Episode 144 - Marital Challenges and the Path to Success or Divorce

The Power of Emuna in Marriage: A Guide to Lasting Relationships

In a world where divorce rates are at an all-time high, the question arises: what truly makes a marriage successful? In this post, we delve into the concept of Emuna—faith and trust in God—and how it plays a critical role in nurturing a healthy marital relationship. Whether you are newly engaged, celebrating decades of marriage, or contemplating your future, understanding the principles of Emuna can transform your family dynamics and lead to lasting happiness.

Understanding Emuna in Marriage

Emuna is more than just a religious concept; it's a lifestyle choice that influences how we interact with our spouses and children. When faced with the ups and downs of life, the strength of your Emuna determines your resilience. 

Why Emuna Matters
- **Foundation of Trust:** Emuna builds a strong foundation of trust and security within the family.
- **Coping Mechanism:** It provides a framework for coping with life's challenges, be it financial struggles or personal crises.
- **Role Model:** A person with strong Emuna serves as a role model for their family, teaching children how to handle adversity and uncertainty.

The Impact of Emuna on Marital Bliss

Marriage is often described as the ultimate testing ground for Emuna. It reveals whether one can maintain faith during challenging times.

Signs of Weakness in Emuna
- **Constant Struggles:** If you find yourself in a relationship marred by daily emotional roller coasters, this is a clear indication of a lack of Emuna.
- **External Validation:** Individuals often wear a facade in public, but they cannot maintain this at home. The true measure of happiness is revealed in private settings.
- **Baggage:** Unresolved emotional baggage can weigh heavily on a marriage, affecting the ability to find joy and fulfillment.

Emuna as a Tool for Overcoming Challenges

When challenges arise, such as financial instability or personal conflicts, Emuna can serve as your guide.

Emuna is not just a faith; it’s a crucial component in building a happy and successful marriage. By fostering open communication, prioritizing family time, and practicing gratitude, couples can create a nurturing environment that promotes love and understanding.

Understanding and applying the principles of Emuna in your relationship can be transformative. So, whether you're in the early stages of your relationship or looking to rekindle the spark after years of marriage, remember that every effort counts towards building a lasting foundation.

Want to dive deeper into these concepts? Check out related posts on strengthening family dynamics and enhancing marital relationships.

Transcript

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A marriage is what can I do for you? If everybody in that household is thinking the same way, what can I do for you? Then you have marital and familial bliss. You don't want to leave the house. You can't wait to leave work to come home. But you know what we see today? People can't wait to leave the house. They stay at work until all hours of the night. And they make all kinds of excuses for their spouses of why they're not coming home in their whole lives. Why? Because they can't stand being home. They're not thinking what can I put into the house? They're thinking, what can I take out of it?

SPEAKER_01 0:37

The trust factor is the ticket to a better life. The trust factor shows you how to get through the night.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Morning, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Trust Factor Podcast. I'm really glad that you can join. We're into a meaningful conversation about marriage and family. That is the ultimate testing ground. That is what will show you whether or not you have Imuna. It's clear as day. If you find yourself battling it out, if you find yourself going to the rabbi, if you find yourself going to therapists, if you find yourself in a relationship that is a roller coaster of emotions on a daily basis, then that is a good indication that you are lacking in the department of Amuna. And the opposite is true. Immuna, real lasting emuna will bring you marital bliss and familial bliss. We took a pause yesterday in this conversation where I shared with you some personal insight into my own battle almost 20 years ago with anxiety and depression. It just so happened that it came not long after I became a Balchuva. I started to become an Orthodox Jew. For the 30 plus years preceding that, I was a secular Jew. I was at the mercy of secularism and society that taught me all the wrong things, gave me a corrupt version of this life with no purpose and no meaning other than what they determined was important, which was very much self-serving. It really only caters to the masses and to the elites. And I figured that out, thank God, later on in life. But the takeaway from yesterday needs to be not that people suffer with mental illness and depression. It happens to almost everybody. At one stage of your life, you're going to deal with it to one extreme or another. That's not the point. The point is why did you get there in the first place? What put you there? And how are you going to get out of it? I thought that it was my learning and my growth and Torah and observance that maybe was the trigger because it happened not long after that. When in fact, the reason that it happened not long after that was because God had first primed me. He first gave me the medicine, which is a Gemara. The Gemara says that first God creates the antidote and then he gives you the illness. That's how it works. The antidote, the cure is already in the world. So when you get that illness, now you need to go and find that antidote. And more times than not, it's the Torah itself that is the antidote or the learning of the Torah. And that's what happened to me. He set me up, he gave me the antidote, and then he gave me the illness. And I use the antidote to be able to get me out of the illness. And you can do the very same thing. If you find yourself dealing with issues like depression and anxiety, OCD, ADHD, a wide range of mental illnesses. Some are going to be more difficult than others because they are long-standing deficiencies that could come from previous existences. But the antidote is exactly the same. And the workload will vary depending on what you're dealing with and your life, because everybody has a custom crafted life. Let's get back into the conversation around marriage and family and figure out how it is that the divorce rates are at ultimate highs. You will see that after almost every paragraph that I read, I can say, and that's why the divorce rates are at record highs. Almost every paragraph, you will have absolute clarity. So let's start reading and start learning. It says that an unmarried person can wear an artificial smile and convince the world that he or she is happy and fulfilled. That happens every single day. It's a lot easier to do that when you're trying to convince the masses, where they see you for a few minutes, maybe an hour or two, and then you're gone. They don't know. You put on a good smile, you put on a good act, you convince them for an hour. They think you're the most charming person in the world. They think you've got it all together. When in reality you're falling apart on the inside, or you don't even like this individual. You never wanted to be there in the first place, but you were a great actor and you happened to convince somebody. You cannot do that at home with your wife and children. You can't. You can try doing that in the early days, and often people do, but it's just a matter of time before it becomes exposed. It says, after marriage, the true measure of a person's happiness is revealed, especially when he has to brighten up his household with joy and confidence. You can only do that for so long. But if you're carrying massive amounts of baggage, if you're miserable on a daily basis, that act will fall apart quickly. And it'll be your family, it'll be your spouses and your children that will bear the brunt of all of the challenges in your life. They will be your whipping post. They will be the ones who will deal with all the fallout of all of your misery. It can't be hidden. And that's why we see clearly that families are falling apart because you can't pretend you can't be a salesman in your house. You can do that in the office, you can do that when you're going door to door, you can do that on the phone, you can do that behind an email. You cannot do that at home. A husband can't possibly make his wife and children happy when he himself is miserable. True happiness is impossible without a MUNA. The marital life is the key testing ground of Amuna. That's why I said it earlier. You cannot fake Amuna. You just can't if you're unsure of yourself, if you're unsure of what's going to come tomorrow, if you're constantly worried where the mortgage payment is coming from, if you're constantly worried every time your wife or your child spends a dollar, if you're constantly concerned that you're not going to be able to make your months end, if you're constantly trying to hide things from them because you need to maintain a certain level of control, if you're constantly being the person in charge and keeping everybody under your thumb and trying to control everybody's movement, those are all clear signs that you lack amuna. You're supposed to be in complete joy and bliss with your family. And if you're not, it's simply because you lack Amuna. And your family will be able to attain Amuna. How? Through you. If you put your Amuna front and center, if you show your family that you know that there is a creator and that nothing bothers you, and you know where everything is coming from and who runs the world, and all you need to do is make an effort, they will learn that from you. They don't even have to crack the book, they don't have to sit and learn. They will learn from you. That's how this relationship was established. It says that for God to create a relationship, to bring two people together, is more difficult than the splitting of the sea. Now, nothing is difficult for our creator, but the insinuation is that if that was such a monumentous moment in world history that it's what everybody still talks about today, if that was such a massive event, it's even more incredible that God is able to bring together two people from completely different parts of the world sometimes, and different lifestyles and different families and different backgrounds and make them work. It is very difficult because there is a lot that goes into it. Your spouse is not some random person. Your spouse is custom picked just for you, and you were custom-picked just for them. And the same goes for your children. There is nothing random in any of those relationships. You are all there by design. Now, there are many opportunities along the way to miss, to pass like ships in the night, and miss out on that opportunity to marry the person that you're supposed to marry. That's why, that's part of the reason why it's so difficult for Hashem to make this match because ultimately you have to choose do I want to be with this person? Do I want to spend the rest of my life with them or not? And today we see it's a pandemic. So many people are just not getting married. That means God could pick the right person for them and put that person right in front of them and create all the circumstances required for those two to meet and get together. But the person is just not ready or willing. Why? Because he's compared her to everybody else. Or like the pandemic that exists today with all of the youth of today, the dreaded fear of making the wrong decision. It's as if if they make the bad choice once, their life is over. And it's not just relationships, it's with work, it's with school. They're paralyzed with fear to make a decision because they feel like the decision needs to be the right one from the get-go. And if it's not, somehow they failed in life. I've seen this many times, and I've explained this to many people, especially students, that that is their Achilles heel of the generation. They need to get over that. And that is why marriages don't happen. And if they do, it's sometimes well into their 30s and even into their 40s. Relationships outside of the home, it says, especially in the norms of modern society, are based on mutual advantage. What does that mean? It means scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. What have you done for me lately? That's the type of thinking that indicates costumed, self-serving relationships that are designed to attain money, fame, dignity, social standing, advancement, and a recognition. It's all self-serving when you're not married, when you're outside of the house, when you're dealing with people on the street. It's what can I get from you? What benefit is there in this relationship between you and I? Remember, we talked about wealth not long ago. We talked about what a challenge that is. This principle applies even with those who aren't wealthy. Everybody who's trying to get ahead, they're measuring their relationships very carefully. Do I want to be in a business transaction with this individual? Do I want to even associate with this individual as a friend or as an acquaintance? What do they bring to the table? How do I benefit from them? At home, it's the exact opposite. It is the inverse. At home, it's what can I do for the people in my house? What can I bring to the table to improve their life? I'm constantly thinking about them. I'm constantly trying to make sure that they are happy, that they are healthy, that they have a good perspective on life, that they feel a sense of stability and security. I'm constantly thinking about them. I'm educating my children. I'm giving all of myself to my children and to my spouse. They see the real me. They don't see some facade, some fake phony smile. And if they did, it wouldn't last long. And like I said at the beginning, that's the end of that paragraph where you could say, and that's exactly why we're dealing with a society where divorce rates are through the roof. Because people think that they can come into a marriage and continue to be the salesman and continue to just take what's in it for me. That's not a marriage. It's going to fail. A marriage is what can I do for you? If everybody in that household is thinking the same way, what can I do for you? Then you have marital and familial bliss. Bliss. You don't want to leave the house. You can't wait to leave work to come home. But do you know what we see today? People can't wait to leave the house. They stay at work until all hours of the night. And they make all kinds of excuses for their spouses of why they're not coming home in their all eyes. Why? Because they can't stand being home. Why? Because they're not getting from the house what they want. They're not thinking, what can I put into the house? They're thinking, what can I take out of it? It's the wrong approach. It's a toxic approach, and it's one that has broken many families and continues to do that very thing. Let's finish with this, my friend. A married couple with a MUNA are happy with their lot in life. This concept of being happy with your lot in life doesn't just apply to dollars and cents. It doesn't just apply to physical assets, it applies to the individuals who are in your life. I said earlier on that this concept of making zivugs, of bringing together two people and having them start a life together is so difficult because we have to make choices. But at the end of the day, God puts that right person in front of you. And that is part of your lot in life. If you're happy with the person that God gave you, then you're not looking at other people. You're not thinking, why didn't I get my neighbor's wife? Why didn't I marry that one? Why didn't I marry this one? This one would have been so much better suited for me. You're always looking at other people's relationships and thinking to yourself, why did I end up with this one? Terrible outlook, my friends. Absolutely terrible. You ended up with the person that you're supposed to be with. And you have to make that relationship work. It says that when Hashem created Eve, he first created Adam. And he saw that Adam was on his own, and it wasn't a good thing for him to be alone. It says, It's not good that a person should be by himself. And because of that, he created Eve. But what does it say when he created her? It said, I will make for him a helper who opposes him. Do you understand? Opposes him. How is a helper opposing you? A helper opposes you the same way your evil inclination is actually a good thing for you. A lot of people don't realize that. A lot of people run around thinking there's this fallacy that if I just got rid of my evil inclination and all my desires, I would live a good life. And it's not true. The opposite is true. It is precisely your evil inclination that challenges you on a daily basis that helps you to grow and become the better version of yourself. And that's what your spouse is there to do. They're there to challenge your ideas, to make you second guess, to make you re-evaluate, reassess the situation and the choices that you're making so that you are absolutely sure that you are making good choices. That is the person who you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with, and you're supposed to appreciate the fact that they bring that to the table. People get upset. Why is she challenging me all the time? Why is she questioning me all the time? Why does she always push back on me? Why can't she just say yes? Obviously, everything is on a case-by-case basis, but generally speaking, a spouse's job, the wife's job, is to make you challenge yourself to become the best version of you. And that doesn't come by sipping tea and eating cookies. It comes by doing the hard work. It comes by doing the heavy lifting. It comes by asking the difficult questions. And sometimes we don't want to ask those questions because we don't want the answer. So you know who asks the question? Your spouse. Now you're either going to look at that and say, thank you for asking the question. Now it's time to reevaluate so that we can come up better and stronger. Or you're going to say, What's wrong with you? Why do you always challenge me? And you're going to get upset about it. One is going to lead to marital bliss and a life of success. And the other, God forbid, is going to end in ultimate divorce, just like the rest of the statistics. Choose wisely, my friends. Remember, that person in front of you was put there for a reason. It was very difficult to put that person in front of you. You succeeded. Make it work. And the way to make it work is to recognize that they are there to help you and that you were there to help them. Together, you can make this life the ultimate success for both of you and for your families. Have an amazing day. We continue tomorrow. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts. Drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.