given something in return. You really would like it, even if you're not a taker. There's some part of you that wants something, that wants something back. It's you, your husband, and Hashem.
Maybe your husband will be the type who is appreciative and gives back, but if not, it'll be Hashem. And even if it's your husband, it will still be Hashem giving. Giving to your spouse in marriage is a tremendous mitzvah (commandment). The mitzvah of Shalom Bayit is a tremendous mitzvah. We don't understand what it means to make shalom (peace) in our home in terms of our Orthodox religious obligations. Making shalom in the home is a mitzvah. It's an obligation according to Torah to make happiness and shalom in my house. So every time I give to my husband, do chesed, and treat him in a nice way, I really am getting something back. Whether I get it back from him or not, I'm getting it back from Hashem. In some relationships, we need to keep that very much in mind, because maybe we're not getting back from our husbands what we want to get back. We can't feel that it's totally being wasted. A person should never feel that their goodness is wasted.
Why do we do chesed for people when they don't appreciate it? Do you ever do chesed for a person who didn't appreciate it? You know, God bless my friend who works with Bikur Cholim (visiting the sick). She has a lot of opportunities to do chesed for people. Sometimes they're very appreciative, and that's nice, right? And that's all mitzvah. It's all mitzvah, and it brings love. Sometimes giving in the world at large has a positive payback, and sometimes it doesn't. We are supposed to be on the level where we can give and enjoy giving even when we don't get the payback from a human being, because I can get that payback, and I will get that payback, from Hashem.
One of my friends who also teaches was teaching a group of girls a while back. She called me, so frustrated, that they were the type who were rolling their eyes and weren't interested, and it was torture. She said, “You know, it's such a hard thing to give so much of your time, and so much of your heart and soul goes into what you're teaching.” She said it was destroying her that they just looked like they wanted to get out. They wanted to be anywhere but there. It's such a hard thing. I answered her. I said, “Well, at least you know this one was pure l'shem Shamayim (for Hashem). This one you got full credit for. Because when the girls are looking at you and they're so excited and they're giving to you, you get a lot of enjoyment out of that. You sort of already get your payback just in the reaction you're getting from the girls you're teaching. You feel so good about yourself and the class, and so happy that you've already gotten a reward. So Hashem doesn't even have to reward you as much, because that was part of the reward. You walked out with such a good feeling. But here, when you walked out with nothing, then it's all for Hashem. It's all for Hashem. Hashem's going to pay you back more.”
I think she felt better about that. I think it helped her feel better. We have to know that when we do chesed, sometimes we get paid back and sometimes we don't. Do you ever do a favor for someone and they want to pay you for it? It happens to me sometimes. Let me try to remember a situation. They bring you a gift. You speak at a bake sale, and they give you a gift, and you say, “But it was the mitzvah. I really wanted to do it for the mitzvah.” But they want to show their appreciation, so you let them show their appreciation, and you do appreciate that they cared. It's a showing of feelings. But there's also the situation where sometimes the person says, “No, I really want to do it for the mitzvah. Don't think—don't give me anything. I want to do it for the mitzvah.”
Okay, we have to know that we live a life with a Jewish mentality about giving: it's nice when people return your giving, but we have to know that it also takes a little something away from the reward in heaven, and that anything you do is rewarded in heaven. Everything, every good that you do, nothing gets wasted. Hashem doesn't let one little bit go to waste. Everything good that you do. And if nobody sees it, it's a greater good, all right? Because when people see you doing good, that's already part of the payback. That's already the pat on the back and the recognition, and all of that is part of the payback. If nobody sees it, it's a greater good. If nobody pays you back, there's more reward in Shamayim (heaven). We know that. We know that we have to really integrate it into our system, so that we can feel it and not just know it.
So the good that I do for my husband that nobody sees, that nobody knows, is a greater good than the good that I do in public for other people. If he gives me back tremendously, God bless him. I pray that your husbands will do that. Even though we'll have less reward in Shamayim, we'll take the reward here too. We're not so high-level, you know. But if he doesn't give me that and I continue to give happily and graciously, then I do get that back in Shamayim. That's a reward from Hashem. That has to come from Hashem.
Okay, when you deal with your husband, you also have to be thinking of the higher goal, and that's learning to give even when it's not coming back, even when it's not appreciated—or even when it's not appreciated. Now I'm going to tell you something else, because I'm a very, very practical person. I have choices in my life, okay? I could choose to think this way. I could choose to say that even if I'm not appreciated, I'm going to enjoy giving, because the less I'm appreciated, the more reward I'll get in Shamayim, the more points I'm scoring in Shamayim, and therefore I'm enjoying the giving. Even so, my other choice is that I could give what they deserve. I could give what they deserve. And they don't deserve much. They don't deserve much. They don't deserve pleasantness or kindness or favors, because they don't appreciate that, and they're not giving back. What atmosphere am I creating in my own life? My life, not my husband's life. His life is his life. What atmosphere am I creating in my own life? What happiness or unhappiness am I creating in my own environment if I choose either of those directions?
You might say the second way, giving what's deserved, is fairer. Maybe you're right. But is it going to make me happier? Okay, if it's not going to make me happier—now I don't want to sound selfish, because all this giving business is coming back to being selfish, but there is a selfish part of this giving business, okay? If I have the attitude of enjoying giving even though I'm getting rewarded from Hashem, and I'm going to enjoy it anyway, I can be happy like that as opposed to fighting, being nasty, not giving, not giving in, having a constant war at home, and being miserable. That's not my choice. That's not what I choose to do in my home. That's not my happiness. I'm not creating my happiness. Fairness? Maybe I don't want to be fair. I want to be happy. There's a difference. You can be fair, but you can be miserable. I don't want it to be fair. I want to be happy, and I'm not going to be happy if I'm waiting to see whether he's going to give me back as much as I give him.
I think women, in a general, oversimplified classification, give more than men do. I think women are more giving. We're nurturers. We are the mothers of our children. Hashem put in us more of a feeling to give. We do it more instinctively, and it's more important to our essence of giving. We love to give. When a woman can't give, she feels totally empty, empty if she can't give. I don't know that a man feels like that. I don't think a man feels like that. I think if he gets—if he—they don't—it's not their mentality, it's not their programming. They're not as much programmed to give, to think of those around them as much as a woman. So if we're waiting to get back the way we give, yes. That's not to say that our husbands aren't wonderful people. We love them, but if I really want it to be fair, I'm going to be miserable if I'm waiting for that. I'm going to be miserable.
“True.” “True. Right. There's a different type of giving that the men are doing, which we don't like to count. Okay? They count. They counted plenty, but we don't like to count it because that's coming to us. That's, of course, what are we going to stop? I'm saying that when I'm taking this, it's not going to be to us.”
Okay, so the man is a giver if we ask him. This is something I know from Shalom Bayit situations: when I have a couple sitting in front of me, and my husband and I are dealing with Shalom Bayit, if you ask who in the relationship gives more, they both say they do. Both say they do. Both. The man says, “I give her everything. I give her a maid. I give her a car. I give her trips.” Okay, he gives—all he does is give, give, give. That's how he's programmed. He's giving. And she says, “I give everything. He gives me nothing.” And the guy's going to kill her, or faint, or something. Because, what are you crazy? All I do is give, give, give, give, give. That's all I do. And she's saying he doesn't give. What does she want? She wants the emotional giving. She wants the thank-you. She wants the appreciation. She wants the flowers. She wants something that shows that he cares, and he thinks that's silliness. “I give her what she needs. Anytime she asks me for something, I give her what she needs. What more giving is there?”
Okay, both people in the couple will say that they are the givers because we focus on what we do, what we give, and we belittle what we get. When you give to your husband, it's a big deal for you. You can think of all the things you give and do for him. But you can't think of so much of what he gives to you. And vice versa. He's going to feel that way too. We focus on—we're focusing in the wrong direction. All right? But what's going to make me happy? If I'm not looking for fairness but for happiness and shalom in my house, I'm going to overlook that. I'm going to accept that I'm the giver.
Now, that doesn't mean he's never going to give. It doesn't mean he's never going to give. Within 32 years of marriage, Baruch Hashem, please Hashem, let there be many more, my husband has really, really, really—God bless him—learned a lot, grown a lot, softened a lot, and you see growth. You do see change. It just takes a long time. “When did you start to—what?” So I can't give you a date because he's inside the last time it happened. He won't say. But the point is, we have to accept our differences, and I have to enjoy giving. The giving I'm enjoying is creating the shalom in my home. That's the ideal.
Now, past the ideal, you have reality. And reality is going to mean: when is giving a problem? Giving is sometimes a problem when it causes resentment. That's what we have to work out. Giving is not supposed to cause resentment. That's when you're giving in order to take, and you're not getting back, and you're keeping score. It's going to cause a lot of resentment, and the giving there is going to end up being a problem. So I have to work out my feelings and know that I'm giving for that higher reason. I'm giving l'shem Shamayim. I'm giving because Hashem is going to give me back a reward. I'm giving for the peace in my home. When I know that I'm happier because of the way I'm behaving, there's something there that makes so much sense to me: being able to give Him in order to make me happy.
“Yes. Giving in?”
Giving in? Giving in is a form of giving. I do think it's very helpful in marriage when we can give in without causing resentment, when we can give in and it makes us happy. But I have to train myself to let giving in make me happy and not cause resentment.
“Right, because if he resents, he resents. But if I even—I would just say, I think he's not out of his deal. I'd rather not fight, right? Do you know what I mean? I came to that point. He's not at that point, so I'm constantly giving in on him, okay? And he's not okay.”
But let me tell you why also—I mean, not why; I'm not saying I know all the answers. I'm saying one of the theories behind what you're saying is that men have so much of an ego that, to them, giving in isn't just a matter of what's particular to this situation. It's their essence; it's who they are. When a man gives in, he can't even feel like he's giving in to what makes sense at this point. It means he's admitting and giving up his belief in himself, his confidence in himself. We don't feel that way. We don't feel that way. A woman isn't tied to her ego in the same way that a man is. When he gives in, it actually destroys a piece of him, okay? It destroys a piece of him to the point where he's weaker. When we give in, I feel strong when I give in. Yeah, I feel big about it. I feel strong about it. I feel good about it. It makes me feel better when I give in. It makes him feel weak, a lack of confidence; it kills his self-esteem. He was wrong. He's no good. He's nobody.
Not never. Not never. There are always going to be issues that need to be clarified and taken care of. The important things that make a real difference in your life, you're going to problem-solve together in the right way. We've discussed rules of fighting and ways to communicate and how to talk. But on the things you're going to let go, on the things that aren't so important, understand what it means for you to give in and what it means for him to give in. We're not talking from the same plateau at all, and I can handle it and he can't. So if it's not earth-shattering and it's not relationship-shattering, then I would rather give in, and that is a way of giving.
“Yes, you said a word that I wanted to use too. Sometimes with disagreement, clarification. Sometimes it's not ‘I'm right, not you're right.’ Just understand how I feel, just clarify, validate our feelings, and clarify. That's what we want.”
“You said they don't validate, then they never will, right?”
“Well, not never, not never. But we shouldn't—you know what it is? I'll tell you how I feel about getting back appreciation, gratitude, validation, all of that. It's icing on the cake, but it's not the cake. Because if I make it the cake, I have nothing. The icing on the cake means I'm not depending on it for my Shalom Bayit. But if it comes, it's sweet. It's very sweet. I'll enjoy it. It'll make the whole thing better. But if I depend on it, I'm destroying my Shalom Bayit. I can't depend on it.
“And the truth is, growing together—you know, psychologists say that in time a woman becomes more like a man and a man becomes more like a woman. You're supposed to meet in the middle somewhere, somewhere down this, and I see it a little. I do see it. You know, I became a little bit more assertive and a little bit more in control as I grew up, and my husband softened a lot as he grew up. There is that balance that I find comes in with time. But you don't depend on it, and you enjoy it when it comes as the extra, okay? But I can't depend on it.
“When I'm giving to give and I'm not looking to get anything back, sometimes I do get back. It's very nice to get back, and I'm not going to not want it, and it's not even that I'm not going to encourage it. I can even encourage getting back as long as I don't depend on it, okay? So we're going to talk a little bit about encouraging getting back from a husband.”
“Yes. But what are we doing wrong that we're raising these little boys to be—”
“Yes, yes.”
“Why don't they just be more feminized? I mean, if they're grown, we're taking care of them, for real?”
“I mean, it sounds like you, but we're taking care of them because it's genetic.”
“It's genetic.”
“It's biological, but it's biological too. It can't be that at a certain point society just socializes men differently.”
“But they did. Men have changed. I see it. Men have changed, right. Men have changed, and social changes have taken place in the modern world, and men have gone along with them. Maybe not at the rate you'd like them to, but you can try; you can do it. If they are, they'll be very sweet husbands. But don't be surprised if their general nature is more masculine and a little bit more aggressive and a little bit less nurturing than a woman's, because Hashem put different roles in everyone's life. You know, it says if a—I don't know, I don't want to be too gender-oriented with my statements, but men basically were meant to go out to war and protect the family, and the woman was supposed to stay home and take care of her children. If you send a very sensitive, thinking person out to war, he's going to get shot in a minute, you know, because he's going to look at the guy with the gun and say, ‘But maybe he didn't really want to bring the gun, and maybe it wasn't his choice to bring the gun, and maybe I should understand his feelings about bringing the gun.’ You know? Wow, he's got to get his head blown off in a minute. You can't think like that. Men were really programmed to have different roles than women.
“And part of that—and I'm not saying it's set in stone; it really isn't—but we have to accept a certain baseline. We have to enjoy the boys as boys. We have to enjoy the men for being men. We have to see their good qualities. We have to look at the parts of them that are different from us and that we can enjoy.”
“What should we do? I had an issue with my son. He's in first grade. He's learning Bereshit (Genesis) in one of the good schools. He tells me, ‘We learned today that Adam rules Chava, Daddy rules over you, and I will rule over my cousin, my girlfriend.’ And I was like, what are they doing?”
“Right, right.”
“And he said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘You can't tell Daddy to come home, but he can tell you to come home. Because men rule over.’ And this is a regular religious school, you know, one of the good schools.”
“Right, right, gotcha. Okay, so men learning from men is very different from men learning from women, and they have to learn how to—when he comes home and expresses that to you, now, just for the sake of the tape, to say that he learned in school from Adam and Chava that a man is supposed to rule his wife and you have to listen to whatever Daddy says—first of all, don't totally negate what he just came home with, because you have to keep respect for the rabbi, and you have to have respect for Torah, because in some way that is said. And now you have to blend it with the rest of the story, which is when Hashem says to Abraham about Sarah, ‘Listen to her because she knows.’ Okay? So you're going to tell your son that there are definitely going to be times when that is the right thing to do, and there are also times when a man has to take into account what his wife says, because Hashem says a woman has special understanding, has special binah (special understanding). Your Rebbe (religious teacher) is right, but there's another side of the story. So you do add to what your sons learn and soften it with your input, with your softness. But we have to deal with the reality of life, and when men teach men, it's very different from when women teach men.”
“Blowing your top is not really the proper way, not the right way. Blowing your top is not exactly preferred—I didn't overreact, but I was a little shocked, because I'm very, like, not into that.”
“Right. I would never teach a six-year-old about such a—one is aggressive, one is passive, one.”
“But I told him, I said, ‘It only means that Daddy has to be like a king. He has to make sure that the house is taken care of, that everybody has clothes and food.’ I didn't know. I mean, I'm working. He knows. So he knows it's not about money. Servant. But I don't know. I'm just a little—”
“Don't. Okay, we also have to be careful that we're not afraid to give Kavod (respect) to our husbands. We also have to be careful, in our American mentality of equality and democracy, that we don't lose the sense of actually treating your husband like a king. And that doesn't belittle you. It's something that we have to, you know—there is a core irritation in hearing that he has to rule over me that I don't want to hear. That's going to hurt inside. But at the same time, I have to know when he's supposed to rule over me and be able to handle that. But that's personal. That's not from a six-year-old.”
“Right, right.”
“Okay, but you will be able to give it over. Not that there's no such thing, but there is a time and a place for everything, and Mommy has her Kavod too, and Daddy will respect you. Tell him Rambam says that a man has to respect his wife more than himself. There's a lot of different parts of it, and they're all true, but it's part of a whole puzzle. It's not black and white. There are a lot of different shades and a lot of different areas in our lives and a lot of different times in their lives. He's six or seven years old, so there's just so much you can say. But don't worry about it. You'll tell him that's one piece of the puzzle, but there are a lot of pieces. Little by little, you'll fill in more pieces for him.
“But what I'm saying is, as for myself, you know when I'm talking, I'm always saying what I'm trying to grow to. Don't be afraid to say that he's supposed to be the head of the house. It's un-American. It's un-American, but it's not against Torah. There really is supposed to be a head of the house, and it's supposed to be my husband. But at the same time, he's supposed to respect me even more than he respects himself, and the Torah says, ‘Listen to her because she knows.’ But it's not—but there's a lot in there. Balance. There's a lot of balance, and there should be Kavod on both sides, but it's not necessarily the American way, okay? It's not. Right. So, you know, if that works, it's good. The man is supposed to be head of the spiritual matters, and men and women are supposed to be in charge and head of all the material things in the house. But very often the woman is in charge of the spiritual matters in the home. Very often she's the one who's really the driving force and direction that the home is taking, and it's not so—it's not so simple. Just know that life is not simple. For every saying there is, there's at least another 40 things that contradict it or add to it or give it a different dimension. Okay? Nothing in life is that simple.”
Okay. So where was I? I'm not exactly sure, but I want to see what I wanted to say. First of all, we didn't want the giving to bring resentment. We also have to know that sometimes you overgive. Sometimes you give to the point of exhaustion, and then you can't enjoy the giving. So you have to keep in mind taking care of yourself so that you can give. Taking care of yourself. Now, I'm saying everything is within balance. You have to take care of yourself, but not to the point of saying, “I'm the only one who's important, and I'm going to take care of myself and let the world take care of itself.” That's not what you're saying. But you can't take care of everyone else if you don't take care of yourself. If you give to the point that there's nothing left in you, emotionally or physically, then you've overdone it. Then you've depleted your energy, and you really can't give. So you also have to keep in mind: what's my own physical, emotional, and spiritual health if I want to be at my best capacity to give?
A happy woman can give to her husband much more and more easily than an unhappy woman. If I feel good physically—if you're not overtired, if you don't have a migraine, if you feel good—you can be nice. It's not even so hard to be nice when you feel good. But as soon as you don't feel good, it's different. It's hard to give when you don't feel good. It's hard to give when you're overtired. It's hard to give when you're unhappy inside. So in order to be a good giver, you do have to take care of yourself. You have to think of yourself. Some women on the extreme of giving give to the point of exhaustion, and then they really can't give properly. They're giving with an attitude, with resentment, with a remark, with a face. That's not giving. That's not giving.
Okay, I also wanted to say, on that practical level of giving, something I've said before: it's very important to remember that it's only considered giving if you give what the person wants to receive. If you give what you want to give, it doesn't count. What does that mean? My husband learned it the hard way. If he gives me jewelry, I'm not going to be happy, because that's not what I want. If he gives me something that I need, something I want, I'll be happy. It's not that I don't want to take. But if your husband—let's say you want jewelry, and your husband buys you a crock pot—okay, he gave you something, didn't he? It's a present, but it's not at all what you want. It's not at all what you need, and it's not at all what you appreciate. It doesn't count as giving something the person doesn't want to receive, especially in marriage. It really doesn't count as giving. We have to work to give what the person wants to receive.
In order to do that, you have to do a little investigating. You have to do a little investigating. What does my wife like to get? What does she want from me? What does she want? You know your husband. What about the other way around? What would my husband like? Right, right. It goes both ways. I was getting there. Also, what does my husband want? Now a woman is going to say she gives to her husband. What does she give her husband? She gives him the best-cooked dinners. Okay? What does he want? A little calm in the house when he comes home. Whatever she's giving him, maybe she just keeps giving him sefarim (religious books), and he's not into it. But she wants him to learn. She wants him to go learn, and he doesn't want to learn. It's not his thing. But every time there's an occasion, she buys him a new sefer because that's a good thing to do. She's going to buy him a new set of books because she wants him to learn. Now, that's really not a gift. It's really a nudge. It's really saying, “You know what you should be doing with your life, and you're not.” He's not going to take that as a gift. It's not a gift. A gift is giving what the person wants to receive.
“What about affection?”
“Affection. If that's what the person wants to receive—and it usually is what the person wants to receive—then that would be considered a gift. One of the things I read once in a secular book was—and I'm sorry that I don't remember which one it was—that we should write a list, a wish list, of maybe 10 or 20 things you would want your husband to do for you, and he would want you to do for him. It doesn't have to be materialistic. It doesn't have to be a gift list of presents. But, you know, what would make me happy if you're ever in the mood to—sometimes your husband wants to do something nice and he doesn't even know what to do. He doesn't even know what would make you feel good. And we don't want to tell him because then it isn't so spontaneous anymore. That takes the fun out of it, you know? If you have to tell him, it's not so good, not romantic. But the truth is, if you don't tell him, he has no clue. He has no clue, and he doesn't know what you want. So in one way they say, ‘Don't do this list and expect to get it.’ Okay? Again, there's a difference between what we're expecting and what we're encouraging. I expect that nothing on that list is coming back to me. My husband, you know what would really make me feel good? If you called me up and said, ‘Don't make dinner. We're going to go out.’ Or if you came home with flowers. Or whatever it is—once in a while, surprise me with a night in a hotel. So what good is that list if they don't do it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, the purpose of the—no, is that in case he wanted to do something nice, he could look at it and feel like he did it. No, don't extend on it, but don't let him make copies and shriek it. But the thing is, if I want to do something nice for my husband, I should know what he would really want. If I don't know what he would really want, think in your mind—and you don't say it out loud—how you could surprise your husband in some way and really make him happy. If you knew enough ways to do that, you could really boost your marriage in a lot of ways. We don't know enough ways. What does my husband want? What would make him happy? If I wanted to give him something, what would I give him? What would he want me to give him? Knowing more about what we want for our spouse, knowing more about what the other spouse wants, helps us give what they want to receive and not just give what we want to give. That's also a trick in giving. That's the proper giving. That's going to hit the mark.
“That man who wants happiness in his home and quiet and calm when he gets home, and doesn't really care if there's a delicious dinner as long as there's something to eat and the kids are not—you know, the wife isn't so tense—if that's what he considers a gift, then it's a greater gift than that fancy dinner that's not what he wants. If he gets the fancy dinner, but she's frazzled because she spent all day making it—my daughters were so happy on Chanukah (Festival of Dedication). I bought them a book, a cookbook. I bought four cookbooks. God bless them, for my daughters. It was called Short on Time because they're short on time. What? I don't know, I saw it; it caught my eye. I bought each one of them—I bought them, and my daughter was so happy that that was the one because she said—because she goes, ‘Oh no,’ she's thinking of some gourmet cookbook that takes all day to make one dinner. ‘I can't do that,’ you know? But this one was like, ‘I have no time, but I want to make something good quickly,’ that type of cookbook.
“And she wanted that because the wife is going to spend all day, she said. One of her friends says that she—this recipe, whatever—and she starts telling her how you marinate it, and then you do this, and then you do that. She asked her, ‘So what did you do today?’ The friend goes, ‘She made dinner. That's it. It took all day to make dinner.’ But that's okay if she's enjoying it, if she's happy, and she comes home and her husband comes home and she still has something to give him in terms of her time, attention, and energy. But if she's worn out and upset that the kitchen is a mess because she used 40 pots for this one dinner for two people, then you've lost it. It's not worth it. It's not the gift he really wants. It's not the giving that really means giving. So you basically have to know what your spouse enjoys to know what's going to do it for them.”
“So you're saying you should make a list of what you want and make a list of what you think he wants, but should we ask him to make a list of what he wants?”
“Okay. Good thing. I think the husband should make a list first. Because, okay, we don't want our husbands to think that we're giving them a list of what to buy me. It shouldn't be that. And try to put as many non-costly things on the list, because that's very tacky and not very nice about a couple. But that's what you're going to do. So first of all, I would want to tell my husband first. I don't know if he'll do it. I really don't know if he'll do it. You know, it's something to say, but I don't know that he'll do it. But even so, he should be thinking. You know, tell me something—if I was going to surprise you, this is over dinner—if I was going to surprise you and make you happy, give me a fantasy. I wanted to give you a gift. What would you think of? What would you come up with if your husband presented it to you like that: ‘If I wanted to do something to really make you happy, to come home and surprise you with something to make you happy, what would that be?’”
“You spoke about 20 things.”
“Right. That's what the book said. That's what the book said. I don't think I would get my husband to write a list because I don't think he would do it. But speaking about it over dinner, conversation, talking—that's a way even just of communicating and knowing what's important to the other person. I would want to do it first, expressing that to my husband, so he's not thinking I'm just trying to take, but that I'm trying to create a greater relationship between us. So I would ask him, in a playful way over dinner, ‘Anything you wanted, within reason, what would you want if I could surprise you, if I could get you something or do something? What would you want me to do?’ It's interesting to know what they would say.”
“Yeah, I know what my husband would say in a second. He would say he doesn't want me to argue with him when he wants something. That's what he would say when I ask him something: ‘Don't argue with me.’ But that's the thing that you can't ever—”
“That's true. You have to have a strong relationship. That's the point.”
“That's control. He doesn't give me everything. He's really, really great, but that's what he wants in return. It's not something I can buy. But I'm—but really, that's not what I'm going to answer your question with anyway. Really, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a specific token, a specific token that he wants. Not the, you know, ‘Never argue with me.’”
“Right, right, right. Take a walk, buy ice cream, those types of things. But, you know—or I'm not going to say other things, but, you know, other things too.”
“But, you know, those types of gifts, little things. But now, when you're talking about, you know, ‘Never argue with me,’ okay? ‘Never argue with me.’ It depends on the person. It depends on the person. I won't always say it's control. It's not necessarily always control. Sometimes it's different values, different things I consider important and he considers important. I have a situation where I have to be very careful not to disagree with him and to let him do what he wants, and I don't find it controlling at all. In fact, I find that I'm letting him control. He's not controlling me. It's the things he—I don't know if you're saying it like this, but it's basically the things he wants to do, not necessarily that he imposes them on me.”
“Right.”
“Okay, yes, but I may think, ‘What the heck is he—’ So it's a different class. It's a different thing. That's too broad, and you would say that's really not what I mean. I mean the little token thing. You want to know, if I want to do something nice for you, what should it be? If I wanted to do something that's going to make you happy, surprise you, do you know what that would be? Some women think they're going to surprise their husband and they're going out to dinner, and he hates going out to dinner. Okay, the friends are getting together and we're all going to this dairy restaurant. He hates dairy. He hates eating out. He doesn't want to go out. It's like, okay, great, happy birthday, honey. You know, that's not what he wants. That's not giving.
“So if he says what he wants, and he says, ‘You know what I would really like? If we, you know—’ He will tell me, and that's what I want to know. I want to know the little things, not the grand ‘Never argue with me.’ ‘Never argue with me’ can't be—it can't just be, you know, that's too broad, too broad, much too broad. But sometimes you have to know your own husband. And yes, sometimes it's controlling, and you have to be careful with that. But that's a more extreme situation. Sometimes I find that I was controlling in wanting to take away what he thinks makes sense, or the right thing to do, or a way to spend money that he's okay with and I think is extravagant. ‘Why are you doing that?’ I feel I have to—I was the one trying to control what he was doing. I'm the one who's trying to control him, but in my passive-aggressive way. By saying, ‘You really think we need that?’ I take all the—I bust his balloon. I bust his balloon.”
“My husband, God bless him, is making a party in a couple of weeks. If you get a call that your kids are invited and you don't know who my husband is, he's calling all the nieces, nephews, cousins, and grandchildren. He's making a party, and he hired Rabbi Maimon Elbaz. He does parties. My husband saw a flyer about it. He's all excited. He wants to do this party. I'm going to have 200 kids in my house for no reason whatsoever, and he hired somebody, okay? And we have Purim (Festival of Lots) coming up. My husband does this on Purim. So I said, ‘You don't want to do it instead of Purim?’ And it's like I broke his heart. ‘You're taking Purim away from me?’ You know? No, no, no, no, no. Why did I say that? He does it. He's happy. He wants to do it. My girls and I look at each other like, ‘Okay, Daddy's doing it,’ and we're going to love it in the end. We love it. We're going to enjoy it. But, you know what I'm saying? Those are the types of things where I feel like I'm thinking, ‘Why? Why are you doing that? Whose birthday is it anyway?’ What's the case? But Baruch Hashem, he wants to enjoy the kids, and this is what he wants to do. It wouldn't have been my choice if he said, ‘How about we invite 200 kids to come over on a Sunday and spend crazy money on that? Would you like to do that?’ ‘Sure, honey.’ Okay. But the truth is, I said, ‘Okay, honey. Sounds great. That sounds great.’”
“I had a situation last week. I was with one of my daughters. My husband decided he wanted to take out three of the grandchildren who had already vomited. One of them had been throwing up. The next one looked at him. He says, ‘Did you vomit today?’ Okay, fine, we get it. It's finished. Help me. Now it's your turn. You have to take the grandchildren out. And he tells them in front of me. I give different names. Yeah.”
“Right, so what would go—so the point being that letting him do what he wants to do, I think sometimes is the right thing, and it's hard for me to do it all the time. But it's something I think is important if it's not, you know, really—I don't know. You have to know your limits. But I think it is right in showing by you to, unless he's telling you what to do. And this even is me, but it's okay. I'm okay. You want to do something like that. You want to do something that you want to do, and it costs money. It is something, and he's like—and he doesn't say, ‘Oh, do you want to pay me?’ Okay. It's not like it's okay when you want. Absolutely. It's not like it's okay when you want.”
“Right. It's not fair.”
“Well, and it's fake either. It's not fair. Okay, it's not fair, but we're not going for fair. We're going for happiness.”
“No, I know, but I agree with you.”
“Yeah, so you'll try it through negotiating in the ways we talked about, expressing your feelings in a very non-confrontational way, understanding each other, and trying. But it's not going to work. It might go a little bit in that direction, but it's really not going to be fair. It's not. It's not going to be fair. I'm giving for the Shalom Bayit, and I'm not giving to get, and it's not going to be fair, but I'm going to be happier. So that's what I'm left with.
“But in the meantime, it has grown just because it grows by itself, through our communicating better, through the happiness in the home and the less resentment, and sometimes being able to express my feelings. It grows, and he does care more about my needs in a different way, but not equally. Not equally. If I wanted equality, I'm going to be very miserable because it's not. I'll set myself—I don't know what the percentage is, but it is. I hear you 100 percent, but I don't want you to be miserable because of it, because it's a reality, and we could almost all of us raise a hand and say we know exactly what you're talking about.”
“Yeah, and I think every couple would say that. And yet, so, you can work on it very calmly and very happily and very softly, but if you depend on equality and fairness in that way, it's going to ruin your happiness. It has to be reality. You have to know the reality. The reality is it really doesn't work like that. You should be happy in your relationship with your husband, and you should grow ever closer and closer. Amen.”