AMI Magazine Article Review: Duped

UPDATE:  Rabbi Fink has verified that this is a true account and that the husband blames the undisclosed student loans for destroying his marriage.

There is a scan floating around the internet of an article AMI Magazine ran from a now divorced father of four titled Do Us Part and readers have been emailing me and leaving comments hoping I will comment.  The article is titled:  That Was Not What I Signed On For, graced by a picture of a graduation cap.

There are no sympathetic characters in the story except the 4 children:  not the husband, not the wife, not his parents, not her parents.  But I have rachmanut for the couple who were duped by social factors and the husband who was most certainly duped by omission.  There are commentors at Torah Musings who aren't sure the piece is a real story.  I'm inclined to believe it is a real account because keeping secrets isn't a new topic of dating and marriage and


I'm curious what AMI's intention was in running the piece (it begins with the subject of student loans being a hot political topic now the author writes:  "In our case, my wife's degree came with a heft price tag--our marriage." If the article is supposed to be a commentary on student loans and their price to families, this isn't much of an introduction as the husband did NOT know about the student loan when he married and only found out about it  many, many months into the marriage (when the first bill arrived in the mailbox).

The absolute lesson any reader should take away from the article is that you must do into marriage with complete honesty about challenges and that being upfront is absolutely essential.  Dating couples should have discussions about finances and put their financial lives (or lack thereof) on the table.  When you are getting married, you should let your significant other know about your debts, health issues, and what have you.

While some might say the couple had communication problems (they certainly weren't pros), the omission of a large debt undermined the marriage right from the start.  I am of the belief that without trust, a marriage is severely damaged.  In the case the damage was irreversible.

The husband then writes:  "You might not empathize with my situation.  In fact, you might not approve of my--of our--lifestyle and our choices.  It was, however, our shared belief as a couple that I would continue to learn indefinitely without the burden of parnasa.  The the story unfolds of a marriage between the son of klei kodesh to the daughter of the town macher's daughter.  It seems that the wife's parents were known to be "well off" but they weren't.  As my readers understand, the macher with the "impressive house" might well be up to his eyeballs in debt while the thrift store shopping, coupon cutting, home camping family might well be "the millionaire next door."  You can't judge financial status by consumption, but most make that mistake!

My blood pressure rose on page 2 because I've seen this scenario play out so many times and it just isn't right.  "Rivi's parents went all-out.  No expense was spared to marry us off in style.  This came as no surprise since the Goldstein's were very well-to-do."  Yes, I've seen wedding pictures of couples on various forms of welfare following their marriage, unable to invest in much of anything that could better their situation, but the fresh flowers alone (paid for with a HELOC more often than not) could have jumped started a small business.  I know professional couples with very respectable salaries who are drowning in student loan debt whose parents made "the couple" quite a simcha certainly jumping over the 50K mark, moving towards the 100K marker.  But after the wedding, the couple must contend with the business of paying off student loans, trying to put together money for suitable housing for a family, and, of course, paying for childcare, daycare, and taxes, straining their homes and marriages.  While I certainly don't believe parents must help their children, Jewish parents tend to want to "help", but oftentimes the "help" is self-serving and not very helpful.  Making the kids a "night to remember" might make the wedding memorable, but after the wedding comes. .. . . marriage.  And marriage is hard work.

The sub-title of the article alone is telling:  "That Was Not What I Signed On For."  Where does a yeshiva bochur get the idea that you "sign on" in marriage?  And, if boys (and girls) are getting this idea, how can we reverse that mistaken assumption?  Sure, we sign on for a basic format--I married someone who shares a basic religious standard, leans towards the rationalist side of Torah, and is a professional.  I don't want to wake up next to someone who decides Uman is his Rosh Hashana destination and that day laboring would "suit" him more.  But, we have to be flexible in marriage.  If a wife was determined to be a homemaker for life, but the sewer pipe bursts, we'd be critical if she demanded the husband get an extra job to pay for it if she had the capability of picking up some employment while the children were in school.  The husband wants a "pass" because he signed up for indefinite learning without the burden of parnasa.

I get the feeling that the husband and wife never had much of a financial conversation during their marriage.  Even paying for daycare came as a surprise (!), and then they repeated the stressful scenario 3 more times.  While the story is written only from the husband's perspective, what a difference to their marriage it could have been if, instead of waving off the bill, the wife sincerely apologized for the omission and they planned together on how to tackle it.  What a difference it might have made if the husband and wife had discussed leaving the Lakewood area when it became clear the OT market was floaded and she would need to commute to Brooklyn.  Are there not other areas of the country with kollelim and openings for OTs?  What a difference it might have made if they weren't so passive in their marriage, but rather recognized that it is a "verb" not a "bed of roses".  For a population that criticizes Disney for the happily ever after conculsions, there are certainly a lot of romantics.

The husband writes he should have "repressed his resentment."  No, he should have had a conversation and the two of them should have figured out what to do b'dieavad.  The L'Chatchila Space Ship had entered into orbit long before.  Being passive is a pitfall and I think it is a culture pitfall in many ways.

Lastly, we've seen a rise in the divorce rate and I think it is terribly painful to see large families fall apart.  I will let my readers comment on having 4 kids in 10 years of a disinigrating marriage.  My own opinion:  when your marriage is in trouble, you get to work and you don't introduce more stress into it.  I believe most poskim would agree, but I have many friends who believe there are "no heters" and I'm no posek.

(You can find links to the story in the comments at Torah Musings, HaEmtza, and in my previous post).