When a child’s marriage dissolves, parents instinctively want to help. How can they be strong for their child when they themselves are reeling from pain? Mothers and experts share hard-earned wisdom
Looking back, there were hints that something was amiss. Shifra regularly called her newlywed daughter, Chava, who was living across the Atlantic in Israel, and early on, Chava shared some worrying observations about her new husband. But Shifra didn’t dwell on it — after all, it was shanah rishonah and the young couple was starting out on unfamiliar terrain.
As time passed, Shifra figured that “no news was good news.” Still, she was a little disconcerted by the strained silence whenever she spoke to Chava’s siblings about their visits to their sister’s home. “I found out later that they knew what was going on, but Chava made them promise they wouldn’t tell me anything,” says Shifra.
Chava’s second child was due right after Pesach so the plan was that she’d return home before Pesach, stay through the birth and initial recovery, and then return to Israel. But after the baby was born and Chava was safely ensconced in her parents’ home, she decided she wasn’t flying back.
“By then, we’d seen the marriage up close and finally understood how troubled the relationship was,” says Shifra.
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