Rabbi Janet Marder

March 21, 2008

Scenes From a Marriage

On the surface, it looked like they had everything.  They were loaded with money, with a huge, palatial home, richly decorated in the latest style. They had secure and prestigious jobs. They were a popular couple, surrounded by friends; they entertained often and had a lively social life. They knew they were the object of envy among their circle of acquaintances. Their life was easy and pleasant and luxurious. They should have been happy -- but something was missing at the core.

The truth was that he was tired of her. She was still a good-looking woman, he supposed, but the bloom was definitely off the rose. He remembered a time when they couldn’t get enough of each other. He wondered where all of that passion had gone. He wondered if he would ever feel that way again.

She had her own discontents. Gradually, she’d noticed, a distance had grown between them.  Both of them were busy and often tired – that was part of the problem. But more and more, they couldn’t seem to find anything to say to each other. When they did talk, it felt perfunctory and superficial. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a real conversation. She felt lonely, unloved and unappreciated. He never touched her anymore unless he wanted something from her. She found him immature, emotionally inexpressive. He found her cold and disapproving.

More and more, it seemed, the two of them went their separate ways and led their own lives, with their own interests and activities. Inside their big, opulent house they slept apart.

He was restless, wanting something more. She was bored with a marriage that felt empty and dead. But things dragged on for a few years without either of them making a move. Then, all at once, things fell apart. In an effort to inject a little excitement into the marriage, he asked her to try something different – something more daring and adventurous. He asked her to do it for him.

She could tell he was drunk, which infuriated her. She found his request demeaning. She told him so, and flatly refused. He felt angry and humiliated. And that was it: on that very night he decided to dump her. Within a short time he had found someone else – a younger woman, very pretty of course, and much more compliant. The new girl looked up to him and thought he was wonderful. Once again, he felt on top of the world. His middle-aged ex, embittered and resentful, predicted that in time the jerk would get just as tired of her replacement.

The story of Purim, whatever else it is, is also the story of a marriage gone bad. The tale of Esther and Mordechai’s triumph begins with a bitter, far-from-civil divorce. Consider the case of King Ahashuerus and Queen Vashti, the discontented pair whose domestic troubles we breeze through impatiently, eager to get to the beauty contest where our heroine will emerge.

Their story, unpleasant as it is, seems somehow familiar. A wealthy man who has everything but feels empty; a powerful man who feels entitled to get what he wants, yearning for a beautiful younger woman; a long relationship that has descended into the doldrums; an angry wife, reeling from the pain of public exposure and shame; marital unhappiness and acrimony put on display for all to see. The tale of Ahashuerus and Vashti seems snatched from this month’s headlines, which tell of the downfall of another rich and powerful leader undone by his appetites.

We’ll never know what was really going on in that Persian marriage two thousand years ago. The Bible isn’t interested in telling us, so we’re free to spin our own scenarios. So also, the news stories about ex-governor Spitzer give us only the most cursory view of what is surely a complicated personal life. Behind the scenes, behind the gossip and the snickers, the shocked recriminations and the moralizing condemnations, lies the private story, which none of us can or should wish to penetrate.

But we can talk about one aspect of that story, because it is a fact of life today; and we can talk about it in the synagogue because it is, for Jews, a religious issue. I mean the painful reality of marital infidelity.

Scarcely had the people of New York put the Spitzer scandal behind them and sworn in a new governor – a different kind of man; low-key, unpretentious, a consensus-builder – when familiar words returned to the headlines. Governor Patterson too, it seemed, had some extramarital affairs in his past. So did his wife.

The state of New Jersey chimed in with some provocative headlines of its own, dealing with their previous governor and his very complicated marriage and divorce. Spitzer, Patterson and McGreevey joined a long line of politicians, including Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Newt Gingrich and Gavin Newsome, who have acknowledged episodes of “weakness” in their past. The events of this month awakened uncomfortable memories of a time, not too many years ago, when the country was mesmerized by seamy tales emanating from the White House about the private life of the Commander in Chief.

The New York Times, eager to cast an objective, scientific light on these recent incidents of marital malaise, published an article this week that examined behavior in the animal kingdom, entitled “In Most Species, Faithfulness is a Fantasy” [March 18. 2008].  Contending that “sexual promiscuity is rampant throughout nature,” the article quoted psychologist David Barash of the University of Washington , author, with his wife, of “The Myth of Monogamy.”  Dr. Barash says that, behaviorally speaking, infidelity is pretty much the norm, stating pithily: “Infants have their infancy, adults, adultery.”

So even swans, it turns out, cheat on their spouses, just as people do. Just how common is adultery among humans? I’ve seen all kinds of statistics. One book by Peggy Vaughan, “The Monogamy Myth” (to be distinguished from the earlier-mentioned “The Myth of Monogamy”) claims that 60% of American husbands and 40% of wives will have an affair at some time in their marriage.

A well-regarded 1994 survey conducted by the University of Chicago puts the number more conservatively, at 25% for men and 12% for women. These numbers would increase by perhaps 20% if they included so-called “emotional affairs” in which the intimacy never becomes physical.  There is no reliable evidence that the infidelity rate in this country has increased over the past few decades.

A 1998 Gallup poll found that Americans were quite firm in their disapproval of extramarital sex: 79% said it was “always wrong” and another 11% said it was “almost always wrong.” In a 2006 Gallup poll Americans said adultery was worse than human cloning [see Pamela Druker, “Our Ready Embrace of Those Cheating Pols,” washingtonpost.com July 15, 2007].

Our own tradition seems to offer a similarly vehement condemnation. The seventh commandment, “lo tinaf – do not commit adultery,” is what we call an apodictic law: it’s an absolute prohibition rather than an instance of case law. The command to refrain from adultery does not include any parenthetical exemptions, such as  “except when you fall in love with someone else.”

On the other hand, the original Biblical understanding of this commandment was far less restrictive than modern interpretations: it applied only to a man having relations with a woman who was married or betrothed to someone else. Adultery seems to have been regarded at the time as a kind of property violation – one man infringing on what belongs to another. The original intent of the commandment was not to legislate monogamy within marriage – at least not for men.

That being said, for at least the past thousand years monogamy has been the legal norm for Jews, and today Reform as well as traditional Judaism views extramarital relations as wrong. Certainly, there are difficult circumstances that require a much more thoughtful and sensitive response. Last August, for instance, Rabbi Richard Address, a leader of our movement, published an article in the Forward raising the question of whether it would be wrong for a married person whose spouse has Alzheimer’s to turn elsewhere for intimacy [See August 15, 2007, “Is it Still Adultery if the Spouse Has Alzheimer’s?”].

But setting aside that special case, let’s ask where the seventh commandment leaves the average married couple. We know adultery is wrong and faithfulness is the marital ideal. We also know that it can be hard to live up to that ideal. Psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell, in a book called “Can Love Last?” points out that both men and women have “two fundamental, conflictual needs” – a need for security, familiarity and a reliable anchor; and a need for novelty, adventure, and risk [see pp.36-39]. Both are important. When only one need is met, we feel that something is missing.

Some people, intent on fulfilling the second need, resist making a permanent commitment to anyone. Others devote tremendous energy to satisfying the first drive – searching for the right person, settling down and building a nest together. But as our sense of safety in a relationship increases, excitement diminishes. One day we discover that the thrill is gone.

Much research shows that marital happiness declines with the transition to parenthood, for reasons most parents can understand. In the years that follow, some couples settle into a comfortable relationship that is loving and respectful, if not passionate; others end up feeling more or less like roommates. It reminds me of a line in a film by Ethan Hawke called “Before Sunset,” in which the main character, age 32, confesses that he loves his little boy, but he and his wife have nothing in common anymore except childrearing. He says, “I feel like I’m running a daycare center with someone I used to date.”

People who never expected to find themselves in this situation may have an affair or find that their spouse has been unfaithful to them. What follows such betrayal is often a nightmare of shock, anguish, grief and rage.

Given the dynamics of marriage over time, and the myriad stresses upon marriages today, it would be unfortunate if all we had to guide us was the seventh commandment and a shelf of self-help books, many of which contradict one another. 

In fact, there’s more our tradition can offer us. In addition to the apodictic “thou shalt not,” we have in the Talmud several stories that show our Sages wrestling with the real-life tensions of being in a committed relationship. Just reading the stories can open up an interesting conversation. Here’s one example, from Tractate Kiddushin (81b), the Talmudic book dealing with marriage:

Whenever Rabbi Hiyya bar Ashi fell down prostrate [at the conclusion of his personal prayers] he would say, “May God save me from the yetzer ha-ra  [a reference to the sexual urge]. One day his wife overheard him. “Let us see,” she reflected. “It is so many years that he has held aloof from me; why then does he find it necessary to say this prayer?” One day when her husband was studying in the garden, she adorned herself, disguised herself as a prostitute and paraded back and forth in front of him.

He asked her: “Who are you?” She answered: “I am Haruta [a name apparently derived from herut = freedom] and I have returned today.” He propositioned her. She said to him: “First bring me the pomegranate from the top of the tree.” He jumped up and went and got it for her.

When he came home [after his sexual encounter], his wife was lighting the oven. He went and sat inside [or on] it [in order to punish himself]. She said to him: “Why are you doing this?” He told her what had befallen him. “But it was I!” she said. He paid her no attention until she brought [him] proof [the pomegranate]. [But he refused to be comforted]. “Nevertheless,” he said, “My intention was wrong.”

In just a few lines the world of a married couple opens up before us. There are some things we don’t know. How old are these two people? How long have they been together? Are there children? A few things we do know: he has withdrawn from her, and she doesn’t know why. Years have gone by while she wonders what’s happened. She suspects, perhaps, that her husband is no longer capable of making love. Then she hears him saying that prayer – a prayer he apparently says every day – and she discovers that he is a man tormented by desire. He has apparently never discussed his feelings with her; she has never asked him the question that is so much on her mind. We see here the relationship between emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy – and both are missing from this marriage. 

She is probably quite disconcerted and puzzled to learn this secret about her husband. Perhaps she feels rejected. Eventually she takes matters into her own hands and makes an effort to renew the marriage. Remarkably, after she dresses herself up in provocative fashion, her husband doesn’t seem to recognize her. “Who are you?” he asks. Maybe she has let herself go for years and he can’t believe his eyes. Or maybe he hasn’t been looking closely at his wife for a long time. We wonder if he truly has any idea who she is. 

After their erotic encounter he returns home some time later to find his wife “heating up the oven” – perhaps to signify that passion has returned to their relationship. He is depressed and full of guilt. Finally they have an honest conversation – he tells his wife the truth about what happened to him in the garden.

She tries to make him feel better – she doesn’t mind that he was living out a fantasy, because, after all, the other woman was really herself. She doesn’t mind that he was thinking of someone else when he was with her. But Rabbi Hiyya can’t accept it. He can’t fit his wife into the role of a temptress or a sexual being. His idea of marriage won’t allow for this kind of playfulness and daring. It doesn’t bode well for their future.

Our Sages lived in the real world. They knew about marriages that felt cold at the center, and about temptation and yearning, the ebb and flow of emotion and desire; the tensions that can arise when two people try to make a lifetime commitment. They knew all about the challenges of marriage that Esther Perel describes in her intriguingly titled book “Mating in Captivity.”

Yet our Sages never lost their faith in marriage as an effort to create something beautiful and sacred here on earth. That’s why they gave to marriage the Hebrew name “kiddushin – holiness.”

 “Hence a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, so that they become one flesh” [Gen.2:24].  The traditional words from Genesis set before us an ideal of marriage – an exclusive, intimate bond in which two people are closer to each other than to anyone else in the world.

The prophets give us the image of a covenantal union between partners who pledge their best to each other and help each other to reach their best:  “I will betroth you to me forever,” said Hosea. “I commit myself to you with equity, and with unconditional love. I commit myself to you in faithfulness. Through each other, may we come to know the Eternal” [Hos.2:19-20].

The chuppah, we often say, is open on all sides. Open to the influence of family, friends and community. Open to whatever the winds of change may bring to the relationship. And open to enemies of marriage as well: fatigue, inattention and distraction, pervasive negativity, lack of communication and loss of intimacy. Protecting our precious relationships from all these threats deserves our best efforts.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to do something to support marriage at Beth Am. – because sustaining a good marriage is a spiritual challenge of the highest import.   Next year I will offer a course that will focus on how we can strengthen our own marriage, and draw on the resources of our tradition to open up honest conversation between spouses. I hope you’ll join me in this project. Together we can help one another.