Reflections on Marriage #2

Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala shuffelin Viva mousseline Muhammad Rasool Allah is Allah Allah Allah He was. He was salam to Sleeman because in casita from LA from Abba, my brothers sisters on the subject of marriage, there the interesting term guard empty nest syndrome. Now, by by that they mean

a marriage in which the children have all grown up and gone away, and the husband and wife suddenly discover

each of them discovers that there is a stranger in the in the house and that stranger is the other one.

This is I mean, jokes apart this is quite literally true, because, like somebody said about COVID,

I suddenly found that I found a stranger in the house. And I discovered it's my husband. It is as clear as that. This emptiness syndrome is a interesting term that whoever thought about it, I think it's a

it's interesting, but

for me, the main reason why is interesting is because unlike the actual nest of a bird, now, birds also to see

the activity when they have when the eggs hatch and their chicks.

They have only one purpose in life, and that is to feed those chicks. And you can see the border you in most species, both genders, the male and the female, take care of the chicks. So you see them frantic Absolutely. Back and forth, back and forth, until

those chicks

grow into fledglings and the fledglings then take flight, once that happens, the nest is empty. The difference between that the actual empty nest and the empty nest symbol or symbolic statement with regard to human beings is the duration. In the case of birds we are talking about at best weeks. In some cases, it is literally days, but at best 234 weeks, and it's gone. In the case of human beings, it is yours.

And thanks to the way in which we raise children today them in modern times, it is decades, because what we have done here is we have not

taught maturity, we have delayed childhood. So it is common now practically in almost all cultures, to have within quotes children who are in their 20s.

The saving grace is poverty, poverty is the biggest

assets, if I can call it that. For most people, obviously if you if it's poverty in a completely state of deprivation, it's not but generally speaking, lack of resources, lack of money is a major asset, because then maturity is what you gain. Because you don't have gadgets, and you don't have

you know, stuff, toys and stuff. Otherwise, what you lose out is maturity. And children never met so called Children never mature. And you have

within God's children in their 20s and sometimes maybe even in their 30s.

So the nest is almost never empty. The parents now have the stress of

of raising, meaning literally in many cases supporting materially free food and money and whatnot. These adults, these grown adults, sometimes reflect in Hamdulillah, Allah subhanaw taala gave me a very beautiful childhood. And it was beautiful, not in the sense of the amount of gadgets and stuff I had, but rather in the fact that I did not have any of that. And the result was that when I was 25

I was running an entire town in Ghana in South America.

The dynaco quani I was the assistant administrator manager, my dear friend and then the brother Nick Adams was the manager. And at the age of 25, I was running the whole town

doing the work of what normally would be a town, a town mayor

at the age of 30. When I came back to India, and I joined the plantation industry at that age until I was 14. I was running tea plantations, the D coffee cardamom rubber plantations, the average number of people who worked under

mean, the average number was about 500. And then included you usually three to four managers, and almost maybe

12 or 15.

What we call staff, which would be supervisory staff of various levels. And the rest of them would be would be employees workers in different capacities. So totally what 500 On an average, in some cases, it's i In one case, I even had 800.

And that was when I was 30. So and that's all of that, because I didn't have my father's inheritance for me was one book. And that book was set up to not be by my mama do pixel, that is my inheritance, and 100, I am very grateful to Allah subhanaw taala, that Allah subhanaw taala did not

cause me to be born, he caused me to be born in a beautiful family in a very honorable family with a big name. But I was not born even with a plastic spoon in my mouth, forget about forget about a golden or silver spoon.

Poverty is in fact, a great acid. Now, the point I'm making here is that the empty nest syndrome, so we have delayed childbirth, but and end of the day this happens. And then people discover that they are strangers to people meaning in this case, the two spouse, the husband wife, discover that they are strangers to one another.

As I mentioned to you the image, as I mentioned before, in COVID, somebody said this reply, it sounded like a, you know, a little bit of a quip and funny comment, but it was true. Where this person said, you know, I discovered this lady said, I discovered, I have a strange man in the house, and that man is my husband. Because every day he used to go to work come back in the night, and you know, and suddenly now he's there. The point I'm making here is that communication.

It's not just a matter of empty nest syndrome, what makes it empty nest. And at the end of that, when it's only the to the husband, wife, they discover that there's that, you know, they have really nothing in common. It's like two people in a hotel.

You know, you I noticed I know the person is by face and almost nothing else. Now.

That is something that has happened over the years.

And it happened for the same reason as it happens, like, like I explained to you the birds thing is when especially when the children are small,

both the spouses are so completely involved in in the raising of those children. And of course, we are the we are the most amazing creatures in terms of complicating our own life. So now we have these children. And then we have these aspirations for these children. And all of the a lot of the aspirations if not all, have to do with what we

tell ourselves that I wish I had done this when I was a child, you're no longer a child. So what do you do you now inflict? You're great, and I'm using the word inflict, very consciously, you inflict this great desire of yours on your child. So you say, Well, I, I wish I had, I wish I had learned ballet dancing. So now my child goes to bed, you know, good news, my child goes to ballet classes. Now I wish I was this, I wish I was a great tennis player. So my child now has to attend a tennis academy. Whether or not they like it is for the most part the material. But even if they like it, the point is,

so now we have school, in the morning, during the day, then after school, you have got something else you're doing, then you are cutting the child off to this and that activity, and so on and so forth. And by the time you come back, and the day after day after day, this is what continues. And even on the weekends, we have got into a frame of mind where you it's almost like like chill, like almost as if the parents are saying, I don't want to see this child in the house. So every single animal I'm not saying they're saying that verbally, but this is what it looks like. I don't want to see the child in the house. So every time including the weekends, the child is now carted off to

Sunday school or this one or that one or this activity that activity, they have summer holidays, they're off to summer school summer camp, there is continuous activity of the parents with regard to the children. And obviously by the time you're done end of the day.

The both the parents come home usually at different times because the parents are also they also in many cases running to raise all these children they are they also running you know, they're working two full time jobs. So they come home in the evening.

Somebody's got to cook so whether it's the wife or the husband, somebody's cooking, and cleaning and washing and you know the whole

routine of running a job. Unfortunately, the way we the way we raise children, we don't give any of these responsibilities to children. So you won't say okay, look what I'm going to come back home and I want food on the table and you are now old enough to learn how to know how to cook. So cook the food, you're saying that to the Son, you say that to the daughter, the dishes need to be washed to wash them. Right? house needs to be vacuumed and cleaned. This one should be done. No, we don't do that. Oh, the child is is busy studying Oh, the child has got this project or the child is or the child that the child has turned into a parasite. And you are the one who has trained this child to

become a parasite. not the fault of the Child Child, the fault of the host plant the host tree, which is growing this parasite on its back and when the parasites start sucking your blood then you realize oh my god what it is and that is the that is the state of

families today. So when you come back home, all you're good for is to fall down in bed, dead to the world. And that's it. Now what do you think that does to the marriage? More tomorrow inshallah gives us some thought or some will Allah will carry while he was a member of the government