“Mother of a Hurt Son” responded to a recent Words Unspoken column, “Dear Bochur,” that a woman wrote when the boy her daughter was dating ended their relationship after learning that she had gone to therapy and was taking medication to deal with mild depression. Mother of a Hurt Son professed the need for her son to start a relationship with a “clean slate” and lamented the end of a “relationship that should never have started in the first place.”
It is true that there are some gray areas between legitimate disqualifications and concerns that may be overlooked. However, it seems that the letter writer either missed the point of the original piece or is staking out a position in strong opposition to it.
As I understood it, the author was exposing the idea of a “clean slate” as a myth. Any of our boys who are pursuing perfection and blemish-free mates will invariably be bitterly disappointed when they encounter reality. Our most impressive young adults are those with the coping skills to adapt and excel even when facing serious challenges.
Moreover, classifying a young lady with mild anxiety or depression as one who never should have started a relationship in the first place is dangerously wrong from two perspectives. First, that attitude is a choice, not a rule. We all determine our own criteria for dating, and when we eliminate excellent candidates, we limit the pool of possibilities in ways that can be destructive to all sides. Our society is already inclined toward a hyper-selectivity that does no favors to either the rejected or the rejector. Second, if the letter writer is advocating for more transparency in redting shidduchim, she must ask herself if her approach is helpful or harmful. It is precisely because of her son’s knee-jerk rejection that no person would dare reveal at an early juncture their reasonable struggles to a shadchan or a dating partner.
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