I think a very important issue is to remember that especially when sidduch dating,is its VERY hard to date expecting to fall in "love". When we shidduch date we MUST date with our head not with our heart, does this women have the core components of what i need to build the type of house for avodas hashem. Love takes time to build. alot longer than a few weeks/months of dating. Therefore  the key component to remember is that there is a BIG difference between a girl that disgust you/turn you off and a girl you are not necessarily attracted to. if you find yourself in option #2 better sit on it and see maybe when you get to know her a little better she start to look smoking hot in your eyes. One trick that i used when dealing with this issue when i was dating, i sat down and had a heart to heart with my self because i was worried that maybe im not attracted to her etc, so i asked myself if i weren't jewish and i was given a green light to "go all the way" if i so choose, would i be able too? got my answer and moved on, end of subject. 

May the force continue to be with us all!!!!

I have a 32 year old daughter who is a doctor, beautiful, smart and cannot find a shidduch because guys
are intimidated by her intelligence - they are all looking for Ms. America in a size 2 dress.  My daughter
went to a very respectable Seminary for 2 years and is willing to work while her husband sits and learns,
Well she was when she was younger.  But guys do not want to make committments because they're scared.

I'm just wondering if you fellas think about the words you say on Friday night during Aishes Chayil.  Does it
say anywhere she has to be beautiful and a size 2?  What do you think your beautiful wife is going to look like
in 30 or 40 years - you should live so long. 

Sheker Ha Chain V'Hevel Ha Yofi, Isha Yiras Hashem Hee Tishalal.

If we have this problem and the cure is to trust that whatever Hashem gives us (money, looks, wife, intelligence)
is meant to be.  In other words if we're living in integrity, not falsehood.  If we're living in the present trusting this
is meant to be, then shouldn't we expect the same from our wives and our relationships?

Keyboard got stuck AGAIN

I'm not saying you shouldn't be attracted to your wife.  Of course you should.  But that's the trouble with the
Shidduch scene today.  There are so many intermediaries and rules and laws that are not based in Halachah.
Our party planners are making the new shidduch rules.  YOU HAVE TO GIVE SOMETHING SUBSTANTIAL IN THE YICHUD
ROOM, OR ELSE!  One of my friends children was recently told.

On this, the most materialistic folly of a holiday for the goyim, we should realize that we, frum yidden are doing and believing
the same garbage.  That materialism, looks, sizes, fancy expensive bracelets in the yichud room, all these things are HEVEL.
Yet our Yeshivas are pumping out Bochurim who eat this stuff up. 

I met my own wife 36 years ago - no shaddchanim, no rules and regulations, no party planners.  I even called her on the
telephone without a Shadcan intervening to say I wanted to go out again - Chas V'Sholom today this should happen. 

See we have to guts anymore.  We're wimps.  We have to depend on other people to do and say things that are difficult for us.
No I don't want to go out with you - it just won't work for me right now.  No, we don't do that.  We have to call the Shadcan and let
them do the dirty work for us.  And this leads to a life where we won't make difficult decisions and we depend on others to speak up and tke up for us.





Not a Good place for an addictive personality.  We have to learn to take repsonsibility for our own decisions and actions, compromise to keep our marriages strong and concentrate on what is important in marriage - committment to having a goal TOGETHER to make a difference in the world.  Nothing else will bring you happiness.  Not size 2, not more sex, not less sex.  Doing for others.  Step 12.

Thanks everyone.... very insightful. I've always felt bad about saying no to girls that I wasn't attracted to... which meant I would drag things out to 2 - 3 months of dating. But I realize thats not good either. I say to myself is there any possibility at all. If not, I move on. But I don't expect a supermodel. I only expect to see SOMETHING I'm attracted to.

And Elya, I have no doubt we can not even imagine your and your daughters pain. There is no doubt that we're in really bad times. Lust has overtaken society, including ours. Dress sizes?? Ridiculous I say. And by the way, 6-8 is the normal healthy size for the average girl.

Ok enough ranting. May we all be zoche to connect to God with our zivuggim as partners bkarov! :-)

Oh... and I would love to have a wife smarter than me... :-)

As rage put, and as i said before, those of us talking from expierence can honestly say the answer to this question is NO NO NO NO!!

ELYA... Firstly i want you to know  respect everything you say to the fullest extent of the word. I would like to say that my heart goes out for your pain and your daughters pain and may she be zoche to find her richtige zivug bkarov mamish. But i do want to say one thing. I dont want this to become a whole discussion because i dont feel it belongs here on this forum. I would like to say; Please dont blame this on the yeshiva system. I am all of 25 years old and i went through the yeshiva system. I, as Guard can attest, learnt in one of the more prestigous yeshivas in america for over 7 years. And no they do not preach; beauty beauty beauty. Its just simply not true. I have a close realtionship with my rabbeim my rosh yeshiva and my friends. When i was in the parsha together with my friend i heard and discussed alot with them. And i NEVER NEVER heard them say ; Our rosh yeshiva saud i should drop her because shes not a drop down beauty.

What i will say Elya is this; i have noticed an interesting trend in the yeshiva world. Those who are exposed to "hollywood" either by reading newspapers or by watching movies, definitly suffer from this problem. They think that thers an actress waiting out there for them. Ive heard this from a number of friends. So based on the numbers im sure there are plenty others that are the same. NOw they may BLAME it on their rosh yeshivas when they dont think shes good enough looking, but take it from me it is not true. Yes all rabbeim will say, make sure that the girl is attractive to you, but they will not say she has to be beautiful.

Ok theres more, but as i mentioned before i dont think this is the place. A gutte voch.

Dear Dov, thanks for your letter.
The truth is that when I started this topic it didnt occur to me that most of the responses are from people looking at the subject question from a shidduch point of veiw. But I can see that the majority of people have understood the subject question to mean, "Should I take into account when considering the looks of the girl, that I may have less of a problem with porn etc." I didn't mean this (but so what). I am married. What I meant to address was that if husbands who struggle with the problem, and keep telling themselves that if only my wife was slimmer etc. then I wouldn't have to...were to know that the husband of that very lady from down the road, has just as much of a problem, then this will make it easier to overcome his problem.
It seems from some of the responses that this is indeed the case. And so, maybe there is someone out there that can be helped as a result of this conclusion, were he to be following this discussion. This was my aim.

ark321 wrote on 26 Dec 2009 17:45:
Thanks aim, great thread!

I didn't read every message here exactly, but did anyone mention Rav Dessler's principle:

We don't give to someone because we love them; we love them because we give to them.

I heard an amazing shiur once which took this one step further (Based on a piercing insight to the Mishna about 3 opinions for what constitutes grounds for divorce):

We don't love someone because we think they are attractive; we think they are attractive because we love them.

THEREFORE:  The more someone GIVES to his wife, the more he will love her.  The more he loves her, the more attractive he will think she is.

You're spot on. In fact the word אהבה comes from the root "הב" which means to give!

Ok, ark321 so you are married, but guys this thread was really worth it because i have been thinking about this for a long time. Although i'm not mammash in shidduchim yet, but i'm very close. I really benefited from reading everybody's posts.(btw i know this is really not the place for this (and guard can erase this) but i just have such a 'y"h' to mention,elya,  i have a brother too who is almost 32 and it really sounds like a good shidduch for him, he's very intellectual) 

Eye, you are 100% right!!!

habaletaher wrote on 25 Dec 2009 11:39:


I agree 100%, Haba... I was talking about the "lust" aspect...

dov wrote on 25 Dec 2009 14:29:


When I read this, I did a little dance around the room. Does anyone else see the amazing beauty in this post, or am I just a little weird?

Dov's post reminds me of a story I read on Shabbos...

A wealthy and learned Chasid came to the Bal Hatanya complaining that his business was going bad and he was losing all of his money fast. He told the Rebbe that if Hashem wills him to be poor, he accepts it with love, but he can't bear the pain of all the people he owes money to. Many poor people, orphans and widdows had entrusted him with their money, and he can't even pay them back! The Rebbe was leaning on his arms listening, and finally said "you seem to be worried about what you need, but you haven't perhaps considered what you are needed for?" The Chassid fell into a dead faint. When they revived him, he left the Rebbe's office and went straight to the Beis Medrash where he sat for days on end, completely ignoring this world and any past worries of his... Finally the Rebbe called him and told him that Hashem wants us to serve him through this world, not by ignoring this world, and the Rebbe blessed him and sent him home. From that point on, he saw much success and recovered all his fortune...

What I found beautiful about this story is that although it is true that this yid had very valid reasons to be worried and feel tremendous pain - and we would even go as far as to assume that it was his "Yetzer Tov" who was making him worry (after all, he was feeling the pain of others, to whom he owed money) - still, the Rebbe's reply to him was not to focus on what HE NEEDED, even for the good (yetzer hara, struggle, reward, nachas ruach, etc...) and simply focus on what he is needed for, i.e. being useful to HASHEM. And when a Jew succeeds to make this paradigm shift in his thinking, he ends up seeing success anyway  

It's a subtle but MAJOR distinction. This is that "nekudah" that is spoken about in Chassidic Sefarim... it's the difference between Chametz and Matza, between Lishma and Shelo lishma. (But as Dov will tell you, the only things that matters to him is that it's the ultimate difference between sobriety and insanity, life and death  )

Ahsreinu that we have Dov on our forum to show us the good path.

guardureyes wrote on 26 Dec 2009 22:18:
Kollel Guy wrote on 25 Dec 2009 12:24:

Sorry I didn't read every post on this thread (I skimmed through most). So, I don't know if anyone already wrote this, but if you have a drop-dead gorgeous wife, don't you think there's more of a chance she'll attract the looks of other men more than if you had a more "plain" wife?

Honestly, do you want to go in public knowing that other men are leering at your wife?

Think of this next time you "wish" your wife looked like a p**n star.