Most of your father’s assumptions about frum marriage are pretty much completely wrong, and it’s completely understandable that an outsider would make those assumptions, becuase of how we look to the outside world. It’s smart of you to reach out to ask what really goes on. 

Today, frum dating (for the most part, certainly in the Litvish world), doesn’t mean that you don’t know the woman you’re marrying well by the time that you walk down the aisle to the Chuppa. On the contrary, dating in a marriage-focused setting, (after intensive research ) enables a couple to get to know each other on a deeper level than they can if they would be hooking up after a couple of dates.

Please look up and read a New York Times article about “The Thirty Six Questions to fall in Love” (There’s a TED Talk on the topic too) about how lasting, deep, relationships are forged by sharing different layers by answering personal questions while making eye contact….

Lasting marriages happen through shared goals, emotional investment and mutual respect and work, attachment, and a healthy dose of Siyata dishmaya. We have a community that is very invested in belonging to a family unit, and that’s a healthy thing. Staying together in a disastrous relationship because of the stigma of divorce isn’t healthy, but is far less frequent, especially today. The idea that we have a lower divorce rate because women have less rights, for the most part simply is not true. 

Sure, frum couples argue and even fight. And they also kiss and make up, too. Same as everyone else. I’m not sure why anyone would think otherwise. 

Me and my wife have had plenty of disagreements,  even some pretty serious ones over our decades of marriage. And we’ve had some pretty intense apologies, too. Both of us have each changed and grown in so many ways through those experiences. We’re on pretty solid ground by now, we rely on each other always, and BH it’s terrific. But marriage always needs work. Like people.

Marriage is the best setting to become a mensch. And the best chance you have at it. And you can earn love, companionship, happiness, intimacy, and family along the way. If you look at it that way, as a growth opportunity, then I don’t think there’s any reason to think that failure is inevitable. That’s only when you look at love as something that “happens” and unhappiness and something that results when it “stops happening”.  

The concept of trying out a few women to see what you like, and trying your potential wife out in advance to see if you are sexually compatible is unfortunately completely wrongheaded. Allow me to explain. 

There are two kinds of sex. There is Taking/Excitement Sex in which a person is excited by the erotic and seeks the greatest orgasmic pleasure that he can get, which would be triggered by whatever he (or she) would find to provide the greatest source of sexual stimulation.
The problem is that the excitement doesn’t last with a single partner, and trying new things runs out, and demeans the wife. It leads to emotionally sealed-off sex, and leaves a gnawing hunger for more. (Actually, the search for the ultimate sexual experience is one that demeans and objectifies women, far more than the “mysoginy” that’s allegedly practiced in Frum marriages.)

Unfortunately, the quest that begins with trying out different women to see what  sexuality satisfies you ends in frustration and unhappiness. Yeah, maybe that’s why the system he’s suggesting has an incredibly high divorce rate. 

Sex as an expression of intimacy in a loving relationship is completely different

It’s not sealed-off taking, it’s connecting. It’s expressing something that exists between you. The whole day that you’ve shared is there when you climb into bed.

And you are enwrapped in the aura of years of hopes and dreams and hurts, the vulnerability and ache and all the joy of what’s between you for years, all this gets expressed in a private moment of intense personal nakedness and connection that satisfies in ways that Hollywood can never portray. It may not be as exciting but it’s far more satisfying. And pleasurable in a way that has to be experienced.

Intimacy is much better after 20 years, and a lot of kids and tears and dreams. When you know what each other like, and like to give it because you love each other. Hope you get there, it’s worth it.

Obviously some times are better than others, some have it better than others. If a couple has other issues in the relationship this won’t necessarily solve them, and this may not work for them, either. I’m painting an idealized picture.
But the idea is that Intimacy Sex is a completely different idea and that the joy and satisfaction in the experience is one that’s dependent on marriage, love commitment and relationship.  As opposed to the other kind of sex, which is founded on “fun”, being “hot”, performance and excitement.
The idea is that are two experiences completely different things entirely.

 Porn and Hollywood are selling a counterfeit  imatation, or at least selling the sugar rush without the nutrients. The flash and sizzle without the substance.  Or as HHM likes to say: “Intimacy is cake. Sex is icing. Cake without icing is pretty good. Icing without cake doesn’t satisfy. Cake with icing is best”. (That’s why every good romance movie has a plot that involves the protagonists finding lasting love, not just lust, ‘cause it’s a necessary part of the satisfying fantasy).

So this is why the idea of trying out sex with a few partners, and a potential spouse before committing isn’t right. Because it’s impossible. You can’t “try it out“ with someone you’re not committed to - that’s a contradiction in terms!! You can’t try out the intimacy of commitment and shared life when you aren’t committed and aren’t sharing anything except a sweaty grunting in the night. Trying to preview marriage by trying the other kind of sex is sad and wrong. That’s why the Torah encourages discovering intimacy only IN MARRIAGE. Because that’s where you can experience the real deal. 

That’s all I can write now.
Here’s a hand and a hug. Hang on! You’ll find the truth in your heart of how you want to live. And Hashem will guide you, if you ask Him to.

Hold on to Him, tight. 
Your friend,
Chaim