Dina and so many women like her who struggle with their husband over spiritual matters need a way forward

Dina sits across from me in my office, hoping to resolve her shalom bayis issues. She tells me about a major source of conflict between her and her husband Yechiel: his minyan attendance, or lack thereof, and his inability to maintain a regular learning schedule since he left kollel five years ago.

Dina describes a recurring fight that happens every time Yechiel stays up late working. Inevitably he misses minyan the next morning, but when Dina suggests that he go to sleep early, he responds irately and insists that he will be able to get up on time. In reality, he rarely does. Instead, he hits snooze until he misses the latest minyan, davens quickly at home, and rushes off to work.

I can see that Dina is genuinely devastated by what she perceives as her husband losing his grip on his ruchniyus. This isn’t what she dreamed of when she so idealistically married a learning boy and zoomed through her college courses so that she could support him in kollel and take on her role as his eizer k’negdo.

Dina isn’t the only young wife dealing with this issue. At least once a week, I gently tell a client, “You are not your husband’s mashgiach.”

I can’t help but empathize with Dina. She wants her home to be a Torah-oriented place filled with ruchniyus. She has sacrificed and worked hard to achieve this goal. Now, she looks on helplessly as he seems to be heading away from their previous ideal. Is there a path forward for her and all the other women in a similar situation?

The answer is yes.

As a therapist who sees all kinds of relational conflict, I always fall back on this truism: You can’t change someone else’s behavior. Period. You can only change yourself. Nevertheless, Dina and so many women like her who struggle with their husband over spiritual matters need a way forward.

After consulting with other professionals, rabbanim, and rebbetzins, I developed a five-step process to help women handle this marital challenge.

Step 1 — Validate

Before I can get practical with Dina or any other woman who is dismayed about her husband’s religious conduct, there’s this necessary first step: validating her pain and the legitimacy of her disappointment.

One of the professionals I consult with constantly has been a great source of wisdom in this area. She is far wiser than I am and an excellent resource for advice. I call her up, and she answers on the second ring: “Hi, Mommy,” I say. “Do you have time to discuss a client issue?” My mother, Mrs. Rifka Twerski-Ganz has been a therapist for over 30 years and has an uncanny ability to cut through the noise around an issue and put her finger on the real problem. She, too, has worked with many women dealing with this issue. “Before anything else, there has to be a recognition of how genuinely painful this situation can be for a woman,” my mother says.

This resonates deeply. Embedded in the DNA of us Jewish women is an instinct to create and defend the holiness of our home. It’s unfair to dismiss this primal drive in a rush to create solutions and practical strategies. Those will come as we work through the steps, but understanding is the necessary first step. I believe that the source of Dina’s pain — and that of other women in her situation — is her genuine aspiration for holiness. Unfortunately, the way the conflict is playing out not only fails to fix the problem but creates and perpetuates negative patterns in the relationship.

Step 2 — Accept

After validating Dina’s distress, I asked her about her bitachon given her situation. Does she believe she’s in the exact situation Hashem wants her to be in?

Emunah and bitachon are necessary components of the next step, which requires a woman to confront and accept her situation honestly. She needs to acknowledge the reality of her life and not get lost in longing for what she thinks it ought to be. The Chovos Halevavos writes that one of the main benefits of bitachon is the ability to be happy in any situation — even if that situation is at odds with one’s nature or preference.

“The thing I work through with clients who struggle in this area,” my mother says, “is helping each woman recognize that although this isn’t the picture she wanted, this is the picture Hashem gave her.”

These are very wise words. Everyone struggles when faced with a situation different from what they planned and hoped for. Accompanying this disappointment is its companion: self-doubt. A woman will wonder if there is something she did to create the situation, or something she should be doing better or differently that can fix it.

Confronting and recognizing reality for what it is and not what it should be or what she wants it to be is something I discuss with Dina, albeit with some pushback. It’s normal to resist accepting a difficult situation. Dina feels that if she accepts her situation as it is currently, it’s as if she is giving up on her husband and enabling his behavior. “If I just accept him, doesn’t that mean that I am saying it’s okay for him not to go to minyan?” Dina asks me. “Isn’t that just pretending, or worse, lying?”

It’s as if Dina feels that as long as she expresses her displeasure and holds on to this conflict, she’s doing her part to keep davening and learning core values in the home — a cognitive error of massive proportions. The very thing that Dina is doing — blaming and criticizing her husband — causes him to feel resentful and manipulated. It certainly doesn’t help him daven better or learn more.

What I help her recognize is that acceptance isn’t defeat or surrender. It’s a necessary state of being that allows for the next step, vital in any relationship, particularly the marital one: respect.

Step 3 — Respect

If there were a prescription that you could write out on a pad and hand to a kallah right before her chuppah, it would be this: Treat your husband with respect. We hear this from seminary teachers, kallah teachers, and any number of shiurim focused on shalom bayis. Women dealing with this particular challenge often feel as though their husbands no longer behave in a manner worthy of admiration.

“You tell me I should respect my husband,” Dina says. “But what if he isn’t doing anything to deserve my respect?” Dina’s statement highlights the problem with wholesale marriage advice — even with an article like this. In real life, issues are nuanced and individual. Although the principle is true — Dina needs to find a way to respect and look up to her husband — in real life, she’s having a hard time respecting someone who doesn’t embody her values.

I advise Dina — and any woman in this situation — to take a step back and resist globalizing her problem. Indeed, her husband isn’t living up to the idealized standards they set for themselves when they left kollel. But is there something he is doing right? When I ask Dina to tell me specifics about Yechiel’s good points, she acknowledges that he’s a wonderful father and patient with the kids. He also helps out a lot around the house. I encourage her to spend time daily noticing, acknowledging, and thanking him for what he does right.

Unsurprisingly, Dina reported that after doing that, she found she had a more positive mindset toward him. On one particularly busy Friday afternoon, Dina put this into practice: Anticipating a lot of Shabbos guests, she ambitiously added some labor-intensive items to the menu. Yechiel noticed how stressed she was and offered to take the two little kids out on “errands” to get them out from underfoot. Standing in her much quieter kitchen, she took a minute to send an appreciative text to Yechiel: “Thanks for noticing how stressed I was and taking the kids out so I could get things done.”

This focus had a powerful ripple effect that noticeably minimized conflict and fighting, even about this core issue, which Dina had thought was insurmountable. Somehow, when she generated positivity and focused on what she admired about Yechiel, her disappointment over his lack of learning, although it still rankled, wasn’t quite as sharp.

The thing about respect is that it can be a vicious cycle. A husband isn’t living up to an ideal; therefore, his wife doesn’t show him respect. He responds to her lack of respect by behaving badly.

Treating others, especially spouses, with respect creates a zone of safety and an environment where each person in the relationship can work on their personal challenges.

And it isn’t just Yechiel who has challenges. The next step is for Dina to shift her focus inward, to her own personal growth.

Step 4 — Focus Inward

Mrs. Yocheved Nissan has been a mechaneches at the Torah Academy for Girls in Far Rockway for 46 years. She’s a longtime kallah teacher and has taught thousands of kallahs over the years (she’s also my mother’s sister and equally wise). “Girls are taught that they’re the akeres habayis and an eizer k’negdo, and the key player in creating the spiritual environment in the home,” she says. “This is true. The mistake that women sometimes make is not recognizing that this role doesn’t change depending on what their husbands are or aren’t doing. Being an eizer k’negdo doesn’t mean that a woman is in charge of whether or not her husband goes to minyan. She’s not his boss, and supervising him isn’t her job.”

This is the crux of the issue. Do women use minyan attendance or participation in a Daf Yomi shiur as a kind of religious report card? And is it even a woman’s job to make sure her husband is getting good grades?

Are women outsourcing the spiritual atmosphere of the home to their husbands? Overwhelmed with parenting and household responsibilities, while often juggling professional responsibilities as well, personal growth can be deprioritized. The responsibility is transferred to the husbands with external signals such as minyan attendance as the primary indicator of success. When he falls short, the problem is not just that he’s faltering, but that his wife interprets this as a reflection not just on her family’s level of ruchniyus but sometimes her own personal one as well.

What does being the akeres habayis and an eizer k’negdo mean? How does a woman infuse her home with ruchniyus when, at times, she feels she’s pulling the weight — all by herself — with an obstinate load on the other side?

I spoke to a rebbetzin in Cleveland (who asked to remain anonymous) about this. “Women have opportunities throughout the day to talk to Hashem,” she told me. “A woman might only be able to say brachos in the morning and not be obligated for other formal davening depending on her situation, but she can still engage in ruchniyus, and her children need to see that.”

In a recent session with Dina, I explore her religious convictions. What is she doing in the pursuit of her personal relationship with Hashem? Is she offloading all spiritual responsibility onto her husband? Is she genuinely engaged in personal growth, or is she using her husband’s minyan attendance as the primary metric for evaluating the state of her spirituality?

“Why do you want your husband to go to minyan?” I ask her. It seems like a simple question, but it has Dina floundering. “Because he’s supposed to,” isn’t sufficient. Ultimately, Dina says she wants him to grow in his relationship with Hashem, to set the tone for the home, and to be a role model for the kids. If that is true, then a few things are clear: Dina needs to partner with her husband to keep the family on course. This means she needs to engage in honest and open communication with Yechiel that isn’t critical but collaborative.

It also means taking responsibility. Dina must find ways to nurture her own relationship with Hashem and grow in her ruchniyus, which will in turn set the tone for the spiritual atmosphere in the home. In Dina’s particular case, she decided to start listening to bite-size shiurim on the drive home after school drop-off. The shift of focus from what her husband isn’t doing to what she could do was empowering and life-changing for her.

Step 5 — Prioritize Shalom Bayis

Now comes the last and most crucial step in the process. In my initial session with Dina, when we first explored this conflict, I told her she wasn’t her husband’s mashgiach. As every woman has done when I’ve said these words, Dina responded: “But what about my kids? What message are my children getting when they never see their father pick up a sefer?”

I gently challenge her to ask what message her children receive by witnessing their parents fight over minyan and learning. What associations will they develop with the object of conflict between their parents? Not good ones.

I don’t doubt that Dina’s primary concern is for her children. I recently had a conversation with another marriage therapist, my brother, Yaakov Ganz (what can I say? It’s a family occupation). He made this observation: The spiritual value of shalom bayis can’t be underestimated. It isn’t to say that minyan isn’t important. Of course it is. But in working hard to foster a positive relationship, to create an environment in the home of respect, good middos, and acceptance, a woman is creating the ultimate mikdash.

I can’t make Dina any guarantees that by changing her behavior, her husband will change his. But I recognize and validate the holiness of her struggle. In her fear and distress, she was falling back on criticism and judgment of her husband, which was perpetuating and exacerbating the exact situation she was trying to change. Through acceptance, showing respect, and taking personal responsibility for her own ruchniyus, she can find what she’s ultimately looking for — a home that exemplifies the loftiest of ideals.

May she, like all the holy women of Klal Yisrael, for whom the pages of their Tehillim are worn and tearstained, be zocheh to perpetuate the next generation of Jewish men and women who will have the conviction and dedication of their mothers.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 906)