Why must the children bear the brunt of the conflict between their parents?

IF

any couple ever needed marriage counseling, it was Pinny and Penina. Just about the only thing they had in common was the first letter of their first names.

When I met with them for the initial consultation, I asked what I could help them with. Pinny motioned with a hand gesture to Penina that she should start. But before she completed two sentences, Pinny interrupted her. And that is how it went for the first ten or fifteen minutes. Penina kept trying to continue where she left off with Pinny repeatedly interrupting her to contradict, correct, or criticize. Even after I pointed out to Pinny that he had deferred to Penina at the outset and I reassured him that he would have his turn, he continued his verbal assaults.

Finally, I turned to Pinny and asked him to describe the relationship between his parents.

“They didn’t get along too well,” Pinny confessed, as his combative deportment was replaced by a more sullen, contemplative demeanor.

“Try to be more specific,” I gently probed.

“Well, actually, they fought a lot,” Pinny continued. “That is, until they divorced when I was in sixth grade. I suppose you might say that my father was pretty verbally abusive to my mother, both before and after their messy divorce.”

“What was messy about it?” I asked.

“My father didn’t want the divorce,” Pinny explained. “It was my mother who wanted out of the marriage. And frankly, I really wondered what took her so long. I guess she was worried about how she was going to provide for my sisters and me on her own, because my father never gave her any financial support after the divorce.”

Then I understood where Pinny was coming from. He was simply following in the footsteps of his father. As a popular poster puts it, “Children learn what they live.” And as Chazal put it, “Yoreish kar’ei d’avuha — a son who is the inheritor is considered a limb of his father” (Eiruvin 70b).

As I sat with Pinny and Penina, I could not help wondering whether Pinny’s father would have conducted himself with such acrimony and rancor during and following his divorce if he could have foreseen what damage his conduct would have many years later on his only son, Pinny.

The length that some divorcing couples go to denigrate each other and/or attempt to deny their children access to the other parent can boggle the mind. I am reminded of one such case in which I was involved a number of years ago.

A frum lawyer who was extremely prominent in matrimonial matters contacted me and asked if I would serve as an expert witness by conducting a custody evaluation of his client. He explained that his client, a divorced yeshivah ketanah rebbi, was being accused of being an unfit parent by his ex-wife. She had gone to court to deny him visitation rights with their six-year-old son.

“I want an honest evaluation,” the lawyer asserted. “If you feel he is unfit, I want you to say so. And if you determine that he is a suitable parent, I will need a written evaluation that I can submit to the judge at the upcoming hearing.”

I met with the father twice, once alone and once with his son, on a day that he had visitation. I also reached out to the mother to get her take on the situation firsthand. She took my call but flatly refused to meet with me.

After my two meetings with the father, it was abundantly clear that aside from being somewhat on the passive side, he demonstrated appropriate parenting skills, good judgment, a healthy, warm connection with his son, and a marked absence of any psychopathology.

In the midst of my conducting this custody evaluation, I was contacted by a senior, prominent, and well-respected community askan with whom I had had some previous meetings. He asked to see me in his office. He did not explain the purpose of the meeting. And although I was quite curious, out of respect, I did not ask.

When I met with the askan, he explained that he had a longstanding relationship with the father of the ex-wife of the man I was evaluating. The father had learned that the askan and I knew each other. He then told the askan about the custody evaluation I was conducting and requested, therefore, that the askan “put in a good word” for him with me.

“Look, I’m not trying to influence your report,” the askan said apologetically. “I simply wanted to do a favor for my old friend.”

With that, the askan gave a forced smile and dismissed me from his office. Needless to say, I lost a lot of respect for the askan after that brief meeting.

A few days later, a close friend and colleague called to tell me how upset he was. “I just got off the phone with someone I don’t know who knows that we are buddies,” he began, almost breathlessly. “He said you are conducting a custody evaluation of someone. And he wanted me to try to influence the way you write your report. I told him, ‘You don’t know Meir Wikler very well if you think that anyone can influence what he writes in a report!’ And then I was so angry with him that I just hung up the phone. What a chutzpah he had!”

The next day, I was still so frazzled by these two attempts to influence my final report that I unburdened myself to one of my chavrusas.

“I can’t believe that people would stoop so low as to try twice to get people I know to pressure me,” I said.

“It wasn’t twice,” my chavrusa replied, softly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“They called me, too,” he explained. “And I made up my mind and I told them that I wouldn’t even tell you about the phone call. But now that I heard that they tried two other times, I thought you should know that it was really three times.”

After completing my evaluation, I submitted my report to the lawyer. A few weeks later, he called to tell me that he had submitted copies of my report to the presiding judge and the lawyer representing the ex-wife. Without explanation, shortly thereafter the ex-wife withdrew her complaint. And the lawyer shared with me his presumption that my report may have played a significant role in the ex-wife’s decision.

Chazal taught, “Shloshah shutfim hein b’adam: HaKadosh Baruch Hu, aviv, v’imo — There are three partners involved in the creation of each person: Hashem, his father, and his mother” (Kiddushin 30b). And in order to develop into a healthy adult, every child must be able to maintain an unobstructed, positive relationship with all three partners in his creation.

While some divorces could be prevented, certainly many are unavoidable. Whenever any marriage ends in divorce, however, why must some spouses approach the divorce with an attitude of l’hashmid ul’harog, by withholding a get, visitation, and/or support? And why must the children bear the brunt of the conflict between their parents?

Why?!

Dr. Meir Wikler, a frequent contributor to this space, is an author, psychotherapist, and family counselor in full-time private practice with offices in Brooklyn and Lakewood. He is also a public speaker whose lectures and shiurim are carried on TorahAnytime.com.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1097)