M

y parents were the opposite of helicopter parents when I was growing up.

If my friends and I wanted to take a weekend trip, they were the only parents who needed no convincing. “Sure, have a great time” — no questions asked. Even when I became more serious about Torah learning at the end of high school and informed my parents that I wanted to sit and learn after my wedding — something that was unheard of in my family — they were cool with it.

The first time I saw my parents become really uptight over something that had to do with me, their youngest child and only son, was when I was dating my wife, Penina.

“I’m not gaining a daughter,” my mother kept muttering. “I’m losing a son.”

At the time, I had two married sisters who were considerably older, as well as a single sister, Yaffa, who was 24, three years my senior. Although I was only 21, I felt ready to get married, but before I entered shidduchim, I asked Yaffa privately if she’d mind. She graciously gave me the green light.

I may have been ready, but my parents weren’t. While they dutifully looked into shidduchim for me and set up my dates, they were quite shell-shocked when I announced that I was ready to get engaged.

“So soon?” my father asked, almost mournfully.

As the treasured youngest, I was acutely aware that it was hard for my parents to see me fly the coop, especially since they had not figured on my getting married so soon. After the engagement, therefore, I resolved to do my best to show them that I was still their son and that they were not losing me to my kallah, Penina.

I made a point of not spending too much time with Penina during the engagement, so that my parents would be able to ease into the idea of my getting married. Once, we were out for a rare afternoon together, and I realized that it was almost suppertime in my parents’ house.

“I’m sorry,” I told Penina, “but I need to be home for supper, so I’ll have to take you home now.”

She looked surprised, even bewildered, that I was cutting our outing short, but when I explained that my parents were having a hard time letting go of me, she understood and said, “Fine, no problem.”

At the wedding, my father did not crack a smile. I tried to pull him into the circle for dancing, but his heart was clearly not in it. He looked as though he was at a funeral. My mother, on the other hand, played the role of hostess to perfection, beaming at all the guests and fussing around the kallah, but when she clutched my elbow during the pictures as she smiled to the camera, her grip was painfully tight.

During sheva brachos, I felt responsible to reassure my parents that nothing had really changed between them and me. After several of the sheva brachos, therefore, I asked Penina if we could stop at my parents’ house for a few minutes on some pretense: to pick up some of my things, or to look at the wedding pictures Yaffa had developed. Penina was always agreeable.

After our last sheva brachos, my mother told me that some friends had delivered wedding gifts.

“Maybe come get them on your way home,” she suggested.

When Penina and I obligingly stopped by, Yaffa brought out the game Pictionary and asked if we’d like to play. It was already close to midnight, but I didn’t have the heart to disappoint Yaffa, who had been such a good sport during the engagement, wedding, and sheva brachos, even though it couldn’t have been comfortable for her to be celebrating her younger brother’s marriage. I looked at Penina, and when she gave a little nod, I sat down and opened the Pictionary box. For the first time since the wedding, my parents seemed relaxed, laughing and joking as they drew comical stick figures and threw out wild guesses as to what the rest of us might be drawing. Penina, too, participated enthusiastically in the game, while noshing on Yaffa’s fresh popcorn.

We finished the game at 2 a.m., and I went home feeling satisfied that I had managed to please everyone.

The next day, we were supposed to be heading from New York to Lakewood, where we’d finally move into our own apartment and settle into regular life. My parents had invited us over for lunch, but Penina woke up with a terrible headache, and she said she didn’t feel up to joining my parents.

“I guess you should go yourself,” she told me.

So I did. I brought Penina home some food, but she wasn’t interested in eating it. She was very quiet the rest of the day, which I assumed was due to her headache.

Penina’s parents and mine both lived in New York, but while her parents were happy if we came for Shabbos about once a month, my parents felt that this was far too little, and they often complained that they never saw us.

When we were at my in-laws’ house for Shabbos, Penina’s mother would frequently urge us to go out and get some fresh air, or to go rest downstairs in our room.

“I don’t need your help,” she would assure Penina. “You and Daniel are a young couple, you’re off duty.”

Well, I reasoned, that was easy for Penina’s mother to say. She had a large family and a bunch of teenage daughters at home, while my mother had only Yaffa for company and help. My mother never told us to go out. On the contrary, whenever we retreated to our room or announced that we were going to take a walk, her face took on a pained look.

What was odd, however, was that while my mother wanted us to be around a lot, she practically ignored Penina much of the time. She’d buy gifts for me — a new tie, a briefcase, a wallet — but never anything for Penina. To compensate, I made a point of buying Penina plenty of presents.

Shortly before my wedding, my family’s rav, Rav Turnheim, had given me some guidance for shanah rishonah. “You have to make sure to put your wife first, second, and third,” he said. Among other things, he told me that we shouldn’t have any sleepover guests the first year, and no guests on Shabbos even for just a meal, for at least the first six months.

I followed this advice, even though I must admit I didn’t understand it at all. My two married sisters had never done the “shanah rishonah thing.” They had always done a lot of socializing with friends and family, hosting other couples and singles freely from day one. My parents did the same, hosting their friends regularly for Shabbos meals and even going on vacation with other couples. In fact, I rarely recalled my parents even going out to eat on their own. They either brought along their kids or invited another couple to keep them company.

While it bothered me that my mother was giving Penina the cold shoulder, I understood her to some extent. She resented Penina for spiriting me away from my family, and although I tried explaining the shanah rishonah concept to her numerous times, she just didn’t get it.

I had always been close with Yaffa, who was the only sibling near me in age, and Penina and I invited her occasionally to visit during the week and join us for lunch or supper. Several times, Yaffa asked if she could come to Lakewood to spend Shabbos with us, and I apologetically explained to her, and to my parents, that during shanah rishonah we could not have anyone sleep over.

None of them took well to this refusal. “Your sister is your own flesh and blood!” my father reprimanded me. The subtext was clear: My wife was a stranger.

Although I told my parents that it was Rav Turnheim who had advised us not to have Shabbos guests yet, they placed the blame squarely on Penina. “She doesn’t want to have Yaffa over,” I overheard my father telling my mother one day.

When we came for Shabbos, my parents barely talked to Penina, and when Penina would speak up, Yaffa would often argue with what she said.

Once, we were sitting at the Shabbos table in my parents’ house, and Penina commented that it was unseasonably chilly outside.

“It’s actually unseasonably warm,” Yaffa corrected her. It was obvious that she was just looking to disagree, because it was cool outside.

“I don’t think your family likes me,” Penina remarked to me after that meal. “Yaffa always wants to pick a fight, and your parents act as if I don’t exist. Anytime I walk into the room and your mother and Yaffa are talking, they suddenly stop, as though they were talking about me.”

I figured that agreeing would only make things worse, so I decided to deny Penina’s statement vociferously.

“It’s not true!” I protested. “They do like you! And they would never talk about you behind your back.”

Penina fell silent, not arguing. But after that, she hardly spoke in my parents’ house. She would just sit quietly unless someone addressed her directly.

In the meantime, Yaffa would call me a couple of times a week just to schmooze. She would call in the evening, when she knew I wasn’t in yeshivah, and I didn’t have the heart to ignore her phone calls. I would try to get off the phone after a few minutes, though. “Listen, we’re just sitting down to supper, okay?”

But she couldn’t possibly understand. In our house, phones had always been answered freely during meals, even when my parents were sitting down to eat by themselves — which was rare.

In honor of my parents’ 40th anniversary, they invited all their children out for supper in the city. But Penina, who was studying for her degree, had a big test that evening that she couldn’t miss. When I asked my parents if we could reschedule for a different night, or at least make the party earlier in the day, they said, “So just come without Penina.”

When I asked Penina if that was okay with her, she said, “Yeah, I’ll be out anyway.”

My mother was in a great mood that night, chatting, smiling, and looking more relaxed than I had seen her in a long time. She’s happy that Penina didn’t come, I thought.

When I came home and asked Penina how the test had been, she said, “Horrible. I couldn’t concentrate at all.”

“Why?” I wondered.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I was just feeling lonely.”

That made no sense to me. “You were taking a test together with dozens of other people, and you were lonely?”

Suddenly, she started to cry. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she sniffed. “I came home two hours ago!”

“But you knew I was in the city!” I replied. “How could I possibly have gotten home before midnight?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I just feel that you’re not there for me. You don’t really care about me.”

I was bewildered. “Can you explain why you feel I don’t care about you?”

But she couldn’t.

Things really came to a head the first Succos we were married, which was close to a year after our wedding. We spent the first days with Penina’s parents and headed to my parent’s house on Erev Shabbos Chol Hamoed.

Shabbos afternoon, Yaffa asked me, in front of Penina and my parents, if she could go for a walk with me. I hesitated, glancing at Penina.

Then my mother spoke up. “Go ahead, Daniel,” she said. “Penina looks tired. You can go out with Yaffa.”

“Penina, is it okay with you?” I asked.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ll go take a nap.”

Yaffa had an agenda for our walk. “You’re acting totally selfish and insensitive,” she snapped at me. “All you think about is Penina, Penina, Penina. What about your family? What about your own parents? Do you know how rejected they feel? They’re older, they have only one son, and you’re totally turning your back on them!”

“This is how it is at the beginning of marriage,” I tried to explain, repeating the words Rav Turnheim had told me while trying to be sensitive to Yaffa, who was still single. “After shanah rishonah, we’ll be able to be part of the family more, but for now, it’s important that we build our own relationship and establish ourselves as a couple.”

“You give Abba and Ima no nachas,” she countered. “You’re so wrapped up in your little cocoon, you can’t think about anyone else.”

When I returned home, I found Penina in our room, crying. Great, I thought. Now I’m in trouble not only with my parents and my sister, but with my wife, too.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Penina was so worked up, she couldn’t answer. Through her tears, I managed to make out the words, “I feel like you’re not there for me.”

Those words again. “How am I not there for you?” I wondered. “You told me it was fine for me to take a walk with Yaffa.”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “All I know is that I’m miserable here.”

“Do you want to leave?” I asked. “We can go back to your parents for Shemini Atzeres, if you’d like.”

“No, no,” she insisted. “We’ll stay until after Simchas Torah. I don’t want to insult your parents.”

For the rest of Yom Tov, I felt as though I was choking. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t please anyone.

After Yom Tov I went to speak to Rav Turnheim. “My wife keeps saying I’m not there for her,” I told him, “but I don’t know what she’s talking about. I put her first, second, and third, as the rav advised. I spend time with her. I buy her flowers every Shabbos and plenty of gifts in between. When she’s upset I ask her what’s bothering her, but she can’t even give me a normal answer. When we were dating, she was so chilled, but now, she keeps getting emotional, and when I ask her what she wants, she won’t tell me! She says she’s miserable in my parents’ house, but when I offer to leave, she won’t hear of it. And then she’s all withdrawn and sulky.”

Rav Turnheim sighed. “You have to understand that a wife isn’t just a female bochur,” he said. “Young husbands often don’t fully appreciate how delicate a woman’s inner world is. Your wife has hopes and dreams that she may not fully be able to explain or articulate, and when those hopes and dreams are trampled on, she crumbles inwardly. Try to read between the lines and hear what she’s not saying. There’s always more to the situation than meets the eye.”

I nodded my understanding, but I left feeling more confused than before. What kind of hopes and dreams did Penina have that I could possibly be trampling on? I was a good husband. I asked her permission any time I spent time with my family, and she always gave it. Why was she being so difficult?

Three weeks later, around the time of our first anniversary, Rav Turnheim celebrated his youngest son’s bar mitzvah on Shabbos. My parents made it clear that they expected us to spend that Shabbos with them, especially considering that we hadn’t been there since Succos. But Penina wasn’t ready to spend Shabbos with my parents again yet, after her unpleasant experience there on Yom Tov, so I told my parents we wouldn’t be able to come that week.

They were horrified. “We’re going to the bar mitzvah as a family,” they said pointedly.

Feeling torn yet again between my parents and my wife, I decided to call the rav myself and explain that we wouldn’t be able to make it. At least this way my parents wouldn’t be embarrassed.

“Of course you shouldn’t schlep out here for my bar mitzvah,” he said. “You’re learning, and you’re in shanah rishonah. Why are you apologizing?”

“Well, my parents feel strongly that I should be there with them.”

“You and your wife are a separate unit,” he said. “What your parents do has no bearing on you as a couple.”

His words were an eye-opener to me. Penina and I are a separate unit. To her parents, that was clear, which was why they didn’t feel rejected and didn’t accuse us, overtly or subtly, of being selfish and insensitive. They understood that we were supposed to be doing our own thing.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s almost embarrassing to admit that I hadn’t seen it this way before. I had thought that my parents’ expectations were reasonable, and that we should accommodate them as much as possible.

Finally, I understood what Penina meant when she said I wasn’t there for her. As long as I was trying to please my parents and Yaffa, I was automatically putting her second.

Penina, baalas middos that she was, did not want to come between my parents and me, and she therefore never stopped me from fulfilling what I saw as my obligations vis-a-vis my family. She saw that I wanted to be a good son, and she wasn’t going to prevent me from doing that.

Thinking back to the times I had asked Penina’s permission to spend time with my family, I realized that I hadn’t really given her a choice. Half the times, I had asked her in front of my family. What was she supposed to say when I asked her, after our last sheva brachos, if she wanted to play Pictionary at midnight? And when my mother ordered me to go for a walk with Yaffa and I looked to Penina for approval, was it fair of me to put the onus on her to say no? Either I should have said no myself, or I should have found a way to discuss it with Penina privately.

Even when I had asked her permission in private, she had understood that I felt my place was with my family. And so she had granted her permission, ignoring her own wishes in the process, and suffering as a result.

All of a sudden, Rav Turnheim’s words became crystal clear to me. Your wife has hopes and dreams that she may not fully be able to explain or articulate. Penina didn’t want to have to tell me that I didn’t belong on a walk with my sister — she wanted me to understand that myself! And she didn’t want me joining my parents for lunch when she had a headache, or going out with my parents and sister for supper when she had a test — she wanted me to understand, instinctively, that I should stay home. Even if she wasn’t around, I should have gone home after seder and waited for her, not gone out for a night with my family.

She couldn’t have expressed any of this to me, because she didn’t understand it herself. All she knew was that she felt lonely and that I wasn’t there for her.

Things changed dramatically after this epiphany.

For one thing, I refused to go anywhere with my parents or Yaffa without Penina. For another, before agreeing to join my parents for anything, I discussed the matter with Penina and came to a decision with her. No longer did I request her permission and exert subtle pressure on her to give it — I asked her what she wanted and fully backed her when her preferences differed from those of my parents. Respectfully, but firmly, I made it clear to my parents that we were a couple who needed our time together. And I treated Penina with extra respect and sensitivity when we were around my family, both so that she would feel cared for and so that my family would get the message that my wife mattered.

As long as I had felt apologetic toward my parents and sister about Penina and me having our own life as a couple, they had never fully accepted my explanations. But from the moment I started viewing myself first and foremost as Penina’s husband, they gradually stopped viewing me first and foremost as their son and brother.

The change happened slowly but steadily. Instead of informing me of upcoming family and social events at which our presence was expected, my parents began asking me if we’d like to come. And if the answer was no, that was the end of the discussion. My mother’s oft-repeated command — “So we’ll be having you this Shabbos, right?” — was replaced with a far softer, “So when will you be coming?”

Most importantly, I apologized profusely to Penina: for having been oblivious to her feelings, for thinking I was putting her first when I really wasn’t, and for denying that my family was mistreating her.

“I knew they weren’t being nice to you,” I said. “It was wrong of me to pretend that everything was fine. And if you don’t want to spend as much time with them anymore, I fully understand that. Even if we can’t blame it on shanah rishonah.”

To my great surprise, however, Penina was insistent that we continue spending time with my parents. “Your parents need it,” she said simply. “You’re their only son.”

I would never have believed this would happen, but with time, my parents began to accept Penina as part of the family. It started with small things: my mother asking me what Penina liked and preparing her favorite foods; my father addressing her at the Shabbos table instead of ignoring her; Yaffa calling to talk to Penina instead of calling me only.

It also helped a lot when, a year and a half after our marriage, Yaffa finally got engaged and rode off into the shanah rishonah sunset with her husband. I never heard another word from her about me not giving my parents nachas.

Had Penina continued to behave coolly toward my family, after the way they initially treated her, I would have understood. But she showed herself to be a lot bigger than that by responding in kind when my parents began thawing to her. Incredibly, she was able to let go of her initial hurt and allow herself to mesh with my family.

By now, we’ve been married five years, and Penina’s relationship with my parents has become so natural and warm that no one would ever have dreamed there had been tension in the relationship at the beginning. Several months ago, my parents celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary, and Penina happily volunteered to host a party for my parents and siblings in our house.

At the anniversary party, Yaffa mentioned something about my parents’ 40th anniversary party, at which Penina hadn’t been present.

“I can’t believe we made the party without Penina,” my mother remarked to me. “I guess it takes a while for parents to let go of a son and embrace a daughter-in-law.”

It was the closest I’d ever get to a confirmation from my parents that my behavior as a newlywed hadn’t been so selfish and insensitive, after all.

I still cringe when I remember the way I behaved when I was first married, dragging Penina along as I tried to prove to my parents that they hadn’t lost their son. Ironically, it was only when they were able to let go of their son that they actually gained a daughter.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 722)