With that said, I think that it’s important to stress another idea in order to help you have the right mindset and view your situation in the right perspective.
You mention having been “young and idealistic” when you became engaged to your husband, which is a wonderful thing. Rav Avigdor Miller would say: “Never regret your extremist idealism,” and this applies even if we find ourselves “falling” later in life and wondering how we ever could have been in such a lofty place, once upon a time.
Who were you, when you pictured yourself building what you call a “genuinely ruchniyusdig life”? You write that you don’t feel like yourself anymore, and the implication is that when you were “young and idealistic,” that wasn’t you at all — but it was. In fact, that was the genuine you, the young woman with aspirations and ruchniyusdige ambitions, dreaming of building a true Yiddishe home with a husband like the one you chose. It’s only the challenges of daily life that try to drag you down and convince you that things would be easier if only... if only...
This period in the year is a very relevant time to focus on this idea. As we approach Rosh Hashanah and the Yom Hadin, we make all kinds of kabbalos and resolutions, aiming higher for the next year, seeing ourselves as we might become, and it’s a mistake to think that we’re aiming to become other than “ourselves.” In fact, what we are trying to become is a more authentic version of ourselves, unencumbered with all the narishkeiten of this world. Even if we encounter difficulties in actualizing that authentic vision, that doesn’t mean that we were unrealistic or silly, and it’s not reason to give up or to be more “sensible” about what we take on in future.
