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.