Mrs. Lubab and I have had a rough year. Thirteen months ago we were a family of two, I had some serious nagging doubts about God, and we were overall happy. Today, we are a family of three, our baby is over a year old, I'm an atheist, and our relationship has changed.
We've done a lot more fighting in the last year. Having a baby certainly added to our stress levels but I sensed that there has been something deeper at work. I mentioned in a previous post that I was "concerned that the other shoe is waiting to drop" a few weeks ago exactly that happened.
Like I said, the Mrs. and I had been fighting more. More recently I sensed that my wife was upset with me in general and not just about the dishes I didn't do. On a Friday evening a few weeks ago I pressed the matter. I have been reluctant to talk about religion with her because I (correctly) sensed she didn't want to discuss it. I had thought we found a comfortable arrangement but I think we were really just avoiding this inevitable, uncomfortable discussion. I won't give a full accounting of our talk but I will say I communicated to her that I sensed she was upset at me about more than just her stated (valid) complaints. The religious issue came up. In that part of our discussion she dropped a bombshell:
"When you told me last year that you don't believe I feel like a part of our relationship died..."
I felt like I was punched in the gut. I was absolutely stunned. I don't remember what we said after that. It was pretty late. Shortly after that she went to bed.
To be continued...
36 comments:
Oy, I'm so sorry to hear it. :-(
Please get some marital counseling. You have written in the past about your relationship; I think there's still hope you two can work it out. A good therapist might help you two to reconnect.
This is truly heartbreaking. :(
Hoping it all works out...
Maybe you should take a break from blogging. Im sure everyone will agree blogging causes even the greatest believer to turn to a cynic
I wish your wife would read my blog. I just posted about intervention for atheists.
May G-d be with you in this time, and most especially your wife, and may she hear Him tell her that your life and hers while one as a marriage as still separate as individuals and deep parts of the soul must be handled by each of us on our own, and that we can only be there for each other when needed, and sometimes, that is the greatest service one can do for another. Simply be there when you need.
My wife still thinks she is converting away to Christianity, but is waffling. I am converting to Judaism. She goes to midnight mass with her friend at Christmas. I read books on Jewish spirituality and try to ease my diet over to being kosher. She's entirely cultural, I'm entirely spiritual. We still sleep in the same bed and still love each other and still get along.
Our religious feelings inside should not be a yardstick of our worth. Sometimes being conflicted is the greatest sign of piousness as it takes true humility to question oneself down to the core and ask that question, "am I a fool for believing this?"
LNM
That is really sad, been there, but you can make it thru with love patience, and compassion
I hate to say it, but you are doomed. I was in a similar situation 5 years ago. My wife started getting religious and I kept on hoping that my wife and I can strike a compromise on what religious customs to follow and which ones are not acceptable to me.
That did not work. Religion just demanded more and more of her and the family (particularly once the kids were involved).
No matter how great a guy you are, you simply can't compete with someone's belief in god. Period.
The best case scenario (if you stay together) is a slow but sure spiral down in your relationship.
Eventually you'll start hating each other and spiral downwards will become even faster.
Shortly after that, you'll most likely divorce.
On the other hand, I could be completely full of it.
As for me, we separated 2 weeks ago.
JS
I stepped in something less reprehensible than you this morning. You are truly a heartless, sadistic piece of crap. You could be a Neturai Karta.
LNM
First of all, you were wrong to tell her. If you were willing to live as Orthoprax, it is no one's business, not even your spouse, what you truly believe. You admit that you are not even certain about what you believe, so it is a non-issue. Second, it is ad that two people who have enough personality and loving qualities in common that can raise a family together can be torn asunder over something so spurious as differing versions of creation mythology.
Now if you were not willing to live Orthoprax, then she would have a real concern that she wants that support for the kids. Then, the stand up thing would be to agree to be orthoprax until the kids are of an age that they are secure enough to handle their father being frei. It is alot of commitment from you, but many families do far more sacrifice than that for their kids. Then again, I know more than one family where one partner goes into a room on Shabbos after the meal to "nap", or goes out "somewhere", and comes back in the evening.
Your wife also need to try and understand your position, but from her point of view, you are the one who changed, so you need to carry the ball most of the way. Nonetheless, very few 40 year olds are the same as when they were first married at 25. People grow, they change, and married couples adapt to each other and try to share life struggles with each other. Her best attitude would be to try and feel how you struggle with OJ and how it must be difficult with a marraige family riding on something that you have a hard time relating to any more. Rather than play the vicim, she needs to help you play the victim as it were, and that would put you both on the same side of the struggle. She might even admit that she struggles with some aspects as well. For your part, you need to feel her pain in this and come as far as possible in addressing her "red line" fears, those thing that keep her up worrying at night.
There you have my therapy in a bottle. I only hope it helps, because, despite what the comment above me says, many people do this successfully. You are not doomed. Leora above is exactly right.
No bitterness, only a challenge and two people dealing with it together, that is all there is to a marriage. The rest is gravy.
JS
I must apologize. Repulsive would have been a better word choice than reprehensible.
It does hurt to hear that from your wife! And it is sad. You are both caught in a web.
In a way she is right, of course. No amount of Orthopraxy will ever replace the shared identity of Orthodox Judaism. That part of your relationship will never be the same.
On the other hand, you're both still Jews. And you have a lot of other things in common. So the question is, how important was this religion thing to the marriage after all?
I know both of you guys and I think you can work this out. You have a lot in common without the whole OJ thing.
im so sorry to hear this. i agree with leora. you guys got married in the first place because of more than just religion. i think its something worth fighting for even despite your differences.
LNM,
Marriage counseling will most likely help.
JP's "advice" is not worthy of a dignified response.
Your situation is not the same as when one partner is choser b'tshuvah, because usually the BT goes off the deep end and becomes extreme and intolerant (like JP). I don't sense that either you or your wife are like that.
Seek professional counseling to help work out the hurt feelings and commitment to compromise. It really has a good chance of helping.
Do seek professional counselling. Good luck. I hope it all works out. Just because couples have religious differences doesn't have to mean the end but no doubt there are underlying issues that have to be cleared up and if they are there is hope.
No one likes me. Why! What have I done!
Anyway, let me ask a silly question. Why are there so many bloggers complaining that their wives will not follow their atheistic path. Any out there whose husbands are not following them to atheism? Why is that?
OK there is maybe "Six Month Malkie" but she's the one exception from how many men?
It's because men are much more commonly sex addicts.
Guys, seriously, get sober. Get your lives back. Do it for yourselves and your families.
...and JP wants to know why everyone hates him.....
sheesh
I'm just trying to help. I'm very good.
LNM - So sorry to hear about this. I hope it all works out for the best.
JP - I have yet to read a post where LNM complains about his wife still believing in G-d. Maybe that question would be better suited for another person's blog.
Lubab, I managed to live through it and so can you. Of course I have many more years of marriage invested then you do, but you can make it work. May I suggest a competent therapist. It can work put good for both of you.......Avi
"No one likes me. Why! What have I done!"
You've shown up on every skeptic blog you could find, flung insults, made ugly sexual implications, dismissed not only doubts, but doubters, and, in every way possible, have worked to discredit Torah and the Torah lifestyle. How's that for starters?
LNM, I'm not too surprized, but I'm sorry to hear that. I would tend to agree with Leora, and think you should seek therapy,( but make sure not with someone like Avrum68 who used to frquent XGH).
JS
You seem to have self esteem issues. Here's the 411.
You seem to find pleasure in kicking sand in someone's face when they are down, because you hate the person. You hate the person because he does view religion in the same way that you do. The atheists find that immoral by their relativist standards, but I am sure that absolute Orthodox Judaism teaches you that G-d (never with the "o" chas v'shalom) considers this the greatest of character traits.
Now go back to torturing small animals and let the grown ups talk privately.
Let's say someone is messing his life up with alcoholism. Is it wrong to put your arm around him and say "Listen, get sober."
I'm not trying to insult anyone. I'm not trying to spoil anyone's fun.
I've been hanging around the Jewish blogosphere for two and a half years now. Plus I've done a lot of reading ["Unchosen" by Hella Winston is of course the Bible.]
What I see is a bunch of Orthodox guys (and it's almost only guys) who apparently are addicted to sexual behavior which the Torah prohibits and who are supporting each other in finding rationalizations for this. ("They can't find any of the remains of the Israelite campfires at Gilgal! Hurray, the Torah is a hoax!" although by the way the location of Gilgal is unknown.)
Wake up guys. Turn off the computers and open up the gemoras.
JP, with respect to your obsession with sex: I think you're confusing Judaism with another religion.
JP,
Turn off the computers and open up the gemoras.
Physician, heal thyself!
The weird thought that just came to mind is that the more OTD you go, it might be her perception that the more your marriage swerves towards an intermarriage which most everyone in Orthodoxy these days has strong feelings on. Especially the farther right you go in Orthodoxy. I know some people who don't consider Conservatives to be real Jews never mind Reform.
That in my mind is a sad possibility, but for me, there was never such a thing as intermarriage. Raised Catholic/BAC, marriage simply is. There's no preoccupation with marrying within the religion. In fact, Christians look on it as a chance to gain a convert and in Christianity, a convert is merely someone who professes to be, and that's it. (I know, so much for serious theological underpinnings for who is and isn't Christian) And that's my point. I never saw my wife as a Jewish girl, I saw her as a girl, period. One I loved dearly and was willing to make that vow to stick by down to the last heartbeat and keep that vow.
It's cost me a lot of sleepless nights, but the adventure it has been has only reinforced my views that: 1) you can't save someone or help someone who won't accept it, merely be there for them and accept that fact, 2) the other person is a different person and you don't change them, you change yourself and hope they change themselves to meet in the middle, and 3) it's a collaboration of two people with individual free wills.
I think if more people kept that in mind, they'd actually think more before going through with proposing and marrying, they'd actually try harder and not divorce so easily, and they'd be much happier and more successful in their marriages. It's an effort on your behalf and I have no doubt that effort kind of frightens your wife never having had to make that before to such a degree.
I continue to pray that the desire to stick by you and stay together outweighs the fear. Remember, sticking by a religious wife is as much a set of perilous rapids as it is for her to stick by an OTD husband with at a crossroads of his faith. However, such adventures are a bonding experience worth more than anything else you can have in life.
As Alanis Morissette sang as if she was G-d in the end song from Dogma, "...and I love you still." I keep that in mind all the time. Nothing is perfect, especially not other people, but that should not stop us from loving them just as G-d does.
Suitepotato,
Your comment brings into sharp relief the essential incompatibility between orthodoxy (in any religion) and modern humanistic values. Lets not dodge the issue: opposing intermarriage is racist/discriminatory and illogical by any western definition.
We can claim that from a practical perspective, it is better to raise children in a household with parents from compatible backgrounds and cultures. But for most Jews, who are assimilated, this is not an argument. Therefore opposing "intermarriage" is contradictory if one is really a liberal, as it would be if you opposed your child for marrying an Arab, black, Asian or any other ethnic group.
JP says: "You want your kids to be like and your grandkids to also be like you. Same as I do."
No brainer-- human nature. But nothing to do with morality, although by definition an extreme Muslim would be an evil person and I would not want my kid marrying somebody evil.
In the end I can overcome my desire for my kids to be mindless robot clones of me (not than I'm mindless...) and be happy if they are healthy, happy, good and productive people--whatever that means. So I have 4 great kids. Maybe my son won't be DrC, maybe he'll be plumber C or cop C, that's OK. Maybe he'll wear a kippa or maybe he won't, I'll be happy with him nonetheless.
I have a married charedi-nationalist daughter who lives in a caravan in the West Bank. Not something I necessarily do, but I'm OK with her, and her husband. (Although it makes for some very interesting Shabbat table talk...)
My eldest daughter is completely unaffiliated Jewishly, lives in the U.S., but she loves us and we love her and she visits alot and participates in all family events. My youngest son is also very independently minded but a good kid who stays out of trouble, so what else would I want from my children?
Enough about my kids...
I want my kids to marry Jewish (in Israel they have a better chance than your kids, JP)for practical and admittedly bigotted reasons-- to keep the family together and to have more Jews. These aren't moral reasons.
When it comes to marriage, it is really smart to marry someone as similar to yourself as possible. More similarity will mean more agreement and fewer arguments.
In particular an Orthodox Jew must pray three times a day for the destruction of heretics (see blessing #12). Can you love someone while praying for his utter destruction?
JP, if you want to pray for the vaporizing of some bloggers who share their doubts and whack off once in a while, go ahead. (Yes, I admit it, and also have sex, in the context of a healthy marriage and I can't seem to stop having sex, kind of like eating-- an addict by your silly definition)
The original intent of that paragraph of the amidah has nothing to do with modern times, and I seriously doubt that most Jews who say it have atheists in mind.
"I seriously doubt that most Jews who say it have atheists in mind."
I haven't seen any Gallup poll on that one, but they should.
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