TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Not The Top Ten Reasons Couples Divorce
Date: 03/22/24 Length: 1:13:15
Daniel Lapin
Greetings, happy warriors. And welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show where I, your rabbi solemnly dedicate myself to revealing for you how the world really works. And one of the essential ways in which the world really works is that life works better when you are partnered with a life partner of the opposite sex. In other words, when a man and a woman make a lifetime commitment to one another, and then proceed to walk hand in hand through life, together with the children, that their love creates and brings into the world, there really is not a better system. And yes, there will always be the exceptional individual, for whom this doesn't work. And yes, there will be the occasional marriages in an ideal world where there will be a few divorces. But by and large, by and large, this is a system that works. I will tell you is some of you may know that Susan and I are very enthusiastic boaters. And as a matter of fact, particularly while our children were from birth through, I'll say through adolescence, all our care and you know, we worked really hard. We were worked very, very hard. And the only time we literally only took off Shabbat we took off every Saturday, and we took off Jewish holidays during the year. But other than that, we worked with the exception of a summer vacation summer vacation. Our preferred summer vacation is on a small boat for a few weeks or a month and a half or a month or two off the west coast of Canada, off the coast of British Columbia. That's just what has always been very special for our family. Now, the first time we did a major ocean crossing, the children were very small and we sailed from California to Hawaii. It took 22 days, it was on our sailboat called Paragon she was a 44-foot Peterson sailing cutter. And that means that had two sails forward of the mast and one main sail on the mast. And it took us 22 days to sail from California to Hawaii. And that July that we did that trip. Over 200 other boats did the same trip. I'm telling you this to indicate that this is not a terrifying ordeal, provided you know what you're doing provided your boat is in good shape, provided you choose your time to accommodate the weather. This is not a dangerous activity. Even though I will admit both my parents and Susan's parents were far from sanguine about us taking their precious grandchildren on a 22-day ocean voyage to cross the Pacific.
Daniel Lapin
But at any given time, like right now, I would say that there are hundreds maybe probably not 1000s, but many more than 10s. Certainly hundreds of small boats, shall we say between the size of 35-foot and 70-foot in that range. There are hundreds and hundreds of boats like that circling the globe, some doing it in a hurry in months, others taking years to do it. They are almost invariably crewed by a husband and a wife by a man and a woman. Sometimes they have children along sometimes they're an older couple and the children are already grown. But yes, anytime, if you would go down if it's the right time of the year, and you go to a harbor town wherever you live at to a harbor town that is on the route, as it were. You know, most of the Caribbean ports are like that. Many harbors in Florida, certainly in the Pacific Northwest on the West Coast of America, Hawaii, Australia, South Africa. They are There are standard harbors that everybody stops at, and you will at any day of the week you will go and you will find and they're easy to recognize, you can easily tell the boats that are not the ones that just sit in Harbor, day after day, week after week, year after year, the boats are actually out on the blue ocean and crossing oceans and doing ocean passages, you can always spot them and recognize them and you, you'll find they're almost always happy to talk and tell you what they do and where they're up to. And we've indeed had many very pleasant encounters chatting with people who are in the middle of such, either circumnavigations or long-term passages. Why do I tell you this because almost invariably, as I say, they are a husband and wife traveling on the boat together. And almost invariably, they've been married for a while. And almost invariably, they are happily married. And in this community divorce is virtually unknown.
Daniel Lapin
Now, the reason this is a huge surprise why this is really interesting, I'm going to tell you in a moment, because you might have thought differently. But first of all, I want to recommend that you choose this time to become a formal Happy Warrior. You go on their website, RabbiDanielLapin.com. And go to where you can become a happy warrior. One of the things we've started doing for Happy Warriors is we've started presenting a regular feature an AI on Israel, in which Susan and I talk to somebody in Israel, who has inside knowledge, somebody who knows something, somebody who is experienced at what life in Israel is really all about somebody who might know something about the war and the struggle. And so that is now available for Happy Warriors, along with a number of other benefits are available to Happy Warriors. And all you got to do is go to the website and look into this. And I look forward to welcoming you to our very special community of happy warriors, people, all of us people who care about our families and our finances. We care about our friendships, our physical fitness, and our faith. And we're eager to share with one another, we're eager to encourage one another, we're eager to help one another at all times. Somebody just wrote on the Happy Warrior website. Somebody just said he is arriving in Tokyo for a few days. And he'd like to meet up with any Happy Warriors in Japan. I'm hoping he did. And I look forward to hearing about that. But that's the thing that I would like to recommend. And I'd like you to also if you are fairly new to this idea that the five fundamental focuses of your life, or your family and your finances, your friendships, your fitness and your faith, then I'd recommend that you take a look at our book called The holistic you, the holistic you how to integrate your five F's, your family, your faith, your friendships, your finances, and your fitness. And you will find that that is a wonderful way to reshape the blueprint of your life and to move forward in productive and fresh ways that will really fill you with joy and with delight. So the book is called The Holistic You and become a Happy Warrior. So you're not traveling this path alone and enjoy.
Daniel Lapin
Okay, here's why it's a bit of a surprise, because two people who've never done it. Time on a small boat seems to be just deliriously enjoyable, you know, what could possibly go wrong? Well, I'll tell you. The fact is you are completely off the grid, you're completely self-contained. So there's no such thing as calling the guy to come and fix something because there's nobody out there to fix anything you're on your own. And if the water goes off, you don't call a plumber. You figure out what the problem is because you are responsible for your freshwater supply. Unless you're voting on the Great Lakes, in which case there's no shortage of fresh water and electricity goes out. You got to supply you generate and produce all your own elect TriCity the how if you cook by gas, your butane or propane, you're responsible for taking care of that whole system and keeping that safe. How about sewage waste, toiletry toilet work, okay, you're so used to pressing the flush lever on a domestic toilet, and never giving it another thought domestic toilets are so well engineered, and so well established that if a domestic toilet gives you a problem once in five years, that's a lot. But on a boat, it's a little bit different, because it doesn't just flush it away, it's got to flush it, sometimes upwards to where a, the the outlet may be. And it's not only going to flush it, but you're Padme it's got to masquerade it. And it's got to turn it into a slurry that that can work. If you've ever been on an RV, you have at least a little bit of a taste of it. But not the same goes in the final analysis on an RV, it does just drop through the bottom into a tank in the belly of your RV. But on a boat, it's really different. And so there are all these systems that have to be kept operating. Plus there is the sales and the rigging and all that stuff Where's you know, during the constant nonstop motion of an ocean passage, the stuff wears, you got to monitor the wear and you've got to replace it before it fails at a bad time. And navigation this whole lot to do a whole lot to do all the time. And things go wrong. You know, you you spend cooking on a boat, right, it's hard the boats moving all the time it's leaning over the stove is set in Gimbels in a kind of bearing that allows it to sway and swivel as the boat sways and swivels. And, and so you know, you might spend an hour and a half, you know, preparing a wonderful meal with cutting all the ingredients and marinating a cook. And then at the last minute as you're about ready to serve it, the boat gives a heave. And because you you weren't holding on using both, or whatever it was, all of a sudden the results of a whole lot of work lands on the cabin floor. And it's a mess and it's got to be cleaned up and now the dinner you're looking forward to is not happening. And you know people, especially the ladies end up crying every now and then on a boat and and on YouTube. There are a number of channels of couples who record on video their adventures on a boat and make it available for people to watch. And so if you know if you happen to be interested, you can easily see it but you know, you'll sometimes see usually the girl you know Will it often happens she just gets very weepy because it's It's just frustrating. And I mean just even basic things like you know personal hygiene, showering, it's hard on a small boat. But you know, you get used to it and you do it.
Daniel Lapin
And most people who boat feel it's worth it, the the benefits outweigh the costs. But you could have been you could well imagine that with all this level of potential frustration and challenge and just the sheer physical difficulty, you know, you move around in your house. And if you're on a single-level home, you really have no problems at all, but on a boat, everything is an up and down and a climb and holding on as the boat moves. You really could well imagine that on a boat, aggravations would fester. And finally, after a few months of this or a year of this, the couple, you know, the wife would say it's either me or the boat, you know, and that would be the end of the marriage or the end or the end of the adventure. But the funny thing is that I know this world quite well. And I will tell you that it's almost unheard of, to hear of a couple that divorces, you know who lived this lifestyle. And I thought that that would be an interesting thing to touch on. And I will tell you some of the characteristics, almost without exception, the couple devolves automatically to what I call blue jobs and pink jobs. Almost invariably, it is the woman who does the cooking who keeps the boat clean. And the man who operates the sails and pulls up the anchor and looks after the maintenance and fixes the toilet when it breaks and keeps the engine running and keeps the electricity on, almost invariably, that's how it breaks down. Now at the termination of a passage, you're going to either dock the boat in our harbor or in a marina. Or you are going to grab a mooring ball, which is a big float with some rope attached to it. And the big ball is attached by a chain to a block of concrete resting on the floor of the harbor or the bay, and you tie your boat to that. Or finally, you drop your anchor, you'll lower your anchor and and make it get a grab hold of the bottom, the middle on the bottom, and then that'll hold you in position. And what you often find is that in the beginning, couples will arrange it says the guy is bringing the boat into the harbor, and the girl jumps onto the dock with a rope and ties it up. Or the guy is maneuvering the boat to add an anchorage and the girl is lowering the anchor. And I will tell you that it took Susan and mean no time at all after we got married to realize how dumb that was. Because the easy part is operating the steering wheel and the controls the the throttles and the gearshift, that's the easy part. The hard part is maneuvering an anchor up at the bow which you know, weighs perhaps at least 60 pounds. So we're talking about quite a weight. And, and whenever we see a guy at the controls, and a girl struggling with the anchor of the bow, and he's screaming instructions, and she's just getting more and more frustrated and upset, you know, we know that they are beginners, and they're either going to learn how to do it or they're not long for this lifestyle. But you know, we learned very quickly that in spite of the fact that most of us guys think that we have a better ability at an end. It's true spatially, men tend in general to be better than women. And so we tend to think we should do that the maneuvering and the controls. But it makes no sense. It's just so easy for a girl to learn how to maneuver the boat, it's so much better for the man to jump onto the dock, you know that, that that is fraught with all kinds of physical challenges, such as the boat trying to get away once you're on the dock and holding it with one line. It's so much more sense for a man to handle the anchor and for a woman to control the boat. So you know, that's what we do.
Daniel Lapin
In terms of steering on on a passage, we pretty much say we pretty much share the time. And we've also got children with us who like doing that as well, very often, the steering consists of putting the boat onto the autopilot, so it steers itself. And then keeping a very close watch out to make sure that there's nothing in the way, let alone other boat traffic. But you got to watch for things like every now and then, you know these huge 40-foot steel containers that you'll find on cargo ships every now and then they fall off. And they usually float just about at the surface of the water. You got to really watch out for those particularly if you're on a shipping lane. And there has been a storm recently because these things usually fall off cargo ships during a storm. And then in the Pacific Northwest, which is our boating territory. You want to watch out for logs, huge logs that got loose and can cause damage so and so we usually split the time on that when we're doing any close-quarter maneuvers. Susan is at the wheel and I'm outside dealing with anchors or lines or whatever else is going on. But generally speaking with us as well, the all the food, all the provisioning, deciding what should be bought and where it should be stowed and what meals will be all of that Susan takes care of. I don't even know anything about it. And likewise, she doesn't worry about whether there's enough electricity in the batteries for the evening. And she doesn't worry about whether there's enough propane in the tanks to run the stove. And if if she feels chilly and she wants to turn on the heater, she is justified to expect that it will work when she turns it on. And again by the way on a boat a heater isn't just a case of just turning on an electric heater. It's usually a lot more complicated. We usually have a heater that burns diesel fuel. So anyway, and we love the lifestyle. We love spending our vacations in that way. And obviously, not a lot of people do. But as I say, at any given time, there are hundreds, literally hundreds of couples doing this, some of them doing unit during summer vacation, many of them, hundreds of them, doing it as a long-term retirement post-retirement lifestyle. And you'll find them in the Mediterranean, you'll find in the Caribbean, you'll find them on the east coast of North America, you'll find them in Mexico. They're all over the place. And that's what they do. So why are these marriages surprisingly durable, in spite of the fact that it's not an easy life? In a certain way, it's a little bit like being a pioneer, moving out west in the 1800s. In North America, you know, where you're going to be living in a fairly isolated cabin. And, and you know, there's no doctor around the corner, there's no dentists around the corner, there's no, you really have to take, you know, you're off the grid, you're doing it yourself. It's a lot like that. And those marriages also tended to endure. So what is it about that kind of? Well, I'll tell you, first of all, just by the nature of the reality of things, the jobs break down to blue and pink, it doesn't make sense, for my 120-pound wife, to be the one responsible for handling a 60-pound lunk of steel called an anchor - man handling it or a woman handling it. It doesn't make sense. Secondly, I am innately fascinated by machinery I like machinery. And when something goes wrong, I end up with a pretty good sense of what it is, or I know how to diagnose it. And I know how to troubleshoot, I'm comfortable doing that. Susan is very comfortable not doing that. And on the other hand, she's very comfortable thinking in terms of the food and the nutrition that a crew on the boat needs. So one way or another, she's very happy doing what she does. I'm very happy doing what I do. We split the tasks. And between us, we both keep it all running.
Daniel Lapin
But in an ordinary conventional, modern 21st-century suburban lifestyle. It's a lot harder to say that jobs automatically breakdown. Because in many cases, both the husband and the wife spend a day at work in an office, maybe? And then they come home. And who's who's to say why why should it be that the woman is responsible for dinner? Why? Because when you think about it, you know, what, what is the guy been doing? Well, he makes sure that the electricity bill gets paid. So the gas stove or the electricity stove works? Well, she can do that just as well. There are very few masculine jobs that happen in a modern couple's modern lifestyle. And since is he fixing the car, probably not. He calls the car guy the mechanic. And then they pay that out of the household bank account. So she doesn't look at him as taking care of the masculine jobs anymore. Like she could call up the call guy. The plumbing, you know, the plumbing doesn't work properly. They call up the plumber. But there's nothing that he does, which is uniquely and specifically masculine. See where I'm going here, guys, you really, really need to be handy around the house, you need to have tools, and you need to take responsibility for actually fixing things with your hands. But that's that's one distinction. Another one is that there is a joint mission that they're on, you get what I'm saying? The mission is to keep the boat running and to be able to successfully have a safe passage from wherever you are now to the next port you're going to and to be able to pull that off successfully and safely. Alright, so there again, right, you are an usher shared mission, you're both United. And you both realize that you can't do it alone. If for no other reason than if you're on a night passage, you have to take, you have to change shifts, you have to take changes, because one person has to grab some sleep, while the other person keeps a lookout on the journey on what's going on outside, make sure there's no perils, and there's no traffic. And, and so, you know, you can't possibly manage without the other person. And you're aware of that all the time. So it's a mission in which you intuitively both realize the contribution the vital and indispensable contribution that you both make, but in a 21st century, modern suburban lifestyle, what's the mission? And where are where is there an indispensable need for one another. In a woman, a woman can run a household entirely by herself. Not saying she wants to or not saying it's fun or delightful, but she good. and to a lesser extent and less capably a man could do the same. You can bring in you can ring up for take for takeout food to be delivered. And you, you as I say, when anything needs fixing you call the man and the you call somebody to do laundry and fix the washing machine. And so there isn't a point at which you so vitally realize that you'd need your spouse, you need the other person, because you don't. You see, that is a problem. And so obviously, because of the many differences between a couple living and traveling around the world on a boat, and by the way, I'm sure there are other examples, but this is just one obviously, that I'm very familiar with. And it seems to produce very durable and very happy marriages.
Daniel Lapin
You know, every couple in this lifestyle that we've ever encountered, they really do seem to just love one another and to to enjoy being together. Which is again, by the way, something else you might have thought would contribute to a rash of divorces in the lifestyle of small boating, and that is, you can't ever actually get away from the other person. There isn't really I mean, other than other than the time when you're in the head, which to landlubbers is the toilet. I mean, when else are you actually I guess you could go sit on the front of the boat, the pointy part we call the bow, or if the other person is there, you could go to the stern the blunt end, you know, you could I guess you could, you know, but it's not like being even a small suburban apartment has probably at least twice the square footage of about at least what is the suburban apartment seven 800 feet, 900 feet, something like that. I mean, not going to be much less than that, right? The floor space on a think of a roughly of 40-foot boat, maybe 300 square feet, and then another 300 square feet on the deck outside if the weather's Okay, and the motion is not too uncomfortable. And there you are, you know, you're lucky if you've got five 600 square feet on about lucky, very unusual. And I think most people are living in houses or apartments with a lot more floor space than that. So there's a lot of reasons you would have thought these marriages wouldn't work. But they do. Because they are blue and pink roles. And there are and we each one sees the indispensability of the other. There is a mission, there's a purpose, there's somewhere you're going and it takes both of us to make it possible for us to get there safely. And those are among the reasons.
Daniel Lapin
So in a regular marriage, then, in a marriage of a couple, living a conventional 21st-century suburban lifestyle, it's a lot more difficult because a lot of these very positive strengthening factors are not there. So you kind of got to come up with them. You got to create them artificially, or realistically. You got to make the happen? And how do you how do you do that? Well, for one thing, you for a start. You don't get married without having some really serious conversations. And the conversations do not consist of I love you. Oh, no, I love you more. No, no, no, I love you even more than that. I'm not denigrating love, but marriage is serious. And you got to have serious conversations. And it continues to astound me. How many couples are in a marriage? Going through challenging times? And who acknowledge in response to a question that no, they never had these discussions beforehand? And so just a simple question, what is going to be the mission of our marriage? What is the purpose of our marriage? It's not just physical companionship, it's part of it. But what is the purpose of our marriage? Is the purpose to have children? Is it one of the purposes? And if so, what is going to be special about the children we bring into the world and raise compared to others? How? What are we going to be doing differently? These questions have to be discussed. Now, as you know, I am a very strong proponent of the man taking responsibility for the money. And the woman who may or may not also work, but knowing that she her income is not income on which the couple or the family depends. That is a huge why because once again, that highlights blue and pink. And please remember that you cannot refute me by saying, Does this strange, antiquated Rabbi not realize we're in the 21st century? Doesn't he realize things are different today? Doesn't he realize men and women are the same, and we egalitarian. And we share roles 100% equally in our marriage, because we are a modern, equal marriage. Lots of luck events, you lots of luck is all I can say to you. Because you're making your life Well, I'm not even going to go into it, you know, it's just a reality. The fact is, that part of the joy part of the value and part of the pleasure and smooth running of a marriage hinges on male-female polarity, the more she tries to be masculine, and the more he becomes feminine, the less likely the marriage is to endure for long at all. Marriages thrive on male female polarity on distinctiveness on masculine feminine difference. Okay, this is a reality. Nothing of any real accomplishment, happy to happens without it, even if you just think of your basic electrical socket. And it's amazing, right? Because it'll, that socket will wash your clothes, it'll bring light into your house, it'll probably cook your food, that electrical socket. And by the way, you begin to see why energy is so important. And why the stupid games being played by so many governments around the world these days of pretending that all this can be supplied by wind, and by solar by sustainable sources. All of that nonsense is, is terribly, terribly dangerous because of how much you depend on that socket in the wall with two after with two little slots in it, or that switch above it, which turns the flow of electrical current on and off. So much of your life is dependent upon that working smoothly. And I've spoken in the past about what happens. One of the very first signs of societal breakdown is the collapse of energy supply. And there are there is a state in the United States that regularly every summer experiences power outages because they have behaved very stupidly in their energy policy. But going back to that electrical outlet, you'll notice that unlike, shall we say a gas pipe, which just has one pipe that supplies the guess the electrical socket has two pipes, culminating in the two little slots, you could think of them as positive and negative. And even though we use alternating current, not direct current, and even though it's a lot more complicated than that, obviously, it makes no sense for me to delve into it here and now, but the bottom line is that there is a difference in polarity between those two sockets. And that's why if you were completely suspended in the air, and you put your finger in one of the sockets, nothing would happen to you, that would only be a problem if you put your other finger in the other socket. That's why birds who land on electrical wires are not electrocuted, because they're only on one wire, they're on one conductor. But if the conductors were close enough together, for the bird to put one claw onto the one wire and the other onto the other wire, you would have fricasseed pigeon, it would be instantly cooked and incinerated even. So what I'm so I'm saying that is that the the power works because there is a difference in polarity, the electrons are propelled to flow from one pole to the other. And on the way they can be induced do a whole lot of work for us like washing our clothing. That's how nice this is and how well the system works. So, polarity is a wonderful thing. And polarity is found in a man between a man and a woman. Masculine and feminine, are very polarity separate.
Daniel Lapin
One of the reasons those of you who are Biblically literate and interested, you will have come across Biblical verses that say that men should wear men's clothing and women should wear women's clothing. And again, your first response to that oh, how stupid that is how sexist that is how primitive that is, men and women to wear the same clothing? And the answer to that is, that just means you do not know the extent to which your psychology and your psyche and your entire being your emotions, your psychology, all of you, is impacted by what you do with your body what you physically do. Right? So if you conduct yourself in a unisexual way, and so does your spouse, you will find a dramatic diminishing of sexual tension between the two of you. It's as simple as that. Some of you have probably heard the Scrolling through Scripture teaching available on our website, where I go through and talk about specific sections of Scripture. And one of the things I've explained is that one of the interesting things that Adam and Eve do is when they have eaten the apple, and they discover that they are naked and they become erotically conscious. The first thing they do is they pull some fig leaves down, and they sort of arrange them as loincloths, to conceal their genitals. That's what they do. Later on. When God evicts him from the Garden of Eden. By the way, you should go and take a look at this as interesting. He visits them from the Garden of Eden, and it says he makes them leather outfits and says, not for "them". It says for Adam and Eve. And you would have thought Adam and Eve would have said oh don't go to the trouble Lord, we're fine. We got these great green outfits. It's very cool. We got green threads here we got these leaves were comfortable. But now God says they won't do. I've got to make you clothing out of leather and in the original Hebrew text, what is very evident and not perhaps less so in many of the translations, but that's why you need a rabbi that's me. What's very interesting is that the the, the figleaves that Adam and Eve first crafted into basic loincloths were identical - his and hers were the same. But when God made them leather outfits, he made a completely different one for a man and a completely different one for a woman. Because the world runs on male-female polarity on masculine-feminine polarity. And masculine-feminine polarity is enhanced by dressing In a male way for a man, and dressing in a female way for a woman, and I don't think there are many men listening, who do not feel a surge of joy and excitement when they come home and find that amazingly and astonishingly, their wife is dressed in a very feminine way. Yeah, that's right. And I said earlier, guys, you should, you should make sure your wife sees you fixing things around the house? Well, again, let me say that I don't think there'd be many women listening, who do not feel a surge of joy at watching their man competently wield his tools, solving a problem, fixing something that was broken. Blue and pink. That's it, baby. Don't lose sight of it. It's very, very real.
Daniel Lapin
So here's the thing, let's take a look at the 10 most prevalent reasons that people give for the failure of their marriages. And this sort of data is really easy to lay one's hands on, because marriage therapists and marriage counselors keep notes and they write articles and they write books. And so the the the list of the 10 most commonly cited reasons for the demise of a marriage that I'm going to give you absolutely standard, it's not going to differ substantially from many, many other lists that you can find her and they all say the same 10 things in, in various different ways. But, but here they are, I'm going to going to go through them one, well, I'll go through them all together, and then I'll go back on them. I chose the wrong person, I married the wrong person. Number two, we fell out of love. Number three, we stopped communicating. Number four, we grew apart. Number five, we married too young. Number six, we just spend more time arguing than doing anything else. Number seven, he or she subjected me to mental, emotional, verbal abuse, take your pick. Number eight, we just no longer share the same values. Number nine, we've we've kind of got different goals, we were looking for different things. Number 10. We fight about money. Okay, those those are the 10 most common reasons given for why people divorce.
Daniel Lapin
Okay, so, before I go into it, I want to tell you one fundamental fact about divorce. And, and there are so many of you who are going to write in and say yes, I know you're telling the truth, because in the years of counseling that Susan and I have done, I can't tell you how many times people, we actually I could point out gifts in our home that were given to us by couples who followed this advice. That's That's how common it is. Well, I'm going to tell you is that almost without exception, overwhelmingly and I can safely say you, you and you this is true for virtually everybody. If instead of proceeding along the lines of a divorce, you decide no, we're sticking with this marriage, however unpleasant. It is, however much abuse There is, however much no communicating, however much we're not breaking up. If you do that, in an amazingly short period of time down the road measured in months, not years, you will be grateful and happy. That's right. Why is that what I told you before that a lot of people don't realize the extent to which we are shaped by the actions we take and by the behavior we do. Over here, the behavior of deciding to stick with a marriage has a profound impact, a profound impact and and you go through a rough patch. And after that everything is great. It really is. Now in the case of infidelity. You'll notice I didn't include that in the 10 Because I'm talking about the 10 most common for which there is an answer. infidelity is a little bit more complicated. I will tell you this that if the woman has betrayed the marriage, forget about it. It's overs, just move on. Do your best. If the man has betrayed the marriage, it is possibly salvageable. It's not easy or simple. It's not pain free. But it is possible. Okay, so I'm leaving infidelity out of this because it's in a category of its own.
Daniel Lapin
But in the ordinary cases, these 10 examples, if people decide to just sit, they sit down one day, and so you know what? Yes, we grew apart. Yes, we have different values. Yes, this yes, that yes, the other, but we're not separating, it's not going to happen, we're going to make this work as painful as it is, we're going to make it work. You will be grateful that you did. In the overwhelming majority of cases, you got to be aware that there's a whole divorce industry out there that is doing everything possible to encourage you. And I also recommend that married couples do not hang out with divorced people. Sorry for your divorced folks, I, I do understand that you also deserve love, but find it among single people, because it's not good and healthy, for married couples to hang out socially, with divorced people. Just not, again, the way you behave, the way you conduct yourself, the actions you take, have a colossal impact on your spiritual reality on your mental reality on your emotional reality. So we look at you know, I just I'm getting divorced, I just chose the wrong person. I ended up marrying the wrong person. All right, well, let me explain the truth of this. The truth is, and I will tell you that there is a couple that we know who was one of the couples who were mass married. Under the Church of the Unification, you might remember that Korean organization that existed for a while maybe it still does, it was led by the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon. And he used to, from time to time do mass marriages, where he he would literally say you and you, you get married, you stand there, you and you, you and you, and you take 100 men and 100 women, and pair them off and say you are now going to be married and he would marry them. And what shocked the secular world of of American psychology was that these marriages ordered so well, you know, there were there were the same statistics or as you might find in other groups, but by and large, the majority of these marriages did just fine. Everyone very happy. Isn't that weird? Do you think the Reverend Moon had psychic powers that could allow him to pick strangers just knowing that they would click and they'd fall in love and that they would they're just the right couple men for each other? I'm going to tell you something, which if you've been raised on Hollywood, romantic comedies, and if you've been raised on Walt Disney old style before the company went woke and broke, you will be shocked and outraged. You will be indignant, you're gonna want to slap me or punch me, but I'm going to tell it to you anyways. And that is that, barring ill health, barring outright unhygienic, sheer ugliness. But barring those exceptional cases, you take a perfectly normal 24-year-old man and you take a perfectly normal 20-year-old woman. And when I say normal, I mean, you know who have not been damaged by the culture and by localism. And by modernity and by secularism and by liberalism. When I say normal, I mean normal. I don't mean average. I don't mean common. I mean normal people who are normal human beings. presuming you could find somebody like that but if you took a perfectly normal, healthy 24-year-old guy, the sort of guy you might meet at the Wichita County Fair, you know, and you took a perfectly normal or 19 or 20-year-old woman, sort of woman who might be doing Grange or 4H at the Wichita State Fair, or the Kansas State Fair. And you tell them guy, put a ring on her finger, and come with me to the local synagogue or the local church, we're gonna get you to married and you can start off your life and start living. The overwhelming odds are, they will be just fine, provided they trusted you. And provided they were able to make the commitment. But if they did, even the fact that they didn't know each other, and they don't share interest in that, unlike the same movies, and they haven't even spoke to one another to figure out whether they share the same political views. It doesn't matter. A marriage can work between almost any man and any woman, you know, age matching, appearance matching and so on, given you know, not, I'm not I'm not being preposterous here. I'm not saying you know, a 50-year-old person and a 20-year-old person, put them together and they can marry you know, it's not how it works. But if, basically, when a man tells me I'm not married yet, because I haven't found the right woman. And I have to stop myself from bursting out into laughter of derision and ridicule. Really, you haven't found the right? No, you're not married yet. Because you haven't become the right man. Period. That's it. That's all you could literally go up to the next woman you meet on the street who is attractive and, and who appears normal. And you could go ahead and marry her, you'll be better off than you are now. And the odds are, it'll become a lovely marriage.
Daniel Lapin
And that's male-female polarity. And the idea of male-female commitment. And away you go, it works. It really, really works. Susan, I have a lot of friends among Mennonites and Amish communities around the country. And so we know a lot of families. And you can ask them, you know, how how did you meet? How did you get married? Well, you know, we, you know, he saw me in church, he asked his father about me, his father spoke to my father. We met and we got married. And, that was it. Yes, it works. Why? Because they are blue and pink roles. There is a mission to the marriage. And there is a commitment that is unbreakable. There you go. It works. And they're happy, really happy. And you've got to look at the children that they've conceived and given birth to and brought into the world. And you realize only happy parents produce children like that they're lovely children. It's a very important point. By the way, what I just said, happy parents produce great kids. Happily married parents produce great kids. Happily, married parents produce great kids. So So when it comes to choosing married the wrong person, we reject that as an excuse right away. You didn't. The very fact that you've managed to live together for X number of months or years already shows that you're not the wrong person. You are both turning each other and yourselves into the wrong person. But if you stop doing that, and start making sure that you repaired the damage, you're going to be great. You'll be happy and grateful that you saw it through. We fell out of love. Well, the term falling in love is all you need to know because we shouldn't be falling in this world. We should be rising. If somebody told me, you know, I'm marrying her, because we rose in love. I burst into joyful laughter. And I'd say go for it. I'll be happy to dance at your wedding. Because that would be a very refreshing change. Falling you're not supposed to fall into anything. Falling is a really any sentence that begins I fell is not a good thing. So we fell out of love. Well, you obviously decided to get married. Read on the basis of falling in love, which was really one of the very silly things you did. But now that you're there, I refer you back to point number one, and make it work. Now, again, I'm not trying to sound simplistic about this. In real life,
Daniel Lapin
this is many, many, many hours of counseling, many hours of working through these things in order to make a marriage work. So you know, so it's not as if a couple comes to my study and say, we were at the end of our tear that we're about to decide on getting divorced. And I say, oh, simple, just decide to commit and away you go, you'll be fine. No, it doesn't work like that. It's hard, hard work. And it takes a long time. But, but I'm giving you the high points, I'm giving you the themes that make it work. We stopped communicating. Yeah, I don't dispute that. There are many times in our marriage, where one of us will say to the other half said, you know, what, we need some more time to we haven't spent enough time talking, we were both getting caught up in work, we're getting caught up in one thing or another that we need. Yeah, of course, you have to communicate. And you may even need some help, you know, maybe a relative or a wise mentor, but you may need somebody to help teach you again, how to communicate. But the fact that you stopped communicating is not a reason to get divorced. It's a reason to learn how to communicate, it's not too late. Number four, we grew apart. Now when I don't even know what that means. We grew apart mean. Okay. In very often, and I didn't make the subcategory of its own because it sort of shows up implicitly, in all of these categories. And that is, our our physical connection is subpar. Right. Our intimate life is not really what it should be. Yeah. Yeah, that certainly is also is absolutely a problem. But it's usually not the reason for couples wanting to divorce. It's usually part of the reason. And we grew apart. Yeah, it would, lack of intimacy would be a part of that as well. No question about it. And, and that is something that has to be has to be repaired has to be dealt with. I mean, obviously, it is, again, it's one of the the most incandescent moments of masculine-feminine polarity is when the husband and wife are intimate, that is it that is the high point of masculine-feminine polarity. So of course you want to exercise it. And of course, you want it to be a an active part of a successfully functioning marriage. Right goes without saying. So yeah, the we grew apart is not is not a reason. So fix up some of these other things in your sock growing together again. And by the way, once you know you're yoked to one another, once you know you are handcuffed to one another, you'll figure out that growing apart is not so much fun. You'll you'll have more fun growing together. We married too young, that's number five. We just married too young. I can assure you that there are more problems associated with marrying too old than with too young. So you think oh, yeah, he's right. They're too old is no good to younger, just right is right. Problem is nobody knows what just right is. And so younger, is better than older. And I will tell you one of the things that is very much a real problem and and it's it's it's difficult to deal with I want to tell you I've spoken about this in the past, but the more prior the more prior physical experience that the spouses experienced with other people before they got married, the more difficult it is to make a marriage function. And it is many times more serious. And again, you know, throw brick bats at me, you're not gonna like this because we live in modern egalitarian times of equality and there's no difference between men and women. But sadly there is and joyfully there is, and yes, I will tell you and again, the data on this as in by the way, if you don't like what I'm saying, I'm only the messenger don't shoot me. This is just reality. It's, it's out there, it's well known. It's, there's no argument about this. And that is that the more prior relationships the woman had before marriage, the harder it is for her to be and enjoy a durable long-term term stable, secure marriage. Sorry about it. That's just the reality, folks, it's just, I can talk much more I can do a whole show on why that is and what's going on and and how that happens. But it just does, you should know it. The most successful the most durable, the it's easiest to build a happy durable marriage, when each is the others first partner, have life experience. It's that's a reality. And so if you are raising your children in a certain way, that will make it likely that they will be their future spouses, first partner, you'd be doing a wise thing, according to the statistics, just the reality. So no, we married too young, not a reason for it. You might have married immature, you might have married without having crucial, substantive conversations. There. All of that is true, but nothing to do with your age. I mean, what did you get married when you were 14. But when people tell me they get married too young, I always ask them how old they were when they got married. And they always hesitate for a moment. And I know what the presentation means. They don't realize that everyone realized doesn't realize you hesitate before you lie. And so you don't realize that people can tell. But I say so. So how old were you both when you got married? And there's usually this little hesitation. I know, they're trying to figure out whether they should lie or tell the truth? Because the answer is always 27, 32, 26. Yeah, really too young. And they know, they know that it's a stupid reason.
Daniel Lapin
Number six, we just spend more time arguing than anything else. Well, that's one that one is a little bit like we grew apart. You know, we just spending a lot of time arguing with each other, I get it. So obviously, there are underlying issues. And we are going to now work on how you talk to one another. Right things do not you have to you can disagree, but not everything has to be an argument. And so we're going to show you how to talk to each other, we're going to improve your communication. And you're both going to commit to communicating because you're committed to staying together. And it's a lot more fun living with somebody with whom you communicate easily and fluidly. And naturally, then with somebody you don't number seven, he or she subjected me to mental or emotional verbal abuse all the time. That's all I get is emotional abuse. So on this one, as many of you who have heard me for a while know that I don't accept that. I just do not accept it. Okay. And all you people are gonna cry and whine to me, Well, you've never had abuse I've ever lived with mental abuse, grow up, just grow up and Kennett. If you can only be abused by somebody else, if you allow it to happen. That's all. And so again, this just goes back to communication. As long as we're not talking about physical abuse. We're talking about emotional, mental, verbal abuse. All that means is you argue, and you don't know how to communicate, and you're growing apart. That's all that means. But these, this word of abuse has become a trigger word. So it doesn't impress me one little bit. I dismiss it and I say I need specifics. I need you can see, you can see why. You can see why not a lot of people want me to walk them through a marriage problem. I'm not the soft, touchy feely kind on this. I'm sorry, I'm results-oriented. And I want you to hear these things very, very clearly. You want to tell me about all your mental abuse that you suffered? Fine. I want to know exactly what that entails. What is it mean? They woke you up with a noisy alarm. clock? Or they? What does it mean? I need to hear exactly what happened. Don't use the word abuse. Tell me what it was. And whenever this happens, it always falls away. Always just falls away. And it becomes, but you got to get rid of this nonsense of this term abuse. It's become so popular,
Daniel Lapin
just thoroughly destructive. Number eight, we no longer share values. Did you ever? Did you actually have a meeting a serious conversation before you got engaged? Do you have a serious meaning to talk about what your mission was? What are your goals? And I'm not talking about John's goals and Janet's goals. I'm talking about the goal of the marriage. That's what it has to be. Marriage is not about furthering your, your stamp collection or your you know, whatever your own goal, your your career goals, you know, I'm Forget it. You no longer share your goals. Yeah. Okay. So I mean, a valid values and goals, these are two. Number eight is we no longer share values. Well, that the values that set the boundaries of a marriage are hugely important. Did you ever decide what the values are? That have to be set? Did you ever say what the Inviolable moral boundaries of the marriage are? What are the true values? And so to now say, we no longer share value, all that means is, you've probably never had them. And it means that now's a really good time to start figuring out what the merit of the values of this marriage are. Same for goals, we had different goals. Well, yeah, you know, a man and a woman generally have different goals in many, many different areas. But there was a goal, to make a marriage to make a loving, committed durable marriage, wasn't that a goal? Well, how can you have a different I mean, you're sitting here, you must have that is the goal. Surely what's different? We're not here to talk about, you know, your goals of filling your bucket list, you want to ride a, a one of those wire lines, what do they call I forget the word. You want to go to Thailand to to ride an elephant heavy, fine, you know, figure it out the lesson we're talking about here. Those are have nothing to do with the viability of the marriage. And then finally, number 10, money and budget disagreements. Huge one, really, really important. Did you talk about it? Like, is it something you plan? So has an hour been a departure from an original agreed upon? I'll tell you what, what shows up very, very often. And I counsel a lot of marriage counselors. So when I say I've seen something many, many times, you probably think well, how many couples? Could he have seen? The answer is dozens and dozens, hundreds. Because I'm one step removed. And I will have a counselor sit down and talk with me in great detail about a marriage that they're grappling with trying to help and salvage. So budgeting and money decisions. Yeah, that is really serious. And that does have to be worked on.
Daniel Lapin
Obviously, if we have made money more of a blue job than a pink job, then that's a big help. It's a big help. Now, even then, there can be monetary problems. I don't know if you've seen the Ask the rabbi that we just published on our website. But this was a man who wrote into tell us that he just discovered we won't go into how he discovered. But he discovered from some mail that his wife received that she had inherited a large sum of money a while earlier from a departed relative. And he's terribly upset because she never told him about it. So he has a couple with a money argument. Accepting she doesn't know that he knows. And she doesn't know that He's beside himself with unhappiness at the fact that she got a huge sum of money compared to their budget and compared to some of the challenges they face. And he never told him and we answered it in a way that he was truly shocked. It was like he got hit by a baseball bat. He was so shocked at what we told him. And you can see that on the website at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com. It is the Ask the rabbi. And so yeah, all of these things, all of them can be resolved. Not a single one of them is a reason to end a marriage. And they are all things that if you commit to getting past them, you will get past them. And you will be very grateful. And you will be happy. Please don't for a moment, think that the life well, you know, you don't need me to tell you what the life of divorced people is like, you don't need me to tell you how the children of divorce feel. All of this is pretty well known. And I know you all know it. So there it is. We focus on our family and our faith, our finance, our friendships and our fitness. And today, we were talking mostly about family. But of course, all of these things interact with one another. And if you want to have a beautifully fulfilling marriage, then you need to know a whole lot about finances as well. And if you want to know about finances and succeed in finances, well, you actually need to work on friendships too. And all of these five areas, collaborate with one another and interact with one another and collude with one another, to both help or harm each other. So there it is, my dear happy warriors. I visualize each and every one of you, in a happy and wonderful marriage. If you are a man, with a beautiful feminine woman, and if you are a woman, with a fantastic, wonderful, masculine man. And remember, all of these things can be improved every one of them, you can become much more feminine. If you're a lady, you can if you're a guy as well, but don't, you can become much more feminine if you're a girl. And you can become much more masculine if you're a guy. And they're always to do this read The Holistic You. And if you don't know, but you can figure it out for yourself. Because I've already told you act masculine and you'll start being more masculine, act feminine, you'll start being more feminine, and feeling it as well act more masculine, you'll feel more masculine and feminine, you'll start feeling more feminine, the power of action to shape our beings is incalculable. Please, please do not underestimate it. So until next week, I remain honored to be your rabbi and you stay true to improving your family, your finances, your faith, your fitness, and your friendships. God bless.
