happened in our home that someone our wife did something to someone or husband did something that wasn't my spouse that must have been the devil that's not my wife that's not my spouse it's not her for sure it's not him, I think it's someone else the balsam is sitting there and in this awkward moment the sahab is like this is pretty strange the balsam simply says the prophet says it's okay your mother Aisha has a lot of self respect she has a lot of self respect he didn't and it's very important for husbands he didn't bash his wife in front of the sahabas he could have said man Aisha I didn't know that you were like that I didn't know that you had that level of you had that challenge with with your co-wife I didn't know that but to protect her honor he started off by saying umukum sahabas you better control your thoughts that's your mother right there he honored her in a moment where she was compromised she was vulnerable and both husbands and wives must do this for each other this is masculinity for men but this is also a sense of honor for women so we should never allow our spouses to be exposed to the public their flaws and false balsams spoke about this in hadith but the greatest flaw of a relationship is when husband or wife this hadith refers to wives but it refers to both by extension speaks about the secrets of their homes to people the flaws of their the flaws of their husbands or wives to people this is what creates a sense of of a toxic relationship and why do people know about it no one needs to know about that and even the happy matters just somewhat be confined because people always have hasid and a'een the prophet says your mother has a lot of self-respect that's just who she is I don't know that's how she is so the point of these two stories is to show the prophet would always stand up for his spouses but that did not mean it meant to compromise the principles of deen our marriages are there to bring more deen into our life not to remove deen from our life they're not there to reduce the level of submission they're there to increase the level of when they say marriage is half of faith it's not the nikah itself it's what can come from this nikah now what can come of this marriage from now no relationship allows the compromise of deen to come into our homes and to come into our families you can compromise your self-dignity and respect your level of honour that's fine but we can't compromise faith and this is how the prophet was with all the people in his family even when Fatima would knock on his door and she would come visit the prophet the prophet wouldn't say you can come the daughter of the prophet would enter the prophet would stand up and he would go to the door open the door for Fatima kiss her between the eyes and the forehead grab her hands and physically take her to Majlisihe and he would make her sit on the spot that he was sitting like how much honour is this you sit where I was sitting you're on the head of the table now the prophet was with his grandchildren that his throughout the tradition of Shamail and Hadith we see how much the prophet loved Hassan Hussein Omaama his granddaughter the way he treated them that now he's on the day of Eid Obaqa Al-Lilana was saying literally playing tag with his kids as grandkids on Eid in one narration a Bedouin man came up of some says and he saw the prophet kissing Hassan Hussein he was kissing their eyes kissing their cheek and he saw the prophet doing this and he says to me I have ten kids O'Allah I've never kissed any of them I've never kissed any of them and the prophet said well it's not my fault that Allah has snatched mercy from your heart your void of mercy you've been stripped of love and mercy this is mercy this is love that Allah has endowed me with so that through it I can show love to my kids and my grandchildren but again they did not come at the cost of my children can simply the commandments one day despite the fact almost the prophet loves them Hassan Hussein from me they're from me and whoever loves them loves me and whoever dislikes them dislikes me and this is who the prophet is speaking about but one day Hassan Hussein was sitting as a six year old kid and he grabs a date from the wealth of Sadaqa from charity and as he grabs his date as he grabs his date the prophet takes his finger and plucks it out of his mouth plucks it out and he says we don't eat from the wealth of charity because Ahle Bait we can't eat from Zakat we can't eat from the wealth of charity he didn't just say let the child eat some candy I know has gelatin but he's only five years old he didn't say I'm just too soft I love my kids too much no the principles of deem we're never up for discussion everything else was that a compromise but Allah's commandments were always given the priority this is what masculinity is this is what it means to have a conducive relationship and these are the people that we should be looking at online to define to us how we should treat our spouses and families in what lifestyle we should choose to embody in our life the lifestyle which allows relationships to grow because of because of ihsan because we don't want to benefit and through the system that the prophet has given us anything else outside of this it's up for discussion it's definitely not something which is objectively clear right or wrong per se but it's up for discussion if it fits within this paradigm we will accept it if it doesn't fit within it then we will reject it we have a reference point we have tried and tested the Quran, the Seerah and the Sahabahs are not a system that we are testing that maybe it will work maybe it won't work we don't test the Quran we don't test the Seerah they have already been tried and tested for us may Allah make us amongst those people they understand that the people that are around us are living through their own systems their own lens and perspectives we live by the lens in the perspective given to us by the prophet who taught us what it meant to be who we are as humans the most honorable creation then what it meant to be a male what it meant to be a female what it meant to be a Muslim outside the masjid which is founded upon a person's good character their ability of being kind their ability of showing goodness to people their ability to always look to benefit people and the first recipients of these qualities of ours the prophet taught us to be our family must be our family one of the things that we see in his life we say in Urdu is that he will often be found expressing his love for his children expressing his love for his children his grandchildren his spouses, his family members this is what a male would do this is what the prophet would do when a man came to him and said when Amr Ibn A'us came to him and asked who is the most beloved to you your Aisha that means his own question so there was an expression there were constant reminders about how much the prophet loved people not only his family, but even the Sahabas because for him that community was all intimate for him there were all people that were close to him and every single person felt like they were the closest may Allah makes amongst those spouses those family members that always look for the other person's benefit that always look to do more and expect it to do and take less than what we deserve by doing so, we're not just taking boxes or formalities we're actually trying to continue growing our relationship and progressing within our relationship may Allah make us amongst those people once again I apologize for not being that person an amazing weather that you have in the day area I was in three cities in the last three days and scheduling kind of just cut me off please forgive us and I wish to be with you also insha'Allah insha'Allah we have our dear respected Isdada Hussain Mujadadi here she is an educator, author, public speaker spiritual counselor and mental health advocate with over 25 years of experience serving the Muslim community she began her Islamic studies at the renowned Zaidunah college where she studied with Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, Sheikh Muhammad Aliya Abu Bi, Imam Zaid Shaker and other visiting scholars she offers year-round classes spiritual and self-development for adults and youth through different local and national organizations for nearly 20 years Isdada Hussain Mujadadi has been actively involved in the Bay Area Muslim community working and volunteering for several organizations including Zaidunah Institute Rahma Foundation, Givelight Foundation and Celebrate Mercy JazakAllah O'Kern, insha'Allah Bismillah Peace be upon you I want to first and foremost thank our dear sister Sanaa for organizing this event and her organization for those of you who are online or maybe here but not familiar this is a really important organization that centers around the experiences of those who have have been divorced and are experiencing the life changes that come from that so it's a support group for that particular demographic but Masha'Allah she's been so thoughtful to put this event together I also want to thank the previous speakers Masha'Allah Sheikh Jaba I'm not sure if he's here and of course Mufti, Abdul Wahhab Masha'Allah for all of their insights and reflections so today I wanted to talk about the tranquil Muslim home and if you know me you know I like presentations just visual learners I like to also bring you along to what I'm speaking about in this way so Bismillah in order to understand what a tranquil home is obviously we need to look no further than the Quran and so Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'a tells us first he defines what tranquility is in many different verses but here's a few of them in Surah Al-Fajr he says Audhu Billahi Minash-Shaytan al-Rajim Ya Ayatuhan nafsa al-Mutma Inna irji'i ila Rabbiki Radiyatan marudiyah that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'a will say to the believer O tranquil soul return to your Lord well pleased and pleasing to him so making the connection that a person experiences tranquility by prioritizing the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'a and then it's also a reward that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'a will give us tranquility because we are seeking his pleasure he also says in Surah Al-Rum al-Ladina aamanu wa tatma innu qalubuhum bidhikrillah ala bidhikrillah tatma inna qalub those who believe and whose hearts find tranquility in the remembrance of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'a for indeed in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find tranquility so these are the definitions Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'a gives us for the tranquil soul now marriage is also connected to this concept of tranquility Mashallah I know many of the other speakers maybe perhaps one or more reference this beautiful verse that really teaches us about the objective of every marriage it's to actually seek and find tranquility in one another and how do we do that through affection and mercy so there's a lot of these concepts, themes that you will hear over and over again that tie this objective of tranquility back to being affectionate being merciful, being compassionate and we'll explore that more in a moment other verses also let us know and indicate for us what we should be seeking just in our relationships but also from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'a comfort right we specifically should look to our spouses our partners to be a comfort to our eyes we should also in order to do that practice gratitude we should be grateful because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'a promises that if we're grateful he will increase us and that we continue to proclaim the blessings because once you lose one of your blessings you fall into error and in gratitude which is very dangerous for the soul but also for the relationships that you have so all of these are practices that will again cultivate tranquility in our marriages now those are the ideals and mashallah we've again heard from many esteemed teachers already about the ideals of Islamic marriage but we have to kind of bring it to the modern and the modern issue and so I wanted to just look for a moment at the different types of relationships that we're seeing today and I'm sure there's many iterations and different stories that we can share but in a nutshell I think it's very important that we define and understand what a healthy relationship looks like and today even according to researchers these are pretty standard definitions that a healthy relationship or a healthy household is defined by certain qualities among them are that everyone in that household feels safe so if you think about that for a moment it brings us back to this concept of tranquility right you can't have a tranquil home environment if anybody is feeling unsafe right and this is irrespective of factors like socioeconomics, race, culture education level, number of children or if it's even a single parent home if you want to see if it's a healthy household then that's the quality you're looking for does everyone feel safe and for the Muslim home this is predicated on the goal that the environment must be one in which the pleasure of God is a primary collective objective so that means everybody in the household in order to truly feel safe is seeking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to please Him above everyone else above themselves so that is the again just you know in a nutshell the definition of what a healthy relationship or household looks like so in contrast what does a dysfunctional relationship look like and again I want you to look at the words here and think about why we have this crisis in our community of broken homes, broken families and skyrocketing divorce rates because dysfunctional households are characterized by incompatibility lack of trust this is really important financial instability, abuse, violence lack of communication lack of empathy controlling behavior perfectionism criticism addiction, isolation mental health issues spiritual disconnect this is really important lack of respect undefined boundaries emotional or physical and I'm sure we can add more but if you really think about any relationship that you know that has had any of these you will likely agree that it's contributed to the dysfunctions in that relationship and potentially even the dissolution of the marriage itself so now I want to also address another problem that I think is very much a part of why we're seeing these this is because our expectations of marriage are so flawed you know I as many of you know I give talks on marriage as well as parenting and one of the root issues is that we come to the conversation so late we're not prepared often times we get in relationships without any preparation but that doesn't mean that we don't have expectations and what are those expectations coming from it's usually informed by culture, by media by whatever else we're consuming and so we have to really address our presumptions our expectations and see where the myths lie and what's really what's really real and so the illusion of happiness this is something again when people talk about marriage what is the focus the focus is always on the wedding itself the excitement of marriage is usually very much tied to the celebration of marriage so we think about you know the big wedding halls, the clothing and all these ideals that we've been maybe especially I'm speaking to the women we've been maybe looking at whether it's bridal magazines or Instagram or wherever else we're watching people's lives or experiences or weddings or marriages we kind of start to shape this expectation that that's what we want to you know looking at also families and just believing that it's perfect and everything has to be picture perfect and so when you enter relationships with that again misconception then you're going to set yourself up to fail and so that is where again exploring what are the myths that were commonly taught to have or to expect versus what is reality so the first I would say is that marital bliss dunya is attainable and this is 100% a myth it's not attainable because and the reality which you just you know look to the right here is because bliss as a concept is for the after it's not for dunya it's literally defined as perfect happiness and great joy we are not in the abode of bliss this is not the abode that any single person can experience bliss especially as a state you know you might have a moment of bliss but to expect that something is going to always be blissful is again a myth it's just not real or that a perfect marriage quote unquote is a problem free one as we heard mashallah from mufti abdu wahab and there are many other countless stories not just from the seerah but from previous prophets the prophets of God who were chosen people the elite of humanity they suffered right due to their marriages and in their relationships so that is just again a myth that you should not have problems and it's the moment you have a problem that it's now something that you should just discard and that's why we're again finding unfortunately that the move to divorce comes very quickly for some people because they entered marriage thinking well it should be perfect and I should be completely all my expectations should be met and this person should fulfill every desire and hope I have in the moment that things become difficult and that's just again wrong and then the last one would be that the more righteous you are the more perfect your marriage will be as we again heard from our previous speakers the best of creation sallallahu alayhi wa sallam dealt with marital problems so this there's that correlation just to simply false marriage is meant to test you so when you adjust your expectations recalibrate and you start to think that these are real and Allah has placed us in the dunya to be tested and he even tells us that he will test us through our relationships now I have a more accurate understanding and from here we can begin to build and also just a further proof of you know and I just put this list together but I'm sure I could add on to it if I really gave it more thought the marital problems address are addressed in the Quran look at the different stories of the prophets and just you know and saintly people or other stories that are mentioned in the Quran that actually reveal very serious issues in households in marriages in families so this is just further proof that this idea of perfect relationships is simply is not true in this lifetime actually it's well I guess I was going to test you but there goes that I was going to ask all of you if you could give me a number of what you thought in terms of like you know marital conflict right what the statistic here says which is basically that most of marital conflicts go unresolved and I think this is really a consolation right for anybody who's in a marriage and you've been struggling and I know I work with couples all the time who feel like these are repeat problems my god it's been five years six or seven years this isn't getting resolved that it sometimes starts to wear you down and you just feel hopeless but when you start to again look at what's happening on the ground in households all over the world then you realize these are human issues this is just you know indicative of our states our condition as human beings and also the test that many of us will experience which is that likely not everything is going to get resolved and how you deal with that is really going to make a difference in whether or not you're going to experience some level of again tranquility or peace of mind or if you're just going to be resisting and in a state of constant anger and frustration all the time because letting go and surrendering is a very big part of our faith Allah SWT tells us there are things you will not be able to control outcomes we cannot control you could put so much effort into something whether it's in your marriage or in your children for those of us who have children we know that you can spend so much time investing investing but the outcome is with Allah SWT so learning that that doesn't mean that we don't strive for solutions but I think the reason why this statistic again is important is because it just reminds us that it's part and parcel of the marital experience to deal with struggles and some of those struggles may get resolved but some may not what are you going to do about it how are you going to deal with that running away and just discarding relationships isn't always the answer it might sound easy but that opens up a slew of other problems that if you're not really thinking through your decisions it may come back to hurt you even greater than the relationship you were in and I know plenty of those stories as well so may Allah just give us again proper and accurate expectations now as with anything right when we look to try to look towards solutions we don't look at symptoms especially in a marital situation you don't look at the symptoms you look at the systems where are the systems flawed what is it in that relationship that could be corrected in our marriages it's likely because we haven't really understood the rights and responsibilities and that's what I was saying before is that we don't prepare people properly they just enter the marriage because they're all caught up in emotions and feelings to far ahead instead of really doing the necessary work to say wait a second do I even understand what I'm getting into have I even understood the what's demanded of me before I start to draw up all the things that I want right because that's where we should be starting we should be starting from the place of responsibilities like what does Allah subhan that expect from me as a wife what does Allah subhan expect from me as a husband and when you start from that place and you start to build your understanding eventually you'll learn about the rights that you're owed but your priorities are very clear that you're more worried about what pleasing Allah subhanu wa ta'ala and so this beautiful hadith is one that's used often to help us to find the proper structure of a Muslim home but also just leadership in general where the Prophet says each one of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his or her flock and then he goes on to detail what that means so here very clearly a man is the guardian of his family and he's responsible for them so he's putting the emphasis and the focus on the responsibility of the husband that you have to step into the role of being the guardian of your family and you're fully responsible for their safety for their protection for providing for them all of that that's on the man and then for the woman as well he the focus is on what she is responsible for the husband's home and his children and so these things are very clearly laid out for us and if we really again start from the place of understanding our responsibilities then we begin to build a more accurate understanding and here is further further elaboration about this point about shepherding and how it leads to effective leadership and that's why the analogy is so powerful because if you think of the shepherd they have to be ahead they're in a caretaking position and so you must first learn what effective leadership is and again fulfill your responsibilities before demanding your rights and so when we take apart prophetic leadership what do we learn? we see that the Paul Veslai said him in his own life in his own spirit in a prophet whatever he was doing these are the qualities that he possessed he was focused he's teaching us to be focused to be responsible to be knowledgeable about what we're doing to be attentive to those in our care to be in control of oneself so this is where we have to learn how to do that you can't just be this person that flies off the handle to learn restraint so learning how to control yourself being resilient life is going to come at us hard there's a lot of challenges you might have financial issues you might have in-law troubles you might have issues with your children can you stay the course and just work through those issues and we'll talk about how we can do that but to have that resiliency to be compassionate as well you can't just expect a person that expects everything to go your way without also realizing that sometimes they can't always come through and just to have some mercy and compassion in general being patient, respectful, vigilant, consistent, humble all of these are prophetic qualities that were taught in terms of leadership but obviously they apply to a marital situation for both the men and the women we all have to try our best to try to strive for these virtues and then how to prepare for leadership like those are ideals and they'll sound really great they're obviously prophetic qualities but how can we do that well this goes back to a term that you've heard me say many times we heard Mashallah Sheikh or Mufti Abdul Rahab mention it which is emotional intelligence it's really important because it's a prophetic quality and what does it mean it just means you're able to identify manage your own emotions and the emotions of other people if we don't cultivate this quality then our men and our women will continue to see our relationships suffer and so how do you become more emotionally intelligent well first of all you start with yourself you have to know your own limitations your own weaknesses your own shortcomings and obviously work towards that just again as our teachers were saying before you can't be the type of person that says I am what I am that's it like there's no fixing this that's not the mindset of a Muslim the Muslim is always in the mindset of I am a work in progress I have a lot of room for improvement and that's something that should be you know that comes intrinsically from both again the husband and the wife that you yourself want to be a better version of yourself always so understanding yourself while understanding your own needs and then you look to those in your care and what their needs are and you also are vigilant like a lot of marriages unfortunately in my experience have also you know fallen because there wasn't a vigilance and if you think of the shepherd why is that analogy important because the shepherd has to know the threats the imminent threats towards his or her flock so you have to be aware of is this something that I have to protect my marriage from this could be other people it could be many things but you have to be at least willing to observe what are the potential threats and dangers for your particular relationship and not just going with the motions because that's when a lot of people have unfortunately things that they were blindsided by because they weren't paying attention and then prepare with preventative measures so this is where education is important this is where experience is important I was recently speaking to someone about the importance of young people especially for any single people listening or watching it's very important that before you think of marriage or before you find someone that's not the time to start to learn about marriage it's really important that you start investing in that part of your life way ahead of time and how do you do that yes you can take courses and workshops like this or attend lectures but I think a much better strategy is to seek out really healthy couples that are maybe a little bit older than you and to start to try to your orbit somehow or just learn from them, watch them, observe them look at how they're interacting with each other and that can be a really great education so that's how we try to invest in preventative ways to protect ourselves in the long run because we're looking to good models of marriage and if your parents weren't that that's okay they're human beings but there are healthy examples in our community seeking counsel is also really important we have to know when to turn and I can't tell you how many people I have worked with over the years they were their own barrier to help either one or both refused to seek help because the ego the ego is our greatest enemy and within a marriage it's very destructive to have someone who's so defiant seeing their relationship fall apart having maybe daily conflicts but still not feel something compelling them to seek help that's pure nuffs and obviously shaitan because he loves nothing more than to destroy the muslim home so we have to put our faith into practice and a dina nasiha the provisional sought out advice so who are you if you think you're better than the provisional I said I'm fear god he literally sought advice out in his relationships so if that's something that is a barrier for you then just realize you are destroying your own home by your own hands and god will hold you to account and then of course we have to rely on allah subhanahu wa ta'ala be humble and submit to his will so these are how we prepare for leadership and then of course there's continuous ways that we can self-improve the provisional reminded us and I love this hadith because it really speaks to something that we experienced today it's relevant today because we're in the age of social media where it's all about pretense it's all about optics so people walk around and they as again one of the speakers mentioned like on social media it's all the highlight reel of their life because it's image based but this is a clear warning the best of what a believing man can be given is good character and the worst of what a man can be given is an evil heart with a beautiful appearance so if you're ugly inside your home behind closed doors you're an ugly monster but then you're outside and you're just like everybody's favorite person you're the social butterfly people flock to you that's an effect I don't know what else to call it that's what the provisional is warning us about don't fall into that be a person who's more concerned with what as we mentioned in the beginning pleasing allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that's your priority and then this is another really important hadith what it reminds us of is that there will be times where you're going to be pushed to your limits but rise above rise above don't fall into argumentation don't be a person that gives into what our teachers call the default setting the default setting of the human being is low character because we're nafs at the end of the day and that's why when you study the new fruits we have the nafs al amar abisoo is the is the bottom base nafs that most of us start with right we're just completely in our appetites me me me it's all about me and then we have to overcome that nafs and when we overcome it and we start resisting we get into what? nafs al lawama right which is the it's the nafs that's challenging it's struggling it's against itself and then as we keep going in that direction inshallah we rise to the nafs al mudma inna the default is to be low to be argumentative but al waspah that gives us so much reward when we abandon those qualities for his pleasure and so developing beautiful character being upright honest conciliatory peaceful compassionate these are the things that will bring us ease right in our relationships beautification inward and outward it's important that we mention that because you know if you're as they say letting yourself go whether it's inwardly or outwardly it will cause resentment in the relationship and that and because life is hard and marriage can be sometimes difficult that's not an excuse to just forget that we are in a conditional relationship when we're married it's it's based on conditions you enter the relationship in order to have fulfillment of certain things and vice versa so once you start slipping and letting go of those things not taking care of yourself whether physically or inwardly then you are taking the rights of the person you married and so we shouldn't do that obviously we should do the opposite continuously beautifying our inward and outward states staying focused on bettering yourself instead of putting the focus on your partner and over managing sometimes and that's very easy to do right we're so quick to criticize others and completely forget that we ourselves have a lot of improvement and I can tell you again from having conversations with many different couples it's usually a battling it's a fight between you know where both sides are trying to convince me the person between them of why the other person is wrong and very rarely do you see a moment where one or the other or both will actually be completely honest and say you know what I actually do this this or that it's just always finger pointing and blaming and shifting the blame and deflection so we have to be more concerned with bettering ourselves and then abandoning the ego they need to be right as we just read from this beautiful Hadith learning to pick your battles you're not going to win every battle it's just not going to happen there's going to be times where you are going to be forced to swallow your pride and to do something for the sake of the marriage for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that will be something that displeases you but guess what Allah is so generous that every time you do that for his pleasure you are being rewarded so is it a loss no but your nefs will tell you it's a loss because your pride is involved your ego will tell you you know oh you had to do this for him and then Shaytan of course is going to pour on fuel on that and make it seem like you're a victim and you are forced to do something how about rising above that and saying you know what I have my own mind and I want to I choose to do X, Y and Z because I know it's for the sake of Allah and that way you overcome your ego but being a person who really just is able to see that it's not always going to go your way but you're still not at a loss when you're doing it for the sake of Allah and then again being humble and remember Allah is all-knowing and will hold us all accountable if we don't behave responsibly in all of our relationships so there's no escaping his judgment at the end of the day you can get things out of people in this life and maybe you think you've won something if you by force or whatever but if you are taking away anybody else's rights we'll face Allah's judgment and that should be something that we keep in mind all the time so now let's shift gears to goals because whether you're married or again single and looking the objective again going back to the theme of tranquility is to create those safe and soulful spaces spaces where truly we feel we want to be home if you're running away from your home because there are problems there that you don't want to deal with there could be many reasons why but you should wish to change course you should wish to try to transform your home back into a space that you feel safe to go to and you want to go to and so how do we do that well we need to realize is when both the couple see that this is a shared path that we want to walk together with it's not one going ahead of the other it's together in unison we're walking on a path together that's what marriage is supposed to be so the team attitude is really important we're complimentary to one another that the Quran says right we're not adversaries so the power grabs that we see nowadays as a result of you know third fourth fifth wave feminism and the incel movement and all these other movements that ramp up men and women against each other to make us you know hate one another is not part of our faith it's literally toxic you know ideas, ideologies and whatever else political movements that have unfortunately infiltrated some of our community but we have to see it it's antithetical to our faith our faith teaches us to see one another in a complimentary way and never to give into this idea that you know we have to take power or else we will be powerless all of that you know those sentiments and those notions are just not part of our tradition and then how do we do that while we respect individual roles and responsibilities as we looked at the hadith of shepherding that's a very you know kind of general hadith but when you look at the examples of the Prophet's wife and his wives and all the other great men and women of our community their lives are examples of what it means to what the individual roles are right of between men and women as we said men are the maintainers this is in the Quran you cannot reject that to maintain their women what does that mean? it's responsibility it's amana and sometimes the translations and don't listen to the poor translations if they bother you they might frame it in a different way but it's not about it's more about responsibility than it is about power so if you're reading into that and it looks like oh that seems so unfair that's the wrong lens because nothing that Allah swt teaches or has taught us is ever unfair right Allah is the most just so it's about you know putting men in that's what you know which we'll get to in a moment but you know having an understanding of putting things in their proper place so the man's proper place in an ideal Muslim home is as the one who maintains the household and he's the one that we defer to for that responsibility and for the woman it's to again bring that beautiful warmth that love and inculcate a culture and a home where love is just flowing between everybody we can't do that if we're absent we can't do that if we're not at home if we're away from our homes all day long we're going to have a very difficult time managing the flow of love in our homes and that's what we see unfortunately and of course there are some women who just simply have no choice and I'm not this isn't about women who work versus being at home because there are certainly working women who can do this but it's about attentiveness it's about really focusing on your responsibility honoring innate differences you know we're living in a time where the gender binary is called into question which is insanity it's real it's true our Lord has revealed that it's true so what does that mean? Well there are true gender differences that we have to know men and women operate differently and part of the education that I think a lot of men need are on the differences of women and men in terms of the biological physiological factors women are under immense pressure physiologically from the start of their menstrual cycle all the way until death and I don't think some women even understand the effect of the constant bombardment of hormones and the fluctuations and how it affects mood how it affects ability, cognition memory, there's so much impact and if you as a man don't understand that you're not going to have empathy towards your wife but if you take some time to study and say wait a second her brain is being flooded by these very powerful hormones that impact her in so many different ways maybe I need to scale back and not expect her to create, you know, to cook a feast for my guests and then get mad at her and punish her so just practicing that empathy but that comes from knowledge and education and vice versa for women as well we need to also practice empathy for our men because the pressures that our men go through I mean I would never and I don't say this to insult men but I truly would never trade spaces with the men because the immense amount that they have not only to maintain their homes and marriages but also their parents, sometimes uncles, aunts, extended family members the responsibilities often fall on our men and then on top of that they have you know, kifaya for the community the men are going to be asked about certain things that we don't have to worry about as women so they're under immense pressure when it's time for battle nobody's looking to the women you know that's I mean depending on where you are maybe nowadays but the battle is usually it's the men that are called and so we have to appreciate that they are also under immense stress so when they come home and they just want ease to be you know, not to receive them with that ease is really important so these are how we are mutually considerate of each other's differences and really respecting the innate differences that we're created with and not trivializing them, dismissing them or erasing them this is not our tradition we don't erase what Allah SWT has created and what He has also made very real for us right and then admiring one another's individual strengths traits and skills is very important to reflect beauty back on to one another so when you see the strength of your partner that you're willing to compliment them to validate them to magnify those strengths instead of seeing them as some you know, some again source of threat to you that's just your nefs if you feel threatened by your spouses for example if you have a spouse who makes more income than you would you not see that as a great honor that Allah has given you someone what about Khadija our mother she was a woman of immense wealth and prestige and status did the Prophet SWT look to her with jealousy for her success or was he proud to be her husband and obviously he's the prophet of God so Alhamdulillah it's a two way thing but the point is to not be threatened by these things and then desiring one another's success always seeking mutual benefit this is really important so how do we do that well here's some again I know there's a lot of content here you feel free to take a picture if you want but just some very simple things that both husbands and wives can do and everything presented here is mutual it's not one sided I try to be very fair because at the end of the day it's it takes to right to either make or break a relationship so this isn't you know in any way a gendered conversation it's actually all across the board so mutual respect very important that we respect one another in the way that we speak that we don't demean we don't talk down to there isn't this whole top down sort of relationship model that we create no it should be just as the Prophet SWT in his own marriage he marriages he spoke to his wives as his partners not as you know as as their boss or they are his subordinates he never spoke to people that way trust honesty compromise and again you know we may not have time to go through all of these things but you know just really important another one is individuality this is really important because I see this happen where people enter a marriage and they lose their identity and we're also you know falsely kind of you know we're taught to look at marriage as this this notion that you come as a half a person and you look for your other half and no shade to brother Adi who has half our dean because that's a very different but I'm talking about just this idea that your partner has to complete you that's very dangerous why are you an incomplete person and why are you seeking another person to complete you or have you know agency of your own to try to strive for sense of wholeness in yourself and then you look to your partner to be your support in that but not the burden shouldn't follow a fall on them to do that for you right so don't lose your individuality have a strong sense of who you are and even in your marriage you know your individual identity is very important if you only become your you know your you know the wife of so and so or the husband of so and so and now you're you know in their in their shadow that's going to breed problems but you have to remember Allah has created us all independently right and and even though these roles are very important to be a wife and a husband and a mother and a father these are very essential roles at the end of the day our essential identity is what we are Ibad Allah all of us across the board and that means that all of us have to have some individual identity that we aspire to which is to try to again be the best versions of ourselves that which places Allah Allah good communication we know that at the end of the day that really is what can make all the difference is that we know how to talk to one another with respect listening before we jump in and interrupt and shut down conversations slam doors Allah be la where is this coming from this hostility this anger that's uncontrolled it's because we're not again doing that spiritual work and holding ourselves accountable and also we don't we're not learning how to communicate in healthy ways sometimes not every conversation has to be verbal I say this all the time if you're if you feel intimidated because your temperament gets flustered and I know this because I've seen it happen where some people their emotions override them so they have a lot of legitimate grievances but they cannot get them out then don't put yourself in that position where you undermine yourself and I'm not putting blame I'm just saying find a better way and the better way may be to collect thoughts jot them down write them down or find maybe someone else who can be your advocate and that's you know again where we're turning to people for counsel maybe a better option for you then fighting it then trying to advocate for yourself but it goes nowhere falls on deaf ears you never get any progress so these are the ways that we can learn how to communicate more effectively and then controlling our anger is very important if you've not done any spiritual work or haven't really studied the diseases of the heart this is a central knowledge before anybody gets into a marriage and I would say before you become a parent please take the time to learn Tuskegee learn the diseases of the heart there's 25 of them and start to purify yourself because otherwise they're only going to get worse marriage is is primed to test us so if you enter it with a disease heart full of diseases then it will only become more more more diseased whereas if you try at least to cleanse then inshallah anger is a big part of that and you know the many hadith where the prophet talks about you know not becoming angry right that don't become angry what he's saying is that sometimes mistranslated is not don't become angry because like literally obviously anger is a human emotion but what he's really saying is don't become anger right don't let the anger lord over you where all you are is anger because you can feel angry about something you may experience situations that put you in a state of anger but if you lose comportment and now you're just this walking ticking time bomb you know bursting at the seams unleashing anger on wife, husband, children in-laws if in-laws are in the home all the bilal that means you're not doing the work that you need to do in order to maintain yourself let alone your relationship fighting fair be a person who you know is sticking to the facts of the matter because there's a lot of gaslighting that happens in arguments and fights where it's like I just want to win it's not even about the truth it's not even about justice I want to put you in your place because I'm offended by you and I don't like you right now and that's not fighting fair I was a witness to all of that so we have to hold ourselves accountable to have some ground rules that when we argue or when we have disputation that we're going to remain respectful and our objective is to get to the truth not to win for personal victory what victory is it to win an argument with your spouse when you go to bed angry with each other the rules are upset the household is upset how is that a victory to anyone it's not problem solving spouses can learn to solve problems and identify new solutions by breaking a problem into small parts sometimes you don't need to tackle everything all at once so choose wisely empathy obviously self confidence being a role model and then the last one is also important we don't talk about this enough in these types of spaces but it is important because I've seen again a lot of abuse around that particular part of marriage and it is very important that we honor the rights especially as it pertains to the intimate rights of a relationship across the board and so taking the time to learn what those are what are the boundaries what's permissible what's not permissible and not ever falling into what we see today very common the weaponization of it right or the abuse of it this is not permissible it is a huge right in the relationship so if you withhold because you're angry at someone you're upset with them and that's your form of punishing them you will be held accountable the reason why we marry is for protection there's too much fitness so your partner is your protection from the evils and dangers out in the world and if you now become the reason why your partner is at risk for falling into something sinful you will be held accountable so that's a very important point and I'll lastly leave you with something I like to do play on words or acronyms something that I hope will stick with you because I know there's information overload happens whenever we come to these events but this is where you know learning that with time with patience with hard work we can create metal and this isn't metal as we understand M-E-T-A-L but metal as a quality because at the end of the day real talk marriage is difficult it's beautiful it has moments of joy it has moments of bliss moments it has experiences that are wonderful but at the end of the day it is meant to test us and to draw us near to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so we have to be in the long game we have to look for the long game and the way that you do that is you see there's certain qualities and traits that if you spend time inculcating it'll help you to achieve a quality called metal which helps you through difficulties and facing any demanding situations in a spirited and resilient way that's what we want we want our couples our husbands our wives to be resilient to be again looking toward success and so how do you do that here are the ways mercy right inculcating mercy etiquette manners adab this is very important adab again the definition of it is to know to put things in their proper place so we speak with adab we deal with one another with with respect with mutual consideration watch your tone you know if you're snarky if you're you know understanding patronizing you are out of line no matter what you're saying because you're veering away from prophetic character right if you let your arrogance manifest in the way that you speak this is again the fault is on you you could be saying something legitimate but the moment you adopt character that is out of prophetic character you're in the fault that's it it's like you you undermine yourself so just be a person who's like you know what my ground I'll state my things but I also am going to be very mindful of the way that I relay those things and that's where etiquette comes into place and then trust you know it's very important that we have trust within our relationship so secrecy I mean suspicion is directly mentioned in the Quran not to be a suspicious person right it's haram this we know but there's also something to be said about creating a relationship where trust is clear you know if you are behaving suspiciously if your phone you never part from it your all your passwords are locked you can never your spouse can never even go near your phone I'm sorry that's highly suspect behavior and we shouldn't do that so building trust means open communication means having you know this feeling like I know that this person I can count on them I don't you know I don't worry about them there's honesty there's trust and then of course equality that's what we all want that's a byproduct of having good etiquette and building trust is you just feel very safe you're going to feel safe in a relationship where those things are happening and then on the other side of it mercy if I am compassionate towards my spouse then that brings them ease and when they are in ease guess what they're going to be more loving and it's this beautiful cycle that it's just you know all sides are all every all parties are satisfied and so this these are the aims right if we just put this into motion this wheel of metal then inshallah it'll give us the tools and the skills to continue the course again marriages is a path it's a path and it's a beautiful path it comes with hardship like any path does right it's very difficult to travel in any meaningful way without coming upon some challenges but when you get to your destination and you can stop along the way to those vista points and you see really beautiful things hey it makes the journey all worthwhile and that's how you want to look at marriage our destination is to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala it's a gift to be married and it really is and we should we should want marriage and we should seek marriage and nobody should feel like oh because I've been married before I'm it's not marriage is not for me or I'm too old marriage is not for me leave that door open to always and if Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala I've seen beautiful relationships come with people for people who are who kind of maybe never thought it was possible for them but we just surrender to what Allah plans for us we don't plan you know especially for the future what do we know right so we surrender but inshallah may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala protect all of our marriages inshallah and I really again want to thank all of you Jazakumul Al Khayran Alright, Ms. Mermin, inshallah we have Sister Hina Khan Mukhtar here and she's a married mother of three young brilliant men and one of the founders of the homeschooling cooperative known as Ilm Tree in Lafayette, California which now serves over 35 homeschooling families in the East Bay in addition to having caught language arts elementary, middle school and high school students she's also involved in interfaith dialogue Hina was a monthly contributor to the Muslim observers raising our umma column and also writes for seeker's guidance where she shares parenting advice and ideas for nurturing spiritual traditions in childhood. Jazakumul Al Khayran, Ms. Mermin Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu So in 2018 I was blessed my husband and I were blessed in that we got to celebrate 25 years of marriage and as of this past August we got to celebrate 25 years now masha'Allah at the time seeker's guidance Sherfa Razirani asked me if I would be willing to write an article in which I detailed the tips and pieces of advice and the do's and don'ts of what I had learned over the past two and a half decades in married life and so I sat down and wrote this piece called 25 years worth of marriage advice article then developed into a talk and this talk is one that I give at various Lua parties so that article then developed into a talk that I've been giving at various they're called now Lua parties we didn't have them back when I got married in 1993 but masha'Allah it's a beautiful tradition that many families have started now where along with the bridal shower and the mehendi and the dolki and the little dance parties that young women have before their wedding celebrations they'll also have an event called a Lua party where they'll have somebody come and speak and give marriage advice and the elders will give advice to the young bride and her friends and so this talk developed from that and so primarily most of the advice in this article is geared towards women and for today's talk I've tweaked it a little bit so that it addresses men as well as women but what I want people to resist doing is I want women the sisters to resist thinking when they hear the advice in this discussion today well what about the men what about him why are you just talking to us and for the brothers I'd like to encourage that you refrain from hearing some of this advice and thinking aha are you listening to the wives and to any other women in their lives so this whatever you feel benefits you take from it inshallah whatever you feel doesn't apply to you feel free to ignore I will say however that everything I listed in this article has worked for me and has worked in the lives of women that I respect and admire whom I've been blessed to be able to observe and so I'm only sharing that which I feel actually benefits inshallah but I do want you to keep in mind that everything I am sharing is it is for those people who are in healthy marriages and by healthy marriages I mean that both spouses are God fearing they're not emotionally or physically abusive they know how to give their partners their rights they don't have any debilitating addictions vices personality disorders or mental health struggles so I wanted to say that from the get go because a lot of these tips only work if you're in the right frame of mind inshallah so the first big overarching umbrella piece of advice that my mother shared with us and many women, senior women in our community shared is make Allah suponathala your number one love and a scholar once told us that we should be looking at our orders of priorities in our lives like a pyramid so you look at it like a pyramid and you and your partner on the bottom and Allah suponathala is at the top and the understanding is that as you and your partner grow closer to Allah suponathala you also grow closer to each other and one of the other scholars said to us that you want to marry somebody who's going to drag you to jannah and upon first hearing that the reaction is drag you to jannah that doesn't sound very nice like sounds kind of violent and forceful what does that mean but what it actually is indicating is that getting to jannah isn't easy and there's going to be times that you're going to feel discouraged there's going to be times you're going to want to give up there's going to be times when you're going to be lazy and you're going to want a partner who's going to encourage you and motivate you until you know we can do this we're going to do this together inshallah so each partner wants to be that for the other somebody who's going to drag the other to jannah and so we want to look at our lives we're in our mid where we and our partner are down here on the bottom and alas panathala is at the top and we also want to look at our circles of concern and our in the core of our circles of concern in the core is alas panathala always making sure that his rights are met and then after alas panathala we women we look at our husbands and men we look at men look at their wives and their parents who are also their responsibility we look at our children after that our teachers and our scholars and our neighbors and after that the greater community and what happens sometimes is that people get the order of priorities mixed up and that's when you see the barakah leaving the marriage where maybe we end up spending all our time giving it to the community and we're not looking at what our children need or maybe we're giving all our time to our best friends and we're not looking at what our husband needs it's important to make sure that we look at our circles of concern and we make sure that alas panathala is the one who is in the center of it all we want to pray together and for one another supplicating every step of the way so anytime there's any major decisions to be made in the marriage praying salat al-staghada anytime you have a major need praying salat al-hadja salat al-hadja is the prayer of need is the prayer of guidance I know somebody who before they even buy a refrigerator they will first, even if they've decided this is the refrigerator we want to get they'll still pray istaghada in order to put barakah in the decision so again showing alas panathala is the top priority first and foremost like hasai said earlier that you want to make your marriage a means of drawing closer to alas panathala so your marriage is just you look at it as how much is he doing for me versus how much am I doing for him you look at it more as what am I doing that's going to be pleasing to alas panathala you want to have big intentions and you're not when you make big intentions and have big intentions you're not keeping score when you keep score that is what brings bitterness and resentment into the marriage so seeking alas panathala's pleasure and his approval is what's going to get inshallah all of us on the right track okay so the first section was make alas panathala your number one love the second section is work on increasing your love and affection men should know that women need affection it's a primary need for women and so we want to follow the example of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam the reason that he encouraged spouses to hold hands and to feed one another from the same plate just like any other blessing marriage can start to feel stale it can start to feel old you can start to take it for granted but these types of intimate gestures help reinvigorate the marriage you want to take note of the five languages of love there's a book out there that you can find that discusses the five languages of love is that there's five ways that men and women show love to one another five ways all human beings show love to one another and the way people show love is by providing service by giving your time by giving verbal praise and affirmation by giving physical affection and by giving gifts these are the five languages of love and you want to see which language your spouse is utilizing on you if you have a different language of love your spouse may not notice your language of love because they can't hear it because you're speaking a different language and I'll give you a case in point my love language is verbal affirmation big surprise I'm big about talking and telling people how much I appreciate them writing about how much I appreciate them and love them my husband's language of love is service he doesn't talk much about how much he loves you he's just quietly doing what needs to be done and the times that my husband and I butt heads or we have a conflict it's usually when we're speaking different languages of love and we're not hearing each other so I made an effort to look nice and you didn't say anything about how pretty I look or you didn't say anything about how delicious my food is that I made for you today and an example of a time when he was frustrated with me I was in his car and I came back and the gas tank was on empty because that's something he would never do he would never leave me with an empty tank of gas and so to him it was a sign of inconsideration for me to overlook the fact that I was leaving him with an empty gas tank because he's all about service so for me in order to make sure that my husband feels loved I have to get out of my comfort zone and do what I know my husband would do to show his love to me he gets out of his comfort zone inshallah and tries to make more of an effort of talking about things that I might want to hear from him another big need for women is the need for intimate conversation they say that men fall in love with their eyes and women fall in love with their ears and there's truth to that that there's a reason women love poetry and there's a reason women love deep and intimate conversations and why they like to get on the phone with their friends and talk to them for a long time whereas husbands are just fine hearing the basic details of what's going on the basic points and not going into too many details so that's something for men to keep in mind that women need intimate conversation and they need undivided attention when you are talking to them so you want to establish a routine or a tradition that nobody else is allowed to get in the way of work not your parents not your children for some couples it might be Sunday morning brunch for others it might be after dinner tea others may choose to go on an evening walk or read aloud to one another when they're in bed there are many who've established a designated date night in their weekly schedule the point is you want to have something special just for you two and then you want to jealously guard it it should be something that you both will miss if it ever gets taken away by the way something I actually meant to bring up in the beginning which I forgot to the title of my talk is actually about failing marriages and I'm actually an optimist and I'm somebody who tends to look at the glasses half full and so I wanted to flip the script instead of talking about failing marriages inshallah I'd rather talk about what makes a marriage successful and then people can look at that and see what is it that I need to be doing more of and what is it that I need to inshallah maybe stop so date nights and special time for one another is something very important to bring into your schedule you want to hold on to your passions and your interests you may not be into each other's pet projects and that's okay but you should be each other's biggest cheerleaders you want to ask sincere questions about whatever hobby the other person is into I am not into football I don't understand the game I don't get why my sons and my husband are so excited about football but I try to support them when they have their Super Bowl parties I try to occasionally ask questions about what's going on but I don't poo poo it I don't put it down I don't make fun of them I don't dismiss it as if it's something you know dumb my husband jokes that he's a coffee and donut guy married to a tea and scone girl we're very different about the things we like and that we enjoy but we do try to take a healthy interest in what the other person enjoys and without being condescending about it men need recreational companions they need somebody they need their spouses to be interested in what they're doing and to make time to accompany them for things that are of interest to them I was very touched recently over Thanksgiving break my husband went out of his way to take me to visit the birthplace of William Shakespeare in England and he is not into English literature he has no curiosity about curiosity about William Shakespeare but he followed me around while I went around you know checking out the room that William Shakespeare was born in and the classroom that he studied in he was a good sport about it the truth is if he made me go to a football game I don't think I'd last but alhamdulillah it was a sign of him you know taking an interest in that which I'm interested in Khidma or service the Arabic word for service wins hearts so filling his gas tank that you realize is almost unempty helping him complete the dreaded tax warms sewing on his button that you noticed came loose are all signs that you care about him and are looking out for him for some spouses actions speak louder than words so there should be a difference ladies between you being present in his life and you being absent as I touched on this in her talk and I'm just going to quickly skim over it but it's a very important point among the most important duties of husbands and wives in the Islamic context is the fulfillment of one another's sexual needs this is not something to be taken lightly spouses who insist on rejecting their partners advances cannot be surprised to then witness the relationship disintegrate there are situations when a husband is forbidden to approach his wife for intercourse during her menstrual cycle during her postpartum bleeding and during the fasts in Ramadan but outside of these cases it is imperative for both spouses to do their utmost to make sure that they are partners in every way not least of which physically always always pray to Allah Allah is great and glorified as he that he maintains the love in your heart for your spouse and that he preserves the love in your partner's heart for you Allah is the one who put the love in our hearts for one another and he's the one who can take it out just like that just like that if tomorrow your spouse decides that they no longer love you and no longer want to be with you there is nothing you can do about it is completely a gift from Allah that out of the billions of people in the world there's one person who's choosing to love you and you are choosing to love that person so you have to recognize it as a blessing and you need to be doing salat al shukr prayer of gratitude for that blessing okay the next section your grandmothers were right all men want respect ladies men need admiration they need to feel appreciated and they need to feel that their women are proud of them the wife may be the one to instigate most of the major changes in life she might be the one who brings home the thicker paycheck in some cases she may even be older however the husband should be given the respect of having the clear role of being amir or the leader of the family he should be honored by the wife and the children as the guardian of the household and he in turn should recognize that Allah is the guardian of his and his wife's household now of course acknowledging that your husband is the amir doesn't mean that you aren't vocal in sharing your opinions one grandmother joked the husband is the head of the family and the wife is the neck that turns the head you don't want to contradict or correct your husband in public same with husbands you want to give each other the dignity that your partner deserves you don't want to ever demean your spouse to your children if you don't honor your children's parent your children will not honor their parent either and remember it's still riba or backbiting that he or she wouldn't like even if you're only discussing your partner with people who will always love him or her you don't want to let down your guard when it comes to your partner's rights ladies if your husband ever buys you a gift that you don't love love it anyway try to see the heart of the gift giver behind the gift there are always gentle of honestly communicating your preferences at a later time and this is an important one for young people these days regardless of whether you had a social media presence before your marriage or not once you're married be aware of your partner's views on how much you post about yourself and your life with your partner you want to respect each other's limits put your cell phone and yes even your prayer beads away when your partner is trying to talk to you about their day give your undivided attention and teach your children who are old enough to understand that they are not to interrupt their parents time together laugh with your partner but never at your partner never laugh at your partner's expense okay the next section make your home a haven and ladies make yourself his hoodie and men make yourself her hero now I realize that there are many women today who are uncomfortable with the word hoodie but hoodies are real creations of Allah and they are described in the holy Quran as the companions in paradise and I believe that it's time that we reclaim this word and own it for what it is there's no reason why we cannot be little pieces of paradise inshallah and there's no reason why we cannot be heavenly companions for our husbands within our own homes so when you see your beloved for the first time after he returns home or after she returns home make sure to greet your partner and kiss him or her or hug him or her practicing muslim men and women who have taqwa god consciousness with men and women who are not their blood relatives and many of them are surrounded at work by other men and women who make a real effort to look attractive and to smell good you are the reward your husband gets at the end of a long dry day and you want to be soft and affectionate and fragrant men especially need to be physically attracted to their wives and men want domestic bliss what does domestic bliss look like everybody wants domestic bliss so this is an umbrella definition of domestic bliss but men especially are looking forward to escaping the world and finding that domestic bliss and support in their home what it looks like is peace and quiet and no nagging and it's a world that smells good clean and organized and it's not chaotic and where a person feels welcome and a person feels supported and so we want to make a real effort to make sure that our homes are the eye of the storm the whole world is in turmoil right now there's a big storm raging around us but every storm that Allah has created has an eye of the storm where everything is peaceful and quiet and things are not whirling around our homes can be the eye of the storm inshallah if both husband and wife work at it when you know that life has been stressful and busy this goes for the men as well as the women wait until your partner has had a chance to relax before asking them to do anything or breaking any bad news to them everything about you from your clothes to your hair to your skin to your breath should smell clean and fresh for yourself yes but especially so for your partner you want to be kind and welcoming to one another's friends but you don't ever want to be in solitude with the opposite gender and that includes not being alone with a person of the opposite gender on social media either it's very easy to think that you're safe because there isn't any physical contact but it's very easy to start emotionally attached to somebody else if they're showing you kindness and friendliness even if it's just through texting or on social media the next section is called conflict is inevitable learn how to manage it in a healthy manner so the first two years of marriage often end up being the most exciting as well as the most challenging even if you were to go on a fun best friends trip you know the men with their buddies and the women with their girlfriends if you were to go on a trip you're bound to rub each other the long way after being in each other's space for periods of time and traveling together so of course that's going to happen even with your spouse especially with your spouse and so in the first couple of years you're learning how to live your partner is also having to do the same but what it comes down to is that marriage isn't so much about struggling against another nuffs another ego as much as it is about struggling against your own nuffs against your own ego so expect to be challenged intend to grow it's perfectly okay to have different personalities and to have different interests variety is a spice of life but what you want to make sure is that both of you have the same goals for your marriage and for your future family and that you're both on the same page about how you're going to achieve those goals inshallah so one of my cousins caused a bit of consternation in our family when we were having a group discussion about marriage we were giving advice to a cousin of mine who was getting married and he said I don't believe in the word compromise when it comes to marriage my mother she was like what are you saying marriage is compromise but then he went on to explain if you think of everything as a compromise you're going to keep score and you're eventually going to become bitter once you decide to do something try to embrace it fully and believe in it don't think of it as a compromise anymore and we all agreed that there was wisdom in that you want to self reflect and be too proud to apologize the relief on your partner's face and the peace that comes in the home after suffering the sting of stepping on your own nuffs on your own ego in order to say I'm sorry I was wrong is so so worth it it's worth it it's a given that all of us are going to get angry at some point or another but it's when tempers are flared that people's true natures are revealed you want to be mindful of who you always want to be try even if it's a struggle to maintain your adab your manners, your etiquettes when you're upset being angry is never an excuse to break or throw things to scream, to curse to use foul language to slam doors, to pull hair to spit, to raise an arm or to throw punches these are all things that happen in dysfunctional marriages there's no excuse for them ever don't casually toss around the D word divorce every time you feel overwhelmed in regards to our interpersonal conduct when we're feeling frustrated it's important to always remember Allah subhanahtala is watching don't ever be disrespectful to your partner what does disrespect look like what is disrespect very simple rule of thumb if your partner thinks you're being disrespectful you are that's it if your partner says I feel disrespected you're being disrespectful this is a really big one that my mom always told us it's a golden rule when your spouse is angry or visibly agitated stay quiet in the heat of the moment you can always make your point at a later time there's always time later it doesn't have to be said right then and there when addressing your disagreements avoid using absolutes like always and never it's not fair to forget the positives in your spouse by saying you always do this bad thing or you never do that good thing it's rare that issues are black and white there are always shades of gray I just said always most of the time there are shades of gray so we shouldn't be so quick to condemn one another don't expect your partner to be a mind reader if something is bothering you discuss it set yourself up for success by beginning your conversation with an I statement instead of a you statement for example again, that was so thoughtless of you instead try to turn it around and say I feel frustrated when I find clothes all over the bedroom at the end of a long day try to avoid getting personal and don't assume that your partner knows exactly how their actions are affecting you give your partner the benefit of the doubt you want to learn to distinguish between a criticism and a complaint a complaint is an expression of a problem that you'd like to solve for example it's really frustrating for me to find a messy bedroom at the end of a long day that's a complaint a criticism adds disrespect to the complaint it is so frustrating for me to know that you're a slob why are you such a slob how are you raised don't go to sleep angry stay up and fight instead no I'm just kidding I'm kidding contrary to the age old advice to resolve all conflicts before going to bed sometimes it actually helps to sleep on a problem but first you have to calm yourself down by reminding yourself to have the what go or trust in Allah once you've had a full night's rest you can tackle your problems with a fresh attitude the next day what you want to make sure to avoid is sleeping in separate beds you'll be surprised how many problems can eventually get solved just by snuggling under the covers together it's shaitan who wants to separate you too always remember that avoid arguing in front of your children but if they ever do witness a loud disagreement between you and your spouse make sure to make up and apologize in front of your children as well show them that marital conflict is not the end of the world and that there are healthy ways to resolve issues let them witness you apologizing and hugging it out holding grudges breeds toxicity and dysfunction once issues are resolved don't keep up bringing past mistakes learn to forgive and then forgive every single day have a sense of humor about each other's flaws and foibles for example I am always losing my eyeglasses always I have I think 10 pairs lying around the house more my husband is always collecting them and putting them in a safe place for me but I'm still always losing them I wish eyeglasses had the feature that the iPhone did where you say Siri where are you then your eyeglasses say here I am but they don't but my husband never gets mad at me about it he's alhamdulillah always got a sense of humor about me being annoying honestly I'm being very annoying by always searching for my glasses as I'm going up the door but alhamdulillah just have to have a sense of humor about each other's flaws go with the flow and for other words just let it go just let it go alright the next section is called be a uniter and not a divider when you get to know you're in laws you're going to see that not every family does everything the way your family does and that's not necessarily a bad thing you want to take the good that you see in your new family and adopt it and you want to ignore the bad and you want to resolve with your husband however not to allow either of your families poor habits and poor choices to continue in the next generation that you're hoping to raise together inshallah you don't want to complain about or criticize your spouse to your own family you're eventually going to get over whatever was bothering you but it's going to be difficult for your parents and your siblings to forgive and forget so easily you want them to respect your partner so you want to be a veil for your husband brothers you want to be a veil for your wife physical abuse however is a non-negotiable deal breaker god forbid if that line is ever crossed you want to sound the alarm and you want to get help immediately if you want your partner to respect your family you want to have to show respect for your family first your partner will follow your lead if your partner sees that your family is always causing you to feel stressed out and annoyed then they're eventually going to start to resent your family for bringing stress into their own household so you want to protect and nurture that special yet fragile relationship between your spouse and their in-laws even if it's not a priority for your spouse you want to take the time to buy your partner's parents and siblings presence remember their significant days just because the prophet said give gifts to each other and you will love one another so go ahead and buy your in-laws love if your husband or your wife is ever upset with their own siblings or extended family don't jump in and encourage your partner in their negative opinions you want to defend your in-laws and make excuses for them and encourage your partner to see the good in them be their advocate if you have nothing nice to say just stay silent your partner may not admit it then but he or she will be grateful for your attitude later and will thank you even if only in their hearts because the truth is nobody wants to hear anybody else bad-mouthing their own family so remember when we talked earlier about the service being one of the five languages of love well here is an opportunity for one of the highest forms of service you want to be someone who helps mend hearts and helps bring relations together don't be a cause for discord in the family this next section is called don't try to keep up with the joneses you want to avoid debt like the plague a large fancy expensive house may do nothing towards making you happy however a small clean cozy simple peaceful home in a safe neighborhood filled with people who are hopefully trying to please Allah swt can very well feel like a palace in heaven inshallah responsibly managing the family budget will avoid a lot of stress in your marriage paying ribba or usury brings about all kinds of problems in one's life and it destroys the barakah or the blessing in the home don't ever pay interest even if it means you never get to own your own home or your own car in this life keep your akhira on make do with what you have and only complain to Allah for your wants and needs make your husband feel like a hero make your wife feel like a hoodie having said that don't hesitate to schedule time to have honest conversations with your spouse about anything that needs to be improved the key is not to become an irritating nag who is constantly whining and complaining and issuing orders you want to talk to your spouse when he or she is in the headspace to listen be grateful be grateful Allah swt says in the holy Quran if you are grateful I will surely increase you and Allah swt always keeps his promises remember not in this life at least so don't compare your life to others and at the same time you might not want to brag to the world about how happy you are or how perfect your life is ayin the evil eye and hasad malicious jealousy are two realities that Allah swt has allowed to exist in this world so you want to protect your marriage from them besides who wants to be the cause for pain or sadness in the lives of those who are struggling with their own love lives there are going to be little things that are going to irritate you about your spouse and sometimes those causes for irritation might start to feel like big things even when they are not at those times you want to remind yourself that perfection is only for Allah swt and you want to try to think about what your life would be like without your partner and you want to be grateful for a spouse who is choosing to somehow still accept you despite your shortcomings and if somebody else's husband or wife seems perfect to you remember that everyone has flaws and good spouses hide their spouse's shortcomings so you are probably not getting the full picture nor should you expect to this is a big one and I heard Babali touch on this earlier instead of chasing happiness try aiming for contentment instead aim for ridah for contentment don't take one another for granted your spouse is a duniawi or worldly blessing that can be taken away at any moment somewhere out there is somebody who would be more than happy to trade places with you so appreciate what and whom Allah swt has given to you the next section is called have a mentor in marriage avoid getting marital advice from people who you know are having their own relationship problems similarly stay away from getting advice from newbies who are still learning the ropes themselves I tell this to young people all the time don't get advice from your best friend who got married last year look to someone who has a long term successful marriage of his or her own to find out how to make it work try to find one wise discreet person to consult don't tell everybody your problems if somebody you respect says that you need therapy you probably do don't be ashamed to do whatever it takes to save your marriage give it your all if you do pay for marital therapy only seek out trained professionals who understand and respect the parameters and priorities of your religion you'll be surprised at how often well meaning but spiritually clueless therapists will prescribe the haram or divinely prohibited as medicine for a troubled marriage I know of a young couple who were having bedroom issues and their non-muslim marital therapist told them to watch pornography together that was what they were advised so we're very grateful for organizations like wasila and muslim marital therapists in our community who we can turn to inshallah ok and the last section is called set yourself up to soar spiritually your spouse may be your best friend or maybe he or she is not your best friend that's ok either way you don't want to neglect your good friends that you do have in your life you want to take time to nurture those bonds that help you be a better person there's going to come a day the women you're going to need the support of your sisters and there's going to be a time when brothers are going to need the support of your brothers but don't let falling in love make you fall out of friendship with your tribe you want to consider connection with your friends as part of your self care but remember that your spouse and your spouse's needs always take precedence if after being married people routinely mistake you for being single you're definitely doing something wrong you want to attend religious classes together religious workshops together either in person or online the point is to keep growing together spiritually you may not grow at the same pace and that's ok you're two separate souls after all but at least you'll respect the same teachers and you'll understand each other's motivations and goals instead of listening to those people who advise don't let marriage change you amend their words to marriage should only change you for the better take an occasional break and travel even if you can only afford to do so locally we're very fortunate here in Northern California lots of beautiful places to explore so get out there get out of your neighborhood and explore together but like Hussai said earlier make Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala your ultimate destination that's it thank you sister Hebel Haddad received her undergraduate degree from UC Irvine in psychology of social science later earned her master's degree in clinical psychology and has completed her PhD in clinical psychology at California Southern University Hebel is an affiliate of the Sanford Muslim Mental Health Lab focused on providing resources for clinicians, researchers and community leaders working with the Muslim population believing that prevention is superior to intervention she has worked on promoting awareness on many topics through seminars workshops and lectures through her previous role as a mental health instructor at Kaiser Permanente and currently as a closed center practitioner Hebel is a part of a group of clinicians and scholars who contributed to the publishing of the new text of the National Islamic Integrated Psychotherapy Model titled Applying Islamic Principles to Clinical Mental Health Care for Muslim Practitioners Nationwide so just to contextualize divorce from metaphysical perspective very briefly because my talk is not just purely metaphysical it's mostly scientific relating to psychology but I really wanted to contextualize what divorce is from our tradition, from our perspective because I think it's very often misunderstood and the way that it's contextualized in a non-Muslim setting is very different so I think we know that divorce or talaq is one of the most hated things in the sight of Allah's power to Allah that is the general ruling right however there are situations that I have witnessed directly in which there is harm being caused to one or both spouses in which that dispensation shifts to being a morally neutral event or something that takes place and it's no longer in that situation despised by Allah's talaq because harm is being caused now what do we mean by harm right what we mean in cases of abuse and there are many different forms of abuse that we witness amongst couples all the way from in-laws to the couple themselves to the children to relatives you name it, it happens and divorce is really part of your toolbox so for marriage we have a whole host of awesome advices and tools just like Hina and Hosea mentioned and I think Jaiba mentioned earlier as well given his topic but sometimes Allah decrees for something different to happen as an outcome of that relationship and I think in the past we have often viewed the success of the marriage based on the longevity of the marriage so if you've been married for 30 years 35 years, 40 years in some cases and that towards the end of life or as you get older I see a lot of couples who split up they often view that this whole marriage was meaningless if this is how it ended up if we are divorced or even if you marry young and it just doesn't work out and you have to move on you view that that whole relationship was a failure and that couldn't be farther from the truth and I'll tell you why so when I sit with individuals I'm able to assess and gauge how much growth takes place for an individual and I think one of the greatest tools for teaching is relationships so metaphysically the purpose of marriage is for us to be a divine locus of control in which Allah's Panawata's attributes are filtered out through the prism of your heart to the person that you share space with intimately now if I underdeveloped immature don't have enough experience didn't grow up seeing a healthy model of what a healthy marriage looks like then I'm not really going to know how to be as a person within an intimate space so everybody can do theatrics everybody can perform you know everybody does that we have to do that to a certain degree if you're arguing with your spouse you're not going to go out into public space and start yelling at each other or demeaning one another there has to be civil comportment and behavior but in private you may be clueless as to how you should engage with this individual because of a healthy sense of self you don't have a healthy relationship with yourself and you don't know how to carry yourself and you don't know how to connect with other human beings not alone someone who's so close to you in proximity that you have to share space with within a very small home environment from morning until night for the rest of your life so this can become a very challenging thing now I have seen as an impetus for growth sometimes short lived marriages can lead individuals to learning life lessons that they would never have learned otherwise and sometimes as a result of that their second marriages are much better because they have learned so much from their first experience and they have vowed they have promised Allah SWT that they will not replicate those same mistakes that they have made in the first relationship and so they view the second relationship as sort of a gift Allah SWT has given me this second opportunity in order to be a better version of myself in that past relationship and I don't want to ever repeat those mistakes again so sometimes this is what we see so that's why we say we determine the success of a relationship purely on the longevity of that relationship because sometimes short term relationships of course you never go into a marriage intending for it to be short short term you always marry for life and again if Allah's decree is something different for you at that point you understand that that doesn't mean that that relationship failed there are many things that I could have taken from that relationship and it helps improve me and grow me as a person so that the next individual that inshallah is blessed to have you in their lives does not have a similar experience and has a much more harmonious experience with the both of you and the dynamic now conflict resolution is what divorce is viewed as last resort it is not one of the first tools that we ever go to especially as muslim providers right we don't want divorce for our couples that we work with and so you want that to be a very last resort and there are a lot of things that have to be in place in order for islah or improvement or betterment for the marriage to take place and one of those very vital things is that both individuals have to have a keen interest on making the relationship work if one and usually this is what we see is one is really desperate to make the marriage successful and the other individual is not as invested right or they're very good at covering up how they really feel and they're very disassociated and they just show up and say I'm here because she's making me come and sometimes in other occasions the husband is the one who brings in the wife and the wife is very resistant and so both have to have an interest in making this relationship work and a lot of things depend on that interest so it's about the minimization of harm this is really why the dispensation moves to a morally neutral position because now I have an out if all the doors are closing in my face and I've tried and I've went and I've sought counsel and I've read books and I've worked on myself I've faced my inner demons and this is still not working out then it becomes harmful for you to actually remain in such a marriage because again if the other person is not invested in making this work then you are harming yourself because with each passing day you are going to feel like your self-worth is declining and your sense of self you're losing your sense of self I don't even know who I am because I'm acting now from a place of fear and desperation in trying to make this relationship work and every time you approach someone from a place of fear and desperation they run in the opposite direction that is not an attractive thing to an individual to see first and foremost it comes off as very needy and generally individuals don't like to be approached from that place they want to be approached from a place of love and that love is placed in the hearts of people and there are certain things that we as human beings, as flawed human beings do, to grow that love and nurture it and try to protect it as much as possible now when do you think about divorce? when you no longer can see the divine attributes of Allah's panohatata being reflected from your spouse where you don't see them in your spouse and I'm not saying at all that as soon as you don't see them you're out, no again, there's protocols that you have to follow there are steps and this is the very last tool in the toolbox as a dispensation for when it's needed but when you don't see the divine attributes for example you every time your spouse wants something and you know what your spouse loves I think all of us have an idea I know what my husband loves and my husband knows after 20 plus years what I love now if they are intentionally over and over doing that which you hate and it seems and it becomes actually very apparent that they're doing it intentionally out of spite, out of resentment sometimes out of hatred and hate comes from love it's because you once cared so much that you no longer care anymore but the beginning phase of that feeling was love and that's where hate also comes from so whenever I see extreme hate sometimes it's a good indication to me that this person still cares because why are they so wild up and so agitated by their spouse's actions if they didn't care and there's an underlying caring or concern that is a good sign for me that gives me some fuel to work with and to build upon that and to unlearn and relearn things and build and grow from there but if they are intentionally doing this because they just don't care anymore it's a state of apathy they're disinterested they don't care they don't have any desire to make this work actually in their mind thinking about other options while they're still in a relationship with you now this is when, for example we know that Allah's Panathana one of His 99 names is Ajama right this is when your spouse's behavior starts to reflect Allah's divine names in a very distorted way and they become al-Farq right or a manna arriving you but not in a good way for example, as when a wife is on her menstrual cycle and her husband wants to be intimate with her and she can't that's a manna but that's within the bounds of our faith that's not a bad thing so the example that I was giving was how Allah's divine names are manifested in a very distorted and corrupt way you know when a woman is on her cycle and her husband approaches her and she refuses because she cannot in that situation she's manifesting a manna but within bounds of our faith now when it is manifested in a way that is outside of the bounds right for example, she wants to spend time with him and he deprives her of his company and he comes up with a million excuses and the excuses just become more and more creative with each passing day so in that situation he is manifesting a manna but in a corrupt way because he's not helping to join the hearts and invest in the marriage he's clearly not interested in investing in the marriage and has other priorities so in that situation our teachers always say that when you are distracted consistently consistently is the key word here from your purpose of why you are here in the short time allotted to us in this life you are consistently distracted consistently putting out fires consistently feeling attacked or deprived or neglected even or abused because neglect is also a form of abuse you're not nurturing something it's not worth your time so in that type of situation in those types of scenarios that is when I cannot ascend in my relationship with Allah SWT because I'm constantly being pulled to the lower levels in which my needs as a human being are not being met so when my needs as a human being are not being met I cannot ascend spiritually or try to gain proximity to Allah SWT because I'm too busy trying to be loved trying to feel safe with someone emotionally trying to being in a caring, nurturing relationship and that's not happening I'm constantly fighting for that so that is a situation in which after you've sought counsel, after you've sought help in this individual whether it's the female or the male are not holding up their end of the deal then that is when divorce becomes an option that you consider now interestingly enough I think we have this backwards we often say that divorce rates are becoming like exponentially growing and I think something to keep in mind is at the time of the Prophet Adam SAW divorce were very simple and they were not complicated processes because you did not view your spouse as the end all be all they were not your soul mate it was you married for practical reasons for economic reasons for spiritual reasons there weren't as many expectations placed on marriage now in 2023 going on to 2024 I haven't seen a process that is more complicated than divorce and marriage both and I think our expectations one time I heard a quote that said expectations are resentments on lay way we have as the world has become more post-modern our expectations have also grown of this individual and this individual is now viewed as your entire village so and the reasons for why people are marrying have changed drastically drastically now it's become all about romance and love and I'm not saying any of those things are bad or not significant they absolutely matter you absolutely have to be with somebody that you are attracted to you absolutely have to be with someone who you enjoy their company not every time you're sitting and spending time with them you feel like your well of a body is being poisoned that is really problematic and that is not so cool that is not tranquility that is not harmony you cannot have a loving who is always the antagonist someone who is always antagonizing you or someone who is always irritating you or someone who is always just getting on your nerves because you just don't really appreciate talking to them, you don't appreciate their sense of humor you don't appreciate their outlooks on life or maybe you just don't have shared goals so incompatibility can poison the well and it can make you detest your life being at home or despised being at home and this is a really significant problem and so in the Judeo-Christian traditions and faiths divorce wasn't really welcomed it wasn't really something that was viewed as an option up until 50 years ago but Islam has always had that dispensation marriage and divorce always took place so my teacher always says that divorce rates in the western world have now caught up to the Muslim world because for us it was always something that's permissible but only as a last resort and especially in the Christian faith it wasn't something that was even permitted it wasn't even something that was viewed as an option until 50 plus years ago now ideal time for a divorce is you don't want to wait until you hate each other and cannot stand one another to think about divorce because you're not going to be able to work out arrangements and the finances and all of this you can't even communicate with one another and now you need a mediator who is the third party who is trying to talk to both parties because you can't even talk to one another anymore that's when you know that you've waited too long and you don't actually have to wait until there's hatred between the two hearts it's something that poisons the souls and it also impacts especially if children are involved in-laws are involved all of your friends that you had as a couple it will start to impact those relationships as well all of that shifts with divorce now very briefly divorce statistics I'm not going to get into this because there isn't that much time but the average length of a marriage prior to the consideration of divorce is approximately 8 years there is something that we call in therapy the 7 year itch in which you start to really think about did I make the right decision is this the right person for me maybe there's someone better out there and especially as you are exposed to the lives of other people increasingly more so with the advent of technology and social media etc you start to actually believe that there may be better out there I'm not saying that's not the case but it's detrimental to your marriage when you are constantly exposed to the lives of other people thinking because you're not seeing other than their highlight real so you're thinking wow he's always always taking her and traveling and her husband's always treating her so well and they eat out so often and look at the status of their life look at the quality of their life it's infinitely better than mine and you start to despise your own life and you can't have that riddle you cannot have that contentment if you're constantly eyeing what the other has right you can't cultivate gratitude for your own life and now divorce rates are declining interestingly enough but I think that's because not as many individuals are getting married a lot of people are living together outside of the institution of marriage so therefore if you split up there is no divorce that's required right it's very simple we can just go our separate ways third marriages have the highest divorce rates of 73% right because usually if the first and second time did not work out well for you usually not always but usually there is a more significant problem that is not being addressed and you keep hopping from one relationship to the next thinking that I can get away from this problem if I just change the partner but what you're not realizing is the problems inside of you and this is why it's being manifested in every single intimate relationship you try to have now common causes of divorce are as all of us know and I'm going to get a little bit deeper into this beyond the superficial surface level of what we may often hear is lack of commitment especially in this day and age again where there is an over exposure to other people and their lives there is a lack of commitment many couples who divorce say that I just wasn't able to commit I just couldn't commit and I couldn't fulfill all the requirements and expectations that my spouse had of me and so the easy way out is just to call it quits and move on a lot of people did not know what marriage entails and I think this is a slightly problematic issue within our cultures is we're not very forthcoming about everything that the marriage entails the good, the bad and the ugly because every relationship has the good and bad and ugly very much so minimize the ugly and we try to enhance and increase the beauty in the relationship if someone treats you well if someone's caring and nurturing and someone's genuinely concerned about your well-being as much as their own that is the divine attribute of Allah being manifested and who wouldn't want that someone who genuinely cares for you at the end of a long day that you can go in and share your day with the good and the bad 60% of divorced couples cited infidelity as a reason this is not really surprising and much of the infidelity takes place on social media and on apps there are infinite ways of hiding relationships today that is very scary because it invites you to that which creates darkness in your life and something to keep in mind is that all of our actions either produce light or produce darkness there is a semi-permanence to our actions and the only way they are not permanent is through toba is when I ask for Allah's affl when I ask for Allah to completely overlook the bad that I've done but every action and every word that I utter produces either light or darkness now a really good way to assess the beauty, the health or the dysfunction of your relationships is to look at what actions you produce because every human being is a producer of action and a receiver of experiences all you receive from other people are experiences what type of experiences if you want to be a self-aware person and someone who is close to Allah's panohatana you have to face yourself in this very real way what types of experiences do people have when they are in company with me and this is where a lot of people are very blind to this area they have a huge blind spot and they have created an illusion of how everybody loves them they seem as their praises but unfortunately people are unable today more than ever they lack courage to be real and honest with one another and to say a lot of people actually do not have a positive experience with you because if I really love somebody we make a lot of claims as human beings and we tell one another I love you and you're the best thing ever and you're so amazing but yet I don't share any feedback with them because it's not possible that everything they do is perfect so how is my claim of love for this person real so I think assessing what kind of experiences other people receive from me and what type of actions and what type of energy am I putting out there is it light or is it producing a lot of darkness because I'm just having more and more conflicts in my life and I'm having a lot of obstacles and a lot of issues that's when you have to take a step back and say hey what's going on here because I don't think everybody else is always to blame there must be something that I'm doing that's off that's misaligned with what Allah would like for me or the manner in which Allah would like for me to live my life and I'm just going to continue I'm sorry so reasons couple struggle and please understand that these are very simplified relationships especially marriages are very complex they have many layers that we peel with each session and it takes sometimes a while to unpeel or to peel back all the layers that are necessary and not all the layers matter very significant layers there's a lot of couples there are a lot of couples today who are together but not really together you look like you're together you have children you attend events together but yet your home life is void of mercy love intimacy and when I say intimacy I'm referring to generally there are several dimensions of intimacy that we look at there's spiritual intimacy do you do any acts of because I sincerely and genuinely believe that couples who worship together will in sha Allah stay together there's some magic to that but there's spiritual intimacy there is intellectual intimacy this is actually really important for those who value academia or more of the spiritual side of the world and if you are with someone who doesn't necessarily share that that's fine as long as there are other dimensions of intimacy that you connect on right and there's physical intimacy and emotional intimacy all of these are huge all of these really matter and so you have to be connecting on some dimensions of intimacy but some lack of emotional maturity is a really big one because I cannot be in a relationship with someone if I struggle with holding myself accountable I'm never wrong I can never apologize it's always somebody else who is causing something and it's impacting me but I'm never able to say say I did that and I know that it really hurt you and I can visibly see the hurt on you and I'm sorry for that action this is our prophetic model our beloved Annihilator has exemplified this beautifully for us so why do we struggle so much in being able to embody this and act it out in our own relationships if I cannot be emotionally mature if I cannot receive feedback without lashing out if I cannot hear someone say anything about me and I immediately shut down or I cannot I can no longer engage then I cannot be connected to other people there will be a lot of disconnect because what keeps happening is every time things don't go your way you retreat and so if you retreat inwards I am no longer in a state of connection with anybody else right? I'm not even really connected with my own self I'm in a state of just disassociation trying to protect myself I go into self-preservation to minimize the hurt it really hurts my ego it really hurts my nefs so I'm unable to be in an intimate relationship with somebody else because we have to configure what works for the relationship and what doesn't so it's not necessarily that you're a bad person or you're doing anything bad or harmful but I'm just doing something that's just not working and that's just a personality thing it's not a character thing now when it requires a discussion is when it is a character thing you know hey I've noticed we're not praying together anymore or I've noticed we delay prayer a lot or I keep praying by myself or I notice that you're always yelling at the kids or I notice that you're always coming home late what's up with that right? is it something that you're trying to avoid is there something that you're running away from and being able to face your spouse in that manner because that invites them to be real as well and to open up as well because if you're constantly in a state of people pleasing that is a form of emotional unavailability your partner will never really get to know who you are because you're not ever safe you don't feel safe expressing who you actually are and I look at the women because my sister is all of us struggled with this all of us have been conditioned to believe that our needs don't really matter and that you can't really have dreams your role as a wife is to only support the dreams of your spouse and your dreams don't really matter your dreams are just to raise the children and that's if Allah decides to bless you to grant you that hibah in your life because children are a hibah so it's thinking about that it's thinking about am I emotionally mature can I be in a relationship with someone else or do I have to still kind of face myself and grow myself in order to achieve that desired aim to be in a loving connected relationship with someone else lack of transparency I touched upon this earlier certain things are very off limit and of course you are your own individual there shouldn't be someone babysitting you there should not be someone checking after you making sure that you're not texting other people making sure that you're not misbehaving that is not really an equal marriage that's more of a parent to child dynamic if you feel like you're parenting your spouse this is a really big problem because they won't feel respected they won't feel like we're not really on equal footing here and it doesn't feel good and I don't feel like I'm in a loving connected marriage this is kind of reminding me of how my parents used to treat me in our household and so you don't want to replicate that feeling you don't want to re-enact that feeling in our lives lack of courage and a lot of process to ask the difficult questions and I cover this a lot with college age students who are embarking on the journey of marriage and they don't know what questions to ask and sometimes when we go over questions now we have a way within our tradition in which we embody and incorporate Edeb in asking questions we do not believe questions or even enforcing boundaries in this very cold and harsh manner that does not suit our cultures or it's not befitting to enforce boundaries with your parents in that manner it comes from a very westernized lens of psychotherapy and it doesn't work for us right so if somebody is encroaching upon your space you can't say hey I don't really appreciate the fact that you're not giving me space you can't really talk to your parents like that or you can't really talk to your spouse like that you're not going to get a good outcome so you have to be able to or somebody that you're considering for marriage you can't really ask them very crude or too open of questions but there are very you know sensitive ways that we come up with in our collaboration by which they can get the answers that they want to get and we just want to get the answers we don't want to get necessarily the answer that we want to hear but I need to be able to hear the answer that's true for this person because I'm not marrying someone based on a lie and you can't sustain it and then it all comes crumbling down six months a year three years later because it will no one can sustain a lie for a long time before Allah decides to reveal it now again I've touched upon this over exposure to others private lives lack of familiarity with your own emotional territory I would say this is a massive one in our cultures because we don't emphasize communication we really emphasize which is a beautiful thing so you know that somebody cares about you and loves you because they do things for you they serve you, they think about you they're considerate but we also have to advance a little bit in the realm of communication because we really don't know how we feel or why we feel the way that we feel about things we can't trace it back to a place of origin you know I'm so demanding as a person because as a child I was really deprived I wasn't paid much attention to I come from a very large family and it was not possible for my parents to tend to all of us and give us quality time because they are human they're wonderful human beings but they're human and they have limitations so I grew up to be a very demanding person in my relationships and this is what you would call friends who are high maintenance are they really high maintenance or is it coming from a place that we need to have a little bit more compassion for now in the marriage you get to decide can I live with this can I fulfill this person's needs or will it be too much considering my own capacity that is a question that you have to ask yourself and be honest with yourself in because not everybody can meet someone's needs if they have slightly higher needs but perhaps your needs kind of match one another and that can work out really well because you understand one another and you understand where that comes from so that can work out in that manner now just a little snippet of many situations but this is a very small one that reflects the breakdown of marriage and why marriage is with time breakdown so Amina says why don't you ever talk to me this is a very common complaint I hear from females about their husbands he comes home and he doesn't talk to me I ask about his day, he gives me the same response every single day and so I don't really know what's happening with him and she feels shut out she feels uncared for and she feels like she's not really a part of his life because if you think about it, if you're out of the home 8 to 9 to 10 hours every day and you're only home on Saturday and Sunday and if even that if you're not socializing or hobbying or whatever it is that you're doing then how is she supposed to know that you care about her how is she supposed to know who you are how is she supposed to know what triggers you throughout the day how is she supposed to know what upset you what made you feel amazing what made you feel appreciated and accomplished if you're not sitting with her and sharing these things with her so Yusuf responds and he says and these are made up names of course Yusuf responds and he says I do have a problem tuning into my feelings I'm not sure what I'm feeling so I stay silent but if I look inside right now all I'm seeing is irritation on your face and it just triggers me and it doesn't feel good at all when I see that look my body tenses up and I brace myself my mind says here we go again you're messing up you can't even talk to your wife in the way that she wants you to at that point I just want to leave and I just want out of this I see this big load of rejection coming towards me so it's easier for me to just duck and run Amina exclaims I didn't know that she legitimately did not know that this is how he felt because he had never verbalized it put words to it in this way and this is a huge breakthrough so this whole time I thought you just didn't have any feelings which is impossible whether people let you in on their feelings it's a different issue but everybody has feelings and I just thought that you didn't care about what I say that sounds really tough and the last thing I want is for you to feel rejected like a screw up I just need to know what's going on with you I appreciate you staying with me instead of leaving as usual and helping me understand and what he's helping her understand is his emotional inner and what that looks like for him and feels like for him now avoiding we all have emotions and we have slightly tougher emotions and then we have the softer emotions of sadness, shame, guilt that we don't readily let people in on right these are very intimate feelings that you only share it usually comes out in the therapy space but you only share with individuals or loved ones hopefully your spouses if you are married at this time or future spouses this is definitely something that has to be shared with a spouse now avoiding your softer emotions and not expressing them is a huge problem because this is what contributes to creating a divide in your marriage and you're no longer understanding the inner world of each other so research shows in emotion-focused therapy in particular and I really like this intervention with couples because it addresses any traumas that exist within the marriage from childhood and so it's focused and based on attachment and your attachments as a child and growing up and without taking into consideration these attachments I cannot actually see a couple sustain success in their marriage long term so we can sustain change for the short term but it will all come again crashing down and they will end up back in therapy again so research shows that the more you can pinpoint and put words to your emotional experiences the more you're able to cope with them so being able to tell your spouse about you being and visiting your family that's not the issue but when I'm in that space with all of those people and they're very high energy that's an amazing thing but I'm not very high energy and so being in that space makes me feel very anxious and I feel like I'm unable to keep up with everyone and I feel like I'm failing and I feel like I'm not speaking enough I'm not contributing enough and what are they going to be thinking of me I'm putting words to my experience so my spouse is not in the dark because your mind is designed to fill in the blanks so whatever I'm not being told directly my mind is going to be filling in the gaps because my left to sheath on is going to be activated and it's not going to be filling in the gaps with very nice things it's going to be filling in the gaps with the worst of things because your sense of self and your self esteem are on the line in a marriage so being in a romantic relationship makes you vulnerable by default you're in a state of automatic vulnerability when you love someone or when you care about someone and this sparks your deepest darkest fears so you're down out of fear of conflict or self preservation really a fear of conflicts is really self preservation I fear pain maybe I've experienced so much pain in my past and so the more pain that you experience neural pathways in the brain the more sensitive to pain you become and this is a biological fact so if you've gone through a very difficult past you have to consider a lot more things because I don't want to be living in more pain because now I'm very sensitive to any pain and I can't really handle a lot of pain now there are ways to build resilience from that place I'm not saying it's like a final destination that you constantly have to honour you can grow from that place and you can gain resilience back but it's going to take time and a lot of safety am I talking about safety I'm not just talking about physical safety I'm talking about emotional safety do I feel safe opening up to this person without a fear that they're going to judge me or put me down or use it against me am I comfortable enough telling this person how I feel about my experience the truth of my experience without them lashing out and shutting me out do I fear being yelled at do I fear being called names do I fear being hit there is no emotional safety in any of these scenarios emotional safety sounds like someone was quiet someone was able to listen without constantly interrupting and interjecting with their opinions and you can agree that this is a very heated topic and I know that both of us are going to want to interrupt each other and correct your version of the experience that's not who I am I can't bear to be that person right but you're able to listen to the other person and then say that once we've heard one another out we'll each have equal times 15 minutes each to be able to share our version of the experience and how we saw things because the key thing in relationships is not communication as you're always told understanding what's the point of communication if I can't understand what the other person's experience is or what they're telling me so understanding is the vital core ingredient and sometimes I cannot touch upon earlier is we speak totally different languages and if that continues to be an issue and no one's budging we can't continue to share our life together I have to be able to take there has to be a little push and a little you know a little bit of pushing, a little receiving and each one of us is budging a little bit we're making some sacrifices but if I'm super stuck on my perspective is the only perspective and this is the only way that our children will be raised and I'm raising you as well as my husband and you have to do things according to how I want there to be done there's no more shout out there's no give and take this is more tyrannical and we can't run a marriage like that so when you shut out people or loved ones, family even your spouse you're going into the mode of self-preservation you're avoiding pain you're not avoiding that person but you're avoiding the pain that you anticipate will come out of that interaction in conflict it feels like when you shut someone out the brain recognizes that this is a danger to you I'm losing that person they don't love me anymore this marriage is falling apart these are all the types of thoughts that come flooding in and so it feels like you're talking to yourself it doesn't feel like you're talking to the other person because they're not hearing you they're there but they're not really there they're not engaging they're not even looking at you or making eye contact a lot of the time habitually shutting your spouse out in difficult conversations predicts problem escalation stress the breakdown of the marriage and very likely divorce stonewalling as John Gottman calls it he's one of also the top researchers on marriage and he does retreats with his wife I believe Julie Gottman he talks about stonewalling which is when I put up a wall in front of me and I don't respond I'm not expressing, I'm not reacting I'm not doing anything, just stonewalling you and stonewalling according to bonding science turns on the panic mode in your spouse's nervous system because again the flight of thoughts that come streaming in is that she doesn't love me anymore he doesn't care about me he would rather be somewhere else than here right and so all of those are threats