Welcome back, everyone, to the iTorah Marriage Series with Rabbi Ali Cohen. I'm a marriage counselor. If you need to reach me with a marriage-related question, you can email me at RabbiAliCohen@gmail.com or call 917-837-0102. The reason I leave my email and my number is that these topics are not just regular topics. They're sensitive, and many times they need clarification.
Today's topic is venting properly, or maximizing your venting. Everyone knows what venting is. Everyone understands the need, the necessity, to vent. I'm talking exclusively about marriage. This is a marriage class. Everyone understands that venting has its place. It's healthy. It's important.
Let's put things in the right perspective and understand, from a Torah viewpoint, what successful venting is and what unsuccessful venting is. That's what I like to call productive venting and unproductive venting. Before I get to that, it's really important—and I don't want to go off on a tangent—to understand that there is something called Lashon Hara (evil speech). Just because we have therapy, a therapist, and a professional we're going to tell our problems to doesn't mean we're immune or absolved of the halachot (Jewish laws) of Lashon Hara. I mean, it's one of the most severe aveirot (transgressions), so we don't want to mess around with it. We surely don't want to trip up without even knowing. So it's important to learn the halachot, or talk to whoever you're talking to. Make sure they're a person of the Torah. Make sure you yourself have a basic understanding of how much you can say, whether you can say a person's name, and when you're getting into dangerous territory.
People feel this way, and I understand that. I'm not saying people are messed up or that there's anything wrong with them. This is a natural thing. People feel that, since venting is important and there is productive venting, and since we need to get somewhere, they have to let someone know. But it doesn't mean Lashon Hara is totally gone. That's just an important thing for people to keep in mind.
Like I mentioned, there's productive venting and unproductive venting. Let's start with the unproductive venting. I've seen this, and it's very unproductive: when people vent to multiple people about a specific situation or person. Let's say someone is upset with their spouse or anyone else, and just goes on this binge. It's like a vent binge: “You wouldn't believe what happened today. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” They tell every single person they come in contact with, or they have a network of two, three, four people, and it's just, “Here we go. Let's let it all out,” and they keep going.
Besides the fact that it's unproductive, the people listening to you, for the most part, realize, “Here we go again.” Anyone with sechel (common sense) realizes, “Okay, here's the venting guy, here's the venting girl, who just want to let loose every single time something happens.” You have to understand that that's unproductive. The purpose of venting is not to convince people that your spouse, or whoever it is, is wrong. That's not what venting is. Again, that's bordering on Lashon Hara. “I want to convince you that they're wrong.” Is that productive? What do you gain when you convince someone that your spouse did something wrong to you and you're right? Did you gain something? Did you gain something for the relationship? No. So that's clearly treading on Lashon Hara waters. Possibly that's full-blown Lashon Hara. I don't want this to be a Lashon Hara class. I'm just bringing that out: that's clearly wrong and unproductive. It's clearly wrong from a halachic (according to Jewish law) standpoint and clearly wrong because it's unproductive.
The next thing I see is people turning this into just a vent, which means, “Just let it go. There's no advice, and I don't care what anyone else says. They're wrong, and they're wrong, and you have to realize they're wrong, and they're crazy, and that's it.” That's similar to the first point, but it's really three different things: venting to multiple people; venting with the intent of just convincing them that your spouse is a problem; and venting with no plan going forward.
If you do this, you're not a bad person. You're not a bad person. Many, many, many people do this. I do this for a living. So many people do this. You're not a bad person. This is instinctive. You feel horrible. You feel like you've been hurt, which I understand. You're not making things up. You're not a crazy person. People ask me all the time, “Am I crazy?” You're not crazy. Some people are crazy. But for the most part, people are not crazy. It just means that you need clarification. What a big zechut (merit) we have here to have these platforms. You need clarification on what is productive and what is not.
That should be stopped. If that's your MO, that's what you do, you should take a step back and say, “Okay, wait a minute. All right, I'm doing this. I'm doing this. It's no good. I'm venting to so many people. I'm bordering on Lashon Hara. I'm not being productive. What am I doing?” You're just feeling good. It's a momentary good feeling, and then it goes away because you're calling other people and keep doing this without fixing the problem. It gives you some type of instant release, whatever that might be. I'm not a doctor or a scientist or biologist, but you have some type of instant relief from that. It's just not productive.
So what is the best way to maximize your venting? What is the proper way—and for sure, a Torah way—to maximize your venting? Venting is letting things off your mind. “I have a lot weighing on my mind. I'm hurt. I have to tell you what happened. I feel like I was really hurt. It's hurting me so much.” It's letting out something that's building up in your mind so it doesn't continue to build up. That shouldn't involve more than one person, and the same situation shouldn't come up a million times. It's hurting you; you let it out. Speak to whoever you're talking to, preferably only a professional—not your buddies, your sisters, and your brothers—and let it out. They hear you out, and then somebody says, “Yeah, that's a horrible situation. I feel terrible for you.” That alone should help you calm down. But that's about it.
Now, this is really the crux of the class: venting without something to do in the future—that is, without a way to prevent the situation from happening again—is a wasted opportunity. The venting should not end with, “You're such a hazit. I feel so bad. What a hazit,” and then move on. What did you gain from that? It should come with this idea, this notion—what's the word I'm looking for?—the knowledge that when I'm coming to speak to somebody, and I really had a hard time, and this is someone I speak to about my marriage or whatever it is, I'm getting advice from them. I need advice on how to make sure this doesn't happen again. It should be followed up with a question.
“You wouldn't believe what my wife said. She said X, Y, and Z, and then she said this, and then she did that, and then she told people this.” My wife did all this, and I really feel terrible. So you let it out; you vented. “What do I do when this happens again to prevent it? What do I do? How do I deal with this? How do I manage now that she's upset? What do I do?” That is a productive Torah approach to dealing with a problem.
If your problem doesn't come with “What do I do? How do I deal with it? How do I manage? How do I prevent it?” it means you're missing the boat. You're not looking to prevent it. You're just looking to blow off steam and, like I said before, convince people—or whoever it is—how bad your spouse is. I don't want to say nobody cares. People generally—professionals—don't care that your spouse is bad. They're not bad. Anyone who knows marriage knows it's not about wrong and right. It's not about good or bad. It's about understanding each other.
I'll give you a little inside scoop: the people I work with and get advice from and I don't sit down here saying, “How bad is your spouse?” “Oh, wow, they're that bad? Wow, I didn't know that. That's horrible. I'm glad I know. Now I know how bad they are.” No, we sit down and listen and wait for the question mark. That's what we do. I hear it's terrible. I feel bad. I do. I genuinely feel bad. Where's the question mark? If there's no question mark, so what do we do? What are we doing here?
I think my message is pretty clear. Maximizing your venting should come with a vent, of course, and something positive: “How do I continue, and what do I do next time?” Let's steer away from the unproductive venting that many people fall into the trap of, especially the never-ending validation, which is another class, where people speak to professionals and just get validation their whole life.
If you're feeling non-valid your whole life, I mean, that's a problem. You need to fix that. Of course, you speak to someone and get validated. I'm not saying don't get validated, but if you feel non-valid all the time and you need to be validated, think about validation. People took it the wrong way, as this—I don't know the right words for it—like, “I need to be validated. I need to be heard.” No, no, no. The word validation means you feel invalid. It means unacceptable. “I feel non-accepted. I feel not valid.” That means you don't feel like you're okay. If you're constantly, week after week, feeling not okay, it means the same thing I'm mentioning with the venting. How do I feel valid about myself? Why am I not feeling valid? Has anyone ever asked that question? “I need validation all day. I want you to validate me.” People have all these complaints against their spouse that they're not validating them. Well, maybe you should ask a different question: “Why don't I feel valid? Why don't I feel valid that I need people to validate me all the time?” That would get to the core of the problem, and then you can stop needing to be validated all the time, and you won't have so many complaints against somebody that they're not validating you.
So, really, this is a little bit sharp, but I'm not undermining the need for validation, the need for venting, people being hurt, or people needing to be heard. I'm not. I'm just saying everything has to be done right with the Torah, professionally, and with the right frame of mind. Think about this. Pray to Hashem. Like I always say, you should have a wonderful relationship.