Fatima Barkatulla – Divorcee Asks How to Balance Life With New Husband & Children With Ex-Husband

			Just saying, I saw multicam, I was divorced with five children, and my children stay with their
father, I'm married to another person now, is it except it is exceptionally difficult for me to
complete my obligation towards them staying under another man and taking care of my first husband's
kids, please advise a question like that it's quite hard, because I don't have much information,
right? Like, how old are the kids? What, what exactly is the context? How far do you live from, from
your ex husband? Right. But yeah, I do sympathize. You know, that's
		

			must be difficult must be a difficult situation to be in,
		

			you know, to be remarried, and then to have five children who are living with their, with with their
father, with your ex husband, and of course, trying to juggle the needs of the two households,
right? Well, I guess, the way I would look at it is that your husband, you know, your husband has
rights, you know, he has the greatest right over you. In fact,
		

			Islamically speaking, okay. And your children have rights. Okay? Well, they also have their father
looking out for them, right, and he has his responsibility towards them. So really, just as, like
most things in life, it's a case of finding the balance, right? It's a case of trying to be as fair
as you can, and uphold the rights of, of each household, or of your children and your spouse.
		

			without
		

			upsetting and causing any kind of imbalance, right? Because I think it's when there's an imbalance
that problems can't, right. So if you're completely ignoring your children, and you're fully focused
on your husband, then that's probably going to, that is definitely not going to be a good thing,
right for your children in the long term. And hence, not for you either. And if you're completely,
you know, involved with your children, and your husband is feeling neglected, or your new husband is
feeling neglected, of course, that's also going to be have a negative effect for him as well as for
you, for your new life, right for your, for your marriage. So, I would actually recommend in a
		

			situation like that, that you have, you know, you meet, you have a proper family meeting, perhaps
with your ex husband there, with your new husband,
		

			you know, have some kind of family meeting, could be a phone call, where you're all present, but
you're fully present. And you really discuss, you know, how you're going to manage this. Now, I
know, a lot of families don't like having meetings, okay? They don't like having these explicit
discussions. Because we'd rather just, you know, just go along, go with the flow, and see how things
happen. But, you know, I think that's too, that's too kind of trial and error, you know, and it's
probably not going to have a very positive result, if you just go with the flow, I think it's really
important when, when so much is at stake, right? So much is at stake, you've got these kids, their
		

			lives, you know, already they've gone through their parents being divorced, you know, which is a big
thing for children, right? That's a big thing for them. And, you know, I don't want to like
highlight the negative statistics. But statistically, you know,
		

			children who are from divorced families, there are certain things that they're going to experience
or that they're more likely to experience. And you want to mitigate that, right, you want to
mitigate the negative effects of that divorce, right? While at the same time you want to nurture
your new marriage, and you know, the whole situation in a positive way. And I don't think you can do
that without having a family meeting with your ex spouse, with your husband and yourself present,
where all of you talk about what your needs are, you know, but each of you go into that meeting
with, with with, with real sincerity, wanting the best outcome for each of you, as well as for the
		

			child for the children, you know, because so many lives are at stake here. Those children are going
to be the human beings of the parents of the future. You don't want them to have traumas in their
lives, you know, more than is necessary. You know, all human beings are gonna have ups and downs.
But you don't you want to like minimize the negative effects of this setup, right? And so in order
to do that you
		

			Gotta have a family meeting, you know, your husband also, you know, understand what his needs are,
where he feels, there might be an imbalance, where you think they might be imbalanced, where your ex
husband might think, you know, things could be done better, and try to find a win win solution, you
know, what more can you do? Really, that's really the best approach that I would say you could have,
right? Like, each of you, you know, be willing to compromise a little, be willing to think about
what would be the best outcome, especially for the children, but for each of you, as well.
		

			And do that with the spirit of, you know, being considerate, wanting the best for your fellow
brother and sister in Islam, as well as for the children. And I think anything that you explicitly
discuss and you come to an agreement about is more likely to succeed, right, it's more likely to be
to have a positive impact for people to have to feel heard. Right, to feel that their their needs
were listened to.
		

			I think, you know, that's probably going to be the best approach. And then, maybe every year, you
want to adjust that. Because as children get older than needs change, etcetera, etcetera. So maybe
every year, you want to do a little appraisal, and just think, you know, is it going okay, can we
adjust this a little bit?
		

			Yeah. So
		

			I don't think you can get away with just going with the flow, and just letting things happen
haphazardly, and,
		

			you know,
		

			improvising, I really don't think so I think it needs to be done properly, the adults need to get in
a room, need to discuss it and need to come to some conclusions come to some agreement. With a
positive spirit positive intentions.
		

			There's a really good book that I would recommend that you read, it's called the boy crisis by
Warren Farrell. Okay. And in that book, he talks about like,
		

			if a couple of divorced, what, you know, how can they kind of minimize the negative effect of that
divorce on their children, and four of the things he mentioned, so I'll just tell you, of course,
there's, there's a lot more in the book, so I recommend you, you have a look at the book, because
it's based on research.
		

			One of the things he mentions is,
		

			you know, having as much time with each parent as possible, you know, is beneficial for the child.
So it's not like too imbalanced in one direction or the other. Right.
		

			Also, he says that, the father and mother, the actual father and mother of the children living close
together close to each other,
		

			that really helps, you know, so if you're like, in completely different cities, completely different
countries, that's going to be like, really hard. If you can live,
		

			like 20 minutes away from each other Max, or something like that, you know, something that's
		

			you can actually travel to each other easily, then, you know, he's he actually recommends that
that's, that has a positive effect for the children, because then it's not like,
		

			you know, when they would one parent, their whole life has to shift to that household, and then when
they're with the other parent, their entire life has to shift.
		

			So if it's possible for you to live not too far away, that will be good.
		

			He also says that the spouses shouldn't badmouth each other.
		

			You know, like, Don't criticize your husband, your ex husband in front of your children. And he
should not criticize you in front of them, you know, because
		

			that has a negative effect on children, when
		

			husband and wife or ex husband and ex wife criticize each other in front of their children. Well,
what happens is, because the child sees themselves in their parents, right?
		

			They feel they take it very personally.
		

			They take it very personally. And of course, it's going to harm the relationship with the other with
the other parent, right? So don't do that. avoid that. Don't use your kids as a as a space for
venting about your ex spouse. And the last thing he says is to have really good communication
between the ex husband and ex wife.
		

			He says if you need it, get counseling in order to get really good communication. So that you can
see that each other you know, you each have the best, the best intention there for the child, and
that you can come to a conclusion that will produce the best results for each other and for the
		

			Child write for the children. So those are just four things that he mentioned in order to minimize
the negative effects of divorce.
		

			Okay.
		

			So yeah, my recommendation is have a family meeting everyone talks about what their needs are, what
the what what needs to be done for the kids what the kids needs are.
		

			And as your kids get older, you want to include them as well, you know, like have a session where
you actually hear them out as well, what their needs are, what's working and what's not working for
them. Right.
		

			But yeah, I think meetings are always a good idea.