Ramadan 2016 – Remedies for Your Marriage – EP 2
June 9, 2016
Haleh Banani – Ramadan 2016 – Remedies for Your Marriage – 2
AI: Summary ©
The speakers in this podcast address the importance of finding the right person to partner with and finding the right person to be at liberty to make changes to one's life. They stress the need for patience and supportive counseling, as it is crucial to avoid mistakes and problems. The importance of humility, being humble, and being generous with one's spouse is also emphasized. The speakers recommend working on one's marriage to build a healthy relationship and avoid abuse, and suggest seeking professional help in finding a stable life and avoiding touching or disclosing one's spouse's emotions.
AI: Summary ©
Straight
Salaam Alaikum
Okay, just getting situated. Thank you for
tuning in for the Ramadan remedies. Yeah, I think we just need to adjust a little bit we're getting just situated right now. Great. Thank you for joining me for the Ramadan remedies day two, I'm going to give a few minutes for everyone to get settled then inshallah, we're going to be talking about how you can improve your marriage during Ramadan. And I know like I said last time, it's not high on people's priority list and getting the marriage improved. Everyone's thinking just reading her on going to tell her we, but I want to encourage you to work on your relationships as well because it is it is so important, it is something that we need to be accountable for we are going to be
accountable for so I'm going to give you some pointers, some tools and some tips to really put to use so you can start seeing the changes. Let me know how many of you are married who are tuning in. I want to find out how many of you are married, how many are divorced, I just want to take a poll so I know who my audience is, and find out
if any of you are single, let me know. All right, we're going to we're going to start in a few minutes I'm just going to wait so that everyone gets settled you're about to sit on my leg calm. We're you're about to get a lot of good information inshallah. So if you can make sure Okay, we got a married sister. Great.
divorced and remarried Alhamdulillah Okay, great marry.
Let's see I'm married for almost 20 years Mashallah say a lovely
wonderful a single we got married Mashallah married. Okay, so we got a lot of married sisters tuning in. Excellent. All right, and where are you tuning in from?
Married 15 years Mashallah. That's excellent. Well, you know, whether, whether you're married or you're single or divorced, you can really benefit from the, from this information in sha Allah, single ready to mingle. That's cute.
single and ready to mingle. All right, inshallah you find us the right person. We have Okay, we got people coming in from Seattle. Great. More married people. Excellent.
All right. So what like what I was saying, regardless of whether you're married, you're single or divorced, you can use this information to really better your relationship with anyone I'm focusing on marriage. Because that's that's my area of passion. We got someone coming in from Toronto, I love Toronto, welcome. But any relationship can be improved because this is all the all the character changes that you go through in Ramadan. All the all the tools I'm going to give you, you can apply it to your parents, with your kids, with your co workers, your friends. So it's something that anyone can benefit from welcome from London. That's great. All right. I think we're going to go
ahead and get ready Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim in non hamdulillah mother who understand you know who and our stuff federal when I was a villa he ministerium phocoena women saya tiama annina nine yet Allah who follow me the last one minute little fella ha de la y Chateau en la ilaha illallah wa Shahada ana Muhammadan. After who are us, Amma dad. All right. Welcome to the Ramadan remedies for your marriage. Day two. I'm going to be sharing with you some more pointers. Every day I hear some heartbreaking stories about people getting divorce or really suffering in their marriage. I had one sister just recently come in. And she was absolutely devastated. Because what had happened is that
her husband asked for a divorce. And she just was taken by surprise. Now she realized that they had problems, but she felt like everybody has problems and there were frequent arguments but nothing that couldn't be solved. So that's why it really took her by surprise when when the divorce came up. And I think what happens a lot of times is that the person who's asking for a divorce, they want change and they get very frustrated.
When things are not happening, when they don't see an effort, they don't see a change. And they start, they see the same annoying cycle. So they they give up and they throw in the towel. And many times I find that it's the sisters who are, let's say coming in, they are getting my marriage program, they're coming in for therapy, they're trying to work and save the marriage. And the husband may feel that is totally useless. They they have checked out of the relationship a long time ago. And then there are times when it's the brothers who are coming in, they got the marriage program, they're working on it, they are getting the counseling. And I'm really impressed with the
number of brothers who are taking that initiative, who are working on themselves and trying to save the marriage. And you find that it's those rare instances where you have the husband and wife coming in together, they come in, and when they do, and they both want to save the marriage, I congratulate them, I said, You are a rare breed, because you're actually on the same page, you both want to work and you both want to get better. And I find that those individuals have, they really have a great chance. But you never need to give up. Don't ever give up. Because even if you are the only one working on it, you can make changes within yourself and then your spouse will treat you differently
will react to you differently. Now last time, last time, I talked about Ramadan being the best time to work on your marriage, I know that this is kind of a it's a new way of looking at things. But I really believe that it's it's a wonderful time to work on relationship, because you are on a spiritual quest, you're on a spiritual quest for self improvement, and you are gaining that closeness to Allah, you are building, you are trying to improve yourself on so many different areas, whether it's spiritually emotionally. And that's why it is it is a wonderful time to connect with your spouse, you're more mindful, and you're more at peace and the shanty and are locked up. So
that's why I feel that we can take this opportunity and not only get close to a lot, but also get close with our spouse and get close to all the loved ones in it all the loved ones in our family in our surrounding area. So inshallah you can take this information and apply it to all your relationships, whether you're married or not.
I also talked about how there is a missing link between the rituals, whether it's the prayer reading, or on the fasting, and having a character change, there's that missing link, because a lot of times you find people who are doing all of the right things outwardly, they look very religious, they are doing the rituals, they're doing the five pillars, and yet, you find that when it comes to their a HELOC, when it comes to the way they treat their spouse, the way they handle situations, whether they're truthful, or honest with all of these things, you find that there is a big disconnect. And that's because we are not we are not reaping the rewards of these rituals, we are
not taking those lessons. And it becomes a lot of time just, we're just going through the motions, we're going through the motions. We're not really we're not taking what we need to and changing ourselves with it. So today I want to focus on some of the character changes that hopefully will come as a byproduct of Ramadan, if we're doing it right. If we have the sincerity, if we are really taking the lessons from from all of these beautiful opportunities that have been granted to us this blessed month, then we should definitely see these byproducts. One of the byproducts is patience. It takes a lot of patience, to wake up early, to have the support to overlook your temptation not to
eat or drink all day. All of that requires patience right? Now, how does this patience, play a role in your relationships in any relationships, especially in your marriage? First of all, you realize that you have to apply that patience in overlooking your spouse's shortcomings because none of us are perfect. We are all flawed individuals, no matter how hard we work on ourselves. No matter how many self help books and how many courses we take, there's definitely areas we can always improve on. And guess who gets to see those shortcomings more than anyone else? It's your spouse. And so if you realize that you are full of shortcomings, then you need to be much more patient with your
spouse. And if you have that
mentality that I will accept my spouse as a package deal. And not to compare one aspect of your spouse with the polished exterior with someone else, that can be very tricky. Because you see someone and they may have, maybe they are, maybe they're an excellent housewife. And you just take that one characteristic, you know, all the other aspects of their personality, and you compare that person to your spouse, that you see all of their flaws, and you know them inside out. And it's not it's not a fair comparison. It always leaves you feeling. He feels like there's something missing in your life whenever you take one characteristic of your spouse and you compare it to other people, or
you're not able to hear. Okay, is anyone else having a problem hearing? Or can? Can anyone hear my voice?
That's a very important thing to establish early on. Oh, please talk loudly. Okay. So if I talk loudly, are you able to hear Let me see.
Okay, you're able to hear? Yes, we can hear good. I can hear just fine. perfectly. All right. I can hear but not that loudly. All right. So I will try to speak a little bit louder. Does it help if I hold the mic up?
Okay, it's alright, great. So let's get back into it. So we're talking about how we all have shortcomings. And if we realize that our shortcomings, we would want our spouse to overlook them. And we need to make sure that we're overlooking our spouses. And what I was saying is that we are each a package deal, right? Try to focus, try to focus on your spouse's good qualities and not make any kind of comparisons saponify. In my field, I find that a lot of times people who have a very polished exterior, you have no idea what kind of skeletons they have in their closet. So what I have learned very early on, is to never make comparison to love the people in your life as they are
inshallah. And that really reduces that feeling of not being content because you're, you're making comparisons so overlook the patience leads you to overlook your spouse's shortcoming, it also teaches you to interact with kindness, not harshness. Right? It's, it's hard. And I talked about it last time, when you've been working all day, and you are frustrated, maybe, maybe you maybe got into an argument with someone, or a brother just wrote me and said, you know, he's, he's on the verge of losing his job. So I can understand the stress, the pressure, the responsibilities, and you're also fasting and you're hungry, and you're thirsty. But that does not give you a license to be rude.
Right? When you're going through difficulties, when you're under stress, that is not a license to be rude to be harsh to yell and scream at your loved ones. So really be careful with the way you're interacting with your family members, especially your spouse. So try to be patient in the way you interact. Try to request rather than demand. That's a really important one, make sure that you are requesting and not demanding. And the third thing is Be patient in expecting change. Be patient with that. I know that there are a lot of things that we may want to change within the relationship. Maybe we want things to change within our spouse, we have to realize that you definitely you
definitely what streaming is too slow. Let's see. All right. Okay, I hope that you can tune in.
You need to be patient and expecting change. because change is difficult. Change is a difficult thing. And just look at it for yourself. All of us know that we need to eat healthy and exercise. But how many of us actually apply that we know it. But it's really difficult. We all know that, let's say fasting throughout the year is beneficial, and it keeps our connection to Allah. But how many of us actually do it so there is a big difference between knowing what to do and then actually making that change. So try to apply that. That kindness, that patience. I'll give you an example. One. So with the change we need to be definitely we need to be very supportive and encouraging, be
very supportive and encouraging. I remember when I started a paleo diet with my best friend Suzanne in Egypt.
It was so beneficial doing it together because there was that constant encouragement. And if one of us got weak, we would give each other pep talks. If we caved into a temptation, like maybe cheesecake, for instance, we would quickly remind each other get back on track, there was no shaming, there is no blaming, there was no anger about why didn't you stick with it, and you promise you're going to do it? No, it was all encouraging was like having a very supportive and encouraging coach. And we have Al Hamdulillah, started back up this Ramadan. And it gives me that sense of that sense of support, which is so necessary, whenever any of us need to make changes in our life, we
need to have that supportive, that loving that encouraging friend and support. So let's try to be that for our spouse, try to be that encouraging and supportive coach for your spouse, if they're going through some changes, if there's something that they're struggling with, some people are struggling with their eemaan, they may not be as motivated to, to do all the activities of Ramadan, I know some people wrote in, that their spouse may not be praying or involved with the messenger. And that can be that can be very difficult to see that your spouse is at a different level of human. But if you're going to shame them or nag them, those are not effective techniques to get them on
track. I know that every single one of us if we are feeling the emotion rush, we want everyone to feel it. We want our spouse to feel it. We want our kids to feel it. We want this like this bandwagon we want everyone to really enjoy and celebrate. But unfortunately eemaan levels vary. And we have to be respectful of that. Look at yourself, maybe maybe five years ago, maybe 10 years ago, if someone told you to do the things you're doing right now, he wouldn't have been ready for it spiritually weren't ready. So we have to allow people give them their space to grow spiritually, and be patient with that.
So another byproduct of the of all the worship that we're doing is that we gain humility, we gain humility. And that is really critical in our relationships. Don't ever be too proud to ask for forgiveness. Don't ever be too proud to ask for love. Don't ever be too proud to initiate. Now I had a couple sitting in couples therapy. And they were both like this. I hope I can put this. But they're both sitting like this. Right? Neither one. Neither one wanted to take the initiative. Neither one wanted to take responsibility until I started telling them Look, your marriage is a plant that is wilting, it is wilting. Who's going to take responsibility. You can sit there and
argue all day about a church underwater plan. No, I watered it last time. No, you need to do it. I'm not going to do it until you do it. We can go on and on like this. And meanwhile, the plant will die, your marriage will fade away. And you might end up in the situation where you suddenly get divorce papers. And I don't know what happened, right? Because one person just finally got fed up of, you know, the dead marriage. So you need to take responsibility. What I was really proud of is that, you know, the brother, he uncross his arms and said, You know what, I'm going to take initiative, I will be that person, I will water the plan of my marriage. And I was so proud and I
was so happy. And that's what it takes. And even if the other the spouse is not on board, but you start taking that initiative, and you initiate, then that is an amazing progress you can make you know, being humble is such an important part of having a good marriage. I find that when you have pride, that is one of those diseases of the heart that will destroy your marriage. Pride is a disease of the heart that will destroy your marriage for sure. And I always see this in couples therapy, I always see individuals that come in feeling a bit like Well, I'm not I you know, I was right and he was wrong. He has to apologize. Why do I always have to take the initiative, having
that mentality is really destructive. Don't take account of who joined who apologize who did what don't keep track of all that. You can expect things to be 5050 you can expect everything you do to be reciprocated, give, just give without expectation until the heart soften. I think that is really important. And the other aspect of being humble is recognize your mistakes. Recognize that you have
Somehow contributed to your marriage, whatever state it's in, you have something to do with it. If it's a good happy, successful marriage, then Mashallah, you've contributed to that. If it's falling apart, you've contributed to that as well. And it's really hard for people to understand that and take responsibility for that, I think it's so much easier to put the blame on someone else, a lot of people will come in and tell me, you know, I just just changed my wife and you, if you just change her will be good. Hey, you know, I have no problem. It's just her, just need to change her. And then sometimes the sister will come in and say, you know, I want these 10 things change in my spouse. And
once you do that, we're gonna have an awesome marriage, that doesn't work that way. And I always tell them, Look, I don't have, I don't have your spouse in the session with me right? Now I have you, and I can work on you, and you can work on you. And that's the only thing you have control over, is changing yourself, right? And Allah says that he that will not change the condition of the people until they change themselves. So we've got to, we really need to own that, we really need to understand that we have shortcomings, and we are going to make mistakes. And if we take responsibility, and take ownership of our mistakes, then we are really exemplifying that humility.
If you're saying, if in your mind, right now, you're thinking to yourself, I don't have any problems. I didn't do anything. It's all him. He's the one who causes all the problems. If you're thinking to yourself that she's the nag, she's the one who needs to change. She's the one with psychological problems, it's not me, then you are missing the whole point, you're missing the fact that every single one of us, every single one of us is flawed. And some people know their flaws, and they're working on it and others don't. And it's really sad, it's actually much worse to be in denial is much worse, to not even recognize that you have problems, right? When a person comes in to
a session, and they are overwhelmed, and they're crying. And they're like, Oh, my God, I have all these problems. I say, you know what, you're halfway there. The fact that you recognize that you have a problem, and the fact that you're seeking help, you are halfway there. So don't be discouraged. The issue comes when you don't feel like any of this applies to you. And I like when I listen to lectures when you go to hook buzz. And the shield will say, I don't want you to think about anyone else in this lecture except yourself. And that's a great reminder because it's so easy to say oh, you know, who needs to listen to this, you know, who would benefit you know, who has a
you know, hypocrisy you know, who has a attitude problem, you know, who has it was full of pride. But I want to repeat that, that all important concept of think about this as a message to you, and fix yourself and change yourself and make a commitment. Right now, we are stronger than ever. You may not feel very energetic. You may be dragging because it's Ramadan, but spiritually, you're on a high inshallah, and use that energy to connect to connect with your spouse. So we talked about being more patient, and then having the humility, having your humility, like, have all your interactions with your spouse, be guided with that state of humility, not proud, not pride. Don't be too proud to
ask for forgiveness. And don't be too proud to ask for love. And sometimes it's about initiating, I know that there's a lot of problems that that are encountered, because one spouse doesn't want to initiate they don't want to initiate the love. They don't want to initiate the intimacy, there's a lot of things that hold the person back because of the price. So try to be humble in that. There's nothing wrong with asking for what you need. And showing that you've made a mistake. And taking ownership of that actually takes a lot of strength. I get really impressed with individuals who come in, and they recognize that they have, they have a problem, because that is the most important step.
The last thing is about being generous, being generous.
is one of the byproducts of fasting and getting as we fast. We want to be more generous with the people around us. And a lot of times generosity is associated with giving money giving well, but actually you can be generous in so many other ways. You can be generous with your time. Time is such a precious commodity. It is such a precious commodity and we don't we don't give it
A lot of times to the people that we love most, a lot of times, the people in our lives are so hungry, they're hungry for our time, they're hungry for attention. And we need to make sure that we're giving them the time we are generous with our time, we're generous with our smiles, who are you smiling at, make sure that every day, your spouse sees a nice, beautiful smile. one spouse, when brother told me in couples therapy that's like, you know, I come home, and I get my salons and I come in with a good attitude. And I'm really I want to make the marriage work. And, and he said, My spouse doesn't even look at me, does not even raise her head up and acknowledge my existence. And
that's why I go to my computer, and I spend, you know, the next three, four hours on the computer, because I'm not even being acknowledged that I come home. So if we can look at our spouse, and we can give a genuine smile to them, as you know, smile at our kids and make them feel loved, it makes them feel that you, you care about them. So be generous also, in the attention that you get, people are craving attention. And if we don't give the attention to our spouse, to our children, they will seek it elsewhere. And they may seek it in places that we wouldn't be very happy about. I've seen it so many times, in marriages, where one spouse becomes very lonely, they feel like they can't connect
with their spouse anywhere, they can't talk, they can have fun, it's all either nagging or fighting. And they feel so lonely in the relationship, that they start seeking attention elsewhere. And it doesn't, it doesn't end well. So make sure that you're giving your spouse the attention that they crave, the smiling, the help that they need be, be helpful. That is a wonderful way to show your love a lot of times.
A lot of times I find that sisters complain that they just they just need a little more assistance, whether it comes to the chores or the kids, they just need someone to be there their spouse to help them out and, and doing that as a huge emotional deposit. When you're there for your spouse, when you make sure that if she's overwhelmed, you help out at the house. And that's a huge emotional deposit. You also need to make sure that you're helping out find out what is it that your spouse needs, and be there for him and just help each other out with whatever the task at hand is. Never let them feel overwhelmed, be there and say that you're going to help them it's also about being
generous with your compliments, you know, men and women, we all need compliments don't think that men are not in need of it, they actually crave it quite a bit. And so make it a habit that you compliment one another, acknowledge the positive trades, acknowledge and appreciate what they're doing almost everyone I talked to feels under appreciated. So why not make it a habit to appreciate the things that you like in your spouse? appreciate the qualities, the things that they do? Don't think of it as well, this is just their duty. Now, a lot of times people make the mistake of thinking that whatever their spouse is doing well, this is their job, they need to do it. And then
that's it. I don't need to thank them for their job. Well, what if you were working as an employee? And your your employer had that attitude? What if they said, You know what, you're just doing your job? What do you need you What do you need a certificate for? What do you need a raise for? What do you need this for? It's just your job. It's your duty, you have to do it. Now take the employer who recognizes who recognizes your effort and comes in and says, You know what, I've noticed that you've been staying late every night this week, you did an amazing job in your presentation. And I just wanted to tell you that I really appreciate your effort. Wow, what would that do to that employee,
they would want to do so much more, they would want to give more and they will just feel appreciated and happy even if it doesn't mean a pay raise. Even if it doesn't mean any kind of certificate but just to feel appreciated is an amazing thing. So try to do that with your spouse inshallah. So, just to just as a review, it is taking the byproducts of our by the taking the byproduct of our worship, so whether that's fasting or the teta, we are the reading of the Quran. Some of the natural byproduct is patience, right patience with so that we are not being demanding. We don't expect perfection from our spouse, and we are overlooking their mistakes. So that's how we can take
patients and apply it into our
marriage. Humility is also very important. You need to be humble with your spouse, where you're not too proud to ask for forgiveness. And you're not too proud to initiate, and you take ownership of your mistakes. And the third thing is to be generous with your spouse, be generous. Give your love, your affection, and your compliments. So that wraps it up. But I want to take in your questions I want to find out and I know some questions came in, it will be excellent. If
If you can sign up and write in your questions. I got a list from yesterday, several people wrote in so I'm going to take those questions.
I'm going to take in those I'm going to answer those questions first. But if you do have some more questions you can write it in.
So one of the first questions that came in All right, let's say it says, How do you stay on point when fasting? How do you strike a balance between husband and God? Okay, very good question. How do you create that balance? Because I know, a lot of times people are like, husband, you're on hold right now. Okay, you're on the back burner. I am busy worshiping a lot, okay. And husband says that to their wives, like I'm a toddler, we, I'm etica Don't even think about anything. But you know what? Allah wants us to create a balance, we need to be balanced in everything that we do. And he never asked us to be a hermit, it is about creating that balance. Now, how do you create that
balance? That's a great question. And it's about dividing your day in a way where maybe while your husband is at work, you can get your personal a by the end. So it is the time where you could be reading your on doing the text, see, whether it is extra prayers or acts of charity, do that so that when your spouse comes home, you have the time to give him of your attention and of your time. And it's really, you don't have to go overboard. There's nothing extraordinary that you have to do. But it's just about being kind being gracious, having all those characteristics I was talking about. So that when you are at home, and when you are interacting, it's a pleasant experience, right? So it's
not about doing anything out of the ordinary, but it's just about your interaction with them, prioritizing them, making them feel that when they do come home, you have time for them. You're not saying Well, I haven't finished my juice of the Quran, Samia, but you try to organize your time so that you can be available that if you if you both work, and you come home, then maybe you set up some time where you read the paper and together try to do the maybe go to the mosque together. And it's just a matter of having that not putting anyone on a back burner not thinking that well this is just the month of the Koran, and that means I ignore everyone else. No, you have to keep that
balance inshallah. All right. And the next question is, how can we be intimate in Ramadan with 19 hours of fast no energy, no time with a thought. And tada, we and so we're so close together, we share hugs and quick pics on the cheek, but still crave more intimacy. All right. It is it is challenging when you have so much going on in a short period of time. So what I would recommend is taking if you are able to take a short nap somewhere middle of the day, the Prophet sallallahu Sallam would have a habit of taking a short nap at a Lula and that really revives you. If you can do that, that would be great. You have to do a little bit of scheduling, it can always be spontaneous.
If you you plan with your spouse, you set a date where you
you make sure that you have some private time together. And like I said last time in the only ayah in the Quran about Ramadan. The most explicit verse about marriage is embedded in that about that your spouse being a garment and you know Allah could have just said that it's permissible to be intimate in Ramadan, but he went on into giving a lot of details about that intimacy. So that means this is something that we need to value we don't need to feel ashamed about it or say that no, this is not a spiritual act. We need to just do spiritual acts. I know a lot of friends who will say that that this month is like don't even think about it. But in reality, we need to create strike that
balance and if you schedule it, then I think that it can be feasible inshallah. Another question is
Sometimes my husband is
too angry.
so angry that I can't handle it. It makes me scared. I feel like I could go anywhere that he will not find me all, we are all scared my children as well, what should I do? All right, if you are angry in your home, this is not a good sign you any kind of abuse should not be tolerated. So if you are in a state where you are scared, I really think that you need to seek help. You need to get people involved. Maybe if you ask your family, you and your kids need to feel secure in your home. Because if you're in a constant state of stress, and you're releasing all that cortisol in your body, it is not healthy. So I think that you definitely need to consider your situation, maybe get
some professional help get family involved, and get yourself out of this constant state of fear.
Okay, and another sister says, I've been married for six years now and I have lived through cyclical verbal abuse, angry outbursts and yelling and screaming when I got my parents involved. Even they ended up getting yelled at. Okay, this is Ramadan, I don't even want to talk to him. All right. Now, this sounds like a crisis situation. If it's to the point where your your family is being yelled at. There's a lot of tension you don't you're not even interacting. This is crisis. And I think that it is like you needing to go to the ER or to the hospital. And right now, I'm providing some remedies, some treatments, some things to improve small conditions. But this sounds like a crisis situation
that needs extra attention and extra help. I. Let's see, there is another question. How do you deal with the possibility of a second wife I get crazy jealous of my husband even mentions another woman? That's a big discussion. I covered this in about four videos in my fighters and marriage program. And I go into depth I talked to the brothers I talked to the sisters possibilities of If this happens, and I don't think we have enough time to to go into it right now. But it is it is something that I cover in my videos are right on. Are there some more questions that are coming in?
Let's see. Are there some more I am
looking through
and seeing
now, if you've benefited from this information, and you're serious about working on your marriage, working on yourself, whether like I said, if you're single, if you're currently married, or you're divorced, and you want to just get a better understanding of how to have a good marriage, I have a five pillars of marriage program. And I address all of these topics in depth, each topic is given a lot of a lot of explanation. It's with the 20 years of experience in doing marriage counseling, and 20 years experience on handle life being in in our marriage. And I hope that you could take the time to benefit from that. Okay, let's see.
What if you give them full attention, and they think they're too good for you? and suggest you need to get a life? Oh, okay. Well,
I think that's the that's the pride, right? There is a lot of pride in this relationship. And I think it's important to develop your life not to be a needy spouse. So there's that strike between the balance between making your spouse feel wanted, but not being needy. And I think sometimes when a spouse crosses over that, and I've dealt with a lot of couples, that they feel their spouse is a little too needy. So and then they say get a life right. But make sure that you fully develop your own interests, your own life, and, and, and then give that attention and if they are not receptive to it, if they are not open to it, then in my you might need to discuss it further. You may need to
work on it a bit more. I would like to become a clinical psychologist, where shall I start from Okay, to become a clinical psychologist. It is actually as a
clinical psychologist 60 hour program. And this is double the amount of marriage counseling or educational psychology. I really love that you can get. You can do a master's in clinical psychology or you can do a PhD. And I would really recommend having some Islamic background so you can put everything through an aside
filter so nice. I don't recommend online studying because psychology is one of those fields that it has to be hands on. And you need to you need to do experiments and and apply your knowledge. Let's see
any other questions how to overcome jealousy? Okay, jealousy is a big issue in marriages now, whether that's from the, from the sister side or the brothers side, you need to first of all build your own self esteem. And you know, in my parents marriage program, pillar one, it's all about self development, and that I go into depth about building your self esteem, how to have confidence, how to have different areas of interest, whether spiritual growth, intellectual growth, if you work on yourself and you build who you are, you're going to be, it's less likely that you'll be jealous, I find that those people who are the most jealous are the most insecure as well. So if you don't have
any reason to be jealous, like there, there haven't been any acts of infidelity, you're not worried about that, but you're just possessive. Then you need to understand that if you allow your spouse, okay, or anyone in your life, you give them space, you don't suffocate them, give them space and you give them trust, then that that relationship will be so much healthier than trying to be overly protective, overly possessive. I've seen a lot of marriages that that really get destroyed by this jealousy. So keep check on that. Be aware of it work on yourself and and allow your spouse to grow inshallah.
Okay, let's see if there are other questions coming in.
Okay, what if? What if my husband has the belief that women should be dealt with anger and salt? Keep the fear of divorce on them all the time? Well, that's that's very unfortunate if, if a brother thinks that way, and I've seen that I've seen that in doing couples therapy that many men will either threatened divorce or threatened a second way I see you know, when you when you start threatening your spouse to try to get them to be better, you You've destroyed the relationship, you know, you're the relationship erodes because you are putting this kind of threat on their shoulders. And I think that, that brother, someone needs to, someone needs to deal with them, someone needs to
explain to them, it's very hard. At that point, if their mentality if that's how they view their spouse, or how they view women in general, it's going to be hard for them to actually receive advice from their own wife. And I find that sometimes when men have that mentality, if they are, they are abusive, if they are, they're angry, and they don't view women in the best of light, I sometimes even recommend for them to, you know, work with male professional so that they can take that information from another male, because it's very hard to have an impact.
The team, my husband always accuses me that I don't have a hobby to justify the time he spent playing
video games, okay, how to get him to start want to do activities together. Okay, so basically, he likes to play video games, and then says you need to get a hobby. So I can play my video games, right? So why not have some hobbies, it would be great to have some hobbies that that you can enjoy. If you don't have any specific ones. Maybe even try learning some games that he played play with him, you know, you may not be good at it. It may not be your cup of tea. But I think that anytime you strive to learn something that your spouse is interested in, it makes it's a huge emotional deposit. I'll give you I'll give you an example. My husband always wanted to do scuba diving and I
had a phobia. I really did. I think I watched one too many movies about scuba diver running out of oxygen and then dying. So I was really petrified. But I thought I'm a psychologist, I can work on myself, I can overcome this phobia. And I did that I overcame my phobia. And I got my scuba diving license in Hamden law, and it was something I had never would have never been on my bucket list. But because that was something that was interesting to him. I felt like it's worth pursuing. And it was a long pursuit. It wasn't an easy pursuit. But I think if we just make that effort to
Do the things our spouse enjoys, and try to try to see what they see in it. And your The other aspect of your question is how to get him to want to spend time, make sure that you're creating a positive association when you are together, make sure that it's fun time. Because what I find is that when I'm doing couples therapy, and this, you know, sisters complaining that the brother doesn't spend the her husband doesn't spend time, I find that a lot of times when they are, they are spending time together. It's either complaining talking about chores, it's it's just not fun. If you make your spouse feel like you're giving the attention. If you're giving the love if like doing all
those things that I was mentioning about being generous in, in the affection and the compliment, if you do that, they're just gonna they're gonna be so hungry for that they're gonna want to spend time with you. So try applying that in Sharla. All right, let's see, if we have some time for a few more questions.
I'm getting worried and losing my confidence in my marriage. He doesn't appreciate my efforts at all, and not happy and losing interest. Is it right for him to see an ex who is a widow
and spend time that they could discuss our marriage or issues? Absolutely not?
No, it is never necessary to be seeing an X getting together. And not just the acts. But really, when it comes to relationships with
relationship with the opposite gender, I think we need to be very careful. I started seeing a lot of a lot of couples that were coming in for therapy Actually, this past week, it's just been bombarded with couples who have caught their spouse cheating, unfortunately. And it all starts with this small but these contacts interaction compliments, and a lot of time It starts off with I want to discuss my marriage, maybe you can give me some advice, or what would you do in this situation. And it really is never, it's never a good idea to do that. You have issues, you deal with this, you know, the same gender, go to a friend go to go to a mom or go to a family member better yet go to
therapists who could actually give you sound, you know, sound advice without being partial to to your situation. So it's, it's really important to recognize what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. And I have this one young couple, they're doing premarital therapy. And one of the things that I said it's really important to establish early on before even getting married is what are your boundaries? What are your guidelines as far as male female interaction, and you know, each of them spell that out. And I think that's really important to do. Because if your husband is totally okay with meeting up with an axe and going to lunch, to discuss the marriage, if that's okay
with them, he needs to let you know. And and if you're not okay with even interacting with the opposite gender, then this is going to create a lot of tension. So
definitely, I think we need to minimize our contact and interaction or that friendship with the opposite gender because I have seen that nothing good comes out of it. Disaster disaster comes out of it. Okay, I am man, I am majoring in psychology at the moment. How do I explain to my parents that it's a good thing and it's not an Islamic? Okay. Well, I remember 20 years ago, when I decided to study psychology, no one that was in favor of it. And I had a I had a big obstacle in front of me, whether it's the society, my family, everybody was totally against the psychology. But Subhanallah I think now, after 20 years, so many people have evolved. I mean, even even the shoe I
think have recognized what an important role psychology plays in doing dowa in helping our own MA in restoring relationship, the marriage, the parenting, all of these things. So it's definitely if you put it through an Islamic filter, then you can definitely make it very beneficial.
Okay, there is it is a prenup allowed in Islam. What about illegal will? living in America it seems to be quite necessary. Okay, as far as a prenup, a lot of these fit issues and handle I've had the privilege of having chef Omar Suleiman and Chef y'all start by the do a one hour exclusive in the fighters of marriage program. And because this is not my area of expertise, and I know some questions
are coming in that are Phillip and I'm very careful about not addressing questions because I like to stay in my area of expertise which is psychology and I embedded in Islam but I don't take on the question. So if in that in that program, shifty author, God the addresses the sin of courting and marriage, and Chef Omar Suleiman addresses the rights and responsibilities of the husband and wife and they do an amazing job, Mashallah, and Edison bonus video. Let's see, Sister, please cover the issue of shame and vulnerability.
Dr. Bradshaw, Bernie brown seem to be talking about this issue of shame and vulnerability. All right, well, vulnerability, in order to be vulnerable, you need to feel safe. And I think that a lot of times, safety is missing in a marriage. And people get quite surprised. I have remember, I was seeing marriage counseling. And the brother was like, you know, my wife doesn't really show her emotions. She's really cold. She's very withdrawn. And he was just complaining about a list of things. And then she went on to saying, Well, you know, I just, I don't feel safe. And he was surprised to me, it's like, I've never laid a hand on you. Why do you not feel safe? I'm so kind,
I'm so sorry. And he's like, I don't feel safe, because you're always criticizing me. And so it's really important to make your spouse feel safe. When you feel safe, you can be vulnerable. And I go in depth about this in the, in the fifth pillar, especially, which is with sexuality. And that in, you have to feel safe in order to open up to be able to open up to your spouse, whether that's emotionally or physically, you need to create a safe haven. That means you don't criticize you don't make fun. You do not use sarcasm, you don't use anger. And so once someone feels safe, then then they're able to be vulnerable.
Okay.
Okay, how do you find a spouse in modern times? This was like really beautifully answered by Chef yasur body in the program as far as how to do it in a islamically correct way. And I know that there are some people who resort to I know there's like marriage
matchmaking videos, not videos, matchmaking websites. I know how far do I know that like there's pure matrimony, I think that these sites, it's a good way I know people who have met their spouse on there, but as far as like the halal and haram of it, I think she would be better at answering that. Let me see if I've gotten all the questions. I think I've addressed most of the questions so my next time it will be Tuesday at four o'clock more Ramadan remedies, it will be every Tuesday and Thursday during Ramadan inshallah, so I hope that you can share with your friends and your family so that everyone can start improving their relationship because really, it's not something that you can put
in the back burner. You cannot put anything on hold. We need to give everything its due rights, whether that's our marriage, our worship, our children, everything and our work. Everything needs to be done simultaneously. So I pray that Allah gives us those beautiful gifts from all of the rituals that we're doing with that Allah blesses us with the patience, patience to overlook our spouses, flaws, patience to deal with them kindly. I pray that Allah gives us that ability.
To be humble, to be humble before our Lord and to be humble with our with our spouse, where we can take ownership of what we have done wrong, to ask for forgiveness. And I also pray that we are more generous during this month of Ramadan not just in wealth, not just in charity, but being generous with our spouse be generous in in our affection in our time with them in our compliments, and May Allah bless all of those who have a relationship make it better, those who have not yet found their spouse inshallah you find Mr. Mrs. righteous, and those who are going through a breakup y'all law, I pray that Allah gives you the patience, and you learn the wisdom through this and to sokola here for
tuning in. I'm looking forward to seeing you again on Tuesday, Salaam Alaikum.