Welcome back, everyone, to the marriage series with Rabbi Ali Cohen. I'm a marriage counselor in New Jersey: 917-837-0102. If you'd like to call, ask a question, or schedule a session, you can send an email: alcohen@layoftodah.org.
Today I want to talk about making your marriage—let's call it—I don't like to use this; it's become very, like, whatever—but making your marriage great, or as great as it can be. Everyone's with the Trump slogan: We want to make coffee great again, and cars great again, and tea great again, and everything great again. That's not really where I'm coming from. I'm trying to find the best word to use. I don't want to say good; that sounds pareve (neutral). So, making your marriage as great or as good as possible, let's call it that.
I want to start with an understanding of a lot of marriages and what people are going through, and give a little insight into the concept of marriage in general. Many people I talk to—not on a professional level, but people I see in the streets—say, “Oh, you do marriage counseling. I heard about you. I could use help.” I was speaking to a few people this week, just in general, about business and things, and they said, “Oh, you do counseling? Yeah, I could use that.” Most of the time, those are the people who don't need it, but they're saying it for a reason. People won't tell a stranger or a random person, “I could use that,” if they don't feel like they could use it. That means a lot of people feel like they could use help. Does that mean their marriage is struggling? No, no. I'm not talking about struggling couples. I have a book, Where You End and I Begin, and a podcast, Fix Your Jewish Marriage, that talk about struggling couples.
This is really for the basic couple: “It's good, it's okay, we don't fight, we don't argue. Yeah, once in a while I get yelled at; I deal with it. I go to work, I'm with the kids, and we move on, we do our thing.” I want to shed light on this. That's not really—I don't want to say it's not okay, but it's not the way Hashem intended it to be. There's a well-known statement from the rabbis that says, “Shalom beineihem”—if there's peace between husband and wife—“Shekhinah (Divine Presence) beineihem”: the Shekhinah, Hashem's Shekhinah, beineihem, divides between them. Whatever exactly that means, it's not for this discussion right now. It means that Hashem is definitely bringing Himself close, closer to these people and into this home. I mean, this home has the Shekhinah. If people are learning together, it says that the Shekhinah is there. In a shul (synagogue), if there are ten people, the Shekhinah is there, whatever these concepts mean. When there's peace in the home, the Shekhinah is there. Obviously, obviously, that goes without saying: if there's no peace in the home, then the Shekhinah is not there.
Now, I want to bring out this point: many people think, “Okay, that's nice. If we get along, or when we get along, the Shekhinah is there. If not, okay, I'm good. I'm good, I think.” So that's a mistake. That's a mistake. What it means is that the way to build a family or a home—a home can mean a relationship between a husband and wife, with kids, whatever it is—is with Hashem's Shekhinah. The way to build a home, maximize it, and do it the way Hashem intended is with Hashem's Shekhinah. That's how you will get the desired results, whatever they might be. Whatever exactly you have in mind in terms of spirituality—how you want your kids to be, how you want yourself to be growing, everyone on their own level—that will be achieved only with Shekhinah. Without Shekhinah, that's not the way Hashem intended the marriage to be or the growth of everyone in the home.
So it's very important. Why am I stressing this? Because people think, “I'm good, it's okay, whatever, it is what it is.” I'll share a few lines. Someone said, “I asked a newlywed person, ‘How's your marriage?’ He's like, ‘Yeah, it's a mitzvah (commandment), whatever, it is what it is. You know, you got to do it.’” Another person said something along those lines. I don't want to repeat what this person said, but it was along those lines: “You know, it is what it is. That's man, that's woman.” I mean, these are not good attitudes. Wherever it comes from, these are bad attitudes. People tell me things their family members told them about marriage. These are bad attitudes. That's not the correct attitude toward marriage.
Marriage should be—and the way it's intended to be—is peaceful. Peace means there's no fighting, or minimal fighting, or that fighting is a rarity. Peace doesn't just mean a cold war. Let's say you have two countries having a cold war. All right? They're not fighting and yelling. That's not peace. And, you know, if you're not talking to each other, that's not considered shalom. Let's say you have two people who are upset at each other and decide never to talk to each other again. I mean, is that peace? No. Just because there's no fighting doesn't mean there's peace in the home. On the contrary, that's not a peaceful relationship. There are other ways to define the word shalom, shalim, whatever. I don't want to get into that now. But the point I'm getting at is this: to determine whether your relationship needs a boost or needs something, if you're feeling, “It's good, it's okay, whatever,” that's not the way it's supposed to be. You could live like that. You could do as you please. But that's not the way it's supposed to be.
Besides that, you don't really feel good about the relationship. If that's what's happening, “It is what it is” doesn't mean you're happy with the relationship. Those relationships with other people—friends and family, let's say—where it's “It is what it is, it's okay,” are not relationships you're happy with. You should definitely identify if you've fallen into this: “It is what it is, and that's it, and it's okay, and whatever.” If that's what's happening and you'd like to enhance your relationship, to make it better, you should know there are a lot of things you can do. We should not be settling for “It is what it is,” or “It's okay,” or “That's how it is.” No, that's not how it's supposed to be, and that's not really a good thing.
Practically speaking, now that we've mentioned that, the relationship should be good. It should be a feel-good relationship. You should feel good about each other, support each other, respect each other, and be happy to see each other. Does that mean thrilled, all excited? Okay, whatever. That's a different point, but you should be excited, or happy, or whatever it might be. Interested, let's say. Oh, that's a better word. You should be interested in seeing and speaking to each other, letting each other know about your day, and helping each other. The wife is a helpmate. If she doesn't feel like she's helping, or the husband doesn't feel like she's helping, I mean, there's a lack in a basic premise of what the wife is for, and so on.
So, let's take step number one: identify what's happening, what went wrong. Now, of course, you can reach out, or should reach out. It's really not complicated. It's sad to see that people struggle or are just not happy, when there's so much advice out there. I don't know if it's ego getting in the way, or whatever it might be, or being shy. Ein habayshan lomed, the person that's shy doesn't end up learning. But if you can't make a call, identify what's going wrong. Everybody knows what's happening in that relationship. You hear it from your spouse. They tell you all the time: “You're not here. You're not doing this. Why'd you do that?” Maybe some people feel like they're suffering in silence. Their spouse is not involved, not helping them out, and they just accept it. Or they're not spending quality time, and they just accept it. Or they feel that when they talk, their spouse doesn't listen, and they just accept it. They get yelled at for not much, for not doing anything, and they just accept it. They want to voice their opinion on something, and they get shut down, so they accept it. These are not things to accept. It's just not something to accept. It's a really unpleasant life to live like that in your marriage, with your marriage being pareve and okay, and that's what it is.
Especially when there are so, so many ideas, and when you're dealing with a non-struggling couple, it's so easy, in my opinion, to make it great, to make it really great, when you have two healthy people who are willing to work on it. It's just so easy, and I think it's silly not to work on the marriage, not to reach out for help.
I'll give one simple example, then I'll finish. Let's say a wife feels—and I hear this all the time—her husband doesn't take her out, they don't go out anymore, or he doesn't spend quality time with her. And, you know, “It is what it is, that's it, he's busy, whatever.” I mean, it would be very, very, very silly to live like that when all she needs to do is tell him, “I really want to go out with you. I enjoy spending time with you.” Either he'll say okay and set something up, or she could be bold enough to say, “You know, how does once a week sound? I'm going to take care of it. Thursday nights, or Wednesday nights, we're going to go out.” And that's it: take the initiative and make the move.
I don't want to get caught up in this specific example, but many women do suffer from this because they get caught up with, “It's the man's job, and I want it to come from him, and I don't feel like he's interested.” I mean, that's silly, that's silly. I don't know whose job it is. I don't know where it says any of that. I mean, is it more manly—is it more of a man thing—to take a wife out? Yeah, it's more of a man thing, but if you're not getting that, so what? Don't get hung up on that and caught up on that. Take him out, or let him take you out. Set up the time and tell him, “Okay, you drive.” Whatever it is, it's so technical, it's semantic. It's not a major thing, not something to get caught up in and live your whole life with this philosophy of “It's his job,” and then just not enjoy your marriage. I mean, come on, really?
So, for that specific example, make it happen, make it work. There are so many things people call me with, and I'm like, “Just do this, just do that, do this thing, and call me back and let me know how it went.” Many times, people call back and say, “Wow, that was great, that was so easy,” because it is easy, it is easy. Yeah, marriage is work, but you got to be doing the right work. Many people are not really doing the right thing. They're trying to play defense, playing a strong defense, making sure it doesn't end up in a fight, an argument, and making sure to put out fires. That's not a way to build a marriage. You got to be proactive. Think about this. Pray to Hashem, if you want a great relationship, and pray to Hashem that you have insight. Think a little bit about where you're going wrong, think a little bit about what's happening on your end, or her end, or his end, and what you can do to change. Read a book; there are so many books out there. But take it seriously, take it seriously, if you want to have a good marriage. Many times, it doesn't just happen naturally.