Fatima Barkatulla – Love #12 – Can I ask my wife to live with my mum?

			salat wa salam ala Rasulillah. So the next question is, if a son lives with his mother only does she
does he still have to provide his wife her own house?
		

			Like I said, these are just pointers.
		

			Generally speaking, you know, that's something to discuss before marriage, right? So if, if, if
there is a, a woman, an elderly mother, for example, she has only one son or who lives with her. And
		

			there's a house that's big enough, right? Then, obviously, when you're getting married, that's
something to discuss. That's for you to put forward to your prospective bride and say, I would like
us to live in my mom's house. Okay. And now it's up to the bride, whether she wants to accept that
or not.
		

			Right.
		

			And these are things to be discussed before marriage, you know, not after marriage. These are things
to be discussed before marriage.
		

			But generally speaking, I know because my my father, you know, he advises a lot of people on
marriage, and he's
		

			on the Islamic Sharia council here in the UK.
		

			I know that one of the advices, he always gives, because, unfortunately, this can be a cause for
		

			friction, right? When
		

			when basically a mother in law and a daughter in law,
		

			live in the same house. I'm not saying it's always like that I know, cases where it works. It's
worked out beautifully. And they've obviously had excellent communication, and they've managed to
make it work, right. However, when there is friction, or if, if it seems that girls are not willing
to accept that,
		

			then I know that one of the things my father obviously often
		

			advises is that at a minimum, if the husband can provide a room,
		

			a bedroom, in other words, and a separate bathroom and kitchen,
		

			that would be ideal.
		

			Okay.
		

			Why is that? Why is that? It's just in our experience, okay.
		

			That
		

			when, when a woman gets married, she wants to be the rebuttal baits, you know,
		

			I don't know, if you understand the phrase robot debate in Arabic, it means like the,
		

			I don't know, the queen of the house, the head of the house, she wants to be the, the woman of the
house, you know, the lady of the house. And
		

			when there's already a lady of the house, okay,
		

			what can happen is that some sisters feel a lack of autonomy.
		

			You know,
		

			and I know of cases where
		

			it's almost as though the couple have never had any privacy. Because of obviously, the way it's set
up, okay. So obviously, the setup needs to be
		

			you know, make it amenable as amenable as possible, to make things work out. And in our experience,
one of the ways to do that is for the wife to at least have a a bedroom,
		

			and a separate bathroom and kitchen.
		

			Otherwise, obviously, all of these things can be negotiated. They can be negotiated. Some, some
wives might not mind. You know, they might like the idea that there's a
		

			more responsible lady in the house, you know,
		

			but these are things to negotiate before marriage so that people's expectations are realistic, you
know.
		

			And, just as a piece of advice, giving
		

			the wife autonomy, giving her space to have privacy, you know, that is something that Islam
requires, you know, she should be able to have privacy.
		

			And then the norm is that she should have separate
		

			like when separate that's this is what I mean by separate separate doesn't necessarily mean a
separate building.
		

			But the norm is that she, it's good if she has separate room, and at least bathrooms and kitchen
facilities.
		

			But if that's not possible, you know, if there's this beautiful big house, I don't know. And there's
only one kitchen and there's, you know, the shared facilities, at least you should have her own
bedroom.
		

			But, and these things should be discussed beforehand. But as a piece of advice, the more autonomy
you can give,
		

			probably, the better it's going to be. You know, and that's just from experience. And Allah subhana,
Allah knows best, of course, from the girl's point of view, you need sisters, I would say to
sisters, you know, think carefully, you know, there are positives to you know, there are potential
positives to also living with,
		

			you know, and you have to kind of empathize with a brother like that, right? If he has his only
mother, I mean, he's the only sign or,
		

			you know, he has an elder mother, it actually shows that he has very good characteristics that he
wants to take care of his mother as well. Right. But you might want to have a look at what kind of
relationship the son and mother have. You know,
		

			it's not to
		

			say it's a healthy relationship. Okay.
		

			Yeah. But it's something that shouldn't be written off. It shouldn't be written off. In I know lots
of cases where it has worked out very well. It's obviously because the adults were mature, mature
enough to have good communication. The mother in law wasn't a very interfering person usually.
		

			And the husband balanced the two relationships, kept them separate, you know, respected his mother,
but at the same time, honored his wife
		

			and gave his wife space