Hanukkah Doughnut Disagreement Nearly Leads To Divorce

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — After nine years of marriage and two children, an Israeli couple reached a confrontation that brought both of them to lawyers. The wife is a kindergarten teacher, and the husband is a high school teacher. Over the years, they maintained a carefully managed lifestyle, running a household that included a mortgage and various expenses for their two young children.

According to the wife, as she detailed to attorney Sharin Solan, she has been suffering for several years from her husband’s extreme stinginess, which has manifested itself in numerous incidents.

“There is real terror of stinginess, that’s the only way to describe our situation.”

The breaking point, she says, occurred ten days ago. The wife wanted to buy special Hanukkah doughnuts from the Roladin store for their children and for the home in general, and her husband exploded.

Rami Levi’s doughnuts

“How dare you spend so much money on a doughnut? From now on, don’t go anywhere where a doughnut costs more than five shekels. You’ll buy doughnuts at Rami Levy.”

The wife responded:

“I will only buy Roladin doughnuts because Hanukkah is celebrated once a year.”

At that point, a heated argument erupted between them, and their four-year-old daughter burst into tears and threatened to run away from home.

“We’ve reached a situation where he checks how much a loaf of bread costs, how much a kilo of mandarins costs, and calculates every single shekel that goes out. I feel like I’m living under economic terror. It’s worse than violence, it’s severe emotional abuse.”

Attorney Solan advised the woman to begin marital therapy.

“This is a known phenomenon, and it doesn’t always require divorce,” she told her client.

At the same time, the husband, who says he has also had enough of what he calls his wife’s ‘pathological spending’, is seeking to end the marriage. The couple was referred to a conflict resolution process, as is customary, and also to marital counseling.