By Baila Sebrow
Question
I am a single woman in my early thirties, and the reason I’m still single is because of my parents’ messy divorce.
My parents fought constantly when I was little, but at the time I thought it was normal. My father used to hit my brothers, and he was mean to my mother; I was the only one who got along with him somewhat. When my mother wanted to get divorced, my father stopped giving us money and we became a charity case. There was a lot of bad stuff happening, but I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want anyone to recognize me from my story.
A few months ago, I was dumped by a guy I dated for more than a year. Everything was going great, and we were discussing getting married, but when his parents found out about who my father is, they convinced my boyfriend to drop me. Now I do get dates, but they don’t end up working out. I can’t help who my father is. My siblings who are also adults now don’t talk to him because of what he did to my mother and to us as a family, and though I am not close to him at all, we still talk.
He tells everyone that my mother alienated us from him and that now that we are grown, we don’t want him and he doesn’t get invited to his children’s simchas. That’s not true. We hate him for what he did to our family and how we suffered and were shamed because of him. He tells everyone how at a family simcha my brothers told him to get away from them when he tried to hug them. Well, he beat them, so when he comes near them, they feel scared that he will do it to them again. He pretends that he straightened up his life, but he really didn’t. I feel bad for my mother and how her life is so messed up. My mother and I are very close. She wants me to get married and I want to give her nachas, as much as I want to get married and have a normal life. What do you recommend?
Response
I will begin by saying that nobody can take your shidduch away from you, and no person has the power to discourage anyone from marrying you. There is a story about a man who went crying to his rebbe that the neighbor who lives downstairs from him is ruining his daughter’s shidduchim. With every shidduch suggestion, whoever asks that neighbor about his family gets a bad report. The rebbe responded, “Don’t worry; your daughter’s zivug will not ask that neighbor about your family; he will ask a neighbor who lives on a different floor.” It turned out exactly as the rebbe predicted.
I have seen cases where it appears that there is no rhyme or reason as to why a shidduch did not work out, and those that do work out, in many instances, are to the astonishment of everyone. There are stories of how people tried their hardest to ruin a particular shidduch, and they failed to destroy it and the couple got married. Hashem is mezaveg zivugim 24/7. He does not rest even on Shabbos when it comes to making a shidduch happen. When a shidduch does not work out because the one you were dating backed out, it is min haShamayim. You were not meant to be married to him. As a shadchan, I have witnessed and experienced many situations corroborating this.
However, you are not living in Shamayim. You are here on this earth, and you want to be married, while dealing with your own struggles. From an emotional perspective, therefore, you need to come to terms with why you are experiencing such challenges and learn how to overcome them. According to what you shared, there is much that appears to be going against you: what went on in your home during the time that your parents were married, with regard to their marriage and mistreatment of the children, as well as how you were all impoverished after the divorce. People have long memories when it comes to lashon ha’ra.
What I think that is hurting you most, though, is that your father is telling people how his children are alienated from him, particularly because you are all adults now. People nowadays do not take kindly to parental alienation. In years past, it was assumed that the alienator had good reason for keeping his or her children away from the other parent. The perspective nowadays is that the alienated parent is the victim. When the children are young, they blame the parent who lives with the child. But when the children become adults, society then blames the children for oppressing the alienated parent. It sounds like your father was cruel when he was living in the home with his family, and even now, by shooting off his mouth against his children. That is your issue now. Your father playing the victim is what’s likely hurting you in shidduchim.
It sounds like your father is trying to rebuild his life, and in most cases, using the victim card, as he does, works because it tugs at the heartstrings of those who hear his sob story. People do not generally take the time to investigate all sides. If a person presents well, is articulate and sly, he or she will be successful in persuading others. That is what I believe is happening in your situation. Your father needs a good explanation as to why he is not close to his children. Just so you know, most women will refuse to date a man that is alienated from his children. In fact, whenever I redd a divorced man to a woman, her first question is: “What is his relationship with his children?” By spinning the story and creating a different narrative, your father thinks he can deceive everyone. It might work in the beginning, but who he really is will come through in the end.
Without complete details of what really went on, and the trauma you all experienced, I am not going to advise you or make suggestions to you and your siblings how to behave with your father and whether you should commit to a relationship with him now. I hope that you are all under the care of a therapist, and it is the therapist who needs to guide you in a way that will be psychologically beneficial to all of you.
What happened in your previous relationship is very unfortunate, and I am so sorry for the pain you endured. It is possible that your ex-boyfriend’s parents did not know all the details about your childhood. Whenever there is a problem in the family, my strongest advice to those in shidduchim is to lay out all the facts in the beginning of the dating relationship, early enough so that feelings have not yet developed for the significant other. When it looks like you are heading to the serious stage of the relationship, you need to be completely honest with him about everything in your life. And when you are introduced to his parents, you must discuss it with them, too. Then whatever they eventually find out will have less of an impact than if they were shocked by information that is news to them. I can imagine that when your ex-boyfriend’s parents first heard the specifics, their initial reaction was to run away from being mechutanim with your father.
We also need to consider another possibility. It could be that this guy may have misled you into believing that he will marry you and is using his parents’ disapproval as an excuse. I am putting this out there, because the way he conducted himself with you in the end is distasteful. It does not matter how he justified ending his relationship with you. The bottom line is that you were not treated fairly. Dating someone for more than a year and walking away from that person without trying to work things out or being empathetic is cruel. It scares me to think that you might be attracted to men who mistreat women.
Typically, the relationship people have with a parent oftentimes sets the stage for their attraction to the opposite gender. I shudder when a woman declines a date with a man by saying, “He is too nice” or, “I need a man with an edge.” After much discussion, it turns out that her relationship with her father (or sometimes her mother) was caustic. You might (subconsciously) be picking guys with similar characteristics of your father, so that you can correct what your mother (or you) could not. Humans are drawn to what they know, even if it is not good for them. It takes a skilled therapist to recognize unhealthy patterns in choosing friends and dates. If you are not currently in therapy, please retain a therapist soon and make sure you are properly evaluated to get the assistance you need.
Baila Sebrow is president of Neshoma Advocates, communications and recruitment liaison for Sovri-Beth Israel, executive director of Teach Our Children, and a shadchanis and shidduch consultant. She can be reached at Bsebrow@aol.com. Baila also hosts The Definitive Rap podcast for vinnews.com, Israel News Talk Radio, WVIP 93.5 FM HD2, and talklinenetwork.com. Questions and comments for the Dating Forum can be submitted to 5townsforum@gmail.com. Read more of Baila Sebrow’s articles at 5TJT.com.
