This Destroys Your Marriage! – Watch This Before It’s Too Late
Published on
Is it right to end an unhappy marriage, or to be patient and say that it's a test and not end it? Why do spouses become distant from each other over time? Isn't it possible to preserve love like in the early days? If it's done right, marriage will make love even stronger. One of the things people don't understand is that love grows in the relationship, and it transforms itself from one level to the other one. You need to push back against the Shaitan. Because the Shaitan is going to tell you, "Yell, curse, do this, do that." But you need to push back away from this. Did the Prophet (saw) ever have arguments with his wives or was it always like flowery and always happy? Ah, okay.
Assalamualaikum Sheikh Yaser Birjas. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation. We are very happy to have you with us. We want to ask some questions about marriage today. Absolutely. So, we hope to sweat you with our questions. Bismillah. Looking forward. Go for it. Okay. Why do spouses become distant from each other over time? Isn't it possible to preserve love like in the early days? Does marriage kill love? Actually? Subhanallah. Ibn Al-Qayyim (r.a) in one of his books, he wrote on the subject and he said that, look, if it's done right, marriage will make love even stronger. And the question is, what do you mean by doing it right?
We said that Allah mentioned the Qur'an that two important ingredients is love and mercy, passion and compassion. And obviously, one of the things people don't understand is that love grows in the relationship and it transforms itself from one level to the other one. The big problem is that when people, ten years and 2 or 3 kids later, they still expect their spouse to love them in the exact same way they loved them ten years ago, when they were still young, Mashallah, with no responsibilities. That's not fair. But now I love you for another reason. I love you for being the father and the mother of my kids. I love you because you stand by me when I'm tired and exhausted.
I love it because you help me out with this, you're understanding, considerate, and so on. When does it start falling apart? When do people start growing apart from each other? The main issue to understand is why people have that. So here's the thing. The ultimate goal of any relationship is to find peace and tranquility. And peace is a rechargeable battery. You start your day at 100% satisfaction. After a long day, you come back at 90%. What do you expect from your spouse? To recharge you back to 100. Instead, unfortunately, with bad manners, we start draining each other even more. So we start sleeping at 70%.
And then at some point, we start waking up at 90% and coming back at 70%, sleeping at 50%. And if you follow the pattern, we're going to come to a point when there is no energy left for me. That's when people decide to quit the relationship. But what we need to understand is that you're supposed to be the source of peace for me. And I'm supposed to be the source of peace for you. So why do people fight? They fight because you're disturbing my peace. I'm going to have to restore that peace. And if you're not going to help me out, I'm going to take it forcefully. And that's when we start having friction and conflict.
Because everybody wants to find peace in their relationship in a way that is meaningful to them. And if we're not compatible with that, and we're not flexible enough to give each other that peace without feeling that I'm being drained completely, then people will fight all the time. How was our Prophet (saw) to his wives? Oh my God. I mean, one of the most beautiful things really, that I love to read about in the Sirah of the Prophet (saw), his personal life. And I collected many, many hadith on the personal life of the Prophet (saw). He was an unbelievable man. He (saw) was a great gentleman.
And one of those stories when he married Safiyya (ra), they were on a journey coming back from Haifa at that time. And when it was time for her to, you know, mount the camel and go on the on the back of the camel. The camel is high. So the Prophet (saw), what he did, he kneeled down. He kneeled down, and he propped his other knee up for her. So she could step on it as a stepping stone, like a step. So she would step on his (saw) knees to go up and climb on the back of the camel. While she was doing that, the Prophet (saw), with his chivalry, he was covering her with his outer garment. He was covering her like this when she was actually stepping on his knee. Why?
Because when she raises her leg, obviously to put her leg on his knee, it might reveal the other leg. So the Prophet (saw) was covering her. That's chivalry. Chivalry is just like what? This is basically the meaning of being a real man over here. Because he (saw) was protective and he was a gentleman. Today it's like opening the door for your wife, holding the door for her when she goes through. That's the kind of treatment that is really required. For some cultures unfortunately, they think this to be actually a weakness. And it takes away from the image of them being masculine and being the man. I don't know how much they enjoy their relationship with their spouse. It's up to them.
If it's not private, are you doing these kind of things to your wife? You need to ask my wife, not me. Good, good. But I do, I do. Alhamdulillah. How should spouses show respect to each other? You know, today, unfortunately, because of the... The kind of lifestyle we live today, even the word 'respect' has become a very sensitive word. So nowadays, when women, they hear the word respect, they kind of start itching. It's just like very sensitive word for them because they translate that into control. Right? Yeah. The word obedience, they translate into oppression, for example. Unfortunately. So the word respect, the word obedience, translates into negative meanings, unfortunately.
Now, I don't blame the women because unfortunately some men, they do actually, unfortunately. They don't understand the meaning of respect. So they demand from them things that are beyond the meaning of respect. But really the subject of respect also is a spectrum, cultural thing. What does that mean? In some cultures, you know, talking back to your spouse, that's disrespectful right? In other cultures, normal. And even at the time of the Prophet (saw), this really happened. Because the Meccans, in the time of the Prophet (saw), the Meccan men were more masculine, you could say. And they were in charge of their households probably.
So they were always, you know, they had to be in control of the relationship. When they went to Medina, the Ansari women, they were more vocal. They were more actually out there. Because probably they help with the fields and they work with the fields and so forth. So they're more courageous when it comes to speaking. So therefore, even Omar ibn Khattab (ra) was surprised that his wife started kind of learning from the Ansari women to answer back. And for him that's like, wow, that was disrespectful, basically. So what we can learn from this is that, when we come to the meaning of respect, It's actually a spectrum as well, too.
So, if someone marries from the same village, for example, or the same town, you expect your wife and your husband to treat you like you've seen, observed your uncles, your cousins, your this and that. Because we have the same culture. But when people marry cross-culture or from the village, different town, different city, and they marry cross-culture, for instance, we will have a problem trying to maintain the meaning of respect. Why? Because for him, he thinks this is okay. For her, she thinks this is not okay, maybe the opposite. She might think it's not a problem, but for him that's disrespectful for example.
So really, there is no one thing to say, "This is what respect is." It goes back again to بالمعروف, which means how you decide what is considered reasonable and what is not. So in traditional households, the man expects his wife to take care of everything. To take care of the cooking and the cleaning and the kids and so on. The man's job is just to provide from outside. But in modern time and modern societies, we see that people might expect differently. So if you demand from your spouse to do something for you, that's not disrespectful to them in this modern time, obviously. What about the Prophet (saw)?
The Prophet's (saw) lifestyle was what they call transitional, which means it's between being traditional and egalitarian. So the Prophet (saw), when he's around the house, Aisha (ra) was asked, "How was the Prophet (saw) around the house?" She goes, "He's just like everybody else. He cleans, he takes care of his shoes, he fixed his shirts, and he milked the goat for us." She goes, "But when he hears the adhan, this is it." "He's done. He goes back and he does what really a man needs to do." So yeah, if being... Being the man does not necessarily mean you cannot help your family and taking care of the children or being reasonable with that.
But at the same time, of course, the lady needs also to give her man, you know, the respect he deserves as well from her. In return for his help and his assistance to the household. What was the common elements you observed in successful marriages? The most common, I would say, trait to a successful marriage really is akhlaq and manners. It doesn't matter how different you are. It doesn't matter how rich or poor you are. It doesn't matter how educated or otherwise you are. At the end of the day, what keeps people really together, the most important thing is their manners, their akhlaq. How they treat each other with respect.
Even if you don't necessarily love them passionately, crazy love, you still have respect and dignity maintained in the relationship. That's how actually marriages really last. People, they ask me, what brings people together? Look, I said, what brings people together is compatibility. Like, I talked to you. So, we see that we have the same vision, we have the same personality, we have the same maybe goals and dreams in life and so on. All of this is beautiful. It helps people get together to get married. But then it doesn't guarantee continuity. So what guarantees continuity in a relationship is called flexibility. You have to be flexible. You have to be adaptable.
Otherwise if you're always rigid on how you understand love, how you're going to run the relationship, how you're going to raise your children, how you're going to achieve your goals. If you stick on the same principles from the time you got married, it's dangerous. Why? Because everybody changes. We all change. We change because we have kids. We change because now we're busier. We change because we're getting older. We change because, you know, our attention to things starts shifting and changing. And if you're not willing to be flexible enough to accept that change with your spouse and to adapt yourself to this change, the relationship doesn't last long. So, it's important to be flexible.
What brings flexibility in people's lives? Compassion, empathy, forgiveness. You know, open minded personality. Growth, the idea of growth. Like, you know what? We all grow as well, too. We have room for improvement. Those principles help people stay together. If they don't have that sense of empathy to each other, if they don't have compassion for one another, if they don't forgive if they make mistakes, for example, if they don't accept them to grow in their relationship with you, then it's destined to doom, destined to end, as a matter of fact. So what is the most common feature in the unsuccessful marriages?
The most common thing for unsuccessful relationships is the lack of flexibility, really. When one person believes that everything has to go their way. It's my way or the highway. So when the husband, for example, insists on things done in a certain way, and the wives insist on things be done in a certain way. And unfortunately neither one of them is flexible enough to come halfway, it becomes a problem. So that's the most common thing. Now, what is the main reason for that? I'll tell you what. There are two things I usually teach my clients in regards to how to avoid failure in the relationship. Number one, something I like to call the silent killer of all relationships.
That silent killer of a relationship is called expectation, or unmet expectation. What does that mean? We all come to a relationship with expectations. We come with hopes for things to happen in a certain way, from ourselves, from our spouse, from the relationship, from the society. But when you don't meet your expectation, you get disappointed. Too much of that leads to you getting upset and angry. Because now you're developing uncertainties about, is that how it's going to be from now on? Is that how my life is going to look like? And when you start having these doubts, anxiety kicks in because that's the first self defense mechanism.
And you start getting anxious about, you know, how it's going to look like in the future, will change ever happen? And too many of these worries leads to start getting scared and afraid of the unknown. Too much of that paralyzes the person. And you go into numbness because I can't make a decision anymore. And as a result, we start becoming very resentful. We start becoming compassion fatigued, and we start picking fights at the little things, and then we become depressed. Anything can tick you off, and anger will be always the manifestation of the problem. So that's the first thing. It's called the silent killer of your relationship, the unmet expectations.
The second thing, I call it the tipping point. The tipping point is where people decide to quit and leave the marriage. And that is because what we always look for in a relationship is the same thing. Everybody looks for the same thing. And what is that? It's called peace and tranquility. And in the modern time we call this maybe emotional fulfillment. Emotional fulfillment gives you peace and tranquility. So the number one reason for people to divorce is because they say, "I don't have emotional fulfillment anymore." What's the number one reason for that? Because I don't feel being appreciated. Lack of appreciation. How do you know you're not being appreciated? Says, "I don't hear it.
I don't see it from my spouse." So what appreciation are we looking for? What kind of compliments are we looking for? Verbal compliments like "Thank you," or "You look amazing today." "Thank you for helping me with this." Or physical, such as affection. Like, for example, a hug, a kiss, a touch means "I feel safe with you." "I love to be around you." When these things disappear from a relationship, people realize they're not being appreciated. They feel unfulfilled and it becomes a catalyst for them to quit a relationship. So, people go quiet after that. Because if there is nothing good to say, you go quiet. But then how long can you stay silent? Not for too long.
And the moment they open their mouths, what's going to come out of it? Nothing good. Criticism or judgment. You criticize the actions or judge the person and the character, and that will be the killer. What do men or women look for the most in the marriage? Usually when you talk about what men and women, they really expect the most, or they need the most from each other, in one word, they need many things, but in one word, what women really need from a man is called love. In one word, what a man needs from a woman is called respect. However, love and respect are synonymous, which means they are the same. But men and women speak different dialect.
Which means, a man still needs to be loved, but he sees love through respect. And a woman needs respect as well too. She sees that through, of course, being cherished and being loved as well too. The problem that happens is that when a man doesn't express love to his wife, she's not going to respect him. And when the man is not respected, he's not going to show her love. And it becomes a cycle. Without love, she reacts without respect. He reacts without love. She reacts without respect. On and on and on. Someone has to break that cycle. No matter what. We need to show love and respect to one another. Okay, but how do we do that? Because I thought I was doing this, right?
Well, in order for this to happen, you have to do it in a way that is meaningful to your spouse, even if it doesn't make sense to you. I can keep telling the people, take the example of the lady, she likes dark chocolate, and the guy, he likes milk chocolate. Every time he wants to be nice to her, he buys her milk chocolate. How is she going to feel at some point? Disappointed, she feels lonely because he's just being very selfish. He thinks of himself all the time. And when she tries to express herself, the man gets offended because he thought he was doing a great job.
And he would tell her, "Well, I'm buying you the best chocolate in the market." "That's Belgian chocolate, you know, it's amazing." But she would say, "But I like dark chocolate." And he insists, "No, no, no. Who likes dark chocolate anyway?" "Milk chocolate is better than dark chocolate." As a matter of fact, a lot of husband and wife, this is how the relationship is. He wants to love her in a way that's meaningful to him. And she wants to show him respect or love in a way that is meaningful to her. And as a result, we become completely divided. So for the man to love his wife, he needs to show her love in a way that is meaningful to her, even if it doesn't make sense to him.
And same thing, the woman does to her husband in a way that is meaningful to him, even if it doesn't make sense to her. As long as it's not haram and it's not crazy, why not? Can you tell us a heart touching story from our Prophet's (saw) marriage? His kindness, his understanding, he's really... He was very, very understanding, very kind, very compassionate. He understood the needs of his spouses. One of those examples, Safiyya. Safiyya (ra), she comes from a Jewish tradition. So, when she married the Prophet (saw) and moved to Medina, she was the only one that we know, that she would frequently visit the Prophet (saw) in his i'tikaf when he was in the last ten nights of Ramadan.
I mean, he's busy doing ibadah. Why would you go and visit him? You know why? Because she's the only probably wife of the Prophet (saw) who had no relatives in Medina. All the other women, they had their cousins. They had their parents. They had their family. Because they were Arab, predominantly, except for Mariah, who came afterwards, obviously. But Safiyya had no family in Medina for her, except Rasoolullah (saw). So, she misses him. So she goes to visit him when he's doing his i'tikaf in the masjid. Guess what he does? Does he tell her, "What are you doing here?" "This is i'tikaf. Let me finish this." "I'm waiting to, you know, witness Laylatul Qadr." He didn't say that.
He didn't say, "Astagfirullah, you can't come to the masjid at this time, go back." She came at night to visit the Prophet (saw) because she misses her husband. He sat with her. He chatted with her. He talked to her in the masjid. And then when she was satisfied as she was leaving, he escorted her. He walked out with her. And obviously she's not done, she's going to continue to talk with him because she loves the moment with him, right? She starts talking. He was still talking to her. He was basically entertaining her time for her because that's very valuable for her.
So, what we learn from this story is how much the Prophet (saw) really cared about Safiyya and her feelings and her emotions that he dedicated this time for her. So what I can say about the Prophet, he was very loving, very caring. He (saw) was very compassionate, that the manifestation of that was seen in the last time, the last days of his life. When he kept saying when he was ill, "Where am I going to be tomorrow?" Because he had to rotate between the houses. The other wives, they said, "Ya Rasoolullah, you stay with Aisha, we'll come to visit you." And the sight, the last moment is beautiful.
Aisha, she said she was holding the Prophet (saw), bringing his back on her chest like leaning him on her chest and holding his hand and reciting the Qur'an for him, and wiping with his blessed hand over his body to ease his pain. But when she was describing the story, what did she say? She goes, "He died between my chest and my chin." What does that mean? She said, "I never let go of my husband until the last breath." What a beautiful moment. I come telling you, every husband probably would wish their moment to be like that. Why do you think the divorce rates are high? Have you ever been a means to save a marriage when it was about to end?
Alhamdullillah, I was able to save a lot of marriages, really. But I don't claim that I was able to be successful with everybody. Unfortunately, many, many people, they come in the last minute. Like, they are forced to come for consulting or counseling. They've been stubborn, they don't want to come, they don't believe in that. Why do I have to bring someone who's stranger to talk to us about our marriage? So they come in the last moment, and they think that you're going to make a miracle to save their marriages. But unfortunately, when things go bad, they blame it on the consultation. They don't blame it on themselves.
But Alhamdullillah, some other people, Mashallah, we were able to save their marriages, Alhamdulillah. It really gives me great pleasure to always meet people in my life. Different conferences, different travels and so on. And when they tell you, Alhamdulillah, you know, we did counseling with you or we did this for us, Alhamdulillah. And we just wanted you to know that was very helpful. Alhamdulillah, saved our marriages. Now, what are the main reasons for people to divorce? There are many reasons, obviously. There are many reasons. Nowadays one of the main reasons really is, men unfortunately are not stepping up to become the men.
Meaning they're not leading their households the way they should be. And women, unfortunately, they don't want to assume their role as the wife and the mother in the house. So as a result, we are now creating imbalance in terms of roles. The man, he wants to get married and still live a single life. The lady, she wants to get married and live a single life. In reality, in marriage, it doesn't work like this. That doesn't create a healthy dynamic for a husband and wife and a family life. Nowadays, as a result of that, you will find a lot of young people today coming to you, says, "Is it okay if we get married without having kids or not having kids?" Like, they don't want to have kids.
And Islamically speaking, it's not haram. You can, if you don't want to have kids. But how are you going to survive in this relationship? At some point it's going to get boring. And having kids is another purpose for the relationship to succeed and actually go through. It doesn't make it easy though, but it becomes another reason for it to be sustained and actually to stay longer. So yeah, sometimes we find that unfortunately men and women, they don't really understand what marriage is. So when they come, they come with their expectations from each other. And when those expectations are not met, they just grow apart.
Is it right to end an unhappy marriage, or to be patient and say that it's a test and not end it? When we say unhappy marriage, if the marriage is not necessarily abusive, if there is no excessive hardship in the relationship, maintaining it for the sake of the children and for the sake, of course, you know, maintaining your relationship with the individual is still better. Allah says in the Qur'an, They should actually find some settlement before they make a divorce. And that settlement is to minimize and reduce the obligation of marriage to the bare minimum. So that's better for them than full divorce. But if the relationship was, of course, abusive and have some...
becomes dangerous and unhealthy and toxic, then separation is better for them, wallahi. Tell me something that will soften the situation, decrease the tension between me and my wife every time I face a problem in my marriage. Sincerely, from the heart, really. You know Allah (swt) gave us the solution for these issues in Surat Fussilat, Chapter 41, in the Qur'an. Verses 33 through 36. Allah (swt), in the context of this Ayah, He says, I'm not going to mention all the Ayah, but Allah says, Always respond in that which is best. What does that even mean? You see, the Arabic word means 'push', and pushing requires you... You're sweating, you're getting fatigued and tired. What does that mean?
In marriage, there are going to be a lot of moments you're going to have to push back. But you need to push back against the Shaitan. Because the Shaitan is going to tell you, "Yell, curse, do this, do that." But you need to push back away from this. Always respond in that which is best. So if your spouse treated you at that level, you treat them at that level, better. Because you don't treat them based on who they are. You treat them based on who you are. And I have a high standard of character. I need to maintain that standard of character. Well, he started it, she started. I don't care. I want to do the right thing all the time. That's what matters here for us.
So, yeah, doing the right thing is important. So Allah says, Always respond to that which is best. Perhaps with whom you have hostility or feud, become the most beloved person to you. Allah knows this is not going to be easy. He says, "Only those who persevere in patience will handle that." Which means being patient is very important. And there is no price tag on patience in the Qur'an. Because you can't put a value on patience. And He says, That's why he says, "Your prize is with me, not with the people." And I will give you your حَظِّ. I'll give the reward for your patience. So the idea is that, look, we need to be kind to each other.
We need to be patient with one another, and we need to expect them to make mistakes. And we need to learn to forgive, forget and grow together. That's very important. Did the Prophet (saw) ever have arguments with his wives or was it always like flowery and always happy? Is it idealistic to expect such a thing? His household was a normal household. He had to deal with silent treatment. He had to deal with his wife demanding more money, more sustenance. He had to deal with sometimes feud between the wives and even sometimes his daughter and Aisha (ra). Like every household, they had issues with anger issues, they had issues with the sustenance, with type of things and so on.
And it's all in books of hadith. They are mentioned to us in books of the hadith of Prophet (saw). He had to deal with these difficult things. And the best way of dealing with these difficult manners, his manner (saw). Sheikh Yaser Birjas, thank you for your answers. We learned a lot from you. May Allah reward you for all your efforts for this ummah. Thank you very much for having me here with you.
Assalamualaikum Sheikh Yaser Birjas. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation. We are very happy to have you with us. We want to ask some questions about marriage today. Absolutely. So, we hope to sweat you with our questions. Bismillah. Looking forward. Go for it. Okay. Why do spouses become distant from each other over time? Isn't it possible to preserve love like in the early days? Does marriage kill love? Actually? Subhanallah. Ibn Al-Qayyim (r.a) in one of his books, he wrote on the subject and he said that, look, if it's done right, marriage will make love even stronger. And the question is, what do you mean by doing it right?
We said that Allah mentioned the Qur'an that two important ingredients is love and mercy, passion and compassion. And obviously, one of the things people don't understand is that love grows in the relationship and it transforms itself from one level to the other one. The big problem is that when people, ten years and 2 or 3 kids later, they still expect their spouse to love them in the exact same way they loved them ten years ago, when they were still young, Mashallah, with no responsibilities. That's not fair. But now I love you for another reason. I love you for being the father and the mother of my kids. I love you because you stand by me when I'm tired and exhausted.
I love it because you help me out with this, you're understanding, considerate, and so on. When does it start falling apart? When do people start growing apart from each other? The main issue to understand is why people have that. So here's the thing. The ultimate goal of any relationship is to find peace and tranquility. And peace is a rechargeable battery. You start your day at 100% satisfaction. After a long day, you come back at 90%. What do you expect from your spouse? To recharge you back to 100. Instead, unfortunately, with bad manners, we start draining each other even more. So we start sleeping at 70%.
And then at some point, we start waking up at 90% and coming back at 70%, sleeping at 50%. And if you follow the pattern, we're going to come to a point when there is no energy left for me. That's when people decide to quit the relationship. But what we need to understand is that you're supposed to be the source of peace for me. And I'm supposed to be the source of peace for you. So why do people fight? They fight because you're disturbing my peace. I'm going to have to restore that peace. And if you're not going to help me out, I'm going to take it forcefully. And that's when we start having friction and conflict.
Because everybody wants to find peace in their relationship in a way that is meaningful to them. And if we're not compatible with that, and we're not flexible enough to give each other that peace without feeling that I'm being drained completely, then people will fight all the time. How was our Prophet (saw) to his wives? Oh my God. I mean, one of the most beautiful things really, that I love to read about in the Sirah of the Prophet (saw), his personal life. And I collected many, many hadith on the personal life of the Prophet (saw). He was an unbelievable man. He (saw) was a great gentleman.
And one of those stories when he married Safiyya (ra), they were on a journey coming back from Haifa at that time. And when it was time for her to, you know, mount the camel and go on the on the back of the camel. The camel is high. So the Prophet (saw), what he did, he kneeled down. He kneeled down, and he propped his other knee up for her. So she could step on it as a stepping stone, like a step. So she would step on his (saw) knees to go up and climb on the back of the camel. While she was doing that, the Prophet (saw), with his chivalry, he was covering her with his outer garment. He was covering her like this when she was actually stepping on his knee. Why?
Because when she raises her leg, obviously to put her leg on his knee, it might reveal the other leg. So the Prophet (saw) was covering her. That's chivalry. Chivalry is just like what? This is basically the meaning of being a real man over here. Because he (saw) was protective and he was a gentleman. Today it's like opening the door for your wife, holding the door for her when she goes through. That's the kind of treatment that is really required. For some cultures unfortunately, they think this to be actually a weakness. And it takes away from the image of them being masculine and being the man. I don't know how much they enjoy their relationship with their spouse. It's up to them.
If it's not private, are you doing these kind of things to your wife? You need to ask my wife, not me. Good, good. But I do, I do. Alhamdulillah. How should spouses show respect to each other? You know, today, unfortunately, because of the... The kind of lifestyle we live today, even the word 'respect' has become a very sensitive word. So nowadays, when women, they hear the word respect, they kind of start itching. It's just like very sensitive word for them because they translate that into control. Right? Yeah. The word obedience, they translate into oppression, for example. Unfortunately. So the word respect, the word obedience, translates into negative meanings, unfortunately.
Now, I don't blame the women because unfortunately some men, they do actually, unfortunately. They don't understand the meaning of respect. So they demand from them things that are beyond the meaning of respect. But really the subject of respect also is a spectrum, cultural thing. What does that mean? In some cultures, you know, talking back to your spouse, that's disrespectful right? In other cultures, normal. And even at the time of the Prophet (saw), this really happened. Because the Meccans, in the time of the Prophet (saw), the Meccan men were more masculine, you could say. And they were in charge of their households probably.
So they were always, you know, they had to be in control of the relationship. When they went to Medina, the Ansari women, they were more vocal. They were more actually out there. Because probably they help with the fields and they work with the fields and so forth. So they're more courageous when it comes to speaking. So therefore, even Omar ibn Khattab (ra) was surprised that his wife started kind of learning from the Ansari women to answer back. And for him that's like, wow, that was disrespectful, basically. So what we can learn from this is that, when we come to the meaning of respect, It's actually a spectrum as well, too.
So, if someone marries from the same village, for example, or the same town, you expect your wife and your husband to treat you like you've seen, observed your uncles, your cousins, your this and that. Because we have the same culture. But when people marry cross-culture or from the village, different town, different city, and they marry cross-culture, for instance, we will have a problem trying to maintain the meaning of respect. Why? Because for him, he thinks this is okay. For her, she thinks this is not okay, maybe the opposite. She might think it's not a problem, but for him that's disrespectful for example.
So really, there is no one thing to say, "This is what respect is." It goes back again to بالمعروف, which means how you decide what is considered reasonable and what is not. So in traditional households, the man expects his wife to take care of everything. To take care of the cooking and the cleaning and the kids and so on. The man's job is just to provide from outside. But in modern time and modern societies, we see that people might expect differently. So if you demand from your spouse to do something for you, that's not disrespectful to them in this modern time, obviously. What about the Prophet (saw)?
The Prophet's (saw) lifestyle was what they call transitional, which means it's between being traditional and egalitarian. So the Prophet (saw), when he's around the house, Aisha (ra) was asked, "How was the Prophet (saw) around the house?" She goes, "He's just like everybody else. He cleans, he takes care of his shoes, he fixed his shirts, and he milked the goat for us." She goes, "But when he hears the adhan, this is it." "He's done. He goes back and he does what really a man needs to do." So yeah, if being... Being the man does not necessarily mean you cannot help your family and taking care of the children or being reasonable with that.
But at the same time, of course, the lady needs also to give her man, you know, the respect he deserves as well from her. In return for his help and his assistance to the household. What was the common elements you observed in successful marriages? The most common, I would say, trait to a successful marriage really is akhlaq and manners. It doesn't matter how different you are. It doesn't matter how rich or poor you are. It doesn't matter how educated or otherwise you are. At the end of the day, what keeps people really together, the most important thing is their manners, their akhlaq. How they treat each other with respect.
Even if you don't necessarily love them passionately, crazy love, you still have respect and dignity maintained in the relationship. That's how actually marriages really last. People, they ask me, what brings people together? Look, I said, what brings people together is compatibility. Like, I talked to you. So, we see that we have the same vision, we have the same personality, we have the same maybe goals and dreams in life and so on. All of this is beautiful. It helps people get together to get married. But then it doesn't guarantee continuity. So what guarantees continuity in a relationship is called flexibility. You have to be flexible. You have to be adaptable.
Otherwise if you're always rigid on how you understand love, how you're going to run the relationship, how you're going to raise your children, how you're going to achieve your goals. If you stick on the same principles from the time you got married, it's dangerous. Why? Because everybody changes. We all change. We change because we have kids. We change because now we're busier. We change because we're getting older. We change because, you know, our attention to things starts shifting and changing. And if you're not willing to be flexible enough to accept that change with your spouse and to adapt yourself to this change, the relationship doesn't last long. So, it's important to be flexible.
What brings flexibility in people's lives? Compassion, empathy, forgiveness. You know, open minded personality. Growth, the idea of growth. Like, you know what? We all grow as well, too. We have room for improvement. Those principles help people stay together. If they don't have that sense of empathy to each other, if they don't have compassion for one another, if they don't forgive if they make mistakes, for example, if they don't accept them to grow in their relationship with you, then it's destined to doom, destined to end, as a matter of fact. So what is the most common feature in the unsuccessful marriages?
The most common thing for unsuccessful relationships is the lack of flexibility, really. When one person believes that everything has to go their way. It's my way or the highway. So when the husband, for example, insists on things done in a certain way, and the wives insist on things be done in a certain way. And unfortunately neither one of them is flexible enough to come halfway, it becomes a problem. So that's the most common thing. Now, what is the main reason for that? I'll tell you what. There are two things I usually teach my clients in regards to how to avoid failure in the relationship. Number one, something I like to call the silent killer of all relationships.
That silent killer of a relationship is called expectation, or unmet expectation. What does that mean? We all come to a relationship with expectations. We come with hopes for things to happen in a certain way, from ourselves, from our spouse, from the relationship, from the society. But when you don't meet your expectation, you get disappointed. Too much of that leads to you getting upset and angry. Because now you're developing uncertainties about, is that how it's going to be from now on? Is that how my life is going to look like? And when you start having these doubts, anxiety kicks in because that's the first self defense mechanism.
And you start getting anxious about, you know, how it's going to look like in the future, will change ever happen? And too many of these worries leads to start getting scared and afraid of the unknown. Too much of that paralyzes the person. And you go into numbness because I can't make a decision anymore. And as a result, we start becoming very resentful. We start becoming compassion fatigued, and we start picking fights at the little things, and then we become depressed. Anything can tick you off, and anger will be always the manifestation of the problem. So that's the first thing. It's called the silent killer of your relationship, the unmet expectations.
The second thing, I call it the tipping point. The tipping point is where people decide to quit and leave the marriage. And that is because what we always look for in a relationship is the same thing. Everybody looks for the same thing. And what is that? It's called peace and tranquility. And in the modern time we call this maybe emotional fulfillment. Emotional fulfillment gives you peace and tranquility. So the number one reason for people to divorce is because they say, "I don't have emotional fulfillment anymore." What's the number one reason for that? Because I don't feel being appreciated. Lack of appreciation. How do you know you're not being appreciated? Says, "I don't hear it.
I don't see it from my spouse." So what appreciation are we looking for? What kind of compliments are we looking for? Verbal compliments like "Thank you," or "You look amazing today." "Thank you for helping me with this." Or physical, such as affection. Like, for example, a hug, a kiss, a touch means "I feel safe with you." "I love to be around you." When these things disappear from a relationship, people realize they're not being appreciated. They feel unfulfilled and it becomes a catalyst for them to quit a relationship. So, people go quiet after that. Because if there is nothing good to say, you go quiet. But then how long can you stay silent? Not for too long.
And the moment they open their mouths, what's going to come out of it? Nothing good. Criticism or judgment. You criticize the actions or judge the person and the character, and that will be the killer. What do men or women look for the most in the marriage? Usually when you talk about what men and women, they really expect the most, or they need the most from each other, in one word, they need many things, but in one word, what women really need from a man is called love. In one word, what a man needs from a woman is called respect. However, love and respect are synonymous, which means they are the same. But men and women speak different dialect.
Which means, a man still needs to be loved, but he sees love through respect. And a woman needs respect as well too. She sees that through, of course, being cherished and being loved as well too. The problem that happens is that when a man doesn't express love to his wife, she's not going to respect him. And when the man is not respected, he's not going to show her love. And it becomes a cycle. Without love, she reacts without respect. He reacts without love. She reacts without respect. On and on and on. Someone has to break that cycle. No matter what. We need to show love and respect to one another. Okay, but how do we do that? Because I thought I was doing this, right?
Well, in order for this to happen, you have to do it in a way that is meaningful to your spouse, even if it doesn't make sense to you. I can keep telling the people, take the example of the lady, she likes dark chocolate, and the guy, he likes milk chocolate. Every time he wants to be nice to her, he buys her milk chocolate. How is she going to feel at some point? Disappointed, she feels lonely because he's just being very selfish. He thinks of himself all the time. And when she tries to express herself, the man gets offended because he thought he was doing a great job.
And he would tell her, "Well, I'm buying you the best chocolate in the market." "That's Belgian chocolate, you know, it's amazing." But she would say, "But I like dark chocolate." And he insists, "No, no, no. Who likes dark chocolate anyway?" "Milk chocolate is better than dark chocolate." As a matter of fact, a lot of husband and wife, this is how the relationship is. He wants to love her in a way that's meaningful to him. And she wants to show him respect or love in a way that is meaningful to her. And as a result, we become completely divided. So for the man to love his wife, he needs to show her love in a way that is meaningful to her, even if it doesn't make sense to him.
And same thing, the woman does to her husband in a way that is meaningful to him, even if it doesn't make sense to her. As long as it's not haram and it's not crazy, why not? Can you tell us a heart touching story from our Prophet's (saw) marriage? His kindness, his understanding, he's really... He was very, very understanding, very kind, very compassionate. He understood the needs of his spouses. One of those examples, Safiyya. Safiyya (ra), she comes from a Jewish tradition. So, when she married the Prophet (saw) and moved to Medina, she was the only one that we know, that she would frequently visit the Prophet (saw) in his i'tikaf when he was in the last ten nights of Ramadan.
I mean, he's busy doing ibadah. Why would you go and visit him? You know why? Because she's the only probably wife of the Prophet (saw) who had no relatives in Medina. All the other women, they had their cousins. They had their parents. They had their family. Because they were Arab, predominantly, except for Mariah, who came afterwards, obviously. But Safiyya had no family in Medina for her, except Rasoolullah (saw). So, she misses him. So she goes to visit him when he's doing his i'tikaf in the masjid. Guess what he does? Does he tell her, "What are you doing here?" "This is i'tikaf. Let me finish this." "I'm waiting to, you know, witness Laylatul Qadr." He didn't say that.
He didn't say, "Astagfirullah, you can't come to the masjid at this time, go back." She came at night to visit the Prophet (saw) because she misses her husband. He sat with her. He chatted with her. He talked to her in the masjid. And then when she was satisfied as she was leaving, he escorted her. He walked out with her. And obviously she's not done, she's going to continue to talk with him because she loves the moment with him, right? She starts talking. He was still talking to her. He was basically entertaining her time for her because that's very valuable for her.
So, what we learn from this story is how much the Prophet (saw) really cared about Safiyya and her feelings and her emotions that he dedicated this time for her. So what I can say about the Prophet, he was very loving, very caring. He (saw) was very compassionate, that the manifestation of that was seen in the last time, the last days of his life. When he kept saying when he was ill, "Where am I going to be tomorrow?" Because he had to rotate between the houses. The other wives, they said, "Ya Rasoolullah, you stay with Aisha, we'll come to visit you." And the sight, the last moment is beautiful.
Aisha, she said she was holding the Prophet (saw), bringing his back on her chest like leaning him on her chest and holding his hand and reciting the Qur'an for him, and wiping with his blessed hand over his body to ease his pain. But when she was describing the story, what did she say? She goes, "He died between my chest and my chin." What does that mean? She said, "I never let go of my husband until the last breath." What a beautiful moment. I come telling you, every husband probably would wish their moment to be like that. Why do you think the divorce rates are high? Have you ever been a means to save a marriage when it was about to end?
Alhamdullillah, I was able to save a lot of marriages, really. But I don't claim that I was able to be successful with everybody. Unfortunately, many, many people, they come in the last minute. Like, they are forced to come for consulting or counseling. They've been stubborn, they don't want to come, they don't believe in that. Why do I have to bring someone who's stranger to talk to us about our marriage? So they come in the last moment, and they think that you're going to make a miracle to save their marriages. But unfortunately, when things go bad, they blame it on the consultation. They don't blame it on themselves.
But Alhamdullillah, some other people, Mashallah, we were able to save their marriages, Alhamdulillah. It really gives me great pleasure to always meet people in my life. Different conferences, different travels and so on. And when they tell you, Alhamdulillah, you know, we did counseling with you or we did this for us, Alhamdulillah. And we just wanted you to know that was very helpful. Alhamdulillah, saved our marriages. Now, what are the main reasons for people to divorce? There are many reasons, obviously. There are many reasons. Nowadays one of the main reasons really is, men unfortunately are not stepping up to become the men.
Meaning they're not leading their households the way they should be. And women, unfortunately, they don't want to assume their role as the wife and the mother in the house. So as a result, we are now creating imbalance in terms of roles. The man, he wants to get married and still live a single life. The lady, she wants to get married and live a single life. In reality, in marriage, it doesn't work like this. That doesn't create a healthy dynamic for a husband and wife and a family life. Nowadays, as a result of that, you will find a lot of young people today coming to you, says, "Is it okay if we get married without having kids or not having kids?" Like, they don't want to have kids.
And Islamically speaking, it's not haram. You can, if you don't want to have kids. But how are you going to survive in this relationship? At some point it's going to get boring. And having kids is another purpose for the relationship to succeed and actually go through. It doesn't make it easy though, but it becomes another reason for it to be sustained and actually to stay longer. So yeah, sometimes we find that unfortunately men and women, they don't really understand what marriage is. So when they come, they come with their expectations from each other. And when those expectations are not met, they just grow apart.
Is it right to end an unhappy marriage, or to be patient and say that it's a test and not end it? When we say unhappy marriage, if the marriage is not necessarily abusive, if there is no excessive hardship in the relationship, maintaining it for the sake of the children and for the sake, of course, you know, maintaining your relationship with the individual is still better. Allah says in the Qur'an, They should actually find some settlement before they make a divorce. And that settlement is to minimize and reduce the obligation of marriage to the bare minimum. So that's better for them than full divorce. But if the relationship was, of course, abusive and have some...
becomes dangerous and unhealthy and toxic, then separation is better for them, wallahi. Tell me something that will soften the situation, decrease the tension between me and my wife every time I face a problem in my marriage. Sincerely, from the heart, really. You know Allah (swt) gave us the solution for these issues in Surat Fussilat, Chapter 41, in the Qur'an. Verses 33 through 36. Allah (swt), in the context of this Ayah, He says, I'm not going to mention all the Ayah, but Allah says, Always respond in that which is best. What does that even mean? You see, the Arabic word means 'push', and pushing requires you... You're sweating, you're getting fatigued and tired. What does that mean?
In marriage, there are going to be a lot of moments you're going to have to push back. But you need to push back against the Shaitan. Because the Shaitan is going to tell you, "Yell, curse, do this, do that." But you need to push back away from this. Always respond in that which is best. So if your spouse treated you at that level, you treat them at that level, better. Because you don't treat them based on who they are. You treat them based on who you are. And I have a high standard of character. I need to maintain that standard of character. Well, he started it, she started. I don't care. I want to do the right thing all the time. That's what matters here for us.
So, yeah, doing the right thing is important. So Allah says, Always respond to that which is best. Perhaps with whom you have hostility or feud, become the most beloved person to you. Allah knows this is not going to be easy. He says, "Only those who persevere in patience will handle that." Which means being patient is very important. And there is no price tag on patience in the Qur'an. Because you can't put a value on patience. And He says, That's why he says, "Your prize is with me, not with the people." And I will give you your حَظِّ. I'll give the reward for your patience. So the idea is that, look, we need to be kind to each other.
We need to be patient with one another, and we need to expect them to make mistakes. And we need to learn to forgive, forget and grow together. That's very important. Did the Prophet (saw) ever have arguments with his wives or was it always like flowery and always happy? Is it idealistic to expect such a thing? His household was a normal household. He had to deal with silent treatment. He had to deal with his wife demanding more money, more sustenance. He had to deal with sometimes feud between the wives and even sometimes his daughter and Aisha (ra). Like every household, they had issues with anger issues, they had issues with the sustenance, with type of things and so on.
And it's all in books of hadith. They are mentioned to us in books of the hadith of Prophet (saw). He had to deal with these difficult things. And the best way of dealing with these difficult manners, his manner (saw). Sheikh Yaser Birjas, thank you for your answers. We learned a lot from you. May Allah reward you for all your efforts for this ummah. Thank you very much for having me here with you.