Naima B. Robert – Secrets of Successful Wives conference divorcees, widows and starting again
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Welcome to day 3
of the secrets
of successful wives conference.
It's been an amazing 2 days, and we
are starting off on a 3rd day of
awesomeness insha'Allah
with a very
much needed panel discussion
on the journey
after an initial marriage.
After initial marriage, it's either due to widowhood
or divorce,
and what happens afterwards, whether it is life
as a divorcee,
negotiating remarriage,
the life inside a remarriage in terms of
step parenting, blended families, etcetera.
I truly believe that we don't talk about
these enough.
We have certain talking points that are very
common, either pro or against,
but the the the details
and the the realities
of this journey,
I don't think that we have enough open,
honest discussions about them. So I have my
wonderful guests
here who are all,
subhanAllah,
experts in their own ways, which they're going
to tell you inshallah, but I know that
I invited them on here because they are
going to give you guys
such a perspective inshallah that probably you've never
heard before, you've never seen before. So I'm
super excited. So sister Raeesa,
tell us a little bit about you and
what you do.
I'm Raeesah Aggie Wala. I'm the divorced Muslim
coach and I support a woman,
to heal after their divorce
and in a way
that they become closer to Allah and to
elevate in their character in this life and
the next through and.
So good. Khadija Alcudor.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
Assalamu alaikum, everyone. So my name is Khadija
Aqador. I am an awakened
and pride motherhood
expert. So I'm a degree qualified parenting coach.
I have a mother of 5 boys, and
I,
have been
helping mothers to reclaim themselves, to,
rediscover themselves basically and
to reclaim their self love and their conscious
parenting and come back to their connection to
their true place that they are from their
true connection to Allah.
And I have 24 years
of marriage and 2 marriages. So it's yeah.
End of the journey.
And, Salat Sully, we love to hear from
you as well.
Assalamu alaikum. Warakum. Assalamu alaikum. Assalamu alaikum. Assalamu
alaikum. Assalamu alaikum. Assalamu alaikum. Assalamu alaikum. Assalamu
alaikum. Assalamu alaikum. Assalamu alaikum. Assalamu alaikum. Assalamu
alaikum. Assalamu alaikum.
My name is Salatasuli.
I am,
mother of
I usually break up the number of kids
I have.
One biological child,
3 boys if you count what someone called
my bonus children
and then 100 more because I'm a teacher,
I've worked in a secondary school since 2,020
2003. Yeah.
What do I do? I teach. I also
coach and mentor,
the head of training and development in the
school where I work. And a lot of
what I do revolves around character building and
development and trying to live a meaningful life,
live a life that,
has
life, if you can put it that way,
and,
root all that one does in the Islamic
spirit and understanding
of Islam, being a Muslim every day, whether
that has to do with one's job or
dealing with life, coping with
life, and trying to just be real from
moment to moment.
I've been married twice,
widowed, then I got married again. So total
of about since 2006,
the year of my first marriage, so that's
about 20 20 something years. So
happy to be here.
Thank you so much for being here. And,
you know, obviously,
we're having a conversation about
divorce, widowhood,
step parenting because all of you have been
through that. We've all actually been through this
journey. And,
was actually surprised at the number of other
speakers as well who some of them have
been married 10, 15, 20 years, but were
divorced before that,
including, Mufti Menck, which we talked about in
the interview the other day. SubhanAllah. So, you
know, I guess the first question I would
like to for us to have, you know,
a conversation is about is, you know, from
your vantage point,
what are
the major challenges
that women face
when they're on the other side of a
divorce or a widowhood
and they're contemplating
getting married again? From your different vantage points,
what are the major challenges that they face?
Reese, you know we're looking at you because
you're the coach.
Alright. Let's go. Kick us off, Insha'Allah. I
know you've got the whole list. You could
literally write the book on this, but it's
Fardari. Go ahead.
Yes. Alhamdulillah.
From my own experience
and supporting other women through this, I feel
like when women
a lot of us don't when we're in
a when we're in a marriage, we're we're
almost so primed and conditioned
our whole life as we grow up to
to be a wife, you know, and to
be a mother, and that's what we focus
on.
And then when that when that ends, the
marriage ends, and now you're single again, whether
you have children or you don't, you
so many of us don't know who we
are. So we're either trying to grasp to
find ourselves,
and to see whether, okay,
sometimes
I think women a lot of times are
hesitant and, okay,
will I repeat the same patterns?
Will I, you know, end up with the
same type of person? I think that's a
huge fear,
especially for women who,
want
to be in a in a in a
marriage, in a relationship again. There's this there's
this challenges of
what if I end up in the same
type of situation.
And I think that's a that's a really
big big one because
we have
we started
identifying
ourselves to our roles,
such as wife, such as mother.
And we we're not we don't we haven't
been taught how to separate us as a
individual
female servant of god first.
And so we tie our identity
to the to those roles of wife, mother,
daughter. Right? And we and we lose ourself.
And I'm saying we because I found the
same experience and and this is the experience
that,
women that I've worked with have shared with
me.
So I think it's the
finding yourself,
how to know that you won't have a
repeat performance,
you know,
making sure that,
whoever you end up marrying is gonna be
good for you and your children if you
have children because that's a huge responsibility as
well.
That's another,
I think,
big challenge.
And I think that's just the biggest fear.
And then,
in within that, there's another fear of, am
I gonna be alone my whole life? I
I think a lot of times when the
women get separated, it's such a as a
Muslim woman,
in our culture, it's really
it's it's a challenge to live life on
your own whether you have children or not
because that's, you know, marriage is half our
deen. Right?
So,
I think it's having the fears of, am
I going to be alone for the rest
of my life? And then, am I going
to repeat the same type of performance, or
will I attract the same type of partner,
I think, is the biggest things. And how
what will happen to my kids in this
scenario with the decisions that I'm making?
And I'm sure the rest of the ladies
can can add to this.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a free flowing conversation. So
please.
For some of the challenges I've experienced, what
I experienced in working with the women that
I've worked with, I've worked with a lot
of divorcee women,
is exactly all the things that Arias is
mentioning.
It's because you're in a place all the
time when you've just had the breakdown of
marriage, there's definitely a sense of transitioning to
something. There's a healing process. There's a breathing
process.
There could be,
you know, there's certain beliefs and ideas and
put downs or whatever. There's a lot of
stuff going in your head at that time
at that time. You feel lost. You can
feel like you just failed at the marriage
because, you know and like what Ray was
saying,
we we,
you know, many women stay in marriage marriages
because marriage, you know, stigmatized. You know, many
women have said to me, I'm staying in
a marriage because
I don't want to be eligible for me.
And so the whole cultural conditioning, the ideas
that we've had culturally, I've had women who
stay in the marriage because, you know,
because their parents wanted them to say, no.
What will people think? So there's so much
going on sometimes when you're going through that
divorce process. And then you're kind of in
this place and then you're reclaiming yourself. You're
having to then shed some of the beliefs,
ideas, unspoken rules, messages that other people have
kind of put onto you
and say, wait a minute here, what do
I need and
what is,
my most important connection and relationship, which is
Allah.
So almost like a whole awakening process. Because
everything shifts in your life and everything shifts
for the children and you have children in
that process. So I think,
it to me, it's a place where you
feel a bit lost
and you've got to just kind of stop
or pause and then,
really assess yourself, who you are, and come
back to who you are. And exactly what
Raisa said, so many fears. So many fears
you're gonna end up alone. Financial fears, especially
if you didn't have a good financial
income or and I know I worried about
my boys'
income and because the father wasn't supporting the
financial. You know, it's a huge worry in
fear. You know, something I got really anxious
at night about, you know, many nights worrying
about, you know, the finances and how am
I gonna juggle work and juggle leaving their
needs, as well as grieving the process of
failing at a marriage, and then the idea
of even moving on. And so and there's
so many unfortunate
connotations that are put to us as women
when we're in the divorce stages and especially
those of us as single mothers that will,
you know, will lose food. So, you know,
so many comments that you get where people
will will will make those comments. So there
are a lot of challenges.
It is a very, very,
it's a hard period to be
SubhanAllah. 100%
agree with you. Salatu, I think, you know,
you and I both know that the the
journey sort of after losing a husband
and becoming a widow is is is slightly
different. What would you say that the challenges
that widows face,
would be?
I would like to start by saying,
the journey is slightly different, but in many
ways, the journeys are the same
because there is always that sense of grieving.
It's just sometimes if you're widowed then people
give you permission to grieve. It's okay.
But if you're a divorcee, there might be
other questions such as what did you do
wrong? Was it your fault? Wasn't it your
fault? But there's always that sense of something
that was precious to you is not there
anymore, and so there's always that sense of
something is broken or missing.
And
sister Reza and sister Khadija talked about that
sense of being lost and feeling adrift.
Some of the challenges that you might then
start facing is
pressure, pressure to remarry
for some people depending on the culture, the
circumstance, your family, and background. There might be
that pressure to marry again and one thing
that
divorcees and widows face is
learning how to deal with that pressure,
learning how to find a way to not
give in to the pressure from other people
to rush up and get married. Another challenge
that,
they face, especially when they
are considering marrying again is how to handle
the past.
What I mean is,
if maybe someone is divorced,
you are coming with stuff that came from
that divorce. Divorce is always a difficult journey
from those
ladies I've spoken with who've been divorced. There's
always it's very hard for it not to
be,
acrimonious, right, not to be for there not
to be some bitterness
and you come with that. If you're widowed
and the marriage was great, you still come
with the fact that this was a great
marriage and it ended against my will. I
didn't see it coming. I didn't expect it.
So you've got that past with you. Now
when you're going to marry again,
you'll even find in some cultures,
they would actually say don't take anything from
your past with you. So you've got to
have a whole new wardrobe. You've got to
don't go with anything from your previous
marriage or life. Now that is even tolerable
because you can probably go out and buy
new clothes and new,
utensils and new furniture.
But you even find in some places the
issue of what part of your past to
bring along
might be your children.
What are you going to do with your
kids when you're going to going into this
new marriage, this new home? In some cultures
there is an understanding that for a woman,
you don't take a child from a previous
marriage to your new marital home. Your child
goes somewhere else.
If you are divorce, then the child can
go back to their father or go to
your extended family. And even where the culture
is not that's not the culture, it's always
an issue on the table
that what happens with your kids? Another thing
about dealing with the past is,
if we look at women who've been divorced,
there are definitely things that went down that
weren't right in their previous marriages. Do they
come with the lessons from the past without
necessarily bringing the past with them?
Learning
what is the lesson I meant to learn
and how do I bring that lesson with
me forward
without staying stuck in the past. There are
also those assumptions that we carry forward whether
as divorcees or
with the, women,
some assumptions about how a man is going
to be, how the marriage is going to
be. Some people are still, okay. I've been
married before. He did this. He did that.
He did that. I know now. I'm never
going to let it happen again. I know
all the signs. And once this new person
acts a certain way, it's like,
yeah, yeah, this is how it started. So
we also have these assumptions and you have
to know, am I reading the signals right?
Am I seeing this person clearly or am
I seeing this person through the prism of
my, ex husband
or my late husband, especially if your late
husband was a great guy? Am I going
to keep measuring? So it's I think there's
a lot around that
handling the past and the present and the
future, and what do you bring with you
and what do you leave behind. And I
think sometimes people don't understand
this aspect of the struggle. It's just leave
it all behind.
When I got widowed, I had my late
husband's picture up on my in my office.
It was on the wall. I had his
picture as my,
DP,
and
a few people tried to tell me you've
got to take it down now because you're
planning to remarry.
And I really didn't know how to explain
to them that
you don't have a flip but a button,
you don't have a switch for switch of
the old life and switch on the new.
You don't have a switch, that there is
a process you've got to go through, and
people telling you do this or don't do
that, which is also part of the pressure
I mentioned earlier,
doesn't always help.
Yeah. These are some of the challenges.
SubhanAllah. You know, just as you were mentioning
about the picture,
and I think what's common to what we've
you know, you've all said is this need
to heal,
is to need to heal from
this the the the impact of this loss.
Right. Whether it was wished for or not.
You know, maybe you asked for the divorce,
maybe you pushed for it, maybe you didn't
want it at all. And usually in terms
of widowhood, you didn't ask for it. But
maybe the marriage was wonderful. Maybe it wasn't.
I know sisters who've lost their husband
at
a time when the marriage was a bad
place.
And then now before this person and they,
you know, they're in a and it's, you
know, it's a different it's a different dynamic.
But I think the need for for acknowledgment
that
there is healing work to be done,
that that you're definitely carrying some baggage. Right?
You're carrying something from this relationship.
And maybe it's a good idea to see
what that baggage is, what it's looking like,
where it's coming from and try to get
rid of as much of it as possible
before you move on.
And like you said, sister Salatu,
you know, different cultures have different ideas. Don't
they, Riese? I'm sure you're aware of this.
Different cultures have different ideas about what is
appropriate
for a divorcee or the woman. So Salati,
you and I talked about this on our
Instagram live where in in your culture in
Nigeria,
you know, if you lose your husband, I
believe,
the the the hope and the wish is
you will marry again, like, quickly.
Don't be sitting out here.
Like, we, you know, get married, you know,
and so we'll find some for
you.
I know because
it's a complete taboo for a widow to
talk about getting married again. You know? It's
it's actually something
disgusting almost
to consider, you know, to talk about being
married again as a and it's the same
with divorcees. In some cultures, if you're divorced,
they want you to find someone as soon
as possible or they find someone for you.
And in other cultures, you're a pariah. Nobody
wants to talk to you. Nobody wants to
is interested in you in shape, size or
form.
So we've got these different cultural,
sort of, you know, tendencies.
But I think the need for healing is
something that is is is really is something
standard across all cultures.
So what would you say then how
and, actually, I think one of the challenges
that a lot of divorcees face, especially the
he's not so much widows, I think, but
divorcees
do of the stigma,
and the the difficulty of
the fact that your options in in terms
of re marriage are maybe not the same
as they were when you first got married.
And I think that that can come as
a as a disappointment
to a lot of sisters is that they're
like, you know, you want someone better
than what you had especially if it was
a difficult marriage.
You want somebody who's better than what you
had. So if your husband was abusive
you want someone who's not abusive. Right? If
your husband
didn't take you once you marry for sure,
you're hoping for somebody who is going to
be an upgrade
from your previous,
relationship. But,
unfortunately, especially if it's, you
know, some several years down the line,
I think it is a challenge for a
lot of divorcees to find that the pickings
are kind of slim,
and the ideal
that you now realize would be your ideal.
They they can be hard to find.
That can they can be hard to find.
But then how can we equip ourselves then
for I'd love to hear from each of
you. How can we equip ourselves
to be a to do the healing work,
to to to to manage expectations? Khadija, you
and I have talked and I've talked about
this. How can we equip ourselves so that
we are best placed
to remarry,
choosing
the right person
and a marriage that will last.
Right? Because we know that the second and
subsequent marriages have a higher failure rate than
first marriages,
particularly speaking.
So how can we, you know, how can
we equip ourselves
not only be in the best place to
be married,
but to know the right person to look
the right things to look for and then
how to be in that marriage so that
it actually is a marriage that lasts
inshallah. What are your thoughts on that?
You know,
such a polite panel today.
Everybody's waiting to get to take
their
time. Sister Naima, my beloved.
As I was listening to you talking about
when you when a woman
is looking to get married again and she
is aspiring and she has hopes for
a partner that is better than the experience
that she had before. Right?
There's this hope and then there's also this
fear at the same time. And what I
would say is that
for the woman, as a woman to take
that time
to check-in with herself
and Allah at the same time. Because in
order to in order to attract and have
that upgrade,
as you said, you know, for the next
partner,
have you upgraded?
Asking yourself that question, wait a minute, how
did I show up in this marriage?
Can I be better? I mean,
what will it what will that look like
for me? What will it take? What do
I need to work on? Because we I
think we we get so stuck on
the other person
having all these faults and being the problem.
We need to pause and check back into
ourself.
And and and part of this is is
that that level of, conscious awareness that talks
about a lot. Right? And and how I
like to describe it is that this level
of self awareness, self consciousness
is the key to having god consciousness, which
is
taqwa. Because without taqwa of Allah
in your life,
you're not gonna be able to have
taqwa of Allah in a relationship,
you know, such as one that fulfills half
your deed.
And so I think that Mhmm.
As sister, Salatu was saying is that what
lessons have you learned? What have you learned
about yourself
that you can bring as an upgrade to
your next relationship?
And I and to speak to the point,
so there there needs to be some reflection,
some healing, some processing,
some, you know, getting the support that you
need to help you because none of us
can really do this on our own because
can we be honest with ourselves in the
way that is required
to find those answers? And and I think
that's really, I think we all need help
and support with that,
because it's easy to deflect and it's easy
to
blame,
and not look at the self.
I I think one of the other things,
that I wanted to mention was that,
it can
be feel really disheartening when you look at
the situation and the circumstance and
of what's around us. However,
when we see what is around us, it
doesn't necessarily mean
that is truth. It's how we're perceiving things.
But Allah is the one who controls everything.
Right? And Allah is the one who can
send the one, the right person for you.
So Allah
tells us also that he's not gonna change
our condition unless we change what is within
ourselves, and that's what I was talking about.
And so
having that per
that,
outlook and that hope in Allah that he
you are worthy of that. You are deserving
of having, you know,
the perfect partner for you or the one
that you you deserve.
And that Allah can give it to you
even if there's nobody out there that you
can see.
It's not about what you can see,
but it's about what Allah can give you
and you and how you think of Allah,
how you perceive Allah, your relationship with Allah.
And I think
that is the first part and of the
the pause, the self reflection, the self assessment,
and asking yourself, what is it that you
have to offer? You know? How are you
shifted? How have you changed?
And can you show up as that high
level,
Muslim
so you can meet this high level man?
I love you. You jumped on
some of my buzzwords there. I just wanna
just jump in to say, what you said
about,
upgrading yourself,
and I like that you paired it with.
Right?
Because we know and many of us have
have had this experience of
going through a divorce and leveling up,
But our leveling up is
maybe work wise, career wise, right? We start
to become this amazingly successful woman.
Mashallah.
Hoping, I think, that we will qualify for
a really successful man now that we are,
you know, this we are this woman, right?
Obviously, men look for different things and men
are looking for different things in a wife.
And I think
I think it's important
for sisters to realize that that if a
man chooses to marry you, especially taking you
on with your children,
it's not because you're this amazingly successful woman
that he admires. Because men don't marry because
they admire your professional
qualifications
and your professional aspirations.
They admire you as a person and as
a wife,
right? So
upgrading as a wife and as a human
being and as a slave of Allah,
don't forget that that's the thing that allows
you to kind of, you know, I don't
know what the word is, but
a person chooses based on that, not on
how amazingly you've done on your social media
channels or, like, how much money you've made
even. Right?
I I I think
Inshallah.
Yeah. I I I think to add to
that Go ahead. Go ahead. It's really about
how do you define success. When we say
success,
what makes a person successful? And then we
have to really understand
what is your definition of success
Because that's gonna be different for different people,
and you want to be able to match
yourself up with people who are in alignment
with your answer and your definition of success.
100%. Khadija, go ahead. You, I jumped in
when you wanted to answer. Sorry. No problem.
I think also that
we can't forget that some women, especially those
who've gone through domestic violence or abuse or,
all different things that women go through in
a divorce is that,
this upleveling doesn't
suspending you in such a survival mode. And
so the whole idea of up leveling things
a lot. So
while I agree, yes, there is that process
of up leveling and that that is a
journey in itself.
For many women, it is that time of
just,
acknowledging
what have they just gone through. And to,
like Grace has said, that self discovery and
acknowledgement and going through the grieving process of
the things that they went through and a
shedding process, kind of like a surrendering and
letting go process or letting it flow of
some of the messages, beliefs,
triggers,
attachments, codependencies,
some of the behaviors and patterns that haven't
filled them. And, you know, that is definitely
a conscious awareness journey. And for many,
many of us only learn our true healing
and our true understanding ourselves in relationships.
So definitely when I walked into my second
marriage, I was not a 100% healed in
no way. But I had done some some
some
ability I had worked on some. I was
consciously aware enough to be aware of what
I didn't want in a marriage and and
what was the red flag that I didn't
want in a second marriage. But then the
number one thing that made the hugest difference,
and I think I've seen this with women
that I've worked with, and exactly what Lisa
was saying, is about
that really reliance
on the expectation that we have all of
our talent. This is the time the most.
And I see women do this all the
time when they they they want to remarry.
They get really focused on the outer appearance.
They get really focused on
the kind of,
getting out there and being out there. But
this is the most important time that you
do the internal connection to Allah.
Your alliance to Allah at this time is
like a not another is an up leveling
itself.
Like, your connection and and your expectation of
Allah. Because Allah's already got he's done his
face cover. He's already done his planning. And
Ola says he replaces with data. You know,
he made that. And that was kind of
my motto at that time, that Ola replaces
with data. And I kept thinking of what
Ibrahim said, and I had some a lot
on them. I don't know if
is sufficient for me. Allah is sufficient for
me with or without a man. And I
think this is really important
because your happiness and your healing is your
responsibility. And the women a lot of women
come into
responsibility.
And the women a lot of women come
into marriage, the will heal fixed me or
heal help me to support me. That is
a recipe for disaster.
Because you're expecting another another human being to
basically do your own internal work. And you
you you know, human by nature, we want
this belonging. We want to feel validated by.
We want that sense of love and connection.
But we first like Ariesta said, we have
to work on our own internal upliftment. We
have to connect that to
Allah because his
his
love doesn't
doesn't
his love and connection doesn't change depending on
another human's mood
or some attachment to what another human thinks
of you. But your connection to Allah is
permanent,
Regardless what happens around you because people are
good. People are temporary. Things will happen. But
connecting to that and really
working on the past is not your reference
point is a huge one. Because many of
us, including myself,
were one of the mistakes, let's say, going
into a separate marriage was I was still
holding some past things in the past trauma
to that path path, which is okay. I
could work through that. Right? But when those
past thoughts
contaminate
the now,
basically my triggers,
which triggers are your past moments, your past
experience, your past pattern. When and the perception
as as a perception of what that experience
is in that moment, when that triggers and
this happens to so many foster women, ma'am.
So many. Because I work with a lot,
And they have to kind of work. We
we literally have to work with them. I
work with them trying to let go of
some of the patterns that don't serve them
anymore. Some of the thinking that doesn't serve
them anymore. I had to go on a
huge journey around not fearing men in my
second marriage. And I was raising I'm raising
5 boys now. So that was a huge
journey. I had to have a real you
know, there's a lot of,
not just cultural conditioning, but social media conditioning
that is kind of sent out subconsciously to
us women about men. And so we can
and one of the best advices, subhanAllah, I
went to a 3 day
Muslim conference. It was about women prophets, women
around the Messenger.
Sheikh Darwud Butt from Canada
had come to give the lecture in my
home city for 3 days. And he'd just
come from Malaysia, done a talk. For 3
days, he was just talking about the women,
the sisters, the women around the Commonwealth and
other. And he said we have the biggest
issue and he and he's he's in marriage
counseling. He's done lots of work with the
law firm. And he said the biggest issue
is expectations get in the way.
The expectation
stopped your own healing and happiness because you
come into the next marriage with expectations
that he's gotta be a replacement father. He's
gotta do that. He's gotta do that. So,
honestly, the most important internal work that you
do, yes, building a
for sure and reliance on Allah and really
turn into Allah. If you really want you
want something, you're gonna get up into Hajj
and you're gonna turn to Allah. Like, you're
gonna use that, but then you gotta use
the other part of me, which is
do the internal work. Do the internal the
biggest one is your mindset because you're holding
on to past contaminated thoughts.
It's going
to check it's gonna affect the reality, the
blueprint
of how you're gonna show up in the
2nd night. Your 2nd night doesn't fix things.
So many women are going naively
kind of thinking, yay. You know? And I
don't wanna remote I don't wanna romanticize
a second marriage. You know, you have that
hope. And and I'm not trying to be
a, you know, crusher in any way. But
I just you have to have a realistic
expectation
that, yes,
if you do your internal work and you
rely on Allah inshallah, Allah will replace the
boat better. My biggest draw was Allah to
give me someone that is gonna help me
into into Jannah. That was my and that
was my goal. And and you are so
powerful. Right? Give me some and and, also,
I think the other thing that affects us
women is that we with the expectations. Right?
You're listed and I'm not saying that you
have to lower your expectations. What I'm saying
is you have to be realistic in the
situation that you're in right now. There are
certain things you're not going to you need
to know your values and prioritize what is
important for you in the process of wanting
to remarry. I had to get so clear
what my values were. What was the most
important two values that we had to have?
Honesty and trustworthiness.
Because I hadn't experienced that, and that was
like to me, that's more important than good
looks and income. If you had honesty and
trustworthiness, this was so important to me. You
gotta get clear of yourself, your values. You
gotta get clear of what do you actually
want. Because if not, people are gonna come
and go. And you're just gonna kind of,
like, sway, and it's not gonna help you
emotionally.
So it's it's it's definitely
really doing that internal connection to Allah. Connecting
back to Allah. Allah, what do you want
from me right now? What what's important to
me? Like, I'm working through the past that
does not support you because your past is
not your reference point anymore. And and and
and not allowing that to contaminate your now
or your future
marriage.
Assalamu Alaikum.
Great listening to sister Khadija and sister Aissa.
Alhamdulillah.
I think I'll just pick up from the
same thread because I'd like to start there.
When I lost my,
husband and
I thought about and people would mention this
whole idea of marrying again, I absolutely didn't
want to.
I had seen so many horrible marriages
growing up that at a certain point actually
believed 99.9%
of men were horrible human beings.
For the number of,
conscious,
real Muslim men I started encountering
when I got more involved in Muslim student
activities,
which helped to shift my paradigm.
Even so I still saw a lot of
marriages go south,
no matter how well they started, no matter
how great the couple seemed in the beginning,
that's when I got married and,
I found out my husband was someone that
was really a great human being. When he
passed away, I actually just believed
that it would be hard to find someone
like that, and I felt I was so
blessed
and being blessed
like that once that there was no way
I was going to,
be happily married again. So I actually just
made the mental note, I'm not marrying again,
not doing that. So I would politely,
agree to connect with people, who are interested
in marrying me. But even before
the first phone call I had already made
up my mind I'm not marrying again, I'm
just being polite here.
However
what I do know I kept doing was
making du'a continuously
that Allah would guide me, would protect me,
would give me what's good for me and
1 du'a I kept saying again and again,
I used it a lot to handle, to
manage my grief
and I kept using it is that, dua
That line, I loved that line. Don't leave
me to myself even for a second.
And each time I said that line, mentally
I would list all the decisions I had
made, all the resolutions I had made to,
not marry again, to continue working where I
was, to do a b c. So mentally
I would run through a quick list of
all my personal decisions and resolutions and ideas
and convictions
and say, Allah, if any of these things
is not going to be okay for me
in this life, in the hereafter, then just,
you
know, change my path whether I want it
or not.
So when I
I sometimes jokingly say I accidentally
remarried
because it wasn't something I intended to do,
I didn't see it coming, Let me just
put it that frankly.
And afterwards, people people would sometimes ask, what
did you do? How did you do it?
You've been married twice and each time the
marriage was great. What did you do? I
would actually sit and think, I didn't do
anything.
But I do know I made dua a
lot for Allah to guide. So that is
why I say I want to connect with
what sister Rais, Hossein and Sister Khadija said
that,
for some women that I've interacted
with, when they want to marry again, they
they see the new marriage as it's going
to heal the wounds of the past one
or if they were widowed, it's going to
make them feel better. Suddenly life is going
to be fine, life is settled. It's almost
feeling as though you've arrived at paradise
now because
you are marrying again.
Whereas
I think it should actually be more about,
as they said again and again, it's about
yourself, it's about Allah because the whole of
life, if you see what makes a beautiful
life, a Muslim life, it's where you put
Allah first, then you put yourself yourself second
because it's your connection with him.
You are always going to be responsible for
yourself, accountable for yourself first before anybody else.
When Lord?
That's
a question.
Between you and whoever you are serving who.
Not who is your lord and who is
your husband
or who is your lord and who is
your child, who is your lord and who
is your mother, it's who is your lord.
So for
women who are looking at remarrying,
one definitely thing to equip themselves with is
to have that understanding.
Now some get very religious
and very prayerful
because they are praying constantly for a husband,
a good husband.
That is great. However,
it makes
it it looks like,
Eli is here, then the husband is there.
So the husband is the goal and Allah
is the the the way to the goal
whereas it should be the other way around.
It's Allah is the goal
and I am next, my connection with him,
then the husband if he will help me
stay connected.
So the husband part has to be conditional
if he will help me stay connected.
When we look at, Suratul
Talaq the verse, I think that's verse 3,
2 and 3 where Allah starts off talking
about
if you rely on him,
he'll be enough for you. If you, have
taqwa, you're conscious of him, he'll be enough
for you. If you rely on him, he'll
provide you from where you do not expect.
And I love the way those
particular lines, how Allah says them because he
keeps talking about him. You rely on him,
you have faith in him, depend on him,
you are conscious of him, he will be
enough for you.
And enough is enough for whatever it is
your worries might be. The worries that come
with being divorced, people would say
it's my fault, I was too demanding, I
wanted too much.
Some would say something like well, what do
you expect? You are so into your professional
life. You are so into your business. You're
such an independent woman. You don't know how
to be submissive. What do you expect?
Now some of those things may be true
but they hurt nonetheless,
they sting nonetheless.
So sometimes women
run want to run away from that and
rush into marriage and then they they then
use prayer as a way to try and
accelerate things.
Whereas,
that period after losing one's husband or getting
divorced is meant to be a period where
you deliberately slow things down so you can
pause,
so you can breathe,
so you can do all those things, the
conscious awareness, sister Khadija talked about, sister Asa
talked about it again, finding yourself and healing,
so you can do that. So that's definitely
one way of preparing
to marry again.
But I keep saying it shouldn't be marry
again as the next big thing.
It should be
to live,
to be alive, to truly be alive from
the inside out,
to close whatever gaps you found. And even
if you're looking at your past marriage and
saying,
did I contribute to the breakdown of that
marriage in any way whether by omission or
commission,
or was there something that if I had
known how to do it better, do it
differently,
I would have been able to do certain
things maybe to make the even the breakup
easier.
To look at all of those things and
do those things and reflect upon them more
to build yourself up than to make yourself
viable for another marriage.
Because marriage is in paradise,
getting married a second time is not paradise,
It's no guarantee of anything, suhannulla, and I
think we'll talk about that in a moment.
When I was getting married a second time,
I did feel like,
wow, alhamdulillah,
second time lucky and it's pretty easy, alhamdulillah.
And after the marriage, as I started to
see the normal bumps that you would always
see in marriage, I just-
I actually smiled at myself and said, 'look
at you, what made you think you have
passed,
you've gone over the worst of stuff?
What made you think that? No this is
another human being so the dynamics are different.
Yes he's been married before, you've been married
before, you both feel like oldies in the
game, but this game is different, it's new,
so you have to build from the bottom
up. Which which leads me to the last
thing I'll mention on this, how do you
prepare yourself for another marriage, is to just
treat yourself like you don't know anything about
marriage.
Just assume that I don't know anything about
marriage.
I knew about how to be married to
so and so before, but this person I
knew about being married to this person. So
treat this person as news. So you ask
questions, you explore,
you you open your eyes wider this time.
You ask more if you see red flags,
you
you you mention it. I'm concerned about that.
I'm concerned about this.
You do the work from the ground up.
Not, oh, I've been married before, been there,
done that, I know it all, oh marriage
is difficult, I know, I know, I know,
I know. No you don't know, this is
a new person
and if either of you
have child, has a child from a previous
marriage or you are
going to go into a blended family situation
then you know for sure
you've got more people in that marriage from
the beginning. You don't even have
that space that young couples do before they
start having kids. No, it's like you're married
and already you've got kids and if they
are grown up and they have their ideas
and they have their thoughts about who's this
woman in my father's house, what's she doing
here, or who is this strange man in
my mother's life, what's she doing here?
You've got your work cut out, sister. And,
yes, I don't want to crush you, like,
sister said, but we have to be real.
I think sometimes we are not real enough.
We just mash a lot about the land,
then you make love for them, and it's
alright. Go get married. No. I think we
have to be real.
No. I I love that, and I think
you're so right. And it's a really nice
segue into this really important part of today's
panel. We could literally talk about
this particular subject about preparing for remarriage for
the next 2 hours, But I don't think
we can do that today because we've gotta
move on. However,
you know, this issue of of the step
parenting and the blended families, you know, that
look. Let's look at the reality. Yeah. The
reality is
for many, many Muslims,
we get married and we have children quite
soon after the marriage. Okay. Whether it's with
1, 2, 3 years,
quite soon. We also tend to have a
lot of children. Right? So you can find
somebody who, you know, has been married 5
years and has 3 children
or has 4 children, right? And 5 years
is not a lot of time if you
look at it. The marriage could have been
bad for 5 years. Okay. Like it could
have been, you know, she could have been
suffering all those 5 years, but of course
the children are still coming. Right? So
when you when we when we're looking at
remarriage in the Muslim context,
what we
have to be honest about is that there
are always going to be children involved,
almost always going to be children involved.
Right?
And I think, you know, Khadija, you and
I were saying that
this journey of step parenting
and blending families
is one that we do not talk about
enough.
There's an assumption
made
that if a man marries a woman with
children, he will become the father figure, he
will step in as the dad, whether financially,
emotionally, physically,
the expectation is a societal one and is
the woman's one. But as most sisters who
are who have children and are looking to
get married, they are looking for the man
perform the father role, you know, and most
sisters are quite open about that. And it
I think
it's almost a baseline expectation today that of
course, you know, I have kids, right? Of
course, you're gonna accept me and my kids.
And we talked about expectations before, but let's,
let's, let's get real and granular now about
some of our things that we're carrying that
are challenging or making the situation of step
parenting and blended families even more challenging. Khadija,
we talked about this. I want you to,
to, to jump in inshallah.
Yeah, definitely. Like I my first marriage was
a stepmother straight away. So I had 2
stepsons. So I had experience
raising 2 stepsons out of stepmother.
Went 18 years later, divorced,
remarried a year later. And then now my
husband was the stepfather to my children.
And I was in this position. I was
like, wow. I know But I'm I to
me, I thought I knew exactly what the
journey is. But being a stepfather is very
different than stepmother.
And and and last year, I think I
worked with 10 different stepmothers,
or they were women whose children will have
stepmother to their children. In every single situation,
every single one, I I think I'd say
9 out of 10, there was some jealousy
towards stepchildren.
There was some jealousy towards a child that
was not your own child. It was really
interesting particularly if they were girls.
And and this was really interesting for me
because when I got married, I was very
young, 17.
So my stepsons to me were quite I
tripped on my younger brothers. So I didn't
actually have I didn't feel that, but I
think I did at times. So I was
really honest to myself at times. I had
a little bit jealous it would come up.
I kinda have that, oh, that's back for
coming next week. I'm gonna have to adjust
my time at the job. Now
me remarrying
in my head, and this is the head
so this is a 100% of the time
with most women who remarried.
The thing is I need to get that
role model for my children. Right? I need
that good male role model. And that is
that's consistent. If any woman I've worked with,
that is consistently their that, you know, I
want this this male role model. The thing
is this is not part of the children.
And so there's this whole
process in your own mind that you have
to go through to accept that you are
not this is not the father of the
children's father. This is a totally different person.
And that your expectation
that you're gonna put on to this person
creates,
will create more issues. And, you know, the
expectation
you put on yourself too. I went into
marriage 6 months later trying to meet my
4 boys' needs,
meet my new husband's needs, and I serve
him, be that new wife. She can build
a relationship
with each other, whilst still an ex husband,
whilst still in finances, whilst working part time.
And I remember one day, 6 months of
marriage,
and he and,
my oldest son is in hospital.
It was very hot days at that time.
He's coming to and back from the hospital.
And I remember
I got up budget the next day, and
I collapsed. I physically collapsed. Like, I found
myself on the ground at support. It's like,
where am I? And I realized,
wow. I my body is breaking me down
because I'm trying so hard to be the
new good wife and make sure I fulfill
all my kids' needs and, you know, get
that finances to the job. And I was
trying too hard because I was in a
place where I want this to work. I
want this to work. So I was coming
from a place
of trying to fix it and and showing
up in that place.
And so, pardon Allah, that breakdown, you know,
had a concussion, big, big, you know. They
took it to hospital and was like, have
your husband's last year? I'm like, no. I
just collapsed.
You know, big, big my body physically
hardly my body physically collapsed because
it couldn't handle the emotions and everything that
I was trying at that time. So I
that was it. I just my body literally
stopped. And the reason I'm telling you this,
it's not easy. That process of that year
of remarriage when we have children and stepchildren
and we're trying
to create a new pathway
for many of us. And you've got your
own healing work as well. And you've got
different needs because children react in different ways.
Especially teenage boys, they react to their father's
stepfather things over and over again in many
steps,
families where a mother has neither
are married in and they've got sexual and
this, you know, it happens so often. There's
issues between the children, you know, because your
children have rights for you. It's issues of
discipline. You know, there's so many aspects to
this area. There's your expectation. There's kids' expectation.
So it's definitely worth I I could personally
and honestly say, that wasn't comfortable in the
hardest times of my life. It was a
joyful time. And I really was great meeting
a new person and bringing that person to
my life and my children's life, but it
put a big toll on myself. And so
I would want you to learn from the
lessons that I learned. The lesson was is
that you have to
you have to really know yourself
and be able to articulate
your needs. Because if you're depleted, you can't
do that. You saw that with what happened
to me physically. I just I literally broke
down. My body couldn't do it anymore. And
so it's it's knowing your needs in life.
It's knowing kids' needs. It's knowing it's it's
coming from a place that everyone's going to
transition differently. We all struggle with that. We
all transition.
This love and compassion
that we have to have for each other
and our children in that situation
is so essential.
Knowing our triggers is so essential in this
situation.
Too many of us expect him to walk
in and kind of fix it. Be that
guy. You know, just do your thing. And
it doesn't work that way. It it requires
lots of communication,
lots of misunderstanding,
lots of understanding each other,
stepping back and pausing,
creating safe emotional space. I can't emphasize this
enough.
Emotional safety.
Creating that emotional state is we can both
express each other's commitment without taking it personally.
When we take our ego takes it personally
how another person feels. I can remember having
this conversation, sat down, and my my 12
year old son at the time was struggling
with the stepfather.
Equivalation, 1st 2 months, and his father took
some stuff and, anyway, he was struggling.
And he sat down. We had an assurance.
We sat down an assurance. We sat down,
walked, communicated.
And he said to his stepfather,
you're
a stranger. You came into my house and
you're a stranger. I have to, like I
don't know you. You know? And I had
got the boys to meet him a few
times, but I don't know you. It was
like almost trying to force a bond. And
I remember his stepfather said to him, you
know, you're right, Ayo. You don't know me,
and that's okay. Let's get to know each
other. And so if that and one of
the biggest things that really helped me was
because I had been a stepmother,
I knew that I craved a position
to be in my stepchildren's lives. So I
automatically and I let him become part of
the family.
Him being the,
I really,
gave that right to him. Knowing very well
my children's needs and everything, but keep making
him the army, letting him be pilot. He
felt like the outsider. Right? He was the
outsider. So coming in and letting him be
the army.
Me not taking it personally,
you know, how and discipline's a blessing. Discipline
comes after building a connection.
It's a transition. It's a journey.
So it's it's not something that people can't
understand to be in it. It's hard to
describe it, Naima, when you until you've actually
been in it. Does that make sense?
People don't know how difficult it is, SubhanAllah.
And, you know, I think even that question
about, you know,
what part is this this husband going to
play? Right?
You know, it's 1 because I think in
the West, the majority of situations is the
woman has the kids
in the home
and the husband marries and joins her in
the home, in her house with her kids,
which already is like is is a challenge.
Right? Because,
you know, depending on what kind of setup
you guys are hoping for, if you're putting
him as the Amir, but it's your house
and they're your kids and you guys have
got a culture and a structure
and you guys do things the way you
do.
He he brings you guys into his place,
which is very rare,
in the west, I think, that that rarely
really happens,
unless the children are very young or there's,
like, only 1 or 2 of them. But
if you're already an established family with an
established home, typically, he moves in with you.
So, yeah, lots of conversation,
lots of talking through everything, and I think
managing expectations
and trying to get rid of assumptions that
you make.
Assuming that
he's going to do this or he's not
gonna do it, assuming that your kids are
gonna feel this way or they're not gonna
feel this way. Salata, what do you think?
What how can we best manage this, you
know, rather tricky
situation
of stepparenting
and blending families? And, you know, as Khadijah
said, bringing
more or less a stranger into our children's
lives and and hoping that they can play
house together.
Play house together. I like that part.
Because when we picture it before the marriage,
you actually picture
the playing house situation. Everybody's getting along like
a house on fire and all is fine
and all is well now and,
you sometimes assume that the kids are going
to be grateful, they're going to be happy,
that now we've got a mother in the
house or a father in the house, but
those are assumptions that we make based on
what we expect.
It doesn't match the reality.
I know people's stories will be different but
something,
a few things that I would say looking
back now
I would want to just share. The first
is that having an agreement about a culture
for your new home
helps a lot,
not because the children are going to accept
the
different bits of the family culture that you've
put together but because it helps in your
conversation
with your new spouse,
it helps to prevent certain,
misunderstanding
from occurring,
to prevent certain arguments from being stretched too
far because you both agreed on a or
b or c. And it helps you,
know how to respond to certain situations without
overthinking it.
I know one challenge we tend to have
is you overthink everything.
If I especially where maybe you've got your
biological kids and then your step kids or
as I as someone once said, your bonus
kids in the house And you're thinking, if
I say this,
would they think I'm saying it because it's
my biological child or would they think I'm
saying it because it's not my biological child?
And that can be very stressful emotionally for
you, especially if you care about doing the
right thing. You care about being unfair and
being balanced and not being misunderstood.
So you if you already have a culture
then you always,
have something to go to. It's like the
principle or the rule. This is what we
do in this family. This is how we
do it. So it doesn't matter which kid
you're dealing with. That's 1.
Secondly is this whole idea of discipline
because when you have,
a step parent and the step parent is
just there to
play with them, have fun and provide
their needs, what they want,
you don't actually have a lot of friction.
The friction comes up when you want to
enforce
rules, when you want to establish discipline.
From my personal experience and from speaking with
other people that's where the things start to
go sideways, could start going sideways,
especially as the children grow older. Now there's
a temptation to assume that they are acting
out because
this is their step parent,
to always assume that there's that, temptation and
that's the trend. And people say, oh, it's
because, you know, it's because you're not the
mother. It's because you're not really the biological
dad.
But I had to learn over time to
separate issues
and to understand that a child is a
child
And when I would then remember certain,
instances,
maybe growing up,
challenges I had with my own parents or
times when I argued with them, I wasn't
happy with something they had done, and even
conversations with friends over time who would sometimes
say, you know, at one time I was
so convinced that my dad wasn't my dad
or my mom wasn't my mom because we're
always having these quarrels and arguments
and finally I had to just like, oh
yeah really she is my mom or He's
my dad.
With a step child, you don't have that.
They don't fall back on that. So you
might sit there thinking they're acting out because
this person is a step parent, but they
may be acting out because this person is
new. They don't have a strong enough bond,
the bonds that can handle the friction that
comes from discipline.
Because when we think about our own biological
kids it's not every time you tell them
no that they say yes, dear Martha,
your word is my command, you say I'm
happy.
It's not all the time, sometimes you tell
them no. 100%.
I'm
going to unfriend you, I'm not going to
talk to you for the next 2 days,
each time you call me I'm going to
grant instead of responding,
that's your own biological child. But because you
have a history with them, if you have
the mother, they they they've been hearing your
voice from the time they could hear in
your womb, They they knew you. They know
your touch from the beginning. If you're their
father, they probably heard your voice when you
did call the Adana in their ear when
they were born. So you have a bond
that no matter how far they run away
from you because right now they are hating
you and they think you are just a
hater, you are winning their life and you
are killing their smirk, they usually swing back
to you.
If you don't have a bond like that
with a stepchild, which you don't because you're
wearing there from their beginning,
it becomes harder. So when the friction starts,
then there's nothing to contain it and
everything can go south. It has helped to
have others that they trust,
that they
have known far longer than they've known you
to do a lot of the talking
and
they,
set in some of the boundaries, especially their
biological parents.
So I know the mistake some of us
make is insisting that you're marrying this person,
he's going to work right in and start
being the father figure
in every way.
I think sometimes we have to learn to,
play the go between, to do more of
the enforcing,
and allow him to establish a strong enough
relationship,
establish enough trust to make that happen, but
we can't even force that process.
I'm learning now to just settle in for
the long haul.
As a step parent of 2 boys, I'm
learning now to just sometimes just let some
things go and just settle in for the
long haul and know that it takes time
to build a relationship where they trust you
enough to not say you must be telling
me to do this because you are not
my mother.
I'm learning that and it's a great lesson
to learn. So those are 2
and then to keep talking I think. Each
time even when you feel that the situation
is not working well and you feel that
you are not parenting right or you want
your
spouse to step up more, to be ready
to have that conversation as difficult as it
might be, as fractious as it might as
it might get to be ready to have
the conversation because it's an ongoing process. Every
relationship is an ongoing negotiation. So as long
as you're in the marriage, you are the
step parent to these kids or he's a
step parent to your kids, you have to
keep having the
discussion and then keep making dua.
And just
have that
hope.
I loved how you mentioned it's like that
transition. It really is a transition, and it's
that, you know, when a a child feels
a sense of belonging, they're more likely to
listen to instruction. They're going to feel, you
know, that connection and that sense of belonging
and respect. That has to be built first.
And if you're sitting in the bed, ma'am,
or you have a perception that this child's
taking
time away from my new husband or my
new wife, that's going to impact. So our
perception of that child is gonna be the
number one thing to check-in for ourselves.
What is what is how are we perceiving
that stepchild? What's what's the thoughts or feelings
or triggers that's coming up for us? Because
a lot of the time, the child is
a beautiful innocent. I had so many,
mothers or, that had a stepchild
and what I worked with, and they were
jealous of a 7 year old stepchild.
If you're a grown woman, you're so jealous
to the point where she's embarrassed in the
the level of jealousy that she has to
her stepchild,
then that's your issue getting in the way.
That's your stuff that needs to be worked
through. Because a 7 year old child is
not causing your trigger. Your perception of that
7 year old child is causing the misery
within your heart. And so we really have
to do that powerful.
When I asked my husband to go close
to my youngest
child, and he was 3 years old when
we when we, I remarried.
He's 8 years old now. He's not always
9. We've been together about 5 and a
half years. I said, what's the biggest thing?
We all bond. He said, can you do
you go have taqo?
You gotta have taqo. Like, I love this
child like my own child, but you gotta
have taqo. And it's true. When I was
a stepmother, I had to keep thinking can
you just have taqo? You know? I treat
my children like I treat my stepchildren. I
exactly aren't children this.
You're a very lucky woman if you are,
stepmother
or stepfather, because Ola gave you
of a child that was not yours
into your home. You've Ola knows that he's
been put a burden for anything you can
bear. Ola knows that you you can you
can step up with it. You can show
up in this role and be a contributor
to that child's life. I still get flowers
from my my stepson till, like, 28
now for my 1st marriage because of the
bond I created with them. You know? They're
really and they can treat me better than
my sons. One of my oh, one of
my sons. Do I have to say that?
You know, but then love and bond. So
don't underestimate.
I'll have never never ever think that any
action or effort you do because you can't
see the reward in this tangible
life. You don't know what's holding you for
the hereafter
for all that he's given you. And remember,
the problem on the first one, he was
a stepfather
to daughter,
She had a daughter.
So don't underestimate.
You know, this is something that is such
a
such a
a beautiful gift that I was presenting you.
The lessons that can be learned from this
involved in me, definitely my younger being stepmother.
And seeing the bond of their stepfather to
the children and allowing things that come up.
There's gonna be conflicts. There's gonna be disagreements.
There's gonna be allowing
allowing allowing that to build that
and not mindset sometimes I was fighting too
quickly. I just allow that relationship to flow
because I have to respect that that's a
different
I know I tried to rush Absolutely. Election
and friendship to being able to enforce, I
think I rushed
it. I felt we knew one another well
enough to do that. It was much later
years down the road I realized
I think I should
have slowed things down a lot. I
totally feel that, step parents need a sort
of support group where they help one another
and talk through things.
So if, people who are planning to get
married and they're going to have a blended
family situation, talk to me now. I always
emphasize don't rush to enforce anything.
I'm not saying don't be disciplined.
Talk about discipline and what your terms are
with your spouse,
but don't be in a hurry to be
the one pushing it. You're going to create
friction and your relationship with that child may
not be
strong enough to handle the friction.
100%.
I think that's a beautiful way for us
to to close-up this panel. Like I said,
we could be here for another 2 hours.
And,
you know, Raeesah, Khadija, Salatu, thank you so
much for just being so open and honest.
I think when it comes to this particular
trajectory, there's there's so many extremes in this
conversation. Right? And I think that what I
was hoping for was to open up a
conversation where there's balance
in where we we are realistic about the
challenges,
but we are also hopeful for the outcomes
because we know that anything is possible and
and and two things can be true at
the same time.
So,
a a second marriage
can be more difficult
and also have potential for more reward at
the same time. Right? So it's not that
the second marriage is gonna be a breeze.
It's not that the second marriage is gonna
be a disaster.
It's more being aware and educating yourself on
the challenges so that you can show up
differently
in that situation to mitigate
whatever the the challenges are. And I love
the fact that everybody here has spoken about
that personal responsibility because,
you know, that is the one thing
that empowers us.
How we can do things differently, how we
can make dua, how we can respond differently.
And subhanAllah,
I think we can all attest to the
fact that
when we show up differently
it impacts the situation. It impacts others. It
invites others to show up differently and at
the very least
even if they don't change their behaviors,
the way that we are showing up and
the way that we have decided to be
in the choices that we make can mean
that our experience of the situation is not,
you know, as as painful or as toxic
or whatever the case may be as it
would have been if we had not made
the decision
to be who we're going to be
regardless of, you know, what the challenges that
we face are. So
sisters, I wanna thank you. We're gonna put
your info in the description on YouTube and
we'll be sending it out to the email,
subscribers as well inshallah.
I think it's over 10,000,
10,000,
people who claimed their free ticket. Masha'Allah. So
we'll send your details out so that after
they've listened to this, they can definitely get
in touch.
I hope to invite you guys back, onto
one of these episodes of the marriage conversation.
Maybe when we do a Sunday livestream, we
can just come on and just do pure
q and a because I know people want
the q and a. But inshallah, that is
it for this this session. Thank you all
so much for being with us. We're going
to take a 5 minute break before we
go on to the next one, sisters.
So,
That was amazing.
Thank you.