Naima B. Robert – 10 Ways to Avoid Divorce Honest Marriage Advice for Muslim Men and Women
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Guys. It's your sister Naima b Robert here.
Again with another reminder for you. And today,
Insha'Allah, I'm gonna be speaking about 10 ways
in which we can reduce the Muslim divorce
rate.
These these ten ways are based on,
research that I've done with imams and scholars
and practitioners within the marriage field, whether they're
counselors or therapists or long married folk. So
they'll be beneficial to you and to everybody
else who watches this video.
Before we get into it, I need you
to do your sister a favor and subscribe
to the channel.
I'm trying to get to 30,000 subscribers by
the end of the month and I need
your help to get me there, InshaAllah. So
subscribe
to the channel, like the video, and make
sure you share it with anybody out there
who could benefit inshallah.
So without further ado, let's get into these
10 ways.
1st first most important way is to manage
your expectations.
Many of us go into marriage with
very unrealistic
expectations
of our spouse, of the relationship itself, and
just in general of married life. Okay?
In our society,
we are given
so much information
about what a relationship should look like. And
whether it's Hollywood,
Bollywood,
songs,
you know, stuff on social media, we're literally
bombarded with the image of the ideal relationship.
Right? So it's understandable that most of us
expect that when we get married, we find
the one he's gonna be our soul mate,
and we're gonna have this amazingly
romantic,
passionate,
fulfilling relationship. Right?
We are hoping that he is gonna make
us whole, that, you know, you know, all
of a sudden we're gonna feel seen and
appreciated and and desired and wanted, and all
the things that we expect from our spouse.
And actually this reminds me of,
you know, something that Esther Perel talks about,
which is how our
expectations
of our, she calls them romantic relationships, have
changed
over the decades.
When you compare
the way we expect
our marriages or our relationships to fulfill us,
completely different to,
let's say, 2 generations ago and then dating
all the way back.
Back in the day, folks had really
realistic expectations of what life was about, not
just marriage, but life.
You know? You are here.
You do your duty. You work hard. You're
here for the big picture. You're here for
the family. You know? You take responsibility.
You know, life is
I don't wanna say life is a grind,
but life was very serious for people back
then and they knew what the stakes were.
Right? They didn't expect
to have, you know, those top levels of
the hierarchy of needs that I've spoken about
before. They didn't expect to have the self
actualization.
They didn't expect,
you know, so many of those 5 star
experiences
or the 5 star levels in their lives.
People didn't expect that. Most people were happy
to survive, happy to kind of, you know,
take care of their responsibilities
and their duties and, you know, that was
enough.
If you had a husband and he took
care of his duties, like, that was enough.
Nobody was out there, you know, complaining about
not having date night or complaining that he's
put on weight or that she's put on
weight or anything like that. It was like,
you know, is he doing his duty? Great.
You know, are my kids okay? Are my
kids safe? Are my kids, you know, being
looked after? You know, can they thrive in
this environment? Yes. Okay. I'm I'm good. Right?
Anyway, I digress.
Managing expectations
is a really, really important part of
just avoiding the disappointment that comes inevitably
when you put a whole lot of expectations
on another human being. Because
really,
the gap between your expectations
and reality
is the space where frustration
lies.
And you can look at that in your
own life.
Anytime you have an expectation,
you know, and the reality doesn't live up
to that expectation,
there's a there's there's a void there. Right?
There's a space of frustration and disappointment and
resentment.
I think what I'm trying to say is
if we can lower the expectation,
manage it, make it more realistic,
hopefully, the reality will
more, you know, kind of match it a
bit closer, and so the space for frustration
and disappointment and resentment is smaller. But if
you go in with a huge super high
expectation, super high expectation, chances are the reality
is not gonna meet that because it's just
not life. Life is ups and downs, it's
challenges, it's triumphs, you
know,
Life is ups and downs, it's challenges, it's
triumphs, you know, it's failures and victories. And
a lot of the time, life is just
not as glamorous as we see on social
media. So the first way that I believe
we can manage the divorce rate is to
manage our expectations.
So that's the first thing. Okay? 2nd is
to check your intentions.
We know as Muslims,
right, that verily actions are by intention.
And within a relationship, within a marriage, it
can be very easy to lose sight of
the fact that
we're in this for the sake of Allah.
We're in this for Jannah.
You know? This person who's come into my
life who Allah
has put in my life is a manna
and Allah
is going to question me about how I
behaved with them.
As you can tell, all of this advice
applies just as much to men as it
does to women, to husbands, and to wives.
You know, if we're going into our marriages,
if for selfish reasons,
to get something, to extract something from the
other person,
whatever that something is,
we need to check our intentions. You know?
If we are only good to that person
when they're good to us, if we only
speak nicely to them when they speak nicely
to us, if if when they disrespect us,
we disrespect them right back. When they withhold,
we withhold too.
We are heading to divorce
because nobody can can exist happily
and be content in a situation where the
2 of you are rivals,
where you're not
team players.
Right? So one of the ways that we
can manage
the the the ups and downs of relationships
and the way that we show up in
those relationships is to check our intentions
and keep reminding ourselves of the big picture.
The goal for this marriage is to complete
half your deen and help you on your
road to Jannah.
How do you need to show up in
order for that to be the case for
you?
Again, questions for you to answer.
Number 3,
this is tied to the second one. But
number 3, the third way that I have
here to mind you know, to to to,
to avoid to reduce the divorce rate is
to mind your business.
What do I mean by that?
Look at yourself.
How are you showing up?
Are you taking care of your duties?
Are you taking care of your responsibilities?
Are you fulfilling the rights of the other?
Because remember,
we will not be questioned about the rights
that others owed us. Right? We're not gonna
be questioned if we don't receive those rights.
They are gonna be questioned. But what we
will be questioned about is our responsibilities.
What were we supposed to be doing? What
were we supposed to be bringing to the
table, bringing to the relationship? What did Allah
tell us is our role within that relationship,
and and are we performing it with Ihsan,
again, with the intention to please Allah.
Minding your business means that you look at
yourself first, you rectify yourself first and you
don't spend
the majority of your time nitpicking your spouse.
He's not doing this, she's not doing that,
he never does this, she always does that.
Those types of,
you know,
those tensions,
they
produce cracks in the relationship, cracks in the
marriage. And what happens is that when we
are we have a habit of focusing on
what our partner is doing wrong
and what they are not doing,
those things become the truth of their situation.
That becomes the story.
Okay? So regardless of what other things that
they're doing right, regardless of the things that
they are actually doing, you will no longer
see them because you're so focused on what
they're not doing or what they're doing wrong.
So, again, I would like to invite everyone
of you to just, like, literally lower your
gaze from your partner's faults.
Yeah?
And focus on yourself. Mind your business. Another
part of minding your own business is to
not look at other couples.
Don't compare your husband to someone else's husband.
Don't compare your wife to someone else's wife.
And especially not comparing them to people you
see on social media or in the movies
because that's not reality.
And if every one of us if you
imagine every one of us just minding our
own business and making sure that, hey. At
the end of the day, I'm doing my
bit.
I'm doing what I need to do. I'm
showing up the way I need to show
up for this marriage.
That already,
will allow you to have
confidence in yourself that you at least are
doing your part and also to give your
partner grace, to give your spouse grace,
to have rahma with them.
Right? Because at the end of the day,
we
are all flawed human beings, and that's the
truth.
We're all flawed human beings. We all have
failings. We all fall. We make mistakes.
We have character flaws.
We have personality
issues,
every one of us.
So it's not for any one of us
to put ourselves on a pedestal and say,
well, look at me. I'm doing this and
that and, like, what is he doing and
what is she doing?
Because every one of us, you know, we
as I've said, you know, before,
we're fortunate that Allah
has sent us somebody who's prepared to put
up with us because, you know, most of
us, you know, we're humans at the end
of the day. Human beings can be a
bit troublesome.
So that was the 1, 2, 3, 3rd
way.
The 4th way that we can potentially reduce
the divorce rate is to take divorce off
the table,
especially once children come into into into the
mix.
Yani, if you don't have children,
do what you like.
But do what do you know, do what's
right for you. But please, please,
if Allah
has blessed you with children,
just take divorce off the table.
It shouldn't
be something that you go to whenever there's
a problem, whenever there's a challenge, whenever there's
a setback. Okay. Then divorce me
then. Okay. I'll just divorce you then. Or
if you don't do such and such, I'm
a divorce you. Or if you don't do
such and such, I'm leaving you.
See that type of talk, it normalizes the
idea of divorce.
It normalizes the idea that, you know, we're
here temporarily and if, you know, if you
stop doing this or if it stops feeling
good, you know, I'm out.
And especially when you have children, you cannot
afford to have that mindset.
Your mindset has to be one of
I'm in this for the long haul, for
the sake of Allah.
A caveat.
If you can no longer worship Allah and
you cannot
maintain your emotional and mental and physical health
and safety within that relationship, then, hey, that
is another story. We're not talking about those
relationships. We're talking about relationships which have the
normal levels of ups and downs and challenges.
Okay? So take divorce off the table.
Stop making it a threat. Stop making it
a talking point even in your own head,
and I'm gonna talk about that in a
minute.
Okay. The next way that we can,
husband brings to your life and be grateful.
Focus on the good that your wife brings
to the table and be grateful
because, guys, the more you focus on the
good and literally let go of what we
were saying before,
you know, the failures, the failings, the weaknesses,
etcetera.
Less you focus on them and the more
you focus on the good, the good expands,
the good becomes more, the good increases
and the story that you tell in your
head is is a positive story. It's it's
that, you know, my wife tries
so hard. My husband would do anything for
me. My husband works so hard to look
after our family.
My wife is so dedicated to the raising
of our children.
My husband knows how to give me a
hug at the end of the day.
My wife is the only person who knows
how to make me a cup of tea,
you know, the way I like it. Whatever
the case may be.
Focus on the good and amplify that. Be
grateful for it, show appreciation for it, and
keep pouring into that because, guys, you know
what?
One of the things that I've noticed, you
know, with with us nowadays, now that we're
kind of fighting against the stigma of divorce
and everything and, you know, we're kind of
almost pushing for divorce to become more normalized
and it to have no stigma,
is that
we start to ourselves a negative story about
our marriages
and we because we focus on the negative
and we focus on what's not working, all
of a sudden in our head, the marriage
is is is a disaster. He's terrible. We're
not meant to be together, etcetera.
For some people,
if they would shift their focus from the
negative to only focusing on and amplifying and
being grateful for the positives,
they wouldn't even be thinking of divorce.
They would be grateful that Allah, alhamdulillah, my
husband,
alhamdulillah,
my wife.
You know what I'm saying? And I'm speaking
sisters, I'm speaking directly to you
because we, I think, tend to be the
ones who kind of have this kind of
comparison issue,
whether it's comparing our husband with an ideal
in our head
or someone else's husband or something that we've
seen online or whatever the case may be.
And the there's a hadith about, you know,
the women being ungrateful for their husbands, ungrateful
to their husbands. Right? So, in this case,
sisters, I wanna mention you fantasizing
about
being divorced.
Stop fantasizing about being divorced.
Stop fantasizing
about being single.
And I'm saying this because I know when
you're in the trenches
and you guys are going through a hard
time,
it can seem like the easiest thing in
the world to just say, you know what?
If I just didn't have to deal with
this person, life would be so so much
better.
And it could be it could be that
he is very difficult,
whether he's argumentative or he's disrespectful or he's
always late, whatever the case may be, he's
not been working for how long, whatever the
case may be, you may start to feel
like, you know what? I would be better
off without this person. If I was single,
I could meet someone.
Someone better than him. Someone who appreciates me.
Someone who loves me. Someone who, you know,
can take care of his responsibilities properly. Whatever
the weakness in your husband. Right? You start
to fantasize about the other person who could
be that person. Maybe that's my person
and not him.
If I didn't have to deal with him,
there'll be one less person to feed in
the house, one less person complaining. I could
raise the kids the way I want to.
I wouldn't have to, you know, like battle
with him about, you know, different issues with
regards to the children. I wouldn't have to
deal with his mom anymore. You see what
I'm saying?
It's very easy to fall into this trap,
and I'm gonna go so far as to
say it is a trap of shaitan.
Shaitan
beautifies
for those of you who have these thoughts,
shaitan is beautifying
the breaking up of your home.
He is beautifying the breaking up of your
family,
and trust me what I say,
if you do get your wish
and you end up out there on the
other side of a divorce, that is when
shaitan will abandon you with your fantasies,
and you'll realize that most of what you
were expecting or thinking or hoping
is not out there.
It's not there.
A man who loves your kids more than
their dad,
it's not usually there.
A man who's gonna be more financially responsible
than the father of your children,
not nobody there.
And if they're out there, they're hard to
find.
So
stop fantasizing about being divorced. Stop fantasizing about
finding someone else. Stop fantasizing about raising your
children alone because it's less trouble.
All you will be doing is exchanging one
set of troubles for another set of troubles.
You will have to deal with troubles either
way. This is life. However, the difference is
while you are dealing with troubles now and
will be dealing with troubles afterwards,
the difference is that if you break the
family
and you go on out there with your
children, your children are going to suffer the
consequences of that. And again, this doesn't apply
for you if you're in a relationship which
is already
toxic and out of control and the children
are suffering. It doesn't apply to that.
And I addressed this in another video, and
I'm gonna link it below so you can
see what I was saying about toxic relationships
and making sure that we're not making up
a story about our marriage being bad for
our children when it's not the case. So,
the point is
you exchange these troubles within the family home,
keeping the family unit together
for
kicking the father out,
becoming estranged from his family,
having to fight him to get money every
week or every month.
Right?
Visitation issues,
how you will feel
being a single parent,
how you will feel when the children miss
their dad,
how you will feel when you realize that
actually I can't do this on my own
and I need someone and you have to
go on the marriage apps,
How you will feel, how when you go
on that difficult journey of actually finding somebody
else who will take you on with your
kids, how you will feel when he remarries
and moves on with his life,
shaitan doesn't want you to think about that.
Shaitan wants you thinking about freedom,
about being free at last, being able to
breathe.
And, yeah, you may feel that for a
short while afterwards.
Your kids won't.
Your husband or ex husband won't.
Your family probably won't and his family probably
won't.
And you eventually will not either
because you've just exchanged it for another set
of problems.
So this is a really major part of
what I wanted to say, you know, in
this in this, in this whole thing.
So the next way that we can
reduce the divorce rate is to let go
of the fairy tale.
This ties into managing expectations.
But letting go of the idea that it's
supposed to be this happily ever after,
that there isn't supposed to be any struggle,
that it's supposed to be easy. You know,
you hear people saying things like, if it's
right, it's right.
You know, if he was if we were
right for each other, it wouldn't be so
hard. Have you ever heard people saying stuff
like that?
It's rubbish.
Don't listen to them.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
had issues with his wives
to the point where he abandoned them
for periods of
time, where they had disputes,
where he wasn't happy with them, where they
were not happy with him, where they had
ruckus in between them. This is just human
nature.
Human beings are flawed.
Therefore, any relationship that they have, they are
going to be challenges.
This is one individual with their own
way of seeing the world, their own character,
their own personality joining with another person who
has all of the same of their own,
trying to get on to the same page,
trying to come to an understanding
and trying to move forward together. Of course,
there's going to be challenges. And not only
that, this is an act
of. This is a way to to earn
jannah. Do you think jannah will be earned
for cheap?
Do you think earning jannah will be easy?
Do you think marriage was supposed to be
this heaven on earth?
Marriage is part of the trials of this
life even though there's such wonder just like
the salah and the fasting and everything else
that we do, Hajj, for example. Hajj is
hard.
Waking up for Fajr is hard. Fasting is
hard.
But as Muslims, we know why we do
those hard things for the sake of
Allah. We know why. Because of the reward,
because of the payoff. Marriage is no different.
So let go of these fairy tales. They
are nonsense.
They are not real.
Nobody gets to live a fairy tale. Nobody.
Even
if they say, it's like a fairy tale.
They're lying. It's because they're focused on the
fairy tale aspects of their life and they've
neglected to tell you about the times when
they weren't talking, the times when they couldn't
stand the other person, the times when they
almost broke up. They don't talk about that
stuff.
And this is the case for anybody who's
been together for any length of time.
So please,
let go of the fairy tales and start
getting real and engaging with this this work
that you have ahead of you. Right. What
else have I got?
So so far, we've talked about managing expectations,
we've talked about checking your intentions, we've talked
about minding your business, we've talked about taking
divorce off the table, We've talked about,
stopping fantasizing about being single. We've talked about
letting go of the fairy tale. The next
thing I wanna say is keep the company
of good wives and good husbands.
Listening to people who are in unhappy marriages
isn't helpful for you. Listening to people who've
been divorced and are upset and bitter and
angry,
that doesn't help you. Having tons of friends
who are single or who are divorced and
are not, you know, like, are not happy,
you know, I'm not saying this to make
anybody feel bad, but
their perspective
is going to be different to yours and
is not helpful to you.
Keep the company of and listen to
good wives and good husbands, people who have
healthy relationships.
Try to cultivate relationships with them so that
they can support you on your journey so
that they can help you. Okay? So we
have many videos from the secrets secrets of
successful wives conference
where we had
wives who've been married for 10, 15, 20
years who are giving advice.
Follow all those sisters and learn from them.
I'll put the link in the description.
But this is a really important part because
if all your friends are single,
whether you're a man or a woman,
the kind of vibes that you're gonna get
from them, the kind of advice you're gonna
get from them is not
helpful. So find
healthy
relationships that you can,
that you cannot necessarily model but so you
can see what's possible.
Okay?
And then I think the last thing I
wanna say and I don't know whether this
is 10 things or not,
but communication and compromise.
This is the way that 2 human beings
who are from different worlds, have different personalities,
different
road
relatively peacefully,
communication
and compromise.
And this is for the man and for
the woman, for the husband and the wife
to work together to communicate
your needs, to communicate your wants, to communicate
when you have issues, and, you know,
to compromise.
It's not my way or the highway. It's
not who's going to win, him or me,
her or me. It's what will allow us
to win as a team.
What is the win for the team? Not
what's mine or what's your win, what's the
win for the team?
Super important for us to have that mindset
that we're in this together.
When the couple start to talk about my
this and his that and, you know, her
this and her that, that's when people sign
to see themselves as individual entities and that's
when sometimes separation or divorce is in the
back
of their mind because they're now starting to
make a boundary to say I need to
look after myself.
And sometimes in relationships that are are super
toxic or broken down completely,
you
it inevitably happens. But if your relationship is
not at that stage, then make sure you
don't allow that type of thinking to come
into your marriage.
And the last thing I wanna say is
remember the end goal.
It's
returning to Allah
being able to answer for your deeds.
You've been given a manna. What did you
do with them? You were given responsibilities.
What did you do with them?
To be able to earn Allah's pleasure through
this marriage, to earn Jannah through this marriage,
and to leave a legacy for your children.
Teach them the ways. And if you don't
know the ways, learn them.
And that's the wonderful thing about human beings
is that Allah
has blessed us with the ability to grow
and learn and evolve.
And there are too many examples of marriages
that seem
utterly broken.
And even when one person made a change,
it turned the whole thing around. Much less
if the 2 people came came together and
said, you know what?
We need help.
Marriage counseling is a thing. It's a good
thing.
Don't sit with your problems and allow them
to fester.
You know? Make dua.
Seek the advice of those who are knowledgeable
and can help you, those who are more
experienced.
Don't give up.
That's the bottom line.
If you've got something good,
if you've got something that you that is
worth fighting for,
fight for it.
Don't give up.
And that's all I wanna say.
If you've benefited from this content,
like the video, share it, make sure you
subscribe to the channel.
And any good in this conversation
is from Allah
and anything wrong that I've said is from
myself and the shaitan.
I'll see you on the next one.