So what if I get divorced? Most of my friends already are, and they’re waiting for me to join them

The summer issue of the online journal Klal Perspectives (on whose editorial board I sit) is now available, and the subject is not a happy one: the rising rate of early divorce in the Orthodox community. Each of our marriage-age children knows someone or has a friend who is already divorced. That would not have been the case a generation ago. Shaya Ostrov, a therapist in the Five Towns, reports being told by one young client, “So what if I get divorced? Most of my friends already are, and they’re waiting for me to join them.”

The bulk of the Klal Perspectives issue deals with the period immediately surrounding marriage — from shidduchim to postmarital mentoring. It includes suggestions on how to better assess emotional compatibility on the basis of dates that bear no resemblance to actual marriage and discussions of various forms of premarital training for couples which go beyond the scope of traditional separate classes for the chassan and kallah.

I have no doubt that these suggestions will help prevent some early divorces and enhance marital quality for many young couples. But I’m afraid that they will come too late for many of our youth for whom the challenge of marriage is primarily due to lack of emotional maturity.

Where that maturity is lacking expanded premarital training will neither be welcome nor engaging. Dina Schoonmaker a frequent contributor to Mishpacha’s AdviceLine summed up the challenge with her title: “Marital Preparation Begins at Two.” If for instance children don’t learn self-soothing — techniques for lifting their emotional state even without achieving the object of their immediate desire — at an early age it will be much harder to do so later in life.

Rabbi Doniel Frank who runs marriage and dating seminars told me some months ago that when he asks young men “How do you know you are ready for marriage?” they almost invariably respond in terms of external markers — e.g. two years of beis medrash followed by a year and a half in Eretz Yisrael and then six months in the “freezer” in Lakewood — rather than in terms of personal development. Unfortunately neither that timeline nor chronological age is by itself an indicator of preparedness for marriage. In an era when psychologists speak of a new stage called “emerging adulthood” — basically an extension of the teenage years into the mid-to-late twenties — it is hardly surprising that our young have also been affected and with particularly adverse consequences due to the comparatively young age for marriage in the Orthodox world.

Over-indulgent and over-protective parenting contributes to that lack of maturity. A recent cartoon entitled Then and Now nicely captures the new ideal of parenting as protecting our children from every form of adversity. In the first frame a terrified child stands before his father’s desk while the father waves a report card and demands to know “What is the meaning of this report card?” In the second frame two parents brandish a report card in front of a cringing teacher and demand to know “What is the meaning of this report card?” Their child stands smirking behind them.

A rav heavily involved with marital preparation and counseling of young couples pithily shared with me his assessment: Our kids are spoiled. As an illustration he offered a dispute between two sets of parents as to whether their new couple should be budgeted $4000 per month or forced to make due on only $3 000 during their first year in Israel. Even the lower sum would be viewed as a small fortune by many Israeli kollel families of ten.

The most basic principle of financial management — expenses must be in line with income — is unknown to many young couples writes Shmuli Margulies the founder of Mesila an organization that trains individuals and families to deal with money management. What their friends have not what they can afford is their guide.

The consequence of overly indulgent and protective parenting is that it leaves its products totally unprepared to deal with the vicissitudes of life — and every marriage has its ups and downs. They enter marriage with fantasies of instantaneous and permanent bliss and when it does not materialize or the first argument takes place they are ready to call it quits. They end marriages or break engagements over trivialities. Another of Shaya Ostrov’s clients concluded that her chassan was too boring because he did not appreciate her love of bungee jumping.

Because they have never been pushed outside of their comfort zone to do anything that was difficult for them or required hard work with uncertain success they are unprepared to work on their marriages. The very idea that everything precious in life requires effort — l’fum tzara agra — is often utterly foreign to them.

THE FOREGOING IS OF COURSE A PARTIAL CARICATURE and it does not begin to explain all — and perhaps not even most — early divorces. Unrevealed and unaddressed emotional issues are another frequent cause of very early marital breakup and internet addictions and the distortions they introduce are another.

Nor is being spoiled the only aspect of emotional immaturity. Early divorce rates are climbing rapidly in Israel as well despite the much lower levels of affluence. A lack of self-knowledge is another aspect of lack of maturity. It is often less noticeable than being spoiled but can be no less debilitating. One reflection of the lack of self-knowledge of many young people is the way they enter shidduchim with a very long “wish list” but very little concept of what they have to offer a prospective spouse.

Rabbi Frank who is also an educational psychologist developed under the auspices of OHEL a curriculum for Monsey schools stressing the development of various life skills — e.g. empathy decision-making setting priorities self-knowledge. Where these skills are lacking particularly in the male problems are likely to follow. In the Maharal’s classic formulation the male provides the tzura (form) within which the home develops and the woman uses her special attribute of binah to realize the ideal form in the world. But a man who does not know himself or cannot make decisions or set priorities is lacking any tzura himself and cannot provide it to the marriage. And that failure will be felt by his wife.

Qualities like self-knowledge decision-making establishing priorities can be developed but they do not happen automatically. Rabbi David Sapirman of Toronto has written eloquently of the ways in which many yeshivahleit today are on a conveyor belt with respect to issues of emunah. As long as everything is going well and they do not have to confront any challenges to their faith they experience no emunah issues. But in his words they “neither believe nor disbelieve.”

Similarly it is possible to go from yeshivah to kollel without ever developing one’s individuality in any way by simply conforming to the norms of one’s particular yeshivah. As Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky put it “Every yeshivah is to some extent a S’dom bed — cutting each bochur to the shape of the particular institution in which he finds himself.”

Even the finest lamdan and masmid has not necessarily been forced to leave his comfort zone. He is doing what he loves and excels at. But his achievements in learning do not predict how he will deal with adversity or accommodate the different needs and communication style of his spouse. Nor does it ensure that his sense of self is strong and exists independent of the admiration that always accompanies him in his days in the yeshivah.

As Rabbi Aharon Lopiansky rosh yeshivah of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington has written recently the emphasis of yeshivos today is on teaching bochurim how to learn not on their full development as human beings. The dominant figure in many of the greatest European yeshivos was a mashgiach whose mission was the personal growth of each talmid: the Alter of Kelm the Alter of Slabodka Reb Yerucham Levovitz in the Mir. No comparable figure exists today.

What are the consequences of this new reality? For one thing parents cannot abdicate responsibility for helping their sons develop the personal qualities so crucial to marriage and everything else in life. One cannot send one’s son to yeshivah — even the finest yeshivah — and expect that he will thereby emerge a fully formed individual. Parental input remains crucial.

Parents must ensure that their children particularly their sons face challenges that are not easy for them. Bein hazmanim is one opportunity. Rabbi Reuven Leuchter a leading talmid of Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe stresses that bein hazmanim should not be viewed as a continuation of the zman at a slightly relaxed pace. Rather it is an opportunity to explore and develop aspects of oneself that one cannot during the zman. Doing chesed –—for instance joining a SEED program or working with kids suffering from various disabilities — are examples of activities that can help a bochur develop new aspects of himself during bein hazmanim.

That too is a crucial component of the preparation for marriage that begins at two and ideally doesn’t end even with marriage.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 424)