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We’re in this together

By: Shulamis Levy
THE LONDON JEWISH TRIBUNE

Through her extensive and charismatic projections on marriage today Chana Levitan is attracting massive audiences around the world, while at the same time promoting her new book I Only Want To Be Married Once, which has been a runaway success. During a visit to London last week, her talks attracted those just engaged, dating and curious mothers with their equally curious daughters.

I caught Chana Levitan’s presentation in Edgware at an event entitled “We are in this together” which brought together ladies from various organizations.  The evening included an exercise, which had participants meditating for two minutes about our spouses’ needs.  Lo and behold the lists written following this exercise contained our needs rather than our spouses!

The lesson was clear, said Chana Levitan: if we spent even a minute a day on an exercise like this, thinking about our spouses’ needs and trying to fulfill some of them, how our marriages would be different. As wives we often excel in pinpointing the negative in our other half, whether it’s the way he chews or the way he sleeps, for example. But finding the good in him requires a better memory!

Divorce, Chana Levitan reminded us, is, unfortunately, high, a fact hinted in a number of jokes she told that helped us understand the sadness and reality of today’s world.  Joking aside, Chana Levitan gave some serious guidelines for a successful marriage. Our main investment should be in making our marriage work, not in buying a new car.

The feeling of unity grows when we give to each other. The more you give the more you will see the relationship grow. And don’t forget the meditation once a day, too.

The relationship itself, said Chana Levitan, should be lived as if you want it to work. She gave the example of a man dying from gunshot wounds who says to the operating team: “Perform the operation on me as if I am a patient who wants to live, not as a man who is dying!” The whole demeanor of the operating team changed, and the patient lived! That positive attitude is what we have to bring into our lives.  Chana Levitan’s agenda had deliberately set out to use humor as an effective tool to help make marriage work.