Naima B. Robert – TMC E3 Clip Muslims Should Stop Telling Bad Marriage Stories MUST WATCH!
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The speakers discuss the cultural narrative around Muslim marriage and the negative outlook on couples getting married. They emphasize the importance of staying married for healthy relationships and the need for women to survive in society. The speakers stress the importance of finding a balance between healthy marriage and marriage, as it is not just about finding a perfect marriage, but rather finding one that makes one feel good. The social media and social media platforms are used to address these issues, and the importance of healthy engagement for women is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
I believe that we are holding like a cultural narrative at the moment
around Muslim marriage, that it's not good. That was the marriages
is not fun. It's hard. Muslim men are trash, you know, you know, you
know, it's hard to find good men, you know this? I don't know, are
you? Are you seeing the same thing? Maybe I'm looking at a
different side of everything. But do you think that we as Muslims
even have sort of like a healthy and hopeful vision of marriage for
ourselves within the community?
how common it is to hear bad stories of Muslim marriages.
Right? Yeah. And so rare to hear good ones. And I don't mean, the
couple goals, ones. I mean, like real stories, right. And people,
people, I guess, you know, as Muslims, we are private.
Understand that. But I also, I wonder whether the fact that
people tend to share bad stories or survivors of bad situations
tend to share their stories, it creates this picture, I believe
that we are holding, like a cultural narrative at the moment
around Muslim marriage, that it's not good, that Mr. Marriages is
not fun. It's hard. Muslim men are trash, you know, you know, you
know, it's hard to find good men, you know, this. I don't know, are
you? Are you seeing the same thing? Maybe I'm looking at a
different side of everything. But do you think that we as Muslims
even have sort of like a healthy and hopeful vision of marriage for
ourselves within the community? No, definitely. It's not just us
seeing it from that perspective is, it's very, very common. And it
is, unfortunately, there is a negative outlook. So one example
would be
a lot of people who aren't married, are getting put off,
getting married in the first place. Because of the stories or
because of, for example, when they hear about the marriage, it's
really too late. Divorce has gone through by then. So they're
hearing about saying divorces, and divorce rates going up, and
marriages failing in their eyes in a moment, feeling whatever,
without knowing the full story. And it's like, is there any point
we're getting married? Like, you know, it just scared? Yeah, people
are really, really scared, right? I've spoken to you, guys, I'm sure
you've spoken to a lot of sisters, guys, where they're like, I don't
wanna get married. Why? Because, you know, like, and these are, you
know, aspects of learned people, as well as things like, fathers,
you know, and they're like, I don't want to get married. Why?
Because I just can't go through that. Or, you know, I feel like, a
lot of the women nowadays, you know, like, you know, like, just
how you've got the Muslim men are trash. Yeah, behind, you know, the
women are to this crazy,
don't want to deal with it. Right? So, obviously, that that
perception is there. And I feel like social media really
accelerates all of that, right? And always puts the negative at
the forefront, right? It's just like, you know, social media is
just the modern day version of the newspapers where the headline was
always something. Tension, and, you know, negative, and it's
always something that scare mongering, fear mongering, right.
And that's just what social media is. Now, those stories are gonna
be the ones at the forefront. And people are just like, I don't want
to deal with it. It's scary, right? I can't blame the one hand,
right? You know, because I can't control right, what they're
feeling at that point. But at the other hand, it's got to be like,
what? I promise you, bro, like, that's not how it is, in most
marriages. But this is why I'm like, Can the happily married
people please stand up? You know, because,
you know, I was thinking about this when I was putting this
series together. And I was thinking, you know, I like I said,
most of my friends are hamdulillah married many, many, many years,
mashallah their children are now getting married, having children,
you know, and hamdulillah through the ups and downs, through the the
winters and the spring and the summer and the autumn. They are
still together and healthy. Right? So which is which is big for me,
because I think, in many cultures, the together part is more
important than the healthy part. So as long as you stay married,
yeah, it doesn't matter, like the level of dysfunction or toxicity
or unhappiness like real unhappiness, it doesn't matter as
long as you stay married.
And I really feel that that's not going to work anymore. I think the
days of sort of those days are done. Yeah. Because, you know,
people have choices. Now, not only do people have choices, and the
Internet opened up those choices as well, like, you know, you can
just, you know, it's open things up in a way, but also people's
expectations of life in general are higher, right. So people, you
know, a few generations ago, survival was
The name of the game, you know, survival, tick off those life
boxes, you know, get your children through school, you know, educate
them somehow let them get established and settle down and,
and now rest, you know what I mean? So you kind of you go
through school, get married, have children, get those children
through school, get them married, rest. And you know, no one's
asking for five star experience, we just want to survive, and we
just want our children to survive and for them to be happily
married. And you know, that's it. Those days are gone. I think for
for most of us, definitely, our expectations of life are higher,
however, that comes at a price.
Because when your expectations are too high, the risk of being
disappointed is much higher, isn't it?
Exactly. So? Yeah. So like, when you say, for example, if I was to
throw around terms, like in laws or you know, stuff like that, it's
such a negative perception, like, immediately, because the first
thing that comes to your mind is that yeah, first thing that comes
to mind is the horror stories.
The oppression,
all of that. So like on social media, for example, in laws is
like an is like, every time in those I mentioned, it's negative,
it's so negative. And, again, what's putting off a lot of
sisters from getting married is I don't want to deal with in laws,
right? I've seen this a lot. It's like, you know, in laws, it's,
I've heard some horrible stories and things like that. And so like,
that's just one example. I'm just saying, like, in every area of the
marriage, in every department, it's like negative, right? It's
like, children, if you have children, now, look how
challenging times I do really want to deal with that and raising the
child like, you know, you're better off not. And it's going all
against Yeah, what Yeah, everything. Yeah, everything that
it's supposed to be doing. And that is encouraging notice upon
Allah, you know, I 100% agree with you. Because I think when I
listened to you know, Muslims having this conversation, when I
listen to Christians having this conversation, you know, most
traditional cultures and religions are based around the family unit,
right? And what will strengthen and benefit the family unit. And
unfortunately, we live in quite an anti family society, like the time
that we live in is, is all about individual happiness, individual
growth, individual success. Unfortunately, the bitter pill
that I've had to swallow is that
you can't build a strong collective with lots of ambitious
individuals.
Individuals who are after their own happiness will not sacrifice
they will not settle, they will not do the right thing rather than
the thing that feels right. They will not take on extra
responsibility. Why should I? How will that help me? You know what I
mean? is like, Why Should I've heard men saying things like, I'm
not getting married? for them? It's like, what's the point? These
women are crazy, you know, and they, you know, that is gonna make
my life difficult. Children are just a drain on finances, let me
live my life and you know, have, you know, what is it called? free
agent lifestyle, and like, literally live my best life. And I
think that that's something that seeping into the Muslims as well,
because you will find sisters and maybe even brothers saying, I'll
be happier on my own. Because I don't have to deal with all that
stuff. But that is such an integral part of your growth as an
adult, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the statistics don't lie.
And the you know, the marriage has become not even secondary anymore,
you know, the the, it is becoming more and more common not to get
married, especially in the Western Western society. I just, it has no
value anymore. The institution of marriage has no value. And
unfortunately, that is, you know, Muslims are getting influenced by
that.
You know, maybe not for the exactly the same reasons, but for
different reasons, whatever they are.
And it's just like, well, do I need to get married, you know,
what's the bet they just don't see the value in it anymore. Which is,
which is quite scary. And I think it comes again, back to what we're
talking about, which is, the positives are never highlighted.
It's always the negatives, and it just puts people off. So like,
when I'm having a conversation with someone I'm like, I'm trying
to tell them and convince them that look, this is not the reality
on the ground, man. Like I'm telling you as someone who's
married as someone who knows a lot of married people, the reality is
most marriages 100 Love. They're okay. Like I'm not saying they're
perfect, but yeah, they're okay. Right. They're good. Yeah. And,
and, okay, yeah, to be good enough.
I mean, this is like a big thing for me is, you know, it's okay for
it to be okay. Okay, is okay.
You know what I mean? It doesn't have to be Hamas Nugu as they say,
Egypt, you know, five star, it doesn't have to be luxury brand.
It doesn't have to be top of the hierarchy of needs. It's okay for
it to be okay for you to have an average marriage and average
relationship. And this is a SubhanAllah. I, again, the society
push towards more and better, and, you know, just a more kind of
heightened experience, but it's hedonistic at the end of the day,
isn't it? Really? Yeah. And I remember putting a post out once
about,
it was about enjoying the mundane in marriage.
It's a lot of people are like, like, mundanity? No, no. Are you
really promoting like, enjoying the Monday? I'm sorry, I'm not
promoting. I'm just saying. That's, that's the reality. Like,
you're not me, like, a mundane ain't going nowhere. Okay, it's,
it's here to stay. You might as well enjoy it. Exactly. Right. So
it's like, you know, there's going to come a point in your marriage
where, unfortunately, is you can't go on holiday all the time. And
you can't go on dates all the time. And you should, from time to
time, but he's got to you got to go to work, you got to come back.
You got to have some a meal together. You got to just have
some conversations. And that's just what marriage sometimes can
be. I'm not saying it has to be like that all the time. But okay,
yes, that's fine. That's normal. Yeah, this is the thing. It's
about what you're doing really is normalizing normal. Whereas what
social media does it normalizes the five star normalizes this, the
superlative, right? The aesthetically pleasing, you know,
the top rated, it normalizes that, even though it's not even the
normal for the content creators themselves. Exactly. Yeah. So what
I mean, most of the time, if you're posting the picture, for
example, with your husband or wife, and it's only going to
really be when you're on holiday, or when you're going out for a
meal, or you're only going to post a picture of like, you know, the
house is a mess, and you're just sitting there on the sofa, and you
just poured out your head like
yeah, video games, right?
No, yeah. So no, no one's gonna No one's gonna do that. So, yeah, I
think it's about enjoying, enjoy the mundane, right, having those
expectations before you go into before you go into a marriage, and
just have conversations with people who are actually married
instead of realistic taking your information from elsewhere or
social media, you know, you can't. It's such a huge decision. And
you're going to make that based on social media post or some hearsay.
That's literally all it is. Yeah.
It is. And you'll see you'll see people I'm sure I don't know
whether brothers do this as much. But I have heard the sisters do
it. I wouldn't know because I've never been on that side of a
marriage app.