Naima B. Robert – Secrets of Successful Wives conference OG Wives give MAD advice!
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Welcome
to the OG
wives panel
in the secrets of successful wives conference.
Now,
a lot of people may have heard this
term OG Wives and not really understood, you
know, what we're talking about. What is an
OG wife? Well, OG
obviously, it stands for original gangster, but Shala,
none of our wives are really gangsters.
But I use the term OG to say,
like, from the old school, from back in
the day. So I specifically reached out to
you and and invited sisters who've been married
for 10,
15, sometimes 20 years and plus,
to come on this panel and talk some
real talk.
And I did this for very selfish reasons.
And these selfish reasons are that
I, Insha'Allah,
believe
that it's necessary
for the sisters who have had the experience,
who have lived through the ups and downs
of marriage,
who have been, you know, on the journey
for a longer time
to be able to give advice
and to talk candidly
to the generations coming up.
I believe that there is a lot
of talk,
mainly online, we can say,
by all sorts of people about all sorts
of things. But the loudest voices I find
are the ones that have less experience,
and the, you know, the quieter voices are
the ones with more experience. And I think
that that's
I think that's wrong. I think that what
happens is we end up getting advice from
inexperienced people or from less experienced people. And
if there's anything that I've discovered or I've
learned on this journey when it comes to
marriage is that
there's a lot to learn from longevity.
It's easy to be happy
in the 1st 2, 3 years and, you
know, do a course or a program or,
like, you know, make an Instagram account or
whatever to show how happy we are at
you know, in year 2 or year 5
or even year 7.
But if you have been in the game
for 10, 15 years, you know, and you've
been through that process,
you really just have a different
lens and a very different perspective
on what makes a marriage work and what
makes marriage last. So that is really exactly
what we're here to talk about inshallah today.
So if I can just ask each of
you to introduce yourselves,
just tell us your name, what you do,
and how many years you've been married. And
then InshaAllah, we can get into the questions.
We'll start with you, sister Ruby, since you're
you're, like, kind of on my right.
Yes.
Abukna Al Rahim in the name of Allah.
Yeah.
I am Ruby Khosa. I'm the I am
the happy marriage coach.
I've been married for 11 years now.
Well, I have been married before,
had been divorced,
and then I got married a second time
after a long time.
So that's me.
Wonderful. What about you, sister Sarah?
Peace be upon you. Bismillah. Hello, everybody. Hope
you guys are okay.
Please say hello in the comments. Got any
questions, whatever, before I start, just please let
us know in the comments because I know
sister Naomi, just like me, would like to
have these as interactive as possible.
Yeah. My name is Sarah Saleh.
I am a mom to 4.
I've been married for we were trying to
work this out yesterday. I always get it
wrong. 16 16 years.
I am a
a online business consultant,
and, yeah, I'm really, really excited to be
here.
We had a really good Facebook live, didn't
we? We were speaking about this subject the
other day as well. So I've been really
excited to come on and hear everyone's thoughts
and just really get down to talking about
this because a lot of people don't really
speak about this stuff online, and especially myself.
Like you said, I've always been one of
the quiet voices, and the reason that
is, I'll be honest, it's probably a little
bit maybe paranoid, but an evil eye. When
I tell people about my marriage, people are
like, oh, you know, oh, good for you
kind of thing and things like that. So,
hopefully, I can give a positive aspect as
well.
What? We lost Naima? She gone? I think
she may have gone. Was it me? Yes.
I I was gone, and I'm back. Okay.
Omaisa, it's it's like a roller coaster. SubhanAllah.
I'm here and I'm out.
Scarlet Pimpernel.
Oma'issa,
what about you?
It's an honor to be here.
My name's,
Naima as well.
My name's Nikhia,
also known as Amarisah.
I'm actually a a hobby seller, but I've
actually been in Dower for over 20 years,
and especially in the community in supporting women.
And and,
I've
just been married 19 years. So, alhamdulillah, it's
It just flew by.
And Omaisa was determined not to be on
this panel. I just want you all to
know that she was like, I'm still learning,
mate. I'm not coming there to lecture anybody.
But I said no because we've spoken so
many times and, you know, obviously, we know
each other personally so I was like, no.
No. No. No. Because when you drop the
gems, you drop the gems. So inshallah, it's
not too much for you to inshallah be
able to share it with others as well.
Masha'Allah. Last but not least, sister Zainab Waladakpo.
Welcome. Assalamu Alaikum. Assalamu
Alaikum. Thank you for having me on here.
So,
I'm Zena Boladakpo, and
I live in Nigeria in the beautiful city
of Abuja. I'm a mom of 5,
and I've been married, alhamdulillah, for about 15
years.
However,
this is a second marriage. I was in
an earlier marriage, which was abusive, which I
walked out of, and then alhamdulillah,
so I've seen, like, both sides of,
you know, of a thing, and,
yeah, so I'm a transformative coach to,
Muslim women
and
the thing is I have been through so
much in my life that if I continued
with the introduction, we probably wouldn't finish before
the end of the hour. So I'm gonna
leave it at that initial. I would there'll
be points in time when I can share
what I went through that really impacted how
I was showing up in my marriage
and the journey to where I am now
where I can see, Alhamdulillah,
I I am in a happy marriage and
a thriving one that seems like it's just
even starting
out. SubhanAllah.
Yeah. I love that. Masha'Allah.
Wonderful. So we've got a real variety of
experiences here and I think there may even
be some points of, you know, that you
have in common as well. Masha'Allah.
Sounds like it on your journeys.
So okay.
Going to this point that, you know,
people who have been married for longer
have a different perspective,
right, on
what works, what doesn't work, etcetera. So my
first question to every each one of you
is could you name or describe or explain
three things
that make a marriage last long term?
What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah.
3 things.
I feel on the spot now, but I'm
gonna try.
I think
mutual understanding.
And when I say compromise,
I can't I don't mean compromise with a
negative
connotation.
I mean, compromise
certain things for your for your marriage, and
that doesn't necessarily have to be a negative
thing. So when people say I'm not compromising
you know, like you said, online, there's a
lot of things
that are being put on the media. Oh,
I want this. I'm a strong independent woman.
I deserve to have this, that, the other,
you know, all this sort of thing.
There has to be compromises sometimes.
And it it takes a lot to build
that, but that you can make that a
really good foundation for your marriage if you
kind of have a mutual understand and understand.
You know, your husband's gonna give things up
as well as you are. So it's not
just about a one way street. It's about
having that mutual understanding.
I think being able to be friends and
speak to your husband about literally anything,
really, like, being compatible
on that aspect,
I think is fine. You know, me and
my husband, we we've been married, what, you
know, like I said, 15, 16 years, and
we've we still sit up all night talking.
But, literally, we'll just sit talking all the
time. And he'll phone me from work, and
he'll be like, hi. What are you doing?
Like, literally. And
we've been married this long, and it's still
like that. So kind of keeping those things,
you know, what things are mutually in common,
and we kinda have grown together on that.
And, also, it's, yeah, it's it's kind of
not giving up at the first hurdles.
Not giving up. Like, not giving up. It
is hard. Sometimes life is hard.
Yeah. Life is hard. Marriage can be difficult.
I've been through so many different things in
my marriage. We've had,
you know, we've had different things,
you know, we wanted different things in life.
We've been through infertility.
We've been through, you know, my husband losing
his job. We've been through, you know, financial
things. We've been up and we've been down,
but we've always, always, always tried to make
it work, and we've never gone to sleep
on an argument ever.
We've always saw it.
I don't hold any grudges. I just get
away sometimes. So,
that's the 3 things that I can offer
that works for us.
And, you know, before I go to the
other sisters, just, you know, one of the
things that I'd like to just maybe touch
on is the idea that of, you you
know, people changing and growing in the marriage.
Right? Because I know that you you and
your husband were in one place and then,
you know, things changed in terms of lifestyle,
in terms of Dean, etcetera.
Can you maybe speak to that? Because some
a lot of people, especially now, you know,
where maybe the woman is on a journey,
maybe at one point, people were getting married
and then maybe the brother would become more
practicing. Right? Or he married somebody who wasn't
Muslim and he wasn't practicing, but then he
became practicing and then it became this shift.
And now as well, a lot of sisters
are, you know, maybe developing themselves and kind
of up leveling in terms of their professional
and career,
and that is in itself causing, you know,
like a change in the dynamic. Maybe if
you could just speak to that briefly, Insha'Allah,
how you manage that. I think not you're
not doing this alone.
When you're up leveling, you're up leveling together.
Whatever you're doing to up level yourself personally,
professionally, in your family, in your team, you're
up leveling together.
You are in this marriage together, and it's
not about him and me and this. It's
if you're gonna think about, you know, like
you said, starting a new profession, you wanna
do something, you wanna do a training course,
you wanna change profession, or you wanna start,
you know, touch like, for example, me, leaving
last week, about 3 weeks ago, I saw
some touch read class has been advertised, and
I said, I thought we're gonna do it.
I didn't go ahead and book them. I'm
gonna do tudwig class. I knew my husband
wouldn't mind, but I said to my husband,
he's in the morning cup. Yes. Look. I've
seen these TED week classes.
They're in the weekday. What do you think?
You know? And he was like, yeah. Great.
Go ahead. If he would have said, oh,
maybe start next week, and he would have
given me a a reason why or whatever,
it would have been fine because I know
he didn't mind. But it's like, I always
it okay. I I can say I even
sometimes ask his permission. I know I don't
have to ask his permission.
My husband has never stopped me doing anything
except pierce my nose.
Years ago, by the way. I was like,
why do you want my nose pierced? You
know, I think it looked nice. He's like,
please don't get nose pierced. But, yeah, you
know,
almost asked his permission. I say to him,
look. Do you mind if I do this,
or can I do this, or
is it okay? I'm thinking about doing something.
And, you know, we do these things together.
He's the same with him and his work.
You know, my husband's worked away a lot,
and he's always said to me when he
wants to do something different in his career
or he's got something that's happened at work
and he's got a big decision to make,
he says to me, is that okay? Like,
even a couple of weeks ago, he was
like, you know, I might have to go
to Ireland for a little bit and work
and stuff like that. I'm gonna try and
get over. I said, it's absolutely fine. If
you've gotta do that for you, you've gotta
do it. He hasn't just come home and
gone, it's work. I've gotta do this. You
know, we kinda speak about it together. So
I think that's where a lot of people
get it wrong. They don't they go off
on their own path, and that's fine if
you're finding it yourself. But make your husband
or your wife with you.
Say, you know, we're gonna go on this
path together. Let's try and do it together,
you know, even do things to get involved
with each other. You know, so if you're
on a spiritual journey
and you feel you're growing apart, it's because
maybe you're not kinda getting them involved. You're
not asking them to come with you on
that path. So, you know, it's just that,
again, that's just something for you guys to
think about. I liked when you said earlier
about, he says you don't wanna lecture people.
I'm not trying to I just wanna kinda
offer advice of what's worked for me. And
if you guys do resonate with that, please
do take that away and ask me any
questions you like as well.
Thank you so much. And I think this
issue of sort of being on journeys and
how the sister said he's not there yet,
I I would like to circle back to
that insha'Allah. But I would like each one
of you to answer the question about three
things that make a marriage last inshallah as
far as your experience is concerned.
Ruby, would you like to go next?
Okay. Yeah.
You know, when you said 3 things,
I said, oh, wow.
3? Only 3?
There's so many,
like, you know, successes. I could speak all
day about it.
But the biggest success
in my marriage,
and I have got a story to tell,
and I'm not sure whether we have time
for that today.
But the biggest success has been
to
understand
me.
Understand me.
Because so many times
that I
expected and wanted
for my husband to understand me. And that
used to really, really kill me because I
wanted him to understand me.
But only
when I
understood
myself,
that's when
my marriage changed.
It did not change before that.
I tried so hard,
so hard
before that to change it,
Trying
to get him to understand me.
Well, the tables are reversed.
I understand me.
And that
has been the transformation.
A real transformation
that happened
not because
I wanted him to change
and he changed,
and so my marriage transformed.
No.
Didn't do it like that.
I understood
me
and the transformation
that came,
came from within me.
It came from Allah.
It didn't come trying to get him to
change.
So my biggest success
was
the transformation from within.
And that was from Allah.
So I have to say that first.
And so
the way it happened was that I understood
the way I think.
I no longer think the way I used
to think before
about my husband.
And that was a real,
real change.
And rather than say change,
I'd like to
say awakening
because awakening
is permanent.
It's my consciousness,
my taqwa,
the Allah,
the Allah that
changed.
Like, I woke. I woke up.
And that was a gift and a blessing
from the almighty.
It doesn't just come.
It's like
I wanted I wanted it so bad.
And so
that was the biggest,
transformation
that came from within,
and I woke up to see it. I
woke up to see
the way I was thinking
about my husband.
And
when that happened,
I found the greatness in me,
in who I was.
And before I used to feel broke and
upset and I need fixing and I need
improving.
I need to do this and I need
to do that. And I I absolutely
devote
the whole of
Facebook and
Google and every book you can think of
and I did everything.
Everything.
And so
when I understood
the way I think,
my
everything changed
from,
being very loving,
very giving,
very,
forgiving
to myself first
and
grateful
gratitude
just fell from my lips.
I didn't have to do gratitude journals,
which I used to do.
Now
gratitude just
falls
from my lips
to the divine,
and I I it it can come anytime.
I don't know how I don't have to
make it. I don't have to be sitting
here. Oh my god. I've gotta be grateful.
I've gotta be grateful. No.
Allah
brings that
gratitude
through his wisdom,
through
my mind in the moment
because gratitude
is
in the moment.
So the success
blew my mind.
I did not expect it the way it
came.
I did not. I really did not.
It it's it's like
I I was searching for truth.
I really was all my life.
I searched for it. I searched for it.
And I've written a poem on it and
if you'd want me to share it I
I I
can
whenever you feel that there is time on
this,
but I want to give time
for the assistance.
That's so beautiful.
So would you say that the for you,
the you know, one of those things that
leads to the longevity in marriage is knowing
yourself
and just becoming aware of yourself and and
who you really are.
When I
was on the journey to know me, guess
what?
I knew a lot.
The one who knows his Lord
knows
himself.
The one who knows themselves
knows God.
And that
was so beautiful.
I cried and I cried and I cried,
my tears was
a gratitude.
I cried for days
because I've searched for it all my life
And here I was. I thought oh, my
God.
You Allah,
you have given me
something that I never expected
even though I prayed for it.
I prayed and prayed and prayed, but it
didn't come when I wanted it.
It came
when
he wanted me to see
the truth.
It came from him.
SubhanAllah.
SubhanAllah.
JazakAllah Khayr for sharing that with us,
you know people in the chat are you
know obviously it's resonating what you're saying mashaAllah
fantastic.
Omayesa, what would you say are the 3
things that lead to a marriage lasting? Allahumabarik.
Masha'Allah. So powerful. Yes.
I need you to unmute, inshallah.
You can hear me now. Right? Yes. We
can.
So I was saying I think perseverance is
one word that comes to mind. You know,
is having Saba,
with one another. You know? It's, I think
one of the things as well is that
whenever we do something, we should make our
intentions first for Allah.
If we're going to do something to please
our husbands,
we should solidify our intentions first and make
it for Allah
because
we have expectations. And
this is another thing, you know. It's it's
it's difficult to
do things or serve someone and then have
expectations as well. You know?
It's important that
expectations is something that causes pain. That's what
I think. Because they they might they may
not they may not appreciate what you've done.
They may not,
give you the reaction that you may want.
I think,
sometimes we expect to them to love us
how we
love them.
So I think if I'm going to give
an advice, I'd say, first of all, whatever
action you do, do it first for the
sake of Allah.
Solidify it because
however it is received,
if your intention is good, then your reward
is with Allah.
Sometimes you may feel disappointed.
I remember, you know, it might be that
you serve them and you want something from
them
of reaction, and they may not have reacted
the way you want. But if you do
things
for the sake of Allah,
no good deeds are left, are lost in
the sight of Allah.
So another thing I was saying is, obviously,
it comes down to, like, love languages as
well. You know, they say, like, the 5
love love languages.
Sometimes we tend to love people or love
love our spouses, love our husbands the way
that
we feel
we need to be loved.
It's important to love them how
what their needs are. We're all needy.
We're all needy when it comes down to
marriage.
We all have needs that need to be
fulfilled whether they're emotional
or whatever it is.
So give how
give how they they
fulfill their needs, how they they need it
fulfilled really.
You know, not necessarily how we would.
And then
not to kind of expect what we want,
love according to them.
There might be certain things that,
I might not necessarily like. I might not
be flattened by flattered by,
you know, an item of clothing, for instance.
But your partner might. Right? I might not
be
flattered by,
my a a night out in a fancy
restaurant. I might just be like, yeah, you
know, just give me time. That's more important.
So I think it's important to understand one
another
and to love them according to their
kind of, you know, needs.
They're not us. Their giving is different,
which is why,
we should look and see what he or
she needs. In our case, obviously, what our
husbands need
and how can we fulfill their needs.
I think that's,
you know,
one of the things I would say is,
you know, like I said, solidify your intentions
and make our actions really
invested with a lot of that dialogue.
I would say,
another one I would say is
spending time.
You know, sometimes,
like for me, I've got 6 kids.
Over time, you forget to
have time
alone
outside of the bedroom.
You know, it tends to be, you know,
talking, I think, just mainly about what to
buy in the house or kids or communication
just end up being about the running of
the home.
So I think it's really important to have
time set aside,
and you're involved in activity,
both for a walk.
For me,
cycling is very big at the moment. I'm
a cycling instructor. Many of the sisters know,
from me from Cycle Sisters as well.
So,
you know, my husband's an ardent cyclist as
well. So we go and cycle together,
and this is something that,
a lot of sisters,
have started to do now
in the evenings.
Maybe
if they've got older children, they could go
go for a cycle, go for a walk,
go for a drive, go for a coffee
on the weekends.
I think it's really important.
I can give so much, actually.
But,
let's give a chance to others to contribute,
inshallah. I know we've got quite a few.
Yeah. I mean, this is one of the
reasons why I said, I said only three
reasons because it's really hard actually to
to to pin it down, isn't it? But
sometimes when we have to pin it down,
we have to come with our very best
points, masha'Allah. Sister Zaina, what say you? What
are the three things that make a marriage
last
in your opinion?
Yeah.
Okay.
Before I go into answering the question, I
want to give a bit of context
to what my answer will be.
And it is that
I have been in 2 marriages.
One was abusive, and, alhamdulillah, I was able
to get out of it
very early.
And this marriage would have been in for
over 15 years, and alhamdulillah.
When I came into this marriage,
I did my
homework
before I agreed to marry my husband.
So I came into a marriage.
I wasn't really expecting problems, and at hand,
like I say, I've had major problems. And
that is because
contrasting with where I was coming from, where
I had experienced before.
I don't I mean, it's, like,
what would they I don't think there's anything
that can be done again.
So long as I had done my homework,
I knew that this person is not this
kind of person I married before. So it's
like
I'm in this place, like,
is like it's already, like, beautiful
before I even get in.
So
it was okay. I didn't think the marriage
was gonna be a problem.
What happened was I came into the marriage
being a problem for me.
So
the three things
that
I believe would
make a marriage work,
first is
you understanding
that
marriage
is a creation.
It's like a work of art.
You put in love,
dedication.
There's a lot of exploration.
There's a lot of experimentation.
A work of art. You're wanting to create
a masterpiece.
You don't go into it. You don't
in that process,
rush yourself
or judge yourself
or beat yourself up,
because that's what art is,
it's a process to enjoy.
So being able to understand that it is
a creation, it's something you create, it's co
created.
So what it means is that if it's
a cocreation,
that means
that whatever each of the part
is bringing to the marriage
is what creates
whether it's whatever my own part part what
I was bringing into the marriage
was me feeling I was a problem, living
in the state of being a problem for
me.
Before we got married,
because I
had a very serious anger issue
which if there is a I might go
into the genesis but might not be relevant.
However, I remember that there was a time
before we got married that I, wanted to
talk to wanted to talk to. I I
went I had a a meet up with
my,
before then then I was he was asking
to marry me and all that, and then
he didn't come up on time. I was
mad.
Like, I told his friend that I really
like, you know when somebody blows up?
I was upset, I was like a keg
of gumbo, I blew up. I just basically
spewed onto this friend of his.
Of course, I didn't like it, but that
was what I was showing up then.
He still married me,
so I don't know what he saw anyway.
I, I asked him,
I asked, I've asked him after that and
said, I mean, but why did you marry
me when you knew I had all this
stuff?
He was like, well I just knew that,
if you get angry to that point, I
mean, I just need to just douse a
lot of cold water on
so you'll be fine. I knew I could
handle it,
so that
was what he brought into the marriage, but
on my own part I had an experience
in life where I came from being sexually
abused at 9 years old, by the time
I was 11 years old I was exposed
repeatedly to explicit material
which basically messed up my head because we
know that's what * does,
and then I was so I just basically
had no self confidence, almost no sense of
self worth,
self esteem, 0 basically.
I went through life like that, I was
angry at the world and all that, went
into
an abusive marriage. I mean, I basically walked
into it eyes wide open, so that was
so I had all that baggage, so I
was in the marriage with it.
But
when so, the marriage was fine.
Alhamdulillah, I was okay.
But, I wasn't okay.
So I couldn't experience
the fact that I was in a marriage
that wasn't troubled like many others.
I was basically suffering
in a marriage that should be okay, that
is really okay. So what happened is,
of course, I wanted to fix myself, I
was broken, I did so much personal development
work, all kinds of stuff.
I spent 1,000 of dollars on personal development
trying to fix myself
and, alhamdulillah, I got to the point where
I was able to understand how the mind
works and how we create our own experiences,
and that helped me
drop off all these baggage.
That was when
I started to see that
this marriage could be a masterpiece.
So, that second point is the fact that
we need to
see yourself
in the mirror for how you're showing up.
It's not about judgment.
It is
compassion.
So for me, that was the one thing
that I'd see
changed
the game.
Being compassionate with myself through everything
that I had experienced in life and how
I was seeing it,
and then bringing that compassion to my husband.
Because, of course, I mean, yeah, he's a
great guy, but he's not perfect either.
But
living with compassion,
seeing through compassion.
And the third one
is seeking for help,
seeking Allah's help.
And I know that was what took me
to that transformation that I experienced because
one of
my biggest duas
was
Yajabar
Uchburini,
because that was how I felt, I was,
I felt broken.
Even though I had everything going on for
me, I had beautiful kids. I had a
great career. I had everything on the outside,
success boxes ticked, but I wasn't
okay on the inside.
I asked Allah for help and Allah helped
me.
I could go on and on, but then,
because the beauty of Al Jabbar is the
fact that the way he mends a broken
bone
is how he mends you, But it doesn't
mean you mend all at once.
You mend in faces,
and that was experience I had. And at
this point in time I can see I
have gotten to, I mean, I've experienced that,
I know there's, there's no peak, there's a
long, there's more to go. I've gotten to
this point where in the creation of my
marriage
I make naughty do ours.
There's this one I'm going to share it's
like yeah
this is what I made recently because a
lot of like things are fine but yeah
it can be more fun I say that
Allah
let's have doing intimacy let's have multiple orgies
so that I can praise you.
That's kind of the ones I make now
just for fun
but I take action as well.
The other part of seeking help is seek
professional help
for you
Because I struggle all through this myself,
thinking
I don't have to tell anyone, but asking
for help from Allah and then from people
helped put me
where I was able to experience that
transformation
from within.
It wasn't about the things I was doing
outside because I did everything, everything we did
as wise, learn to make makeup, I hate
makeup, but I learned to do makeup and
stuff but that didn't
help. The change, just like sister Ruby said,
it happened within.
So right now the co creation of this
marriage is
more fun.
So even when anything goes wrong, yeah, but
experience a lot of things, financial sector, everything,
but then that is what it is
and
the experience of it is different.
So I gotta, I think I need to
stop now so I don't like take up
the whole time,
Inshallah.
Just
a really
a really a really, really moving account mashallah,
very soothing.
And,
you know, you mentioned something right at the
end where you said
it's not the circumstances,
because
and everyone, I think, on this panel can
attest to the fact that
any couple that's been together for over 2
years, 3 years, into 5, 7, 9, you
know, 10,
12, etcetera,
have been through some trials.
And the thing is, this is this life.
Isn't it? This life this this dunya is
a place of test and examination.
So whether the test is,
you know,
in laws or or or or, you know,
elderly relatives or, you know, your mother getting
sick or, you know, like we had today,
infertility,
you know, or having many children at once
and struggling their financial situations, health worries,
you know, things to do with other people
around us, you know, moving countries, living apart,
all of these different things that many of
us have dealt with.
What I I think the message that I
would like to make sure that we convey
to everybody who's listening,
especially the unmarried ones,
is that
life will throw you curve balls regardless.
Okay.
It's not just, oh, you're married therefore life
is tough. You know, because we're all here.
We're talking about marriage and we're talking about
ups and downs. The reality is that life
is like that. It's simply a different a
different form of those challenges and those tests
and those trials. And we
know, we know for a surety that those
tests and trials are not here to break
us rather they are here to elevate us
and make us better versions of ourselves. And
Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala puts barakah in those
tests.
So I love the fact that you mentioned
you know we've been through this we've been
through that we've been through this and everyone
on this panel I know that you can
say the exact same thing I could say
the same thing as well. Anyone else probably
who's married can say the same thing.
The difference is
our
experience of that, maybe in the moment because
of where we were emotionally, but also
our memory of that.
Because things happen.
We process those things and we understand them
in a particular way and therefore we feel
a particular way about them and that's in
the moment. But then 1, 2, 3 years
later,
when you think back on it, subhanAllah.
It's it's a different ballgame. Right? I mean
guys, what do you think? I mean, I
think that when you look back on some
of those tests and those trials that you
may have gone through, you know, whether it
was, like I said, all the different things
that people go through when they're doing life
as a family.
Maybe in that moment, in that time, it
was so tough. It was so challenging. It
was, you know, maybe the worst experience of
your life. And then
a year, 2, 3 years later,
you look back and you say, you know
what? That, that made us, you know, or
that, that made us closer
or I really gained respect for you in
that moment, you know, or I realized I
could trust you in that moment when we
were in that trial.
What do you guys think about that? Would
you say that that's that that's true? Because
that's certainly been my experience of of marriage,
you know, for the long term.
Yeah. Definitely.
We do
like you said, there are so many trials
in life,
and we often sometimes we blame people,
and we say, why is this happening to
me? We lose our dean, or we start
blaming our partner. We blame our in laws,
everybody else.
But,
like, some of the things, like, I've we
me and my husband went free fertility
the first 5 years of our marriage, and
now I have the love for 4 children.
I've just had a long surprise long, long
baby.
You know, I'm on the fucking thing
of those times, and it was difficult.
It was really difficult going through that and
tests and hospitals and, you know, it must
be very difficult for my husband as well.
Like, we often forget about the other person's
feelings of how they are, especially
when there's a lot of things when we
are kind of wrapped up in our own
difficulties.
We kind of we forget. And, again, what
the other system mentioned about reaching out and
getting help, it's not just about getting help
from outside your marriage. It's about getting help
from your partner
as well.
And, you know, asking them,
you know, I need help.
You know? If they because sometimes
we we especially as women, we can walk
around in a mood all day, and our
husband's some the search sometimes is such so
so simple.
I think I saw a Mimi the other
day. It was a woman. She wrote this
big long text about, oh, my husband was
really quiet in the car, and I think
he's gonna finish me. And it was what
he was thinking was is there was something
wrong with his motorbike. It was like you
know? So we kinda misunderstanding
the marriage as well.
Yeah. 100%,
subhanAllah.
Okay. So I had another question for everybody
which, you know, inshallah, I'd love for you
to answer as candidly as possible.
Even if it's a bit cringe,
but I would like to know from every
one of you, what is one like really
big mistake you made early on? Like what
were you doing early on
that may have been sabotaging
and your marriage and that may have actually
sabotaged your marriage if you hadn't
stopped doing it or changed what you were
doing? What are your thought?
You'll need to unmute,
Somebody has to speak.
I'll speak again.
I think he was trying to be too
independent
Yeah.
Which I know a lot of this is
probably gonna go totally against the grain of
every single kind of narrative that is out
there at the moment. You know, we have
to be look at the, you know, the
example of the leader,
She was a businesswoman. She was strong. She
was divorcee and all that sort of thing.
But,
yes, that's amazing.
She was an amazing woman, but
I was trying to be too independent. And,
obviously, that was coming from a personal experience
because
I wasn't even on my own for a
long time.
I was my independent person. I had a
job. I had this and had that, And
I was trying to kinda hang on to
that. Again, it goes back to the being
trying to I was trying to be in
a partnership.
And I I wasn't sorry. I wasn't trying
to be in a partnership. I was still
you know, that was me and I want
my own life kind of thing. But you
have to kind of adjust.
And, again, I'll go back to what I
said earlier, the compromise thing. And it's not
making compromises in a negative way.
It's, it's more than a mutual understanding as
well. It's sometimes giving up a couple of
things that you like
for the sake of your marriage or a
couple of things that
you think, okay. Fine. This is you know,
it can be anything. It can be like
going out with your friends too much. It
can
be working long hours in a certain job.
It can be
so many different things, not being able to
cook or your husband not being able to
cook, and you want him to cook more
or he wants you to cook more. There
are so many different little things.
You know? If you don't cook, learn how
to cook.
If you
there's a job that you want, but you're
gonna be working long hours
and you're not gonna be at home, that's
gonna affect your marriage.
Yeah. These little things, it will affect your
marriage. If you're gonna be out long hours,
it will affect your marriage. No matter what
anyone else says,
At these days, you know, obviously, we in
the western world, 2 people do have to
work a lot of the time. Alhamdulillah.
I've been blessed that
I I've been I have been a, you
know, a housewife and a homemaker.
But, you know, there are things that sometimes
you do have to give up. And at
the time, it can feel really difficult, and
you can sometimes have other people whispering away
and say, oh, what are you doing that
for? You're this. You you deserve more and
all this kind of thing. But it's not
necessarily a negative thing because in a a
year or so time, you think, why was
I being so trivial or trivial of that
small thing about me wanting to work long
hours and work away or do a job
that I thought was gonna fulfill me, but
it wasn't fulfilling my marriage.
It's kind of having the full trying to
have a bit of foresight for that as
well.
And, again, I am quite a traditional person.
I am a traditional person in the sense
where I do I am at home. I
do kind of the cooking, and I look
after the children. My husband does, alhamdulillah. He
does, but he works full time. And I
don't expect him to come home and do
the housework and the cooking and the cleaning
and look after the kids. We all do
that when my husband comes home and throw
the bag at him and run off to
the toilet and things like that. But, you
know, I am a traditional person in that
sense, and I think
that's probably gonna be very, very surprising to
a lot of people because a lot of
people see me. They see me. I'm visible
online. I'm outspoken.
You know, I do what I wanna do.
I do a lot of things online, but
that's because I've got the support of my
husband as well. But, you know, I am
traditional in the sense of the way that
our marriage is set up. And where where
maybe that has been a success factor for
me. I think I saw in the chat
that somebody said,
they've they they shared an online link in
regards
to people being able to live separate lives
when they're married. Now that's absolutely fine, but
both partners
need to be on the same wavelength.
And I guarantee you from experience, I've also
worked in sister support in revert
support in the revert support project for three
and a half years with, a must did
in Reading.
And I guarantee you, there's always gonna be
one party that wants more,
that wants more of an emotional connection, that
doesn't wanna go on the holiday on their
own. They want their partner, and their partner
might be wanting to go out
with their friends and all that sort of
thing, but, you know, maybe that guy has
to give that up for his wife. You
know, it it takes too. So,
yeah, that's just my little take on it.
Anybody want to jump in with that mistake
that they made or a response to what
Sara, because you said a lot girl. She's
gone on. She's like, okay, I'm out. But
she said a lot. Guys, tell me in
the chat. What are you saying? Are you
like, yes. Oh, she by the way, she's
team Naima. You saw that. Right? Right? You
saw that. You guys don't know what team
Naima, team Mariam is. It's about cooking and
who should be doing the cooking. But anyway,
never mind. We're not gonna bring the drama.
What do you think, Zainab? You look like
you wanna jump in. Yeah. I wanna jump
in because there's something I did early on
in my marriage that now I just wanna
like, oh my God.
Okay. I,
yeah, I always like bringing this in.
It's the fact that
I
actually
run away from intimacy,
like I would literally like almost if I
had a walk in wardrobe I would lock
myself up and and I'm, I'm sure, I
know this was from my history of having,
sexual related trauma and all that,
but then since
that that I know now is a big
disservice.
If you're doing that, girl, stop.
Be because it had the the bedroom actually
is your superpower,
seriously, and not just for your husband, for
yourself.
That is
that's that's just it.
Do not run away from the bedroom affairs,
as in I
did, like, I would run
and we talk about it now and all
that but it's it's it's it's different now.
I mean, I mean, that one
well, yes. Then those then it's also about
the
having expectations.
I mean, this is a very big one.
Having expectations
having expectations
is
wow.
It's like you create this. This has to
happen in this exact manner at this exact
time,
etcetera and then what happens?
It doesn't? I get disappointed.
So this is something I did over and
over and over and over again and this
wasn't just expectations
for my husband.
Also expectations
for me. I should be doing things this
way. I should be doing things that way.
If I don't,
then
it's this and this and this, and I'm
building stories and creating unnecessary psychological suffering for
myself and all that,
so that itself,
you know, and also expecting, you know, the
in laws to do this, or they shouldn't
be doing this and all that. The world,
what we create with expectations,
subhanAllah, if we're able to let it go,
we'd have more peace because
I can't guarantee I will do something that
I see I want to do.
I can only say I'm gonna make effort,
but I can't guarantee that I'll be doing
as a result. Sometimes I say I'm gonna
do something, and I'm not able to do
it because something happens. So how can I
expect somebody else to be able to do
something in a certain way all the time?
I mean
so I I did that for
for a very, very long time.
Yeah. So I think that's those are 2
things. And the third one, yes, I always
like saying this, compassion.
I was not compassionate with myself
at all.
If we know how powerful compassion is,
how powerful it is
for ourselves. And I've experienced this in my
life.
It's a game changer, really.
It is a game changer. So I'll leave
it at that.
I love that. Masha'Allah. And,
yeah, Like you said, ladies, if you're running
away from the bedroom affairs,
stop doing that. We will talk about that
another time. That is the topic of another
conference inshallah in March.
So, yeah. Mark your calendars inshallah.
Ruby, what mistakes did you make early on?
What's one mistake that you made early on
that could have sabotaged everything?
I have got loads.
You have to pick just one and see
how pivotal it was.
Okay.
Just one. Okay. The biggest mistake
the biggest biggest mistake
was
blaming
him for the way I felt.
Blaming him for the way I felt.
And that
just killed my marriage.
That really sabotaged it
because I was in rage,
I was screaming, I was shouting,
I was angry.
You're wanting him to stop his behavior, whatever
he what I wanted him to do.
And it could be trivial things like cleaning
the car or something or whatever,
and it just used to drive me crazy.
It really drive me crazy. And so I,
the mistake
that over and over and over and over
again
was
blaming him for the way I felt.
And like I've said earlier,
only when I
understood the way I think,
it disappeared
in a moment. Mhmm. Moment.
Not
months of therapy and counseling and all that
kind of thing. No.
It it was
straight away. It's almost like a spell is
broken, isn't it? When you have that kind
of
moment, When you realize, for example, in your
case,
when you realize it's not him, it's me.
Or it's not that, it's this. Or it's
not gonna come from there, it's coming from
here. It's like
It's like reverse.
Yep. Because,
the
when I understood
where my feelings came from,
Oh my god. That just changed everything because
Yes. Because
now I understood, wow. I've been blaming him
the way I'm feeling all the time. I've
been blaming him.
And
even when he is angry or he is
in the mood or whatever, I know
that
his feeling has got nothing to do with
me either, so is boss.
It's like before, it's like
mistake was
throwing bullets at each other. Bullet, bullet, bullet,
bullet, bullet.
Now, no. There's no bullets.
I went through a year where I was
having argues and battles, like, nearly every day,
weekly.
Can you imagine
one argument in a whole year?
Wow. A whole year.
Who doesn't want that?
Yeah. Who doesn't want an argument?
Honestly.
And this
was so huge,
and this was so beautiful
that
the mistake was obviously, like you say, 1,
but there's so many, is that marriage just
doesn't require hard work.
It is effortless,
Effortless.
And effortless
only comes from the divine.
It comes from within.
There's nothing to do.
And you think, wow.
Wow.
I wanna shout this to the world.
I wanna shout this to every single wife.
You know?
And
this is why I'm here.
This is why I'm on this journey.
I'm sharing my mistakes,
you know, which is so important,
you know, to prevent other wives from making
the same mistake.
100%. And this is the whole point of
this, you know, and masha'Allah
says to Ruby as you said and, you
know, as you can see in the chat,
I think, you know, very few of us
have
had honest conversations
with older
wives. Right? Often with our friends and our
peers. Yeah. Okay. We might talk honestly and
maybe we talk honestly, but to hear from
someone who's been in the game longer,
you know, who's been married longer, many of
our mothers maybe didn't speak to us honestly
candidly and you know break things down for
us. Aunties
maybe they're not the best either because sometimes
the advice aunties be given
you know, it's a bit
it's a little bit maybe not, maybe yeah.
Anyway, I will say less about that. Oh,
Maisa, what say you, my dear? This mistakes
that you made one mistake that you made
early on that could have wrecked the whole
show.
I think I'm still kind of,
in that process, you know, still learning and
still adjusting. I think
marriage is just like parenting goes through different
phases, you know. When you're
single and you're together, and then you just
get married and you're in that honeymoon period,
then when they there's children. There's always different
challenges that bring out a different
different challenges. Different phases bring out different challenges,
different tests, and then how you would, you
know, respond to that is really important. I
think it's something sometimes ongoing as well. It's
it's it's a learning, and we develop. And
then as we mature,
as we go through different stages within ourselves,
and then
now, you know, in our forties plus, hormonally
as well,
there's always different challenges. And I think for
me, that's why I said I'm still in
the game. You know? I'm still learning. I'm
not quite like,
sister Ruby where I couldn't say I've only
had one argument
in a year, Allahumabarik.
I would say though,
I wish,
there's so many things actually that are coming
to my head.
One is that I wish that I was
more domesticated,
and a bit more grounded because
I'm the 4th daughter with older siblings. There's
6 of us, so I'm number 5, and
I got away with a lot.
And so for me, I was involved in
Dawah, going to talks, going to events, going
to different kind of projects, and
mom just supported me in that. And I
never really got involved in a lot of
housework.
The sisters kind of did that.
And so when I got married,
yeah, I think it would have been better
if I'd had been a bit more domesticated,
a little bit more organized.
But,
you know, my husband cooks and he's always
supported me,
and he's good like that. My in laws,
they're mega organized, and I've learned lots and
lots from
them.
But I definitely think that what if I
could say,
another 2 things. 1 was that 1 was
that I wish that I'd learnt to respect
my husband in according to his
the reject over me, his kind of station
that he has over me. I I think
I went into marriage,
like, he's like my buddy. He's my friend,
which, I'm delighted, like, you know, you go
to
talks together, you go to parks together, you
go to holidays together, you do activities together,
you enjoy each other's company as a partner.
But I think I saw him as my
neutral equal.
And
when he would say something, I think I'd
and I still probably do
is challenge it
rather than accept certain things.
And I'd always want an answer, a a
justification, but why? You know, why can't we
go here? But why can't we do this?
But I don't understand. And I think sometimes
that creates unnecessary conflict as well, and I
think, you know, you have to choose your
battles. You know?
And I think that that it's not to
say I'll just be completely you know, don't
have a voice, be voiceless. I'm not saying
that, but I'm saying don't nitpick either, you
know,
like, you have an opinion, you have thing,
but I think I kind of was
yeah. Just want you get an explanation for
everything,
and not kind of respecting him for his
decisions that he's making. And obviously you are
argumentative,
Omayesa?
You're argumentative.
You know, it's a weakness, you know. He
but
that's another thing is that remember I was
saying to you, we were saying this on
the chat as well, is that
rather than listening to understand
in marriage, we sometimes
just listen to respond.
Because if something has been said to us,
we then sometimes feel like it's an attack
on us. And it's like
and we have to keep justifying our actions
or our decisions.
Sometimes it's good to just
refrain from the response.
Take in what the other person is trying
to say to you,
and acknowledge them, value them, respect them. And
I think that these are some of the
key things that I'm still trying to learn.
SubhanAllah.
You know you know, thank you so much
for being honest. You know that you've touched
on a topic that
I I think I'd like us to address.
It's it's this is for me what I've
noticed is like the new taboos.
Right? Even in the Muslim community.
Whereas at one point in time,
all the talks
were 2 sisters
about
what? Obey your husband. Right? At one point
in time, like, that was what you knew
and I'm sure people have grown up in
times where it was, you know, ingrained drummed
into you. You know, that's your husband. You
respect him. You obey him at one point
in time. And I think the Now you're
not, isn't it? Yeah. Right. It's not obedience
to him. It's obedience to Allah.
All of the things. Right? All of the
things. Now,
and I think what's interesting actually,
yesterday in one of the talks,
sister said sister Haile said,
what would you say if your husband said
to you, go and make me some dinner?
You would and she was saying it in
the sense of you should have a halak
with your husband when you want him to
do something. Right? You should be sweet and
pleasant and ask him nicely. So in order
to illustrate that point, she said, well, how
would you feel if your husband just said
to you, get me a a cup of
tea. Yeah. Or make me a drink. Right?
And the sisters in the chat were like,
I tell him to go make it himself.
Oh. He's not talking to me like that.
You know, like who do you think you're
talking to? Which I found very interesting.
And of course it was a moment of
levity
and I don't mean to be a party
pooper.
But I I really, again,
wanting to keep things balanced,
We don't talk about respecting the husband
anymore,
because we don't really talk about respecting men
anymore in society. Okay? Just let me know
in the chat if if I'm off base
on this.
But it's coming down to that what I
what I said when you said what are
the prices. One of the ones that I
said is solidifying your intention.
When you do something for Allah, regardless of
how he is, you know, regardless of what
response you want,
you do it for Allah,
Allah will open up ways for you.
But if you're gonna be, like, oh, conditioning
it, oh, I don't like the way he
spoke to me. I don't like the way
he asked me.
If we keep taking our actions back first
to Allah, obviously, no one wants to be
spoken down to. No one wants to be
disrespected.
But this is also the game changer.
That are you the one who's gonna take
the first step to do a khair for
one another, do a khidban for one another,
exercising that kindness towards who? Someone who's fulfilling
half your deen.
And then the other half, prophet said, is
patience. So be patient with maybe the way
he spoke to you, but it's that
repels
bad with good. This is what Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala has told us.
You know, the sister said in the chat
actually, she said that, you know, these that
type of thing. And again, just let's not
get it twist.
I'm not saying that that is the correct
way to speak to a spouse. And in
fact, that was the point of the example,
was that you wouldn't look for someone to
speak to you that way. However,
I found the response of the sisters interesting
because
in our society in general,
respecting and again, this is West. Okay? Because
I know we have a lot of sisters
here from Nigeria, from the continent
where it is probably not the case that
this doesn't apply
in that society. But certainly in the west,
the idea of respecting men
is just not a thing. In fact, men
are there to be disrespected and to be
talked down upon and made fun of, etcetera.
And obedience to the husband.
Sorry.
It's not sexy.
Right? It's not cool. Like, nobody wants to
talk about that. Right? Right, Zainab. What's up?
But but
and while it's not the most pleasant thing
to talk about, it's not the most kind
of, you know, uplifting or whatever empowering thing
to talk about.
If we are going to speak about this
this role as an act of Ibadah,
we know that Ibadah, act of Ibadah are
the 2 conditions for them to be accepted.
Right? The first is that they're done sincerely
for the sake of Allah and the second
that they're done in the way that it
should be done according to the Quran and
Sunnah.
So
it's not befitting for us as believers
to pretend
as if we don't have to obey our
husbands.
It just doesn't for me, it just doesn't
make sense. Right? Zaina, what do you think
about that?
Absolutely.
You know, till today,
and not because I have to,
I will still ask for permission. There's this
various hangouts happening on 3rd. Right? Like, have
whole day with my friends and stuff like
that. I still would ask him.
Can I have do I have permission to
go?
Not because
I think he would say no or yes
or whatever, but to
put him on that place of that pedestal
that
I submit to you. So it's and this
is a shared understanding
among the parties. It's not about
it's not a battle. It's not
it's not a battle.
I remember one of the very first things
I did on this time, earlier on it's
it's not I'm shocked I did it.
Here, we also are
westernized
as it were. Yes. I'm in Nigeria, but
still, I mean, we call I called him
my name, but culturally here, you don't you
you shouldn't call your husband by his first
name. Right? I did, But at some point,
just occurred to me that, okay.
I do not call people with respect titles.
That's another story on its own. It has
to do with the whatever happened in the
past. So I struggle, but I just decided
to call him with that respect title. I
stopped calling him by his first name. The
day he did it, he looked at me,
and I saw something shift.
That's what happens
men are that's how they've been created,
they need to see the respect, respect, the
obedience, the submission, but submission doesn't mean
being trampled on. No.
It's it's just you can't have 2 captains
in a
boat. That's it.
Speak.
Speak, sis. I want you to speak with
your lovely honey voice. Tell the sisters.
She took care of this.
Much love. Back. And, you know, that is
how to show up powerfully as a wife.
Stepping back, let them steer.
But you do your thing at the background.
You do your
thing.
It's that's reality.
So I still ask him, oh, I wanna
go to, like, I, I traveled, like I
came to see my mom
and he has to house sit, like, for
a couple of days. I still asked permission
to come.
It was it's
I didn't even it's like I just
asked permission,
not because
just for that reason.
Submission.
Let them feel that
you submit,
and it's a beautiful thing.
It is actually.
Sister says here submission is
sister says here submission is a bit of
a game to okay. Also, check this out.
Submission is a bit of a game to
massage his ego.
So this is saying that it's it's it's
a bit of a game to massage his
ego and keep the peace.
I Really.
I think I think that it's that okay.
Okay. Let's take a few steps back.
Yeah. Can we agree
that
and again and that you know what? If
I may add here,
I you for me,
submission was a trigger word. Right?
Nobody could say,
oh, wife, submit to her husband. Certainly, my
husband never used that language with me because
he knew I couldn't take it. Right? I
came from a feminist background,
you know, and, you know, in that paradigm,
you can't use words like that. They have
so many connotations. Masha'Allah. Even the sisters are
mentioning, you know, of being trampled on, of
being oppressed,
of having no voice, you know, and all
of that that baggage that comes with the
word.
Right? So I had that baggage. And I
think a lot of sisters do have that
baggage because when we check the chat, when
we see the comments on this video over
the next few days, for sure, there's gonna
be people who feel uncomfortable with this conversation.
But it's okay inshallah. It's okay.
What I've come to understand and what I
didn't realize, I thought
that the brothers who talk about, you know,
men leading and, you know, wives submitting to
their husbands, I thought they were all male
chauvinists.
Straight up. I thought they were male chauvinists.
I thought they had issues. I thought they
were traditionalists. Like this is not Islam. It's
just culture and all of this stuff.
Come to find
out that
men,
and not just Muslim men, but men who
are masculine
and who are leaders,
love
a submissive woman.
They crave that because when a woman submits,
it shows to them that she trusts them
to lead.
She can be in her feminine.
He can be in his masculine. Right? Now
again,
we're gonna have exceptions to everything. And of
course, we know that in today's day and
age, so many of the roles are kind
of reversed and switch, you know, swapped around
and sisters are working. Women are providing and
becoming breadwinners and men are the I know
there's all of that,
but I think fundamentally
there is still that need in the man
for kawam and to to feel like his
wife
respects him and trusts him enough to to
let go and let him
steal the ship like you said, sis.
And you know, sometimes it's hard. I know
sisters who for example, the husband isn't great
with money.
Right? He's, he's just not great with money.
He's not wealthy.
You know, when he gets money, he uses
it in foolish ways. He doesn't keep track
of it. And so she was trying to
micromanage the situation for years.
And and it was a source of contention
in their marriage because
she was trying to control an area that
she felt he should be, you know, taking
care of. And so she felt resentment, frustration,
and everything. And then I said to her,
do you think that he will let you
guys starve?
She said, no. No. I don't think he
would. So I said, so why don't you
let him
take control of, like, let him have the
banking app. You erase it from your phone.
Give him
just give him permission to lead on this.
She couldn't do it. She couldn't do it.
She couldn't do it because she was scared
because she did not trust that he would
be able to look after him and be
who she needed him to be.
In the end, Alhamdulillah,
she decided, you know what? This headache is
too much and it's, it's changing things between
us.
I I don't want this responsibility anymore. I'm
a let you take care of it.
She let him have the app.
He sorted it out.
He sorted it out and now that's just
not it. Now that is not an issue
between them anymore. But anyway, let's
let's let's go back to the submission of
the lens thing.
Go on, Lisa.
I said, is that is that a control
thing? You know, women like to be in
control.
Yeah.
Yes.
We do. And I think that's what this
is what I hear the brothers saying
again and again
that this is where the power struggles come
in because the sister wants to be in
control. She wants to control. She wants to
to dictate how things are done when things
are done and have it her way as
well and and just be in control of
this whole thing and it's it's what her
sister Haile was saying yesterday is that if
you are she what did she say yesterday?
She said,
don't challenge your husband to an arm wrestle.
If you challenge your husband to an arm
wrestle, he's gonna drop you and that will
be that. Like that's not the way to
deal with your husband to try and go
head to head with him and try and
beat him down because the likelihood is that
you're going to lose. And if you win
results are even worse because, Zaynab, go on.
Speak to it, girl.
Yeah. She was on mute.
Yeah.
No. You you that's good. I just said
I'm agreeing with you as in there's no
point.
That thing about the control,
I I get it. I was that woman
who wanted to control. And that financial thing,
my husband is a risk taker. He's in
business for himself. He takes risk. He could
take it every single dime we have and
go put it on one investment,
and we probably don't even have food in
the house.
But the same thing,
I wanted to control
because I had my own money story issues.
Right?
So I'd put in my own money into
the house. He didn't ask me.
So that's another thing we do. We take
on responsibility
their responsibility
even when they don't ask. That was
one of the biggest mistakes I made for
many years.
But when I let it go,
he took on his thing.
He didn't ask for help in the 1st
place,
but I I I gave the help, and
that's a mistake that I made. But,
I mean, that's just agreeing with you.
We don't need the control.
When we let it go, we can enjoy
the marriage more.
Seriously.
It's as the sister said, you know, is,
this, sorry. Ruby, would you like to chime
in? Yes.
Yeah. I just wanna say something about this
control.
And I myself have worked with women over
the last 20 years
in domestic abuse.
And power and control is one of the
biggest things that,
is the underlying reason for,
drastic
abuse.
Now but what happens is that
the control thing,
is something that sometimes we think we are
not
trying to control. Oh, I'm just trying to
I'm this very loving, kind wife, and and,
you know, I I'm not controlling my husband.
But guess what?
I thought
I was that wife
who was not
trying to control her husband
and
but it came as a shock
because you don't see it until you consciously
understand
how
we think.
Then,
oh my God I saw
that my ego
wanting to be right
and wanting to have control
was in
real operation.
Real operation.
And this was
a shock to be honest because I thought,
well I'm not that kind of person.
But guess what?
I'm underneath.
That's exactly what I was.
And that kind of went
because
it's
control that I didn't see.
It's such a
clever clever one because you you think you're
not, but really
deep down,
you are trying to control.
But only on your when you understand yourself,
like I've just been going on about this
understanding self is powerful.
It's absolutely powerful
because
now
I'm not wanting
to always be right
even though I will speak the truth in
what I think is right or my opinion
and it matters
in in what I want to say.
But it's not trying to have a a
battle of who's right and who's wrong anymore,
as she used to be.
I love that.
And, you know,
obviously, sisters, you know, we know that there
are men who don't take care of their
responsibilities.
We know, unfortunately, that this is a fact.
So again, as I've been saying,
you know, if this applies to you, you
will know. You'll hear yourself, you know. You'll
you'll be able to hear and identify, oh,
yeah. That's me and that's my
husband. If it's not, you know, and if
you're in a situation where, you know, the
the husband is not taking the responsibility and
you are doing everything,
then obviously it's a different dynamic. And so
what we're saying about submitting maybe
may not apply to you, subhanAllah.
So, you know, sisters who, you know, are
don't have the you know, have to take
control
due to being single parent or being in
an abusive relationship or not getting the help
while the children are, you know, with you,
it doesn't we're not talking about that. We're
talking about, I guess, just, you know, average,
you know, male dynamics,
subhanAllah.
Wow. We've said a lot. And we said,
did you want to jump in before we
go on to some of the questions?
You know what? Sometimes I forget that I'm
actually on the panel because I'm just sitting
here taking in the gems and just I
feel like I've because I've been watching
it since yesterday. I just feel like I'm
just watching the
yeah. So I'm just I'm just taking Soaking
in. Just soaking it in.
Sarah, you had your hand up.
Yeah.
Just before I say anything, I did like
I just wanted to reiterate what you said.
When we're talking about
submission, and obviously, I spoke a lot a
bit about this when I first introduced myself
and spoke about
letting our husbands take control
and, you know, being a bit
and obeying our husbands.
There are exception. Don't get me wrong. And,
actually, unfortunately, a lot of the time when
we're online
or we hear we hear the we hear
a lot of the bad stories.
So when we talk when we say you
have to obey your husband, there are gonna
be a lot of women that watch these
videos or hear the war speaking about, like,
no way. My husband does this, and I'm,
you know, traveling. What if this? What if
that? What if this? What if that?
We're talking about earth skies in a marriage,
speaking about
what what we do in in our relationship
to what works, like you said, for the
average marriage or something when there's a bit
of an unbalance. And when we speak about
control or being
submitted, we have to think about
what are we losing
by letting our husband take control?
What are we losing
by making our husband a drink?
My husband all those those times will be
sat with your tail and go, oh, should
we have a cup of tea? And I
go, oh, yeah. Kind of. I wouldn't even
say, oh, I'll go make one.
What am I losing by getting up or
making my husband some food or making him
a drink? But I'm gaining so much. And
in regards to one of us wanting to
control things and, you know, nagging and wanting
everything our way, that comes back to us,
not to
the actual, you know, the actual thing of
obeying your husband or being a specific wife
because that's our mindset. So you need to
think about if you're thinking if you feel
a bit triggered or you feel a bit
Yep. Taken back by the way that we're
speaking and we're using words like submissive because
it has again, like I said, compromise. Compromise
has got a very negative connotation. It probably
has got that meaning, but when I say
compromise, it is a submissive
related to that.
And we like I said, we just need
to think about
where we are in our marriage. What is
our role in our marriage? What is our
husband's role? If he if your husband is
fulfilling his role in the marriage and he's
providing for you and things like that, and
I know I get it in our west
in this world, Westernwood, a lot of people
have to work 2 jobs.
But we have to go back to the
point is we shouldn't be getting married if
we can't afford to. And that's probably gonna
be a lot of people that can say,
what? But,
you know, why are you being talking to
your marriage if our rights not gonna be
fulfilled.
And, yeah, I got married young. I didn't
even think about anything like that, finances and
all that sort of stuff. My husband just
said, I'll look after you. Don't worry. You
know, all this kind of thing when when,
you know, we we were looking about thinking
about getting married and all that sort of
thing. So it's just, again, thinking about
us.
What is your role? Who are you? What
is your role as a wife? What is
your role as a mother? Because they these
are all connected.
What is it that he wants as well
as what you want?
And are you gonna be losing something so
bad? You won't and, again, when I say,
you know, compromise, I'm not talking about losing
your identity because that's a completely different subject
and something
that I did.
You can keep your identity and be a
submissive wife. You can keep your independence
and be a submissive wife, and let let
go some of the control as well.
I wanna just thank you so much for
that, Sarah. And I just wanna just
just jump in here to say as well
that
for many of us, I think, you know,
I can say certainly for myself,
you know, the type of programming that we
have, many of us are unaware of it.
So if your husband does ask you to
get him a drink, for example,
it's a request.
Now
some people.
Yeah, sure.
Go and do it. Love it. Yeah. You
know what? I'm thinking a tea would be
nice as well. I'll go get it. I'll
go get it for someone else. Again, it's
that perception.
It's that understanding. What is being triggered?
What do you think I am? A glorified
maid? What do you think I am? Just
here to serve you? And, and the thing
is sisters, let's keep it a buck because,
when I, when we having even comments in
here and in the youtube and just in
general on social media, this whole thing of
a glorified
maid,
we need to stop with that. Okay. We
need to stop with that because
these are messages that we've taken from the
society
that certain
acts of service
are below us, are beneath us, that we
are better than that.
Whatever, for whatever reason, because
you know, we're educated or because we, we
have careers or this or that. We are
too good to serve. We're too good to
serve in laws. We're too good to serve
our husband. We're too good to stay home
and raise children because society has told us
that those tasks
are menial
and are not worthy
and other tasks,
masculine tasks, money making tasks
are of a higher value and are of
more value and that's really what is worthy
of respect. And I think that that's firstly
from our Dean
Lee not the case because we know as
you guys are each of you have said
in your own way,
everything that we do in these relationships
is an act of
the. We make intention,
we get reward for it. Whether it's
paying a bill,
making cup of tea,
weaning a child, you know, supporting the start
of business, whatever it is, this is all
a bada. And if it's done, like Omasa
was saying for the sake of Allah, what
will you lose?
What will you lose? Can I just say
here as well, I'm just listening to you
guys talk about submission? Right? And
trigger word, submission. But I think it comes
down to our battle with our own nuffs
as well,
you know, and and it comes down to
what the things that we enjoy. So you
might have that serving the the tea issue,
but I think it's also obedience
comes into for me,
my battle has been where it's things that
I want to do,
things that I enjoy doing,
and
certain things that he doesn't think it's appropriate.
For instance,
maybe staying out too late if a sister
has a,
you know, a get together and it goes
out like crazy hours. You know? Some sisters,
husbands may think it's okay because they're as
long as you're driving safe, you're with sisters,
you know, your environment is generally okay. I'm
just giving an example. Things that you may
have done as the norm, pre marriage,
and then you get married and and and
they were good things. They were fun. They
were sisterhood.
They were your me time. But then now
he's objecting it.
It's gonna be like
sometimes it could be why are you taking
away something that I enjoy,
1.
2,
he'll say, look. Do your thing. Do it
during the day. I'm just giving you an
example. You know?
But I don't want you out at late.
I have friends as well whose whose husband
say, I don't want you out after makhrib,
you know. So
but they were used to going out after
makhrib before, for instance.
It's this thing where it's the bitter pill
to swallow sometimes as well. And then we
but but but so and so is going,
but so and so's husband's allowing it. And
I think also here, when it comes down
to submission, one thing I want to bring
in is it's very important that we have
a support network.
And it's not just a support network. When
times are tough,
a good friend to talk to or someone
to go to who would
give you good advice. Not what you wanna
hear, what you should hear. There's a difference.
Right?
But you should also have friends who won't
mock you due to your submission,
you know, not make your situation worse. If
you turn around and say to your friend,
you know, my husband said I can't come.
You know, I went to a gathering last
week. He doesn't want me going out again
this weekend.
He's saying no. You know? He just said
no. You know, I you can't go. I'm
just saying.
I'm not saying that he's saying you can't
go at all. He's saying, well, you've had,
like, 3 gatherings this week already and now
another one on the weekend. You know?
Just example. Right?
And then the sisters are like, yeah, but
tell your husband,
like, you know,
they were other sisters.
You know, what about us? You know, give
us our time. You know, give us,
you know, if you went with other sisters
or you did whatever, why are you gonna
miss out? Gathering's not gonna be the same
without you, you know.
Oh, you're missing out. And all of this
stuff they egg you on in in a
way where you feel like you're missing out.
But you're trying to please your husband at
the same time that your friends and girlfriends
and your homies are custom pussy you out.
It's not healthy.
It's not good. And then you feel, like,
resentment towards him saying and then afterwards, they'll
send you pictures of the food. They'll tell
you pictures of what they did.
And then they're like, you missed out, girlfriend.
You missed out. You just stayed at home.
What did you do? You know? And it's
Don't tell them what you did when you
stayed home. You just don't tell them. Let
them stay with their pictures.
No. That's good. But, you know yeah. It
it creates an unhealthy environment. I think sisters
sometimes do this to one another as well.
I'm just saying sisters should be careful as
well. If a sister says my husband said
no,
don't encourage the sister to challenge her husband
because I see that culture quite a lot
as well. Like, you know, sometimes it could
be go and work your magic, you know,
see.
But sometimes the sister has to judge her
situation herself.
She says she can't come out.
Leave it, mom. You don't know what's going
on in these 4 walls.
So It's like, you know, Amisa, as you
said no. No. No. It's I I get
it. And I think even for for for
me, like, I you know, I'm sure I've
been there. I'm sure we've all been there.
Right? We're like, oh, why is he giving
her a hard time? Oh, he's so difficult.
Right? You know, because there's good Muslim husbands
and there's bad Muslim husbands. Right? The good
ones are the nice easy ones that let
you do whatever you like. The bad ones
are the ones who've actually got something to
say about things, you know. This is a
joke. And then I had a with it's
on in one of the interviews for the
marriage conversation. But anyway, I think even us
as sisters as you said,
respecting
your husband.
So for example, when we were putting the
posters for this together, I asked you for
a picture and I said, do you want
to have a picture on the poster? And,
you know, do you want to have it
with niqab or not? Because in because I
know you and I'm thinking to myself,
I, you know, I don't know whether
family is cool with that or not. And
if the family hadn't been cool, I'm saying
the family like the brothers do. But if
your husband hadn't been cool, if he had
been like, you know, I don't really want
you out there like that. I'd be like,
okay. Cool. No problem. That's, you know, we
don't we can work without that.
And I think that,
like I said, it could be certainly a
western thing. It could be that in other
parts of the world that's a given. But
certainly in our communities is the way they're
shifting.
It's kinda like, nah, nah, nah, they'll be
fine or whatever. But, subhanallah, it's the there's
a lot a lot to say on this
topic.
Parting advice.
Well, no. No. Actually, no. Not parting advice.
We've got good questions here.
Wait a minute. These are some very, very
good questions, and we need to answer some
of them.
This is very interesting, and I wanna hear
everybody's views on this. Sister says,
we have, I to have a relationship
where we have stuff to share even when
it's trivial is lovely.
However, my prospective spouse keeps saying he has
nothing to say and he makes me feel
kind of lonely. Should this be a red
flag?
Yes. If yes.
Why? No. If no, why not?
So it seems like they don't have much
to in common or much to talk about
and she's she wants a relationship where they've
got stuff to talk about, I guess.
Red flag? Yes? No?
Personally, from my own
perspective,
Personally, from my own perspective,
you need to have that spark
in in that relationship and be on the
same kind of intellectual level to
It might be that he's just a bit
shy.
It might be that. He might be just
nervous. He might be shy. You gotta remember,
before you get married, obviously, I'm a read,
but
you,
especially, you know, in culture
or being told not to speak to men.
And then all of a sudden, you got
married 1, and you've gotta talk to
us. And then it's like, what? And then
a lot of lady That's a good point,
sis.
This is me
of perspective that I'm coming into Muslim the
Muslim faith
and, you know, in my in my 20.
And it's like, you know and and it's
like, can you imagine not being speaking to
someone that all of a sudden you've got
this girl talking to you and she's like,
oh, I'm doing my nails and seeing my
friends. And because a lot of girls, when
you're in your early twenties, you you've got
so much to talk about as well. And
if you're you've got this idea in your
head that you probably even
sometimes, I'm young girls that that have made
books, and they've taken cuttings about what their
wedding's gonna look like, what their marriage is
gonna be like, and they're gonna do this
traveling and have all this fun with their
husband.
And then when they're up to talk to
someone, the guy just freezes up.
Am I saying the wrong thing? Am I
saying the bad thing? You know?
So I would try and price it out
a little bit more. I wouldn't necessarily say
it's a red flag at the start.
It may be a red flag in the
sense of you might not be compatible,
but I wouldn't say it's not someone you
can't get married to. I would just keep
that in mind
that they could be just a bit shy
or not really sure what to say or
how to converse with you or they're still
trying to keep their hair. They're trying, you
know, they're trying to keep that boundary still.
Married or is it No. It's a perspective.
It's a perspective
spouse.
What's what say you, rapid fire?
For me, I I think that that, you
know, I really feel that brothers and sisters
should meet
and have a meeting because,
you know, you you get a sense of
chemistry,
you know.
And even if there's not a lot of
dialogue, you can just see if they're if
you're bouncing off one another.
And if he's not talking, maybe it's he's
not quite, like, sister Sarah saying, interested in
or doesn't know how to respond to what
you have to say because of what you're
speaking about. But maybe try and I would
say ask him about his interests
and the things that his hobbies or his
pastimes, and maybe that will get him kind
of talking in a little bit more comfortable.
I think also women in general have a
more confidence in this area or they've done
more thinking about it. Right? So when they
go into a marriage conversation, they've got like
a whole list of questions
and so many boxes they wanna tick and
things they wanna make sure make sure make
sure. And a lot of the time the
brothers haven't really given it that much thought.
They just like, if I like her, I
like her, ain't it? Who was Aynav? What
do you think? Should is this a red
flag? Is this something she should look out
for?
Or, you know, or is it an absolute
no? Just forget it.
For me, I look at it as
an opportunity for exploration.
Right?
And exploration
and I'm deliberate about using that word exploration
because
exploration doesn't come from a place of judgment.
Because
if I'm looking at this person as doesn't
like talking, he doesn't say anything, whatever,
there is He doesn't tick that box. He
doesn't tick that box of mine. There could
Yeah. There could be some judgment there. So
if I were to set aside the judgment
and come from a place of curiosity
so it's still a prospectus part. So that
means there's still exploration going on. So
curiosity.
There's hardly anyone who can avoid,
you know, interested
questions.
Mhmm.
You know? Because that's where curiosity leads to
interested questions. It's not like an interview, you
know?
It's really about
being interested
in whatever about
this person's life,
and it's possible
to see what's going on. And then to
actually even find out
and maybe even see why they're not
willing to so share. It's not like, oh,
I want us to talk. Let's talk. We
it it can happen that way. It's really
about being curious
and all that. So I don't see that
as a red flag. I see it as
an opportunity
for, you know, genuine curious
exploration, and then you can actually see
what would happen out of there.
So sisters mentioned that the red flag is
not the fact that he can't converse,
the lonely feeling. And I I'd like to
speak to that if possible.
Okay. Let let let let let let sister
Ruby go. That that Sister Ruby, go ahead.
What say you what say you to this?
There too. Yeah. There's something there.
I wanted to just sort
of,
reply to the, red flag as the lonely
feeling,
And I would say that's 100% true.
Because
wives can be lonely
or if you're not married yet, you can
have you could be lonely in a family.
You can have people around you, and you
can still feel lonely.
So the feeling
of loneliness
does not come from
people.
It doesn't.
The feeling
of loneliness
comes from a place called thought.
You're having
a thought
that you're thinking that you are feeling lonely
because of this guy not saying anything.
No. No. No. No. No.
No.
This guy might have all sorts on his
mind.
Okay?
You know? He he his his mind is
busy elsewhere maybe.
But that feeling of our loneliness,
it is not coming from here.
100% wrong. And when we see that,
then
we get out of our own way
first,
and then we have a connection.
And that's where the conversation starts.
I love that. I love that. And
subhanAllah, just the
the the bit that I wanted to kind
of just alert
whoever feels this way too is
just be aware
that as sister Ruby said, whatever you are
thinking about what's happening is what's impacting the
way you feel. Right? It's your thoughts that
create the feelings and the emotions.
So for example,
when we have expectations,
for example, of the zing a dazing. Okay.
If you guys know what the zing a
dazing is, it's like that lightning chemistry when
you, you know you look in someone's eyes
and you know
he's the one. Right? Or you know you
you've met your soul mate and he just
gets you. You know, like he just understands
me, right? All of that stuff that we
read about and we hear in the songs
and everything.
If you are looking for that feeling,
you may,
a,
miss red flags because you're so invested in
chasing a feeling, whatever that feeling is, the
feeling of not feeling lonely, the feeling of
being desired, the feeling of being wanted, the
feeling of being seen, all of these feelings,
when we're chasing those feelings, it can lead
us to ignore real red flags. Okay? Like
real red flags, flaws in someone's character.
Clear incompatibility.
Right? Clearly not being on the same page.
Clear, you know, wrong intentions and all of
that kind of thing. So sisters,
just a word of advice, be very careful
of chasing feelings,
okay, when you going into looking for a
a spouse. Because, subhanAllah,
if there's anything that I've learned, you know,
over the years and mashallah from all my
wonderful sisters and other sisters who've been in
20 almost 30 year marriages,
is that
feelings change.
Emotions go up and down and emotions are
constantly changing all around us. And the the
feelings and the emotions,
they are not the things that keep you
going. They're not the things that, you know,
that that that make anything last. It's the
intention. It's the commitment. It's the dedication. It's
the loyalty. It's the hard work. And all
of that stuff is not feelings. It's it's
a decision, right?
So the first thing I would say is
that don't chase feelings. And the second thing
I would say is
don't expect
to get all of the things that you
think
is is what a normal, you know, interaction
is like the spark,
like the feeling of being seen or all
of these things. Don't expect all of those
when you first meet someone.
If you don't, those things,
all of a sudden you're disappointed.
You think this is not the one, you
know, there's, there's a, you know, it's, it's
not right. It's not right. But really what
we should be doing, and I wanna give
game to my young sisters, especially in this
this who are just going into marriage.
Get clear on what the marriage is about,
what marriage is about,
what you want to build,
what kind of person you want to build
with. Not the laundry list,
but the bare basics, the foundation,
right? What kind of life do you want
to live? What is it you want to
go to Allah with And what kind of
man do you want to build that with?
And use that as your as your as
your kind of checklist rather than all the
the the romantic fairy tale fantasy stuff.
The real stuff that makes a difference in
the long term because a feeling is a
feeling and trust me that feeling can dissipate
within 3 months.
Right? And, and the feeling can come within
3 months as well. Right?
So I'm not saying you marry somebody who
you've got zero feelings for and there's no
spark whatsoever and you don't get along. Of
course not. But don't make the spark the
deciding factor.
Don't make the desire the deciding factor. Don't
make the zinger the zinger the deciding factor
because this is big work that you're embarking
on and you want to make sure you're
with someone solid,
respectable,
dependable, committed.
That's the person that you want to commit
to. And inshallah to Allah, remember that love,
the hearts are between the fingers of ar
Rahman,
you know, and allah puts that love between
us, you know, that he is the source
of that love. SubhanAllah.
Sorry. If anybody wants to jump on that,
we can and then if not, we'll go
on to the next question. Sorry. I just
wanted to just insert that in there.
With regards
to the list that you were saying, you
know, you need to know where you're compromising
in that as well. You know. If conversation
and,
you know, one is is that person generally
quite quiet as well? White personality.
My sister was saying to me yesterday, she
has a friend who's been married, like,
25, 30 years,
but her husband is very quiet,
very quiet. But they've got a good connection.
They've got a good marriage.
They've got good understanding. And her, his wife
I mean, the sister, she's very outspoken. She's
that's her personal personality and that's his personality.
And she's sometimes people they're all laughing, you
know, where do they converse because he's just
such a quiet guy.
But they have their
they they know what they're invested in, and
I think this is something that's quite key
as well is that marriage is an investment,
you know, and you work for it. It's
not just the red carpet or a bed
of roses that just magically appears and says,
right, here we go, and this prince charming
is there. There's gonna be give and take.
So you have to see what other deal
breakers, what other must haves, what's really important
for you for you. And I think this
was something that's really important is that we
and I think some of the sisters were
saying here as well is finding themselves. If
you know who you are and what you
need,
then it's easier to know
what you're looking for.
What are the must haves? What are the
compromises?
And sometimes Allah brings certain people to you
that you think,
nah. This one's not right. But sometime Allah
up not sometime. Obviously, Allah knows best.
Sometimes we think that something's bad, but there's
good in it.
So we have to look what's the main
picture here. The guy who's on deen, he's
praying,
these are like,
no, I'm not gonna compromise on this. He's,
financially stable,
and then it might just be, okay, dude,
it's a little bit quiet. But you have
to understand yourself first. Can you be with
someone who's not really responding?
And I think that that's what you have
to see is when you have the conversation,
see what what his expectations are, what's his
long term goals in the marriage,
how much is he gonna be invested in
it with you, and I do you have
common goals?
Maybe he's someone who doesn't wanna home educate,
you know, but this is something you're very
passionate about. You know? So understand what what
you want,
and I think that will kind of give
you a lot of clarity, but you're not
gonna get the complete package.
No matter how much you
create it in your head, that sometimes creating
false expectations for yourself as well.
100%.
I would like one of you to answer
this very important question if you can,
and that is
explaining the notion of marriage being half one's
deen.
So this has been one thing that when
I think about it, I want to hold
on to my marriage despite the hardship.
Anybody feel equipped to answer this?
If not, we'll move it to another day.
But does anybody feel equipped to answer this?
You just need like an Emmy answer
because the marriage being half your dean is
quite quite a a deep statement.
I I can speak from on that matter
from my perspective.
We are always,
like you said beautifully, just just,
few minutes ago, that we are chasing a
feeling.
We're always chasing a feeling.
We're always wanting to feel happy.
And a lot of the times I hear
conversations
even from scholars saying, oh, you've got to
make each other
happy.
Make each other happy.
Well,
that that puts a lot of burden on
you.
Like, you are responsible for making somebody else
happy.
Like and then when you don't feel happy,
you think, oh, it's your fault.
You're the reason that I'm not happy.
But on the other side,
we all know where happiness comes from. That's
the almighty.
Love, happiness does not come from people.
And this is a myth that people think
that they're going into a marriage
accepting,
wanting,
feeling
happy,
love, whatever feeling.
So marriage, half your deen
is knowing who you really are,
is knowing
within,
is knowing yourself.
And if you know yourself
within from within,
you are already halfway there.
You are halfway already there. And the rest
of the half, obviously, all the practical stuff
that you do,
supporting each other, doing everything
that is a barber,
everything that you want to do as a
team, everything, all that's there. But before you
go into a marriage, marriage is half your
deen,
is
knowing
yourself.
It's knowing yourself before you go into a
marriage, And when you get into the marriage,
wow. Wow. Because I wish I had known
that
before I got married.
Honestly,
that that is
the game changer. That is the whole
the the,
what someone say is, like, what everybody's looking
for.
Yep. Yep. 100%,
the importance of knowing yourself. Yes, Zane. Have
you had your hand?
Yeah. I wanted to add to
what Srubhi said to respond to that question.
The moment the the first marriage was in,
the moment I realized the reason why I
was able to make the decision to leave
the marriage
was when I realized that
I could get to Jannah,
inshallah,
even if I was not married.
That's what I wanted to say.
Interesting that you say that, SubhanAllah, ladim.
Because I wonder
how many of us
who are
not as happy
as we'd like to be since this is,
you know, we're not as happy, satisfied as
we'd like to be for whatever reason.
I wonder if
I have a friend
and her husband,
remarried.
It was very, very hard for her. And
she she she's still working through it, I
think. But she had a baseline.
Right. And this was her baseline. If it
makes sense for you, alhamdulillah, take it. You
know, sister Zaynah, what you said is is
really really powerful. Mashallah.
But she just said,
as long as I can worship Allah,
I'm keeping my family together.
As long as I'm okay here and I'm
okay here to continue worshiping Allah
and nothing in this situation stops me. Either
emotionally,
mentally, spiritually or physically.
Nothing stopping me from worshiping Allah and being
the best version of myself.
I will not break my home. I'm not
I'm not going to give up on, you
know, what we've built. Alhamdulillah. So that was
her baseline.
And I thought that that was a really
I found that very admirable actually.
Because as you said, most of us are
chasing a feeling.
And there's a question here about a spouse
who is reluctant to grow.
Okay.
Meaning
personal development,
spiritual, mental, physical.
So in this case, the husband doesn't stop
her but over time their interests have diverged.
It's a huge issue that we keep seeing
again and again in the community.
I've talked about it a lot, but I
would love to know maybe in our this
can be our last question.
You know, would your answer be to that
sister?
Spouse doesn't want to take do the the
personal development work. He's not interested. He doesn't
stop her, but he himself is not interested.
And so now their interests have diverged. So,
obviously, as far as she's concerned, this is
a problem. What do you guys say to
Zainab,
I see you.
My husband doesn't do personal development.
Preach it.
He doesn't.
And personal
development
is
our generation. Right?
Mhmm. In the past,
didn't we have
people who transformed?
There wasn't personal
development.
So
just like we shouldn't should ourselves into I
should be growing, I should be transforming,
I shouldn't be here, I should have grown,
We shouldn't be shooting our husbands.
Then the other thing,
which seems to have flown out of my
head, that I was gonna say, okay. Now
I remember is that
transformation comes from Allah
at his time,
and that's it.
It's not in your hands.
Just dropped the mic.
Oh, but, Issa, what do you say to
that?
Well, what can be said after that? You
know,
I think it's a beautiful thing that everyone's
on their journey, and character
building,
actions speak louder than words.
You keep developing yourself,
investing in yourself,
keep trying to nurture yourself
in your deen, in your iman,
and in your love and obedience to him,
that's that's
he will learn because why? Because you will
then become the company of Musk around him.
You know? If you are
husband and wife, you know, they say be
careful of your company, you know, because you'll
rub off onto each other. So even though
he may not be invested,
but he's not preventing you from something,
he is then still benefiting from your beautiful
fragrance
of your character.
That you the person said I was not
sent except for what? Perfecting the character.
So investing in character building
and investing in your own personal development,
this is a noble thing. This is a
it's from the dean. But we can't if
we're on a journey, we can't then
expect them to be on the same thing.
The fact that he's not preventing you from,
your own personal development, It's a beautiful thing.
Alhamdulillah.
He's on his journey and you're on yours.
And he is going at his pace. You're
going at yours.
And and and and this is how Allah
has created us at different
levels. Not everyone could be an alim, Not
everyone could be a scholar. Not everyone could
be a sports person. Not everyone could be
a well, I was gonna say writer, but
I wouldn't say that one because
someone's saying this.
As we know,
Narima says there's a writer within everyone.
But,
you know, so we have been designed for
different things. So he may not be so
invested in his own personal development that there'll
be another hair in him. And this is
the advice of the prophet
that if there's something you dislike
within your partner
or your spouse,
not spouse as in as in your wife
who's addressing the Sahaba here, then look to
something better.
Allah
hasn't made us 100% bad, you know. We
are Muslim. We have heard in us. Allah
saw our hearts and saw heard in us
that he guided us over much of mankind.
Subhanallah. This alone is a niyama. The Allah
has seen something in him by making him
Muslim
That given him the blessing of hidayah and
guidance.
So let us also look to the good
and try and bring out the good,
and celebrate it and appreciate it.
I think you're on mute, Naima.
I know you're talking because you do the
hand like that. Yes. The hands came out.
The hand? No. I mean, I I feel
I feel very strongly about this.
And the reason I do is because I
know how
your own perception of as sister Zainab said,
you know, you should want to do x
y zed. Right? We should want to do.
And I'm sure there are husbands who will
listen to this whose wives have said to
them, but don't you want to be better?
Don't you want to improve?
We should. As muslims, we should. We should.
Right? And sometimes it's an Islamic thing. A
lot of the time it's not an Islamic
thing if we're honest.
I mean these types of questions
and again, I could be
wrong. Happy to be corrected if I am,
but I'm not seeing these types of questions
coming from people who are studying deen
or doing heft of Quran. I'm not seeing
that. I'm seeing it from people who are
studying other things. Right? Maybe physical,
you know, up leveling physically, up leveling professionally.
Okay. Maybe confidence, maybe public speaking, maybe any
of the other things. Right? The other things
that we can, you know, we call personal
development. You know, whatever it is. So so
what I want to say firstly, there's a
couple of things. There's one is that your
journey is your journey.
And it Alhamdulillah, it's a niyam that you
have the the the the
the drive
and the space,
the the headspace
to go on that journey. Alhamdulillah.
That's a blessing because a lot of people
don't have the drive and a lot of
people don't have the headspace.
Either because they have too much responsibility or
they're taking care of too much, too many
other commitments.
They can't even begin to think of investing
in themselves and, you know, and and taking
programs and going for courses and stuff like
that. So already you, mashaAllah, you're privileged and
you're blessed.
The second thing I'd like to address is
this issue of our interests have diverged.
I'm sorry.
So what?
So you're reading Tony Robbins
and he doesn't read?
What's the big deal?
You too are not buddies, yeah? You're not
buddies who have to have the same hobbies
and enjoy listening to the same lectures. It's
cool if you do,
but your work together is much much more
important than that.
You, your interests
are,
each other and your children and your family.
Okay.
And that's it. Anything else is a bonus.
Okay. I'm gonna just this is how I
see it and why I keep saying guys
lower the expectations,
lower the expectations
because if we have
more realistic
expectations,
and in fact, I shouldn't say lower them,
manage them,
manage them,
right?
Manage the expectations
because it's those expectations
again and again, we're hearing
single speaker
can think. Our high expectations
are destroying
us, destroying our marriages and when our marriage
just
the family is destroyed and it's, you know,
and I've I'm going to keep saying this
again and again.
When you decide that you've had enough of
your husband,
when you decide that, you know what,
I deserve more or I can't deal with
this anymore or like it's too much and,
and when you give up,
and we're not talking about extreme cases here
again, I have to preface this, but if
you check out,
you may find that on the other end
of your checking out, you feel so much
lighter. You feel so much better because now
you're not struggling anymore. You're not fighting. You're
not dealing with all of that la la
la la. However,
that's not where the story ends.
It's not happily ever after from that point
because when you break up a marriage,
it's not just you free of your husband,
your children,
your ex, who is now your ex, your
in laws, who were previously your in laws,
your family,
the whole ecosystem that was built around your
marriage
and this, this home that you built,
halas
everyone suffers.
So sisters, when I say, yeah, we can't
afford to take the cavalier approach
to to to marriage and divorce that these
people out here do.
Because at the moment,
it's perfectly reasonable for a woman to have
an epiphany phase and say, oh,
you know I need more. I'm going to
travel to India. I want a divorce.
Who who's seen eat pray love? Okay. Who
knows this story. Right? This story of a
woman waking up one day looking in the
mirror and saying,
I deserve more. Or I never thought my
life would turn out this way. I need
to go and find myself. Oh
really? It's supposed to be this hero's journey.
This wonderful narrative of a woman's empowerment and
her liberation and all of this stuff.
They don't show what really happens.
They don't show what happens to the husband
who's been ditched for no reason except that
he was boring,
right?
Except that he, Halas said, he couldn't give
her the lifestyle that she feels she deserves
or whatever or that he just didn't turn
out to be her fantasy. That's how he's
been ditched now by it. See you. And
then the children.
The children who no longer have their father
in their life full time, right? And we
can talk about co parenting and we can
talk about all that but you guys know
let's not fool ourselves.
When Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala explained to us
and showed us that divorce, yes it's allowed
but it's hated.
It's not because
every man and woman are gonna be happy
together. It's because of the compound effect of
breaking that union that came together for a
higher purpose to complete half their deen and
to build the next generation of Muslims.
So let's not get like,
let's not,
let's not fall into the traps
that are being set for us everywhere to
say divorce is easy. You know, it's a
it's a freedom for you. And you know,
at the end of the day, like, life
is better and all of this kind of
is like this so much as goes with
that. It's a decision you never want to
take lightly. It's something that you never want
to take for a superficial reasons. Or dunya
wii reasons, you know, that have really nothing
to do with akhira and nothing to do
with the reason that you 2 got together
in the first place. I'm sorry guys. If
I come off like an, an angry old
auntie it's because I'm upset. You
know, and I and I want,
I want us to be to wake up
and not get tricked
into making a decision
that we one day regret.
Because once you've made that decision
and a year later, someone asks you about
like, you think it was the right thing
though? Of course your pride will say, Alhamdulillah,
you know everything is from Allah.
Have we lost connection?
Okay. I think that's I think
yeah. I think
I think she's,
she's
she's
She's frozen with her hands on up.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think one thing I'd I'd like
to add to that the same.
Okay.
Yeah. I know.
We can let's just carry on because I
think we've all got things we can add
to that at the end anyway.
One one thing I'd like to
to add to that is and I think
this is okay.
This thing about getting a divorce,
what she was saying,
about it's not something that should be jumped
into. Yes. I know I did one, but
I still don't I have lots of women
come to me to say, I want to
divorce my husband, da da, all that.
Then I never say, yeah. Go ahead and
divorce
because
I did it. Yes. But it doesn't mean
that is the right thing for everyone.
Someone I work with someone who was in
a marriage
where she had left the marriage three times,
basically. Like, she left, came back, left, came
back, and all that.
And after the conversations together,
she said she's seen her own parts in
the whole dynamics and what she was how
she was showing up that wasn't creating a
marriage that would work, that wasn't creating the
marriage she wanted.
And then she said to me, I want
this marriage to work. The reason I mentioned
this example is because she's someone who is
financially basically running the house.
So what it means is that
it's not the circumstances.
Of the marriage,
but how you are within and how you're
showing in the marriage. So, yes, yeah, that's
what everybody's doing. And the other thing is
that looking for more, that more is an
illusion.
There isn't any more
anywhere.
Everything you need is within.
And, yeah, that's what I wanted to add
to what she's I'm still here, miss.
On the on the on the the
question development
and specific on the question, obviously, I don't
know the context around it. It said,
I didn't
get the feeling that there was anything going
on behind
it, but it was just a sister that
started
wanting to grow herself
profession
in all aspects of her life. Obviously, I've
said earlier on in the conversation in regards
to bringing your husband on board if you're
doing something, but she's no she's they've noted
there that her husband is supportive of what
she's doing
in her growth.
And to me, that is one of the
best things you can have because you could
have a husband there that's like, I don't
wanna do it. I don't wanna
do it. Maybe he's got his own reason.
So, like, sister Nymah said, you know, he
could be worked. He I don't looks like
we don't have the context around context around
it. But
when you say growth,
he doesn't want to grow.
Maybe he doesn't need to grow right now.
Maybe
that's not
his
path right
now.
And then this is physically, you know, scrutiny.
There are a lot of things. There are
a lot of
programs.
There's a lot of things
again
from the about,
you know, moving on.
Growing into different people and things like that.
So I think we need to look at
what what do you want him to grow
into?
What are you looking for him to grow
into?
Obviously, you're growing as a person. Maybe he's
not what do you want him to grow
into because you always did that. I want
him to grow mentally, physically. I wanna pay
the growth, but he doesn't wanna grow himself.
What's wrong with him at the moment? That's
what I mean. Maybe he's thinking, hang on
a second. I'm working. I'm doing this. I'm
doing that, and you want me to do
this as well. So it's like it's just
thinking about what the other person wants and
where they are at the moment.
It could also be that he's just comfortable
where he is. You know? He's just not
And he supports
me.
Yeah.
He's not on that And I think it
speaks to that that same thing that we
were talking about about wanting to control our
husbands
and feeling like we need to pull them
up. We need to raise them. We need
to bring them up to our standard, our
level.
And, yeah, I mean, from a man's point
of view, to be honest, I can imagine
it being so off putting,
if that's how it's received, you know. It
could not be received that way. It could
be that you have that that relationship where
you guys, you know, that's just how you
how you roll.
But anyway,
ladies, you know, we could probably go on
for an hour or 2.
But, it has been just absolutely fantastic.
Oh, I've enjoyed this session so much.
Sister Sara,
Isa, Zaynah, Ruby. It's our first time together.
Many of us, it's our first time kind
of seeing and meeting each other, but I
just feel
just so
much so much
groundedness
on this panel. So I really appreciate every
single one of you for taking the time
to come out and share with our younger
sisters. I pray this is not the last
time. I know it's not gonna be the
last time, insha'Allah, even if some have to
be dragged kicking and streaming,
kicking and screaming to the stream inshallah
but
may allah bless every single one of you
in your all your affairs. Fidunya wa fil
akhirah bless your marriages, give you another 10,
15, 20, 30 years
And may you open the fast with your
grandchildren.
And everybody who's here, thank you so much
for rocking with us.
It's been a great evening. Thank you so
much for your attention today. Make sure that
you let other people know about this. We
have a whole day of talks again tomorrow
and Insha'Allah,
we wanna see you guys there.