Mayim Rabim

Kuzo, I am so sorry for your loss and don't begin to understand what you must be going through. Although I recognize the value of keeping the laws of taharas hamishpacha, I sometimes have mixed feelings about the strict hackarot. To be honest though, I have never thought about the concept of control as it relates to niddah and mikvah. Care to comment anyone? I hope that you find strength and contentment during this difficult time.

I have wondered about this ever since this infamous case. Why would I go to the mikvah, if I wanted to divorce my husband? What in the world is wrong with that? It's hard enough to push myself through all the preparations when I'm looking forward to reunion. If I didn't want my husband coming near me, you couldn't pay me to do all this.

I think it's more risky to use such a tactic in a marriage where you're hoping for reconciliation. Although I can certainly understand the impulse, Kuzo, and I am so sorry for your pain, I'm very glad you decided what you did. I think it would be hard for your husband to deal genuinely and openly with you if he felt you were withholding affection. Even though that wasn't your intention. In order to feel safe enough to be vulnerable with each other, we need to feel that love is unconditional.

Desde wrote an essay saying, in part, that taharat hamishpacha seems to take sexual control out of the hands of men and put it in the hands of women. I agree with her that this seems unfair. As someone whose husband is less convinced of the need for shiva neki'im and harchakot than I am, it's important to me that he understand I'm not the one calling the shots. If I could be with him sooner, I would.

Kuzo, I should clarify that I'm of course NOT advocating that you sleep with him if you don't feel like it. I know there's a mitzvah to have relations on mikvah night. But it was always stressed to me that it should only happen in the right spirit, never in anger. From the sources it even sounds like it's especially the husband's responsibility to appease his wife.

All I'm saying is that if you don't go to mikvah, you make that kind of reconciliation impossible. I'm glad you're not putting up that kind of barrier.

Thanks, UWSMaidel, you're very kind. I've my eyes have been opened recently by all the "locker room talk" found in our rabbinic literature.

I understand & thank you for your sentiments, eden. This is all about walking the walk of marriage, not just talking the talk. If you're committed, you remain present. I do want to sleep with him most of the time, but our fighting is always in sync with mikvah night. He wants to put off trying to have a baby longer than I do now, so there's extreme tension between us there & it's power-related.

Kudos to you for deciding to do your part for your marriage!

And I found your last comment most telling; as I was reading, it had occurred to me that the difficulties "all of a sudden" were very possibly actively related to the miscarriage.

You said you are "getting help". Is it directly addressing this issue?

All the best!

Yes, Michal, my perspective on the marriage is that we were journeying along our path as expected until we buried our little one. Ever since then he has been making an effort to differentiate himself & his needs from mine, which leaves me feeling married to someone who isn't so married to me. He also started spending time with a young single girl in our congregation, so off to the therapist we went. We're working on boundaries, appropriate levels of intimacy, & how to deal constructively with the ways in which we are different as two people, so we can re-build & strengthen our bond.
Marriage is a verb, you know...

I feel for you, Kuzo.
Your situation reminded me of what I experienced with my ex. Hopefully, though, your outcome will be far different and you and your husband will be on firm footing very soon.
Before the birth of my first child I miscarried. The ex and I began fighting like crazy. We went round and round about splitting up or trying to get pregnant again. Counseling wasn't helping...
I went back and forth about going to the mikvah. Remember the Greek play Lysistrata by Arisophanes? It was like that...
I wanted to use mikvah (even though he didn't care about it) as a punishment. I remember as we were fighting our rav/counselor said that if you ever mention the "D" word, there's no going back. How could you possibly keep T"H and resume intimacy with the stress you're facing? With the threat of a failing or troubled marriage?
I hope that you are getting the support you need and that you can build from this moment and go forward.
Hazak.

Kuzo -- I am so incredibly sorry to hear about your difficulties. I hope that therapy helps and that you are able to work through your situation.

Your post struck a chord with me because when my husband and I were going through some difficulties, mikvah took on a whole new meaning/baggage. For us, it really helped when we mutually decided to take intercourse out of the picture for some time (while continuing with other physical affection), so as to have no pressure/expectations/control types of issues associated with that.

My situation isn't analagous to yours in many ways, but I wanted to let you know that you aren't alone in trying to negotiate the tough waters of taharat hamishpacha during times of marital difficulty.

Good luck with everything.

Thanks, Tall Latte. I must admit your story scares me a little. I'm so sorry you had a sudden disappointment that was G@d's fault, not yours or your ex's, which strained your marriage. We're really trying, but sometimes I feel doomed, because with each day that goes by, I am shown that we're just like everybody else & our relationship has no special defence against collapse. I never believed that until the miscarriage, & now I know we're just as vulnerable to the 50% divorce rate as any other human statistic. It's been a very rude awakening.

Kuzo, my impression is that it is very, very common for men and women to feel differently about challenges to fertility.

Although I'm very lucky in that my husband will do pretty much anything I ask him to do for the sake of getting pregnant, it was still a very hard thing for me when I first realized he's not as invested as I am in whether we have children. It was hard for me to face the prospect of putting my heart and soul into something so scary and difficult, knowing I was, on some level, on my own.

In the end it has turned out to be something of a bracha. I know that he can be happy with me whether or not we have children, and when something goes wrong, I don't have to worry that I'm letting him down as well as myself. I work hard at letting him know I'm happy with him even when I'm unhappy; he works hard at letting me know I have his full support. And I've just stopped expecting him to feel as sad as I do when a cycle fails. But I wouldn't have found it so easy to notice the bright side without the wise help of a therapist.

I know the details of our circumstances are very different but I'm hoping that is comforting to you on some level: husbands and wives almost never feel the same way about this. And if he's grieving too, that is yet another reason the two of you would be pulling in different directions. Grief never means the same thing to two people.

I would never want you to be trapped (or trap yourself) in a situation where you aren't fully respected and loved. If he's using his grief to hurt you, I trust that you will be strong enough to stand up for your own needs. But I wanted to reassure you on at least this point, if I could. You are so very normal for struggling with this. Discovering that you are two separate people with sometimes diverging needs is not, in itself, a sign that something is irrevocably wrong with your marriage.

Wishing you all the internal resources you need to get through this, and a hearty dose of siyata dishmaya as well.

Keep in mind, as Eden suggested, that not using the mikvah is not really the only way to control the issue of whether or not to have sex with one's husband. Even a woman who is tahor should not be forced by her husband into anything, and this is halachically mandated (in addition, of course, to being required by civil law). This is not to suggest that withholding sex is necessarily great for the relationship, but if one chooses to it can really be done even when tahor. And there are certainly situations when this can be done in a way that is not meant as a punishment to one's husband but as a mutually understood "i'm just not in the right frame of mind for this these days" type of statement.

BTW, did you know that one is not supposed to toivel when sick (physically)? I wonder how this applies to mental/emotional situations. I wouldn't be surprised if under certain situations a Rav would pasken that a woman should not go to mikvah until she is feeling better..

Thank you for your meaningful blessing, persephone. I appreciate your remarks on partnership and grief very much. I am very familiar with death and hoped, perhaps, that I was temporarily done with the thing. I suppose that is the difference between faith and hope. I hope that my life is enriched by life and joy in the future, however I have faith that the mikvah will cleanse the barriers to love and fertility which exist in my heart and soul. And I trust neither.
I understand that having differences does not mean our marriage is doomed, however, we're not always coping with the issues well or being present with our love, humor & the other things we share that make marriage possible.
I gave some thought to what you wrote, Cya, and it does make sense to me, but I realize I would prefer to toivl & not be close to my husband than remain in niddah indefinitely. Immersing in the mayim chayim brings me a measure of peace, even though it leaves me with an awful lot of fear, grief, anger & disappointment to process.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you that things tend to get a little crazy here when I'm a niddah. I've often said that PMS means three things for me: pre-menstrual, presently-menstrual, and post-menstrual, and I always get very short-tempered around my period and until I actually get to the mikvah. My husband and I usually have at least one really bad, tearful fight, usually around Hefsek Taharah day, when the stress of sleeping halfway across the room from me and not being able to hold my hand while he talks about his day get to him.

All of that notwithstanding, no matter how many tears I cry on the way, I always wish that Hefsek Taharah on the fifth day comes out clean, and I can't wait to get to the mikvah as soon as it opens, at the end of my seven days.

I haven't yet gotten pregnant (been married for a while) and my husband isn't so into the idea (if it happens, good, but he doesn't want me using extreme fertility prediction methods like lying in bed until he puts the thermometer in my mouth every morning because moving one bit can affect the results), but we don't let that get in the way! Both my husband and I heard at t'h refresher courses that marriage isn't about having children. Children are an objective of marriage but not THE objective of marriage. So the whole difference of opinion about getting pregnant doesn't stop me from going.

In addition, as others have said, it's probably a good idea to go to the mikvah even if you have no intention of doing anything more as a result. He isn't allowed to do anything intimate with you without your express consent. If he tries to -- you should probably consult a Rav immediately.

I don't believe I have stated anying above that might give readers the wrong impression, but I would like to state unequivocally right now that my husband is not a rapist.

Oh my Gd, Kuzo, of course not. I'm sure the thought never crossed anyone's mind.

Mesubechet, I'm confident you only wrote that last line rhetorically. But I can see why Kuzo might have found it insulting to her husband. Perhaps you could come back and let Kuzo know you didn't mean it that way?

The last thing I want to see result from Kuzo's brave baring of her emotional struggle is her feelings being hurt.

No one said he is. But people sometimes make far flung assumptions, in an extreme attempt to provide information and/or comfort . . . we're all trying to be supportive, in our own, sometimes misguided way. Take the useful, and ignore the irrelevant. (Such comments may even be more telling about their source than their purported target!)

{{hugs}}

and thanks for your reminder that mikvah can sometimes be its own reward, as a means of "starting fresh".

Sorry. That is not what I meant. Didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings.

Thanks

I can relate to the NOT wanting to go to mikvah thing. This is my take on it...for the same reason as why husbands and wives fight erev shabbat and chag (esp. Pesach!!!) applies here. There is more kiddusha and the Yetzer Hora likes to squash it by causing arguements. The other side is that the sexual tension in the air caused during niddah builds up and up that expectations go up that fear of mikvah = fear of not having such high expectations fufilled. So put both together and add the spice of unforseen complications (babysitting, etc) and then the merit for furfilling the mitzvah and the kedusha it releases becomes greater.