erhaps it’s all in my mind, but I feel as if every person I pass on the street is staring at me. It seems that even silence means whispers behind my back. Speculating about the reasons and juicy details of the demise of my over-20-year-marriage. I’m up to Chapter 26 of my book on stupid things people say.

I was recently at the wedding of my dear friend’s daughter, when a guest came over to me and, in front of everyone, asked me if I got my get yet. It was then that I considered placing an announcement in the newspaper, right next to the engagements, or perhaps on the front page with the kol koreihs from the gedolim, or maybe, more appropriately, next to the obituaries. The explanation would be brief:

“Dovid, son of Shmuel, of Brooklyn, New York divorced Raizel, daughter of Meir, of Monsey, New York. Dovid stopped taking his medication and cooperating with his therapist (with whom he never really cooperated with in the first place, and no, Raizy didn’t know he had this condition before they married, and yes, they did consult with gedolei Yisrael and yes, they did try everything  they could). Dovid’s parents are sitting shivah at their home, Dovid is nowhere to be seen, Raizel’s parents can’t even utter the word divorce, so don’t bring up the subject with them.

“Raizel looks like the glowing kallah she never was and is thrilled that Hashem redeemed her from Egypt. She looks forward to the sea splitting once again. The kids are FINE. Yes, you read that correctly. The kids are fine. They are very relieved they no longer need to parent their father on a daily basis and only need to put up with him on Yamim Tovim and occasional supervised visits.

“Of course they hope he will try to prove what a great father he really was and buy them everything their hearts desire. So far they have been extremely successful in  using their newly acquired manipulation tactics. Raizy should have hired them collectively to be her lawyer, maybe then she would have gotten decent child support. They are currently not interested in accepting donations of pity, so please donate to a different worthy cause. In the event that they change their minds, an ad will be placed in the local paper.”

Hmmm. I wonder how much an announcement like that would cost. It could possibly save me a lot of hair-raising experiences and end the spectators’ misery. But I guess it wouldn’t be nice to take away the thrill people have of being able to say they knew something was wrong all along. It was him, it was her, it was her parents, it was his parents, it’s the Bais Yaakov system, it’s the yeshivah system, etc.

I will need to add a line to my imaginary announcement: It was Hashem.

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 653)