Jewish Wisdom Helped Me Achieve a Loving Respectful Relationship

A relationship that is loving and respectful can often seem elusive. Judging by the number of divorces – including my own – a lot of people are trying to figure out why it is so elusive.

After my marriage ended, like a lot of people, I blamed the other person. Then I came to the point of asking myself: What do I have to learn from all this? What should I have done that could have led to a loving respectful relationship – instead of divorce?

I looked for answers.

The kick in the head for me came one day in synagogue when we were reading the story of Adam and Eve. First, Adam was created. Then, as Genesis 2:18 says, Eve was created to be an ezer k’negdo – which is translated as “a helper against him.”

I thought, “A helper against him? What in the world does that mean?”

I looked at the commentary at the bottom of the page of the Artscroll Chumash. It quoted tractate Yevamoth 63a of the Talmud which says, “If the man is worthy, the woman will be his helper. If he is not worthy, she will be against him.”

These two sentences from teachings more than a thousand years old changed my perspective on today’s relationships.

I stopped blaming. I realized it was up to me to be a man that a woman sees as worthy. If I worked on myself to become worthy in her eyes, she will be my partner and we are more likely to have a loving and respectful relationship. If she doesn’t see me as worthy, then she will be against me and the chances for a loving respectful relationship are poor.

It’s interesting that it doesn’t say that if the man is not worthy, she won’t be his helper – which would be the opposite of being his helper. It says she will be against him. I thought this may help explain why some divorces become so nasty.

How do I become worthy in her eyes?

In a book of Jewish relationship advice, I read a quote from tractate Bava Metzia 59a of the Talmud that intrigued me. It said, “If your wife is short, bend down and seek her advice.” In other words, listen to your wife.

I thought I was already pretty good at that.

As I wanted to learn as much as possible, I wondered what else it said. I looked at the page in Bava Metzia, and saw that statement is actually a response to an earlier statement which says, “If you always automatically follow your wife’s advice, your life will descend to hell.”

I realized the importance of a healthy balance in a relationship. If you never listen to your wife, listen to her. But if you always automatically do whatever she says – she won’t see you as worthy. In my journey of learning, women told me that when a woman always has to tell a man what to do, it makes her feel like he is a child and she is his mother.

To be worthy I had to take charge of dealing with my share of responsibilities and decisions at home and in the family – what some people today are calling the “mental load” or “emotional labor.” I couldn’t just wait for her to tell me what to do – as if I was a mother’s helper — and think I’m being a good husband.

Control your anger

I used to hear that it’s healthy to express anger and it’s not healthy to keep it bottled up. We learn the opposite in Ethics of the Fathers 4:1. (This tractate can be found in most Jewish prayer books.) It says, “Who is strong? He who controls his impulses. Someone who can control his anger is stronger than a physically strong man who can conquer a city.”

To achieve a loving respectful relationship, control your anger.

When people raise their voice, it’s often because they don’t know how to handle the situation calmly. They also don’t realize how yelling can do serious damage to their relationship. If they blow up, the other person may blow them off.

To help me be worthy, I thought in advance of situations that in the past led to arguments. I planned how I would calmly handle them in a way that would peacefully resolve the issue.

Strive to be manly

In Ethics of the Fathers 2:6, Hillel advises, “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.”

To me, this is saying that when a man is in a relationship with a woman, he should strive to be manly – which my Webster’s dictionary defines as the noble qualities of a man of mature character. When I strive to be decisive, confident, self disciplined and have courage to step forward and handle challenges, a woman is more likely to feel safe and protected and see me as worthy. While women also have these positive traits, they want men to have them to be able to feel these men are worthy.

Applying this Jewish wisdom made a big difference in helping me achieve a loving and respectful relationship. For the past five years I have experienced this – no raised voices, no loud arguments, almost too good to be true, but it is.

Tractate Shabbat 127a teaches the importance of helping make peace between a husband and wife. To share what I learned, I wrote a book called Being the Strong Man A Woman Wants: Timeless wisdom for men on how to improve your relationship. When this book struck a chord in 24 languages around the world, I realized that while cultures may be different, learning wisdom on how to have a loving and respectful relationship is almost a universal human need.

Even if some of these ideas are different than what you are used to hearing, they have been helping relationships for a long time. They’re worth giving a try. A loving respectful relationship doesn’t have to be elusive.