Introduction
Rabbi Mordecai Rottman, M.A. is a practicing psychotherapist trained at the Long Island University and a popular teacher and lecturer living in Jerusalem with his wife and family. You can reach Rabbi Rottman via email at mordecai@netvision.net.il. In the following presentation he will share with us his insights on what to look for in a spouse, using that framework to provide some broad range philosophies on dating and marriage.
Four Things to Look for in a Spouse
The name of this class is “Four Things to Look for When Looking for a Spouse”, looking for a lifelong partner, which is what we hope that marriage is going to be. Now these are the things you’re supposed to look for when you’re going out, but these are also things to focus on after you get married. Because ultimately many of the ideas that we’re going to focus on are important not just before you get married, but after you get married as well.
Number One – Kindness
What’s the first thing that you’re going to look for when trying to find the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with? Remember, you want to have a marriage, you want to have a relationship where you love each other, where you care for each other, something that is beyond all the expectations. What do you need? What do you need to have a relationship of love?
So first thing: The first thing is, you have to look for a person who’s kind. Kindness. What do I mean by kindness? A person who gives from a source of caring and compassion. Why is this important? Because kindness is the only way to create love. One of the most damaging fantasies that Hollywood has perpetrated against mankind is the idea that love is something which happens naturally, if you find the right one. Yes, if you find the right one something magical will occur between both of you, called love, and then you will just dance off together in the sunset and be happy for eternity. It’s not true. Physical attraction — yes. This is something natural. You find people that you’re physically attracted to and you immediately feel that you want to be close to them. But this isn’t the love we’re speaking about. Love is something that you have to work on and it has to be developed, it has to be created. And it’s created, as we said, through giving. Giving because you care.
What do you mean, giving because you care? Is there any other kind of giving?
Is there another kind of giving? Yes. You can give because you want to get. That’s right, there’s two kinds of giving. There’s giving to give and there’s giving to get. What do I mean by giving to get? Okay, how about, your customer service representative at your local bank. You may even get a free candy while you speak to her. Is that giving to give? Come on! They want business, they want customers. They’re basically giving to you because they want to get your business. Look, it’s better than getting mugged. Right? I’d rather have that than being roughed up by a bunch of hoodlums. But that’s not the kind of giving which is going to create a happy marriage. It’s not the kind of giving that is going to create a loving marriage. Marriage isn’t a business deal. It’s not something where you sit down and you say — Look, I’m going to do this and you’re going to do that. — That’s not what we’re supposed to focus on when we’re married. Marriage is a relationship within which one creates love through giving. Giving to give, giving coming from a source of care, coming from a source of compassion.
I remember one time working in an office in New York, leafing through one of these business catalogues that are given out in all the offices, where you can order anything from monogrammed pencils to personal PCs and so on. And I won’t mention the name of the company, but at the very beginning of this book it mentions the seven cardinal principles by which the representatives and the employees of this company swear by. The very first principle in this catalogue was as follows: “As a customer you’re entitled to be treated as a real individual, with friendliness, honesty and respect. “ Okay, that’s customer service. Isn’t that nice? As a customer I’m entitled to be treated as a real individual. Heaven forbid I shouldn’t be a customer, obviously. This is how they act only to people who do business with them. Which means, they’re willing to give as long as you give back to them.
In a marriage, the kind of giving has to be — giving because you care about the next person.
Now I know it works both ways. Not only are you going to be giving to the next person, the next person will be giving to you as well. It has to work that way because a marriage is where you love each other, and if one is giving to the other without it having go both ways, then you could have a situation where… let’s say, the husband may love his wife passionately and she really doesn’t care too much about him, because he’s been giving to her selflessly throughout these years while she hasn’t been giving to him. It could be vice versa. It could be that she loves him passionately and he couldn’t really care about her. After a marriage of one decade, two decades, you could have a situation where one is passionately in love with the other one, where the other one really doesn’t care too much about the person that loves them. It’s quite a tragedy to be trapped in a relationship like that, and that’s why the love has to go both ways. So while you’re looking for somebody who is kind and who can give love, you have to look for someone who you can love as well.
I remember a story one time a friend of mind told to me about relatives of his, married for 25 years, and then one day he got rich. And after he got rich and he realized that he had more possibilities in life than he thought existed beforehand he just picked up and he left. And she would take him back any day of the week because she really loved him. She had cared for him, she had helped him for 25 years, and during this time he simply took and took and took, never really giving back anything. And so when the time came that he could leave, he did it without a problem. And she still is waiting for him to return.
That’s really a tragedy. So what you’re saying is that we should be looking for someone who’s going to give to us and at the same time will motivate us to give to them.
So yes, it has to work both ways.
So marry a person that you want to give to. There are some types of people that, as soon as we meet them they generate within us a sense of compassion and care. When you’re looking for someone to marry, therefore, don’t just see if they are kind, also make sure that you feel like being kind to them. A person who arouses in you a sense of compassion.
I remember a case where a guy was going out with a girl, and he told a relative of his who had a jewelry business — Bring me back a couple of rings when you go out of town, because I’m thinking of getting engaged and I’d like to have a few to choose from. — So his relative arrived, shows him the rings, and he finds one that he likes. And his relative says to him, “You must be really serious about this girl to be picking out a ring already.” And the guy says, “You know what? I care about her so much, I would just give it to her even if we didn’t get married.” That means that he was going out with the kind of person that he felt a sense of caring for; someone that he felt like giving to, even if he wouldn’t get anything back again. That’s the kind of caring that we’re speaking about over here.
Discovering Character
How do you know if a person is kind? How do you know if they’re compassionate? How do you know if they care about other people? Well, listen to what they say. When you speak to them, what are they talking about? Are they talking about helping people? Are they talking about unfortunate others? Do they speak only about themselves all the time? When you say something about yourself that requires a bit of sympathy, how do they react? Do they seem to take your problem in, absorb it, give you a sense of empathy? Or are they waiting for you to finish speaking so that they can finish talking about themselves again? If we open our eyes and we start looking beyond the externals and we think about what’s being said, we can pick up a lot about what’s really on a person’s mind. Bring up a story: a relative of yours is going through some misfortune or difficulty. See how they react. Are they coming up with solutions? Are they going to try to help you solve the problem that your relative has? Or are they sort of — tsk tsk, cluck cluck away — and wait for you to finish the story so that they can get onto something more important like — which restaurant are we going to tonight?
Of course, you’re going to have to talk a lot to find out these things about the person, and it doesn’t happen simply by just saying hello and goodbye.
Okay, to summarize, the first thing to look for, we said, is kindness because kindness is what creates true love, the love that comes through giving because you care. We mentioned that any kind of love which is claimed to exist without a sense of giving, without a sense of caring, is something that you should beware of. It’s nothing more than physical attraction and it will wither away with time, like everything which is external. A love which comes from giving is something which is internal, is something which has a sense of permanence about it and is something which will last a lifetime.
All right. We meet someone and they seem to have the giving qualities, and the feeling is mutual. What’s next on our check list when trying to find a lifelong partner?
Number Two – Common Goals
The second thing is common goals. Common goals means that you both share, more or less, the same aspirations. Think of life like a journey. Think of life as a trip. You’re going on this journey and you have to decide whether you’re going North, West, East or South. And your spouse is also going on a journey. Everyone is going on a journey, whether they like it or not. Nobody has the option of staying still. Of course, there are some people who let life happen to them, go wherever they may go. And there are some people who try to make life happen for them, which means they choose a direction and then try to get there. And you have a direction, you know where you want to go. Does the person that you want to marry, do they want to go in the same direction? If you want to go East and she wants to go West, you can’t go together. And you know what? Even if she’s a kind person you can’t go together. So directions have to be similar. Because if not, it is impossible for both of you to share your life together.
You may say — Well, I have my direction and she’s sort of open. She doesn’t really have any goals. — Oh, beware. Beware of people who don’t have goals. First of all it’s a sign of a lot of immaturity when people don’t have goals, because then people are not taking responsibility for their lives. People are not thinking about where they want to end up. They’re just willing to let the wind blow them here or there like a leaf falling off a tree, then that’s not a good sign at all. You certainly don’t want to marry someone who lacks that minimal amount of responsibility to choose a direction for themselves in life. And besides that, what happens if in a few years they wake up and they do decide to have a direction, and suddenly they realize that… you know what… they don’t want your direction at all. So don’t go out with someone who doesn’t have a direction. Let them grow up first and then decide whether or not your goals are compatible. Because a person who has no goals lacks self knowledge. Before you get married you need to have a reasonable amount of self knowledge. Obviously this is crucial before any serious goal can be set.
What do I mean by self knowledge? I mean knowing what’s really important to you. One of the reasons why intermarriages, besides being forbidden by Torah law, are prone to failure, is due to this lack of self knowledge. These couples are not aware of what’s really and truly important to them until something big happens like a child is born. It’s only at that point that people will start to get in touch with the things that they really care about. And suddenly they may find themselves diametrically opposed as to how to raise this child. Imagine two people riding in a car that runs out of gas. So one person gets out and starts pushing from the front of the car and the other one gets out and starts pushing from the back of the car. Well, what’s probably going to happen is that the car will end up going round in circles. It’s certainly not going to get very far. This is what happens when people get involved in a relationship with each one going in a different direction. You have to know what the other person’s goals are, and they have to be compatible to yours.
I may be able to sense if a person is kind and giving, but how do I figure out what their life goals are?
Very simple. You ask them. This is one of the things that you must speak about while dating, before getting married. Obviously, engaging in physical contact before marriage, besides also being forbidden by Torah law, is a sure way to end up marrying someone without knowing their goals because physical contact bonds. You get involved in the physical relationship and you sort of forget to discuss what the goals are. You need a lot of objectivity to think about another person’s goals and to think if they’re your own, and to figure out whether they’re compatible. This, I think is another… one of the great false fantasies which have been perpetrated by Hollywood against mankind. Again, love is something that sort of happens naturally; you don’t need to find out whether you’re both going in the same direction; whether you share the same goals. All those sticky points of reality don’t seem to really matter when “love happens”.
So to summarize this second category of common goals: First of all, you need to know yourself. You need to know where you’re going. Then you need to know the second person and you need to know where they’re going. And if you’re both going in the same direction, then you have what to talk about. Then you have a possibility of sharing a happy life together. But if not, even if you’re both great people, it’s just not going to work. Love cannot conquer all, and it cannot change people’s goals simply for your sake. You don’t want people changing their life goals for your sake, because as soon as you have a bit of an argument suddenly, the person will start to say — Wow, and I sacrificed so much for this person. I gave up my whole life goals for him. And then, every time that there’s an argument, the spouse’s frustrated life goals get thrown into it, and turn what could be a little fire into an inferno. You don’t want other people living for your goals, you want them living for their own goals. You would like them to be compatible with your goals so you work together toward something which you both consider to be important.
So, so far we’re looking for somebody who is giving, who knows themselves well enough to have fairly clear goals and confirm that those goals match up with their own. What else remains on the agenda in our search for a partner?
Number Three – The Whole Person
The third thing that we want to look for is mutual appreciation of personality. Let me explain what I mean. I mean appreciating the whole person. To appreciate a whole person you have to look not just on what you enjoy about the other person’s personality but also on what you don’t enjoy about the other person’s personality.
When we meet people, sure there are things that we like about them and there are things that we don’t like about them. So when we focus on the things that we like about them, we like them. When we focus on the things that we don’t like about them, we don’t like them. Very often people go into marriages with an idealized sense of what a spouse is supposed to be. A combination, perhaps, of all the great qualities you saw in your mother with none of the shortcomings, or, vice versa, all the great qualities she saw in her father without any of his shortcomings. This unrealistic view is something which could bring a couple to divorce rather quickly. When you look at a person you have to learn to appreciate the total person, and realize that both what you enjoy and what you don’t enjoy are two sides of the same coin.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say a girl comes from a home where her father was very irresponsible. Her father was a drunk, didn’t support the family, disappeared for days on end; the mother was responsible, she cared, she cleaned, she washed, she went to work, she supported the family, she got the kids through college. Her father was there when he is in the mood, and when he wasn’t in the mood he disappeared. And all this girl has heard about from the day that she was able to remember is her mother saying — Dear, marry someone responsible. — And so the thing that she’s looking for more than anything in a spouse is somebody who is responsible. And so she starts to date and she finds a guy who is responsible, super responsible. And everyone that she asks says that he is the most reliable person that they have ever met. And sure enough, she feels it. She feels a sense of security when she’s with him. This is not a person who is going to run off and disappear. This is a person who has held a job for many years; this is a person who has a good track record as far as starting and finishing things. And she feels that this is a person she’ll be able to rely on. And they get married. After being married for a while she starts to feel a bit bored in the relationship. He’s not as exciting as she wanted her husband to be. Yes, he’s reliable, he’s up every day at five and he’s back every day at five. And he goes to sleep every night at ten, and he eats the same thing for dinner every night. He’s so reliable and so consistent that sometimes it gets on her nerves a bit. — Hey, don’t you want to have a little fun, go out, hit the town? — No. He likes to stay home. Every night he reads his newspaper, relaxes on the couch, dozes off for about ten minutes before he goes to sleep. And she starts to get really frustrated with him. She goes out. She goes out to work, she goes out to meet friends, she goes shopping. And she sees guys that are so much more alive than her husband seems to be, and they seem to have so much more fun, that she starts to get frustrated in the relationship. And of course, the more she focuses on what she doesn’t like about him, the more she starts to think that she married the wrong person. And this begins to build and build and build, until one day she thinks — I really married the wrong guy. I’m stifled in this relationship. — And who knows what could happen from that point on. Until we take this woman and say — Madam, stop, just for a moment. What did you like about him? Why did you marry him? — And she says — well, he’s so reliable, so consistent, so dependable. — Right. — And did you ever think for a minute that perhaps the very part of the personality that you like is also the part of the personality that you don’t like. It’s just surfacing in a different area of life.
You can’t have everything. People’s personalities have two sides to them. And these two sides are expressed differently depending on what the situation might be. You don’t have to worry about your husband speaking with other women. He is very realizable. He is very consistent. You want to marry somebody who is a lot more fun, a lot more alive? Who knows, you may find somebody who’s flirting with women, that would make you very angry that he’s speaking to. When you look at your husband you have to say — Hey, this is my guy. He’s got what I like and what he doesn’t have I really also like. It’s just this particular situation I would prefer to be different but I’d rather have his advantages than his disadvantages.
Let’s take another case. We’ll turn it around this time. A guy grows up in a home where his parents are hard working people, but he himself is a little philosopher and then a bigger philosopher as he grows up. And he likes to have really deep meaningful discussions with people. And of course, you know, his mother is there. She’s consistent, reliable, dependable, but whenever you try to speak to her about anything other than chocolate cake and pudding, she just doesn’t seem to be able to engage in the conversation. And he’s looking for that deep conversation with someone, really deep, meaningful, and he finds it one day. On the college campus he finds the girl who basically can hold her own in his most wild philosophical adventures. And they sit there for hours speaking about this and that, and he can’t believe the type of connection that he feels with her, and this intellectual plane which he never thought he could find in a woman. And they get married. And of course, he comes home from work, and after a while he begins to realize that she’s not doing too much around the house. When he comes home he seems to see her always curled up on the couch reading the latest book on some new way of looking at the world. And you know, he’s hungry, he needs to eat. He remembers that when his Dad came home there was always dinner on the table. There just wasn’t a question. But there again, his mother lived in a rather simple world. She wasn’t involved in the intellectual spheres that his wife is involved in, so it was easier for her to get dinner ready. She didn’t have too much else to do. The wife that he married, who he enjoys speaking to so much, she has a different world to think about. And her world is not necessarily one which has anything to do with frying pans, stoves, cooking, laundry or anything like that. And so suddenly he sees that what he liked so much, suddenly seems to be a great disadvantage in the situation that he’s in. Again, if he focuses on his disadvantages without thinking of the advantages, and without realizing that it’s just the other side of the same coin, he could reach the decision one day that maybe he married the wrong person. But if he thinks — Hey, more than anything else I wanted a person I can connect to intellectually. More than anything else I wanted a person I can relate in a deep, meaningful, philosophical plane. And he starts to realize that people who are that way are not known necessarily to be able to be involved in the world of things as much as they are involved in the world of ideas. And what’s going to happen is that if he doesn’t realize that, he’s going to think that he married the wrong one. Chances are that he’s just not going to appreciate that the advantages that he sees in this woman are also the disadvantages.
It’s all the same thing in different situations. It’s unrealistic to expect a person to be able to be exactly the way you want them to be in each and every situation. It’s impossible as a matter of fact. Because we’re not perfect. And so the person who is involved in the intellectual, philosophical sphere is going to have a harder time dealing with objects and things. That’s usually the way it goes. And the person who is super consistent, reliable, dependable, may not be as much fun as the person who is not. And perhaps, yes, indeed we will all have to strive to become as perfect as possible, but we’re limited by our personalities.
When I talk about appreciation of the personality of the person, I mean being able to appreciate the whole person. And the idea is that while there are going to be advantages, there are also going to be disadvantages in the very same things that you like. Well, how do you decide what to go for? You have to ask yourself what is more important for you. But you’re going to have to compromise on something. The question is, what do you want to compromise on? I’m going to speak later on at the end of this class, that those people who expect all, they’re very unrealistic, but it’s also nothing short of simple arrogance.
Appreciating the whole personality including both sides of the coin, that’s a powerful point I never thought about. There’s one more area which we have barely touched, one that we have to admit is rather important to most people who are looking for a partner. And that’s the question of looks.
Number Four – Physical Appearance
Looks. Certainly today many people will tell you that this is the most important thing. Well, I’ll tell you, it is important. It’s not the most important thing though, but it is important. You have to like the way the person looks. There are people who never get married because they’re walking around, either in their minds or in their pockets they have a picture of the kind of person that they want to marry. They have a picture of a person that looks a certain way, and that’s the kind of person that they want to marry. They start from that point. After that, of course, they want to be compatible and so on and so forth, etc., etc. Terrible mistake. We could, I think, wrap this misunderstanding of life up as another great evil fantasy perpetrated upon us by the fantasy world of Hollywood.
I know someone who wanted to get married for a long time and then found a wonderful girl, and he said she was everything that he was looking for except for one thing. She was a half an inch shorter than he expected his wife to be and it bothered him enormously. Talk about getting hung up on looks. Talk about a person walking around with a picture in their mind of who they want to marry… this person had a picture. He knew exactly how tall she was going to be. Can you imagine how unrealistic that is. Walking around, in your mind, with this image of the person who’s going to look a certain way, be a certain height… I mean, how unrealistic can you get? But there are people who really expect these things.
Where do they get this idea from? I mean, come on, don’t we all know that all the movies that we see are figments of people’s imaginations. We’ve seen all the credits after the movies, we know these people aren’t really married. So then where do we get these ideas from? We all know how long it takes, even on the movie set, till they get that look that everybody wants out of their wife, out of this movie star. It could take two hours, three hours, a week sometimes, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars, this lighting, with special stage experts, ready to get one sigh out of the star actor over here. Where do we get this idea that this is sort of what we have. You’re going to marry someone who’s not going to be physically perfect. But you’re going to work on a relationship because you want to have a long lasting, loving relationship with another person. So yes, they have to be good looking, but, no, they don’t have to be perfect.
Here, how about this thought. Even if you were to marry, let’s say, the most beautiful person in the world, and these are your standards. And you know what? You’ve found her. So there you tell me — You see, I wanted the most beautiful person in the world and I’ve found the most beautiful person in the world. How about that? — Let me ask you a question. What are you going to do in five years from now? There’s bound to be someone more beautiful than her in five years. What are you going to do? Is that it? The people who don’t know how to compromise in anything are people who are inevitably going to live very, very frustrated lives. Every physical relationship takes work. There are Torah laws of family purity that help couples create a satisfying, long lasting physical relationship. These are in depth, brilliant laws that understand the psychology of man and woman, which are well worth a Jewish couple keeping.
One needs to be realistic when choosing a partner in life, certainly in the area of looks. Ultimately what will carry the relationship through is not going to be just looks. It’s going to be whether or not you’re going to work on loving each other, meaning giving to each other for the sake of giving, caring for each other for the sake of caring, appreciating each other’s personalities for the sake of caring about the person, being open minded, objective.
Humility
Is there anything that we can do that can sort of help us making these ideas a part of ourselves? I mean, intellectually we do understand that these ideals are real and that they can help us find the right person, living a happy life together after we find that, after we get married. But is there anything that we could work on to make these ideas really take hold? Well there is. This isn’t necessarily easy, but it works. It’s called being humble. Being humble means knowing that ultimately what we have is from God. We’re not that great. We owe a lot too. And therefore we’re willing to settle. We’re willing to settle for another person whose looks may not be exactly what we want. We’re willing to settle for another person whose personality may not be exactly what we want. We’re willing to settle because we’re not perfect ourselves. And it’s only when one thinks the world of himself that he expects the world from others.
That’s a sobering point. Now let’s assume we’ve made our way through the four points on the check list. We’ve found a partner who is kind, meaning that they are giving to give, not giving to take, and who shares our goals. We’ve learned to appreciate their total personality, the good with the bad. And we’re happy with the way they look even if they don’t match up with our favorite movie star. The wedding comes and goes and we’re a couple. Is there anything else we need to know to make this relationship work?
Differences Between Men and Women And now you have to start to build your marriage together. You find that men and women are different. They’re like two different nations. So as compatible as you are and as many things as you share in common, you suddenly seem to find yourselves at odds with each other. The fact that men and women are different is something which has been verified scientifically. Magnetic resonance images of men and women doing the same task show that men use one side of their brain while women use both sides of their brain. Other studies as well have proven clinically that men and women are really not the same, and not just physically. And so with all the compatibility, we need to be able to now work actively on being able to give to the other person, to share with the other person, despite the fact that we have our differences.
How to Make Differences Work
Well, the first thing to think about is that differences are good for us. Because if we’ve married someone who is exactly the same we would be missing out on a large part of life. We can’t be that arrogant to think that our way of looking at things is the only way of looking at things. Of course, we are looking at things from our perspective. Our spouses are looking at things from another perspective. It’s actually both of our perspectives together which enable us to see a fuller picture, a clearer picture, a sharper picture of what is going on around us. And so, when our spouses express differences of opinion, we should be humble enough to sit down and take them seriously and appreciate the fact that somebody is pointing out to us something about life that we may be missing.
The second thing to tell yourself, when you’re sure that your spouse’s perspective is not going to contribute to a broad understanding of the world but rather to just contribute to a frustrating experience together, or so you think, is to do a little homework. Take some time off and sit down, take a piece of paper and a pen and make a list of your spouse’s virtues. Think back to yourself, why did you marry them? What was it that you saw in them? Make a list of virtues and write them down and read them to yourself, and read them over again and over again, and focus on them. Because like we mentioned in the first part of this class, if you’re going to focus on the parts of the personality that you don’t like, you’re not being fair to the parts of the personality that you do like. God’s gift to man, in a sense, is that we can only think about one thing at a time. If you’re focusing on the good parts of a person’s personality, you’re not going to be thinking about the negative parts of the personality. Your emotional attitude is going to change based on where your thoughts are. And so making a list of virtues is something that everybody should do. You should keep it in your wallet or in your purse and read it over when you start to focus on the negative traits that your spouse may have.
Suggestion number two. Realize that your spouse’s weaknesses are opportunities for your own growth. Your spouse’s weaknesses are opportunities that give you a chance to give; that give you a chance to care; they give you a chance to build the kind of relationship of love that you really want. Loving another person in the sense of caring for them selflessly is one of the greatest pleasures that man can have. Try it and you’ll see that I’m right.
You mentioned before that men and women are inherently different. Were the ideas that you suggested geared in particular for men or women? Perhaps you could focus a bit on those differences and what it means for each partner on a practical basis.
Two suggestions that we mentioned, the list of virtues, and realizing that your spouse’s weakness are opportunities for your own growth, are things for men and for women.
Men and Women Have Different Needs
Now I’d like to mention something that men should focus on because it’s something that men have a hard time doing even though women need it very much, and then I’d like to mention something that women should do because it’s something that women may have a hard time doing even though it’s something that men need very much.
Men: learn how to express your feelings. Learn how to say what you feel. Learn how to identify your feelings, give them a name and express them to your spouse. When you notice something in the house that you appreciate, say it. Show your appreciation. Express it verbally, and not just verbally, but by writing notes. Just little notes that say “I love you”, little notes that say “I’m thinking about you”, pick up something on the way home for no reason whatsoever and just give it to your wife and say “I was thinking about you”. But the most important thing is to express it. Let’s not have a relationship end up like one that I know about, where after being married for twelve years, suddenly the wife picked up and left. And the husband just couldn’t understand why. He loved her, he really did. The only problem was, he never told her that he loved her. And there she was waiting for him to say the words… of course, she’s not gong to ask for it because if she asks for it then how much can it be worth? And him, thinking that she was a man, perhaps, figured — Well, she knows how I feel, just like my guy friends know how I feel. Did you ever notice how long it takes for a woman to get off the phone? How many goodbyes have to be said? Did you ever notice how long it takes for a man to get off the phone. Men get off the phone like this — Okay, ‘Bye. Bump, click. — Women get off the phone — Okay, ’Bye… ’Bye…’Bye… Take care… Take care…. — Do you know why it takes so long for a woman to get off the phone? Because they’re in touch with the other person’s feelings more and they’re in touch with their own feelings and they know how to express them better. The man finishes the conversation and hangs up the phone. Men need to do a lot of work in getting in touch with their own feelings and expressing them to their wives. A man will come home from work and his wife will say, “So what happened today? Tell me about your day.” And he says, “Nothing.” “Well, what do you mean, nothing happened. You were gone for eight hours.” “Nothing. I went to work.” What does she want? She knows I go to work, she know what I do there. What do you mean? I’m an accountant. You know what accountants do. What is she looking for? She’s looking for you to express emotions about yourself — Tell me how you felt today. Tell me about your ups and your downs. Make me a part of your life. Don’t give me this external superficiality that you give the rest of the world. I want to be a part of your inner world, the woman is saying. I want you to express your feelings to me. I want to feel close to you.
A little scary isn’t it? For some men to hear this it’s definitely scary. Why? Because men focus sometimes much better in the external world of just doing things. Emotions? They’re not that necessary are they? Well, it’s necessary. It’s necessary for a woman to hear how you feel. Just tell her — Well, I got on the train and people were pushing me — and she’ll say — Yeah? Was it hard? And you’ll say — Yeah it was pretty hard. And you’re thinking — Okay, if this is what she wants to hear, okay. But you’re sharing your day with her. Again, you’re not telling her what you did, you’re telling her how you felt about what you did. Learn how to do this.
With guys? Not only don’t you do it when you talk to guys, but they don’t appreciate it either. Don’t tell me how you feel, I don’t care how you feel. Just tell me, how much money did you make today. Women want to know how you feel. So that’s my advice for men. It’s to work on expressing your feelings. Again, if you can’t do it verbally then write it down on a piece of paper. Take the time to pick up a card. Don’t think that just because you bought her a birthday present over half a year ago and you wrote in the card that you love her, that therefore she doesn’t have to hear that again. I mean, I told you half a year ago that I love you. I told you I love you. I even bought you an expensive present. That proves that I love you. No, no, no. A woman needs to feel constantly a part of her husband’s life, constantly a part of his emotional ups and downs and this gives her the feeling of closeness that she craves.
So men need to work on expressing their emotions, even if it’s a little unnatural at first, because that’s what their wives need. How about women? What’s their assignment?
What do women need to work on the most? Because women are so good at expressing feelings, when they get frustrated they do that pretty well too. Many times they fall into the mode of criticizing instead of encouraging. So when something isn’t going the way she wants it because she’s frustrated because of one thing and the other, a woman will start to complain. Many times she’ll start to complain about something which really has nothing to do with what she really cares about. But she’s just feeling that way, and so she’ll start to complain almost about anything and everything. Does this work? No. It doesn’t work at all because what she’s craving is the closeness, the emotional closeness, and what she’s getting is withdrawal. Imagine a turtle, if it suddenly hears loud noises the turtle then puts his head back into his shell. She’s not going to get the kind of relationship she wants by complaining.
So what’s she supposed to do? Well, while men have to work on expressing feelings, women have to work on encouraging and not criticizing. Wait for the moment that he does express his feelings and say to him — You know, I feel so good that you’re telling me how you feel. I really care about how you feel. — And when he sees, then — Hey, my wife thinks I’m great. My wife thinks that I have what to give. My wife is interested in this close relationship. — This will encourage him to do it more. Our sages tell us that the wisdom of women builds the home, because the woman, she knows how to wait for the right moment to say the right word. Her sense of intuition, her sense of understanding emotions is sharper than a man’s. And she has to be able to look at her husband when he comes home and realize — No, now’s not the time to tell him that the stove broke. — And she has to know when to encourage him and when to pick him up and give him that emotional support. Really she’s going to build him in a way that nobody else can, because she’s the only one who has that inner glimpse into his real world. Encouraging and not criticizing, showing respect for his accomplishments. Men crave to be admired by their wives. It may not look that way on the surface but it’s something that they want. They want their wives to put them on a pedestal and tell them how wonderful they are. Perhaps this is a weakness that men have that women don’t have. The women are looking for the emotional closeness and the men are looking for the respect from their wives. The wisdom of woman builds the home. She knows how to give him this respect and she knows how to encourage him to bring out the kind of behavior that she wants in him.
What you’re saying then is that happily ever after doesn’t follow automatically in the real world. There’s no easy street in creating a long lasting relationship. A successful marriage requires an ongoing investment of effort on both sides.
Stretching Your Personality
It says in Genesis “It is not good for man to be alone. I will create a helpmate opposite to him” It’s not good for man to be alone because when man is alone and when woman is alone, they both end up becoming self centered and selfish, focused only on themselves. Their personalities cannot develop in this way, and instead of becoming more like the Almighty, they become a lot less like Him.
One of the things that a person has to realize when they get married is that they’re entering a relationship which is there to build them. When you go to the gym to work out and the trainer tells you — Okay, I want you to start with 12 pushups. So you get down on the floor and you manage to do five and you go — Aaahhh! Not 12, let’s do 7. And the guy says — No, you need to do 12. So let’s say you finally convince the trainer after a long argument and he lets you do the 7. Are you going to develop that way? Are you going to get what you want that way? No. You’ve adjusted the exercises to meet how hard you want to work. That’s not necessarily going to work. That’s not the way people grow. For physical beings to develop they need to do things which are going to stress them out a bit physically, and it may hurt a bit too at first. Emotionally it’s the same thing. It hurts to change. It’s like stretching your personality. Imagine stretching a rubber band. You hear the shriek as you do things that you don’t want to do, as you listen when you don’t want to listen, as you express your feelings when you don’t want to express them, as you give encouragement when you want to yell and scream. But when you do it a few times, suddenly you became more elastic, you became more flexible, you became more humble, and you became a better spouse.