A Chashuva eyewitness saw an old Novardoker baking matzos in the Polish Shteibel Matza bakery. Those days, they used forks to put holes in the matzos, and this was important for air to enter the matzos. His Rebbetzin decided to get involved, and she became “Ah Gantzer Macher”, commanding like a sergeant: “Do it this way!” “Do it that way!”. When her husband tried to say his opinion, she screamed at him and told him to go back to the Bais Medrash!
This Novardoker was not a push-over. He had been in Siberia, and he was one of the Rosh Yeshivos in the Pinsk Yeshiva together with the Steipler. But with his wife he acted like a wimp. I was once on the telephone on a conference call with a Novardoker and his wife on the other end. He was telling me a story, and his wife constantly interrupted; he always backed down and allowed her to dominate. He wasn’t a pushover either. He was a Chashuva Menahel, and he had been R' Galinsky’s chavrusa in Bialystok. But in his wife’s presence he turned to mush! The son of a Novardoker told me how his mother would scold his father, and the father would lower his voice and apologize with Hachna'a. She kept pouring her wrath, and he kept apologizing like a broken record.
This same person once disappeared from home for about 8 months since he felt he needed Chizuk in Bedidus (seclusion). His wife was totally behind him. A person who works on his Middos, in the long run is respected by his wife, and he can get away with such an outrageous disappearance.
