Naima B. Robert – Advice for Muslim wives and single mothers Part One #accountability
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Assalamu alaikum, everyone.
So I'm gonna
Invite sister Naima,
inshallah. Let me just double check
Why am I not finding her? Okay.
I'm inviting sister Naima.
I can see that she's joined.
How are you doing, sis?
How are you?
Hanging in there.
How's the weather there?
Beautiful as always. Sunny, but it's chilly.
It's it's it's winter, so, yeah, I'll do
that. I I just came back from the
beach with the kids, and I, I'm full
sand. Like, I'm sandy, and I'm like, it's
alright.
Something else. Like, we're in Sydney where we
can go to the beach now. That's wonderful.
Yeah. You have exciting,
event coming up December 30th?
Yes. Yes. I mean, part of the reason
why I'm kind of hanging in there is
so because there is so much to do
for that. But, yeah, we've got the secret
success
secrets of successful why it's conference,
starting, on Friday's panel.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
and, it's gonna be online as you know.
And,
we,
haven't done the daily check actually for how
many tickets have been claimed.
Maybe I'll be able to tell people in
a bit. But,
yeah, just really excited because the the talk
topics are so
varied. We have so many people
talking,
from different vantage points,
different aspects of the whole journey of being
a wife, right, before
you're a wife, while you're a wife, and
even afterwards.
So, yeah, I'm really excited. I'm really excited,
and I'm just,
I'm thinking today, how could I make sure
that I last?
Because I think,
for both Saturday Sunday, I think I'm hosting
for, like, 9 hours
because it starts Oh, lord. In the afternoon,
and then it goes onto what is my
past my midnight. So
I think it's gonna be
fine. Bringing so from my understanding is that
you're bringing people in to speak, and you're
gonna be hosting it. Are you gonna be,
like, talking with the with the actual, you
know, people who are coming, the speakers?
Usually, at the beginning, we have a little
chat, but the rest of the time, it's
them.
Also, the panels,
I'm, sort of mediating,
the panel, so I'm putting the questions. And,
also, we've got so many questions in. When
we did our survey.
We've been asking people on IG. We asked
people on my mailing list as well. Tons
tons of questions came in. Literally, we had,
I think, almost 400 responses to the survey,
which is a very simple survey. It was
literally asking, you know, what is it that
you want to know about? And then if
you know, can you put a question forward?
And then so we've got this huge list
of questions. So we've got more than enough
material to last us several conferences.
I feel like anything to do with marriage
myself. Like,
I know when I first started, like, like,
my marriage, you know, I've been married for
12 years.
Inshallah, Allah blesses this marriage. I'm thinking. I'm
I remember yeah. I mean and, I remember,
like, like, any marriage seminar, I'll just go
because
I I feel like you always need to,
you know, improve, and there's always some things
that you don't understand about your partner.
And there's always like, when someone else says
it, like, if you're let's say, I I
find that always happens to me. If, if
my husband,
tells me something, I find,
hard to take it from him. But if
my friend or I go to an lecture
or, you know, I see like a life
coach or whatever, and she tells me, oh,
you know, like, you need to change that
about yourself. I find it easier. I don't
know if it's ego
or that gets in the way. So I
feel like it's always interesting, like, for for
especially for us Muslim wives to to go
and see, like, you know, what the, like,
the other perspective, you know, from from a
life coach perspective or a psychologist perspective or,
even if it's a shaykhaz perspective, you just
Yeah. Start changing little things that,
otherwise, your ego will get in the way.
Yeah. Could be.
Yeah. Definitely. I think I think, being a
wife,
especially in today's society, is a bit of
a lost art.
And that's really why,
you know, we decided to do a conference,
you know, an old school conference, you
and, yeah, we're gonna see how it goes
because the how many tickets have been claimed?
6,400
and 52 is the latest number. So
Much 10,000. So we still got a few
more to go. So,
we get them all claimed before we start
on Friday. So, hopefully, everyone who's listening are
gonna go and claim theirs.
The, you know, the, the link is in
my bio so they can, you know, absolutely
go there and claim it, Inshallah, or just
comment wife on any of my posts, and
we'll send you the link, Inshallah.
Inshallah. Inshallah. And,
people can watch it later even if they
registered and couldn't watch it live. Right? Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep. That's all you're looking for. I'm gonna
I'm I'm gonna ask you something,
because I always like, you know, those one
worded answers.
What do you think is the most common
mistake that we make as wives
in in our marriage?
I think the word that's been coming up
for me,
for myself and when when I
see other people going through issues
is expectations.
I think
if we can manage our expectations,
we will be able to manage our level
of satisfaction.
The reason most of us many of us
many of us are dissatisfied,
is because the gap between our expectation
and our reality is just too wide.
Right? Mhmm. It's not necessarily
not necessarily
that the reality is is terrible
or bad or or or, like, not acceptable.
It's just that it's too far from the
expectation.
And that's the gap in there
is the frustration, the resentment, the annoyance, you
know,
just the just dissatisfaction with the whole thing.
So I think if I had to choose
one word, it would be expectations. I think
if we can manage our expectations beforehand,
we can manage our expectations inside the marriage.
We're just able to maintain our state much
side the marriage,
we're just able to maintain our state much
better. Because at the end of the day,
we know
it's our responsibility
to maintain our frame, right, maintain our state.
And so the state of contentment or the
state of happiness,
something that you produce from within.
But a lot of the time, we're expecting
somebody else to make that happen for us.
And a lot of us are expecting for
husbands to make us happy, to make us
feel content by doing a, b, c, d,
when really the ideal scenario and that's how
I teach all my clients this. The ideal
scenario
is where you
are internally regulated.
So internally as a person, you're a grateful
person. You're content with what you have. You
you pour into what you have. You lean
into what you have, and you spend very
little time
thinking about what you don't have, thinking about
what's not going right.
You spend much more time in gratitude for
what you do have, what is going well,
you know, what what is amazing about your
particular situation. And in if you're able to
do that,
a lot of the time, it doesn't matter
what other people are doing because their actions
are not impacting you in the same way.
You are internally regulated.
I used to call it being, like, warm
blooded where your state is not impacted
too much by what's going on around you
because you're making it happen from within by
Allah's grace. So, it's it's a it's
a it's a good trick to have, obviously.
Yeah. I find, like, with with I think
I think in this day and age, especially
as well with social media,
it's really hard to lower our expectations because
we're we're surrounded by filtered
amazing hubby and the wifey, you know Oh,
today. Together.
And yeah. Like so I I find myself
like, I'm not immune to that. So what
I do is just I unfollow.
Or if I can't unfollow, unmute the story
of someone if I feel like for like,
one part of me when I watch something
out like, a story of someone or, like,
a post for someone
that is making me, you know Yeah. Have
that. Feel some kind of way. Yeah. Because
I feel no one is immune. No matter
how, content you are with, like, you know,
with what you have, like, our dean teaches
us to actually hide these things so that
people don't
envy us or, like, look, like, to our
lives. So we should we should try to
actually cover these things. But, unfortunately, this is
how life is. Everybody, like, you know, is
sharing their lives nowadays. Flexing. And,
yeah. So I feel like for me, that's
how I protect myself because because it's always
it's always I'm gonna be like, oh, but
why does her husband do that? You see,
like, her husband, like, seems very supportive. Why
aren't you? Like, it's natural that we compare.
Yeah. I compare with everything. You compare in
your career. You compare with, like you know?
Like, you compare in everything. So I find
that, like, that's how I keep myself away
from that. Yeah. I think you're right, Jenna.
I think it's it's I think that's a
really good technique,
and I just wish everybody would do that
because
really, really, guys, when they say comparison is
the thief of joy,
it is so true.
You could have been happy
with whatever it is, your kids, the dinner
that you cooked, you know, your husband did
something, and it was so sweet. It was
nice. And then some you you saw something,
and then you compared
that to what happened with you, what whatever
it was, your kids, your dinner, your husband.
And you see the disparity. You see that
your situation is lacking. And all of a
sudden, now you don't appreciate that dinner that
you cooked. Now you don't appreciate these kids.
Now you don't appreciate this husband. And that
ingratitude that is created by comparison
is it's dangerous. I think it's actually really,
really toxic. And then the crazy thing
is the people we're comparing to or the
things that we are comparing to, as you
know, as you said, they are filtered.
They are posed. They're staged. It's a snapshot
of, like, 5 minutes of a 24 hour
day, and it's not the full story. You
know? And so we need to be smarter
than that, I think.
Yes. I saw you that, like, you had,
a live with sister Naila and Fatima,
I think her
name is. Yeah. They were cowwives. And I
remember,
like, I I actually brought that up to
you, like, to you in the episode,
on.
But I I saw that, like, before you
had a post saying,
you know, us single moms,
we should not go for less. We should
not have, like, know, the lesser option. We
should not accept to be second wives and
all that, and you had that video on
your YouTube channel. And then all of a
sudden, your stance changed. And, I remember it
being, like, on Twitter and people talking because
you went on a podcast with, I remember
the 3,
young men. Yes. Yes.
And and yeah. Like, so I feel like
what what made you have that change of
heart, and why are you, like, actually voicing
that out Right. At this time? I like
that you asked the question. I appreciate that.
I did hear about the Twitter storm. I
didn't check it out myself,
because I everything that I said,
interestingly,
everything that I said in those 2 videos
or all the other videos, I believed.
So the one that I did on single
moms, it was a series. There were 3
of them. And I think
it was 2,019.
I think it was 2019. And I believed
what I said when I said it. And
then, you know, through the journey and the
thing is, you know what's crazy, Jenna?
When you look at the comments on those
videos, they're very, very popular videos. It's actually
one of the some of the best performing
videos on my channel. Right? But if you
see the comments on the videos,
it's so strange to me because practically all
the women
are like, yes.
Thank you. You've made me feel so much
better. Like, you know, and just affirming the
message, all the women.
Right? And all the men
are like,
basically, this is fit now. Why are you
encouraging the sisters to x, y, z? It's
it's it's uncanny to me. And in fact,
I plan to do a reaction video and
invite people on to kind of analyze the
videos with me because Yeah.
I think what the sisters took from it
okay. Okay. So so so the first thing
is that,
if I was to do those videos
again, I would not give the exact same
advice.
The advice about having standards
for yourself
and taking control of your life and fixing
your own problems
would be the same. Because my issue was
you know what the the the the one
of the video's titles is a bit clickbaity,
but it's, you know, do you need a
man? Right? Single Muslim women, do you need
a man? And it was for single mothers
specifically.
And I was talking about
this,
this this tendency that we have
to believe that marrying will fix our problems.
Yeah. And marrying will fix
our brokenness.
Marrying will, sort out our discipline issues with
our children.
Marrying somebody will, you know,
you know,
sort out our wrecked financial situation or our
chaotic home, etcetera,
etcetera. And my thing and what I was
saying and the main message was,
sis, take control of your life.
This is your Amana.
You have no guarantees that, a, you'll find
a man who's willing to do any of
that,
or b, that if you do marry someone
that he even has the skills to do
that. And the thing is, at the time,
I was married.
A lot of the men in the comments
thought that I was divorced. And they said
that, oh, single women keep women single, which
I get. I've seen that being said many
times. And they they thought I was a
bitter divorcee, and I'm encouraging other people to
be bitter divorcee. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Any
anyone should know I'm the least bitter person.
Person. Okay? I don't do bitterness. Right?
So at the time, I was married.
So it wasn't even coming from a place
of, we need to you know, us divorces.
It wasn't even like that. So,
so so that was that was
another interesting thing about it. But I I
I maintain
I maintain that
if we go into
looking for a marriage, looking for a relationship
from a place of my life's a mess,
I need to sort it out, I need
someone to come in and save me, we
are not gonna find usually the outcome that
we want, and we put ourselves at risk.
So that that messes up, we're not gonna
find usually the outcome that we want, and
we put ourselves at risk. So that that
messes up,
like I said, you know, I I I
I think about it all the time. And
now my
like I said, you know, I I I
I think about it all the time, and
now my perspective is a lot more mature.
The reason my my my perspective has changed
on
what a single mother or divorcee, but especially
a single mother, so a woman who's been
married who has the custody of the children.
Majority of sisters that I've heard about,
they are have sole custody pretty much. Right?
A lot of sisters, a shocking number of
sisters
have
the children and the father is no longer
involved,
either financially
or emotionally and physically. A shocking number. Right?
Yeah. A number that really is unacceptable
because
whether you guys divorce or not, those children
are still a joint responsibility.
Right? Yep. So there's absolutely no excuse for
any father who, you know, willingly
and just like that, just says just cuts
his kids off. Right?
Yeah. But we'd be surprised
the number of sisters, and I have it
on good authority, by the way. We'd be
surprised the number of sisters who are on
an app
say, I'm looking for marriage. I'm looking for
a father figure for my children.
Father figure for my children.
You know, my children and I are a
package deal.
I need a man who's gonna step in
for my kids. Right?
Yeah.
And this is problematic.
This is a big problem for every single
mother because
at the end of the day, he's not
their father, and that's a fact. He's not
their father. And
many men do struggle with,
especially if they don't have children of their
own. If they have children of their own,
It's a it's a match made in heaven.
Go along and do your thing. Right? But
many men who have not had children
would prefer to marry someone who also has
not had children
so that they can build their legacy together.
Now at the time when I made that
video, I'll be honest with you, Jenna. I
never listened to men. Okay? And when I
say men, I mean as a collective. Of
course, you know, I listen to my husband.
I listen to my dad. But I never
listened to men. I never heard men talking
about things, and I didn't really give much
importance to it. And if you think about
it, in the Muslim community,
there are not many spaces where men just
talk,
You know? Like, man to man stuff, and
we get to hear it. It just used
to happen. It's happening much more now. But
at the time,
I I was certainly not aware of it.
So in in my
sphere of understanding,
I had no idea
what men were looking for when they were
looking to get married and how men saw
the situation of raising someone else's children or
dealing with, you know, a single mother where
there's a dad there and all of that
kind of thing. I had no idea.
And I didn't care anyway
because my my vision of the world and
my version of the world was all about
the sisters
and how the sisters experience things and what
the sisters want and what the sisters need,
which is why I was able to be
very, very pro sisters pro sisters and basically.
Okay. That's you said it in a nutshell.
That's the long
story.
Story. So in that, particular those particular videos,
that's the standpoint that, like, it was coming
from. Now Yeah. Since that
time, so much has happened, and I've been
able to hear
men talking about their experience of things, whether
they're close to me or just on the
Internet. Just men, Muslim men, non Muslim men
just talking about how they view the whole
situation and what they see happening and what
they want for themselves and kind of what
they what they value and what they're looking
for. Now
so when I come out and I say,
for example,
that if you are and I'm
I'm gonna get flamed again, but I'm going
to stay Yes.
Because I
you you know already, Jenna.
I am. I'm waiting for it. Yeah. She's
like, yeah. I'm here. Building it up.
Yes.
No matter how much we would like to
romanticize
the process,
people marry to fulfill their needs, whatever those
needs are.
And in the the deen and sort of
how Muslims do things,
we do the same thing.
We have a list of criteria,
and we're looking for somebody who fits that
criteria.
Now
many of us want the same things in
marriage. There are a few things that kind
of everybody pretty much wants. Right?
But then after that, everybody has their own
criteria for what they are looking for from
the marriage.
For example,
if you're you're single, any woman or man,
and you've not had children
and you'd like to have a family,
that is gonna be part of your criteria.
Right? I want a spouse who wants to
have children.
If you wanna have many children,
that's another criteria. I want someone who wants
many children.
If, as a sister, you want to homeschool
your kids and you wanna be a stay
at home mom, that's one of your criteria.
Right? That I need a husband who's going
to be able to allow me to stay
at home and and do my job with
the kids. If you want to be able
to work, that's another criteria. Right?
Now
this is very easily understood
by single people
because everybody, when they go into these conversations,
when they go on these apps, they have
their criteria. Right? Some people fit the criteria.
Some people don't.
But it's it's very simple. Some people fit
the criteria. Some people don't.
It's not to say, Jenna and people have
conflated 2 things.
This is what we call a marketplace.
Okay? Everyone has a market value. Right? A
man, for example,
who is Hafid
has a particular market value,
and it's determined, of course, by the market.
If there are a lot of women who
are hoping to marry a Hafid, his value
increases.
If there is a man who is financially
very comfortable or is wealthy,
many sisters, many women in general, are looking
for a provider,
so his market value increases.
If you're particularly good looking as a man,
and I'm gonna I'm gonna use the male
example just so that it can, like, diffuse
the situation. Because peep people are saying that
I'm talking about women as if they're objects,
like they're objects, like, they're in in a
market and they're objects.
Let's let's be mature. You have to be
politically correct in these days. I feel like
Let's just let's just be mature. Yeah. You
know what I'm talking about. Right? So let's
let's focus on it in a man's example,
and then we'll shift it to the women's
so that, hopefully, it's it's clearer.
So a man a brother who is particularly
good looking, who's got that swag,
there's lots of girls who like that, his
market value increases. Right? So he has more
left more right swipes, more people initiating
more right swipes. It's true. Yes. More right
swipes, more people if he's built up, if
he's bulky, a lot of girls, especially nowadays,
like that look. He gets more right swipes.
He has a higher value. Right?
And then, of course, there are other things.
You know, if he if he's confident, you
know, if he's funny,
you know, if he's got a cool job,
you know, if he's family oriented. And I'm
just giving, you know, generalized, you know, values
that people like. Right? You know, if if
he's, you know, seems to be interesting and
up for, you know, doing cool things or
whatever, value increases. You'll always find that those
men get more rights wipes, get more
initiated chats, and have more conversations. Because in
this marketplace,
they have a higher value.
Now is that to say
that our brothers who are skinny,
who physically
ain't got it, right, who are not that,
you know, amazing to look at in the
face,
who work as a bus driver. No. No.
No. This is serious stuff.
Not amazing to wake up next to yet.
It's well well, you say this. Right? Who
knows?
But, you know, he's a bus driver.
He's a bus driver. Right? He's a plumber.
He's an electrician. Not to say plumbers don't
make money because plumbers don't make money. Oh,
plumbers. It's all here in Australia. Like, it's
a it's a problem. Money. But still, there
are, for some people for example, if you
went for many sisters, and you guys can
say in the comments what you think. For
some people, if they went home
with a proposal from a plumber
who doesn't have a degree, the family is
like, get out of here.
What are you talking about? No way. Yeah.
Right? So that person so so, again, let
me let me finish my list. I my
family is like that. Yeah. Okay. So Yeah.
Skinny, fat, not amazing to look at in
the face,
you know, doesn't have a beard. You know?
Maybe his beard is a little bit, or
he has a huge beard, and he's really
hairy. Right? Or he works as a bus
driver, works as a plumber, doesn't have a
degree. Right, doesn't have his own home,
lives with his mother and is is her
carer, right, has a child from a former
marriage, right, has been divorced 6 times,
okay, is already married.
All of these things, are we saying that
this person does not have
value?
No. Of course. Because
all human beings have value. And value. And
that's what I was saying, and and that's
the important point for sisters to hear. When
we're talking about value in the marriage marketplace,
it is related to how well you fit
the criteria
of the person who is looking. It's nothing
to do with your intrinsic
value. It's nothing to do with your value
as a woman, as an individual, as a
mother, as a sister, as a friend. Nothing
to do with that. It's literally about when
a man is looking, what that man is
looking for, however much you fulfill is your
value to that person.
So let's go back to our male example.
We know very well that all of these
men that we talked about, the ones of
so called higher value and the ones of
so called lower value, they all are, you
know, important in this in the eyes of
Allah. They all have honor in the eyes
of Allah. They all want the same thing.
They all want to marry. They all want
to settle down with someone. Many of them
want to have children. Right? They want to
commit. So
fair play to all of them.
But the reality is some of them will
get more right swipes, and some of them
will get more left swipes. And we know
that this is the case with women as
well.
We know the women who get the right
swipes are, again,
young, you know, beautiful,
and I think that's it.
I'm glad to know. You you like you
like, you took a tooth serum before coming
here. Yep. That's good.
Yeah. So I feel like Let's I'm gonna
let's keep it real.
Brothers don't read the profiles. They see the
face
and maybe see, oh, she's, you know, single,
no kids. Okay. Swipe right. But the main
thing is, is she beautiful? Right?
Then if there are other things that she
comes with, like, she's been married before, she
has 3 children, then they start see. Because
reality is, I think for most people who
have options,
so though you and I, when we were
22, for example. Right? We had options. We
had a choice for everyone.
And if a man came to you
who had been married twice and had 4
children,
your parents and you would have told him,
get out of here, dude. Like, what? Yeah.
My daughter's too big. Was based in Australia,
and and my parents were, like I was
the youngest, and they're, like, why are you
gonna go to Australia?
Like, they found it hard for me to
leave, like, the youngest child to leave to,
such a far country. So, of course, that
doesn't, like, you know, devaluate my husband as,
as, like, his intrinsic value. But to them,
their perspective is that his entire child is
gonna move overseas.
Right. So for your parents, he's not ideal.
Right? And, again, not because he's a bad
person, not because he doesn't have worth as
an individual, but for them and in their
their
criteria for what would make a good son-in-law,
I e someone who's not gonna take our
daughter away.
Right? Yes. And someone who's gonna be around,
and we still get to see them, and
we still get to see her and the
grandchildren grow up with us. That's their ideal
scenario.
So I guess
you could say that and thank you for
bringing up that example. Right? There's so many
things
that make a candidate less than ideal.
Yeah. And in your husband's case, he may
have every every other thing. Right? He may
have had a degree. He may have been
a very respectful boy. He may have come
from the same village as you and all
of that, but the fact that he lived
in Australia makes him less than ideal.
And I think what I have understood
from a man's perspective
is when a woman has been married a
couple of times and has children,
she is less than ideal. These things make
her less than ideal
because his ideal scenario is somebody with no
baggage.
Again, in quotes, meaning she doesn't have other
financial,
responsibilities that he will necessarily feel he has
to kind of, you know, support her with.
That's it. That's it.
So
I don't know. Do you wanna do you
wanna just jump in on that? Yeah. So,
like, what I'm trying to say is that
do you think that we should change that
scenario
and make it, like, no. Why isn't it
okay and acceptable
to It is okay. If there is divorce
and yeah. No. No. No. No. No. No.
No. Okay. No.
Okay. What we're not gonna do, right, what
we're not going to do
is live in fantasy land.
That's what we're not going to do. We're
not going to live in fantasy land
and pretend
that
people don't want what they want.
Okay? Most sisters
want a man who can put some money
into the house.
Yeah. We are you we're gonna tell them
to stop wanting that at all. Right? And
say, sis,
you know, like, don't put any pressure on
these guys. You know?
You're like I don't even know what what
what that conversation would look like to be
honest. But, okay, let me go back to
my original
point. What what we are not going to
do is to live in a fantasy land
in which
we are all ideal candidates for everyone
because that's not true.
It's not true on the man's side. It's
not true on the woman's side. Because trust
me, sis, I've heard from men who are
also divorced and they have custody of the
children. And they can't find a wife.
Because sisters don't want to take on that
responsibility.
They want their own family. They wanna have
their own kids, or they just don't wanna
deal with the headache. So that brother, I
think he's been looking for 3 years or
something. Right? But because he has his children,
he is less than ideal. And maybe there
are other reasons too, but he's just less
than ideal for most sisters.
He'll find someone,
but he will have to have very realistic
criteria for that person. And that is my
point, is that if, sis, if you are,
if you have been married, okay, if you
have custody of your children, if you are,
you know, on the older range, if you
don't wanna have any more kids, etcetera, etcetera,
etcetera,
what I'm saying is that we have to
be realistic
about the people that will consider us.
And that is mainly because our situation
makes us less than ideal for a lot
of people. It's just life. That's what it
is. If you have a disability,
you are less than ideal for a lot
of people. It's a fact whether you like
it or not. If you don't have that
gorgeous face, like most of us don't. Right?
Not like you, Jenna.
Okay. I'll take that. That's a good point.
You can take that. Yeah. Put it on
your show. I take it off. But for
for many of us, we I mean, I
hate to use the word and trigger more
people, but most of us are average.
Most of us are average. Right? And not
only are most of us average, but some
of us have things that make us below
average.
So for, you know, people
as women,
we judge ourselves
and and we we kind of give
validation to other women based on what we
like about ourselves.
Right? So I've had my friends
and sisters
say to me, you know, oh, this is
you know, when I was single,
you know,
you should marry this person, that person, this
person. You know, you're so x y zed,
all of these things. Right? And the reality
is for a man who does not know
me,
at the time, I was a widow.
I had 5 children.
Okay?
My 5 children, the youngest was 3.
Right? Mhmm. I lived in a foreign country.
That made me less than ideal for a
lot of people,
not because those people are
not not good people
because they are selfish or whatever,
but a person is looking to better their
life situation somehow. Right? Everyone is trying
to pair with somebody that is going to
hopefully
help them create a life that is better
than the one that they have. Right?
And, you know, for in my situation,
you know, but, you know, I I happened
upon somebody who
we we we found a workaround. Right? That
was my second husband. We found a workaround.
Right? The workaround meant that it could happen.
But if, for example, I had had those
5 children and had no financial means,
he he said, you know, from your profile,
you seem like a very nice lady, but
the 5 children, financially, I will not be
able to take care of that type of
responsibility. In my case, it wasn't necessary.
But had it been necessary, he would not
have been able to move forward because he
didn't have that type of capacity.
Right? Yeah. And and and the thing is,
like, if we're being honest,
even though we were able the finances wasn't
an issue and we were able to move
forward,
the types of,
challenges
that
raising someone else's children, you know, pose, which
we're gonna talk about on the weekend,
Sisters, I I don't think that we are
really
clear on this as yet. I think a
lot of us have a very romantic idea
of how easy it's going to be for
a man to come
in and be the emir and play the
father role and be the man of the
house.
And, sis, not only is it
Yeah. Right. Not only is it is it
harder
for for for for him
than he expects it to be, It's also
hard on the children and harder than you
think it will be. But guess what? It's
hard on you,
and it's harder on you than you think
it will be because when you're speaking, you
say, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No problem. You know,
I want a man who's gonna come in
and, you know, just take charge and take
care of things. But the reality is But
there's nothing else that your child and mama
bears. It's no. No. No. He because they're
not his kids. They're not his kids. And
that's a fact. They're not his children. They
are your flesh and blood, bone of my
bone, blood of my blood. Right? So it's
it's it's it's a very
it's interesting because we have these high again,
high expectations of what the man will do
when he comes in. Sometimes when they come
in and they try to do what you
said you wanted them to do, you're actually
the one who's standing in the way. Because
you're like, hold on. Woah. Woah. Woah. Hold
on a minute. That's not how we do
things.
I never talk to my children like that.
Their father never used to discipline them that
way. You know, I I think you're wrong,
and I just you need to, like, cool
it down. And then, of course, the man
is like, okay. Now do you want me
to take charge or you don't? So now
you've got this battle
going on. Anyway, we're gonna talk about that
on the weekend. Oh, that's a very important
the weekend. Yeah. Exactly. That needs, like, a
full like that, because I know I have
many
amazing sisters and,
brothers that actually married and, like, you know,
either a widow or divorcee with with children.
And I know the problems they they face
because they're, like, close friends of mine. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's always, like, really, like, no
one's wrong, but
because it's It's such a You know, like,
those those kind of challenges where you're like
Yeah. Yeah. I think the bottom line is
that it's tough. So, anyway, let me make
sure I answer your question
about the single moms. And, divorcee, widow, whatever,
the the the the deciding factor for me
is is being a mom, sorry, you were
married before and you have children already. Right?
And what I would say, which is different
to what I said in those videos,
is
understanding
your
value
in this marketplace
and why it is the way that it
is. Now we could say all day long,
men should
Men should
marry divorcees. Men should marry you know, take
on someone else's children. Men should be generous.
Men should not be selfish. Men should not
want younger women. Men should, should, should, should,
should. It won't change what men want, bottom
line. Now
and and the thing is
this is the other thing. I remember a
sister messaged me,
and she cited
examples from the, which is very important. We
need to talk about this. Examples from the
of people who married divorcees, who married widows,
and it was no big deal. Right? It
was no big deal at all. So, you
know, basically around it. Was no stigma. Right?
So I would say for you know, when
I'm looking at it on on balance,
we can bring Seera to back any opinion
that we have. Right? Because if we wanna
talk about people marrying
young virgins
from the seerah,
we're gonna find it. Not the prophet,
which is a very interesting fact, which he
needs to be gone into in more detail,
But in general, you know that he married
mainly, you know, non virgins, you know, aside
from Aisha.
But his advice
was always to marry
virgins
and marry somebody who you find beautiful. So
you can love them and they can you
can play with them and and they can
play with you. There's actually so many ahadith
advising men to marry someone that is physically
pleasing to them and someone who is young
and fertile, virgin, etcetera. Right? So that's what
I mean about if we play the Sienna
game,
everyone's gonna bring evidence from their side, and,
usually, they'll bring the evidence that backs up
what they want anyway. That's what's And they'll
tell you that he married Khadija, like, for
so long, and he didn't have
second words. Exactly. Yeah.
Exactly. And then someone else will say, yeah.
But in the end, you're married, like, 9
or 13, depending on what you believe. So
okay. So so let's go back to our
situation as it stands. And the reason my
advice would change
is that the reality of the situation, no
matter what happened in Sierra, I mean, we
know that single mothers get married. We know
this. Yeah. We know that divorcees get married
and widows get snapped up. We know this.
Okay.
Are they the first choice for anyone?
Not usually. Right? But there could be things
about that sister that counterbalance
the fact that she has children or that
outweigh the fact that she's, you know, slightly
older or whatever whatever for that brother, whatever
he's looking for. Right? Yeah. My point was
it's helpful to understand
your
relative value
in this marketplace as far as men are
concerned
because it helps to make you more realistic
about what you should be aiming for.
If you think in your
head you're a 10
and you're a baddie and you are just
the same as that 23 year old who
hasn't had children, who hasn't been married, who
who's, you know, just starting out in life,
if in your head, you are the same
and you believe that men should see you
the same
as that other that sister,
you're delusional.
You're delusional.
And you're allowed to be delusional. That's your
choice.
But it will make you
make deluded decisions.
So if a brother comes to you who
is not maybe physically
your type
as I said to I said to my
friend, Leighton Kasani, we were talking about this.
I said, listen.
The reality is let's let's call it what
it is. We don't like it. It doesn't
feel great. But this is what it is
if you lay out the facts on the
ground.
I am 44
years old.
I have had 5 children.
I'm not having any more children. I am
a divorcee. Forget Naima b Robert.
Forget, oh, how cute she looks in her
niqab and whatever because that's irrelevant to this
conversation. No. For real.
It's irrelevant to this conversation.
Marketplace. Why?
Because I'm very well known,
because I have a reputation,
because I'm very busy.
So not only am I busy with my
work and my mission, but I have a
brood of children to look after. So
the things that we as sisters think are
so amazing, right? And the things that we
feel a man should choose us for,
they actually mean nothing to him. Because, Jenna,
if you were married to me, trust me,
it it wouldn't be what people think. Okay?
And also, you know I don't know how
you do it. Like, now that I think
of it, I'm like, I have 2. And
I'm like,
whoof. Yeah. It's crazy. No. No. Seriously. I
you know? And and and and I have
no problem owning that.
This is me. This is my reality.
For many men,
I would not be the ideal candidate whatsoever,
even if under my niqab, I look like,
I don't know, whoever you think is the
most good looking person. Right? Because it's and
and and men think like this. Okay. Masha'allah.
She's amazing sister.
She's so inspiring. And any any sister that
we see online, yeah, brothers will be like,
she's an amazing sister. Masha'Allah, she's achieved so
much. She's, you know, she's so inspirational. I
I admire her. I respect her. But do
I want her as a wife?
Probably not.
Because all of that comes at a price.
The price is
she's usually very busy. She's very preoccupied. She's
got a ton of other priorities.
And most men don't really wanna be married
to a woman who is busy with other
things. And whether those other things are her
career
or her girlfriends or her multimillion pound business
or
her 4 children or whatever, most men
don't want to, in the first instance, marry
a woman who has a ton of other
priorities.
Bottom line. So okay. So this is when
I'm saying being realistic, this is what I'm
saying.
Circumstances.
And then understand what you can
aim for with your circumstances.
Yeah? And what your real deal breakers are.
Are. Say, our age here is not the
age to be having a laundry list of
of of requirements,
especially not
physical characteristics. And I'm not saying that we
should marry somebody who repulses us. Obviously not.
Yeah? But if
we're still living in, oh, he's gotta have
a gym body
come on, sis. No. No. No. No. Let's
stop playing games. Okay? Let's stop playing games.
Because the reality is that guy with the
gym body, he wants a girl with a
gym body. And if you don't have a
gym body, then sit yourself down.
Sorry. Because it is what it is. And,
you know, there's a there's there's there's there
is
And that again, any mom has a gym
body. Like, for most moms.
Yep.
You you know what I'm saying? If you
have children, right,
stop telling brothers who have children that they
don't they don't qualify for you because they've
got kids, because I'm hoping for a brother
who doesn't have kids. What?
What do you mean?
How how? What? What?
Or I'm giving you all examples, right, of
real stuff. Yeah.
You have a household that you run at
the moment. Okay? Because you're on your own.
You're a single mom.
And so you're running this household, and you
have 4 children.
And you put out there, I need a
man who is going to fulfill his Islamic
obligations.
What does that mean? I want someone who's
gonna come in and pay for me and
my kids.
Again,
it's not ideal, sis. It's not ideal. And
you're putting out an expectation
that is likely to not be fulfilled because,
firstly,
you are already running this home. And that's
why I said that we need to, you
know, get our financials
in in intact as single mothers and budget
and, you know, do what we need to
do. Because the reality is, Islamically,
any man who marries you, he's not responsible
for your children. That's Islamically.
Yeah? Their father is responsible for them financially.
Unfortunately,
that's that's the the reality. He's financially responsible
for you,
but the children is sadaqa.
And if he can't do it, he can't
do it. So, anyway, going back to the
the expectations. Right? So gym body, if you
don't have a gym body, then don't don't
expect that the brother's gonna have a gym
body. If you, you know, if you're kind
of in a financial ruin,
don't expect that a man who has been
careful or who has been
or who has
done well for himself is gonna wanna take
you on as some kind of charity case.
Right? So these are, see, some of the
expectations. Right?
And then just to be aware of the
fact that because you have a responsibility to
these children,
you may not be the wife
Let me put it this way. Hold on.
I don't I don't I don't wanna say
the ideal wife. That's not what I'm trying
to say.
But if you look at your time, for
example,
if you have young children,
they need you.
They are your priority.
Right?
And, and they you have to they have
to be your priority. Right? You can't marry
somebody,
and, and and your children are just like,
oh, you know, no longer a priority. You
know, your children are still your priority. Your
priority. So that means that your husband is
sharing you
with these children. Someone else. Yes. Yeah. With
exactly. With with these with these with these
other priorities that you have. And that means
in terms of time,
in terms of attention,
in terms of just freedom to do stuff,
you are compromised because you have these children.
And the reason I'm saying all of this
is, wallahi, sisters, it's not
to break down anyone's self esteem
or,
like like, rag on them or, like, make
them feel bad. It's nothing like that. It's
just an invitation
to be realistic
about
what you are bringing to the table.
Uh-huh.
You know, what you are bringing to the
table in terms of
baggage, in terms of, you know, things that
make you kind of, you know, less than
ideal or that make it maybe more of
a challenge for you to to to fulfill
what a man is looking but
making
but making yourself into a better prospect. Right?
And I I mentioned a few things in
some interviews before. For example, get your kids
under control.
Okay? Get your kids under control.
Because if
you bring a man into a chaotic environment
when it comes to your kids,
it's going to cause problems. Right? And, you
know, it's it's just gonna cause problems. And
it really, really does impact the marriage when
the children are ill disciplined,
and the man comes in and they don't
respect him and they don't listen. They don't
listen to you. They don't listen to him.
It leads to fights between the 2 of
you,
and it's it's just a it's a bad
look all around. Right? So get your children
under control. Get your household under control. Right?
Don't wait for a man to come in
and do all of that. Get yourself under
control.
If you need therapy,
get therapy. If you need to heal from
your divorce, heal from your
emotion. Emotional baggage. I feel that is that
is the biggest problem I feel,
with
the world
is that the way we're taught through, like,
Hollywood or whatever is that someone is gonna
come and bring us happiness.
Yeah. And
I really needed to go through, like, therapy
myself, like, you know, through,
seeing coaches,
working with sister Dalia Ayub, myself, and seeing
how she speaks about things and seeing that
perspective that you don't need another person to
be you need to be internally happy because
no one's gonna bring you that. So Yeah.
That I feel like is very important. I
feel in everything, not even in marriage. Of
course, marriage is like, vital, but we're always
relying on someone else to to make us
our kids need to be a certain way
for us to be happy. You know? They
need to be, you know, the a a
student, and they need to be the well
behaved, and they need to go with us
on, like, visits and behave this way. Otherwise,
like, they're gonna ruin actually, like, that, if
we we, as sisters,
work on that, we can achieve so much
more.
It's true. I'm I'm still working on it.
Patience. It's it's those it's the gap, isn't
it, between
the expectation and what is your reality.
So I've you know, thank you so much
for sharing that. I think it's really important.
I'm not even sure whether I've made a
lot of sense on this live. But Yes.
So, like, but what what I'm what I'm
trying, like, to understand because I know, like,
your perspective. Perspective. So, like, my perspective yesterday,
I think we spoke about it a little
bit, on WhatsApp. My perspective, of course, is
the married woman
with kids. So I'm seeing it from the
lens of, like, I'm married to my husband.
I don't like like, if anybody speaks to
me because because, you know, the the the
I the idea
is that you came out and you said,
you know, as single women, like, as, like,
single moms,
we should, like, be okay with the idea
of being a second wife. Of course. We
should. Understand
where where we are.
And and to me, of course, where I
stand, I'm like,
I I go with the the moment the
party is Not my husband, Jake. Not my
husband. No.
I like you, but I'm not husband,
Subway.
Yes. So, like, to me, it doesn't it
doesn't make sense. And especially as well, like,
yeah. And and and I feel like as
well, it has to do with the culture.
So, like, I come from a Lebanese background.
It's not very big, but I find if
I have Egyptian friends,
it's more acceptable in Egypt. Right. Like, in
Saudi, it is as well. So, like, it
depends as well on the on the society
you're living in. So, like, to me, it's
like a big taboo.
So when when I'm actually asking you this
to to for myself to understand because I
understand that it dean wise, there's no
you know? You cannot say it's not there.
It is there. For me, I feel like,
oh, when I talk about it, I mean,
it is. We don't have to do all
the. Yeah. Exactly. This is the thing. Right?
This is always the thing. No. Just like
LaFena for being honest, the reality is,
Jenna, you have first wife privilege.
You have only wife privilege. Right? And it's
okay. We've all been there. Most of us
are there. Right? The majority of marriages are
monogamous.
So, of course, the way that women in
monogamous
marriages feel is going to dominate, and you
guys are the majority. So no you know,
fair play to you. Right?
And as you said, for lots of different
reasons, emotional and, you know, and cultural, societal,
etcetera, etcetera. Right?
I think my thing is let's let's call
it what it is.
You want to protect what you have.
Right?
And
this is what you want. You want your
husband to yourself,
and you want the family as it is
right now.
That's fine. But let's acknowledge that this is
a nafsi thing, and it's a thing,
and call it what it is. It's not
a problem for anybody unless your husband wants
to marry again. It's not a problem. But
Yes. I don't want sisters
to then
blame
or stigmatize
women who do not have the same privilege
as you.
Because trust and believe.
If any of the sisters that right now
are married and are they're not sharing their
husband with anybody. Right? That includes me when
I was married to my first husband, you,
and any of the listeners who are, oh,
in a monogamous marriage.
If any of those sisters
lost that husband for whatever reason
that he was taken, you you return to
Allah,
He divorced you. Whatever the case may be,
you're going to find yourself as a single
mother.
You will not have the wife privilege anymore,
and you will not have first wife privilege
anymore. And the world starts to look very
different.
And so and there's a story that that
kind of circulated online about this, right, about
a woman who became a widow. And, you
know, when she was married,
her husband wanted to marry a widow, and
she was like, * no. No way. Like,
it's not happening. You know, this is this
is what it is. It's you and me,
and it's our kids, and that's it. Forget
her. No way. And then this same woman
I don't know whether her husband divorced her
or she she became a widow.
And one day, a man approached her,
who wanted
wanted to take on her and her children,
thought, feisa be lile. You know?
And his wife said, ham, lile.
And now she understood
the implications
of her, let's call it what it is,
selfishness.
Right? Because it's what it is. It's okay
because we're human. Right? We're human. So I'm
not here to I hate it when people
say, oh, you're shaming people. I hate that.
I'm not shaming you or anybody else. It's
just let's call it what it is. I'm
selfish.
I want my husband to myself, and I
like the life that we have. And I
don't want it to change. And I want
to be able to maintain control of this
situation.
Fair enough.
But don't blame other sisters
who have a different perspective
because they don't have the privilege
certain pick of people. Right?
Because like I said, your options shrink.
After a certain age, especially in the Muslim
community, your options shrink. If you've been married
before, you have fewer options. Right? And if
a man comes who financially has the means
and you like him and he's prepared to
be a father figure to your children,
but he already has a wife,
I think it is ridiculous
for women in that situation to say, no.
I deserve better. I deserve better. I would
never be a second wife. I would rather
die than be a second wife.
The reason you're saying that is because you
think you're entitled to more than you are.
That's that's the reason. And you think that
your value is
higher than it is because that man is
so you. And I'm gonna say stuff like
this because, again, I like to use trigger
words because it makes people
right?
Okay. We all settle it. After this, I
was jealous. Like, oh my god. Oh my
god. Answer to a spike.
Oh my god. Like
Yep. Look. Check it out. Check it out.
All these people, these young people
who've done everything right, right, who did school,
maybe did university,
they kept themselves from marriage,
you know, and and and, you know, or
they're working on their end up getting financially
independent if they're a man, etcetera.
These guys, they have the pick of the
bunch, especially the girls. They got the pick
of the bunch. Leave them. Right? Let them
have their high standards. Let them have their
their expectations, whatever. Leave them. They're they're cool.
And the brothers as well,
they, you know, the the brothers who have
money,
the brothers who are good looking, the brothers
who, you know, they don't have any baggage
or any attachments, they've got the pick of
the bunch. They can have anyone, especially ones
with the money. They can have anyone. So
leave that out of this conversation. Let's talk
about the people who don't have the pick
of the
father,
you are not ideal as a candidate. That
is the father,
you are not ideal
as a candidate. That is that is how
it is seen, and that's the reality of
your situation. You're not ideal. If you're broke
as a man, you're not ideal.
If you are overweight or, like, not as
aesthetically that pleasing as a sister, you're not
ideal. Right? This is what we these are
the cards we've been dealt.
Some we can change, some we can't. Some
of us are blessed with natural
beauty Some of us, we can enhance what
Allah has given us. Some of us have
been blessed with naturally
fit bodies. Others, we have to work really
hard.
Right? My point is understanding
that this is the reality of the world.
Yes. Not even today. It's just the world.
Right?
You hopefully if what you want is to
marry somebody, you know, of the highest quality
that you can for whatever reason, then you
will need to work on yourself. Yeah. You
can't just come to the place with all
these marks against you
and say, take me as I am. Love
me as I am. Love me for what
I am. You don't have that privilege anymore.
That's for the young girls.
That's for the rich guys. Right? The and
the thing is, it's interesting because I I'm
saying young women and rich men, and I'm
thinking
unfortunately, on these apps, the religious boys, firstly,
they're not on the apps. And secondly, they
don't get any play
because they're boring.
They're dry. They don't have swag. They don't
have, like,
You know, they don't have all of that.
You know, the hafar and the boys who
come from the island school? Even though
in deen, etcetera, they're like tawfa and top
rank, when it comes to the rank and
file of Muslim girls, no one's interested in
them.
Unfortunately. No. But she The prophet told us
if if it's a.
Exactly. I understand. So Yeah. I mean, again,
we I feel like I I'm gonna invite
you, and we'll do a live stream, and
we'll do a reaction to those videos because
I feel like I need to go through
everything point by point. It's so long ago
now. But all I'm saying is,
sisters,
hear what I'm saying. You
know me. You know me. Right?
You know me. I'm not
coming from a place of malice
or of
anything more than sincerity and sincerely sharing
what I know and what I have seen
and what I have learned and what I've
experienced.
And that's it.
If it vibes with you,
If it doesn't vibe with you,
sometimes we have to hear
cold hard truths
and and feel the sting of that in
order to be able to rectify ourselves.
But what we like as sisters is we
like people to coddle us. We like for
sisters to make us feel good. Right? We
would want to be boosted up. We want
to be empowered. We wanna be told all
these wonderful things, and that is those are
the people that we like to listen to.
Right? And if a person dares say something
that makes us uncomfortable
or makes us accountable
or makes us puts us, like,
shines a light on where we are wrong,
we don't like that. We don't like that.
Oh, she's not for the sisters anymore. Oh,
she's ragging the sisters. Oh, she's a pick
me. Oh, she's this. She's that. She's
this. I'm just saying the facts as I
know them. I would say the exact same
thing to my daughter.
And the things that we're talking about here,
I'll say the exact same things to my
sons. People have heard me talking about simping
and that's what I tell my kids.
Because Yeah. Of the world that we live
in and the realities
of the world. You know, and this is
not to to discount the fact that there
are men out there that are completely
wild, right, and doing wild
things. We're not talking about them.
I'm not talking about
the what I hope is a minority of
crazy people.
I think, from what I see, the majority
of average Muslim men just wanna get married.
But those men typically cannot find somebody who
will accept
I've got