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This audio is brought to you by Muslim Central. please consider donating to help cover our running
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Salam Alaikum Quran Weekly, this is holla banani. I'm going to be talking to you about one of the
most important aspects of having a good marriage and that is self development. Bismillah was Salatu
was Salam ala rasulillah
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in Nala holla Yura yiruma, Manhattan euro euro may be for him. Indeed, Allah will not change the
condition of the people until they change what is in themselves. Generally, we think of this first
in reference to changing the oma. This exemplifies the power of self change. When we change
ourselves, we're able to change the situation on could refer to a man or tribe. We can take lessons
from this first, that if changing yourself is so powerful that it can change an oma, imagine what it
can do for your marriage to change your marriage, your marriage is not going to change until you
spend time on changing yourself your habit, your attitude, if you're angry, if you're pessimistic,
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if you have self esteem issues, it will definitely affect your marriage. Many people put the blame
and responsibility on of improving the marriage on their spouse, they'll come to me and basically
they tell me fix my wife, and our marriage is gonna be great. Or they'll come with a list of 10
things that they want me to change in their husband, it's really easy to put the blame on others.
But this verse is indicating that we need to start with ourselves. This is a call for reform and
self development, which is primarily why I made the pillar one in my marriage program self
development until we acknowledge our shortcomings, which is anger, insecurity, jealousy, our desires
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and arrogance. and overcome them. We can't really thrive in our marriage. There was a client that I
had, who was basically suffering in every relationship, she was angry, she was very arrogant and
possessive. And every single relationship had fallen apart. When she came in, she wanted to work on
her marriage. So I was only working with her. As we started to work on her personality as she
learned about anger management, and she overcame her possessiveness, she started acting more
maturely, and she gained all of those important skills and tools and being a better person, her
relationship started to evolve, her husband tried to start treating her differently, her kids
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responded to hurt differently. So it's really about working on yourself in order to improve your
marriage. Now, many people that come to me for therapy, they come alone, they're only there, and I
work with them. And as they change, then their relationship improves. And it's really important to
realize that peace and happiness needs to come from within. You can't depend on your spouse to make
you happy. Many people are waiting to meet Mr. Right or read, Miss right to be happy, finally. But
really, you have to work within, you have to get that peace, you have to have that happiness within
yourself in order to come into the marriage to be able to provide and give in the marriage. It's
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essential to grow spiritually, emotionally, and in every aspect of your life. And the self growth
and self development is so critical. If we don't spend time in changing ourselves, we can expect the
marriage to improve. I had one male client recently that postponed getting engaged because he wanted
to overcome his addiction to watching inappropriate material before he got married. And that's
admirable to be able to prioritize working on yourself prior to getting married. It's really
important to adjust our intention when we want to make a change in the mallamma love in the dead.
Verily our deeds are by our intentions. So if we make our intention to change in order to please a
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lot, first and foremost, I want to be a better person. I want to be more devout. I want to be a more
giving more compassionate person. So first, we're doing it to please a lot. Then it's about changing
to improve on a personal level. I want to be a better person. I want to be someone that I myself can
be proud of. And then you do it with the intention of improving your marriage.
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Anytime when people go in with the wrong intention, or they're going in with just the intention of
pleasing other people, if their change is not acknowledged, if no one is appreciating that, then
they're going to get discouraged, and they're going to stop. But when you go in with the intention
of wanting to please Allah, and wanting to be a better person, so regardless of whether anyone
appreciates you or anyone acknowledges you, you're still committed to making that long lasting
change in gene therapy for the past 20 years, I've noticed that there are certain characteristics
that need to be improved in the sisters and some characteristics that could be improved in men in
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order to improve the relationship. So self improvement for women, I would summarize it in three
different areas. One is emotional stability, that is having control over your emotions, not being a
drama queen, not overreacting, not crying, and yelling excessively, because these are the things
that the brothers complain about the most about their wives, they feel that they're walking on
eggshells, they feel that they're dealing with someone who has a ticking time bomb, they don't know
what's gonna set her off. And so this creates a lot of insecurity, and a lot of lack of trust in the
relationship where the husband will not know what's going to set the set his wife off. So having
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that emotional stability of being in control of yourself is really critical. The second thing is
being secure. I have seen that insecurity is really the main problem that women face in all
relationships, whether it's their marriage, whether it's with their in laws with their friends,
there's a sense of feeling either intimidated or feeling insecure about others feeling threatened by
other especially other females. So if we work on building our self esteem, if we work on feeling
really good about ourselves, then we're not going to be so affected by the other females in our
relationships, and that will definitely improve our marriage and improve our friendships and improve
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the relationship with our in laws. The third thing is growing intellectually, many of the sisters
are Mashallah very well educated, very intellectual. Now, what happens is that once they get
married, they choose to stay at home, take care of the kids in the home, which is completely
admirable and so respected. Mashallah. But what happens is that they stop putting time and attention
in their intellectual development. So what's happening is that the brothers are going to work,
they're excelling, they're learning, they are advancing, while the sisters may not be doing the
same, they may be at a standstill, and they are dedicating their time they're sacrificing for the
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family they are providing they're doing so much, Mashallah. But they may not be spending as much
time on the intellectual development. And I think that it's really important to continue that self
growth, to be reading on a daily basis to be exposed to the news, the world events, and continuously
grow and improve. That way. You do not grow apart from your spouse, I had a client that came in. And
what happened was that her husband was a physician, Mashallah very intellectual making so many
advancements in his careers. And so she was staying at home. And she was also very intelligent, very
educated, but she had become so consumed with taking care of the kids into home, where they started
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growing apart, they were no longer as stimulated when they were having their conversations. And I
think that that's critical to continuously work on gaining that intellectual stimulation. Now, self
improvement in men could be summarized in three different areas. One is self control, not being
verbally, emotionally or physically abusive. This is a big one. And this is where a lot of sisters
complain about their husbands that, you know, he has a temper, he just loses it. He yells and
screams and says hurtful things to me. And sometimes, unfortunately, some brothers will get so upset
that they may act physically towards their wife. I had one client who they were newlyweds and they
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were just having a discussion about the end loss. She was very frustrated from her in laws, and she
consistently complained to him and he kept telling her Stop, stop saying that I can hear you say
that. And she kept at it. And finally he got so angry that he ended up slapping her and he felt
devastated. He was like, I never thought I would hit my wife. He was crying in the session that is
like this is so unlikely this very uncharacteristic of me but she just wouldn't stop but we need to
learn how
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to control our emotions, because once you say something once you act in a certain way you can ever
take it back. And that was something that changed their relationship forever. When someone becomes
physical in the relationship, when you say something offensive or hurtful, your relationship
changes, and you can never get it back. I remember one brother who came in for therapy. And he was
telling me, you know, it was all my fault. And I told him, Are you being sarcastic? Is that what she
told me? He said, No, it was truly all my fault. She was a wonderful wife. She was a great mother,
she did everything. And I just didn't acknowledge her. I didn't appreciate her. I didn't tell her
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anything. And now she's filing for divorce. She's filing for divorce. And I have no one to blame but
myself. And it was so sad the day that he went to court, he had a session with me and he told me, he
said, I went in court and I fell to my knees, I kissed her feet, I told her, please don't do this.
Don't end our marriage. And it was too late. It was too late. So the second way that brothers can
improve themselves by being expressive. He need to learn to express her emotions, I know that many
of you may not be comfortable with that it feels awkward you, it's just not part of your
personality. But you need to change that in order to make your spouse happy. And part of our goal is
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to keep chipping away at our negative trades until we come that ideal Islamic personality, we need
to aspire to be like the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam, and regardless of what our personalities
are, like, we need to keep working on ourselves. Until we get there. It's really important to
continuous to learn and grow on an emotional level. Take some courses on marriage, take some self
development books on how you can understand yourself better, maybe do some parenting courses
together where it can be on the same page. And I know that many of you are so caught up with work
and providing for the family, you don't have as much time. So maybe you can decide to have a book
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that you're reading together with your spouse, maybe a audio book, put it on fast speed, listen to
it together and discuss it in order to continuously be on the same page and grow both spiritually
and emotionally. The last thing that I would recommend is that you become appealing for your spouse.
So you've worked on yourself, you have changed certain aspects of your personality. And then it's
about finding out what your spouse likes because each person has their own likes and dislikes. So
find out what it is how your spouse likes you to dress, what is it that they enjoy? And what is it
that you can do to make them feel loved. And another thing is to stop any kind of annoying behavior.
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When a couple comes in, one of the first things I have them do is to stop the annoying behavior
because you may be doing things unknowingly, that will really upset your spouse and every time you
do it, it could really irked someone so you need to stop those negative behavior first and then
start doing the loving acts. Do things that will make your spouse feel loved make them feel
appreciated make them feel that they are your number one priority. If you can make your spouse feel
like a priority. They will be happy person so do your best apply these things. Make the changes
within yourself first like the verse says that if you want to have an impact on the oma if you want
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to change first start with yourself so change yourself before you can make the change in your
marriage and Sala
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this audio is brought to you by Muslim Central. please consider donating to help cover our running
costs and future projects by visiting www dot Muslim central.com forward slash donate