Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
This week's question is, most of the times I find myself struggling with shalom Bayis, it is with the quote-unquote little things. When I become frustrated with my husband about disagreements of timing or general miscommunications. I find it hard to remain calm and speak nicely and kindly when I find the miscommunications very upsetting. What is your advice to help with this? Many years ago, I was hearing a shiur from a particular love about marriage, And he compared marriage to diamonds cutting diamonds It's very difficult to share a very small space with another person. And what I don't mean is the size of your house or the size of your apartment. Marriage is a very small space. And in a very small space we're very likely to bump into each other. And we lose patience, and whereas with other people we would remain calm, cool, and collected, And collected and we would show the best version of ourself because we're only interacting with them b'pam l'pam from time to time it's easy to put on a show but when you're living with someone all the time so it can great on you and the little things can get really annoying and this is gufa the avoda of marriage to pull yourself back and actually work on your midos so there's the famous split between midos and etiquette It's very possible to have very good etiquette and at the same time have very bad meadows.
And where do we see our bad meadows? Primarily we see them in marriage because when we're sharing that small space, the truest version of ourselves shows up. Now that doesn't mean that you are your bad meadows, but the reality is that those bad meadows which are very close to your core are very likely to come out. And so the avodah becomes humility. Safety means can you make this a space for each other? Can you pull yourself back to create safety for each other? So in those times of frustration, can you take a deep breath and say this is natural, this is normal, and try to work on yourself, not on him, try to work on yourself to be able to say it's just a miscommunication or it's just a little thing that he's doing. And try to put it in perspective because those little things, if they were being done
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We would love for the timing to always be on our schedule. But life is not like that. In that shared space of marriage, he needs an equal voice. And both of you have an obligation to create that space for each other. And so I would tell you to look inside of yourself, to take a deep breath, recognize your own humanity, recognize that it's okay to be a frail, sometimes broken human being, to speak in a way that's not nicely. These are things That are very natural and very normal and at the same time this is what you have been working Towards all those years when you were growing up and you were working on yourself you have Been working towards this point in your marriage to be able to say it is not all about me it Is not always about my timing it is not always about the way I want communication to be and So let's work together have clear communication with your husband own your stuff and say yes This is my this is my failing create a space where both of you can be vulnerable where Where both of you can share your own inadequacies. And in that way, slowly but surely, God willing, you'll work towards Shabbat Shabbat.
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