There is a post on the Yeshiva World News forum about having nothing to talk about with your husband and the comments that follow are quite atrocious. Instead of facing the huge problem of having nothing in common or of interest in your lives, the world is telling you to write thank you notes, get permission from your rabbi to go to concerts, or take cooking classes. All fine ideas for dates, but what about actually facing the issue head on? The issue starts in the shidduch process, where people wonder what to talk about on their dates. It ends during the engagement, wedding, and post simcha celebrations, because you can avoid real life and talk about everything going on. I have friends who literally had nothing to talk about with their wives and I always wondered about the awkward silences that must have persisted in their homes because they were too frum for movies or post marriage dating.
me and my husband have run out of things to do at night in our shana rishona….he learns and wroks and i work as well, but when it hits 8PM we are going out of our minds…..
any ideas? What did you do?
My theory on dating and marriage was always that things in common and ability to carry on in endless conversation trumped most anything else. I figured that when my wife and I were immobile and shitting into diapers we could at least laugh together, right? Yet, shadchanim would never tell me such things, they loved to stress the “good family” thing that seemed to translate “great grandparents knew the chofetz chaim” or something of the sort, which always somehow made the girl amazing.
1) Learn Torah together! Pick something neither of you ever learned that interests both of you.
2) Explore NYC! There are a zillion places to do and see and many are inexpensive. Take a walk through some of the parks, ride the Staten Island Ferry, go to the top of the Empire State Building. And many great museums have evening hours, with great lectures on interesting topics.
3) Visit different shuls together! There are late minyanim in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx and most of the shuls have a kosher ezras nashim; take the subway or bus and enjoy each others company on the way and on the way home. In many cases there is a shiur before or after.
4) If your rabbis permit it (mine does) enjoy a theatrical performance together! There is some great theater in NYC and is isn’t anything like the pagan rites Chazal complained about.
Have a great time!!!
Other friends of mine seemed to overlook the lack of conversation, by thinking they would be having enough sex with their trophy wives to not need conversation. Those marriages lasted the shortest and I was never one to be “dude, do you like anything about her besides her great ass” I was always focused on attitude, laughter, and interesting things to talk about.
Did you finish all your Thank You cards?
Meals prep should take at least an hour, if you don’t live on take-out (or pick-ups from mom / mom-in-law).
Did you get the Salad Time cookbook as a gift? If not, that’s a must. From checking the lettuce to making the dressing (from scratch, not from a bottle) should take up a good portion of your evening.
Another good way to spend from 8-9 is visiting an aunt or uncle or mother’s cousin and letting them see your album.
You can’t really judge an entire community by their silly forum comments, but if you look around the web at the conversations about marriage from the yeshivish perspective it’s pretty unbearable. It’s as if the men marry because they are told and the women marry because they want a wedding and recognition from their already married friends. No one likes to mention that you’re spending the rest of your life with someone you have nothing to talk to about. This may be the reason that my yeshiva friends have wives that seem to be like mutes. Don’t tell me it’s a tznius thing for the wife to not have any conversation with their husbands ever.
Hey, don’t ruin the surprise. Nobody will want to get married anymore.
lol
So true. It is AFTER the wedding and post-simcha celebrations that the secret life of the other party begins to show. They may seem to be boring. They may seem to have no interests. However, the suggestions above will help a couple get to know each other and begin to build a foundation for good memories.
I had a husband who was happy to have found a wife for his potential children but still maintained a totally separate life from me. Totally. Sadly, the only thing we had in common is that we both came from ‘good Jewish families’ That was not enough to sustain a relationship. Very sad. 🙁
The suggestions above are all very good.
Reason #62 that shidduchim and dating strictly to determine whether or not you’re going to marry someone you just met is outdated.
Once upon a time in the shtetl, girls were too busy making babies and attending to household duties, not much time left for conversing. Everything was cooked from scratch, laundry had to be done at the river, and water drawn from the well. By the time nightfall came around, all they wanted was to hit the sack, with possibly a quicky here and there.
But as we evolve, this latest issue will fade away as well. With an entire generation growing up texting, conversation will soon be a thing of the past.
I hear you now text the shadchan to see if you can text the girl, it takes the nerves out of it I guess.
When I was shidduch dating I was told that one of the purposes of going out was to determine this compatibility, that we could laugh together, talk together and enjoy each others company.
The good family, plastic tablecloth garbage was relegated to the crazy research phase of the game.
I’m married several years now and things are still absolutely incredible. We still date, have what to talk about and do together that doesn’t involve diaper changing and laundry folding (though admittedly we do a lot of that together – just makes it all the more fun…)
So yes, I laughed at that post and responses too, but don’t see it as a reflection of all yeshivish marriages! Mine and those that I encounter on a regular basis seem to be doing more than fine.
YWN post is from 3 years ago. No need to jump on things so quicly.
Ha Ha!
Who cares how old it is?
Why should “The good family, plastic tablecloth garbage” be part of the game at all?
for me personally – and for most I know – it never was part of the game, I was just commenting on the notion that dating is all about the good family stuff and not about compatibility and chemistry
You’re both from *far_off_state*? Perfect match.
why should anyone get married to someone they don’t have things in common with or what to talk about? a good jewish family background is not going to determine a marriage. shidduch dating is too complicated. that sounds like the person is adopting a step brother or sister, . this isn’t india.
well said
“tell him when he gets home you’re playing hide-n-seek, he should be looking in the apartment for you.
You go to your parents, or friends house and he’ll be looking for you for hours!
when you get home i promise you won’t be bored.”
This is the best response over there. LMAO!!!!
Sometimes I get concerned that the frum community is going crazy, and then sarcastic people on the Internet make me happy.
We fought like kids in a sandbox when we weren’t scratching the itch. Kept us very busy between the two. 14 years later…throw in a couple of kids and we’re still doing the same. All our friends laugh at the way we fight. I always joke with my wife that we’re gonna end up like the Costanza’s.
OMG what a nightmare. Frum marriages are as lame as their daily lives. Want a shell of a life? Become frum
When I first got married in 1923, my wife and i used to go horse and buggy riding in central park and then we came home for a cozy night under our blanketz. somehow we always used to wake up without our underwear on. now we eat lettuce and tomatoes in bed.
Married 20+ years. Still bat-guano crazy about her. We always want to spend more time together.
It only fades if you stop trying to up your game.
Sounds very tiring
The saddest thing I ever read was from a Chassidic woman who said that her husband never speaks to her in private. Never. In front of the children, he called her “di mame” and in private, he called her nothing. When she suggested that he might say her name, that they might talk, he told her that it wasn’t Jewish for husbands and wives to be intimate that way.
Right, I’m a feminist and all that and not even frum so I am of course totally biased, but when you stack up the issue of women laying tefillin or being on the synagogue board against something like this … I am way more concerned about this.
I know that there are many happy super-frum people and this is not necessarily typical but there is also a lot of unnecessary suffering. A lot. Of suffering. And it disturbs me that a man could come out of an intensive Jewish education with the idea that he should never speak intimately to a woman he is having sex with.
Depends if he ever saw his wife naked. Maybe everything was done in the dark.
What type of suffering are you talking about?
That’s sad. How does one speak intimately when they don’t know what that consist of.
That made me feel sad when I read it. I KNOW of marriages like that. I feel that it is only an excuse on the person’s part who says it is not “Jewish” to speak intimately.
My parents were married for so many years until my father (z’l) died. Once my father told me the secret to their happy marriage was that it was one long conversation that they began on their first date.