Episode 157 - The Loneliness After Divorce

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In our fast-paced world, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Just like my grandmother was terrified of the microwave, many of us are grappling with the rapid changes in technology and society. We’ve transitioned from simpler times to a reality where every day brings new distractions and challenges.

This constant shift is causing instability in our lives and relationships. People are floating from one idea to the next, and even from one partner to another, without committing fully. It’s a disposable society, and the real price we pay is emotional turmoil and instability.

But here’s the truth: Wisdom and guidance have remained unchanged throughout generations. The Torah is a timeless manual, offering us the stability we crave. When we stray from these principles, we suffer from a lack of commitment—not just in relationships but in every aspect of life.

Remember, divorce doesn’t solve problems; it just trades them for new ones. Before making drastic decisions, consider what you can learn and how you can grow from your current situation. 

Let’s break the cycle of disposability together.  

What’s your take on this?  

Full insights in the podcast link in bio!  

   #emunah   #commitmentconnectionchange   #relationships  

Transcript

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It's not easy to be alone. When you've spent 20 years of your life with a wife who's around constantly, with children who are around constantly, everybody's got a routine, everybody's pulling on you, everybody's asking you questions, everybody needs something of you. While it might frustrate you while you're in it, when you're removed from a situation, when you've suddenly got this realization of, uh oh, it's really quiet around here. There's nobody pulling on me. Nobody needs me. I've lost a huge portion of my purpose, which was daily catering to younger children or even older children and a spouse and in-laws, all these different things. Suddenly it goes quiet. That is a striking reality that a lot of people can't deal with. The trust factor is the ticket to a better life. The trust factor shows you how to get through the night. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Trust Factor Podcast. Really, really glad that you can join. We're into a hot button subject. A lot of people are commenting on this because they're in that situation. Unfortunately, this applies to so many people in our generation and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are what we spoke about the other day, that we're living in a generation that has been steered in the wrong direction. That the further we get away from the generation that received the Torah at Mount Sinai, the weaker the generation becomes. We're simply not able to lift what previous generations lifted. And that's why sometimes we pull our hair out of our head and we look at our children and we think, what is going on? How are they going to make it? I remember maybe 35 years ago, my grandmother, may she rest in peace, was terrified of a microwave. Terrified. This was an old Moroccan woman who used to love spending her days in the kitchen. And everything was done from scratch with love and care. But all of a sudden, this thing called the microwave comes along. And now she doesn't understand this technology. She doesn't understand how you can suddenly heat food in seconds or in a minute. When before you'd have to take a pot or a pen and put it on the stovetop and grease it and get the food out and defrost. It was a whole thing. And now you're telling me in a matter of a couple of minutes, maybe even a minute, I can have my food warm and ready to eat. It terrified her. She didn't understand this new technology, and she really was genuinely scared. In our generation, we have the same problem, very similar, in that there are so many technologies at record numbers coming out every single day and advancing, and others are becoming obsolete almost as soon as they're brought out. It's changing so quickly that we don't understand it. We don't, even the younger generation, within a year or two, they're already outdated in their existing technology. And now they've got to learn new technology and new distractions from getting the job done. Used to be you got up, you went to work, you did your job, and you came home. Today it's like you don't know how your job has changed from day to day. So it is an unsettling situation, and that puts us in a unique position for this generation. We don't understand the challenges that our children and our grandchildren are facing. We've no idea. So we have to be patient. We have to recognize that God runs this world and that everything is perfect and it will always work out. Not the way that we expect it or that we think it should be, and the way that we see it or the way that we grew up, but entirely geared towards this generation, custom crafted by a loving creator. But the downside of this all is that instability, that uncertainty has ramifications. And as a result of that, people are constantly flip-flopping. They're moving from one idea to the next in a matter of seconds or hours. And now that applies to home. I have a wife today, I don't have a wife tomorrow. I've got this wife this year, I'll have a new wife next year. Maybe that's a bit extreme in the way it's coming across, but that's the idea. The idea, like I said the other day, is that we are in a disposable society. I've used up this spouse. Now I need a new spouse. I'm bored of this one, it's time for a new one. The same way they get bored of old technology, new technology comes up, I'm in the podcasting space. I can't begin to tell you all of my feeds are about new podcast technologies on how to do the next best thing with your podcast. So now all these podcasters are constantly faced with a desire to switch who their host is. I've spent a few months and a lot of money with this company. This guy comes out and tells me he can do all of that plus. So now I'm going over there. I've abandoned this one, I'm onto a new one, I've got to make the change, I'm unsettled. But that's the idea that you're not committed, you're not locked in. And that's what this generation suffers from, is a failure to commit. And so we see that translate into our relationships. It's not a good thing, my friends. You need to break that spell. If you see this, if what I'm telling you resonates with you and you're saying to yourself, yeah, Jesse, but that's just the way it is. Wrong. It's not the way it is. The way you make it is the way it is. The Torah is not changing. It hasn't changed in 3,500 years since the day it was given. It's the same number of letters, it's the same words, everything is identical, unchanged from the day that it was given to us. And that's been proven throughout the generations. You can do your own research and you will see that it has been consistent throughout history. No matter where the Jews were on planet Earth, no matter what new technology came out and new inventions, the Torah did not change. Yes, you had people who said, listen, I don't identify with those ideas. I don't want to restrict myself. I don't want to limit myself. I don't want to follow anybody's rules, including a Torah, but I still want to identify as a Jew. And therefore, I'm going to create a new version of Judaism of the Torah. I'm going to modify it myself and call it conservative or reform Judaism. If that floats your boat, okay. But recognize that it was men that changed it. The divine Torah that was given to us 3,500 years ago and is being followed by Orthodox Jewry has not changed. In fact, it says if you change one letter in the Torah, just one, you cut a Torah. You cut a letter, you take a Vav, a straight line, and you cut it, the entire Torah is null and void. You cannot use it. You roll it back up and you put it back into the arun. You can't use it. Why? Because it's Pasul. It's no longer kosher, but it's just one letter from hundreds of thousands of letters. And it's just a small cut through the letter. It breaks the letter in half. So what? I can still read it. You can still read it. Doesn't matter. You cannot take that thing out the next day and continue to read from it. It is not kosher anymore. It needs to be restored back to perfection before you're allowed to continue to read from it. You're talking about a line or a missing line of a millimeter or a fraction of a millimeter. Do you understand? That's how exacting, and that's how much care needs to go into our Torah. And that's the exact same care and passion that is being brought into our relationships and that we should want to bring into our lives instead of floating around loosey-goosey, flying and flapping with the wind. That's not going to end well, my friends. That is why this generation suffers from nonstop plagues of divorce. Let's continue reading and see what he says. This is called the Eye of Amuna. The whole concept is that Emuna that we've been talking about for almost two years now, my friends. That's what this podcast was built on. Emuna and Bitahon, faith and trust. He says very clearly that the purpose of creation was Emuna and is Emuna, to develop that awareness of your creator, to know that he's given you an instruction manual from which to operate and to apply that and to develop your relationship with him and to know that everything is perfect. That is the purpose of a creation. And he says that the ideal testing grounds to be able to develop your emuna is through marriage. Living in a house, occupying space with somebody who's the exact opposite of you. Women and men are diametrically opposed in the way that they approach life. Completely different. And that's why God brings us together to be able to work on building your imuna. And it's a two-way street. You have to learn from each other and you have to appreciate each other's strengths and weaknesses instead of scorning them, instead of putting them down and trying to turn them into you. That's not what you were brought into this relationship for. Not to turn them into a mirror of you. Appreciate who they are with their faults and with their strengths, and your relationship will change entirely. He says, marriage is that testing ground. He says, Conversely, if marriage is the testing ground of Amuna, then the lack of Amuna is the root cause of divorce. You hear? Makes sense. The number one cause of divorce has nothing to do with what the secular world tells you. It has nothing to do with what statistics tell you, what therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, what all of them tell you. Nothing to do with that. Only to do with one thing: a lack of amuna. You don't know how this world operates. You don't know who put you in touch with that spouse. You don't know who manages your life and who wants you to succeed. You have no idea that there is a creator and that there's an instruction manual. If you did and if you learned from them, you would be flying on high all day long in your relationship with your spouse. When somebody gets divorced, he is doing nothing more than trading one set of problems for another. Trading marital problems for divorce problems is not a good deal. The latter, the problems that come from divorce are much more difficult than the problems that come from crisis and marriage. As long as you're still married, as long as you're still together, as long as you haven't signed those papers yet, then there is always an opportunity to rectify almost any situation. Almost anyone can be fixed with some effort. Some a little bit more, some a little bit less. Once you've already signed off, once you've put the wheels in motion, once you've disconnected emotionally and intellectually from that relationship, now we're in an entirely different ball game. As long as a person fails to make amends and rectify past misdeeds, marital suffering is perpetuated. When you think I'm going to divorce spouse A, and I'm going to find myself spouse B who's going to fulfill all of my needs, what you're doing is you're taking the same person that you were with spouse A and moving that person into a relationship with spouse B, and you come with all of your baggage, you come with all of the problems, the emotional problems, the psychological problems, the physical problems, the way that you see the world, your lack of amuna, it all comes with you into this new relationship. So what do you think is going to happen? One of two things. Either you're going to end up divorced again, or you're going to find somebody who's simply willing to negate their will entirely and become entirely null and void in order for you to continue to be who you are. And what that will mean is that you won't have the opportunity for growth. You'll continue to live in a relationship that is entirely one-sided, which means one person is going to be perpetually upset, constantly feeling like a victim because they are. The other is going to feel fulfilled because the other person is simply catering to them all day long. You've seen relationships like this, right? Where one is the one who's catered to and the other one does all the catering. One's happy and one isn't. Right? That's what happens when you haven't invested in yourself, when you haven't grown, when you haven't learned about the mistakes that you made in relationship A and carried them with you into relationship B. Without atonement, without figuring out what you did wrong and feeling bad about it, divorce won't bring relief to a person. So now he's about to give you a little bit of insight for those of you who aren't divorced. Those of you who are, this may sound familiar. You may hear some of these things and say, yeah, that's exactly right. That's what I went through and it was torture. But if you haven't been divorced, this is just some insight into some of the challenges that come with it because you don't realize it. You don't know what you've got until it's gone. You don't know what the challenge is until you embark on the mission. Suddenly, you recognize the challenges that come with it. Before, you're living in a fantasy world of what you think it's going to be like. Reality oftentimes is very differently says. Wounds of the heart. A couple that is considering divorce should know what they're getting into. And he's about to tell us the type of problems that they'll have to contend with. Divorcees frequently wake up after the fact, when it's too late, when you've already opened up the door, when you've signed on the papers, when you've moved out, suddenly they wake up. Why? Because suddenly they feel it. After the divorce, they can't forget their ex-partner. It's constantly weighing on their mind. They're thinking about their ex-partner, they're thinking about their access to their children. Suddenly they find themselves reminiscing about that amazing life that they had and how wonderful it was. Why? Because you were extricated from the situation. You did it yourself by divorcing. You didn't have to. You could have been removed of your own reconnaissance or your wife's, but you went to divorce and now you're feeling the results of that, where you're thinking about the life that you once had, and suddenly it wasn't so bad. They have difficulty in starting anew and in building new relationships. You've been with somebody for 20, 30 years. Suddenly you're going to go out and start to engage new people and start to figure out what they're all about. I used to think to myself, oftentimes, when I see people in the dating world in this generation, and I think, wow, and they're my age and they're divorced once, twice, three times, and they're back in the dating scene. And I think, wow, I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have to be in the dating scene in this generation, in this weak generation where people are all about phoniness and social media and presenting something that is exactly the opposite of reality and having to contend with that. Just look at pictures online. People post the best pictures of themselves. And when you see them, it's almost like it's a different person altogether. Everybody in this generation is guilty of that. So now you have to discern if you're even dealing with the person that you're seeing with your own eyes. And I have to date in that situation. Can't imagine. Now suddenly you've gone from being in a relationship for 30 years with an environment that you're comfortable and familiar with to suddenly learning about what's going on outside of your four walls and how to interact with this society and this generation. Not an easy task, my friends. Once the divorce is completed, many divorcees feel a gaping wound in their heart. They have difficulty adjusting to their new situation. For the pangs of longing and loneliness, give them no rest. It's not easy to be alone. When you've spent 20 years of your life with a wife who's around constantly, with children who are around constantly, everybody's got a routine, everybody's pulling on you, everybody's asking you questions, everybody needs something of you. While it might frustrate you while you're in it, when you're out of it, when you're removed from a situation, when you've suddenly got this realization of, uh-oh, it's really quiet around here. There's nobody pulling on me. Nobody needs me. I've lost a huge portion of my purpose, which was daily catering to younger children or even older children and a spouse and in-laws, all these different things, suddenly it goes quiet. That is a striking reality that a lot of people can't deal with. When the smoke of the divorce battle clears, when the dust settles, they find themselves more miserable without their mate than they were while they were still married. Now, I want to clarify: there are scenarios in life where you will find a spouse that was better to you than the previous one. There's no question that that can happen. The question is, does it need to happen? Or can the existing spouse become the better version of themselves and be even better than the potential new spouse that you would have to go and find and avoid all of the difficulty between spouses because it is exceedingly, exceedingly challenging. And we've said, as long as you're willing to do the heavy lifting, that can happen. You don't have to break up a home. You don't have to destroy the lives of young children in order for this to happen. You can continue to be in that relationship, be the same spouse and be the same father, but only a better version of it, so that they don't have to go out and spend the time and energy and go through the roller coaster of emotions to be able to find another spouse. And who says it's going to be that easy? And who says that the new one is going to be better than the old one? We're going to continue with this tomorrow, my friends. This conversation is going to be an eye-opener. If you're contemplating this word of divorce, which again shouldn't be anywhere in your mind or on your lips, if you're contemplating it, pay close attention. This is real life, my friends. It's not the stuff that the television is selling you on. It's not the reality TV shows that you see that tell you it's all fantastic. You're entitled to everything and then some, and you should just take what you want and be who you are. And don't let anybody ever tell you that you should change or that you should do. Don't listen to any of that. It's junk. Listen to the Torah. The Torah will always guide you in the right direction. The television and secular society will always tell you the opposite of what you're supposed to do for yourself. I hope you've learned that by now, my friends. It's been over a year and a half, but that is clear, especially in the area of relationships with your spouse. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.