This was printed in the Jewish Press last week on Page F2
Marital Intimacy/Sholom Bayis - A Male Opinion
Dear Rachel,
Recently, my wife came home from a sholom bayis shiur all a-glow. The rebbetzin giving the shiur had offered a piece of advice that was sure to bring marital bliss, and my wife was determined to try it. "Fifteen minutes..." the rebbetzin advised, "No matter how hectic your day, make sure that your husband and you have a 15 minute talk to reconnect." Now, I haven't actually spoken to the husbands of the other wives at that shiur but I assume that most of them had the same reaction as I did upon hearing this sage advice. My reaction was "Hogwash!"
Of course I am not saying that this is a waste of time. What I am saying is that every sholom bayis lecture clearly sides with the emotional needs of the woman over the physical needs of the man.
Philosophically speaking, we need to assume that both man and woman were created equal - as well as different from each other. I think it would be safe to say that most women find love emotionally. They love to have their husbands pay attention to them and to what they have on their minds. This is how they connect with their spouses. I think it would also be safe to say that most men find love in the act of marital intimacy, and this is how they chiefly connect with their spouses.
If this is how we men were created, then why is it that women constantly denigrate us men by saying "Oh, that's all you ever think about." Why are our needs any less important than theirs? Why is our need to connect and love treated as inferior? Why is it ignored in every sholom bayis lecture?!
If a marriage is supposed to be 50/50, then logically it would follow that what this rebbetzin should have told my wife is, "For two weeks a month you should set aside 15-30 minutes every night to talk, and for two weeks a month you should set aside the same amount of time and energy for intimacy." She also should have said, "Just as it upsets us women when men are distracted while we are talking to them, it also upsets men when we are distracted in the bedroom."
Now I really don't want to get into the discussion about "well, maybe your wife is too tired, etc.", because I do help around the house and with the kids. But even if I didn't, my point would still be valid - no sholom bayis lecture ever deemed my tiredness from a day of work as an excuse to skip out on a talk with my wife. Shouldn't every woman who uses the "I'm too tired" as a copout feel guilty about ignoring the emotional needs of her husband?
Since that speech, I would say that our sholom bayis has actually gotten worse. Now when I miss a night of talking with my wife, I get lectured about how I am ignoring her. How is it that the same woman who doesn't let me miss a night of connecting with her can easily go ten days without connecting with me? How can she not see the hypocrisy?
In a nutshell, Rachel, if women truly want sholom bayis, they need to view intimacy as "talking" for men. If they'd offer it to us without making us plead, then so much friction between spouses would dissolve. If women are attentive to us in the bedroom, they will truly find us to be more attentive to them when they need it most. And if some rebbetzin would actually verbalize this in a lecture, men across the world could finally stop beating their heads against the wall. Feels like I've been talking to a brick wall for 10 years
Dear Feels,
Your reasoning is logical. The fact is, emotion escapes logic - as in, "You took it the wrong way..." "I didn't mean it the way it sounded...""Why the tears?!" So you see, while your formula seems fair and sensible on paper, trying to enforce it may be something else entirely.
The hard reality is - making a marriage work is a struggle, a true labor of love. All of life, in fact, is about working our way through muddles and hurdles and coming out on top despite the stumbling blocks that test our mettle. And when we do get there, how much sweeter it is than had it come easy.
Lets tell it like it is: there is much to be said for the art of communication, both of the verbal and sensual kind. But you're right - there's a right time for everything. If spouses would strive to be more understanding of one another and to recognize that personalities vary and temperaments, moods and hormones fluctuate, dependent on a host of circumstances, arguments and slights would be greatly diminished and peace and calm would more likely prevail.
The trick is to always strive to "give" to one's other half, rather than to "take." With apologies to JFK, ask not what your spouse can do for you but what you can do for your spouse, and you may be most pleasantly startled to witness the most crucial friendship of your life bloom
Thank you for submitting your thought-provoking and well-expressed sentiments.
It is kind of amazing that this stuff is finally being printed. Bottom line, IMHO, maybe some day soon, magic will happen and people will realize marriage is not a fairy tale?
2 comments:
Part of the issue could also be that shalom bayit shiurim for women are more likely to be given by women. Moreover, my observation is that men rarely if ever get shalom bayit shiurim at all. Shalom bayit is seen as mostly women's domain. Perhas there would be more shalom bayit if it were treated as everyone's concern and not just women's.
If both men and women were at the shiur, that might get men's voices heard on the subject. If everyone is married it should not be such a tznius issue (I would think). If it is an isue, perhaps they could put a mechitza down the middle of the room, like in shul.
Moreover, the man says he wants 15 minutes of physical intimacy instead of 15 minutes of conversation. That's fine, but is he really prepared to do the deed every night or every other night with a woman who is laying there just waiting for it to be over? I would think that intimacy with a woman who doesn't really want to but is quietly allowing it in order to do the man a favor, sounds to a decent man not much better than intimacy with an inflatable doll. Is that what men really want? Do men feel emotionally close to prostitutes and inflatable dolls when they are "intimate" with them? Or is there a difference between willing intimacy with a woman who cares about you and someone who lets you do your thing in order to appease you?
I remember reading a Talmud passage that tells men never to cajole their wives into intimacy, to inspire the woman to initiate it. It then gave men tips (rather accurate ones, I might add - wine, soft words, etc.) on how to get their wives in the mood.
If men did spend the 15 minutes talking to their wives, and threw in a bottle of wine for good measure, he'd get all the intimacy he wants, and probably shortly after the conversation.
I want to share this from Salon.com's Broadsheet, where they had an article recently about attempts to create a Viagra for women.
It questioned the existence of female s*xual arousal dysfunction (FSAD), saying that "But what if female "dysfunction" is the result of attempting to couple with an overweight, no-foreplay husband whose breath reeks of beer and pizza?" That article led also to an article "The End of Foreplay" at: http://dir.salon.com/story/sex/feature/2003/01/30/nexmed/index.html
The author says:
"Let me suggest a more direct cure for many cases of FSAD -- thoughtful male lovers who know how to slowly arouse a woman. And some women don't accept that we essentially have to give ourselves orgasms. We have to be in the right frame of mind, have to want the sex, let our inhibitions go, and then really go for it.
For me, what is as important as sex itself is what happens before. My husband and I have been together for 22 years, so I know about creativity. I find it arousing to be spontaneous, adventurous and diverse. Get out of bed and be innovative, dress up, meet at a hotel with great sheets and room service, make a date as if it were the first time. And remember, men -- we need patience and tenderness. Spend time kissing, caressing and cuddling, not just focusing on our sex organs.
That's the problem, it seems to me, with the new wonder drug from NexMed. It focuses on the physical to the exclusion of everything else that arouses us. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. But on those occasions when I just wasn't in the right mood, or couldn't quite get there, I never started to fret that I might have a sexual disorder. And no group of psychiatrists or medical researchers is going to convince me otherwise."
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