Hi, ladies. Welcome to the Shalom Bayit (peace in the home) class. I think this is our fifth Shalom Bayit class of this season. Thank you, Hashem, and may He continue to give us the ability to work on Shalom Bayit, and to have a healthier, happier, more productive life in our families with our husbands and children.
We’re discussing the differences between men and women so that we can better relate to our husbands and know how to deal productively with the situations that come up in married life, in a way that gets the results we’re looking for and is successful. We’ve always dealt with the Shalom Bayit in our lives, but it may not always have been successful. We have to learn to change our patterns so that what we do can actually result in what we’re trying to accomplish.
I wanted to talk to you today about communication, which is very important in our marriages and is usually something we feel could use a little work. We know that communication between husbands and wives is difficult to begin with because women use communication as an emotional connection. A woman would like more emotional connection with her husband, and she tries to get that through communication. Whereas, as we said, a husband uses communication to raise his own status and take a higher position among the competition in his life. He really doesn’t want to have to get into that with his wife. He feels relaxed at home and doesn’t want to deal with that competition of communication the way he sees it.
So we’re left with this difficult situation: we need more communication, and they would probably like a little less. How do we create an atmosphere in our home where a little more communication can happen? Or, at least, how do we make the communication we do have with our husbands create closeness instead of taking us further apart? Very often, a woman tries to get closer to her husband through communication, but when she becomes frustrated that it isn’t happening, her communication ends up causing strife, fighting, and disagreement between them. The very thing we’re trying to achieve ends up having the opposite result, chas v'shalom (God forbid). That’s what we want to work on and be careful about.
I have some handouts. I don’t know if I have enough, but we can just listen to it. I typed this up for you to take home in case there are things you want to discuss with your husband, or points you want to go over together. We’ll also try to discuss how to go over those points.
If I want there to be good communication between my husband and me, the first thing I have to do is set the atmosphere. The atmosphere has to be receptive. I have to create an atmosphere where I’m not afraid to talk and he’ll be more receptive to listening. In communication, there’s a speaker and a listener, and you have to learn how to be a good speaker and a good listener.
When I try to communicate in the chesed (loving-kindness) work I do, people come to me with problems and want my advice. It’s very important that when I sit with them in the room, they feel they can trust me, that there’s confidentiality, that I’m nonjudgmental, and that my focus is on their best interests. I have to be open-minded. I really have to be open-minded and listen to the whole problem. I’m not thinking that the person sitting across from me has the same needs, the same life, or the same expectations of life that I do. I really have to be open to listening with a complete heart.
We’re usually very good at, I hope, professionally listening—in that type of situation. If you’re a teacher and a good teacher, you have those concepts in mind when you’re listening. But if you want to be a good mother and a good wife, then you have to be a professional communicator in your home as well. When my husband wants to talk to me, I have to use all the skills I use with people who come to me for help and apply them to my husband.
The truth is that the whole list of things I just said—which I wish I’d written down, because I don’t think I did—I need to transfer over to my husband. The atmosphere has to be one where he feels there’s confidentiality. Do I talk to my friends, my sisters, and my mother about the things he tells me in private? Can he trust me that it won’t go beyond our little space? If our husbands don’t trust that, if they get the feeling that we talk about them to people around us, that’s a major reason for them not to open up or share. They have to feel there is complete confidentiality in what they say, and that you won’t pick up the phone as soon as he walks out the door and tell your friend about everything that just happened, or what he did or said. Confidentiality is part of trust. He has to trust you, and trust that if he says something, it won’t go beyond those doors.
The way you can show that trust is, first of all, he should never catch you doing that. You should be trustworthy and not say things about your husband or your personal life to an extent. You should make it an ethical principle in your life. A professional wouldn’t even say your name and announce, “So-and-so came to speak to me today.” That’s unprofessional. You don’t do that. You don’t say it in passing or give out information about someone you’re dealing with, someone you’re working with. Your husband should have that same level of confidentiality, and he should know it, so people won’t come back and say, “Oh, I heard you’re about to close that deal,” or, “I heard you may not be going on that trip, on that vacation.”
If it's not something that your husband specifically told you, by the way, tell your parents we're not going in the summer, or whatever it is, then spread it without asking him first. Ask him, “Honey, is this something you want me to keep quiet? Is it okay if I tell my sister?” When you ask permission like that, it shows that you understand there’s a level of confidentiality. If he has no problem with you telling your family, then you can tell your family, but he learns that this is how you act and behave: you have confidentiality between you. That’s very high on your list of loyalty and trust.
I have to learn to listen to my husband the way I listen to a client. I’m going to call him a client, just because. When a client comes to talk to me, I designate that time and try very hard not to be interrupted. That’s the time I set aside to speak with this woman and talk to her.
Showing that you really want to give your attention is very important. It’s a show of respect. We know how much husbands need respect. We know how much they need to feel important. When we show them that we’re listening with full attention, it shows them respect. Listening with full attention means that when he has something important to tell me, when he wants to talk to me, if at all possible, I have to stop what I’m doing, sit down, and listen. I actually have to take the time to stop what I’m doing.
Baruch Hashem (Blessed is Hashem), I hope you’re all blessed with children. Even when they’re here making noise, I love them anyway, and I want you to bring them. You can keep them quiet, if you can. But in our lives as mothers with children, because, please Hashem, we want all the couples to have children and to be mothers, it’s very hard to give that full attention. As much as possible, though, you could say, “You know, honey, the kids aren’t letting me focus completely right now, and I want to hear what you’re saying. Can I get back to you? Can we meet in an hour, after I put them to bed? I really want to hear what you’re saying.” Make him feel that his time and his talking to you are important. Try very hard to stop what you’re doing and focus on what he’s saying.
Eye contact is very important. Not everyone knows how to make eye contact or feels comfortable with it. Eye contact can feel intimidating, and you may not know where to focus your eyes. Eye contact doesn’t have to mean staring into somebody’s eyes constantly, but there should be some eye contact that shows I’m focused on the person and listening to the person.
As I said about listening to a client, you have to be open-minded and not think she has the same life and needs as you. I also have to think, when my husband is talking to me, that he’s coming from a different world than I am. He has a different way of doing things and a different way of interpreting things. I have to be open to that, let him express himself and share, and not be judgmental. I should listen without judging.
On the paper about communication difficulties, I wrote: “Do you create an atmosphere in which your spouse can feel free to share feelings, thoughts, and complaints without the fear that you will condemn, attack, lecture, or simply withdraw? Do you convey an atmosphere that says, ‘Your thoughts and feelings about what I’m saying are important to me’?”
Then I wrote, “Fill in the blank.” Think about filling in the blanks. Try to figure out, honestly, in your own life, ways you might be making it difficult for him to express his feelings to you. Very often, a woman wants her husband to express his feelings but doesn’t realize that her attitude, facial expressions, or comments don’t create an atmosphere that makes him comfortable doing so. She may not consciously realize what she’s doing. She thinks she wants him to talk, but doesn’t realize that every time he opens his mouth, she snaps, corrects, condemns, or belittles him. That’s the worst thing we can do to our husbands. Condemning means saying he’s wrong, criticizing him, putting him down, telling him why he shouldn’t think that way or feel that way, or why he shouldn’t have reacted that way. If that’s how we treat our husbands, they’re not going to want to talk to us and open up to us.
Interrupting is another possibility I gave you, to keep our minds open about what we might be doing. Maybe I interrupt as soon as he gets started and don’t let him finish his thought.
There are two different types of interrupting, and women tend to interrupt more than men. There are different styles of communication. Between women, interrupting can be a kind of overenthusiastic involvement in each other’s conversation. When the conversation is going well, the connection is strong, and it’s a great conversation, everyone might jump in and interrupt each other’s sentences. Every time someone starts one story, someone else will top it with another story and say, “Oh, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, you have to hear what happened to me.” They bring in their own story and interrupt each other. Women are okay with that because they understand that it’s involvement.
I would love my class to interrupt me if they’re interrupting about the topic I’m discussing. If I bring up a topic at school and the girls get so excited about it that they interrupt, I won’t feel it’s rude. I won’t take it personally or think the decorum of the class is bad, as long as I feel it’s involvement. Then I feel I had a successful class. I’m happy if they can’t even wait until I finish my thought and have to jump in with their own thought on the same topic. That’s good.
A Rebbe (rabbi) might not take it so well. A man sees interruption as rudeness, as not allowing him to finish his thought, and as a lack of respect. An interruption in a boy’s class could be worse than one in a girl’s class. Your boys have to understand that the Rebbe isn’t going to like that.
Some women teachers are going to be very strict about this, too. I would be upset by an interruption that’s off topic, because that isn’t involvement. It means she’s not concentrating, listening, or thinking about what I’m talking about. Her head is somewhere else, and then she’s rude enough to interrupt. That’s rude. But involvement in the same conversation and the same topic is not going to feel that I'm going to be happy about. It's going to be involvement. Men don’t take interruptions well, and they won’t see them as involvement. They’ll see them as an intrusion and a lack of respect for their thoughts.
A woman has to be careful not to use the style of communication she can use with other women with her husband. She should be very careful not to interrupt her husband, and let him continue speaking until he’s finished his thought completely. That shows respect. We have to hold back, even if we feel involved. We have to hold it back.
We might stop our husbands from talking to us because we often correct them. We don’t realize it; we’re not conscious of it. I’m asking you to be more conscious of your responses to your husband so you can grow from it. I have to look at my own conversations with my husband and realize how much I tend to correct him. I’ve learned to try not to. I’m not so good at it; it still happens spontaneously when I don’t want it to. But I realize there are times I correct him, and in the long run he wasn’t even wrong. He wasn’t even wrong. It’s such a habit to think I’m right, to think my way is better, and to correct him.
I’m trying very hard to get into the habit of not correcting him, even if I think he’s wrong. It has to be almost a life-and-death situation for me to correct him. I would try very hard not to correct him. Let him have his thought. I can have a different opinion. I’m allowed to have an opinion that’s different; that’s not the same as correcting him. I have to give him that respect and try very hard not to correct him.
Don’t tell a person they’re not supposed to feel what they’re feeling. Feelings aren’t right or wrong. Feelings are your right as a person. Some feelings we wish we didn’t have and want to be able to get rid of, but your feelings are your feelings. You have a right to your feelings. What a woman always wants is validation of her feelings. She wants someone to tell her, “Wow, you really were embarrassed. I feel bad that you felt so hurt by that.” It doesn’t matter if she was right or wrong to feel it. She wants her feelings validated.
Sometimes a person is afraid to bring up a subject because the other person, the spouse, is going to be so hurt by it. “I can’t bring it up. I’m worried about his feelings, so I can’t say my feelings.” That’s a problem. It causes a lack of communication. I’m worried about hurting his feelings. The truth is, that could be the case. I’d rather not bring it up if it’s going to hurt his feelings. It’s better if I learn how to say it in a way that won’t hurt his feelings. Give it some thought. I know that I have things in my — there’s a balance here, and we’re walking a tightrope. We want to be able to say things to our husbands, and yet we want them to react in a way that leaves an atmosphere of communication open. So I have to be careful what I’m doing. If my husband is going to be hurt by it, I have to say it in a way that maybe I’ll be able to get more of my thoughts out without him feeling her feelings.
Arguing, sidetracking the discussion, and asking, “Why didn’t you realize this long ago?” when a husband tries to talk to us can also make communication difficult. This goes both ways, which is why I typed it out for you, so you could look at it from both perspectives: things you might be doing that close down communication between you and your husband, and things you’d like to discuss with your husband that might make it easier for you to communicate.
The next part I wrote says, “One of the ways that I keep us unhappy.” We want to be happy and create a happy atmosphere in our home, and yet we often sabotage that happiness. If we can figure out the ways we keep unhappiness in our home and work against them, it will help us be happy. I gave a few possibilities, but it’s something you have to look at in your own life. How do I keep us unhappy? If you want to ask your husband about that, do it at a good time—not at a time when you feel there is closeness or open communication, but when there’s a possibility of communicating. You could ask him, “Honey, I know sometimes I make the atmosphere in the home a little tense, maybe nervous, and maybe I make things not as happy as I want them to be. What do you think would make life easier? What do you think would make a happier atmosphere in the home?” Be open to correction. We’ll sometimes be surprised by what a husband would say.
Sometimes a woman thinks her husband wants a perfectly kept home and everything completely neat. Really, he would rather things weren’t so neat, but that she was more relaxed. Sometimes a woman thinks he wants a gourmet meal, when he would rather she didn’t fuss so much, had more time for him, and wasn’t so tired at night when the kids go to sleep and everything is finally cleared up and put away. Maybe she thinks he’d like the table set with their finest china in the middle of the week, but he’d rather have plastic plates so she isn’t in the kitchen cleaning all night when he’d like to spend some time with her. Their definitions of what would make the house happier might be different, and they might need to explain that to each other.
One of the ways I keep us unhappy could be by comparing and wanting what others have. It’s such a source of unhappiness in this generation. We’re always feeling that our life somehow isn’t as good as everyone else’s seems to be. When girls come to me talking about Shalom Bayit, they always think everybody else’s husband is so wonderful. If that were true, I wouldn’t have so many people coming to me for Shalom Bayit, because everybody else’s husband would be so wonderful. They think, “Why can’t he be like my brother-in-law, who does so much for his wife? Why can’t he be like my friend’s wife, who takes her everywhere?” They’re comparing, and the comparing is making them miserable. It’s such a false reality, such a fantasy, because everyone has their own problems and their own things in their life. You don’t really want to change places with people. You only think you do.
Comparing and wanting what other people have is probably the main source of unhappiness in most people’s lives. If we learn not to do that, to be happy with what we have, to look at the positive in our own lives and in our own relationships, and not focus on the negative all the time, that could make us happier. And it our husbands if they could never keep up, and if no matter how much they try, it’s never going to satisfy you or be as good as everyone else has. He tells you that you could get the day worker, but you don’t have the maid. He tells me you could get the maid, but you don't have her on the weekends, and your friends have her on the weekends. Whatever it is, you say you’ll go away, but you don’t have to bring your own meals. Whatever the comparison to the lifestyles around us, it destroys our relationship, our happiness, and our home.
Eizehu ashir? Hasameach bechelko. The one who is rich is happy with what he has. It doesn’t mean the one who is happy; it means the one who is rich. Because you’re rich only if you’re happy with what you have. A billionaire who feels he doesn’t have enough isn’t rich. But a poor person who has everything they need is rich, because rich means, “I don’t need anything.” We have to put ourselves in a position where we can look at our lives and say, “Baruch Hashem, there’s nothing I need.” Baruch Hashem, if we have our health and we’re getting by, getting from day to day, then we have everything we need. We’re not looking around and comparing ourselves to others.
When a husband has a wife who’s happy with what she has, nine tenths of the battle is taken care of. If he has a wife who’s always going to tell him, “Honey, this is fine. I don’t need anything else. We’re doing well. Hashem is with us, the kids are okay, Baruch Hashem, this is what we need,” then he doesn’t have the feeling that he’ll never keep up, make her happy, or be able to please her. That’s a happy home. That’s already so much of the battle.
Not comparing and wanting what others have. Complaining creates an atmosphere of unhappiness in our home. Some women complain, and I think we tend to complain to our husbands more than to anybody else. In one of our earlier classes, I discussed the possibility that we’re afraid to sound content and happy because then we won’t get anything else. We won’t get sympathy if we show that we have what we want. So we really have to believe it. We have to believe, “I’m happy with what I have. I’m not complaining, and my life is good.” To feel it and believe it is to show your husband that you’re not complaining.
When I feel a complaint coming into my head, I have to be able to talk it out by myself and try to get it out on my own. Try to work out the complaint on your own. There’s a difference between complaining and problem-solving. Complaining is nagging for a solution. It’s knowing there’s a problem and nagging about it, but not going to the next step of looking for a solution. A solution should mean that I change the situation in a positive way. If I have a problem—and we all have problems in our lives—we have to be more solution-oriented.
A complainer complains but doesn’t go to the next step of solving the problem. We want to be proactive, confident, and doers. We want to be solvers who can solve things in our lives. Even fixing things around the house can be a big frustration in a woman’s life. There are things she’d like her husband to fix, but he isn’t into that, isn’t good at it, or doesn’t want to do it. Maybe he is good at it, but he doesn’t want to do it; it’s not what he wants to do. It’s not getting done. There’s a list of things in her house that need fixing, and the problem is that they’re not getting done. So a complainer is going to nag and complain: “You never fixed that leak for me. You never fixed that doorknob for me. I always tell you to fix the lights, and you didn’t fix them.”
Even if I’ve reached the point where I don’t want to be a complainer, I might not say anything, but every time I go down to the basement and the lights are still broken, I can’t see what I’m doing, and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t arrange the toys because I’m in the dark, and it’s making me nervous. Every time I go down there, I’m thinking, “Why didn’t he call the electrician? I told him I wanted an electrician for the basement. I told him.” That is complaining even if I don’t tell him. This is the level I want to be on. I’m giving myself mussar (self-rebuke), and I’m just letting you listen to it.
Why didn’t I call the electrician? Why didn’t I get somebody to fix that light? The lights have been annoying me for a year, but in my mind I’m thinking, “I told him I wanted the electrician, and he didn’t do it.” Oh, why didn’t I do it? I could do it, too. It’s a phone call. Okay, it’s 12 phone calls because they don’t call you back, and it’s very annoying to get a worker to come into your house and do it. But I don’t want to be a complainer, even inside. “No, well, he’ll—he doesn’t think it’s important.” It’s important to me. He doesn't basement and do the things that I'm doing, that it's going to annoy him, and I don’t know if working in the dark annoys him as much as it annoys me. It annoys me more. And yet he would say, “Oh, that’s right, I was supposed to call the electrician,” and he means it. He didn’t do it. “Oh, if he’ll ever do it.” I didn’t take steps to do it. That’s wrong on my part.
Someone asked, “One key thing: when he comes home, why isn’t he ready? One question: why isn’t he ready? Does he get those things at the job? Call you to ask questions?” The response was, “I don’t mean to say his job, but it could be helpful.” Someone added, “I don’t call because I’m busy with the kids. I’m busy preparing. I’m busy.” There was agreement that she couldn’t think of calling him because she was busy. I agree with you. Is it fair? That's one way to look at it. I don't mean to praise women, but I think we've been doing it. I really think we could work because we've been doing it.
I think we’re doing a lot in our heads, and we should think about it a lot more. But some things are being misrepresented. In my own life—and this is my choice; you’re going to make your own choices—if I see something not getting done and it’s annoying me, I can have it done by somebody. I can make the phone call, call the electrician, get it done, and enjoy that. I’m going to be happier. The problem is solved; I can go into the basement and the lights work, and I’m going to be happy. It’s a choice I’m going to make. Am I okay with giving in on that? It was his responsibility to call the electrician, but I made the call in order to be happier in my house and in my atmosphere.
Certain things I’m going to say yes to doing, and certain things I don’t want to do. But I’m going to make that choice. My choice is going to be that I don’t want to complain and I don’t want things left unsolved. I want to be the type of person who solves problems. I don’t want to be— I feel a little bit that, you know, I was the fourth daughter down. I don’t think I was spoiled, but my sisters did a lot for me. As I grew up, and I’m still growing, there’s more I want to do for myself.
I got married at a very young age, and my husband was seven years older than me—an old man, I thought, at the time. He also had the role of taking care of me and doing the things I didn’t feel confident enough to do, and I relied on that a lot. As I grow up, I think it’s an ever-evolving situation. I don’t think it ever stops. You don’t stop growing up; you don’t reach a certain age and then you’re grown up. You continue growing up. As I continue growing up, I want to do things by myself. I don’t like the feeling of waiting for something to be done. It’s a feeling of not being so capable and of relying on someone. I want to be stronger than that. I want to feel strong. I’d rather give that up—maybe it’s my position not to do it, or maybe it’s his—and feel competent and strong, feel that I’m accomplishing things, taking care of matters, and doing what has to be done.
I think my husband likes to fix things. He might take it a little offensively if I took it into my own hands and did it. It makes him feel better and stronger, like the man who goes around the house doing all these projects. I know that if I’m nagging him to do it, it’s creating a conflict of complaining.
Fixing it myself is like, “Oh, you couldn’t even see.” So what I would do in a situation where he wants to do it himself, likes doing it, and is going to be insulted that I took it away from him, is this: it’s not getting done. But it’s not getting done, and I don’t want to be a complainer. So I’ll make myself a to-do list and put it on the fridge or somewhere he’ll see it. It’ll say, “Need done.” At this point, if it’s not done, I need to hire somebody. I’ll try to get it done by this time, but I’m having company next week, and the lights must be changed by then. There are certain things I can post without saying them aloud.
I find that even with children, when you don’t want to nag them and have a list of things to do, a list can help. I’ve said before that my daughters and I used to get ready for Shabbat this way. We wrote down every little thing that had to be done, and I told my girls, “This is the list. This is what needs to be done. Whenever you have a minute, do something and check it off.” I’m not giving orders or telling them what to do. My girls would look at the list. It’s not like doing something at the moment. I tell them to empty the dishwasher, and they don’t want to. But setting the table is on the list. “I don’t mind that. I’ll set the table.” Or filling up the water urn—whatever little things they’re in the mood to do. They check them off, and at least something is getting checked off. We would each refer to the list and check off what had to be checked off. It’s a way of getting things done without nagging.
If you need something done by a certain time because you’re having company or something is happening, there’s a deadline, or you have a certain limit to how long you want to wait, say, “I’ll give it until this amount of time, but at that point I’m going to call and try to get it fixed.” Have it in a way that he’s not complaining and you’re not taking it away from him, if he’s okay with it. I usually like to ask him, “Do you mind if I call the electrician?” because I don’t want him to tell me, “I could have fixed that myself. Why did you spend $150 to change the ballast? I know how to change a ballast.” But the bottom line is, either he changes the ballast or I get someone to change it.
The truth is that I wouldn’t mind learning how to do it myself, but I haven’t gotten to that yet. I’m learning a lot of other things in my life right now, and I can’t do everything. So I’ll call the electrician. But I respect women who know how to do it. I respect women who know how to do it. It’s not even that I would want to do this, but I still remember one of my best friends who would change her own tire. That’s not me. That’s definitely not me, and it’s not something I ever aspired to. But she was very good about it. She’s the type of person who doesn’t ask someone to do something for her if she feels she could do it herself.
Someone said, “Sometimes you complain about that, and no one has a clear-cut answer, like, you know, ‘That’s me,’ or—” Then came the response, “Well, ventilation.” So, complaining when there’s no solution. That’s a good point: What is the purpose of my complaint? What’s the purpose of my complaining? Am I complaining because I need a solution, or because I resent the fact that I have to go through this and you don’t?
When we complain to our husbands because we feel we need to let it out, my husband might be able to help me solve the problem. I could say it in a way he can handle, and then that’s good; it’s something I should do. If there’s no solution and I just want to vent, and my husband isn’t good at listening to complaints, then I have to vent to somebody else. It’s not a good idea to vent to him.
Yes, the children are his responsibility, and he could take responsibility for taking care of them or finding the solution. But then again, that means you’re talking about complaining because you’re looking for a solution, not because you’re miserable and he should be miserable too. If you’re miserable, should he be miserable too? If they upset you, why does he get to be happy if you’re not happy? What answer do you want?
Someone asked, “Can’t you pre-warn him? If you know you had that long day, you could say, ‘I’m going to tell you that I had a long day with the kids. I just want to pre-warn you.’”
Yes. I find the pre-warning very important. I find it important to warn my husband. It may not work; take it as a warning. It doesn’t always work, but it does work. You can say, “You know, I’m so glad you came home. I really needed to tell you how much of a hard time I had with the kids. I know that when I talk to you about it, I would feel better, so I was really waiting for you to come home.” Now he knows. I want to come home. I have to try to prime him so he won’t get upset. “She’s buttering him up.” Butter and butter and all the butter you can do. The more butter, the better.
But anyway, I want you to understand the reason or the result you’re looking for from the complaint, and then say it in a way that will get you that result. I’m not complaining to my husband about the children because I want us to be unhappy. I’m not complaining because I want him to be angry at the kids. Does that ever happen to you? You complain, and then he goes and screams. “My goodness, I did not want—I did not mean that. I did not want him to do that. What did I do?” Now he’s not only mad, but he punishes them. You didn’t want them punished. “Why did you tell me?” If you thought you wanted him to do something, now he’s done something, and what he did was worse than if you hadn’t told him.
You have to be clear about what you want the result to be. If you want him to help you find the solution, you have to be careful; you may not like his solution. If you want him to care about how you felt during the day, you also have to be careful how you say it, so you don’t make things worse and make him angry at you, too. You could ask him, when you’re not complaining, when the kids are great and everything is fine, if he understands the situation. You could have a conversation with your husband and say that there’s a certain role he fills in your life when he listens to you complain and doesn’t get upset. “There’s a certain role you fill for me that I need when you listen to me nicely, when you just listen and let me go on.” If he can understand that, and you’re not going to bring him down with it, then it’s worth it. But you have to know, “What am I doing?”
There are times I think we complain to our husbands because we feel that if we had to go through something hard, it isn’t fair that they don’t have to go through something hard too. They’re their children, and why do I have to take all the abuse? He comes home and smiles. Do you ever feel resentment because he’s happy with the kids, because they treat him nicely after they were mean to you all day?
About the relationship between your husband and the kids, you’re resisting it. “Why am I the bad one? Why am I the one who had to tell them to stop playing and do their homework? Why am I the one?” We could be complaining because we really want to make our husbands miserable, and we do. We make them miserable. They end up upset. They were happy a minute ago, and now they’re screaming at the kids instead and they’re miserable.
But that’s really not making us happy. It’s not helping us or the situation. What do I want to happen? If I need sympathy, I should say it in a way that works for my husband, if he’s okay with giving me sympathy. I could say, “Honey, I could really use a shoulder to cry on. Honey, I really could use sympathy right now.” Tell him that’s the warning: “This is what I want from this comment. I don’t want you to go reprimand the kids. I love them. Baruch Hashem, they’re in bed now. It’s over. But I could use sympathy.” If he can hear that, and you can say it that way, and you see that your husband is good with it and you learn to be okay with that, that’s growth in the relationship.
What did I want? Do I want a solution? Then I’m going to say, “Honey, I need to talk to you. I need to find a solution. This keeps happening every night with the kids, and I want your input on how to deal with it.” Write down possibilities. Should we talk to the rabbi? Should we not talk to the rabbi? Should we make a chart of different types of incentives we could add on? But do it in a problem-solving way. Don’t be a complainer just to complain. Analyze for yourself what your purpose in complaining is, and then work it out to the best possible result.
We want to be thinking women. We don’t want to be emotional and just act without thinking. We want to think, problem-solve, and be solution-oriented. I know for myself that the more I learn new things I didn’t know how to do before, the stronger and happier I feel about myself. I feel more comfortable and confident in myself, and that’s a good place to feel.
I’m frustrated about not calling the electrician, which I still haven’t done. Don’t ask me next week if I did it; it’s not going to happen. But at least when I go down to the basement, the lights are still not on and it bothers me, and I’m thinking, “He still didn’t call.” I tell myself, “Neither did you.” I go, “You’re right. You’re right. I didn’t call either.” Why didn’t I call? Because I’m busy, doing a million other things, and I don’t like making phone calls. I don’t like making those repairman phone calls; I hate it. I don’t need a lot of luxuries in my life, but my fantasy is the luxury of somebody coming in and fixing all the things in your house that need fixing. Just fix those little things that need to be fixed.
I want to be the type of person who takes responsibility instead of complaining. Complaining isn’t what I want to do. It’s not who I want to be, and it’s not going to make me feel good about myself or bring happiness to my home. That’s something I don’t want to do.
I might be making the house unhappy by having a negative attitude toward life. A negative attitude toward life is going to make for unhappiness. It means looking at the pessimistic view of everything, always thinking, as they say, that the glass is half empty instead of half full. Complaining about the weather gets me sometimes, because some people can complain about any weather, while others can take it well and not complain. Of all the problems in life, the weather is the least of my problems, except for ice. Ice scares me. When there’s ice on the floor and driving is dangerous, and you can slip, then I start complaining. When there’s ice on the floor, you’ll know I’ll complain. But rain, and it being a little colder or a little hotter—whatever. Hashem, certain people can complain about everything. They can look at the negative in everything. I think it’s a gorgeous day, and they say it’s too cold. It’s not too cold; it’s beautiful, so refreshing. There’s a negative way to look at the world and a positive way to look at the world. We have to choose to be positive.
If you choose to have a positive attitude in life, you’re going to be happier and the people around you are going to be happier. Our attitude is very contagious, and we inflict it on our husbands and children. We don’t want to do that. We want to choose a positive attitude, and we have to strive for it and look for it. We have to look for how to make ourselves happy, which goes hand in hand with moodiness and pulling other people down around you. Catch it. Don’t accept it. Put on happy music, go for a walk, take a shower, eat an ice cream—do what you have to do, but don’t accept it. Of course, we all go through moods, but try to work with them. Don’t wallow in a bad mood or enjoy it. Don’t get into the bad mood and think you have it coming. Really try to work against it, bring yourself up, and change it. Try to work with it and keep that in mind.
Today in my class on Parashat Beshalach in the seminary, I told the girls that when the Mitzrayim (Egypt) were chasing Bnei Yisrael (Children of Israel), they were at the point of Yam Suf, the Red Sea, where it hadn’t split yet, and they didn’t know it was going to split.
The Egyptians turned around, and the whole Egyptian nation was chasing after them. There were wild animals on the side, and they had nowhere to run in any direction. They looked up and saw this. It says in the Torah that they prayed, and the next Pasuk (verse) also says that they told Moshe Rabbeinu, “What is this? You didn’t have enough graves in Egypt, so you brought us out into the desert to die? Couldn’t you have just left us alone to be slaves in Egypt? You had to bring us into the desert to die?”
The rabbis asked, “What was going on there? Were they praying? Complaining? What were they doing? It sounds like a contradiction.” Then the Baal Shem said it wasn’t a contradiction. Some people reacted to the fear with tefillah and prayer, and some people reacted to the fear with complaining. They were different groups. I was telling the seminary, and I was telling myself, because it’s the same thing. It just reminded me of this: situations are going to happen in our lives, but we have choices about how we react. The choice to react isn’t, “Well, I couldn’t help it. The Mitzrayim were coming, so of course I was going to complain.” And it isn’t that some people are going to react with prayer and some people are going to react with complaining. There’s a choice to be made, and we have to feel that and know that.
If we think our reaction is spontaneous, that we couldn’t help it, that because of the outside factors in our lives this is how we must react, then we think we’re stuck and have no choice. We allow ourselves to take the negative way out, and we’re not growing or choosing in our lives. But when we understand that life is going to happen and we don’t have control over it, but we do have control over our reaction, then I can be big about it or small about it. What I decide to do is up to me. How do I want to react? I had a hard time with the children. My husband didn’t fix what he said he was going to fix. Things didn’t happen in my life the way I wanted. How do I want to react? The choice is ours. It’s not something that just happens to us; we make that reaction happen. So we have to choose to be on a higher level, think things through, and react in a productive way that will bring happiness and blessing to our home. Be'ezrat Hashem (with Hashem's help).