Marriage with Meaning: A Values-Based Model for Premarital Counseling

Copyright © 2011 by Rabbi Daniel Young

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-6111-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-6112-8 (ebook)

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iUniverse rev. date: 12/17/2010

In appreciation of:

Richard Levy for guiding the initial research for this project.

Ann and Richard Young for supporting this work.

Beth Young for believing in this project and helping make it a reality.

Table of Contents

Preface

The History of and Case for Premarital Counseling—A Note for Clergy

Introduction

Romantic Love and Companionate Love

Rationale for this Project

Using this Book

Outline of the Book

Chapter 1:

Planning for Your Big Day

A Note for Same-sex Couples

Well in Advance of the Wedding

Getting the Rabbi

Ketubah

Chupah

Rings

Marriage License

Before the Wedding

Aufruf

Mikvah

Separation

Fasting

Kabbalat Panim/Tisch

Signing the Ketubah

Bedeken

The Ceremony

Processional

Circling

Birkat Eirusin

Vows

Sheva Brachot

Breaking the Glass

Recessional-Yichud

Additional Readings

Conclusion

Checklist for Wedding Day

Review—Places to Honor Friends and Family

Chapter 2:

Who You Are and Who You Want to Become

Reflecting on the Past

Exploring Family Love

The First Task of Marriage

Changing Relationships with Family and Friends

In-Laws

A Look to the Future

Beginning to Dream

Finding Your Place in the Chain of Dorot

Chapter 3:

Communication and Conflict in Intimate Relationships

Who?

What?

Where?

When?

Why?

How?

Communication Techniques

Conflict Resolution

Children and Conflict

Repair Attempts

A Word about Violence and Abuse

Wrapping It Up

Chapter 4:

Investing in Your Marriage

Day-to-Day Living

Your Views of Money

Responsibility for Money Matters

Income vs. Expenses

Keeping a Positive Balance in the Emotional Bank Account

The Short-Term

Planning Beyond Today: Finances for the Short-Term

Allowing Your Relationship to Grow

52 Ways to Work on Your Marriage

The Sentence-Completion Game

The Long-Term

Financial Planning for the Long-Term

Emotional Bank Account: Long-Term

Conclusion

Chapter 5:

Building a Fulfilling and Successful Home Life

Chores

Sexual Intimacy

Good Sex

Ethical Sex

A Voice from Tradition

Sexual Problems

Infidelity

A Closing Exercise

Children

Jewish Genetic Testing

Infertility

Religious Observance

Heavenly Thoughts

Trying New Rituals

Conclusion

Chapter 6:

Tying it All Together

Putting the Value of Dorot into Your Ceremony

Including the Value of Dorot in Your New Marriage

Putting the Values of Emet and Emunah into Your Ceremony

Including the Values of Emet and Emunah in Your New Marriage

Putting the Value of Acharayut into Your Ceremony

Including the Value of Acharayut in Your New Marriage

Putting the Value of Bayit into Your Ceremony

Including the Value of Bayit in Your New Marriage

Bibliography

Endnotes

About the Author

Preface

Two comments must be made at the outset that will affect how some of you read this manual. First of all, we must recognize that some texts of older vintage do not reflect the same sensibilities as our modern age. Some sources used in this manual, particularly the ancient Jewish texts, are from times before gender-neutral language—times when there were defined roles for men and women in a society. As such, these texts may use language different from that to which we are accustomed. I have chosen to let the texts speak in the original, recognizing that many of them could be modernized. Despite the gender-role assumptions in many of these texts, they still provide relevant and important insights into marriage. Therefore, when not quoting other sources, this manual will use inclusive terms such as partner instead of man/husband or woman/wife since it is designed for use by all couples seeking to enter into a sacred covenant with each other.

Furthermore, most of the texts used in this manual assume a heterosexual union. Quite simply, this is because all of the marriage literature published in generations past—and most today—assumes a heterosexual union. However, I believe that this manual has relevant and important things to say to same-sex couples as well. Research has shown that the processes of close relationships are very similar in heterosexual and homosexual couples.¹ That does not mean that there are no differences in the issues that heterosexual couples face and same-sex couples face. Same-sex couples often need to deal with family reactions, community reactions, and legal issues that heterosexual couples do not. I hope that the skills presented in this manual give couples the tools to begin to constructively deal with those issues together.

The History of and Case for Premarital Counseling—A Note for Clergy

Premarital counseling is an ever-evolving craft. Rabbis and social workers have long been interested in determining the best way to influence young couples and increase their chances for a successful marriage. In the 1930s, the Reform rabbinical association, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), created a new committee to develop guidelines for rabbinic premarital counseling:

In June 1936, upon the initiative of Rabbi Sidney E. Goldstein, the CCAR committee on Marriage, Family, and the Home was created. This committee recommended that each synagogue should develop a program to include premarital conferences in which every young couple shall before marriage be instructed in the meaning of marriage and the foundations of the family in accordance with both Jewish ideals and the conclusions of current social science.²

This sounds rather reasonable. The leaders of the Reform movement seem to have taken these guidelines seriously. In the 1950s, the suggested premarital counseling program looked like this:

The most common religious program falls under the category of individual counseling. A series of four individual sessions may be held. The first session could last for one hour and focus on the purpose of the entire interview program, details of the ceremony, clarification of state laws, and distribution of literature. Many counseling programs end at this point. It is advisable, however, to see the couple for a second session that lasts one to one and one-half hours. During that time, the meaning of marriage could be discussed and a sex-knowledge inventory known as Form X administered. This test is reviewed during the third session. The last interview would cover the spiritual aspects of marriage and close with a prayer.³

This plan is consistent with the results of a survey conducted by the CCAR near the middle of the last century in which 77 percent of respondents reported counseling couples over and above any conversations about the wedding ceremony. The average time rabbis spent with couples preparing for marriage was 1.68 hours.

A generation later, the amount of time spent preparing a couple for marriage was contrasted with the amount of time a rabbi spent preparing for other life cycle transitions:

A busy rabbi has more than he can handle in just arranging for the wedding ceremony. Yet, there is something disproportionate here. For pastoral work in connection with, say, the death of a congregant, the rabbi devotes several hours to helping the family before, during, and after the funeral. But in preparation for life, for marriage, with its profound consequences to the lives of so many people, the rabbi limits himself to the brief hour, if that much, of pre-ceremony consultation. Surely marriage, and marriage in these days of social upheaval, deserves a reordering of priorities.⁴

Not only is the limited time in premarital counseling a question of priorities, it is also a missed opportunity. Helping couples prepare for marriage has the potential to make a big difference. Facilitating constructive conversations and helping create healthy patterns can pay off for the couple down the road:

More than in any other area of the helping-people art, the clergyman is in an ideal position in which one can help couples take constructive steps at the beginning of the marriage. Couples do come to clergymen to be married, and they can utilize this opportunity to do an important task in the education for marriage. Two or three hours spent with a couple in a premarital counseling interview can do more than ten hours of marriage counseling after the conflicts and hostilities have seared the victims and done the damage.⁵

The importance of premarital counseling has only grown in the intervening years, as we have become more aware of the complexities of marriage. We might even say that marriage is a more complicated venture than it was a generation or two ago, as many more issues are being discussed and decided by today’s couples. Where a generation ago, it might have been assumed that the couple would have children, today we recognize that not all couples want children (or are able to have them). Where a generation ago, it might have been assumed that the woman would stay at home with the children, today we recognize that either parent might take on that role or that neither parent might, instead trusting the child to the care of a nanny or daycare.

As a result, it is important to have a premarital program that allows couples to begin to probe these challenging topics in a safe and supportive environment. This manual is written as a guide to the important conversations that couples should have before they get married. It is written to speak directly to the couple. Reading it yourself will, however, provide you with a way to structure your own premarital counseling and enable you to call the couple’s attention to particular sections that you think will be meaningful for them.

When we invite couples on this journey of premarital counseling, we truly become m’sadrei kiddushin—the term can mean much more than just arranging and performing the couple’s wedding ceremony. It is an invitation to us as k’lei kodesh to communicate the sanctity of the couple’s individual marital union and help them unlock marriage’s potential.

This manual is an invitation to rabbis and couples to take this moment of transition seriously, equipping couples with tools for finding meaning and fulfillment in their marriage.

Introduction

The decision to get married is a big one and it is not one that should be taken lightly. The two of you have decided to make a very serious commitment to one another and are to be congratulated for doing so. Coming to the conclusion that your partner is the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life is not easy. So much of what we value in life is choice. With marriage, you are saying that you are relinquishing your choice to date other people for the opportunity to spend the rest of your life with your partner.

For prior generations, marriage was not as much a choice as it was an expectation. "Once upon a time, everybody got married, usually soon after they left college, and happy or sad, they were likely to stay with those partners. Pregnant people felt they had to get married, and cohabitation was known as living in sin. But not so anymore. Marriage is now a choice."⁶ The two of you are choosing marriage as the way to sanctify your relationship. In making this choice, a whole new world of depth and meaning opens up to you.

It’s a good thing that we have marriage, for what we need, and need desperately, is a protected inner world in which we can take off our masks, relax, and learn to develop our hidden potential as loving, caring persons.⁷ This close connection of marriage made safe by the commitment that we make to one another allows us to grow to understand ourselves and to become intimately connected with another person. In short, marriage provides an oasis where sex, humor, and play can flourish.⁸

But, marriage is not easy. We do not see Prince Charming and Cinderella on to their honeymoon bed because all the fairy tales end at the altar. After that, the plot grows too hard to follow.⁹ Part of this challenge of marriage comes from the transition from an individual model to a team model. In relationships, there is never really one winner and one loser; two people either win—or lose—together.¹⁰ When a couple succeeds in forming a team, love flourishes and the two individuals grow to be stronger and better people than either could have become alone. As we learn in Ecclesiastes Rabbah 4, Husband and wife together are greater as a unit than each of them is as an individual.¹¹

Successfully navigating life together means becoming attuned to the complexity of sharing a life together. It means expending energy and effort to create a relationship of mutual understanding and respect, a place where intimacy can flourish. A good marriage requires considerable and consistent effort—it doesn’t just happen on its own.

Romantic Love and Companionate Love

We often speak of falling in love. The moment of falling in love suggested to you that this relationship with your partner was no ordinary friendship—there was the possibility of much more. Yet, as Michael Kaufman notes, this idea of falling in love does not accurately express love’s role in a caring, committed relationship:

[O]ne does not fall into genuine love; one grows into it. The learning process of understanding the other’s personality and becoming aware of the other’s interests and needs is slow and difficult. It is far removed from the instant, effortless sensation that falling in love implies. Love that is based upon the solid foundations of friendship, affection, empathy, reciprocal giving, knowledge, and understanding is sure to be more enduring.¹²

You, near the beginning of the life you hope to build together, are just seeing the beginning of what your love can grow to be. A Biblical example serves to illustrate this point. Scripture tells us first that Isaac married Rebecca—and only then are we informed that he loved her. The affection that abides between a couple before [marriage] may indeed be genuine, but the deep and lasting love based on knowledge comes only through living and growing together in marriage.¹³

The idea of marrying for love is relatively new. In centuries past, political, economic, practical, and familial reasons all trumped love as a factor in choosing a mate. It is different today. Today, love is an essential component of what brings people to marry each other. Yet, research shows that this love is different from the love that sustains them through the course of their marriage. The love that attracts