My in-laws’ 45th wedding anniversary was this past Sukkos. We knew we’d pull out all the stops and celebrate the big event royally and I’m happy to say we actually pulled it off. All five of their children gathered from the four corners of the globe—okay, only two—to be with them for the first days of Yom Tov, no small feat considering that two of us live in Israel, two in the tristate area, and one in Toronto. Still, this was important. We had attempted a get-together for their 30th, 35th and 40th anniversaries with no success, and we were determined to make it work this time. It was probably most challenging for me, the oldest daughter-in-law, as I had to fly in from Israel with my seven children and live out of suitcases for two weeks, but it was worth every second and every penny. My in-laws’ house is fairly large, but even so, with several families under one roof for a three-day Yom Tov, things became somewhat noisy. When my brother-in-law Chaim came home on Erev Yom Tov with five pairs of
earplugs and announced that they were up for grabs, we all fought over them and ended up sending him out to buy more. Every minute of that Yom Tov was thrilling. We’re a close-knit family, and walking in to the sukkah one would have no idea who was a child and who was an in-law. My sister-in-law Hindy claims that she feels more at home at my in-laws’ than in her own parents’ home. On Motzaei Yom Tov we were sitting in the sukkah schmoozing, the men singing, the kids playing, half-eaten slices of pizza on many of the plates. My husband, Gavriel, was playing chess with my nephew, Lele was taking pictures of the kids, Ezra and Doni were trying to get the old cotton-candy machine to work, and my in-laws just sat there drinking it all in.
I got up and moved across the large sukkah to where my mother-in-law sat, bouncing one of Doni and Atara’s twins on her lap. “Nice, huh?” I offered, putting my arm around her shoulders. “More than nice,” she smiled. “This is as good as it gets. There’s no greater feeling than this, and I wish it on all of my children.” I answered with a heartfelt amen and leaned over to stroke little Baruch’s cheek. He snuggled against his savta and smiled shyly at me. I followed my mother-in-law’s gaze and saw her eyes rest on Atara, who was holding her other little boy on her lap. I heard Ma sigh softly. “And thank G-d things have worked out for Atara,” she murmured quietly. “She gave us our share of worries. But you know, one thing that got me through the last couple of years was the knowledge that at least she’s happily married.She and Doni really have it together, and he’s so good to her. With all of her issues, at least that isn’t one of them.” I felt my face begin to burn. Mumbling some sort of agreement, I hastily poured myself a cup of ice water and went to pick up an imaginary piece of garbage from the floor. Let her dream. ~ The events of that night two years earlier will be forever burned in my mind. Atara and Doni had been living here in Israel since their wedding. No one had thought they’d stay in Israel more than half a year or so, but close to two years later they were still around. Doni had been accepted into a prestigious program in Herzliya, and things seemed to be going well for them. They looked very happy, and I was glad to see Atara finally settling down after her tumultuous teenage years. Anxiously awaiting a baby, they busied themselves with other things.
We only lived about a 20-minute walk from their apartment, but we didn’t see them very often unless we invited them for a Shabbos seudah. Late one Monday night as I was about to get ready for bed, the phone rang. It was Atara, asking to speak with my husband. As the oldest brother, Gavriel’s siblings often called him to discuss various issues, and I didn’t think twice when his baby sister needed him. Four minutes later Gavriel sat down next to me on the couch. His hands were trembling. Literally shaking. “Is it okay if Doni comes here? He needs a place to sleep.” “They want to come here? Now? What’s going on? Is everything okay?” “No, Liba, I didn’t say they. I said he. Doni. Alone.” I opened my mouth to speak but no sound came out. My husband drew in a shaky breath and said he didn’t really know what was going on, but Atara had called to say that Doni needed a place to go and they had no one else to call. Of course, he’d said yes. My son had a friend staying over in our guest room, so I quickly grabbed some clean linen and went to make up the spare bed in our cheder atum, the sealed room, which is not in our apartment itself but right outside the front door. I had no idea what this was supposed to mean. Had Atara gone on vacation somewhere? Then why didn’t Doni just stay home? Was he unwell? My mind was racing as I pulled the room together. Twenty minutes later, Doni, Gavriel and I were sitting on the balcony as Doni filled us in. He was somewhat dazed by the turn of events. Atara had always been what we called high-maintenance. The baby in the family, she was accustomed to getting what she wanted and had a hard time accepting a “no.” Complex and emotionally high-strung, she tended toward high drama and anxiety. She always had a large group of friends surrounding her, and the same energy that made her tense and nervous one minute could make her feisty and fun-loving the next.
Doni was taken by Atara’s spunky charm from the first time he met her. She was intelligent and a great conversationalist, and when it came to things that he felt strongly about—starting married life in Israel, having an independent source of income— Atara surpassed him by feeling positively passionate about those same things. From day one Atara gave Doni a run for his money; sometimes she was lighthearted and funny, then she’d turn whiny and clingy. When she got upset, she had a way of convincing her husband that it was his fault, and he always ended up apologizing and trying to make it up to her. Most of the time no one else was privy to these dynamics, but one Shabbos afternoon when they were staying at our house, we heard Atara crying loudly in their room. “It’s not fair!” she sobbed. “You promised me we’d be able to go to Mamilla tonight. I don’t want to go home after Havdalah! It’s so boring, and everyone else goes out! You promised!” “Atara, please,” Doni said, his voice muffled and pleading. “I know how badly you want to go, but did I know I’d get sick over Shabbos? You just saw the thermometer yourself—my temperature is 103! What do you want me to do?” “Take your temperature again,” she screamed. “It’s not fair!” Gavriel tried to distract the kids with a big Shabbos party. When shalosh seudos came around, Doni was in bed burning up with fever and Atara emerged as if nothing had happened. “That boy has enormous patience,” Gavriel whispered to me, “and I hope he has the strength to stick this out, because anyone else would have gone running a long time ago.” With that episode in the background, life continued. The two of them always appeared to be happy and in sync with each other.
Without warning, Atara entered a new stage of what she called “finding herself.” It began gradually; her skirts got shorter, her sheitel got longer, she traded in her flip phone for a smartphone. The first subtle changes didn’t really bother her husband, who had grown up that way, and whose mother and sisters looked that way too. He complimented her on her new clothing and figured that a happy Atara was a happy Doni. But then she gradually lost interest in coming to the table for the Shabbos seudah, preferring to sleep the day away. She’d spend her days with friends on Ben Yehuda Street or at the mall, and then snapped at her husband when he neglected to bring home shawarma for dinner, crying that he was insensitive. For his part, Doni tried to be—or at least act—patient with Atara, but she was pushing the limits more and more. Around that time my youngest son was born, and my in-laws flew in for the bris. My mother-in-law took one look at her daughter and had a conniption. Not to her face, of course—to ours. She sat in our living room and cried to Gavriel about how Doni was destroying Atara’s spirituality, saying she only looked that way because her husband encouraged it, that the real Atara had gotten her rebelliousness out of her system back in high school and would never choose to look like that now. After being in the country for a week, however, and spending time with her daughter, she saw the truth. “That Doni is something else,” she told us. “Tari’s going through such a hard time. But he’s so good, so kind and patient with her. I just hope she snaps out of this phase fast. I know she will; she’s done this before.” But six short weeks later Doni stood at our door with his overnight bag. He told us how bad things were between them; he told us how bad middos that he had never known he possessed had come rushing to the fore over the last several months. “She just has this way of pushing my buttons,” he told us. “She always did, from the day we got engaged.
I’m not excusing myself, but you cannot imagine what it’s like living with her. She’ll come up to me and nag and whine, and accuse me of not caring enough or doing enough or being more like someone else’s husband… and I just breathe deeply to stay calm. “This afternoon she started driving me crazy, following me around and wailing that I’ve never taken her to Eilat. I felt my blood pressure spiking. I asked her to stop yelling at me and said I’d be happy to discuss it. I went to the fridge and took out a soda just to keep myself from doing something else and went out to the balcony to get away from her. She followed me, grabbed my soda and flung it across the room, spraying it everywhere. “I totally exploded and started yelling at her. I let her have it, screaming that she had to stop this craziness. I went to leave the house. She tried to block the door, but I finally stormed out. Later she called my cell and said I had better pack a bag because I was abusive and couldn’t come home. And here I am.” Gavriel and I sat and listened. Gavriel had already heard the story from Atara. At first he started telling her that she was crazy; she knew her husband wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less his wife, but then he decided against it. He figured a short breather would be good for them both. Well, a “short breather” ended up being a bit of an understatement. Doni spent the next six months living in our cheder atum. Since it was right outside our apartment, the children never even knew. He had a busy schedule, leaving early in the morning and coming home just to sleep. He’d occasionally come in late at night and join Gavriel in the kitchen for a schmooze and some food, but mostly he made himself scarce. Gavriel insisted that no one at all know about the situation—not her parents, not his, not their family or friends. He felt that they’d work this through, but if their families got involved, things would turn messy, and too many people meant too many opinions.
I thought he was overreacting but stayed out of the decision. Doni was open with his rav, who agreed fully with my husband. He referred them to both a couples therapist and individual therapists, and did not back down until he knew they were going to every session. Because of Gavriel’s insistence that no one know of their separation, Atara came to us for Shabbosof. My kids prepared the guest room in our flat for two each week, not knowing that their uncle never set foot inside. At first Doni and Atara either ignored each other or bickered like preschoolers over the silliest non-issues. In any public setting, though, such as at a close cousin’s bar mitzvah, they used their professional acting skills and presented themselves as the couple of the year. It was mind-blowing to watch. These two were good. Slowly, though, over time, their silences weren’t as threatening, and they even began joining the same conversation, conversing pleasantly like two mature adults. Every so often they went to Doni’s rav for Shabbos or to the one friend who knew about the situation. At the end of six months, during which they worked independently and together with professionals, they went to America for a family wedding. Upon their return to Israel, Doni officially moved out of our cheder atum and back into his own apartment. About six months after Doni moved back home, my husband and I received two pieces of news: they were moving to Toronto and Atara was expecting. We wholeheartedly wished them the best as their life took a completely new turn. After they moved, we didn’t speak very often. When their twins were born, everyone was elated. Doni and Atara looked like any other young, exuberant couple beginning their family life together.
In public, they had always appeared to be the couple who had it all. It really did seem as though they had picked themselves up and were doing well. They went on vacation; they took beautiful family pictures. Only Gavriel and I knew how difficult their history was and how complex their personalities were; we knew it would take a lifetime of work for them to become the people they were portraying themselves to be. It certainly seemed as if they were headed toward that goal, and we prayed fervently that things were as good as they looked, but at the back of my mind was always that niggling thought that looks can be deceiving.~ As my mother-in-law stroked her grandson’s hair, her eyes filled with tears. “Yes,” she continued, finishing her thought, “she had it rough. But the one thing that got Abba and me through those terrible months of worrying was the thought that at the very least, she has a strong marriage. That was one thing we didn’t need to worry about. I don’t know what I would have done if she didn’t have at least that…”