Acceptance Is Not Surrender

Years ago, while I was navigating shidduchim as someone living with a spinal cord injury and using a wheelchair, I shared some of my hopes and preferences with a shadchan.

She looked at me and told me that if I held on to those expectations, I would never get married.

Perhaps she meant it kindly. Perhaps it came from genuine concern. But what stayed with me was something much deeper. I left feeling that because of my circumstances, my voice somehow mattered less. That I was expected to give up parts of myself that others were permitted to hold onto.

Looking back now, not only as someone who has since married, but as a psychotherapist working with individuals, couples, and families, I have come to realize that the conversation was never really about shidduchim.

It was about acceptance.

More specifically, it was about the mistaken belief that acceptance can be imposed from the outside.

People often speak about acceptance as though it is something that should happen quickly.

“You need to accept your situation.”

“You have to move on.”

“You need to be realistic.”

Whether someone is living with a disability, coping with illness, mourning the loss of a loved one, struggling with infertility, navigating trauma, enduring mental illness, or watching life unfold very differently than they once imagined, genuine acceptance rarely works that way.

Acceptance is not a switch that is flipped. It is a process. Sometimes a lifelong process.

Every one of us will encounter losses that require grieving. Some losses involve health or disability. Others involve relationships, family, dreams, identity, or expectations for the future. Alongside resilience and hope, there may also be grief, anger, disappointment, loneliness, fear, or confusion.

These emotions are not signs of weakness.

They are signs of being human.

As we enter the Three Weeks, our calendar quietly teaches this lesson.

Chazal tell us, “כל המתאבל על ירושלים זוכה ורואה בשמחתה”: whoever truly mourns for Jerusalem merits seeing her joy. The message is profound. We are not told to bypass mourning in order to reach consolation. Rather, mourning itself becomes part of the journey toward healing.

For three weeks, Judaism does not ask us to pretend the loss never happened or rush ourselves toward comfort. We are invited to remember, to grieve, and to sit honestly with what was lost. Only afterward do the שבע דנחמתא, the seven weeks of consolation, begin.

There is deep psychological wisdom in that rhythm.

Grief that is given its place tends to soften in its own time.

Grief that is hurried along often has a way of remaining.

Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes people make is assuming that acceptance can be forced.

It cannot.

True acceptance does not come from being pressured by others to “be positive” or to “stop feeling bad.” It grows slowly. It develops when a person is given the space to acknowledge pain honestly while also discovering that life still holds meaning, purpose, and possibilities.

As a therapist, I was working with a family whose child was struggling deeply to come to terms with a life-changing condition. His parents loved him dearly and wanted nothing more than to see him happy. They repeatedly encouraged him to focus on the blessings in his life, to be positive, to move forward, and to recognize the brachos that still surrounded him.

Yet despite their sincere intentions, he remained stuck.

What they could not understand was that before he could appreciate what remained, he first needed permission to mourn what had been lost.

He needed the freedom to experience disappointment, sadness, anger, and grief without feeling that these emotions themselves were a problem to be solved.

Even when his parents sat with him, there was often an unspoken pressure behind their presence. Their hope was that if they listened long enough or said the right things, he would finally move on.

But grief does not work according to a timetable.

People rarely heal because others convince them to.

They heal because they discover that their pain can be carried in the presence of someone who is not afraid of it and does not demand that it disappear.

Sometimes the most loving thing we can offer another person is not reassurance, perspective, or encouragement.

Sometimes it is simply the willingness to remain present with them, without rushing them toward acceptance.

Paradoxically, it is often only after people feel truly understood in their suffering that they become capable of discovering meaning beyond it.

Acceptance cannot be coerced.

Like a flower, it grows in its own time and according to its own pace.

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy, taught that while we cannot always choose our circumstances, we can choose how we respond to them. Meaning is not found by denying suffering, but by deciding what we will do with it.

Many people eventually discover that even the experiences they never would have chosen can become places from which meaning, compassion, faith, deeper relationships, and unexpected purpose emerge.

This does not mean we would have chosen our hardships.

Nor does it mean we must be grateful for every difficulty.

It simply means that even within limitation and loss, goodness and meaning can emerge.

But this journey must belong to the person living it.

This becomes especially important during the years of shidduchim.

Too often, individuals facing significant challenges, whether disability, chronic illness, mental health struggles, or other circumstances that make shidduchim more complex, are spoken about rather than spoken with. They may be told to “settle,” to lower their expectations, or to simply be grateful for whatever opportunity comes their way. Sometimes the underlying message is that because life has been more complicated for them, they are no longer entitled to preferences, hopes, or standards.

Yet hardship does not diminish a person’s humanity.

Nor does it take away the right to have dreams, values, and preferences when choosing a spouse.

I shared at the beginning how a shadchan once told me that holding on to my hopes would keep me from ever getting married.

I was far from the only person to receive a message like that.

As a therapist who works extensively with couples, I have seen another painful pattern repeat itself over and over again. Years into marriage, resentment begins to surface, and when we trace it back, we often discover that one partner and sometimes both, never truly felt they had a voice in the process. They moved forward with a relationship they were not fully comfortable with because parents, shadchanim, friends, and well-meaning community members were so eager to see them married that they failed to give sufficient consideration to what is required for a healthy and lasting relationship.

Often, the individual came to believe that everyone else understood their life better than they did. They learned to distrust their own judgment, silence their own reservations, and move forward because they felt they were supposed to.

Much of the resentment that later emerges is born not only from the marriage itself, but from the painful feeling that they were expected to follow the guidance and values of people who, despite their good intentions, could not truly understand their experience.

Marriage entered freely can be a source of tremendous blessing.

Marriage entered out of pressure often leaves wounds that take years to heal.

Of course, all of us must balance hopes with reality. No one marries a perfect person, and compromise is an essential part of every healthy relationship.

But realism and hopelessness are not the same thing.

And compromise chosen freely is very different from resignation imposed by others.

Acceptance is not giving up on what matters most.

It is learning to distinguish between what is essential and what is not, while preserving one’s dignity, values, and voice.

Ironically, the more acceptance is forced from the outside, the more difficult it often becomes.

Genuine acceptance grows from within.

It comes when a person feels seen, respected, and trusted enough to discover their own path.

As therapists, parents, spouses, siblings, friends, and community members, perhaps the greatest gift we can offer another person is not advice or pressure, but presence.

To listen instead of rushing to fix.

To tolerate another person’s pain instead of trying to make it disappear.

To respect rather than decide.

To encourage rather than define.

To trust that acceptance reached freely is far more enduring than acceptance demanded by others.

And to remember that acceptance is not surrender.

It is the quiet, deliberate work of learning how to carry what life has placed upon us while continuing to seek meaning, relationships, purpose, and hope.

Not because someone else demanded it of us.

But because, in our own time and in our own way, we chose it.

Rabbi Eli Portal, LCSW, is a psychotherapist working with individuals, couples, and families at Portal Psychotherapy in Woodmere and virtually. His work includes couples and relational therapy, premarital counseling, sex and intimacy work, and support around disability, chronic illness, grief, and life transitions. He is trained in EFT and sex therapy through IAPST. Eli is also the founder of Imo Anochi and a speaker who delivers shiurim and educational presentations on mental health, relationships, and Jewish life. Through Imo Anochi, he works to expand access to support, mentorship, group therapy, and supportive community throughout the frum world. He welcomes therapy referrals, speaking engagements, and organizational consultation. For private practice inquiries, contact eli@portalpsychotherapypractice.com or call 516-242-0973. Visit portalpsychotherapypractice.com. For Imo Anochi inquiries, contact Eli@imoanochi.org or visit imoanochi.org.