I was turned down (or the engagement fell through at the last moment). How do I get through it, and does it mean something is wrong with me?

If a shidduch did not work out or you were turned down, she suggests saying baruch Hashem: you were saved from spending time and energy on someone who is not your bashert. The goal, she reminds you, is not for everyone to say yes, but to find the person meant for you.

“say 'boruch Hashem!' because you were saved from the hassle”

A refusal does not mean something is wrong with you: you are still a wonderful person, you are just not their bashert, and there is no need at all to change anything about your personality or your needs. To those going through a break-up on the verge of engagement they usually say two things: what is mourned is not the person but the fantasy of what might have been, and since it did not work out, it was not the bashert. But they also honestly show the limit of that comfort: with Melanie, who spent two years in tears and dated nobody, the approach did not work; there, behind the recurring pain, lay a pattern that had to be uncovered separately. They see refusal as part of the process itself: disappointment and pain will come, but you must not let them knock you down; get back on track and keep searching.

“You’re still a wonderful person, you’re just not their bashert.”

She asks you to keep perspective: life in general is full of failures and obstacles on the way to a goal. The challenge is not to keep winning but to stay the course after a defeat. She begins by saying that the pain of rejection is not imagined and is entirely real, especially when you really liked the person and already saw a future together; in the thick of it, it seems things will never be good again. Sadness, anger, shock and disbelief, dark loneliness, guilt over who knows what, confusion and fear of being left alone come in waves. And right away she offers a foothold: grief is a guest, not a tenant; emotions can rise very high, but with time they subside. Later, when it becomes possible, it is worth looking for something useful to turn the break-up into: she cites Barbara Corcoran, caught off guard by a break-up, who later said that all the best things came to her right after rejections. And she adds: even if no transformation happens and in a few months you simply return to dating with a slightly better understanding of what suits you, that is enough; you are back on your feet.

“The challenge is not to keep on winning but to stay the course when we've suffered a defeat.”

Yosef seemed to have a single road to freedom, the dream of the wine steward and a debt of gratitude, and it did not work; the last two years were darker than the first ten. But liberation came by a far more powerful route: Pharaoh himself had a dream. When a salvation that was close at hand falls through, the right thought, he says, is this: Hashem has something much better in store for me. He cites two people who were helped by what they had built up in advance. Sarah could not get a permit to renovate her house for a long time; she despaired, began reading about emunah daily, and two months later, when one trouble followed another on the eve of Sukkos, she was able to tell Hashem that she accepted these disappointments as good; the permits were issued on Chol HaMoed. Twenty-three-year-old Elimelech had learned a daily emunah lesson for four years; after a month of dating and an especially good evening, the shadchan passed on that the girl was ending it. At first he was crushed and saw his future collapsing, but through his tears he remembered what he had learned and thanked Hashem aloud for the test. The pain did not leave at once, but he had no questions for Hashem, and that feeling of security he called what saved him. From this Rabbi Ashear says plainly: whether a person has been turned down or has not had a call in a long time, now is exactly the time to apply these things. He tells of a girl, Suri, whose engagement was broken off after the invitations had already been sent. It was a terrible blow, but she did not let it destroy her life and told herself: maybe I am not yet ready to be a wife, maybe I am not yet the person I should be, and I need to change. Soon a woman collecting for a fund that helps brides approached her; hearing that she had simply decided to help, Suri gladly joined and began her first chesed project. A couple of months later a friend who had recently lost her father confessed that there was no money for her upcoming wedding, and over several months, almost single-handedly, calling people day and night, Suri raised the entire sum. A week later, on the evening after the sheva brachos, Suri was again proposed a young man she had dated four years earlier; this time both knew from the start that they wanted to marry. She married, and has been doing chesed ever since.

“Hashem has a much better salvation in store for me.”

She answers the thought that something is wrong with me with a list: people are turned down for anything and for its opposite. Some for not being pretty enough, others for being too pretty, out of fear of self-centredness; some for too little intelligence, others for too much, which frightens. One can be refused for being too tall and too short, for poverty and for wealth, for being quiet and for being loud, for too much humour and for dryness, for too much popularity and for too little. Nobody wants anyone who is too anything, and yet nobody wants mediocre; intelligent, attractive, pleasant people get turned down too.

“No one wants anybody who is 'too' anything, yet no one wants mediocre”

Yochanan dated for several years, travelled with his parents to Canada to finalise an engagement, and at the last minute it was all called off. On the way back he was the one comforting his weeping parents: this is from Heaven, Hashem saved me from a wrong decision. The hired driver, who overheard the conversation, was so struck that a few weeks later Yochanan was engaged to his daughter.

“Hashem saved me from making the wrong decision.”

The usual phrase, so it was not the bashert, is true, and yet it has never comforted anyone. The first thing to do is acknowledge the disappointment: a rejection can be a crushing blow to the self-esteem of even a very confident person. By recognising the right to these feelings, your own or someone else's, you begin to heal the emotional wound rather than paper it over with the right words.

“It can be a crushing blow to the self-esteem of the most confident person.”

Examining the story of Eliezer, as relayed by Dr. Yaakov Salomon, he draws attention to something unexpected. Eliezer saw all the signs, the miraculously shortened journey, the water of the well rising, Rivka's chesed, and said that Hashem had granted him success; and yet he says to the family: if you agree, tell me, and if not, tell me, and I will turn right or left. Rav Pam applies this to the not uncommon situation where a shidduch is almost concluded and suddenly falls apart, everyone is downcast, and the blame is laid on various people. It is impossible to be more certain than Eliezer was, and yet he was prepared to look elsewhere; that flexibility is what is worth learning. One must not lose hope and the ability to rise above the pain: sometimes one needs to reassess and move on, not necessarily with a complete change, but with the kind of reformulation that gives Providence a fresh opportunity to act.

“Eliezer could not have been more certain that Rivka was the right zivug for Yitzchak.”

He told this about himself. In 1936, when he was twenty-two, he was on the verge of an engagement with a girl from Brisk; the engagement did not take place, and he was very disappointed. Later he said: had I married, I would have been exempt from the Polish draft and would have had no reason to leave Brisk, and most likely I would have shared the fate of almost all the Jews of Brisk who perished in the Holocaust. Heaven arranged that the shidduch should not work out, and he was left with no choice but to flee the draft to Switzerland.

“Hashem arranged that the shidduch should not work out”

Thirty-year-old Yudi had been unable to marry for years; he finally became engaged, the invitations were ready, and the kallah texted him that she could not go through with it. The rav gave him a twofold answer: perhaps this marriage would have brought you a life of suffering, and you are being led away from it; and if the girl is good but not yours, trust that He always does what is best. Then the rav took him to dance and sing the words about how to repay Him for all His kindness.

“Maybe this girl was going to cause you a life of suffering if you married her.”