Tea Talk Series #1 – Marriage In Islam

So now when they come up to low, everybody, welcome to the first monthly tea talk.

And that subject this month is marriage. And it's an extremely important topic, it's a hot topic.

For no other reason than marriage has the potential to make our lives the closest thing to gender on Earth. And it has the potential to make our lives the closest thing to hell on earth, depending on the quality of our marriage, the level of trust, and security that we feel in our marriages. And particularly, these things seem to happen in waves. But many of us in this community have been going through stuff in terms of our marriages,

myself included, and these things can happen to anybody. They happen to the Prophet, Muhammad Ali, he set out to set up. And so of course, if that happens to the best of all creation, they're also going to happen to us as well. So it seemed like a timely topic, a lot of people kind of going through things or looking for some sort of guidance when it comes to marriage. And so we figured that we would talk about marriage

in a couple of different ways. So we want to talk about the idea of marriage in Islam, we want to put marriage in context. Without belaboring the point too much. We don't want it to just be a flippy sort of discussion about how to get married, right, that's often what happens. We want to talk about the fence of of marriage, what is it here for a while gave it to us as a gift. And he gave it to us with certain Mufasa in mind has certain objectives that it was supposed to achieve. And those objectives are not simply material, right, just having children and procreating and stuff like that, though, it covers those two, but there's deeper psychological and spiritual needs, that marriage,

the relationship of marriage also fulfills.

And then there's the nuts and bolts of okay, how to work on improving my marriage, right how to, what are the things that I should look out for, so we're going to try to balance between those two concerns, and then afterwards, Inshallah, we'll have time for questions or comments that can turn into a discussion, because many of you here have more experience than I do, when it comes to the experience side of marriage.

Marriage is a sign, it's an A mean, at lap, it's one of the last signs who refers to it. And so it's a little indirectly, implicitly, he talks about

pairs being created, right, so that we would have peace, so that we would have tranquility. And of course, the thing that a lot, as a Joe is talking about is is marriage. So one of the purposes obviously, day to day, not every single one of us experiences marriage like that. So part of the motivation for wanting to talk about it and think about it and also think how to improve it. Just like anything else, just like we have professional development for our careers, just like we go to the gym to keep our body bodies healthy. Once in a while, we need to maybe pick up some new tips or some new insight or TJ, just take a second and look again, at what marriage is supposed to be in

order to try to adjust ourselves and try to improve. One of the ways that marriage is a sign is it is both a sign of a lost pounds are other and a sign of our existence as human beings. Because Allah subhanaw taala is the only being that as defined by freedom from need. And he has no colony, he is absolutely free from all sorts of need. By definition,

all of creation is defined by need. And when we come back towards the two principles sort of needs that human beings have, there's kind of like short term needs, and there's long term needs, we have the short term need of the things that we have to do to survive as individuals, right, we need to eat, we need to

drink water, we need to breathe air. And then there are the things that we need to do collectively to survive. Now, that's where marriage comes in. Right? If there was no such thing as marriage, or there was no such thing as procreation, then we would be over as a species within one generation, we would have no way of continuing past whoever just happens to be alive right now. Which is one of the reasons I lost power and tada uses that line of argument to establish the fact let me lead while I'm you lead, right, he does not give birth to anything, nor is he given birth to because he does not have that need. Because he is so funny. He is free from any sort of need, he doesn't need to

reproduce. He doesn't need to have a legacy left after him he doesn't need to hand it off to somebody else from that sort of way.

So I was found to Allah gave us this need, and how it's helpful to think about both of these needs, especially food and we can say a relationship or romantic need that we have. And if we consider the way

A that Allah azza wa jal gave us this need, it should increase us in gratitude towards him subhanaw taala and appreciation for the mercy in which he did. How was that? Because if we look at all the these two needs that we have the last panel Tada didn't just give us the need. He accompanied that need first with a desire on the inside. And why is this merciful? Because if we didn't experience that desire, we might go without fulfilling that need. Can you imagine, for example, if you never got hungry,

how would you survive, maybe you would pass out, maybe you would have to go to the hospital, because it never occurred to you to eat in the first place. You didn't experience the hunger. And so Allah subhanaw taala gave you the hunger as a gift to drive you to fulfill the need that you have that He created you with? Well, the same thing with romantic needs, or the need for romance the need for a spouse. He's given us this drive attraction, these sorts of things in order to push us What if we never felt this need in the first place? If we never felt the need in the first place, then we would all just, we would probably in our society just work 24/7 And we will never take time to you know,

experience romance and our family life and things like that. And so life would pass us by and we wouldn't get to enjoy this part of our existence. But it doesn't stop there. The mercy from Allah subhanaw taala He not only gives us the need and the desire, but he also makes it pleasurable. We see this with food, right? Okay, Allah gave us the need for food, he created the hunger within us to want food. He could have stopped there.

It's not necessary that Allah is found to Otto had to make food is delicious. Right, but he did out of His mercy. It's enough for us to need it to go out and take what we want and take what we need to survive. But Allah has found the ATA in his custom in his bounty, and his father has made it enjoyable to eat all the different things that we get to eat the foods that drinks, mashallah, we have different types of tea and sweets here. While the relationship is the same, when it comes to the thing that everybody knows about, which is sexual intimacy, but also even just the romance of it falling in love. It's one of the most beautiful things that exists in this world, which is why it's

the subject of most songs and movies and books and all these sorts of things. It's love. Because the last pilots autumn made it sweet. He made it enjoyable, he made it pleasurable, he not just didn't just create the need and the desire, but he also gave it the sweetness to make it enjoyable to pursue it.

Why would Allah do this? Why would the last panel to order make these things enjoyable? Why would he not want to just leave them at the level of bare necessity just doing the absolute minimum that you need?

One of the reasons is that we have certain purposes, for life on Earth as human beings. And the desires that we have, are kind of our raw material to work with, in order to fulfill these purposes. What are the purposes of human life, ALLAH SubhanA, Allah says at various points in the Quran, the first is been edited out is livelihood, supporting a family going out in the world, especially for us men and working for women also contributing in the ways that you can to the household. But that's not all life is life is not just your material needs. It's also a bad to rough man. It's worshiping the source of all that bounty, the source of all those pleasures, the source of all those things

that we enjoy. And beyond those two levels, livelihood and worship, we have a level of responsibility. And we've talked about this recently in one of the clip was about he left when he left

is one of the main purposes of human life that we take care of everything else, that we are responsible for everything else that goes to the environment, but it starts right at home with our children, our spouses, and our loved ones. So when it comes to incentivizing marriage and incentivizing romantic relationships, this is part of the raw material that Allah's pounds Allah gave us to work with what's going to make us want to go out and earn a livelihood. It's having a relationship, it's falling in love, right, guys, you have to make them up. Right? You have the dowry, you have the number that you're chasing, you'd have to go out into the world and try to

secure it and find your way in the world so that you're gonna it's this is like your manhood this is your rite of passage.

When it comes to worship, okay, well the family is integral to that having relationship is integral to that to be thankful to Allah Spano Tata for providing this relationship in which we can find so much peace and tranquility but also giving us

our fair share of hardship, so that we can turn to Allah subhanaw taala. Right. We mentioned how marriage can be such a,

I don't want to say, a destructive force in our lives, but it can make us feel like we're living through hell, when our marriage isn't right, or our relationship with our loved one, our spouse is not right. And this is one of the most fertile situations for us to turn back to a loss of power to Allah and to reconnect with him.

And then finally, when it comes to our responsibility, our Khilafah, it all starts with the home. If this is one of our main purposes, and the family, and marriage prepares us for that, because we become responsible to the other human being, as soon as we write that, and

you become responsible to your spouse. Now, it's not just about you, you have to work on improving yourself, you have to work on developing yourself.

And of course, this becomes even more pressing, once you have children, you develop responsibility, you make yourself vulnerable. And this is part of what makes it one of the most meaningful connections that exists.

One of the takeaways for this for, especially us as parents, when we talk to our adolescents, and especially getting into the teenage years, is that we need to communicate to them that having these sorts of feelings and having these sorts of desires aren't bad. They're not dirty. This isn't something that Allah doesn't like, in fact, it's actually essential to who we are. It's not a taboo, and it's not shameful. In fact, this is something that Allah's primadonna has gifted us, but what makes it righteousness, or wickedness is what we do with it.

And this is, of course, all over the Hadith of the Prophet alayhi salatu salam, right, he said that, what we believe I have become sadaqa. Right. And that's translated, you know, to say that, in being intimate with your spouse is a sadaqa as a charity. The Companions were shocked when the Prophet alayhi salatu salam said this, they said, How is it possible that this thing, which they think is just, you know, fun and games, right, is actually charity for me, it's actually going to be in my scale on the day of judgment.

And the Prophet alayhi salatu salam said, Well, yes, if you do it, disobeying Allah is regulations that he put around it, then it's sin. So what if you do it according to the regulations that Allah Spano Tata put it, then it's going to be worship.

So marriage, first of all, is an AI. It's an idea that puts that situates us in the world, it situates us from the whole creation, we know our place, we know allows place as the single being let's free from need, we know our place, as a being that's created that has needs and it draws us into recognize our indebtedness to Allah subhanaw taala. And how easy he made everything for us. And it also puts us on the plane of understanding our purpose in life, what we're here for, that we're okay, we're supposed to go out and create this relationship and benefit from it, yes, but also let it draw us into this position of being responsible and developing ourselves.

Marriage is worship, when it becomes intentional. And that's something that all of us struggle with.

Usually, the autopilot mode of being in a marriage is just doing the the daily grind, the routine, and these sorts of things. But just like our sujood, and our salah, and our sadaqa, and our Zika and our whoodle. They're made into worship, through our intention, marriages, the exact same thing. It's made into worship through our intention.

If we have the intention, every day we get up in the morning to please Allah spawns Allah through our interactions with our spouse, through how we're dealing with our spouse, every time they tell us a bit of news, or every time they ask for a little bit of help, or every time they ask something of you, then this is something that not only is going to change your relationship, it's going to change potentially your entire afterlife.

One of the things that needs to be addressed when we talk about marriage is the relationship between Islam and culture. And actually, I just got done speaking at to the Somali Bantu community at the mid Utica Community Center. And we talked a lot about sort of the balancing Islam and marriage or it's to be balancing Islam and culture because marriage is really where the conflict happens. A lot of people they come with certain expectations when it comes to their culture. And some of those cultural expectations can actually be quite harmful.

So when it comes to the relationship between Islam and culture, it's a balance. It's a middle ground between two things Allah Spano Tata commands the Prophet Mohammed Salah is Saddam to command the culture in a sense he says cool, they laugh. What motivates it says make pardoning and for

given us your way and call people to what is culturally acceptable we all have cultural expectations. things mean a certain thing within a cultural context, and that's fine. But Allah Spano Tata is keen to point out that whenever those cultural expectations violate something that's within our religious guidance, violate something that allows parents to have a sense, then we have to we have the duty to question that culture, or that cultural practice. Or law says, for example, we either feel at home to ILO, ILA Anzahl, Allahu Allah Rasool, Allah has Buddha. Mao was at an early

hour kind of formula, and I'm gonna share with a afternoon, when it was said to them Come follow what Allah has revealed and follow the Prophet. They used to say, we're content with what we found our fathers and grandfathers doing. Allah subhanaw taala says, even if their fathers and grandfathers don't know a thing, and are misguided themselves,

this becomes more significant for you all when your kids are about to marry, because there are certain cultural expectations that we find in the Muslim community that, frankly, hold us back, especially in a place like North America. And we've mentioned many of these before, in the various sermons of Juma, one of them being tribalism, racism, colorism, we have people in the community that they will not marry their child or not not let their child marry somebody who's of a darker skin color.

We have people in the community who will not let their child marry somebody outside of the tribe, or outside of the ethnicity.

That might work for a generation, maybe two generations. But what you'll find is that, especially here in North America, it's only going to be a matter of time, before you're choosing between sticking to some sort of tradition, or sticking to your culture, and compromising the Islam or trying to stick to and prioritize Islam, and maybe make some compromises on the culture. I'll give you an example.

Many, many times, parents are willing to prioritize a candidate, a marriage candidate for their children who have met certain career objectives, and are of the same ethnicity, maybe the same tribe of the same family, this sort of thing, even if they don't pray,

even if they smoke, even if they drink.

And then what happens? Once the marriage happens? conflicts happen? We wonder what what went wrong? Why can't this marriage stay together? What's the problem?

As parents the problem sometimes is us and our priorities. Las Palmas Allah told us in no uncertain terms, that the Dean has to take priority over the culture.

If they conflict, there might be times in places where they don't conflict, you might be able to get everything you want out of a spouse but but if they come into conflict into conflict, if you have to choose between somebody who has a religious practice, and doesn't meet all of your expectations, when it comes to culture and things like this, versus the opposite, then you have a duty for the sake of your children, and the sake of your children's children for the sake of your progeny, to prioritize us now, what is the duty of the prophets in the Torah? of Ibraheem Alehissalaam any other prophets they are always asking the last column to add up to safeguard their the RIA when it came to

guidance. And even Rahim Allah He said, I'm in Surah Al Baqarah. He actually asks us lb to Allah, when Allah Spano Tata makes Ibraheem Alehissalaam an imam. He says, What mean though? Reethi? Right, he questions What about my descendants? And Allah Subhana Allah says, lionello after the body meat.

He says, it's not a free pass. Not everybody who's descended from you, is guarantee the same position that you are, they have to choose, they have to have priorities, and they have to prioritize this man. This isn't something that you get to inherit.

Other things that we have to be aware of as parents, we have to make sure that our children understand the deen as much as possible before they get into marriage. It is shocking how ignorant our Muslim youth are.

Not even when it comes to the basics of Islam. Yes, that too, but especially to marriage. Time and time again, there are certain myths that persist about marriage about divorce, that most people just don't know. Most people assume that only a man can initialize a divorce. That's not true. Most people assume that women if they're stuck in a relationship, and their parents are kind of forcing them to be that there's no way out. That's also not true. Many people are

Under the assumption that

parents have the right to marry off their daughters against their will. That's also not true. So there's many, many myths that float around. And it's our responsibility, mine and yours to educate our children so that they know what they're getting into, before they get into a problem.

Once we get to the marriage itself,

one of the things, the most common source of

let's say, disappointment, or mixed matched, mismatched expectations has to do with gender roles. This is commonly this is one of the most common sources of conflict. We have people, they come to me and they say, Well, I thought that she was going to do this, that and the other, I thought she was going to cook and clean and do this sort of thing. And then the female also has certain expectations, I thought I was going to be able to visit my parents more than this, I thought I was going to be able to hold on to this part.

When it comes to marriage, marriage is about communication. And communication, a certain amount of communication has to happen before the marriage actually takes place. You don't want to have any surprises. When it comes to these sorts of things. You want to understand what you're getting into. Whether it comes to if it's very important to visit your family and visit your parents, if it's very important that a person have a certain level of material wealth, or be able to bring in a certain amount of income. These are things that need to be ironed out ahead of time, because they're very, very difficult. Once you're in a marriage to get over the letdown, or the disappointment.

A lot of people they focus on these things. And they're concerned about what are my rights on the man, I have the right for my wife to cook and clean and to serve me. And then the woman comes back and retorts, well, I have the right to have an allowance to have this. And to have that and to have the other thing.

As long as each side is focused on what they're entitled to, and their rights,

they are guaranteed to be dissatisfied with the relationship.

This comes back to trying to be intentional about marriage and trying to turn marriage into something that's an act of worship, if each side is able to focus not on what's entitled to them and what's coming to them, but what they can contribute

what they're able to bring to the marriage, then they have something that's very practical that they can work towards, and something that they contribute, and they'll find themselves happier. The Prophet alayhi salatu salam, he said, that if you look to your spouse, and you see something that you don't like, look to something else, because you're going to like it. And comparison is something that's very, very hurtful, nobody likes to be compared. Whether it's a man comparing his wife to other women, or a woman comparing her husband to other men, it's an extremely difficult thing to have happen.

Focusing on rights puts us, it creates two lawyers in the relationship. And each side is now worried about going to court to try to take their rights back and come to me, Oh, he's not giving me my rights, or she's not giving me my rights. And then someone like me becomes the judge, I have to be like, well, you have to take that you have to take this. Even if you get what you want, you're not going to be happy.

You want to create a situation where the other person gives freely from their own motivation, from their own desire. That's when you're going to appreciate it. That's where you're going to feel that tranquility that Allah subhanaw taala promised, not a few, bring them to court and force them to give it

both sides need to get in the habit of building each other up and not cutting each other down comparisons, as we said, are very, very, very harmful.

Each spouse comes home and they have their own

struggles that they deal with. They have their own set of circumstances that have their own things that they're fighting against. Even if you're if you stay at home, for example, if you're a spouse that stays at home, you've got the kids, you've got chores, you've got work, you've got all these sorts of things. And you come home, and then what happens the other side dumps all their problems on you. Now you've come home to even more problems. Right? And so each side can feel like, resentful after a while because they don't feel like they get to be heard and they don't feel like the other one is building them up. Even worse, if the other one is just focusing because they're stressed.

They're focusing on Well, you're not doing this and you're not doing that and you're not doing that and you're not doing that.

Right. I know us guys we get criticized for spending too much time in the bathroom.

Right? That's true. I see smiles. Yeah. And also probably the car, right sitting in the driveway. Right? But sometimes the reality is that

When we're afraid of what's going to happen on the other side of the door, sometimes we take that time to just decompress. Maybe our boss says something to us, that wasn't very nice. Maybe you know, something's going on with a friend. They need help. Maybe something financially is going on.

Each one of us carries these different sorts of stressors. And we need the other, the thing about marriage is that you depend upon the other one to pick you up and to build you up.

And when that doesn't happen, then each side can, can lose out.

The goal is to get to a place where your relationship is not transactional. Right? You don't want to be doing the dishes. Because you know, if you don't, she's going to be upset at you guys. You want to be doing it out of the kindness of your heart, you want to be doing it because you know that that's what would make her happy.

And the secret to marriage is that if each side can get to the point where they're trying to make a law, happy through the marriage, and everybody wins, and everybody is happy.

I wrote a few notes here about divorce that I feel compelled to share just for information sake, just because there's a lot of

there's a lot of misinformation that goes on about marriage. But a question first, and maybe we can we can open this up and make it a little bit more interactive. I've learned a lot about marriage and divorce over the last couple of years and having some conferences with the different sorts of mischief and people. What age do you think divorce is most common?

Anybody have an ideas?

Yes, that is the most common age to get divorce between 45 and 54. Why do you think that is?

Their mission raising their kids?

Asante, they're done with their mission raising their kids. Was that the only mission?

But it becomes that way, right?

There connection? Yes. Yes, that's very, very interesting. If you're an individual, you know, just like a last round data has many C fats and ismat. Right. He's a, he's Oklahomans in Japan, and Allah for all these sorts of things. But he's one entity. Every single one of us has multiple paths that we were right, we're each a son or daughter, to our parents. We are parents to our children. We have brothers and sisters, we have you know, professional lives, we have all these sorts of different things. And when our relationship becomes just about the mission,

only about the kids, what happens is that a lot of couples, they spend those years only focusing on the kids only focusing on their identity as a parent, and developing themselves as a parent, not as a daughter or son, not as a wife, or husband.

And then the kids grow up, they move out. You look up, the whole world's changed. Everything that you focused on, is now Mission accomplished, right?

And now you need something to be different. Now you're almost looking to reinvent, right they actually call this the

the harvesting phase of life.

The question that sticks in the mind of every person in this age was looking back on my life, was it worth it?

Was it worth it?

And that's what inspires what we call the midlife crisis. Right? Somebody wants to make a dramatic change, guys, we go out and buy sports cars. Right? Are we that's kind of the stereotype in America or something. This is often where I actually also guys start to look for a second life.

were other things.

You're trying to reinvent yourself because there's a there's a vacuum. The thing that shaped your identity for so long is now not there anymore. And so on this process of reinventing yourself, you're questioning everything.

And you're looking back, and you're looking at the memories, and sometimes we can feel bitter. We can feel resentful. We can feel like, for example that

things weren't done to develop myself. I'm tired of here's here's a common thing. I'm tired of putting everybody else first. I need to take some time for me.

What's the other period of life or if divorce is the most common? That's the first most common

anybody have any guesses?

The first couple of years of marriage, okay. You're gonna sadly know that. Nobody wants. Yeah, between 25 and 34 years old.

Between 25 and 34. It's interesting that there is a 10 year gap

In between those two periods where divorce is fairly rare, but in the middle there this beginning stage after the honeymoon phase, not necessarily newlywed, newlywed like that that can be common. But even more common than that is after the honeymoon phase is over, right? This kind of space that's in marriage. They call it the actualization phase honeymoons over now you see the disappointment, right reality sets in? And what's the question that is lodged in the mind of somebody in this stage of their life?

Oh, my God, is it going to be like this forever?

That's the question that they ask themselves. And that's why a lot of people in this age group and at that stage in their relationship, they're ready to make a dramatic change, because they can't imagine life going on like this forever.

The moral of the story without getting into too much detail about these sorts of things, though they are useful is that every individual has multiple buckets, right, depending on your role, depending on identity on your identity, and you have to fill them, you have to fill all of them. If you go for years, and years and years, not filling one bucket, then you might there might come a day where you look into it, and nothing's there. And you might be upset about that. Or you might feel resentful about that or bitter about that. And then you might want to do something dramatic and hasty, in order to make up for all the last time that you feel. So before we open it up to kind of questions

and comments, the thing is that

your relationship with your spouse has certain tiers. First of all, your relationship with your spouse, as with the last panel, DOD, it's first of all with the last panel.

Second of all, it's with your spouse, right. And then other things like that the projects, the other projects come and go, even your kids, right, which is a massive, massive thing, and really an important responsibility.

But everything that is alive, by definition has to grow. Right? And so, a relationship, if it doesn't grow together, it's not going to last, you have to find a way and especially in these two kind of key periods.

You might need to redefine your relationship. You're not the same two people you are when you're in the honeymoon phase, you're not the same two people that you were after the honeymoon phase was over. Maybe now the kids are moving out. And maybe you need to redefine yourselves again, what's going to be the substance of your relationship? How involved is it going to be? What are the terms of it going to be

if you're able to kind of

add to your relationship and invest in your relationship in such a way that you're able to grow together through these sorts of phases, and expect them to because half of the battle is expecting them a lot of time. And I didn't know this stuff again until like, you know, the last couple years. And then when someone tells you it's like, Oh, that makes so much sense. I felt that way.

If you don't know what to expect, you feel like you're the only person going through it. Like what's wrong with me? What's wrong with my marriage, this is so horrible. Everybody can't be like this, maybe we need to divorce, maybe we need to change.

And then you realize that actually, the vast majority of people are going through the same thing around the same time. And you realize that the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side. It's just that the grass is greener where you water it. And you have to take time and be strategic and intentional in what you add to your relationship along the way.

I'd like to at this point that maybe open it up if anybody has any comments or or questions. It's a huge topic, and we could probably talk about it all evening. But try to mention just some major points.

So you mentioned the Prophet

went through some difficult time. Is there any example in how he overcome those? Sure, the F. The F gives the paradigmatic difficulty, the probability. So that's somewhat whenever people were accusing his wife of infidelity. Right.

And he was affected by that to the point where he kind of believed it.

Right. And I was pretty upset that he bought into it, even to the extent that he did. Of course, he wouldn't, you know, come out and say that he believed it. He had procedural things that he had to hold off judgment, but the way he treated her, it was as if he thought it was likely you know, he asked Lee he asked to redraw, he asked different people that were around, trying to do like a little investigation.

But at the end of the day, one of the things that he did and this is something I think that all of us can benefit from is not making hasty decisions, right? First of all, not making not jumping

The conclusions of making assumptions, that's a big thing.

And trying to let certain things play out, and giving people a chance to redeem themselves or at least clear their name. You know, some of the couples that I that I counsel,

the husband Adonis is lacking, right? Allah says in surah, hozelock, he says, Yeah, and I'm just gonna go cathedral, Milan, in the battle Vani, if, Okay,

stay away from much suspicion,

or assumption, because some of it is sinful.

You can construct a whole narrative in your head about somebody

imagining that they're doing this and and it's really, really hurtful in marriages, when you start to project it into the past.

Oh, you've always been this way.

You've always thought this way about my family, right? That's a common one, you know, tensions between the extended relatives or you don't value me, or you don't help me succeed, or you don't do this, you do that. And now what happens is because you know, shaytaan works on us, we start to cherry pick our memories. And so that we look for evidence that confirms the narrative, right?

Whereas, if we're able to set certain ground rules, and control ourselves, and try to have a more sober understanding of what we can know, and what we can't know, and what we can assess what we can assess, and focus on ourselves, man at the end of the day, and to be very, very frank, I mean, if somebody if your spouse is going to really deceive you and betray you and you know, kill you in the night, you know, or something crazy like that.

What are you going to do to stop it? Right? If Allah subhanaw taala has well that

that's not to say, obviously, that we don't take precautions. And I'm not saying that you should sleep with something next to you. But you know, like,

but you have to be right with Allah. If you're right with Allah, as the prophet is said, then everything is good for you. Even if it's a hardship, or something like that, because at the end of the day, we can only control ourselves. Sometimes we resort to certain sorts of methods to try to control the spouse control the other person, we want a certain result out of them.

But at the end of the day, you know, like we said before, even if you get what you want, if it's not given freely and out of love, it won't be sweet. You won't even enjoy it.

That's a big topic, but that's maybe one answer.

The province like Saddam also is very very careful when it came to his anger. And obviously you have the Hadith the process I'm not talking about bracers Don't get angry. That's not luck, right? The prophesy Saddam got angry. He got angry. But what would he get angry for he would get angry for the dean. Right? He would sometimes get up on the member, then he would be given a football and his face would turn red. And

that's how angry he was. If something about the city I had been abused or something about, you know, people's relationships will just bounce out. But I came to him. Right, there's a story where he's an artist, his house, and he has guests saw I saw them and one of his other wives sends a plate of food.

Okay, shows up to the door. I should see the food. And she's jealous. Look at this. She's trying to one up me. What she tried to say my foods aren't good enough. Right? You can imagine I said,

Aisha slaps the hand of the prophet and he slaps the vessel out of his hand, falls on the floor, breaks foods everywhere, in front of the guests.

I know what I would do in that situation.

And it would be something like, well, you're going to clean this up because you made this mess. I can't believe you embarrass me in front of my friends and my guests and stuff like that. Well, the Prophet alayhi salatu salam say,

you said, your mother, so he's, that's a term of respect, because he's talking to his guests. Your mother got angry. And he himself alayhi salatu salam cleans up the food.

There has to be certain ground rules, because here's the thing too, when it comes to the relationship with the spouse, the things that we say,

really, really stay

in the mind, right? And so we can swear by Allah and we can swear up and down that we didn't mean it.

But once we let it out,

the things that we say to the other person can wipe out ears of trust of good feelings. And that person is always going to wonder is that what they really think about me? Is that how they really feel it's all the other stuff just mood Gemma, right? It's just

how insurance in general. Just like yeah, just like effect, right? They're faking it and this is how they really feel. The Prophet alayhi salatu salam was the most in control when he was angry. And he would take the steps

To make sure that he didn't act out or speak when he was angry, because those things, those things are trust and good feelings are much more easy to destroy than they are to build.

Anyone else? Any comments, questions? welcome it.

Yes, you do.

Most common problems.

Yes, every man complains about not being appreciated, or respected. And every woman complains about not having enough quality time.

That's pretty much the summary. I have not encountered a couple that was different. I mean, they have additional grievances. But that's always they're always there. Even, you know, no secret my relationship as well. Something that we struggle with.

And it comes from a good place. Because as men, we're concerned with the livelihood, we're concerned with the responsibilities and we think but we sleep on this other type of need, that our ladies have. It was explained to me like this, maybe maybe I'll never been on a road trip. Okay. If the husband is driving, what does he want to do? What's his main priority?

Focus on the road. He wants to get there. He hates to stop.

I hate to stop.

In fact, when I have to stop, and I go back on the road, I tried to pass all those cars that I had passed before. And I noticed them I recognize them. Yes, the blue car right there. Yep. Because I felt like I was making so much progress when I was passing them earlier now that oh, they're all getting past me. Okay, what's most women's priority when they're on a road trip? Comfortable, comfortable. Cut the snacks, I found a place to stop on the side of the road along the way, so and so lives on the way there, maybe we can stop by a night, right? It's the complete opposite man wants to get to the destination. And the woman wants to make it enjoyable. Right? So this is like a

metaphor for everything.

Right? Men, we need to try to remember that our other halves, perhaps our better halves are just trying to make life nice. And we need to indulge them in that and let them make life nice because women have a God given ability to make life beautiful. Right? My wife makes fun of me, because she says that my sense of interior decorating towards tends toward a factory.

Right, I thought it was the coolest thing in Medina because I couldn't like afford nice bookshelves. So I made them with cinder blocks. And wood that I found I thought was the coolest thing. And my wife was like, that looks horrible.

We're gonna get you an actual bookshelf, right.

And then the thing for ladies to do is to recognize that as men, we're trying to get to the destination. So there needs to be a filter, when it comes to all the sorts of things that maybe you want to throw on us. Okay? There's going to be times when you want to maybe complain about something or bring up this thing and bring up that thing. And as men, our bandwidth is not inexhaustible, right? It's a very exhaustible bandwidth. So we really appreciate some sort of prioritization of like, the things that we really, really need to attend to. And the stuff that really doesn't matter, it's not super important if you can just like take care of it, or even talk to somebody else, like

mom or sister or something like that. We really appreciate that as well.

So, communication, consideration for the other. These are, I think the some of the takeaways and that spring from those sorts of problems that are almost universal to the question.

talked in the past.

Yeah, SubhanAllah. So two really essential techniques and tools for marriage are to the alpha, what's the NASM? So So, so the awful is overlooking.

So it has to do with, again, keeping account, if you're keeping account of your spouse, it's not a healthy place to be in.

Like, Well, you were even like, Okay, you were in the bathroom for 31 minutes.

You use your phone for five hours and 27 minutes today.

Even if it's, it's fair, and that needs to be addressed, and there needs to be some changes. When each side goes into accounting mode, it's very, very hard. It's very, very hard.

So to the awful has to do with not sweating, the small stuff, okay, there's priorities. Some things are bigger than others. And you should address the big things in a respectful way.

with good communication, and there's some things that you have to let go. Right, some things that are small that you have to let go.

When it comes to

interior decorating, for example,

I couldn't care less, whatever it is, if something's going to be, even if it's a color I don't like or whatever the arrangement of the furniture, I don't care, whatever you want is okay, right. Or if something, maybe you have an expectation, maybe you expect a meal to be prepared a certain time of day, or something to be a certain way.

These are the sorts of things to let go, right, we can't load all these symbolic meanings into them and say that it's like, Well, okay, and she clearly doesn't care about me, because you know, dinner wasn't ready at 5:03pm. You know, that's like, we have to let the little stuff go, while addressing the big stuff. Because when we obsess over the little stuff, it's really not the little stuff, it's the big stuff, you want to feel respected. You want to feel like your spouse has consideration for you, you can address that. But the second, we start to nitpick and focus on every little minor or minor detail that we think is a symbol of that bigger thing, then everybody feels like they've got

security cameras on them. 24/7.

So that's an awful International is that once you have

a conflict and conflict is inevitable. You have to come up with a mutually agreeable situation, right? One person is not policeman and the other person is not the criminal, you're not going to be able to force to get everything your way there has to be give and take, there has to be compromise that needs to be negotiation. You know, well, you want this sort of thing that's really hard for me, Can we at least start with this right? Maybe work your way up to something bigger later down the road, these sorts of negotiations are very meaningful because then you feel heard, each side really needs to feel hurt in a marriage. And when you choose to nozzle then you're actually making it much

easier to be hurt because each of you is able to compromise and let go a little bit are Sheikh Abdullah and Medina he used to say, if every spouse gets all of their rights, then neither of them will stay in the relationship sound possible. You have to come into relationship expecting that you're not going to get all of your rights

some of them are more important to you than others. So we prioritize and we compromise and we negotiate and as long as you're in community it takes communication as long as you're in communication then inshallah and you're both sincere that things are going to turn out and show

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case monitor chakra, so he was just summarizing some important points and some of them we've already talked about. So you know, choosing according to the right priorities, right barriers, that's when you're getting into it. And then

what was number two was clear communication, right between between the side and then McAfee, which is sort of like

their own that have a lot of conversation about McAfee because there's there's some debate about how far it goes. Right

And what exactly it means. But the idea behind it is that there is parity, parity in the relationship. Right. And that can mean a lot of things. But there's no doubt at all that they talk about the importance of religious parity before, you know, economic parity or those sorts of things. Those things, there's huge disagreement about some automatic, they say, yeah, there should be economic parity between two spouses. Oh, say no, doesn't matter. But the one thing they all agree to, is religious parity, right? If you get into a marriage, and you're a very devoted person, and the other person, they don't care, is it possible it's gonna end up okay. Yeah, it's possible. But

no, no, it's it's fairly rare. And it's hard because you don't have a common ground, right, when a problem happens to be able to communicate to the ground upon what you're going to negotiate and compromise and certain sort of things like that. So it makes everything very difficult.

Excellent, thank you.

I think it also goes beyond some of those simple things. It's also

cultural parity, because that comes with expectation. I mean, it shouldn't be considered, but

people should not be blinded to that principle, whether it's economic, or educational, they should think about it before they get that, yes, it's one of those things, it's almost like a secondary cause. Because it's not necessarily that, for example, like education, it's not necessarily that a marriage can't work. If one party is much more educated than the other, it's just that it might be an indicator of other things that are maybe going to make the relationship very, very difficult to work. Right. So what are the what do each one find satisfying? How does each one communicate? Like what do they expect like for children, all these sorts of things? This is where then you might find

conflict if you don't have the same sort of mentality

Any other final questions before we go from Excella?

Or comments

I see a lot of tea drinking going on.

As opposed to be tea talk.

Talk to you. It was beautiful. I don't think you know, once a month, once a month inshallah you mean specifically about marriage.

Okay, I mean, that can be

we'll see there's definitely more to say on the on the topic of marriage.

So I'm open to that.

sabbatical Huma conduct that Shawanda enter stuff probably will relate because I'm going to craft a

lesson