How could she stand next to this guy for the rest of her life? How could she marry him, after everyone she’d passed up?
Shani Leiman with Zivia Reischer
Chaviva was 30 when she came to see me. She was determined to get married. “I’m going to marry the next guy who waltzes through the door,” she announced. “I’ll just make it work.”
I asked her about her dating history. She told me she was always getting set up with “weirdos” and couldn’t understand what had happened to all the “normal” guys.
“I know, I know, the normal guys are all married,” she said, “and we’re left with the guys who have issues.”
That’s not exactly how it works.
Some couples who marry young may have been flexible enough to just take the plunge. Not because their spouses are perfect — every person has flaws — but they just believed things would work out. They saw flaws, but they went with it anyway, with the perspective that it wasn’t a big deal.
This one’s in print. Some of our best stories live in the magazine — subscribe to get Mishpacha every week.
