02 Jul DATING AND RELATIONSHIP ADVICE

Dear Rabbi and Shira ,
I’m not sure what to do. After a very long three months of both of us working on large professional projects, my husband and I went out to an
expensive steak house to celebrate their completion and begin our summer vacation. Finally alone without the kids or cell phones, we enjoyed
cocktails together and began our appetizers. I started to talk about a topic that I’ve been worrying about; caring for my father, who is beginning
to show signs of dementia, and how this will affect our family. I added that we have to think about how we will care for our parents as they are
getting older and eventually will not be able to care for themselves. My husband sat there silently. And then looked into his food. After five
minutes of silence, I asked him what was wrong. He said, “thank you for ruining our date. I’ve waited for three months to have a good time
together, and all you can think about is sickness and death. Let’s finish the entree and go home.” What happened? I didn’t mean to ruin our
date. I thought since we finally had some quiet time, we could speak about everything that’s on our minds. -Hold the Souffle

Dear Hold the Souffle,
We’re sorry to hear about the ruined date. On one hand
it’s understandable that the both of you have been busy
and if something’s been on your mind, this is the first
chance that you have to share it. To you this issue has been
burning a hole inside of you and you have been thinking
about it constantly, your husband is the only person who
could possibly understand. However, for him, this is the
first time he’s heard about this. Your husband probably
had other expectations of how the meal would’ve gone.
The stark contrast, such as thinking we’ll have either
light or romantic conversation, and in its place speaking
about terminal sickness and death, probably brought a
startle (fight or flight) response which then escalated the
emotional stakes of the interaction. Finding no way to
escape, not wanting to ruin the date, or cut you off and

be rude, he got emotionally overwhelmed, shut down
and became irritated
What can you do? Well, the first thing you could do
is to make a repair attempt. Dr Jon Gottman says that
a repair attempt is any statement or action attempting
to stop negativity from spiraling out of control. You can
make a joke, change the topic, order that souffle. This will
short circuit the cycle of negativity so you could salvage
the situation before he became so overwhelmed that
he shut down. You both could take a breather to calm
down. Drink some water slowly, go to the bathroom.
It’s important to know that this can happen to men or
women. We misread a situation, and then it becomes
emotionally hot for one of the parties involved. Then
we don’t necessarily know how to repair and restart the
conversation.

How can we maximize our date times when there’s
not a lot of time to connect? Sometimes it can be very
helpful to ask each other what your expectations are
for the conversation. If it’s possible that this could be a
heavy conversation, ask! Over the drinks you could’ve
say, “Is now a time I can bring up a heavy topic I’ve been
thinking a lot about?” Give him the space to answer yes
or no. If the answer is no, you can plan a time together
at a later point. Make sure that you make that time and
take the opportunity so you don’t resent his not being
present for your feelings as well!
We wish you luck and hopefully have a “make up date”
soon,
Rabbi Reuven and Shira Boshnack