Naima B. Robert – Advice for Muslims on Blended Families and Second Marriages MUST WATCH
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
So
let's do that.
Madam
Khadija,
the
stage
is
yours, mister La.
So I'm going to start recording
And.
Okay.
Everyone. This is,
my talk inshallah on blended families. Inshallah.
I'm coming to you as someone that has
been a stepmother for a large majority of
my life. I'm talking to you also as
someone that has a in my second marriage,
my children have a stepfather of 6 years.
I'm also speaking to you as someone that
coaches intimately
women who are stepmothers,
as well as women who have their children,
have a stepfather.
This is an area, also with my own,
background in child psychology and child development.
This is the area I'm very passionate about,
and
I wanna basically set a little bit of
context around what is step parenting and blended
families,
and then go into some of the challenges
that are very rarely talked about,
in the mainstream around,
raising children and relationships in blended families.
I really want to my intention, insha'Allah, is
to
help us to,
get an idea of what it's like to
be in a blended family. And for those
of you who are,
single mothers or single fathers, what to expect
if you choose to go into a blended
family.
And for those of you who are in
the verge of a divorce and have certain
ideas about,
going into
a divorce and remarriage,
what you perceive. Because I have a lot
of messages in my inbox from our sisters
about you've remarried, what does that look like
when they're already still in their first marriage,
and they think that that is the solution?
So I'm gonna go through a few areas.
I'm also gonna,
talk a little bit of advice to stepfathers
and stepmothers
and for the mother or father who's children,
have a stepmother or stepfather.
In this short time, I'm hoping to capture
what I can.
Make me successful in,
sharing what I have learned in this and,
inshallah, it's a benefit.
I first wanna start off and just remind
everyone that, alhamdulillah, our prophet
was a stepfather, and it's very rarely talked
about or focused on.
And, you know, every prophet came to challenge
the cultural norms at that time.
And
the cultural norms at that time, as we
know, when the prophet
came into
the scene, was that women had no rights.
They had no values. They were very much
the underdog. And especially women who were divorced.
They had no rights. You know? And, so
it's really important to understand that
this is actually a forgotten sunnah of the
prophet Muhammad alaihi wasalam,
and that most of his wives, other than
Aisha, were actually previously married. They were either
divorced or widowed.
So this is not something new.
This is something that Muhammad Muhammad,
he himself was a a a stepfather.
And even Aisha Rehranho was a stepmother.
When Arlene Rehranho came into her care, there
was a time when she was also a
stepmother.
And I really want to focus on that,
just 2 stories very quickly to start off
and kinda see where we come from in
our in in our understanding
of that this is not something new.
When,
Ol Habiba,
when she had migrated to,
Abyssinia,
She was one of the first, you know,
the first group to go to Abyssinia, and
she was married, at that time to
forbid
Allah,
even Jaha,
Josh.
And then he actually apostated. He went back
to,
Christianity. So she was left in this really
heartbroken state where she had migrated,
to there, and she, you know,
was all that you know, all all,
in the course of her deen to protect
her deen. And then she was left in
a situation where she was then abandoned by
her husband.
And in this state where she was inflicted
with this huge wound of loneliness
and being abandoned by her husband back to
to apostate away from Islam,
Ramadan Islam then sent a a request for
marriage for her.
And
the event
created such a,
Habiba accepted it, and the event caused her
own father because Habiba was the daughter of
Abu Sobian. And Abu Sufyan said that when
he heard about the that the prophet Muhammad
was getting married to his daughter, he actually
gave verbal acknowledgment.
And the prophet Muhammad,
he he acknowledged the prophet Muhammad's wisdom and
foresight to to amend the infliction of this
wound that his, daughter had experienced.
And he said, you know, he is a
scallion whose nose should not be wiped off.
And I've got that from the women of
the messenger.
And Supalla,
she was 50 years old when the prophet
Muhammad Sissler married her. Now this is a
man that could
marry anyone. Now with his status and what
he had, he had the ability to marry
any woman that he wanted to. Yes, upon
allheart,
he chose to marry women,
majority other than Aisha and her uncle, that
were either widowed or divorcees.
And see the beauty of the fact that
he was Umkhabiba in a state of,
a huge wound inflicted on her by her
previous husband,
and yet he took her, and he took
care of her. And she was 50 years
old at the time when they got married.
And it just shows you, Subhanallah,
the wisdom that the papa of my husband's
mother had
towards her. Yeah. She also had a daughter.
From what I learned, I couldn't find enough
information about
whether he became a stepdaughter
to that daughter. But I definitely know that
when he married,
Saleema
and,
Salima, Salima went through so much trauma before.
You understand the story of Salima.
She went through so much trauma.
And, you know, before she even got to
the point where she got to marry the
prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam, I'm not sure
if she had a very good husband and
she was prevented from leaving Mecca to be
with him. She went through big distress, you
know, through a stage where the children child
was taken away from her, and it prevented
her connection and relationship with him. Jolley can
read her
story. But one of the things I love
about her story, and I always remember
the Hadith where,
she basically did a pact with,
with her husband and Abel, Abel,
sign Emma. And he had made a dua
when he passed away. Before he passed away,
he made a specific dua.
And that dua was that he asked Allah
to
pretty much replace him with someone better. Now,
give give my wife someone, a a better
a better man than me. And she considered
him a very good man, and she had
a very, very, good opinion of him. And,
subhanAllah,
she really trusted her a lot. She really
trusted that Allah
will help her through the distress that she
was going through. So he passed away,
and I think he was in the I'm
not sure if it was in the back
to the father. But anyway, he passes away,
and she's just given birth to her daughter,
Zaynab. So this is a woman who has
4 children,
who's just given birth to her daughter, Zainab.
Her husband she's widowed. Her husband has, passed
away. Her beloved husband. Someone she loved and
she she adored very much so.
And,
then the prophet Muhammad Sefuran proposes to her.
He proposes to her. He chooses this woman
who's just given birth not long ago. She
is just lost her husband, so she's in
grief,
and and she has children.
And the bottom line says, mom sent the
the,
proposal,
to,
to her.
And then,
she her in the hadith, she says that,
those three things that she had some worries
about. So she was self aware. She was
consciously
aware of herself. So she brought up these
three concerns that she had to the prophet
Mohammad Islam before she made marriage to him.
And,
it's upon her. She I I remember I'm
trying to remember the three things, but I
know that,
one of them was that,
she's older. She's an older woman.
Number 2 is her jealousy. She still had
jealousy.
And then I think the third one was,
she has children. She brought that up and
I had children. Like, you know and basically,
she's checking in with him to see, is
he capable? Is he is he able to
take on this this responsibility?
And,
the prophet Muhammad said to her
that when she said that I'm too old
for marriage, I'm jealous, and I have children,
the prophet Muhammad says to mom reassured her.
And he said, I'm older than you. They
gave her that first reassurance.
And then he said, as for your jealousy,
all of them move it. You had Yakinah
Ola will remove this jealousy that you have
in your heart.
And he said to her, as for your
children, Ola and his messenger
will,
look after them. So he reassured her that
I will look after your children.
He he he gave her that
consideration and and understanding and reassurance as women
do in their nature to be reassured.
He gave that to her.
And then,
when the messenger of Allah Allah,
when
he come to visit her, because remember, she
had a baby, he would go and her
name was Zaynab. But he would call her,
like, her nickname. He would be like, you
know, where's,
Neeb? Where's Neeb? I could use a little
nickname for her and look for her. So
he was an involved stepfather. There's one hadith
too where,
Salima's,
son, Omar,
said that Omar Regal, he was he is
a famous hadith where they're in a dish
of food. And Omar is moving his hand,
touching the food.
And then the prophet Maslow guides him, eat
in front of you, you know, eat in
front in front of you. And Omar has
always remembered this etiquette that the prophet Muhammad
taught him
in regards to eating food.
So,
the prophet Muhammad
chose to be someone that wanted to change
the norms, the cultural conditioning,
the uncult unconscious
conditioning that was,
society was so enslaved to and give women
back their rights. And, you know, and, SubhanAllah,
when you look at this thing where he
married
Osama, which, you know, he married her as
a single mother with children,
he first followed the Arab,
he followed the Arab custom of taking responsibility
for the wife of a French,
by marrying her after the death of a
father
marrying her after the death of her husband
because he was close to Abul,
Salma.
And
he
the second thing that was very key, key
in this situation was the sublocation,
the dua of her husband,
where he actually asked a lot that he
would,
that Allah would provide things on someone better
than him or her.
So these are people
that really loved for the sake of Allah.
They really loved for their sister and brother,
what they loved for themselves.
And it's sad to say
that we've come to a time when
loving for your brother and sister
is not as apparent as it used to
be. And I suppose for me, it gets
emotional because
I have worked with so many sisters,
especially in their thirties and forties and fifties,
that face the fact that they probably will
never get married
because they have
bought into the cultural conditioning that they're not
allowed to get married or that they used
goods or they're baggage or men have told
them that I don't wanna deal with their
children or that they have emotional baggage.
And the thing is, so so many of
these beautiful sisters,
really would be very ideal wives
and ideal,
especially wives and ideal mothers because they may
have had an injustice done to them, where
many of them have first started off in
an abusive marriage. They've been in a marriage
where there was injustice done to them, and
so they had to exit that marriage, or
they're a widow.
And so we have come into this time
where
we have become very
infiltrated,
unconsciously and consciously,
by the agendas of the West.
And we moved away from our roots of
our deen
where so many of us are not even
willing to contemplate or think about the idea
of marrying someone
that is a single mother.
There are many challenges involved, definitely, but I
wanted to start off to make you realize
how much the prophet Muhammad
has already set this forgotten sunnah
and how much that we have the ability
as an Ummah to not be so nafsi
nafsi
and so individualistic
and actually consider
the steps involved
to look after our Ummah,
to really take care of our
because we are meant to move like a
community.
We move when we move like individuals,
we fall apart.
But looking at the bigger picture here,
there are so many benefits in being and
doing this act.
Now there are so many,
aspects of it. And I wanna just kind
of look at each aspect and
and and, hopefully, that will be understanding to
different people
of why would why,
this wise blended families have been actually the
norm and is very doable.
It was doable for the time and has
been the norm for 1000 of years. Blended
families are not something that just came along
later in just in the last even though
we have had a heightened amount of divorces.
But it is something that is doable.
In saying that, I really wanna start off
by,
talking about the importance that
and this is very important.
Many women in their marriages, and men, are
in the 1st marriages.
And they get very stuck in divorce thinking.
And it takes
a lot of
insight and self reflection to break a family
up.
Most women I know,
and men, will only break a family up.
Up. If if the the ones that really
think about breaking their family up
have to have very legitimate reasons with taqwa
to Allah
of why they break families up. There are
also many people that will break a family
up and not consider the repercussions of it.
But a lot of sisters and brothers
have this notion, have this idea, this belief
that the grass is greener on the other
side,
that this is too hard. This is too
challenging.
I think I'm just gonna
look out there and compare myself to all
the other
Instagram couples who, by the way, are putting
up their highlights. They're not putting up
their their challenges. Even the most healthy, secure
attached couples also go through challenges.
You know, this this is the the marriage
in so many ways is a means to
the ultimate goal of Jannah.
And so we can understand
that if you are in person and first
marriage, and you think that the solution is
to divorce and remarry,
I'm gonna tell you there is a lot
more challenges on the way that will get
you into your 2nd marriage.
And so being aware that the impact in
that may be and for some of you,
that will be the solution. That will be
the solution because the boss is halal.
But for some of you,
it isn't the solution. And it's about watering
your grass now, what you have now,
and showing up and building that
and revitalizing
that and putting fertilizer on that grass and
letting it thrive again and repairing what may
need to be repaired
in that, before you think about exiting to
divorce.
And if you have gone for the divorce,
and now you're in a situation,
you're a single mother, you're a single father,
and you are thinking about remarriage.
I'm not even touching on the impact of
the children of the whole process of remarriage.
This is me talking to you as someone
who has experienced intimately speaking to many people,
many, many stories,
and the challenges involved
to build a second foundation of a second
marriage.
And for those of you who are left,
whether you're widowed or divorced, and you become
a single mother or you become a single
father, there are certain things you have to
take into consideration
if you want to remarry.
For those of you who become a stepfather,
one of the most important things to be
aware of.
And, you know,
as someone who has a lived experience,
my children have a stepfather who has been
part of their lives for 6 years now.
My youngest was 3 years old well, 2
years old, actually. He was almost 3 when
we got when I got remarried.
I had, at that time, a 9 year
old, a 12 year old,
a 15 year old, and a 3 year
old. So I have 4 boys 4 boys,
and their father was in the picture.
So there was a lot of challenges for
him as a stepfather.
And it's so important to be aware that
it's
it it really takes a specific
for a man, a good man, to take
on the role of looking after someone else's
children.
And
so I really want to
talk about that. Because one of the most
important questions
that you as a man, if you choose,
and if you're open
to doing this forgotten sunnah, to marry someone
that has children,
that obviously is gonna,
be a lot to do with the context.
Example, if you're marrying someone that is younger
and maybe has a 18 year old,
baby, a little girl, that it may be
easier. Someone might have smaller children, definitely, it's
a lot easier because you've gotta come into
that role if you have the right intentions
and you have taqwa,
taqwa being the most important, self awareness, and
taqwa,
that if you come into that, you're going
to,
you're going to be have more influence or
maybe easier to bond with those children if
you worked through
your triggers.
No one should ever take on the responsibility
of someone else's children
if they haven't got some level of taqwa
and self awareness.
This is so important because your conscious awareness
is so important in how because you all
have to experience challenges.
You will experience triggers. There's a whole transition
period of bringing a stranger into your home,
whether that is a woman or a man,
to your children
and building that relationship
and asking the right questions before
is so fundamental
that the parties make sure that they check-in
with each other before they decide to get
married because you're involving children here.
And children have a right
to have access to a healthy home. They
have a right for a sense of belonging.
They have a right to access their mother
and their father,
except if they're they're either parent is you
know, there are certain things in our deen
which may nullify that if there is, example,
sexual abuse or there's addiction or certain things
like that. But still,
there is still,
Asharia law is very clear around certain things
in regards to the access to the birth
parents
and not,
not punishing
the other parent when they go through the
divorce, which happens from a lack of takwa
and comes from a place of using the
children, which I see over and over and
over again. Using the children
to brainwash them against the other parent and
then the other step parent because the person
has not dealt with their own triggers.
They have not dealt with their own issues.
And then it gets this ripple effect that
gets
vomited all over.
So it's really important that before you come
into that role as a stepfather
and as a stepmother, that you ask yourself
certain questions before you even think about doing
that.
So some examples would be is one of
the examples of asking a future spouse, you
first have to know yourself before you even
think about asking. You have to know yourself.
Are you have the capacity?
Just like on
Saleema, when she asked the prophet,
I have children.
She's asking, how many people will take on
my children?
And he said you reassured her, yes. I'm
the type of man that's gonna look after
your kids.
I am going to take on some responsibility
there. I'm going to take on and build
that connection with them.
And so one important question specifically for a
man who's coming into this, and I've consulted
my husband. I've consulted Czechs that are also
married single mothers.
And I and my own experience. And I
really believe this is so important to ask
yourself first and foremost,
why do you want to get married to
this particular woman?
Why do you want to particularly get married
to this particular man?
And you have to ask yourself that question.
You have to ask her, what is my
intention here? Because once you get married, you
can't just fling those kids away. Those kids
are part of the package,
a part of the assignment.
So you have to be know yourself if
you're able to have some inclination awareness. Am
I ready to take on this assignment?
And, subhanAllah,
I have seen so many situations where it's
been so rewarding.
It was challenging at first, but it's been
so rewarding. It's been so rewarding
to see
the the cultivation
when a adult with taqwa
makes the effort with young children.
And children feel the soul of that person,
and they connect to that soul, and they're
inclined towards that soul. And they seek advice
from that person
because that person has a good heart and
that person is ready to not be nafsinaasi
and all just all about me, but also
and really build that bond, build that proper
Islamic home, that thriving home, that every minute
that they're spending their time or money or
effort on that family, they are getting a
reward from Allah.
And a lot of people say it's hard
work. It's a lot of work.
Yes. You have to choose your heart, but
the blessings and reward involved in helping someone,
raising someone,
and it really does take
a strong man, a good man to accept
someone else's children
and step up to the plate where a
lot of the time, another man
has left that table,
has not contributed,
has stopped contributing financially,
has stopped making the effort.
And and so it's so important that
stepping
back when needed
and being in this transition there will be
a transition as there is a transition to
everything. But if you have the right intention,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala can open those doors.
It really comes back to your expectation.
And this was one thing,
that
making the dua beforehand,
really doing istihara,
making the dua, checking in with yourself, knowing
yourself, but also making the dua, is this
person
I'm trusting you, Allah, But is this person
the right person for myself and for my
children?
And is this person going to create and
you don't know outcome. Outcome is not Allah's
domain, but you can only prepare with trusting
Allah and making God's law. You know, whoever
fears Allah and keeps his duty to him,
Allah will take him out of every difficulty.
Allah will our expectation of Allah will help
us to gain the right person that is
meant for us in that time, exactly at
the right chapter of our of our life
at that time.
And so you have to know for yourself
and for him or her,
is this person going to be able to
have those conversations?
If anything, slow conversations
before the union.
My children met
their their stepfather 3 times before
I made a decision,
and it was only after he had met
my father.
Because the right the true right men, the
the the men that are responsible and healthy
go through a father. They go in and
seek the advice of the wally.
They don't just go through the stepmother the,
sorry, the single mother and go through her
inbox, so they start doing this or that.
They don't go through here and there. They
go straight to the father. They seek the
advice, and they they get to know, and
they do it Halawa,
and then the right outcome is going to
happen.
Because a lot of times, single women are
preyed on. And I've seen this. My dear
friend, a very close friend, she
exited a very traumatic marriage, an abusive marriage.
She is
I've known her for 20 years. Beautiful soul.
And she remarried. She remarried a year later.
She met the brother,
and he left her, 4 years later, 1
week after he got his Australian citizenship.
And the devastation
and the pain it's caused
Because she had 4 children that adored him
and got connected to him,
and but he had an interior motive, all
alone, and only on the lights. We don't
know the full dynamics.
But from what I know of her, she
was a good person, and I I see
the trauma and impact.
So you have to understand that knowing yourself
as a woman or as a man is
so fundamental before you enter
into exposing your children or you entering into
that
family,
structure, which you are a stranger of 1st
and foremost,
or binding children from different marriages together,
you have a right to actually
be consulted.
It's very difficult when you have something like
young boys and older girls or older boys
and younger girls.
It's important that you consult and you be
aware of the situation, because it's not just
about you. It's about a whole farm and
family dynamic here and the long term impact
of that, because these are new relationships that
children have to be exposed to.
But, subhanallah, seeing the results and connection
is
very, very
doable when you do do the right thing
and you do the right ingredients.
Because relationships, when you build that effort and
the results, the effort will pay off. Even
when sometimes it's hard and it's challenging, the
effort pays off if you're doing it for
the pleasure of a lot. And that requires
a level of
that requires knowing yourself.
We live in a era where there is
a severe shortage of fathers.
We live in a era and a time
where
one of the most fundamental protective factors for
children is a father in the home. This
is number 1,
protection from,
a jail term in America is a child
about a child has a father in the
home. We hear how many people grew up.
I know one brother that married a single
mother with a young son, and the father
had disappeared. And he said, I married her
because,
I grew up in a single mother home.
And I knew I knew the feeling, the
void of not having a father to call
me, to give me attention, to talk to
me. And he's raising his stepson as his
own,
and he's had 2 more children with this
woman.
So don't underestimate the impact. When a man
leaves, a woman will
follow.
I I
wanna now turn to the relationship
with,
what do you call it, with
that self awareness and that that consultation beforehand.
So, so fundamental. Right? I'll check the chat
in a second. I just wanna continue talking
a little bit more.
The other aspect is that if you're a
woman, you're a single mother,
and you wanna get married,
and you find someone or someone comes to
you and speaks to you,
it's really, really important
as that woman
that you have the ability
to
be open to allowing
a man into your life
and that you have done some inner work
on your own triggers or what has come
up for you.
And you work through them.
Because then, remembering in a in a blended
family, you're dealing with people with different trauma,
different emotional baggage, different you got children involved.
There's lots of aspects
here. And so, you know, I made a
rule before I got married. And I consulted
my husband. I made it clear to him.
Not getting married we're not having children for
the 1st 2 years.
I said, I really don't wanna have children
for the 1st 2 years. I made that.
I I made it clear before, and he
agreed. And I did that because I knew
that the building of a relationship with
myself,
with me and him, and with the building
of the relationship with my with his stepsons,
my children,
was fundamental
before we bring in
another another,
birth in another human into this this,
dynamic. And,
when I had my our son together had
a son together
we had a son together. Humble is 3,
3 and a half years old.
He's he's full on.
But he he was actually the binding.
He was the glue that brought
the brothers
and the,
the husband. See, I was the connection. Right?
I'm the connection between this is my husband.
This is my children.
But when I had a son,
this is their half brother, and this is
his son. It was it brought Guru. It
brought another level of connection.
And so Olam Olam does things for a
reason.
It's the reason why we're meant to have
children is to bring, not only build the
ummah, but there's a reason it creates a
bond if it is a healthy relationship.
By bringing a child into an unhealthy relationship
is only gonna cause more turmoil, more misery
if you don't work through those things.
So really important
as someone that was a stepmother.
And no woman
I have ever coached
who is a stepmother doesn't have some form
of jealousy towards their stepchildren.
This is natural normal. This is actually a
part of it. But how do you deal
with it
as the man that has that children?
And I I and I'm and it could
be with stepfather as well, particularly with women
because all the creative women. As Olmusoma said,
you know, she she said, I'm I have
some jealousy. I'm worried about that. As it
was hard the women had in those times.
But one of the things was when the
women were able to work through their issue,
jealousy, the container jealousy, which is basically working
for your triggers,
because you're sharing someone. You're sharing a person.
A really good
a really good
Amir understands the needs of his subordinates. He
understands the needs. Okay. My new wife, this
is her needs. Her emotional needs. These are
my children's emotional needs. And he doesn't avoid
it or ignore it.
He addresses
the needs
of his family,
so he can help with that. He can,
create that emotional connection and and reassurance.
And,
alhamdulillah,
all the women I worked with were able
to unpack it,
work through it.
And, of course, it's a case by case
situation. Every context is different.
There may be one child they really connect
to and other children they don't based on
temperament. We're human beings. We have different needs
and different understandings,
but they were always willing to create the
bond. If anything, they were hurt,
in both stepmothers and stepfathers, which I noticed,
they'll get hurt at first when their efforts
are not really being reciprocated by the child.
And the child needs time to bond with
that new adult. So one important thing to
remember, if you are coming into a blended
family,
understand there's a transition period, and that transition
don't you as the adult can't get offended
and upset by your stepchildren's,
behaviour. A lot of the time, you have
to make more excuses for them,
because they're not your birth children.
But your intention and your goodwill with them
will pay off.
You showing up. I still have connection to
my stepsons
in my first marriage,
which I from the time I was 17
to the time of 30, I was a
stepmother to them 50% of my life. 50%
of my life, I looked after them
as my own.
And it really taught me it taught me
so much about myself.
It taught me so much about patience, and
it taught me about understanding my own triggers,
and it taught me about the ability that
all I can actually put in my heart,
the ability to love someone else's child that
is not your own.
And I witnessed that, and it's so beautiful
that the capacity Allah created in my heart
that you can love someone other than that
is not your birth, did not was not
birthed from you, who did not come from
your,
egg or sperm, but, subhanallah,
you can have such a miracle bond with
that child. Just like Zayd, you know, when
when the prophet mom says, I'm looking after
Zayd, he didn't wanna leave. He wanted to
be with the prophet mom,
And so it's your good heart, your taqwa,
your good feeling, your good intention is gonna
make the biggest difference in coming into,
that that role, which requires full engagement,
requires commitment.
It requires
you to be, at a mentally at a
level that can I handle these challenges and
spiritually connected to Allah
because Allah will help you through anything that
you you you're assigned to? Because remember, Allah
doesn't put us through these situations for no
reason.
You have to be ready fully ready to
enter it and be ready for the challenges.
1 of the best aspects has been one
of the hardest thing,
for the step parent is the actions
of the other parent.
So the actions of the ex parent.
Usually, a lot of the challenges happen
when they get married. They're dealing then with
the ex wife or the ex husband. A
lot of issues can come from them if
they're still in the picture.
I would advise
that if ever you became a stepmother or
stepfather, that you actually do approach and have
a conversation with the birth parent
because the birth parent doesn't know you. And
having that conversation,
setting what is our boundaries in this relationship,
what do you expect of me as I
raid your children,
are you going to create trouble for me?
I have those conversations, and it may not
work out well, but at least you've done
the effort. You've stepped up and said, okay.
I'm going to make connection here, if it's
advisable. In some situations,
you may be stopped by having that. You
know? Maybe your husband doesn't allow you as
a stepmother to connect back to the ex
wife because she he's worried. Maybe that that
person may say things that may not be
a 100% true. So we understand. Maybe you
can write it in a letter. But I
do think,
from my experience, it has been helpful to
create that connection and remembering.
And this is so important.
And one thing
that really, really helps my voice
was to understand that their stepfather
was another Muslim,
that their stepfather
had rights, that their stepfather had feelings, that
he we honor another human. This is their
Muslim brother, first and foremost.
That really helped.
So remembering that you have to if you
are deciding to remarry,
that to be aware, is your ex wife
or ex husband, if they're in the picture,
are they gonna create trouble? Are they gonna
brainwash the children against
their stepmother or stepfather? And how are you
going to deal with that challenge?
Because it happens a lot. Because, unfortunately, we're
in a time where we lack takwa.
We lack the takwa to understand the union
of that family
has moved
on, and that to respect and and let
them be. If that is a good Muslim
that that person has chosen and that comes
in and remarried,
that you do your own and you are
triggered by that. So your children your children
have a stepmother or stepfather.
You do your own inner work, but you
don't interfere in the relationship
of the stepmother or stepfather with their their
children.
You don't cause spitting up for another person's
family.
I'm just gonna have a quick look at
the comments, Inshallah.
What advice do you have when choosing a
husband with more than 7 children, adult children?
Having 2 children myself, I will live on
2 different continents. How to choose well, not
only for yourself, but bringing 2 families together.
Exactly what I'm saying, sis, you have to
be aware. When you're dealing with different dynamics,
with different age levels,
every every family
is with different context.
I would make a lot of effort to
make a lot of consultation with Shora beforehand.
The adult children, they may be consulting with
them before you enter the marriage.
Am I able to raise these children? They
are adults now. They're going to make their
own opinion of you.
Have they been prepared by their father to
accept
another woman?
No. This is very difficult for boys, especially,
because what we find a lot is,
particularly with boys, it can be difficult in
the way that how the woman
is with,
how she takes on her children, her little
stepfather.
Because a lot of women
may have
a unhealthy relationship with their own children.
So they may have this kind of where
the mother makes her own son a partner
or substitute husband already.
And so when when she comes into this
into the role of then becoming
a wife,
she's then,
almost having 2 relationships. So she's maintaining the
relationship
of,
the emotional
we call it emotional incense incense,
where the her relationship where she sees her
son as as very much as,
surrogate husbands. Right? And she's not willing to
kind of,
take the step back. So as a woman,
you have to be prepared. If you are
going to get married,
are you,
allowing that transition of the stepfather
to take on some role
of duty and responsibility? It's a role of
letting go of some control
as he, as the Amir, will come in.
And are you happy with this story? And
these conversations have to be made, especially in
the 1st 6 months of the marriage and
before so.
Consulting is so important. You know, it's part
of our day. It's Tiharah
and Mashora. It's Tiharah and Mashora. Allah has
given us means. And Allah has given us
an intuition to start to really check-in with
ourselves.
Is this what I'm I'm able am I
able to
do the homework
and complete the assignment? Am I able to
only show up and do the assignment? But
I have to do my homework before. So
there's a lot more question. You also have
to be aware of your own triggers with
your own children. Because if there is an
unhealthy relationship between mother and son, then example,
when the father or stepfather comes into that
role, you may then be sticking up for
the for the son when he's disrespectful or
rude or whatever comes up.
And the thing is, your children are not
your best friends. You're coming into a role
where you navigate I spent, like, one chapter
talking about this in my book, where you're
navigating the role of being a new wife
a new wife to your to your husband,
and he has half and rights over you.
You have your children from a previous marriage.
That you also have to fulfill their rights
need. And if they're different ages, and you
may have children from his marriage that'd be
in that setting as well. And on top
of that, you may be then dealing with
your children having a stepmother
or stepfather
from their from the previous marriage. And these
children end up with,
maybe a lot of the cases,
a a mother, a stepfather,
a father, a stepmother,
and and maybe more if that parents divorce
again.
So you have to understand
how how much challenge is involved in these
children's lives. And then the co parenting we're
not even talking about co parenting involved yet.
So my I suppose I'm I'm
I'm indirectly
reminding people that if your grass can be
greener when you water it already,
if you have challenges and issues already in
your 1st marriage that you can work on,
and you can leave that marriage a 100%
in Allah's eyes to Allah,
I have done everything
possible.
I have stayed and done everything possible
in this marriage, then the sunnah.
But you have to first make sure that
you've done the right thing in the first
marriage.
So many people are unaware
of their own
actions and how detrimental that impact can be
on people around them because they're just not
consciously aware of their own behavior. They're not
aware of their triggers. They're not aware of
the impact of their anger. They're not aware
of what they say and do, the ripple
effect on their families.
They're so used to blaming
and projecting
and assuming and shaming and and never taking
responsibility
for their own actions in their own words
that, yep, they'd go for a divorce, but
they'll cause more of a disaster for their
children
because they didn't look at themselves and do
what the Omer Wa Rahmoh said, is hold
yourself accountable before you're accounted for.
Many women I work with are not even
aware
of some of the things that they say
and do. They're act they're actually very destructive
to the structure of their marriage or very
hurtful to their husband or to his honor.
And so we have to understand, and we're
gonna hate talking about this, that you have
to be sure that before you get married,
are you ready to obey
your husband? Are you ready to consider when
he needs to
or talk to your children? Are you ready
to take a step back and be aware
of that? What are you going to do
in that situation? Your natural feminine
mother instinct is to protect your child. Of
course, not in any type of abuse. I'm
not saying anything like that. But you have
to be aware of yourself. Are you ready
to take on and allow him to lead?
And that requires a transition period.
And that requires him too as a stepfather
coming in. And probably stepping back and being
aware, okay, I better not get involved. Build
the connection first before you start disciplining.
Build the connection first. I would actually advise
any stepmother or stepfather that comes into a
family dynamic,
no disciplining for the 1st few months. Build
connection. Build Mahafa.
Get to know each other. Build that love.
That's what our families are meant to be.
These are the building blocks.
Just got a question here as we wrap
up, Incela.
What advice do you have for a single
mother whose ex is very active in their
children's life and she wants to be married?
She he isn't looking for a substitute dad
but a husband. Yeah. Excellent. So there, the
father's involved.
Respect his role as the father. I have
seen too many times
where the woman remarries
and the stepfather kinda erodes the role of
the father as well. This has also happened.
And then he's an active father. He's involved,
And the stepfather is
threatened by his
his,
participation
in his co parenting role, in his role
as a father to his children. It's really
important that you have that conversation with the
person that you married.
Please understand, this is a co parenting relationship.
The children have a father. I don't wanna
interfere in the relationship. I'm looking for a
husband for myself,
and, yes, we will have children together.
These are mature
conversations with emotionally mature people. If you if
you if not divorce and more issues are
going to happen, it's gonna cause more damage
in the long run. Also remember, in a
lot of situations where I've experienced
with working with stepmothers and working with women
that get married and have children, have stepmothers,
is the dynamics usually change a lot in
the co parenting once one of them remarries.
Because it's almost like these are my children.
I wanna take a bit more protective role
over them. And so and also, you may
put in a situation where your husband won't
allow any more active communication with your ex
husband, or an ex husband has too much
involvement in his communication to you as a
wife. So you need to learn that there
will be changes. There's a lot of changes,
but it can be doable.
It can be doable if people have a
conscious awareness and they have tough one to
show them.
Okay. I have probably got through half of
what I wanted to say, but I'm gonna
finish up. So has anyone got any questions
or is there any,
I can't see the YouTube chat, but there's
anything coming up.
I suppose I just wanna end by remembering
that
there is no clear answer.
But one clear answer that you have to
have for yourself is why am I marrying
them? What is my reason for doing this?
Why am I exposing my children to this
person? What is it that I want from
this relationship?
And you're someone that has any inclination towards,
Jeff?
I have almost finished my book, Inshallah, so
it hasn't started. It hasn't,
been completed. May Allah help me to, Inshallah,
complete it in the next 3 months, Inshallah.
So just being aware that that that
being aware that about this is doable, but
it requires you.
If you're either the step parent or the
single parent,
it requires you to have some level and
work on your takwa and level of conscious
awareness of yourself. So you're not bringing your
triggers and your assumptions
and clear communication.
Clear communication.
And remember, Allah, Allah will help you through
anything. Allah makes anything doable if you're open
to it, if you hold, if you really
trust in Allah, be it Allah, he will
make anything happen. Because Allah does not let
any effort go wasted, inshallah.
Let's quickly check the
I I have a link
for a
a master class, Inshallah, which I'll be doing
in the next 2 weeks and a beautiful
PDF I put together about building a secure,
self to build a secure relationship.
Excellent. Especially if you're going especially for those
of you in a divorce or contemplating getting
remarried.
The link, I have supplied it, but it
doesn't seem I don't have it on me
right now. I can probably pop it into
the comment section.
Okay. I'm going to end off Alhamdulillah.
Don't think there's any more questions.
Maybe there's one more here.
Yeah. No.
Okay. Hopefully, just like the line name, my
name is put it into the, VIP
comments
group.
And, I hope it was beneficial for everyone,
I'm gonna end off, and, you will enjoy
the next speaker.
That was amazing.
Super practical,
super
realistic advice.
Stop
the
recording.
Alright, everyone.
Let's get, take a little stretch.
I'm gonna change mics
and,
I do believe our next speaker is in
the room which is great.
Our next talk,
this morning
is going to be
a sister that you met yesterday,
sister Neha
Prakash,
and she is going to be speaking on
how to make your second marriage better than
your first.
So as we all know,
with the high incidence of divorce,
they're already high and are probably gonna get
higher, with the rate we're going.
It makes
sense for us to have some awareness of
the impact.
It helps. It makes sense for us to
learn
how to cope,
how to heal, which is what today is
gonna be about. And if we do choose
to remarry,
as we know, so many of the Sahaba
did,
then
it makes sense for us to learn how
to do it in the healthiest way possible
inshallah.
So there'll be a lot of talks today
about divorce,
and post divorce. So buckle up those of
you who have, been divorced or who, you
know, who have been in that situation then
inshallah,
you'll,
you will, you'll benefit from today inshallah.
And, you know, I pray that
many, many, many of you, hopefully the majority
of you can avoid this situation, but we
know that it does happen.
It's been happening
from before the time of the prophet Sala
probably will always happen.
But at least if we can manage
ourselves
so that we are still healthy and whole,
and so that we can manage the situation
so that our children are protected.
I think that that would be a good
outcome inshallah.
Sister Neha, if you're ready to come on
video,
let me know inshallah.
There you are.
You wanna test your mic?
Perfect.
Are you ready to take it away?
I am.
I will press record.
Okay. So
My name is
Neha, and today I will be talking to
you guys
a bit about how to make your second
marriage better than your
first. A little bit of an introduction before
I jump into it because many of you
have probably not seen me around before. I'm
new to this conference this year.
I am a
mom of 5. I am a wife. We
homeschool.
We do our best to live the slow
life.
Outside of my main family obligations,
I work with married Muslim women
and I help them to radically align their
lives with Allah's purpose for them.
And so a lot of the topics that
have been covered in the conference so far,
are things that have come up
through various different layers with the women that
I've worked with Hamdullah.
So jumping straight into it,
the first thing that I want to say
is
and this is just my opinion and it's
it's a bit of a hypothesis that I'm
going to make.
From my generation
downwards
from the trends that we're seeing,
and I do understand that,
you know, separation and divorce has been something
that is that has been around since the
beginning
of Revelation.
I feel like
many, if not most people, especially of the
young generation,
will be married more than once
in their,
you know, in their lifetime.
And I say that
to keep a very realistic
perspective
of
where we are as a community, where we
are as an at at the moment,
And in understanding
the issues that are present, which, you know,
many of you who have been listening to
the conference,
from the beginning.
And if you haven't go back and check
it out so you know what I'm talking
about.
You know, there are a lot of issues.
There are a lot of issues in our
community, not just our community. Is a global
phenomenon
at the moment, particularly
as the world moves
towards this really secular,
godless society.
You know, the marriages are in crisis.
And so
I state that to begin with just so
that we can remember why it is so
important,
to listen to all the stories.
Like,
you know, as parents and I'm a mother
of 5,
and having been married twice myself and I
will go into that Insha'Allah.
It's it's important for us not just for
our own marriages but even for our children
to understand
the dynamic, the society, and the issues that
are facing
the youth of today so that we know
what we're up against. We know how to
prepare them.
We also know,
how to deal with things suitably
for the next generation,
not necessarily in the way that our parents
dealt with it or the ways that we
are dealing with it now,
but in a way that's going to suit
them. Because,
you know, as as many of us who
are parents or for those who have been
parents for a while, you'll see that
the time between,
you know, our generation
and the last, so I'm about 32,
it's the the subtle change. Right? But between
my generation and my children due to technology,
due to show social media,
due to the interesting shifts in the world,
there's a big, big divide between the generations.
So to start off, I think it's important
for us to acknowledge that.
Now
there are many possible reasons for these shifts
in the world and, I like to call
them all the isms. You can say secularism,
feminism,
atheism, you know, materialism
or whatever.
And there's many layers to those reasons to
why we are here right now and why
we are having this very important conversation about
why,
you know, how to have a better second
marriage than your first
and
they're all important. And again, we've touched on
them through the conference.
But for me
foundationally, I believe that it's just the agenda
of the shaitan.
We know that there's a hadith
where the prophet sallallahu
hadayhi wassannam talks about,
how the biggest victory for the chiffon,
is when a family unit breaks up and
a marriage breaks up. So we know that
this is an agenda. We know this agenda.
It's just I think many of us have
forgotten.
And with this awareness
with this awareness, I think it's very important
for us to prepare ourselves
and for those of us who have had
a failed marriage, I guess you could say
or, you know, a marriage that didn't go
to plan,
it is really important for us to be
aware of this going forward
and,
acknowledge that
this this is just a part of the
struggle of life.
To get rid of that idealistic
view
that, you know, Hollywood Bollywood view
as Sisay Naima always talks about,
this kind of fantasy.
Marriage is beautiful when it's done according to
the Quran and Sunnah and it can be
an ease in the hardship of this life,
but it's important to remember that it requires
sacrifice
and it can be hard
and there is nothing in my opinion
that is as humbly
as triggering
as taming to the nuffs as getting married.
And
that's why,
Hitzen Sura Baccarat, I think first 126,
someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
Whenever I think of marriage, I think of
the ayah where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
and perhaps you love a thing,
perhaps you hate a thing, but it's good
for you and perhaps you love a thing
and it's bad for you.
And some of you might think, well, that's
a bit weird thinking about that when we
think about marriage.
But I I always think of that verse
when I think about marriage
because
to have a successful marriage,
you have to humble yourself constantly, men and
women. You have to constantly take a look
at your nuffs and reassess
whether what you want
is what is pleasing to Allah.
And that is the case in,
you know, getting married for the first time,
second, the third, whatever it is, man or
woman, it is important for us to always
remember that.
And there are many,
many,
again, different reasons as to why the marriages
are breaking up.
But I'm going to
go off that foundational wisdom from the Quran,
where Allah says
that he does not change the good condition
of a people until they change what is
within themselves.
And this is a wisdom that I have
taken for my self and I always remind
the women who I work with.
Allah wants good for us. Right?
And we have had marriages historically
from the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam in the sahaba,
which are like, you know, the true love
stories if you want to call it of
our community.
And that was a good condition to be
in
And it hasn't always been this way. Yes.
Divorce has been around, but what we're seeing
at the moment
is something unprecedented.
My parents have been married for 35 years.
May Allah bless, protect them, and guide them
to the deen.
But I wonder how many of us are
going to experience that for ourselves and how
many of our children are going to be
able to experience
that.
And so in relating to that verse of
the Quran,
I I hope to keep our minds focused
on the fact that
and it's fact because Allah has said it
so it's Haqq. Allah doesn't change our good
condition until something within us has changed.
So if our community
is in a bad condition in regards to
marriages, in regards to families,
that means something within us has changed
and that is the direction which I hope
to take with this tool.
Now a little bit about me, a little
bit about my story and this isn't something
that I speak about quite often so bear
with me, it's a bit vulnerable.
But
I haven't been divorced. I was widowed at
the age of 24,
with 2 very young children. My youngest was
6 months at the time,
and my other daughter was 2a half, 2a
half years old. Yes.
And I'm a revert of 12 years.
So hamdulillah for everything.
But that marriage was a very testing marriage.
It was a very testing marriage.
And
every single stereotype
of the rebirth, you know, the
in our naivety and our lack of understanding
of the deen and our eagerness to fulfill,
you know, things that Allah has commanded of
us without properly understanding our rights, without having
proper support around.
We jump into things and we are very
vulnerable
to
often difficult situations. And so without going into
too much, my my experience first time around
with marriage
was that
Hamzinda.
May Allah have mercy on him and give
him genital through those.
But
at 24,
I found myself by the will of Allah,
I found myself a single mom
with 2 very young kids.
And, subhanAllah,
I found myself mentally in a space
where I was very confused.
Okay? I was there trying to pretend like
everything was okay.
I was I was trying to manage, like,
you know, looking after my kids, trying to
handle and assess what has just gone on
in my life.
And then
I noticed this kind of idea towards men
starting to creep up in my mind. Something
that was there before I became Muslims, Hanamba.
So growing up, I never wanted to get
married
and that wasn't because I didn't believe in
marriage. It was because I hadn't seen,
an example of something that I would want
to bring Children into to be quite honest.
And then I found myself thinking the same
way after
or during my period,
which was the most beautiful period of my
life to be quite honest because it was,
you know, as I'm sure Naima can speak
about that too from her experience as a
widow, it is such a beautifully reflective
time.
Nothing built my
like that period.
It was the best experience of my life
that that short 4 months,
and a few days subhanAllah.
But I found this belief starting to creep
back up into my mind and I'm like,
well, I'm not going to get married again.
So I started to prepare my mind for
that.
I was like, I'm not going to put
my children, my girls in a situation where
there is no peace in the household,
I was quite,
frankly, pretty traumatized from the experience,
and I actually found that my iman was
better afterwards.
I found that,
I I loved the spiritual high that I
was experiencing by just relying on my lord
with, you know, just experiencing that little bubble
with me and my girls.
And subhanAllah like I had,
you know, there are many women
and I know there are sisters who will
listen to this who
they may be married or married and they
they their experience with that of a single
mother.
And so for me, I could manage the
roles of looking after my daughters with relative
ease because I was the one who was
doing everything for a long time.
But
as I developed
my own iman, as I learned my rights,
I gave my mind to knowledge in that
time where I was single.
I
really relearned my faith.
I I tried to fill up gaps,
for things that I didn't properly understand for
ways that I feel like I was taken
advantage of for many different areas of the
team.
And then hedge season
came around.
And I was looking at, you know, on
on Instagram or Facebook, everyone going for hedge,
and I felt so emotional.
I felt I felt so sad because I
didn't have a madam in my life.
No one from my family has yet become
Muslim, and I wasn't,
open to going with a Hajj group in
the future.
And subhan'alay was a day of Arafah,
and I made dua to Allah.
And I asked him, I said, you, Allah,
give me
madam from my own bloodline from my bloodline
and make me pleased with whatever you choose
for me.
And I asked Allah for what I wanted
and I thought, you know, maybe one of
my brothers will become Muslim and, you know,
they can take me to Hajj one day
and I had this idea, you know, praying
with them. It was gonna be so
beautiful,
And then not long after that,
my brother, my then husband,
who I didn't know, I'd never met before,
I'd never spoken to before,
based on what he had heard about me,
what he said about my character,
he just jumped forward with a proposal.
And from his name,
may Allah bless and protect him. I I
knew a lot about him in our community.
And I remember when I got that proposal,
I I cried. I was shocked. I was
like, oh, somehow, like, I I I can't
take this risk with my daughters.
This is I was really scared
because in the back of my mind was
the dua I made
for something that I wanted to do for
Allah's sake,
and then this came forward.
And
I was reading something
not long after that, and I came across,
the Sahih,
hadith
where the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam says that
if a a good proposal comes for you,
from a man of piety and character, do
not reject it.
And I was I was shook. I was
so shook. I was just like,
you Allah.
You Allah. I hear and I obey.
And I made my decision and I prayed
the sukada
and,
3 weeks later, subhanAllah,
we were married.
And, subhanAllah,
my marriage the second time around
was completely different?
And I like to describe it without, you
know, going into too much because we should
protect, you know, the things that were most,
you know, that are most precious to us,
in the hardship of life. And there has
been much hardship even since then. Much fitna,
much difficulty in tests and loss of life
and wealth and health.
My husband has been my ease
through that,
through that hardship and that difficulty.
He has constantly been my ease.
And I always talk to systems about this,
not
not to show off,
not to in a in a private
setting. This is the first time I'm talking
about this because I know a lot of
us after a very difficult experience, and I
think the next speaker is going to speak
about,
you know, how to recover after traumatic marriage.
A lot of us become very hard after
difficult experiences.
A lot of us,
we have a lot of anger and hate
and, you know, all men and,
even for brothers, you know,
this all women are the same. We we
generalize
a whole gender.
And, the reason why I share this is
because I want people to know
that there are brilliant men out there and
there are brilliant women out there
who
whose life and death is for Allah,
who love Allah.
No marriage is perfect.
No human being is perfect,
But
you can find
ease in the difficulty of this life
through a righteous spouse.
And, inshallah, what I hope to share
as I go forward a little bit is
what I believe I did differently.
Now some people may disagree
and that's, you know, you're open to doing
that.
I find this has worked for me.
I have observed it in the marriages around
me that I've seen work out, and I
can also make the observation
of the lack of these things
in people
who were married once, who are still looking,
who have chosen to not marry again,
who have fallen into the cycle of
pre marriage and divorce, pre marriage and divorce.
So these are my observations. May Allah accept
what is good from them and forgive me
for what is wrong for them.
Now the first thing that I want to
say, and I know I know it's it's
something that we should all
know, but we just have to say it,
is that your relationship with Allah.
So before my husband came into the picture,
I would say my relationship with Allah was
at its peak.
Now I accept what was sincere from it.
You know, to hide you with reading Quran.
I was really actively trying to learn
relearn the deen.
I was holding onto that rope so so
so desperately.
And the one lesson that I had from
my past difficult experience and
through, you know, that
that Ida period was.
And I truly, truly learned
that
the only one
who you truly have in your existence is
Allah
Everything
is for him. All thanks and praise is
due to him. Everything good that you have
is through him,
and every test
has a hikma
and it has a lesson in it
if you choose to see it that way.
So as I pursued,
looking deep within the dean, trying to look
within the women,
of Jena, the Sahaba,
trying to just trying to make sense of
all the pieces.
I remember one day,
I was sitting,
and
I think it was after Fajid prayer, if
I'm correct.
And I don't know what it was that
triggered the thought,
but in that moment,
despite
despite
what I felt
was wrong or that,
had been taken away from me,
or that the difficulty that I had experienced.
And I know in my situation, I I
was widowed, but I feel like a lot
of divorced people, a lot of divorced women,
feel this way.
I realized
that
I had a hand to play.
I had a hand to play.
And that's the stuff that nobody talks about
because it's like how how is that is
that victim shaming?
Is that, you know, like, have you internalized
some type of hate or whatever this modern
language is that I'm like, no.
No. It's not. It's it's reclaiming your story
and it's reclaiming your life.
And so I began to peel back the
pieces.
I began to peel back the pieces. It's
very easy to say
that this person wronged me. It's very easy
to say that my rights weren't taken care
of. It's very easy to say even even
subhanAllah in the case of abuse and may
Allah,
protect
all of those who are vulnerable. May Allah
give victory to the oppressed,
and may Allah hold to account those who
knowingly
hurt other people, SubhanAllah.
But what I'm saying is that even even
in circumstances,
and this is from my own experience,
where you feel like you have been really
wronged, and you may well have been really
wronged, okay,
You will forever
relive
that story and stay stuck in that place
so long as you don't reclaim your story.
And the only way to do that
is
to take radical
accountability.
And
you may be like, okay. So radical accountability,
what does that even mean? Like, how how
did I
choose for for him or her to do
that to me?
And radical accountability,
it's not about blame and shame. Though, that's
not that's not what it is at all.
It's reflecting back
to
what you overlooked,
what you could have done differently.
It's it's a very proactive
mindset to have because instead of replaying the
wrong that was done to you,
it's looking at what you overlooked.
It's looking at the red signs
the red flags, sorry, that were clearly there
that you,
you know, went ahead anyway.
And, I mean, organizations
do this all the time, you know, like,
they do feedback circles,
360 degree feedback, you know.
They they get performance appraisals and whatnot. You've
got to do that for yourself.
You
know.
What so I began to ask myself the
question, what's what did I not see?
What was it about me that drew me
to this situation, which in hindsight
was not ideal?
And I started to see
the layers of, you know, inherited
beliefs that I had for those coaches and
those people who are coaching and mentoring out
there. Those layers of inherited beliefs that I
had,
you know, taken on from, you know, my
conditioning.
You know, I grew up watching Bollywood,
Hollywood,
even from my own, you know, family and
culture and all that kind of stuff. I
I started to see that my perception
of
love, of marriage
was very immature
when I got married.
It was very, very,
underdeveloped,
And
I started to really
look at
what what makes
people vulnerable to certain types of relationships,
and I started to reflect deeply. And it
was a very, very difficult
very difficult journey.
I had done that part myself. I would
not recommend doing it myself.
I'm sure the speaker will talk about it
next If you have come out of a
difficult
marriage and you're divorced or even widowed,
please
do seek help from
Muslim support, a therapist,
someone who's trauma informed.
So I really did begin to reflect on
that, and it was a really painful process.
It was really, really
hard but the beauty in that is is
Allah carried me through.
So my mindset coming into my second marriage
was completely different.
When I had decided that I was going
to go ahead with it, I also made
the decision that I will not do anything
the same
as what I did the first time around,
and that brings me to my second point.
So my first point in how to make
your second marriage differently to your for us
is
learn your deen. Learn it properly.
Seek knowledge from those who,
can give you
examples of what a good marriage looks like.
Learn about your
nuffs. Learn about your nuffs. Understand it.
Yeah. Understand it because,
you know, there's no struggle against anything greater
than the struggle against your nuffs.
And like in any battlefield, you have to
know the thing that you're up against. You
have to know what's within you that you're
up against. Right?
The second thing,
I have slipped my mind.
The the second thing that I would recommend
is and this is something that I did,
is to not let
emotions be involved in the process.
And right now I'm talking about in the
lead up to a second marriage and I
will go into your second marriage as well,
Insha'Allah.
Do not do not let emotions be a
part of the process.
If you read any book on emotions,
you will know,
and,
I feel like some people will disagree because
when we talk about, you know, not bringing
emotions into it, especially us women, we get
very, very, very triggered by it.
I don't believe them emotions should be a
part of the merge process because emotions cloud
judgment.
When your emotions are high, your intellect is
is low.
So I kept emotions
out of it. I said yes
with very minimal contact having done,
actually, I didn't have any contact before marriage
power.
I
I did my checks. I said yes. There
were no emotions involved.
Both my husband and I had children previously
to our marriage, so this was a very
serious matter. I was bringing daughters into this
picture, and he was bringing a daughter into
this picture.
And for him, we were very much on
the same page about that. We spoke about,
you know, our nonnegotiables,
the things that were important for us.
We didn't speak so much about Deen because
it was very clear that both of us
were not willing to cross any line. We're
not willing to do anything that was displeasing
to Allah,
and that for me was the biggest green
flag. And,
I feel like
a lot of us compromise
that just to get married.
Don't compromise that. Don't compromise that. Never ever
ever, man or woman, never marry potential.
Never marry potential.
Marry somebody who's at least where you
are striving to be or better in terms
of the deen.
And for me, I could see that my
now husband was ahead of me in things
that I wanted to improve on. And
through the years, we've complemented each other in
that way preserve
and protect all our marriages.
So emotions were left
out of the picture.
From his side, he was he kept it
very businesslike
very businesslike. In fact, when I heard his
normal voice,
like, talking to me, like, normally as a
husband or wife, I was a bit shocked.
I was like, oh, wow. Okay. That's so
different.
You know, even for me, I I was
doing my best to not,
let any emotions
get involved
before the decision was made
to get married. And then we got married
very, very quickly to avoid
any of that messy stuff
because we had children involved like many people
do when they've been divorced or widowed and
they're looking to get married again. So there
was no playing around.
There was no room for any cloud of
judgment.
So that's the second thing. And I know
that is a very difficult thing for many
of us to do,
particularly in the age of social media and,
you know,
like, in many cultures,
once once the,
the proposal has been made, you can't just
engage and people go and they can still
go and shop for furniture and things like
that. I would strongly advise to avoid any
of that until Anika has been done,
until you get the blessing of Allah.
So and and, again, that is something, and
I will reiterate this throughout the rest of
my points
is that a lot of these things require
help.
Because if if your first marriage didn't work,
there is a reason why.
There's a reason why.
And there's no shame in that. There's there
shouldn't be guilt in that either, I feel,
because like I said at the beginning,
like I said at the beginning,
I feel like this is this is an
increasing trend for us, and there's a there's
a hit mark
behind that.
I think somebody asked in the chat how
much time
would you leave in between getting remarried
if, if if I read that correctly?
For me, I waited a year and a
half. A lot of people thought that that
was very quick. I had not intended to
do that, but I had made dua. I
prayed my istafada.
The signs are all there. Like, it just
I felt like this is what Allah was
leading me to do.
I I feel like this is what Allah
was leading me to do and so I
I did it. I don't think there's any
time
there's any like, if you haven't worked on
yourself,
I wouldn't recommend it
at all.
Yes. Marriage there's a lot of work to
be done within marriage, but there's some things
that you need to work on previously and
that is my next point
that I'm I'm coming to.
And I've mentioned it briefly.
You cannot be the same woman in your
second marriage or man that you were in
your
first. You aren't anyway.
You aren't because we're ever evolving, ever changing.
And,
again, I briefly touched on this and, you
know, today they call it a victim mindset.
Right?
When you're stuck in the stories of the
past, when you're stuck in what happened, what
could have happened, what didn't happen, what he
did, what she
did, what they owe me,
as long as you focus on that, your
whole life is focused on them, is focused
on the past.
You will be stuck in that situation.
Even if you're married to a good man
or a good woman,
you will self sabotage and you will ruin
that situation.
You will recreate
in your mind the past marriage
in your current marriage
and a lot of us do it. A
lot of us do it.
Okay?
Even if and there are women. I'm I'm
not sure about men in this perspective. There
are women who were married before.
Obviously, widowhood is a little bit different,
because
that's why, you know, Allah has decreed our
lifespans.
But in in divorce, I've noticed that sometimes
over time, they wish that it didn't happen
or that
it they they still
they're still attached
to their previous spouse,
and they're the only one who doesn't realize
it.
And you have to let go. You have
to release that person whether that person was
an amazing husband or wife
or whether they were somebody who really tested
you.
If you want to have a successful marriage
the second time around,
you have to let that person go.
You have to let them go.
If that person was meant for you today,
they would be here with you today.
And this is the part of our belief
where we accept what Allah has decreed for
us,
and we obey.
And our minds
and sometimes our emotions are often the things
that betray us the most.
Right? A lot of us say there's no
good men out there. There's no good women
out there.
Sister, brother, there are a lot of good
believers out there. Well, lucky there are good
believers out there.
But you can only meet someone
where you are.
You will never see that good brother,
yeah, who,
you know, runs
runs the Quran programs
at the masjid where you drop your daughter
every Sunday or Saturday,
and he also is a divorcee, you'll never
notice him
if you're still hung up on what
your husband,
your ex husband did to you. If you're
still watching social media
and Bollywood and Hollywood
and idolizing
idolizing
a man or even a woman, if you're
a guy,
who doesn't exist. They don't exist. That's you
know, if you talk to anyone who's in
the filmmaking industry,
they know what the fantasies of the viewers
are. It's entertainment.
It's meant to distract you from the dunya.
Don't make your life decisions over it. Don't
make your life decisions over it.
So so long as you
are caught up
in the past,
whether it's missing that person
or whether it's,
you know, going over all the hardships,
you will never notice that good brother.
Who can make a great husband for you.
So you need to take accountability
for yourself. You need to reflect on yourself.
You need to take emotions out of the
picture
and make sincere dua to Allah
that he guides you to what is best
for you.
And another point that I want to tie
in to this is this kind of
this idea that the single life is something
full. It's something that's
ideal. It isn't.
It isn't. Whoever wants to come, I will
speak to you about it. It isn't. It's
not ideal. It's not. Not if you're trying
to complete half your deen. Not if you're
trying to be a firm believer
as a man or a woman. Being single
is not the ideal. It is not. Yes.
You don't want to be in an impressive
relationship,
but you are not living your best life
single. You're not.
You're not.
You can make as many,
you can, I guess, tone down your dean
in as many ways as you want
to make it easier for you so that
you don't have to get married and tell
yourself that you don't need a man or
that, you know, a woman, you know, there
aren't any good ones left?
But to do to live your life, to
actually enjoy your portion of the dunya in
a halal way, you need to get married.
You need to get married.
Think about it. What is the first relationship
that Allah
made?
What did he give the prophet Adam and
alaihis salam?
We all know this. If we're believers, we
all know this.
So don't fool yourself thinking the single life
is something
fancy. It's something ideal. Don't if even if
you're watching this and you're in a and
and Shambhala is not the case, you're you're
struggling in your marriage, maybe the spark is
lost and you're still a good guy or
vice versa with a man and woman,
and you're thinking, oh, maybe maybe it's time
to call it the quits.
Stop following single people on social media.
Don't don't listen to your single friends.
You know? Don't do that.
Don't do that.
Okay?
Like, keep some perspective and be realistic. Don't
get
don't get caught up in la la land
and in all these fantasies and all these
ideas of things.
Stay focused.
Stay focused. Marriage is a means to an
end. The end is closeness to Allah.
That is what the marriage is for. That's
why it completes half your deen.
There is nothing, no relationship in this life
that will help you purify your nerves
as much
as marriage. Nothing. Even children.
Even children.
Marriage will
because there are things that Allah commands of
us that is uncomfortable for the nurse, that
is uncomfortable based on our conditioning out here
in the west or, you know, even wherever
you are these days because, you know, social
media and technology and all that, there's nothing
that humbles you as much as marriage and
following the command of Allah.
So the next
the next point that I wanted to touch
on
was
forgiveness.
And this is a hard one. Forgiveness is
a hard one
because, again, a lot of people end up
divorced because they feel like they were mistreated,
in their first marriage. And nobody even has
to tell you that that's what happened.
I mean, I I know in our community
down here in Melbourne, Australia, there have been
a lot of divorced young women even younger
than me,
that I've seen over the last few months,
few years,
and you can tell
that they had a hard time. You can
tell that they had a hard time. They
don't even need to say it. You can
you can tell from the post they put
up, from the anger that they project. You
can tell. Right?
And if you are in the space
where you are angry,
where you're angry at what happened to you,
You're hurting.
You feel like, why? Why?
I I was I did the best I
could. How did I fall for this? Yeah.
It's time for forgiveness.
And, again, you know, some people might come
up with victim shaming and all that kind
of stuff. I'm speaking to those of you
who
are focused on spiritually elevating yourself,
who are focused on the akhirah, not here
on the dunya, not on these little things
and terms and isms and all that kind
of stuff. I'm talking about those of talking
to those of you
who are trying to get close to Allah,
not just on a basic level, but they're
they're aiming to the peaks of this deen.
Forgiveness is a must.
Forgiveness is a must.
Now even the term forgiveness in this western
culture or in parenting and everything, it's it's
very, very superficial.
Forgiveness isn't about the person who wronged you
or who you think wronged you. Forgiveness is
for you.
Forgiveness isn't
taking away the accountability
of that person.
And let me just say in that part
of the conversation. Right?
Even if that person were to say sorry,
it will never
give you back that piece of you that
you felt that you left lost.
It will never give it back to you.
They will never give you back the time.
They will never give you back that use,
that naivety, that perspective, whatever it is.
They forgive their their apology will not do
anything for you.
They will not do anything for you.
So stop waiting for their validation
for them to suffer for revenge.
For revenge? Really? I saw something online recently
about revenge. I was like, what?
What?
Forgiveness
is when you accept
that past situation for what it was.
Knowing that
you cannot change the past,
that you cannot change somebody's heart because Allah
is the turner of hearts.
And making the intention
to strengthen your own resolve, to strengthen your
heart
so that you make better choices for yourself.
That is what I believe forgiveness is.
It's not about
that person saying sorry,
sorry for whatever they did or because they
didn't show up properly or that they didn't
fulfill your rights or they didn't buy you
that house and then you're in financial struggle
or whatever else it is. Right?
That's not forgiveness. It's not them saying sorry.
Forgiveness
forgiveness is about you accepting that situation
or what it
was
or what it had to be
for you to be the woman or the
man that you are today,
to learn from those lessons, to come closer
to Allah.
That's why forgiveness is huge, not just in
our deen, not just in in Islam,
through all other, you know,
faith systems and different, you know,
ways of thought or whatever you wanna call
it. Forgiveness
is a very huge topic
in, yes, character development,
in reclaiming
your your story and reclaiming your power, in
empowering yourself.
And it's a big part of our deen
as well. It's a big part of our
deen. SubhanAllah.
Now in talking about forgiveness,
again, and I'm gonna say it over and
over again.
It is important
if you have had a very difficult situation
to speak to somebody
who can help you
be guided through that process.
Because, you know, oftentimes
when we
when we are on
that kind of healing journey, we become very
isolated.
Or particularly after divorce, we don't we become
very isolated and the shebang really comes for
that long person.
And that's why even if you're not ready
and I I would probably even recommend don't
seek support from just every family member and
friend because if that person isn't even checking
themselves, they're gonna guide you in the wrong
way.
But seeking support from somebody who
doesn't have anything to do with you, you're
literally paying them to help you, but they
fear Allah,
they are going to be able to help
guide you through it in a way that's
not biased,
that's not tarnished
by, you know, what they want for their
family or they have a a son thinking
a son who they want to marry you
or something like that. Okay?
Now
moving on to inside of the marriage. And
all of these things you can apply well,
to an extent, you can apply within the
marriage.
And I did mention that my second marriage
looks very different.
And
part of the reason why
is because of the work that I did
beforehand,
and that's something that's similar between me and
my husband. He did a lot of work
and soul searching on himself before he got
married too. And one of the things that
I really liked about him is that
there was no disrespecting
from his previous marriage. He
he's so respectful of that private space.
He took full accountability.
He took full accountability,
and that's a very powerful place to be.
That's where growth happens. That's where you are
in a position to choose
how you proceed
in this next marriage.
Okay?
Now
it's been touched on when I was on
the,
the panel for qualities of a Muslim,
a Muslim wife.
I touched on this briefly, and I'm gonna
bring it up again. This is something that,
you know, really helped me in my second
marriage. And I had posted it, on my
Instagram page in my stories and I got
quite a few responses about it. And I'm
going to speak particularly from the female perspective,
perhaps men,
experience it in different way, but a woman
do. And remember how I said at the
beginning of this talk that if you don't
deal with your stuff, if you if you
don't let go of the good and the
bad,
you know, if if if it still has
a hold on you, you're going to recreate
those scenarios
or try to recreate those scenarios in your
current situation, and that's very problematic.
And, again, another side note,
communication as we know in any marriage, 1st
or second,
is is paramount to a successful
marriage, but communication about your current marriage, not
about the person who you were married to.
Okay? So
I'm coming into emotional regulation.
Okay? So I'm gonna give a bit of
an example, and it happened the other day.
And I know a lot of women can
relate to this. If you're here and you're
currently single, you can probably relate to it
from your first marriage. If you're here and
you're in your second your in your second
marriage at the moment,
trying to see how you can make it
better and you're starting to see,
similar traits from your first marriage,
I invite you to try this on yourself.
Now I had gotten the kids ready,
at home with us. Me and my husband
have 5 kids.
We've got 6 in total.
May Allah bless and protect them. And as
those of you who have kids, it's pretty
crazy getting everybody ready to leave the house.
It's actual madness. And
we had gotten them ready, and we were
gonna go. It was a sunny day. Melbourne
has been a bit wet.
Summer just started even though it's a bit
late,
and so we were gonna go somewhere. And
we were ready. I was already exhausted, but
I was like, fresh air. This is great.
And then suddenly my husband had a call
for something urgent that he had to do.
He had to. And even I agreed, no.
You have to go because this is really
urgent.
But as I said that,
I started to see or experience this kind
of bubbling
sensation, this agitation,
this kind of resentment,
which at the time I couldn't make sense
of.
And I started to see me kind of
just being a bit cold and a bit
blunt. Even though I said, yeah. Go. Go.
You need to go now.
Towards my kids, I was getting a bit
agitated. I was nitpicking.
Mothers, you probably know what that you can
probably think of the situation when you've been
there.
And because I've been doing this work on
myself for a while, I sat down. I
had sent my husband off and he was
just, like, confused. I was like, just leave
the stroller. I'm just gonna go. He's like,
you're gonna you're gonna go with 5 kids
and a stroller by yourself in the heat.
And he wasn't happy about it, but he
let it go.
And I was I sat down on the
stairs. I'm like,
why why would I do that? Why?
And this is a term that I like
to
term I don't know if someone else has
pointed it, revenge socialization.
Revenge revenge socializing
where a woman feels resentful, so she makes
plans.
And so I remember sitting on the stairs
and I noticed that kind of anxiety
in my throat, in my chest, and I
was nitpicking.
My heart was racing,
and I was getting very anxious.
And I stopped and asked myself, how am
I feeling?
And I said to myself, I'm feeling
I'm feeling
rejected.
I'm feeling
a bit abandoned.
I'm feeling,
restricted.
I'm feeling anxious.
And then I sat with myself. Now firstly,
when you name an emotion, you really tame
it. It actually reduces,
your hold the hold that it has over
you. And for those of you who do
the work,
on yourself, you've probably done these kinds of,
like,
bottom up regulation
exercises. They've got formal names, but I won't
go into that at the moment.
And so I started to the feeling started
to come down a bit, and I started
to explore that.
And I realized that what I was experiencing
then with my husband who
is a very reasonable man, and it would
have been wrong for him to not go
to the urgent situation that he had to
go to.
And
he was so apologetic. He's very understanding
and he's like, we'll we'll go tomorrow and
make, like I'll make it up. We'll we'll
go. We'll do this. You know, it wasn't
even
didn't even make sense for me to be
upset.
So I was very confused. And as I
looked into it further, my mind had gone
to my first marriage
where I was very restricted in movement, and
I used to feel very overwhelmed and all
these emotions and all that past stuff.
And
my body
was feeling sensations for an experience that my
mind was reliving from the past.
And
when you don't work on yourself,
you will do that. That's how people self
sabotage their relationships.
That's how people
you know, they'll be with a good brother
or a good sister.
And
suddenly, it's like they start to they start
to see them as a person who they
were married to.
Now there's a big difference
between repeating pattern. And if you haven't done
any work on yourself, there's a high chance
that you will repeat the pattern in the
type of man that you pick. That's why
you see and
this is a occasion for another time.
You know, people today who think dating and
whatnot and seeing somebody is okay before you
get married because the traditional way doesn't work
or
you'll see them repeating the same patterns
in the people who they're talking to, and
they're the only ones who don't realize it.
And that can happen in marriage too if
you have not started to take that radical
accountability, get the help, and do the work
that you need to do.
You will see that pattern repeat. Now there's
a difference between that
and then you recreating those situations
with somebody who's
entirely different. There's a very big difference between
those 2, and that's why I put a
huge emphasis on doing
the work. For me personally, that was
a game changer
in my second marriage.
Again,
when it
comes to all of this, right,
I I remember I think it was mentioned
in the panel.
I think I saw or maybe in the
the comments in one of the earlier talks,
somebody was saying,
women are overcomplicating
this. Women are overcomplicating it. And I've heard
people say before, nobody needed
counseling and coaching and therapy and stuff like
that before.
We had a village
like system.
We had support.
I'm
halfway through my master's degree, which I took
a step back from
to prioritize my family.
And
do you know who they when they were
talking about giving counsel, the great counselors of
history?
When when I read it, I made tiktbiya
just so loud.
The prophet Muhammad
they mentioned him as one of the great
counselors
in history. SubhanAllah.
So in the past, we had these support
systems.
It was more holistic, the type of support
people received out of marriage,
when it's or when when they wanted to
get married,
you know, when they're getting divorced. Even in
more traditional cultures,
you know, that support was there. That kind
of,
like, advice from the elders was there, but
we don't have that at the moment. And
many of us come from very extended family
systems,
but again, that's a whole
other topic. There are so many layers of
intergenerational
trauma. There are so many layers.
And,
again, that's another topic. So, yes, we do
need extra help in these times. And, yes,
it is okay to pay for that help
because
marriage is a big deal. It's a beautiful
thing, you know.
Don't
hold yourself from happiness
just because you've been burnt once. Realize what
it was about you that didn't that didn't
see
it. Right? We're all ignorant until we go
through something and then we learn. I'm a
I'm a I'm a revert. Right? I was
ignorant
until I
was tested, and then I sought
guidance
from God in the way that I knew
how to seek it. And then I began
to learn,
and then Allah gave me Islam. You know?
You have to seek the help to receive
it. You have to be open to it.
You know? And marriage is a very beautiful
thing, but, like, you have to do it
alone. Don't go dive dive diving into a
second marriage
without doing that work on your nuffs, 1st
and foremost.
And if you had a difficult experience, even
if you didn't, just to have someone who's
not biased talk to and speak to somebody.
Now
to wrap it up,
the line,
and it's very simple,
but I would recommend it to always be
the first course of action for how to
make your second marriage better than your first.
1st is is dua, is the weapon of
the believer.
But sometimes
you need to enlist that weaponry towards your
own nafs. Okay?
Right?
So you might be in a second marriage
situation,
and I and I do know some people
who are following today who are and
you might be in a situation
and it's getting hard
or, you know,
you haven't dealt with things that's coming up.
Maybe there's some communication
issue. Whatever it is, make
du'a make du'a.
I constantly
ask Allah
to preserve my marriage.
It's probably the most prominent du'a that I
make. You Allah preserve my marriage and make
him a means for me to enter Jannah.
I constantly make that du'a. When he does
good, I ask Allah to give Jannah. When
I don't agree or I'm frustrated,
I always
ask Allah,
you Allah,
give him clarity
or if I'm wrong,
let me see and preserve my marriage.
Dua should always be your first course of
action in difficulty
and in ease.
And so we should never forget that that
that weapon that Allah has given to us.
Right? The one who already knows our hearts.
He already knows our hearts.
But that he's given for us, for ourself
to humble ourself,
to ask and to realize that we need
help, that we need him,
to remember that he is the source of
all goodness,
all healing,
all benefit,
all tests so that you can get closer
to him.
Inshallah,
I hope that I have covered some things
that will be of benefit to you guys.
I've got
a handful of minutes.
If there's any questions, I'm gonna try and
read the chat. Hopefully, it does not
mess around with me. So if you have
any questions,
please ask.
How can we reach out to and follow
you?
You can follow me on my Instagram page
if you are a sister.
I know that's going to sound a little
bit, I don't know, restricted in this day
and age. I do have a public page,
but I do have a block policy for
promise to try to follow.
But if you are a sister,
I'm sure you can
find,
the the link through Sisernayama's,
page in YouTube, but it's neha prakash,
dot mentoring. So if you search that in
on Instagram, you can find me.
Inshallah,
I do also have a podcast,
which I've recently started where I speak a
lot about,
you know, all these kinds of topics. The
spiritual family life podcast is for people who
are trying to align
their family life radically
with what Allah,
wants for that wants for them. So I
talk about marriage, homeschooling,
all those topics.
I don't know because it's actually,
challenging subject.
I'm hoping I can't hear properly. I kinda
lost. I I can hear someone's voice, but
I can't hear properly.
Alright. So I I could hear someone on
the microphone. I'm not sure who that is,
but if nobody else has any questions Is
opportunity to speak on this this I'm going
to pass that mic back to sister Naina.
Inshallah.
Everybody
Allah accept and preserve our marriages.
On the whole subject.
Again, back to
our grounding words
of accountability, taking responsibility,
in your case, radical responsibility.
I invite you to go and check out
the comments on YouTube because they are really,
really,
appreciative.
And I have shared yours and Khadija's Instagrams
in the chat on YouTube and added them
to the description.
So, guys, please do connect with sister Neha.
She does teach. She has the podcast, as
she said. Sister Khadija obviously also coaches, and
she has a master class that you can
download for free. So please, guys, support these
women, and let me know if you wanna
see them back on the channel. Let me
know if this perspective has been useful to
you and if you'd like to hear more
from these ladies. One of the things that
I'm so privileged to get to do through
these is introduce
new people to my audience,
and some of those people end up becoming,
you know, fairly regular guests. So let me
know if you want any either of these
ladies to come back again. And we will
see you guys in a couple of hours
when we take up the program at 1
PM, I believe, Insha'Allah, UK time.
That was amazing.
Assalamu alaikum, everyone. See you in 2 hours.