Marriage is hard...

Following Allah's laws are the key to marital success :-)

A'salaamu alaikum ya'll. You know I've been thinking alot about marriage lately. Why you may ask? Well because I am married and it takes up alot of my time, energy and thoughts. :-) To make a marriage work, any marriage, takes effort but to build a beautiful, solid Islamic marriage... well, it's less work and it's more work. Confused? Let me explain.

There are many reasons why a marriage between Muslims is easy:

1. Allah is the center. If we truly trust and obey Him, what can bother us?

2. We have at our disposal a fool-proof guide to marriage. It's called the Qur'an and the sunnah of our beloved Prophet, saws.

I think that about does it. We don't have to guess, we know how we should act, how we should respond, even how we should approach an argument. How many people set off an any venture with such clear-cut instructions??? Subhanallah.

Now there are some reasons it's hard. Here they are:

1. Shaitaan. He loves nothing more than to come between a husband and a wife. He delights in causing discord and he will stop at nothing to make problems where there should be tranquility.

2. We are human. Yes we are Muslims, we strive for the pleasure of Allah, but we fail. We often fail in our marriages, fail with our spouse before others. How many times have we been in a bad mood and taken it out on the person closest to us? Yeah, you've got the idea.

3. Even though we know what to do, we sometimes ignore it. This is different from making an honest error. There are times when we simply chose to do the wrong thing and in a marriage, this can lead to serious problems.

Is there a solution? Yes. Truly strive to please Allah in all matters, and you will see improvements. Make sincere du'a (often) and Allah swt will relieve you of your burdens. This may sound trite to some of you but if you read the Qur'an and hadith, you will see so many beautiful examples of how Allah's mercies are abundant.

A Bukhari hadith describes how a woman was running about in the hot sun, searching for her child. She found him, and clutched him to her breast, saying, "My son, my son!" The Prophet's Companions saw this, and wept. The Prophet was delighted to see their mercy, and said, "Do you wonder at this woman's mercy (rahmah) for her child? By Him in Whose hand is my soul, on the Day of Judgment, Allah shall show more rahmah toward His believing servant than this woman has shown to her son."

And your Lord said: "Invoke Me (believe in My Oneness and ask me for anything) I will respond to your (invocation).........." Qur'an 40:60

There are so many more examples but these are just two of the multitude. Sisters, I tell myself this before anyone else. A marriage between Muslims isn't some fairy tale: your husband isn't going to come home every day after work and bring you an armfull of flowers he stopped to pick from the road side and he probably won't live up to a hundred other western ideals of romance we've all picked up from the movies. :-) We, my dear sisters, also will probably not have a beautiful, peaceful home for him to come to everyday, we might snap or be grouchy at times, and I'm pretty sure we've all woken up and looked like a sea monster instead of the beauty mouthwash commercial girl who wakes up fresh and clean with minty breath!

My point is, real life isn't a romance. It can be romantic and beautiful and loving but day to day life isn't a storybook love affair. It's the day-in and day-out of raising a family, paying bills, and being constant for one another in our affection and giving of our time.

It means not voicing every complaint that comes to our mind and it sometimes means gracefully acknowledging when we are wrong. It means putting our Creator first and seeing marriage as a means to an end; as a way to protect us in this dunya and help us win our jannah, as a way to encourage each other on this journey called life.

My sisters, we can love our husbands and they can love us, but our worship, our life is for Allah and Allah alone. "I only created the jinn and mankind to worship Me." Qur'an 51:56. If we keep this close to heart, we can find it easier to accept the small disappointments in life, easier to bear our burdens. If our husbands, too, keep these words in their minds, they will be naturally more loving and caring, and will do all for their family to please their Rabb.

Let us all strive for the pleasure of Allah and pray for Him to erase our insecurities, to make us stronger and more constant, and insha'Allah these little annoyance of life will cease to bother us as much.

P.S. I love my husband, he loves me, we have a fine marriage alhamdulillah. This is just a post that has weighed on me lately for many different reasons. :-)

Ma salaama ya'll!