Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmas Esther bas Mordechai

The claim is made by some who belong to traditional societies – being loyal to tradition and trained to religious values – that what was good enough for our grandparents should be good enough for the young folks as well. They present some very persuasive evidence: The minimal divorce rate of previous generations.

Indeed, the divorce rates of the past rarely exceeded one percent, whereas today’s young generation presents a divorce rate of such dimensions as to threaten the very stability of the marriage institution: More than one out of two couples get divorced.

We hardly need to point out that broken marriages create hurt children who lack a basic trust in themselves and in life itself. In previous generations, the marriage institution was the proud product of the private space, a stronghold of individual sanctity, a fortified wall that defended against its family members against invasion by life's negative elements. Marriage was vital institution, utterly necessary for protecting each family member's uniquely original quality as well as for protecting basic relationships of love and trust among the family members: Parent-child relationships, inter-parent relationships, and harmonious and healthy inter-sibling relationships.

When Freedom came, and pushed Belonging to the sidelines, the equilibrium between Freedom and Belonging was breached. This breach is the dominant feature in many phenomena of the secular era, which has turned Freedom into wantonness, to be trampled on by marginal people, who assume the reins of leadership in modern society. Wantonness, in the post-modern era, has become the Establishment.

With the advent of this new phenomenon, a change also occurred in the conditions that determine a couple’s intimate needs. This seems a rather positive phenomenon on the surface of things, in and of itself. Rather than erasing individual needs, individual needs now enjoy a heyday of natural expression -- and there is no human situation more fraught with individual needs and sensitivities than relationship between the two members of a couple.

Tradition pushes these needs to the sidelines and lowers expectations. It is true that tradition serves to prevent open expressions of friction between the couple, but it also does not greatly contribute, to say the least, toward maximizing opportunities for self-expression.

We could summarize the difference between a traditional society and a modern society by suggesting that the lower expectations of traditional society reduced the divorce rate but also reduced opportunities for the deeper experiences of pairing.

Out of our decades-long, in-depth research on nearly thirty thousand couples from the religious and ultra-Orthodox sectors, we have consolidated a list of personal needs, which differ in degree and in kind from person to person. Some of these needs require a complementary opposite, while others require a parallel compatibility. In another context, we dedicate a lengthy chapter to a full description of these needs.

One of the needs is a need for emotional initiative. Though it constitutes but one need (albeit a vital one) among the couple’s many needs, it seems to prove the vital need for classifying and defining couple needs. The more detailed and precise these definitions can be - the better.

Emotional Dynamics

In short, and in simple language, the problem is this: Who initiates the connection? “Who starts up with whom?” as the popular saying goes. Who approaches whom, to express affection? Who employs body language (this is a critical issue) to convey the message of affection? Who is the more active and who is the more passive in the pairing connection?

The problem becomes more complex when we realize that being an emotionally active “initiative-taker” in pairing is not an automatic outcome of being an active initiative-taker in practical and social matters. Even a real "wheeler-dealer" in social organization, in counseling and leadership activities who is perpetually initiating interpersonal relationships in social settings, will not necessarily express active initiative in the intimate sphere.


Classification Divides Couples into Groups

The Best Group:

On the surface it would appear that the best couple would be the one where both sides initiate. Here no problem of connecting can possibly occur. So it would seem. But in reality, a one hundred percent connection only occurs when each side has an initiating capacity of fifty percent. When each side’s initiating capacity exceeds fifty percent, this creates excess, falling under the heading of kol hamosif goraia: “Whoever adds, detracts.” Excessive initiating, bal tosif, is experienced as a feeling of being pestered, of being nagged, of not being allowed any breathing space. “He gets on my nerves.” “She’s a nudnik,” etc.

The Worst Group:

When the initiating capacity of both sides taken together still cannot cross the one hundred percent threshold, this creates a void. It is the sort of void found in Rashi’s description of the pit into which Yosef was thrown by his brothers: “‘And the pit was empty; it had no water.’ Water, it had not, but snakes and serpents it had.” In the gap that yawns in the void created by a deficiency in pairing dynamics, snakes and serpents proliferate, and these threaten the functional continuity of the couple’s sense of being paired.

To Illustrate: He comes home after a long day of work or learning. She is busy in the kitchen, or in the children’s room, or has just come home from a long day herself. He anticipates from her that she will come to greet him warmly, and express – in body language if not in words – how much she has missed him. She anticipates a similar gesture from him. Emotional passivity expresses itself as anticipating and waiting, while taking no practical initiative.

Both of them are disappointed. He turns to the bookshelf, to the newspaper, to the telephone. She continues her frustrating wait in the kitchen or in the children’s room or in her study. This mutual disappointment repeats itself on a daily basis in the routine of their marriage.

Routine fills ninety nine percent of a marriage. Routine is only broken only by unusual events that occur on the outside, that occasionally arouse the feeling of pairedness. A routine that is intrinsically frustrating eventually suppresses anticipation and expectations to the point that the couple no longer take interest in rare events or opportunities. Bitterness accumulates, creating mutual suspicion; a creeping distrust eats away at their sense of pairedness.

Soon enough, frustration consolidates into a search for reasons, to supposedly offer an objective explanation for the deterioration of their sense of being a pair. From here, the way is short to dismantling their state of pairedness entirely, out of bitterness and mutual accusation, based on causes that are beside the point and usually imaginary: He/she doesn’t understand me/consider my needs/ is selfish. Her mother/his mother, etc. All of this has usually followed many wearying attempts at compromise and counseling, which have taken the couple far away from the real cause.

When the couple’s various counselors have all despaired, the couple arrives at Sadnat Enosh loaded with bitterness to the point that the simple explanation of passivity has a very difficult time penetrating their mutual bitterness, hatred, and conclusion that they never really were a compatible couple after all. Indeed it is difficult to expect a simple couple to transcend their painful and anguished state in order to gaze down upon their relationship from the heights of theory, which provide an amazingly simple explanation for it all.

When No Routine Exists

During the courting period, no routine exists, and it is difficult for the couple to understand a condition of routine. During this period, there is instead a condition of the emotional exertion of mutual attraction. This attraction is further nourished by the tension of curiosity, about the realization of yearning, which beckons in the prospect of pairedness. The couple is unable to fully understand the dangers that lie in wait for them in the form of creeping routine, once they have finally attained their heart’s desire. After all, don’t they deserve some rest from the tension of “before”? They have difficulty accepting the fact that a future threat exists that could destroy the idyllic state they have attained at such great effort.

On the other hand, when dealing with senior couples who are laden with descendants, it is no simple matter to break apart their state of pairedness. One must instead make them conscious of the dangers of passivity, while dismantling their frustration and exposing its roots that are embedded in a pairing formula deficient in the mutual initiative factor.

One can hope for success with couples who have a high level of intellectual and human insight, who are not imprisoned in a primitive mentality. Primitiveness for our purposes means a hardened and inflexible approach that impedes transition from an old, habituated track to a new track built on new and consciously created foundations.

In another scenario, a couple’s lack of understanding can reach rodef proportions. Each side becomes “a persecutor”, causing the other side to deteriorate mentally and physically.

The number of cases in which pairedness deteriorates on the basis of a lack of emotional dynamics is far greater than estimated, and often not visible to the eye. Attributing malevolent intentions is misleading. It has nothing to do with the real complaint, and causes a search for guilty parties that only moves the couple further away from exposing the real cause.

An Existential Tragedy

It is common among couples that the woman is endowed with considerable initiating potential, and easily capable of arriving quite naturally at a point of encounter with her passive husband. However, due to a certain type of traditional upbringing, this blessed abundance of initiative is held back. From grandmother to granddaughter, provisions are supplied for the long journey into pairedness, to guarantee her happiness: Protect your own honor, granddaughter dear, don’t court him, courting him will make him despise you. He will take you for granted; you will be cheap in his eyes. Let him exhaust himself to bitterness courting you, until you finally accept him; then your husband will hold you dear, etc. etc.

In such cases, an artificial gap is created, yet this artificial gap causes a frustration that is no less painful than the one experienced by a couple genuinely deficient in mutual initiative.

A typical example is the couple where the woman is blessed with a free-flowing, bubbling, initiative-taking personality. Truth to tell, it was this initiative-taking personality that first attracted her dry and passive husband to her, while she admired him for his high level of intellect, or scholarship, or professionalism.

Yet lo and behold, after their marriage, the lady envelops herself in utter, infuriating passivity. She has become the inhibited wife.

They are married fourteen years, they have three children. The husband is an outstanding Torah scholar, a yerei shamayim, immersed in his learning. She is constantly harassing his friends, avreichim like himself, study colleagues. She harasses his teachers and rabbis as well: Her husband is unfaithful to her! Countless hours spent attempting to persuade her have only intensified her frustration.

All else having failed, their despairing counselors send the couple to us. She opens her case with a furious attack: You men lack a woman’s sharp senses. For years now, I have not been fulfilling my obligation to purify myself in the mikveh, just to test him. He never once bothered to comment, never once asked why I was not pure. There can be only one reason for this: There is another woman in his life.

After allowing her to compose herself, having vented her fury, I discreetly pointed my finger in the direction of her husband, who sat silent and frozen, the tears flowing from his eyes. Rather than suggesting to the husband that he defend himself, I answered in his stead: Your husband is passive, of an aristocratic nature. He is too shy to express his personal needs. I pray that Heaven will forgive you for your cruelty, which has caused him suffering to the point of despair.

I then turned to him and requested that he confirm or deny my statements, but he had begun to weep uncontrollably, and could only nod his head in agreement. The woman leaped from her chair and began to kiss him and beg his forgiveness, at which point I terminated the meeting, which had lasted approximately twenty minutes, suggesting that they continue their reconciliation in their home.

Had this incident been a one-time event, it could be rightly attributed to a supernatural miracle. The numerous instances of these "miracles" points to a much needed approach, supported by intrinsic logic, once one becomes aware of the components of emotional dynamics.

This particular component -- among all the other factors that comprise the formula for pairedness -- may not be taken lightly, for its role is decisive . What is interesting about it is that it is invisible to the eye, and works its insidious and destructive effect behind the scenes. A word to the wise.