A homeless husband:
Harry and Sally weren’t happily married; they were struggling to stay together in a very difficult situation. Maybe the most difficult one – a second marriage involving children of a former partner.
Harry was raising 4 of Sally’s children from her previous marriage, a crucial mistake. He should have been busy caring for his own business and not raising anyone’s children. Only very few gifted people can “raise” someone else’s children; people who have developed the tools to accomplish this sort of task. Most step-parents should be content with surviving the hardship of such a relationship and still being married, and hopefully even happily married.
Harry felt despair.
I tried to figure out what was so wrong, but the more I tried to understand, the more confused I became. Harry still loved Sally, so why the divorce? It was only after the first court hearing, when I met Sally’s children, that I finally realized what was wrong. It all became very clear, taking me back to my own painful past experience.
It was a short process. After two hearings and a few drafts, we reached a very balanced divorce agreement. I didn’t even try talking about therapy. It was a lost case. In order to save a marriage, we need all parties involved to want to reconcile. In this case we had only one party, or maybe two. But definitely not all of them – not the children.
Harry told me that in the last 18 months of his marriage he would do anything not to go back home, not to see the children. He also told me how much he missed Sally and how sorry he was for making her suffer.
Sally saw her marriage as a convenient deal in which she could get a “break” from the responsibility of raising her children. But if anything went wrong, she would always blame Harry.
I gave Harry the following passage to read:
“Home is the place where we can be ourselves and accept ourselves as both good and bad, beast and angel, saint and sinner. Home is the place where we can laugh and cry, where we can find some peace within all the chaos and confusion, where we are accepted and, indeed, cherished by others precisely because of our very mixed-upedness. Home is that place where we belong, where we fit precisely because of our unfittingness.” (The Spirituality of Imperfection by Ernetz Kurts and Katherine Ketcham – pg 191).
Harry looked at me in astonishment and said:”I realize now that I never felt welcomed by her children – never”.
This is not only Harry’s story; many step-father’s and step-mother’s feel alienated and unwelcome in their own kingdom – their home.
Why do I write these stories?
Elie Wiesel, wrote the following in his speech when he accepted the Nobel Prize award:
“No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the Kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them. Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately. …And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
I write these real happy and sad stories about life and Israel and marriage and divorce because I vowed not to be silent. I believe that my experience with many cases and clients and even my own personal experience with marriage and divorce can and do have a positive influence on people, therefore on society. It is my goal to make Israel a better place to live, to help form a stronger, more stable society, and above all, a real Jewish home.
If through my articles, I can help prevent just one family every year from returning to their native country, or if I can help save even one marriage, I will feel fulfilled and very happy.
