Why did the marriage fall apart?

The short answer

We just did not get along.  We never really did.  We did not respect each other.  We never stuck up for one another.

The long answer.

Throughout the last 7-8 years of marriage, we had several nasty undercurrents running through the marriage: religion, not being happy with what you have, never-ending financial problems and emotional infidelity.  Towards the end, there was an extreme loss of trust.  Let’s tackle religion today.

Religion.

I am Jewish.  Julia is too.  Julia wanted to be more religious and I did not want to be religious at all.  She wanted to be an Orthodox Jew and the whole concept was completely and utterly foreign to me. 

So what being an Orthodox Jew really mean?  For one, it means keeping kosher.  This in turn means no more going out to restaurants (unless it’s kosher – closest one being 50 miles away).  It means you can’t eat most of what you’ve been eating your entire life. 

It also means observing the Sabbath, day of rest.  This involves being precluded from doing anything on Friday night and Saturday.  And by anything, I mean, no TV, no computers, no drive to the beach for a leisurely walk, etc…  On Sabbath, you are supposed to study the Torah and go to the synagogue.  So, on this day of rest, you are actually precluded from doing things that actually give you rest (like a bicycle ride, for instance).

For a secular guy like me, it really was too much to take.  If you add to that Julia’s bullying and demanding demeanor, you can see why this would cause problems. 

Julia’s slide into Orthodox Judaism was a slow one at first, but as she started meeting like-minded people who would egg her on and encourage her to stand up to me for her beliefs, it massively accelerated. 

Soon our weekly Friday outing  to the movies became history, since she could no longer drive on Sabbath.  Me wanting to take the kids to Pizza Hut for a slice would trigger World War III, since it’s not kosher.  Me wanting to take the kids to the beach on Saturday would be met with massive opposition.  Plus Julia demanded that I accompany her to the synagogue on Saturdays – something I intensely disliked.

Our interests drifted apart.  I was not interested in her religious activities and that was the only thing she was interested in. 

One of the marriage counselors we saw (it must have been a rabbi of some type), asked me whether I ever honestly gave religion a shot.  Whether I ever tried to live Julia’s lifestyle and see if it fit me.  The frank answer is no, I never really tried, because that is never what I wanted.  My mind does not work like that – I can’t be an orthodox Jew.  

In fact, the disagreements started before we even got married.  I was just going through all my docs from way back in the day and found the Family Constitution, dated 10 days before our wedding.  It noted that we shall keep kosher at home, but elsewhere I was free to eat whatever I wanted with the proviso that I avoid pork.  It also stated that we would attempt to have a family Sabbath dinner every Friday, would not work on those days either, we’d remain open-minded about Sabbath, but that the rules would not be enforced.  If that is as far as Julia went, I think we would still be married.