Episode 160 - Women Need to Be Heard, Not Fixed

Ever wondered why divorce is glorified instead of addressed? 🤔

Tag someone who needs to hear this! 

Divorce is rampant in our society today. People are delaying marriage, and when they do tie the knot, it often ends in heartbreak. We’ve strayed from understanding the blessings that children bring and the strength of a united family.

But what if we shifted our perspective? Imagine if couples chose to work on their issues instead of opting for divorce. The fallout from separation often lands hardest on children. They deserve stability, not the chaos of divided homes. 

Let’s talk about the real cost of divorce—not just financially, but emotionally. 

What if, before taking that step, couples reflected on their pride and willingness to communicate? Marriage isn't just about love; it’s about partnership, teamwork, and sometimes, swallowing your pride for the sake of your family.

Maybe it’s time we rethink our approach to relationships. What are your thoughts? 

#DivorceReality  
#MarriageMatters  
#FamilyFirst  
#TrustFactorPodcast  
#HealthyRelationships

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A woman has to get things off her chest. You guys are alive. You've got a pulse. Look online and you'll see. That's what often people are talking about when they talk about the difference between men and women is that women just need to get things off their chest. They need to be heard. They need to know that somebody's listening. And a guy thinks, I need to fix something. Give me the hammer, give me the nail, give me the screwdriver, give me what the problem is, and I'll fix it for you. Guys are running around trying to fix the world's problems. And women don't necessarily want their problem fixed. They just want an ear. They want somebody who's going to hear them out and understand them. And that person is ideally going to be her husband.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

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

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Welcome to the podcast, my friends. It's great to have you. We're talking about a heavy subject, but an important one, a very important one, because we're living in an age, a date and time where divorce is rampant. It is everywhere. People, number one, aren't getting married. They're pushing it off almost indefinitely. Number two, if they are getting married, they're ending up in divorce at record speed. Number three, if they are married, they're not having children. And if they are having children, they're having one. That's it. Well, a child and a dog, it's hard to find people with big families. In my parents' generation, my grandparents' generation, people were having six, eight, ten, twelve children in a family, and they couldn't afford it. They couldn't afford one child, never mind eight, but they had them because they understood what we don't understand today, that the children come with their own blessing. They come with their own income, and they are the source. Most of the time, they are the source of all of the blessings in your house. So they kept having more and more children. Today, we've been steered, we've been directed so far away from those truths that today they don't get married and they don't have children. And like I said, if they do, they've divorced early with one child, maybe, maybe two children. That's the culture that we're living in today. We have to stop it. We really do, because it's tearing apart the fabric of our society. It's being normalized. I told you the other day about a show with Kelly Rippa where they not just normalized it, but they glamorized it. They refer to it as a glow-up. Not a blow-up, but a glow-up, how you come out glowing. And if you thought I was exaggerating, have a listen and we'll talk about it in a second.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Some of you have friends that have gotten divorced, yes? And they look damn good when it's over, don't they? And you're like, oh my gosh, she's making a strong argument for divorce. Where you see your friend, the married woman, for many decades, and then she's divorced and suddenly she looks like a brand new person. Okay, so women are posting their divorce glow-ups online, and experts are saying they're on to something. Are they saying we should get divorced? No. Photos that highlight the physical and emotional improvements after ending a marriage. Some women are posting images of themselves before the relationship breaks up when they are at peak stress and then their after photo, where they are suddenly unburdened, and they are like great. Yes, they've they've shed a 200-pound weight. Um divorce doesn't make you prettier, uh, says this uh licensed marriage therapist, but when cortisol levels are elevated, your face and body holds on to all of those stressors that can drop away and soften literally after um their marriage ends. Huh. I've I've witnessed this. I have witnessed my friends go through divorces. Same that I'm like, wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Same.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

You're making a strong argument for divorce.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Hey, fellows of the audience. A lot of young guys here, but there's a few guys around my age. Do you have any buddies? Anybody have their buddies go through a divorce? Oh, yeah. Raise your hand. They look great, don't they? They look rested.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

That's a lie. You know they look lost. They look lost, yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yeah, but they have but they look lost, but they have that 25-year-old girlfriend that's leaving them in everywhere they need to go. Where should we go, honey? I don't know. I'm lost. Take me. I've lost 50 pounds. I have a tan, and take me wherever you want me to go.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

I love how you. Here's what I love. Mark listened to that article and personalized it. He's like, I need to get my revenge.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

This thought it'd be funny.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

You know what they weren't talking about over there while they were giggling and smiling and laughing? By the way, you sensed that tension in the undertone at the end when the husband chimed in, right? And talked about when the man walks around with a 25-year-old on his arm. As much as she was trying to remain professional, it didn't work. It wasn't easy. You could tell that it rubbed her the wrong way. They don't talk about what happens with the children. They don't talk about the in-laws. They don't talk about all the fallout that you and I had been talking about because it's not popular. It's not feel good. It doesn't make somebody feel good to talk about these truths. So they ignore it entirely, doing themselves and their audience and every fool who watches those kinds of shows a massive, massive disservice. Why? Look, just simple. A couple that has children and are together, they can deal with almost anything. Like what? Child gets sick, God forbid they're in the hospital. Now, not only are you not able to work together to help that child heal quicker, not only are you not on the same page when addressing medical professionals, but that child now sees you guys at each other's throat. So their illness, which was probably enhanced by the divorce in the first place, is now going to spiral out of control because you guys can't get along and can't agree on the course of treatment. A child that has learning disabilities, suddenly the parents need to come together to talk to the teachers, to meet with the school, to come up with alternatives. Where can we send this child to? What extra help can we get this child to help them learn and get out of this challenge that they're in? When they're at each other's throats, they can't agree on anything. And oftentimes they can't agree because they're divorced. It's all out of spite. If they were together, they would be on the same page. Maybe they wouldn't be in marital bliss, but at least they would be on the same page when it came to raising the children. People don't see that. They don't see beyond their own noses in this generation. And who suffers the most? The children. The children suffer the most every single time. They're not talking about that on the Kelly Ripper show. Had the couple stayed together, they could have solved their problems so much easier. Their dream solution of divorce turns out to be nothing more than a nightmare. Let's continue. What's the real solution? The real solution to all of these problems, my friends, is that before you take that step of divorce, a couple should stop and think, do they want to slaughter their children on the altar of their false pride? Or do they want to admit the truth that they don't know how to live properly together? Nine times out of ten, this is a pride issue, especially when it comes to the men. It's a pride issue to say, I don't know how to be in a relationship with somebody else. I don't know how to make room in my life. I don't know how to make sacrifices for other people effectively enough. And that's why we're suffering. If somebody was able to take their ego and their pride and put it on the shelf and work on themselves to realize that they have to do so much more, that they just have to say, I'm sorry, I failed, I'll do better. They can't do that because their pride doesn't allow them. It's so much easier to just get divorced. You might think that's funny or odd, but it's true, especially for guys. Ego is a very, very big thing, and it is the cause of so much destruction in our lives. A man's ego, when he walks around thinking he's the be all end all, and even if he does it, he still can't bring himself to say, I was wrong. I made a mistake. I can do better. With some basic instruction and goodwill, the right type of instruction, my friends, secular therapists are not telling you 80%, 90% of what we're talking about over here. You have to have Torah-based instruction that comes from a divine perfect source. They'll also save tens, even hundreds of thousands, and maybe even millions of dollars. Do you know how much money gets split up between the families? Do you know how much money ends up going to lawyers? The more successful financially the family is, the more lawyers they have, multiple lawyers, teams of lawyers, in the best effort to hold on to their wealth, which they equate with pride. I've built this, I'm going to keep it. They would rather take it out of their wife and children's mouths and give it to a slimy lawyer who's going to take full advantage of them. Schlep it out, make the whole process a hundred times longer and a hundred times harder than it had to be. Why? Because they get paid. They're on the clock. Their phone rings, dollars. They have a meeting, dollars. You need a letter, dollars. Every single time they're in court, dollars. It doesn't end. But the fool is the husband that often is more willing to give that money to the lawyers than he would be to give it to his own flesh and blood and the woman that he chose, that he loved at one point enough to be able to spend the rest of his life with her and make her the mother of his children. With proper instructions, they'll swallow a little bit of their pride and start fresh. Many, many couples have made happy new beginnings, but it's work, it's effort. If you knew how difficult this thing of ego is, it would blow your mind. If you understood that countries have fallen because a guy was not willing to say, I messed up, I made a mistake, lives have been lost. People were willing to allow people to die because they weren't able or willing to get off of their high horse and admit fault or guilt or whatever it is. Their pride comes first. Let all the fallout happen. I don't care. I'm not going to apologize. And that's not just in marriage. I'm telling you, it's literally in world leadership. People who run the free world operate this way. Their egos are bigger than their entire bodies. It's surprising that they can carry it around. Ignorance. Where does that come from? Ego. How does somebody maintain ignorance? Let me ask you. A guy's 30, 40, 50, 60 years old. He's been around the block a hundred times. He knows right from wrong. How does somebody like that not learn something new? Nine out of ten times, it comes from ego. And that's exactly where it leads into. No coincidence. Most divorces are caused by the husband's ignorance of the principles of peace in the home. He doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing. He never learned it. We don't have classes on marriage before you get married these days. Think about that for a minute. They'll teach you every subject in secular studies when you're in high school and when you're in university. You'll learn about art history. Isn't that fantastic? But they won't have a class on marriage and success in marriage and success in child rearing. Certainly wasn't around when I was in school, and I'm pretty sure it's not around today, though I've been out of school for a little while. Why not? Why not? Just think about it. Money management when it comes to relationships, interacting with your spouse, negating your own will, all of the principles we've been talking about. Do you know the world that we'd be living in today if secular studies included Torah ideas on living together, on building a family, on having children? It would be a perfect world, my friends. For example, he says, a husband who isn't guilty of extreme behavior. We're not talking about somebody who's morally or ethically bankrupt and corrupt. We're talking about a guy who's not a wife beater. He doesn't hit his wife, God forbid, or a criminal. He makes a living and he's faithful to his family. Can still fall on his face in marriage. If he criticizes and is constantly finding fault with his wife, he turns her life into a living death. Women cannot be insulted. They can't have combats being thrown at them all the time. They are much more sensitive to that than men are. Now, that doesn't give the woman a pass to constantly berate and sit on her husband's head. Everything he does, she's washing him like a drill sergeant. Nobody wants that. Men can deal with it much more than women can. But even when the woman comes to point out her husband's fault, there is a time and a place to do that and the right way to do it. And you have to learn. That's why the woman has to have people who are going to teach her. The rabbi, the rabbi's wife, even better, who's in that relationship and who knows very well and who spent a lifetime learning about the right way and the wrong way to reprove your husband, to make sure that he understands that it's coming from a place of love and not for you. The woman oftentimes gives her husband criticisms. Why? Because she wants him to change because she doesn't like his behavior. She doesn't like the choices that he's making. It's never going to work. If you're criticizing because you want them to fall in line with your expectations, stop. Stop trying. You're just going to ruin the marriage. A woman can ruin it just as fast as a man can. Yes, a woman has to be the mirror for her husband. Yes, the woman has to be the Ezer Kenegdo, the helper who opposes him. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. Number one is to make sure that it's altruistic. It's not about you, it's about him. It's about your husband. I want him to want to grow. I would love to see him becoming the best version of himself. Nothing to do with me. And everything to do with him, even if he wasn't with me, I would want him as the father of my children to become the best version of himself. If that's the approach that you're taking when you're giving over these criticisms, again, under the guidance of a professional, then you are bound to have exponentially more success than you would if you undertook it on your own, because we simply don't know. We act out of emotion. It's a knee-jerk response. We shoot from the hip. A guy can never do that with his wife. Ever. Period. End of sentence. It will crush her. It will destroy her life. A woman can do that to a husband, but never from the hip and never out of emotion. Get clarity. Speak to somebody. Make sure you understand how do I work with my husband to make sure that we're both on a growth path. If I see him doing something wrong, how do I help him to get better? Don't undertake it by yourself. It is a heavy load to bear. And there are so many great resources out there to be able to help you on that path. Let's continue. With even minimal instruction on marital success, a husband will learn that the first rule of peace in the home is to refrain from criticizing his wife. We just talked about that. Even when the situation is perfectly justified, I see the faults clear as day. I see what she's doing. I see the choices she's making. I see the negative impact that it's having on her, on me, on our children, on the family unit. It's a problem. I need to address it. There is a right way and a wrong way. And nine times out of ten, if you're not getting assistance and guidance, it's the wrong way. Trust me on that. A woman wants to feel loved and respected. Criticism, even in the slightest, does the opposite. Even worse, it makes a woman nervous and destroys her self-confidence. We've talked about this a few times. He's reiterating for us over here. Criticism and finding fault, as justified as they may be, and oftentimes there are we're humans, we all fail, we all make mistakes. A husband destroys both his wife and his marriage with his own two hands. He should therefore never highlight it, never criticize her. It is a steadfast rule. Your wife should be perfect in your eyes, even if she isn't, nobody is. She should always be made to feel that she is perfect in her husband's eyes. Again, there is a right way and a wrong way to do these things. Please seek out assistance. If you don't know where to look, reach out. I will point you in the right direction. There are amazing individuals who have dedicated their lives to helping society, to making a real positive change using God's Torah. They're there, they're waiting for you. If you don't know who they are, reach out. I'll put you in touch with them. After you criticize, the second culprit behind that unhappy marriage is what? Is the husband's unwillingness or impatience to listen to his wife. You know why your wife is often speaking to everybody else? Because she can't speak to you. The reason that your wife shares your problems with the whole world is because she feels like you're not listening to her. With no mate to talk to or to share the burdens that weigh heavy on her heart, a wife is doomed to frustration and unhappiness. A woman has to get things off her chest. You guys are alive, you've got a pulse. Look online and you'll see. That's what often people are talking about when they talk about the difference between men and women is that women just need to get things off their chest. They need to be heard. They need to know that somebody's listening. And a guy thinks, I need to fix something. Give me the hammer, give me the nail, give me the screwdriver, give me what the problem is, and I'll fix it for you. Guys are running around trying to fix the world's problems. And women don't necessarily want their problem fixed. They just want an ear. They want somebody who's going to hear them out and understand them. And that person is ideally going to be her husband. But if it's not, because he's not around, he's not emotionally available, or he just thinks it's his job to fix everything, she'll find a sounding board. She'll find somebody else who's willing to do that work. And suddenly that's going to put space between you and your wife. Why? You have to recognize what the husband's job is. A big part of that is to be emotionally available to hear out your wife and her problems. It doesn't mean you have to solve them. You just need to hear them and have a conversation about them. When she sees how her husband animatedly listens to other people, for some reason he can do that with everybody else. He can do that with the in-laws, he can do that with my friends, he can do that with his co-workers, he can do that with everybody, but why not with me? When she sees that, she becomes insulted. Her entire aspirations in marriage were to find a soulmate who would make her happy and illuminate her soul. With a husband who doesn't respect or cherish her enough to give her minimal attention, she loses all the will to stay married. Guys, it's not my words. I'm not smart enough. These are Torah principles, my friend. This is coming from a rabbi that has spent immeasurable amounts of time fixing relationships, fixing marriages. And I'm just bringing it to you with a little bit of common sense, my friend. If you're being intellectually honest, all of these things are making sense and they're resonating with you. If you somehow watch that video of them glamorizing divorce and that resonated with you, it made you smile, you need a lot more of this, my friend. But there's good news. It's coming up. We'll chat 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.