Written by Penina Tovin
We are standing at the entrance to the month of Adar. In the streets, people are already starting to talk about “marbin besimcha”, about costumes and about “venahafoch hu”, but in my clinic, behind the closed door, the month of Adar sometimes feels completely different. It reminds us of one of the sharpest pains there is
The pain of the relationship mask. Many of us live with a constant feeling of “hester panim” outwardly everything looks “fine”, we smile at events and function as exemplary mothers, but deep inside, the distance from our spouse is light years away. This is the burning pain of a person who lives within a relationship but feels lonelier than ever before.
Rachel came to me extinguished. “Penina,” she said, “I feel like I am living inside a performance. Yoel is a good man, he takes care of the livelihood and the children, but we haven’t truly talked for years. On Erev Shabbat, when we sit at the table, I put on a mask of a happy woman, but inside I am screaming. There is no connection of soul between us, only logistical operation of a home.
Rachel’s pain is the pain of the month of Adar before the miracle the feeling that reality is only an external shell and that there is no one who truly sees her face beneath the costume of the ‘perfect woman’. This dissonance erodes vitality and turns the joy of Adar into something oppressive and false.
Sometimes the mask is torn all at once, as happened with Michal and Avraham who came to me at the peak of a shaking crisis of trust. It was not just an “argument”, it was “venahafoch hu” of the most painful kind. Michal discovered that Avraham was living parallel lives concealments around finances, and within the inner sanctum, in the intimate world, she discovered that his heart had turned to foreign places. Consumption of forbidden content stole his presence from the home and left her hurt and exposed. “I don’t recognize the person who sleeps beside me,” she cried, “all our years suddenly seem to me like one big costume”. In this place, when trust is cracked and pleasure disappears, the path to redemption passes through the willingness to remove the masks even the ugliest ones and begin to rebuild from the foundation.
I hear women who say “maybe after the holidays things will work out”, or “time will heal”.
I want to tell you time does not heal anything, it only entrenches the distance. Things do not work out because time has passed, but thanks to what we choose to do with that time. There is no better time than now,
because life is not a “dress rehearsal” it is happening right now. The present is the only place where change can occur, and within a proper relationship process, with persistence, thorough work, and siyata dishmaya, I have seen miracles in the clinic. I have seen walls of betrayal turn into bridges of closeness, and I have seen hearts that froze from hurt return to beat with pleasure and deep connection.
“Megillat Esther” as its name implies to reveal the hidden. When you dare to reveal what is hidden in your heart, you allow the relationship miracle to occur and stop being an actress in the play of your life. This is the time for your personal “venahafoch hu”. Do not remain alone with the mask. If you feel that the distance is growing, if trust is cracked or if you want to restore the true and pure pleasure to your home I am here to show you the way.
Penina Tovin
0524090006
