Question: What kind of marital union can keep a family from falling apart? What are the roles of the woman and the man in such a union?
Answer: There must be proper upbringing. No matter what happens, throughout your life, thousands of different situations and adventures may occur with each of you, but you know that you have a family, and it is your obligation to support them and stand by them. As long as you live, you must take care of them. That is first and foremost. As for feelings, well… What feelings? You cannot build anything on feelings alone.
Comment: You have said more than once that a man looks for his mother in a woman.
My Response: That is true. A man looks for something of his mother in a woman. And if he finds it in her, that ensures his attachment to her.
Question: So, if a woman understands that he is looking for his mother, does that make the union work?
Answer: Yes. That is why it is said in the Torah that our forefathers would bring their brides into, say, their mother’s tent. And the brides would live there. And after the bride had lived with her mother-in-law for a while, the man would marry her.
In other words, she learned from his mother how to take care of him, what to do with him, what he likes and does not like, how his mother cooks, how she does everything, and so on. She watched everything and learned.
Comment: So she learned to be a mother to her husband. That is certainly a paradox.
My Response: How is that a paradox?
Comment: She came there not to learn how to be a wife but to learn how to be his mother.
My Response: You cannot imagine how attached a man becomes to a woman then. If she reminds him of his mother, he will look at her like a child does! He will constantly catch his mother in her.
Question: And he will never want to get divorced?
Answer: Never! How could he get divorced? Leave his mother?
Question: So, you do not abandon your mother?
Answer: That is correct.
Comment: And what about the phrase a wife says: “Go to your mommy! I am not your mother! Let her bake your pies for you!”
My Response: You see what kind of arguments people make! “I am not your mother!” That is the problem.
Comment: And there must be a high percentage of divorces because she does not take on this role of being his mother.
My Response: She must understand that the only way to keep him, to make him hers, is this way! There is no other way. It is written in the Torah, written in the Bible, simply in black and white.
Question: So, maybe you are telling us the secret behind all divorces right now, and we do not need any psychologists?
Answer: This is the secret of clear-cut relationships. Until the end of his life, a man will see his mother in his wife and will never run away from her.
Question: And what is the man’s role in the family, then?
Answer: If he is attached to her, what more is needed?
Question: So, this is her security? Is that what she seeks in him?
Answer: Yes. Nothing else. He will do everything to make her happy. He will give her compliments every day.
Question: And he will earn money and work?
Answer: He will do everything, of course. I know this for sure. This is human nature.
Question: What does a woman need from a man? Is it this sense of security?
Answer: First and foremost, attention. Attention to her, to the children, to the home. So, once you get married, that is it! The bride goes to live with her mother-in-law and learns from her all about her son’s weaknesses. And she learns how to deal with him as a woman. Here and there, she knows how to say or do something that reminds him of his mother. He falls for it immediately, instantly, and forever.
Comment: And he will do everything she wants.
My Response: Yes. He needs this. A man does not give birth; he remains a child, and that is what wins him over.
Question: So he remains a child? All the time? Even when he is 70 or 80 years old?
Answer: It doesn’t matter!
Comment: People will not exactly be outraged, but they will ask: “What about the man? It is all about the woman, the woman.”
My Response: The man must provide everything the woman requires. Nothing more is needed. That is in the material sense. But spiritually, everything is different—the opposite.
In other words, the man’s spiritual development is not the family’s concern. It is not. It is a privilege, a prerogative. I don’t know how to put it. It is solely his personal choice. In this respect, he is the man and the head of the family. But this is regarding spiritual development. As for the material side—the woman.
In spiritual development, the man is in charge; in material development, the woman is in charge.
Question: If the man is in charge of spiritual development, then is the woman’s role to give him the opportunity to work on his soul?
Answer: Yes, of course.
Comment: And then he will also provide her with everything she needs.
My Response: Twice as much!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 7/16/26
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