Ammar Alshukry – Advice for a 23 Year Old Trying to Get Married Q and A

			Okay, so now my Lebra Caterham. The last lesson I'm also loved while others live is Elizabeth
cathedra. You know, the pandemics been going for too long when we start answering people's questions
in video format, but
		

			got a question from a brother who's 23 years old, from the UK, Bengali. And he's seeking advice on a
girl that he got to know over social media for over six months. And she is Pakistani from Canada.
And they kind of realized that this is not a good idea. At least it opens up the door for
temptation, they want to get married. And he hasn't spoken to his parents yet. And he's wondering
what he should do. So I'm, I'm gonna give you some some older brother advice. Okay, just so a few
things that I can tell you right from the get go, is, I think the most important thing that you have
to know in seeking a spouse is you have to know yourself, right. And as cliche as that is, you have
		

			to have clarity as to what you want. You have to it has to be crystal clear. You have to know what
your negotiables are. And you have to know what your non negotiables are, right? So negotiable for
examples for you might be a particular look like this is my ideal, for example, a non negotiable for
her might be a particular height, right? She's not going to marry someone who's shorter than her,
that is a non negotiable, it doesn't matter, she will be single for the rest of her life. She's not
marrying somebody shorter than heart, right? People have these criteria. And you have to know for
example, a non negotiable for you might be, for example, that she's has a certain amount of
		

			education, right? A bachelor's degree, for example, or a master's degree. For a lot of people
language is a non negotiable that they speak bungalow, or they speak Urdu, or they speak Arabic, or
they speak whatever it is that they speak.
		

			At the same time, you create this list of negotiables and non negotiables, just so that you have a
sense of where you're at recognizing, and that comes with the experience and the maturity, that some
of the things that you're that were non negotiable, will become negotiable. If you meet the right
person who who just checks a lot of other boxes that make a lot of sense for you. But you have to
you have to know where you're at, you have to know where you're starting from. That being said, you
also incredibly important, have to have clarity with regards to what your family is expecting. This
is where a lot of clashes happen in that your, this happens a lot in that the without having a
		

			conversation with your parents, you're coming in, and you're like, Well, you know, Mama and Baba,
you just had what's important is a good Muslim. And they're like, yeah, good Muslim is important.
But that's the basic, that's the base, we've got a lot of things we're operating on, beyond the
base, right? So it could be ethnicity, it could be socioeconomic status, it could be education, it
could be a lot of different things. But you have to have that conversation with your parents, often
and early. All right. And so if you're already six months into the game, and chances are, you're
probably emotionally invested, which is a dangerous place to be, you want to have that conversation
		

			with your parents, as soon as possible. You want to have it today, you want to have it tomorrow, you
need to not hesitate in bringing this issue up,
		

			talking to them and hearing from them and going back and forth. And because
		

			your parents might not even know that you're interested in marriage at this point in time, right.
And that happens a lot too. You have a 23 year old who all of a sudden got attached to somebody. And
meanwhile their parents would like better What are you talking about? You know, 23, you're
interested in about marriage, you still got eight years of medical school.
		

			They're completely in another world, right? So they get blindsided by this. So you want to make sure
that whatever considerations your parents have, whatever, if there is any, if there's any
miscommunication, if there is any sort of disconnect between you two with regards to what your
expectations are, with regards to marriage, and that can only be resolved by communication,
communication, which needs to negotiation which hopefully will lead to some sort of successful
outcome, but you have to have that conversation with your parents first. And then inshallah Dad, if
everything goes smoothly and you speak to your parents, and they say, Yes, we're ready. Great, no
		

			problem, then the best way to approach it is obviously, depending on her cultural context and your
cultural context, but I would assume that the best way is obviously for your family to reach out to
her family and start to get the stock to get to know her that way. There's another aspect as well.
		

			And that is, and this is unpopular, but I feel that it is important for
		

			people to know especially young people who are who are undertaking marriage is that if you come from
a cultural background, specifically, I'm talking to Muslims who come from a cultural background, I'm
not talking about the kid who, whose parents speak to them in English at home, and they grew up
speaking English. And they don't even speak a second language, basically just a few words here and
there, but very much, they're very British, or they're very Canadian, or they're very American at
home. And they hardly ever went overseas, to their country of origin to see their relatives. Maybe
they did that once in their life, but all of their summer vacations were in, you know, in throughout
		

			Europe, in the UK, and throughout Canada and throughout the US, right, people who, who don't really
have that deep of a connection with their country of origin, I would call those people people who
aren't necessarily very cultural, right? People weren't very cultural in their household.
		

			I'm not talking about them. I am talking about the person who if you're a Bengali, like every
summer, you would go back to Bangladesh, that person who is Senegalese, and every other summer
they're going to Senegal, right. And they're they're very much tied to Sudan, a kid who every summer
is going back to Sudan every every year, they're going back to Syria every year, they're going back
to they are very, very their parents invested heavily in their cultural upbringing, you only speak
your you know, we only speak Bangla at home, we don't speak English, you speak English at school,
when you come here, you want to seek Bangla right? If you grew up with that type of incredibly rich
		

			cultural upbringing, it is just easier to marry someone from your culture.
		

			It is just easier. And it makes a lot of sense. And a lot of times, especially when you're 23,
you're kind of looking at your parents, and you're like, oh my god, I can't believe my parents are
racist, they don't want me to marry this person from halfway across the world. It's not about
racist. That's, that's a very lazy analysis. It's not about racism. It is about comfort and
convenience. Yes, at the beginning of marriage, it's you know, romance and you don't care where
she's from, and she doesn't care where you're from. And it's, you know, love conquers all, and all
of that type of stuff. But what you, after a while, what marriage becomes is marriage becomes
		

			comfort, and in it transforms into something beyond just passion. And you realize that you have
incredibly deep programming,
		

			that you've been getting programmed your entire life, the things that you value, the things that you
are disgusted by the things that you really enjoy these day to day interactions that you have with
your spouse, will be guided by this subset of values that you might not have even realized that you
had because you grew up in your household. Right? And when you when you create this other household
from somebody who's coming from a completely different background, right, and how does that manifest
with regards to children, right, the children that you have, you might again, if you're coming from
that cultural place, in your mind, you might be saying, I want my children to, I want my children to
		

			have the same connection with their family in Bangladesh that I had, right? And I want them to have
that culture. And I want them to have that history. And I want them to have that tradition, and I
want them to have.
		

			So what are you going to do? Or your summers? Are you going to take your kids to Bangladesh, and
then take them to Pakistan? Especially if she has the same cultural upbringing, right. So if you're
two people coming from Trump to cultural households, this is something for you to pay a lot of
attention to. And, again, what I submit, is that when your parents discount somebody from another
ethnicity, when they're coming from that cultural place, it's not because it could be racism, maybe,
but I doubt it. Okay, that's not the majority of cases. And most of the time, we are actually, we we
actually do our parents a disservice when we when we when we assume that that is, that is the only
		

			thing No, there's a lot of experience. And there's a lot of there's a lot of understanding that
comes they understand what it takes to raise a child. Right. And they understand that there's a lot
of cultural nuances that and they themselves, right, you also have to understand that family is the
marriage is the merging of two families. When they are coming from this place. Your mom may not want
to have to speak communicate in English with her daughter in law, right? Maybe she's just a shell of
herself in English. Maybe she is. She's a killer in her native language. She's hilarious, the most
the life of any party when she walks in, in her native language, but in English, she becomes a shell
		

			of herself. Your father becomes a shell of himself, perhaps right and they don't want that to be
their relationship with their
		

			their future in laws and their and their, their future, you know, daughter in law, right? So these
are all considerations for you to have to make. And
		

			if you have decided that this is something that you want to go forward with, then you need to have
that conversation with your parents ASAP and you did well in you know, cutting off relations and you
need to seek ALLAH SubhanA divus forgiveness and not fall into that, again, whenever you have any
interest. You need to make sure that you approach it in the most perfect way in the most complete
way. Because as the saying goes meant I did have a couple align here, okay, but bigger money that
whoever hastens to do something before it's time whoever rushes into something before it's time they
are, they are rewarded with being prevented from it or they are punished by being prevented from it.
		

			So you want to take all these things into consideration. May Allah Subhana Allah protect us all. So
the light is in 100 and bless us and grants us all spouses and children that will be the coolness of
our eyes.