I often wonder how many marriages implode during the planning of a bar or bat mitzvah. If my
own union is any indication, I would say the number is quite high. No, my husband, Jeff, and I aren’t getting a divorce, but I would imagine that if you don’t have eighteen plus years of weathering storms and somehow always emerging back into sunshine under your belt, it would be pretty tempting to throw up your hands and simply walk away, hora be damned. We just can’t seem to agree on many things and part of that is due to Jeff’s out of state upbringing. Parties in New York are different from most places (with the exception of the suburbs of Washington DC and the LA area, and maybe a few other metropolitan locales). For one thing, I would imagine that DJs don’t cost as much as a weeklong beach vacation. Is it better? I’m sure it is, but that doesn’t help me when my son, D, is going to New York bar mitzvahs and coming home begging for the same things. Now, I don’t give into him on everything – that is definitely not my parenting style. But, some things – like a dancer or two – make sense to me. Not to Jeff. He is adamantly opposed to a dancer and if you’ve read my first blog post, you know that I was too. What changed my mind? Going to bar and bat mitzvahs and seeing that the dancers actually earn their keep, assuring the party is flowing and the kids are dancing. D. declaring, “If I don’t have dancers, I don’t even want a party, because no one will dance!” also forced me to rethink my position.
Jeff is still not swayed – he thinks young women in cleavage baring shirts dancing with thirteen year old boys is creepy and a waste of money. I explained to Jeff that we can request that they wear conservative clothing (an option that I didn’t know about until recently and that makes me feel a whole lot better about the creepiness factor). The caterer agreed with D. that dancers are necessary to keep the party flowing and worth the price, but Jeff still won’t budge. I promised D. that I’ll get him to compromise, because I know Jeff and he loves D. more than anything and wants to make him happy. Maybe he’ll agree to one dancer or a break dancer – D’s idea.
Dancers are the biggest point of contention in our ongoing planning battle and really the only one that has caused us to hunker down on opposing sides, but there are myriad small issues that cause tiny fault lines in our relationship. This is supposed to be a joyous time, but the necessary tallying up of costs for every little thing is causing both of us tremendous stress. If the average couple’s biggest fights are about money, then planning a bar or bat mitzvah throws those fights into high
relief, thanks to budgets that spin so easily out of control. I have really tried to curb my spending and find economical alternatives. And, I think that Jeff has begun to understand that the budget might take a bit more of a hit than we planned. I understand his point of view, though. I certainly
don’t want our savings washed away in one night, replaced by soul crushing debt. But I also want my son to have a night he’ll always remember. How to balance those two desires is one of the trickiest conundrums we’ve stumbled into.
I am sure that in marriage (as in life), what doesn’t kill it will make it stronger. In the scope of things (over nearly two decades we’ve weathered and survived illnesses, a death in the family (my dad), job loss, children’s health problems, dog’s life threatening illness…), this is truly nothing, even though it seems big right now. I’m confident that we’ll look back on this time a year or two from now and it won’t seem so fraught with tension, but of course at that point, we’ll be planning the next bar mitzvah…