Sarah Sultan – Fiqh Of Love 8 – Signs You Are Ready To Get Married

			One of the most important things to understand about yourself before marriage is what are your
expectations for marriage? Right? having realistic expectations? Because I'll tell you like, that's
one of the major issues that tends to come up, right, where people have completely unrealistic
expectations. And it makes sense that people have unrealistic expectations, right? Like we have all
of this media, like, forget about just movies and things like that. Yeah, movies we all know, and TV
shows we all know, are completely unrealistic portrayals of healthy relationships, right? We know
that. But even more are what real people portray through media through social media, right? Real
		

			people, and the way that they portray their relationships on social media are completely false and
completely unrealistic. People post their highlight reels, and we all compare our the low points in
our lives to their high points, right. You know, like, there are so many people, like, I still
remember
		

			somebody at some point, posting on her, like, on one of her social media accounts, how Oh, you know,
my, my husband just brought me breakfast in bed, you know, hashtag and Hamdulillah, and all of these
things, right? And, and so, you know, you're looking at that, and you're thinking, like, all these
other women look, and new, like, my husband doesn't give me breakfast in bed, right? Like that. And
then they become dissatisfied. And then later on, about a year later, the same person reaches out to
me, and tells me that she's actually struggling with domestic violence with her husband, right? So
people portray what they choose to portray. And it is unrealistic. And it's really important for us
		

			to know that, so that we can maintain realistic expectations, which is very, very hard to do.
		

			You know, and furthermore, unrealistic expectations are also a trap of shaitan. Like, this is one of
the things that he uses to create a sense of dissatisfaction, right? Because when you're content,
you feel close to all this past data, you're, you're you're worshipping Him better, and things like
that this sense of contentment is something so beautiful, right? So discontent is going to be
something that shaitan is always trying to breed within us. And he always tries to get us to think
that nothing is good enough other than an unreachable standard. Because what happens when you set
unreachable standards, you give up? And that's one of his goals, right? Like even the way that look
		

			at the way he tempted Adam, and Adam is Adam and Eve. When he said to them to eat from the tree that
they were not permitted to Ephraim. He said to them, your Lord has forbidden this tree to you only
to prevent you from becoming angels or immortals, and then he swore to them, I am truly your sincere
advisor. So what does he do? He tells them you're human. Right? And what's the virtue of an angel,
one of the virtues of an angel is that they worship Allah subhana, Allah 24/7, tirelessly worshiping
them worshiping Allah. And so Adam is that, um, you know, like, he wants to be able to worship Allah
subhanaw taala. That much, right? So this standard of perfection. That's how shaitan got to him. He
		

			didn't he didn't get to him by telling him to stop worshiping Allah. No, he got to him by by making
him aim for a standard that Ellis pancetta didn't didn't tell him to aim for. Right. And this is
what shaitan tries to convince us that if you can't obtain perfection, it's not even worth trying.
And so if your spouse is not perfect for you, if your spouse doesn't obtain perfection, then the
marriage is doomed, right? And so people have these unrealistic expectations. And so this all or
it's called All or nothing thinking black and white thinking, right? It's either I get everything or
it's not worth it. And that's what shaitan really aims for us, right? So the next time that you
		

			notice that you're feeling overwhelmed, that you're feeling angry, stressed out, if you're down on
yourself or on other people, then consider whether your standards are to blame, whether your
standards are too high, right? And then go ahead and, and re address those standards. Consider how
you might change them consider whether they're realistic, if somebody were holding me up to the same
standards, would I be able to achieve them? Or if you're being really hard on yourself, if I were
holding somebody up to the same standards? Would they be able to achieve them? Right?
		

			Rather than allowing Shaitan to convince you otherwise? So what what are some of the ways that we
can
		

			manage this?
		

			One of the ways that we can do that is by having a healthy goal in our marriage. Right? Because as
human beings, we always want a sense of achievement. But when we don't have a goal in marriage, what
ends up happening is our brain creates its own goal. And that goal is perfection, right? And so it
will never be reached. So even if you get if you reach a certain point in your marriage or something
good happens. It's like well, it wasn't to this. It wasn't up to this standard. Right? You know,
		

			like your husband takes you out for breakfast? Well, he didn't make me breakfast in bed, right? So
there's always something there's always something like that, right? And so if you don't have a goal
or an objective or specific outcome in mind, or you don't know what you and your spouse needs, and
how to best fulfill those needs, then how are you going to be able to know whether you're feeling
successful in this in this relationship, right. But our overall goal as Muslims in marriage, and I
think this is so important, and so healthy, is that we should be striving for a life of having
closeness to Allah subhana, WA, tada and pleasing Him through our choices in our marriage, and
		

			through every other relationship in our lives, right. And so in preparation for marriage, this is a
goal you can have in every relationship in your life, to do it for the sake of Allah, to think what
would Allah want me to do in the way that I deal with this person? What would Allah want me to do in
the way I respond to them in the way that I deal with them, right. And so when we make our intention
for the sake of Allah subhana, Allah, it helps in every step of the way. And actually, it's one of
the things that I advise my clients in marriage counseling, because a lot of times
		

			when people do things for the sake of one another, when that person makes you mad, you stop doing
it, right. But if you do it for the sake of Allah, then no matter what the other person's reaction
is, you know, you're getting rewarded by Allah's past data. So that goal is being met. Right? It
becomes an achievable goal, when you do things for the sake of Allah, it becomes an achievable goal,
you want to do things that will make your your spouse feel happy, you're gonna want to do things
that make your parents happy, your friends happy, and things like that, but realize that their
happiness is not your responsibility, right. So when you do it for the sake of Allah, subhanaw,
		

			taala, then even if they're still not happy, even if they're still struggling, even if they're, they
have their own stuff that they're dealing with, that prevents them from responding in a good way to
you. It's all for the sake of Allah. And it's all taken into account.
		

			And so this is one of the misconceptions that people have in marriage. And that's one of the ways to
address it, that misconception of if I get married, I will be happy, right? If I get married, I will
be happy. And I tell you, anybody who's married can tell you that that's not the way it works,
right? And everybody's shaking their heads.
		

			But the point of marriage is not happiness. But one of the points of marriage is number one, closest
to all this path data. And number two is through that growth. The point of marriage is growth,
right? And happiness has very little to do with your life circumstances. And it has much more to do
with the way you think about your life circumstances. And that's why I said the social media thing,
right? Where are you complaining that you're, you know, that your spouse didn't make you breakfast
in bed? Or that your wife doesn't, doesn't have a gourmet meal waiting for you, when you come home
from work? Were you thinking about that complaint? Before you saw it on somebody's social media
		

			account? No, you weren't right. And so our circumstances have very little to do with our happiness,
and much more to do with our mindset. Right? So marriage is a test just like any other test.
		

			And so for some of us, there's going to be ease, for some of us, there's going to be hardship, but
for pretty much everybody, it's a mix of both, right? And, you know, it's that combination in being
able to be grateful to Allah Subhana Allah for the good, and being able to work toward change for
the things that are not so good. Right? And so, you know, we we placed this emphasis on finding the
right spouse who's going to make me half happy, who is going to be my second half. Number one, you
have to be whole before you get married, like there's nobody who's gonna fill fulfill that, that
second half thing and so your your happiness, your responsibility, right. And so
		

			that's one of the misconceptions that is important to address the other, my Deen will improve if I
get married, right, I'll become more religious, I'll become more practicing once I get married.
		

			Right? Marriage can make you a better Muslim, right? Like if you have it's natural that if you have
somebody who is also pushing toward that same goal that you will grow together in sha Allah, but if
you need to improve your connection to Allah, if you need to improve your worship, you're I better
have him
		

			waiting for somebody else to do that for you is not going to work. Right? If you're not waking. If
you're not waking up for Fetchit and you're like, Oh, my, my husband or my wife is going to be the
one that's going to wake me up for fetch that I can't wait. I can't wait until that happens. Then
you know you're in for a little bit of a disaster with that because this is something that's within
your control right now. If you're not doing what you need to do to take control over a change that
you want to make now, what makes you think somebody is going to be able to do that for you? This has
to be something that you do for you
		

			yourself. And it's really, it's really important that if you have a goal, don't wait for it for
marriage, that's something that you can work on for yourself as well.
		

			Another misconception is that people think, you know, I'll be more confident once I'm married.
Again, self esteem is your responsibility. It's something you need to work on on your own. Like,
yes, somebody who treats you well, somebody who treats you kindly, will make you feel good. But it
doesn't necessarily change the way you view yourself. That's something that you need to work on, on
your own. Because our capacity to love and to see the good and others is also included in it also is
somewhat dependent on our capacity to see good in ourselves, right. And so when we're accepting of
ourselves, when we're growing ourselves, then we can see that and other people as well. And it can
		

			also breed a sense of animosity and jealousy and things like that, if we don't have that, if we're
not working on that. So ask yourself, you know, like, do I tend to see the clouds or the sunshine,
right? Like, do I my mindset is going to impact what I focus on, not just on myself, but on my
spouse, if there is a tendency for you to see the negatives in people around you, that will happen
in marriage and a spouse is not going to change that. That's something that you have to work on for
yourself. Right? That mindset shift of being able to scan the world for for good. And that's going
to be a very positive and impactful for, for you in your marriage as well to start practicing that,
		

			start practicing seeing the good, right, the other one, and this one's really a really big
misconception prior to marriage and within marriage, which is that my spouse should know what I
need.