Lobna Mulla – The Emptiness Syndrome, the husband wife relationship issues
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AI: Transcript ©
It's
a pleasure to be here with you on
this, lovely morning, the last day of the
convention.
And we're here to talk about,
a subject that
maybe some of you are
living right now,
and maybe some of for some of you,
it's on the horizon. Maybe for some of
you, I'm looking at who's in the room.
This is your parents that we're talking about
and you're, you know, thinking about them,
or whatever it may be. But this is
a reality that is,
important that we address in the community and
I'm I'm glad this this space was given.
You know in in Islam we have these
we're always striving for the best. For Ibadah,
we're striving for Iqsan. The prophet has asked
by saying Najibreel, mal Iqsan and taqud Allah
You know that
you're striving for the best to be excellent
in your worship with Allah
as if you can see him and if
you can't see, you know that he sees
you. As for our work in everyday life,
the
prophet says, that in in our daily work,
we're striving
for perfection to do the best that we
can do. In marriage,
there's a criteria
that the prophet
gives us as far as what we're striving
for.
The best of you are those that are
best to their spouses.
So
khairiya, this, you know, this concept of of
being the best we can be in marriage
means that you treat your spouse the best
that you can treat them. Right? And the
prophet is that best example.
So
that applies at every stage of life.
It's not just about
that love that's there initially
that's there initially
in your marriage where the romance is high
and you fall in love and then, you
know, and then well, that was a thing
of the past and that's that doesn't apply
to us anymore. Right? I saw somewhere recently,
you know, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
that Allah has placed between you love and
mercy. And And I saw someone recently said,
well, that love is for the beginning of
the marriage, but then mercy needs to kick
in to help you sustain the long road.
Absolutely. That's true. But that doesn't mean love
is gone. That doesn't mean you put love
in the backseat and Khalas it's, you know,
that's a thing of the past. It's something
that's ever present.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam he said,
We haven't seen
for 2 people we haven't seen
for 2 people
that love each other. You know, in Islam
we have these different cons constructs of love.
2 people who love each other for the
sake of Allah and all of these things.
He said the best form of love is
that love that exists in marriage
because that love is it's at it's is
at its fullest, has the ability to develop
in a way that love can and no
other,
area of life. Right?
So
empty nest and the empty nest syndrome.
What is it?
And let's talk about it. I wanna share
with you a couple of stats
as it relates to to this particular reality.
I learned a new term actually, subhanallah,
that I've actually witnessed with my eyes, but
I didn't have words for it. But now
but I now unfortunately, I see on a
fairly frequent basis in the community
something that's called gray divorce.
Anybody heard of this term? Gray divorce.
Right? I think you know what that means.
Right? The beard is gray. The hair is
gray.
And
and now we are seeing divorce for people
at that stage of life.
Right? People over the, the, you know, AARP,
they define that as for anybody over the
age of 50 who experiences divorce,
this is what what they consider a great
divorce. And the numbers for that are way
up.
In the numbers for divorce generally in the
community in the in in America
about 1 in 3 or 2 in 5.
33, 4 40 percent and they're saying those
numbers are even even increasing as we speak.
In the Muslim community,
per actually perhaps in the general American population
about 1 in 2. Mhmm. In the Muslim
community about 1 in 3. Let's just give
you some round numbers. Right?
What's happening
in as as people are getting older,
commitment is not what it used to be
in the old days. And so they're saying
the divorce rate for couples over the age
of 50,
including empty nesters, which we'll define in a
moment, has doubled over the course of the
past generations. It's double than what it used
to be. And the divorce rate for people
over 64 years of age tripled during that
same period of time. SubhanAllah, imagine,
you know,
happily ever after.
But now people at the age of 65,
divorce has tripled in number from what it
used to be. And we're seeing that in
the Muslim community. These are these are the
general statistics that we were, you know, that
we find, but of course, there's an overlay
of that in the community.
So
talking about this concept of the empty nest
syndrome,
what is it? What does it mean? What
does it look like? How does it play
out? What are the challenges there? And then
what are the solutions is what we'll be
talking about. So So number 1,
empty nest syndrome, of course, is a reference
to the fact that when your
little fledglings have left the nest, right, their
your children have left home,
You spent
20,
25,
maybe 30 years, maybe 18 for some people.
Their their children leave quick out of college,
and you've spent all of that time raising
the children, all of those years investing them,
pouring your heart and soul into them,
husband and wife both,
and now your children are gone.
Right? They're no longer in the house.
And now it's just the 2 of you,
and that energy that you had,
well, you have to pour that energy in
somewhere else now. Right?
And so that reality,
brings a lot of difficulty into many people's
lives and many households.
And and, you know,
it it's a it's a it's a point
of grief.
It's on the spectrum of of grief. You
know, grief has has to do with many
things. Losing a loved one, losing a career,
losing
a dear family member,
etcetera.
Losing
your ability to be an active parent.
Right? Losing
that
authority is not the right word, but losing
that role, that parental role, right, that you
had and that you held so dear to
your heart in terms of raising your children,
giving them Tarbiyyah, raising them to be righteous,
Muslim children,
that was your focus. Your whole life was
primed for that and now you don't have
that. You don't own it in the same
fashion. Right? And so that's what this is
about.
So,
the the empty nest syndrome for some people,
they say 1 out of 10,
becomes
a manifestation
that weighs on a person to the extent
that it can it can,
transform into depression,
and
have a very sort of debilitating
effect,
incapacitating
effect in people's lives because now that's all
gone from their life.
So to that extent it affects people. Now,
they say generally that the the process of
the empty nest syndrome has kind of 3
stages.
First there's grief,
then there's relief, and then there's joy.
And ideally we want to get to that
point of joy.
There's grief that the children left home.
You know, you don't have that tight tight
connection. They're no longer there in your presence.
And,
then there's relief
for the fact that, well, wait a second,
man. I don't have to wake up at
6:30
in the morning
to get their lunches ready and to get
them, you know, all prepped, and and I
don't have to there's no I don't have
to go anywhere to 3:3:3
PM. There's no,
activities I have to shuttle them around to,
and I can assure about my life right
now,
hang don't let me hang in, bro.
Oh, so and this is right. This is
important. Right? It play
empty nest syndrome is plays out much heavier
in women
because of exactly what Lubna just said. Right?
I'm speaking about things that apply to her,
that don't apply to me as much.
I have to take my my my, you
know, my responsibility, but I'm gonna be honest,
she takes most of it. Right?
And so so it does play out heavier
in women because that the the the the
and subhanAllah, the the the prophet is so
wise in his words. Right? When he's asked
who has the most,
you know, rights over over me, You Rasoolullah.
My sukha who deserves most of my time,
You Rasoolallah, the father says,
your mother, your mother, your mother. So that
connection is very clear and when that when
that connection is is is shifted,
right, now their children are not in your
actual presence at home, well, that
disconnection
for the mother plays out much much heavier.
Right?
So grief, relief, and then joy. Joy is
about, well, wait a second, man. I can
go travel the world.
I can enjoy my spouse the way I
did in our first
1, 2, 3, 4 years of marriage when
we didn't have children and we were free
birds and we were able to do whatever
we wanted. There was no restrictions. I didn't
have to worry about waking up. I didn't
have to worry about oh, wait a second.
We have to be in we have to
be, back at such and such time. I'm
gonna be very, like,
I'm gonna be very bold here. Right? There's
nobody else in the house.
Like, my bedroom is here and my children's
bedroom is here, but nobody's there in the
bedroom. We can have we can do whatever
we want to do. Right?
That life so getting to that point of
joy
is,
is where we're striving to get.
And and capturing that love as we mentioned
at the beginning.
That
enjoying love at every stage of life and
not just it being something of the past,
you know, for 2 for 2 people at
that stage of life to really be connected
in that way is a beautiful sight. It's
a beautiful sight
to see may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow
us to see,
that beauty, that spark of love ever ever
present in in all of the the lives
of our, elders and our seniors,
in the community.
It's a couple more minutes.
Yep. It's not too bad. Now my wife
is giving me time limits.
They have to share. You know? So,
you know, so as we said, mothers take
that that heavier load. Now in terms of,
even even the perspective that is there as
far as leave children leaving the home. Right?
There's sometimes different perspectives.
The mother is maybe heartbroken,
but me as a father, You
know?
We can we can be free. And and
so that that in and of itself, the
2 different attitudes as to how we display,
if we don't align there, that can create
a tremendous amount of tension in the home.
You know, you're never as
you're never as necessary and relevant in life
when you as you are when you're raising
your children. And when that's gone, it's such
a big,
manifest shift.
And so those the the changes manifest in
so many different ways. Right? What happens?
These changes manifest especially heavy in people who
are who have difficulty dealing with change. If
you had difficulty when you brought your child
into this world, if you had difficulty leaving
your parents home originally, well, this shift in
life also weighs heavily
on you. So that's something to kind of
pay attention to.
Now there's all these other new challenges that
develop. Right? You have to re you have
to kind of renegotiate
your relation children. Now they're out of the
home. Well, what does that look like? Does
that mean I'm gonna talk to them once
or twice a day? Does that mean I'm
gonna talk to them once a week? Are
they gonna visit us? Are we gonna visit
them? There's tension around that. Right? Or there's
things to negotiate around that.
Now, we have to
reformulate
our relationship.
How What are we gonna do? What is
our daily routine going to look like? How
much are we going to connect?
Are we going to date again? Right? Are
we going to have that active relationship with
one another again?
There is,
sometimes,
you know,
long standing communication challenges
that we've just brushed to the side and
never dealt with. Why? Because we were busy
with the children.
And now we have we have no choice
but to face head on
those gaps that were there in our relationship,
and they have to be rectified. Because if
they're not,
we will live a life that's miserable.
Right? If we don't
fix
certain aspects of the relationship that were broken,
well, there will be a long term consequence.
And who wants to live that life? Who
wants to live that life of constant pain
and stress and
and argumentation
and so on. So there's so many different,
concepts that,
that come into play. So many different things
that need to be reassessed
in our marital relationship when we hit that
stage of life. You're fine. I wanna take
up. We're just waiting for other mics, so
keep going. You're good. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Enjoy.
Enjoy. No. Well well no. You got me
all
you told me to I gotta stop in
a couple minutes. I prepped for that, and
now you're telling me to keep it. Let
let's we're we're gonna put on a little,
show for you.
Right? As to
a conversation
that may be taking place in some of
your lives. We'll do a little role play
for you to kind of embody
to kind of embody,
what this looks like
in a negative
way and then how we want to, engage
in this space in a in a positive
negative This is good to share my Oh,
it was because that's what we were negotiating.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't trying to to
be really Okay. So
we're gonna do so, you know, this is
all this is fictional. Right? Yes. But for
some of you, it may not be.
Our son in this fictional
role play I don't know. Has left the
home as well as the other case.
Alright. So this is this is an exercise
as to not how not to engage,
in this space. Right? In this emptiness space.
Okay.
Hey, love. Can you believe what our son
Ahmed did? And remember we don't have a
son named Ahmed. Okay.
Can you believe what he did? Oh, I
forgot that. I have to give it back
to you. No. What did he do?
Can you believe it? He called me while
I was at work. He said it was
super urgent, that he needed my advice desperately,
so I left a very important meeting. And
then later I found out he didn't even
take my advice
that?
Well, I told you before that you shouldn't
baby Ahmed.
Like, he's gone out of the house. Just
let him grow up. Let him be a
man and and set your and set your
boundaries.
And why did you, you know, leave your
meeting anyways? Who why do you always have
to engage him like that? Okay. Forget it,
man. That's not the point. The point is
I spent all that time away from my
meeting to hear him out and give him
advice.
And at the end of the day, he
and his wife did the very exact thing
that I told them.
Yeah. But if you didn't cater to his
every need,
you know, baby him
like you did his whole life,
none of this would have ever happened. Well,
maybe if you were there more than you
would have I would not have maybe never.
Ahmed
Ahmed
is a married man.
Why do you care so much anyway?
You know what? Forget it, man. You don't
even care about me or your son anyways.
Why don't you even bother?
You're calling me selfish? Oh, I forgot. And
you're selfish too?
You write the script and you're gonna read
it right
now.
You're calling me selfish? What are you talking
about? And besides, what how many times have
I told you? It's time to move on.
Let the kids speed. They're grown up now.
Man, you're so insensitive. I can't believe
it. I'm always criticizing, man. I'm just trying
to help you. I'm trying to help you
do the right thing. Okay. Well, that's a
help. I don't want it. Thank you very
much.
Okay. So that's what you don't want to
do here. You'd be necessary. Right?
I'm gonna learn.
I don't know why you're clapping.
We put ourselves out there. I think think
they appreciate the vulnerability. You know?
So this is how this is how you
want to engage. Yeah. Oh, I forgot. I
saw it closed.
One second.
Yeah. Yeah. No.
Okay. Okay. How to
Hey, love. Can you believe what our son,
Ahmed, did? No. What did he do? He
called me while I was at work. He
said it was so important and he needed
my advice. So I left a very important
meeting to talk to him, and then later
I found out he'd even take my advice.
Can you believe that? Oh, that sounds really
tough.
Yeah. And you know the worst part of
it all? Tell me.
Even after I warned him about the consequences
of the idea that he and his wife
had, he they did the exact opposite of
what I advised them to do. That must
have been frustrating. I can't believe that. I
know. Right?
Yeah. I'm always here to listen to you.
You know?
I know it's hard. I know it's hard
when our kids make decisions, but they don't
sit well with us.
Yeah. Thank you. Exactly. I feel like you're
really good there. I appreciate it. Yeah. Always
good.
Hamdullah.
Oh, man. Okay. Hamdullah.
So, you know, that was an example,
of of what the right way and the
wrong way of really active listening. And and
like Suhail mentioned, you know, so there's
there's a there's syndrome asked aspect of it
where people, you know, 1 in 10 like
Suhail mentioned, and it really difficult for mothers
to let go.
That's one aspect. But there's still the environment
in the home that tends to happen when
kids do leave the nest and there's the
empty nest syndrome. Right? It's basically what what
what Suhail mentioned that how do you as
husband and wife reinvent the wheel? I think
it's important for us to remember in general
with and without kids before and after and
in the middle all that good stuff. You
have to remember that
we have to remind ourselves, subhanAllah, me included,
that
marriage is not a set and forget. It's
not like the crock pot, you know, when
they say set and forget, just put on
the stove and leave it for 7 hours
like Nahari. No. It's something that you have
to nurture. It's a garden that you have
to fertilize and you have to water it.
You have to prune the, you know, prune
the leaves. You have to pick out the
weeds. Right? It's something that needs constant work
and I think that's something
that we can't forget in any stage of
our life. There's a there's a early courting
stage right before marriage and then there's a
early years before kids. Then there's a big
change when their kids come. So you're constantly
reinventing your relationship.
Also realizing, and then of course all the
stages that we mentioned, also realizing that us
as human beings in general, you know, you're
2 separate human beings going on your trajectory
of life, spiritually,
career wise, you know, intellectually,
physically your body changes. So human beings, our
wants, our desires, our tastes, our interests, they
change every 7 or 8 years or so.
So us being in tune with one another,
that's super important and one of the key
elements
of making a marriage beautiful in all stages
of life is really communication.
Communication,
appreciation, showing gratitude for one another. You know
when we do slip and we're always going
to slip because we're human beings Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala gave us that mercy so we
need to be merciful and forgiving,
between each other.
It's learning how to kind of readjust the
conversation.
So I make a mistake and learning how
to take something back. You know what? Sorry.
I I I didn't mean to call you
insensitive. I was just really hurt that Ahmed
didn't take our advice for example. You know,
those are called repair attempts. There's many,
different ways,
styles of communication that we have to understand
that will help a relationship flourish. One of
them like I mentioned is active listening.
When I was telling So how my problem,
I don't want him to fix it. Unless
I tell him, So how I really want
your advice. That's different, but really active listening
is whether this is with your children, with
people that you manage at work, with with
your spouse, with your parents,
most of the time when people want to
share something, they just want to kind of
offload.
They want to reduce some of their stress
by sharing their frustration.
They don't want you usually
in the moment to say, you know what?
Well, you should have done that. Why'd you
do that? That was so dumb. Right? Active
listening is just kind of hearing and listening
and that's all I wanted from Suhail and
then that that role play that was the
example.
So I talked about communication, kind of active
listening,
making sure that when we express our needs,
we express it in a way that's talking
about what we want and not what we
don't want. I shouldn't just come and jump
at Suhail and say, well, how come you
never spend time with me or how can
you never do this or what's wrong with
you? Instead I say, I would like for
us to go out. I would like for
us to spend more time together. Hey, I
would like it if you listen to me
for a moment. I'm telling you about my
problem with Ahmed. I just want you to
hear me out. Right? I don't even jump
on him and attack him and vice versa.
Showing gratitude for one another. You know, sometimes
we got so caught up in all of
those years of child rearing.
We forget to thank one another for the
things that you're supposed to do. Right? You're
supposed to go to work and bring home
the money or you're supposed to be doing
this for the kids or you're supposed to
be, you know, doing this. But thanking one
another, truly showing that appreciation is a beautiful
way of boosting each other's
emotional bank account. Think of every single interaction
that you have with your spouse, and you
can keep me in time check too, maybe
1 o'clock.
Think of every single interaction with your spouse.
Every single one that you're either depositing in
their emotional bank account or you're depleting.
Moment by moment, their emotional bank account. So
every time I'm criticizing or I'm attacking or
I'm neglecting maybe even, maybe I'm not maybe
Suhail wanted to tell me something because I
don't have time for that right now. I
got, you know, I added it and I
just went away. I'm depleting that emotional bank
account. But every time I say thank you,
every time I kinda reach out he reached
out. He wanted me to listen to something?
I listen. I I I heard him out.
Even if it's something maybe
let's just say Suhala's not into sports. But
let's just say Suhala wanted to share like
a sports, score with me. That's not the
case. But and I and I listened. It's
like, oh really? Because I can't believe the
last part of the game was such and
such. It's something that he cares about and
I listened.
That again is putting a little deposit in
the emotional bank account. If I tell Suhail,
let's go to the farmers market, which he
would love to go to, let's say he
did it. And he's like, okay, you want
to go, let's go. He did that because
that was going to put a boost in
my emotional bank account and vice versa. So
looking at our relationship in general, but in
particular as you prepare for those years,
of empty nest,
working on it from now is a beautiful
beautiful act that you can do. Something that
you need to be doing anyway, but something
in preparation so that when life throws you
a curve and things change as it will
change,
you are prepared for it and you've already
built a solid foundation. So I invite,
those that are not necessarily in that situation
to think ahead and kind of say, hey,
wait a minute.
What are we doing to kind of reinvest
in our relationship? Ask yourself that question now
so that you're not caught off guard later.
And if you're in that situation and you
felt we've had some, you know, we had
a bumpy road a little bit, let's let's
redirect, let's reconnect. I think that's something that's
really important.
Just a couple of quick tips before we
open,
up with the q and a and also
one more role play inshallah.
Some people what they do when they find
themselves kind
of life has changed, what they'll do is
they'll throw themselves more into work.
So that's good for you, the person who's
enjoying the work and that's their way of
kind of directing their energy, a little bit
of their loneliness. You know what? Let me
just put it into something that I love.
But are you reinvesting in your spouse?
So you guys have to communicate. What's our
plan? Think ahead, you know, what do we
want to do? What are some of our
goals? Share a hobby together.
If you have a temporary like project or
something that you're working on that's going to
take some more time, fine, but don't let
that be your long term solution
of coping with sadness or coping with change.
Let me just throw 15 hours into work
and neglect my spouse. Right? It's something that
needs communication. Bottom line communication,
planning,
and and really being sensitive and empathetic to
the other person's needs. And, like, instead of
feeling, you know, this is not my responsibility
to worry about worry about my spouse. What
can I do to make my spouse's life
better? And hopefully my spouse is thinking the
same way. What can I do to make
things better? It's not an obligation, but something
out of love and mercy inshallah, the way
we're looking at it.
Yeah. Let me say
something. Yeah, please. Shift. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And
and just to add a point, and then
we're gonna do another role play for you.
You know,
we know our spouse's strengths, and we know
our spouse's weaknesses.
Right? And sometimes
what happens is
as
the
relationship
is declining
in in the connection that we have,
those
blame worthy traits that we see in our
spouse, those things that annoy us, those things
that we don't like, and those things that
may not be good traits of theirs,
they become more prominent.
Mhmm.
Our prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he gave
us very clear direction in terms of how
to engage.
He told us
that a believing man, a husband should not
despise, should not hate, should not look
at that aspect
of
his wife.
That there are certain things that naturally you
will not like about your spouse. You your
lives are very deeply
intertwined.
This the level of intimacy that husband and
wife share is like no other relationship. So
it's natural that there are gonna be things
that you're gonna be exposed to that you
don't like. Put those aside. You don't shine
the light on those. Shine the light on
what's good. Yes. Right? And so this concept
of
there's a nice saying. They say that marriage
is not about
is not about getting what you want.
It's about wanting what you get.
I wish my wife was this, this, and
this, and this. You can dream all you
want.
She is who she is. Hey, slow down,
bro. She is who she is.
What are you saying? She is who she
is, and I have to want that. I
have to be invested in the in the
parts of her that I love, that that
I like, that, you know, appeal to me
and that's where we connect. Right? So so
there's a lot of reframing and of course
vice versa.
There's a lot of reframing that we we
also want to look at and, you know,
kind of,
to to our perspectives
have to mature and have to develop. If
we're going to grow together, all what I
talked about earlier, you know, divorce rates as
as the generations get older and as those
are increasing.
But it's not just about the divorce rate.
It's about growing old happy, right? Growing old
together
and we are happy with one another. We're
smiling at each other until the last moment,
right? And not just about simply caring for
each other's needs. That's part of it. Our
lives become so intertwined that I need her,
she needs me to function, to navigate life.
She needs me to, you know, to
for certain aspects of life and I need
her. We've become dependent upon each other. There's
interdependency.
That's part of the relationship
but it needs to be premised on love.
And and then and the mercy part
comes in in terms of navigating those parts
that are, you know, that are challenging in
the relationship. So I'm gonna do one more
Yeah. Role play? Yeah. Okay.
So what I'm gonna do Don't mess it
don't mess it up this time. Okay.
Okay.
I'll open up the text again. Yeah.
Yeah. I didn't remember your your phone scrolling.
Alright.
Okay.
Okay.
Hey.
You're still looking at your phone, man? You've
been staring at that thing for 30 minutes
now.
What's the big deal? I'm just relaxing here.
Why are you barging in here and yelling
at me all of a sudden? You haven't
even noticed me all evening. You're always glued
to that dumb phone like an old uncle
looking at WhatsApp all day.
Calm down, man. Stop nagging me.
Well, I wouldn't nag you if you would
just pay attention to me.
I had a long day. I'm at work
all day. I just wanna relax.
Why are you always on my case?
Oh, really? You've had a long day? What
about me? I go to work, and then
I would like to relax too after driving
the kids all day and cooking and cleaning
up after your mess.
My mess? What are you talking about? You're
the one who have all your hijabs all
over the the room. I can't even find
my stuff.
Something's really hit at home, you know.
Well, maybe if you helped out more, I
would have I would have time to put
myself away.
Oh, so now you're blaming me, Yes. I'm
always on the phone. I'm not helping enough.
Blah blah blah blah. Man, that's all I
hear from you. You know what? That really
hurts. I just wanted to spend time with
me,
and now all you do is criticize me?
Oh, wait. Wait. Wait. What did I just
do? I just read your
Okay. Sorry. You know what? That really hurts.
I just wanna spend time with you, and
now you're making fun of me.
How am I supposed to know what what
that you wanna spend time with me if
all you do is criticize me? I wasn't
criticizing you. I just want you to get
off your dumb phone.
Okay. So I'm off my phone now. Happy?
No. I'm not happy. Forget it. I'm going
to sleep.
Good. Good.
Again, you guys are clapping.
Alright. So this is how this is how
a positive this is what a positive interaction
looks like. But that's still real. Right? There
are still these frustrations, but how do you
how do you, you know You wanna just
kinda tell them to kind of be aware
of how we're correcting, like, to auto correct
when you mess up. Yeah. And pay attention
to some of the auto correct that is
going on in the in the in the
conversation, Sean. Okay. You're still on your
Okay.
You're still on your phone? Man, you've been
staying at that thing for 30 minutes now.
What's the big deal, man? Why are you
barging in here and yelling at me all
of a sudden? But you haven't even noticed
me all the evening. You're always boots that
dumped 1 of yours like
an old uncle looking at WhatsApp all day.
Calm down. Stop nagging me, woman.
I wouldn't nag if you just put if
you would just pay attention to me.
Besides, I really I'm really I really feel
hurt when you use that word nag.
Okay. Look. I'm sorry for saying that you
were nagging me. I just I don't know
why you come in here yelling at me
all of a sudden. Okay. Okay. I admit
I did come in here pretty upset. Let
me start over. I'd like to I'd like
for you to stop looking at your phone
at night so we can spend some time
together.
Sure. I would love that.
And I like when you say it that
way. But sometimes, you know, I'm just overwhelmed
from work and I need some time to
just decompress and and I'm just catching up
on my messages and reading articles and there's
a lot going on in the world and
that's just my way of relaxing. Okay. I
mean, that's fair but I feel lonely, you
know, when I walk in and out of
the room a few times and you even
look up once. When the kids are asleep,
I feel like this would be a nice
time for us to catch up and spend
some time with each other.
Okay. I can see how staring on my
phone when you come to the room would
would make you feel bad so I'm sorry.
And you still do it, my boy.
Okay. You know, no. That was just part
of the script. Okay. And I'm sure my
yelling at you to get off your phone
is not the best way to get your
attention.
That's that's true.
You know what? I just need about 20
minutes, after the kids go to sleep and
that'll be ready for you. Okay. That's fair.
What what what if you're so glued to
your phone that you don't even realize how
much time has passed? Just tell me time's
up, and I'm happy to say it to
you. Okay. That sounds like a deal. Alright.
Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hamdulillah.
We have 9 minutes. Okay. Hamdulillah. So I
think we we we wanna give you all
a little bit of time. You know, we
wanted to display some of that.
We
this is kind of natural to us.
We we I'm gonna make a plug here.
We do something that's called the Muslim Marriage
Rejuvenation Retreat.
We've done, I don't know, about maybe 10
or so of them over the last, 3
years.
And we do them sometimes at, you know,
at conferences and masjids and at at special,
like, getaway destinations.
And,
and we we we take, couples either on
the whole weekend,
a full 2 days, sometimes 3 days, sometimes
a whole week.
And work through all of these different skills.
We just kind of gave you a very
tight summary of all of that today.
And there's so much more. And so
for those people that, you know, want to
put ihsan into their marriage, that want to
make their marriage the best that it can
be whether or not you're doing well or
not,
in your marriage, right?
We're always trying to be better. And so,
just something that for for people to be
aware, we've we've tailored it obviously for Muslims.
And, of course, it's it's based on the
on the research as it relates to marriage
and then it's based on, of course, the
Quran and Sunnah in terms of how we
approach a marriage.
So,
so please, please check that out. Our website
is called signsofthedivine.com.
Signsofthedivine.com.
And from his signs, Allah signs that he
created husband and wife for each other, Signs
of the divide.
And it's called the Muslim Marriage Rejuvenation
Retreat. So we wanna open up for questions.
If anybody has questions,
in terms of, you know,
your
whatever, in terms of any specific realities that
you wanted to kind of explore?
Yeah. So, the question was what should the
children do? What is the children's role
in their parents' lives when they see
their parents moving towards,
living
in an empty nest situation, right?
Or that is the current reality, right? What
what can the children do to help promote
and foster love between
mom and dad? That's a really good question.
Right? And I think,
I think it's important for the the children
to look at their parents with an eye
of mercy. A lot of times. Unfortunately, what
we see in the community a lot is
the parents have gotten so turned off
from just if if there's an if there's
a critical
sort of, you know, relationship between husband and
wife where they're just always on each other's
case. They're always fighting. Or the other opposite
end is where they've completely just distanced each
other from
they've distanced themselves from each other. Right? They
don't communicate.
Those are kind of the 2 extremes. They're
going at it. It's fight or flight.
And,
the children
can be a bridge,
to not be partial to either mom or
dad,
right? To
gently remind mom and dad, Mom, dad, we
wanna see you grow old together, and the
2 of you are happy.
Mom, dad Go on vacation. You know? You
know, let's let's support you. Here, we're gonna
send you off to Hawaii. We're gonna send
you off to, you know, somewhere to go
have a good time.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm hoping my children stay in the line.
I always tell my children, if you when
do you guys become a millionaire?
This is what I want. 1, 2, 3.
So,
you know, supporting them, being there in a
supportive role, and then
you don't wanna get into a situation where
you're becoming their counselor or therapist or mediator.
It's not a healthy situation.
That's not going to go right.
So suggest to your parents
if their relationship is in a really, you
know, not in a really negative space, if
they need some work and they're willing to
work
and you should push them to work on
the relationship to get therapy, to go to
a marital therapist,
to to seek that extra level of professional
help.
That can be absolutely
you know, sometimes
sometimes there's just some small buttons that need
to be pressed
for the relationship to reset.
Sometimes the the the,
problems are much deeper seated than that,
but for them to get into a space
where they can actively,
you know, work to figure out to make
the relationship better. And and so and and
the children, you can sponsor their their their
better. And and so and and the children,
you can sponsor
their their therapy for them. Like, so, you
know, sometimes what happens is and I see
this. The man says, what are you talking
about?
A $150 an hour? I get this. Right?
We'll just figure it out. And there's nothing
happens.
So pay for your parents. You know what
I'm saying? There's there's a lot of, different
things that you can do to kind of
to help push them along in the right
direction.
Okay?
Good audience. You know everything. How many do
you like?
I'm just kidding.
So Sister.
Yes, sister. How do you guys practice staying
curious about each other?
Does they say that's really important
throughout marriage,
being serious about each other?
And then when you are curious, how do
you not
I I I think you framed it. I
think you framed it in such a lovely
way. That in and of itself, I think
is great advice. Stay curious about each other.
And that really if you take that as
a as a motto,
that can apply for everything. If Sohel
is maybe, you know, maybe he's quiet and
there's something going on instead of me assuming
why I think he is, hey, you're I
noticed that you've been quietly, you know, what's
going on? If he's ready to open up,
great. Not, great. You know,
you know, wanting to find out about what
each other is doing at work. Some people
don't like talking about it, some people do.
So, you know, giving that space for what
that curiosity can look like in each spouse,
but I think that's a wonderful reminder in
general that if you're always trying to, you
know, in in the, one of the studies
or, you know, one of the, I would
say, scholars of marriage, you know, doctor John
Gottman, that's really he he talks about that
you constantly need to kind of build the,
what is it? The love your love maps.
I should know what Suhail likes, what his
interests are, and that's always gonna be changing.
So have those conversations. Go out on a
date. How do I know what Sohal's gonna
like if I don't like if we don't
put ourselves in that situation that's relaxing. Hey,
let's go in the patio and let's have
some tea. You know, making that time. It
doesn't have to be something distracting. It doesn't
have to be Hawaii, but make the time
where you're able to connect. I think we've
felt it in the past. Whenever we're so
busy with each other's with, you know, with
our schedule, collective family schedule, there's not even
time to ask that. We notice there's more
friction, and when we make that simple time
to allow for the curiosity to even come
up,
it makes things so much better and it
doesn't take a lot light. 15 is quantity.
What is it? Quality over quantity. So I
think just keeping that as a model and
then creating the time for that curiosity to
come out can really be helpful in everything,
an active listening
and and and building, the relationship and, you
know, building the knowledge of one another can
really make for,
a beautiful friendship. And that's something that I
think a lot of times we forget that
really happy marriages should be built on friendship.
You guys are coming together as friends.
And if you didn't see each other that
way, inshallah, that can be a re envisioning
of your guys' relationship inshallah. Friend
friendship was the basis, was the core at
at the the relationships of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. His friendship with Sayyidah Khadija
was so deep
that for years after,
Sayyidah Aisha
was jealous of that friendship that he had,
that connection.
The relationship of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam with Sayyidah
Aisha was premised on friendship
when she's,
you know, when the prophet was asked,
who who do you love most, You Rasulullah?
He says, Aisha.
He you know, the and the person wanted
to know from that's not what I mean,
You Rasulullah. Mina Rijal from the men. And
then he says, Abuha, her father.
She was the core of his life. Right?
And so the prophet said, so that
that, you know, that connection, you can't have
love without friendship.
You cannot have love in marriage
without friendship. And so there has you
ideally, husband and wife are best friends.
And if there is challenges there, well, then
then those challenges need to be kind of
worked through. I think we're out of time.
I'm gonna share this one last shameless plug.
Alumna hates this, but next year, we're taking
a group to the Maldives Islands.
So if anybody's interested, look again, look at
the website signsofthedivine.com.
We have different retreats in different places. Of
course, the the goal is to help reconnect
people, to build their relationship, to be the
best that it can be so that you
can grow,
old
in your, you know, in your later years
of life and be happy with one another,
supporting each other throughout that life journey. May
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala grant all of the
couples your happiness. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
give you
love and mercy for the rest of your
days. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
help us to be the best role models
that we can be for our children so
that our children continue in that beautiful way
in which our prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
gave us as an inheritance. Right? Love and
mercy to carry between husband and wife always.
And and one more duas for our singles
that are looking for that,
mister or missus Wright, inshallah, that
grant you all righteous spouses
and
those who haven't had children yet, righteous offspring
inshallah. May bless all of you.