Tips to SAVE YEARS & Your MENTAL HEALTH! - Don’t Get Married Before Watching This | Towards Eternity
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Why do women never forget an event and keep bringing it up again and again? I guarantee you that if you apply this method, your wife will never mention the past incidents again. How should we spend our engagement period to have a good marriage life? Will my fiance change after we get married? Then the man gets angry and punches the table. Because engagement is actually a trailer of the marriage. Rules are broken, feelings are expressed too much, personal boundaries are crossed. They become too intimate with each other. If there is a problem, solve it first and then get married. If you cannot manage it properly, it can burn down your entire house.
Brother Ahmad, welcome again Towards Eternity. Today we have prepared some very interesting, but at the same time difficult questions for you about marriage, communication between spouses and family. We want clear, clarifying and convincing answers from you. If you are ready, let's begin. My first question is, what are the essentials in a family? Let me list them like this. Trust, respect and love. Actually, these words have lost their weight a little bit in our everyday language. First, you need to trust. But what do we mean by this? We can think of trust as a table, respect as the glass on the table, and love as the water in that glass. So love is the fruit of respect and trust.
If there is no mutual trust and respect in a marriage, there cannot be love, because love is the result of those two. Is being in love necessary when you are getting married? No, it's not. Warming up to each other emotionally is enough. Because if you build a healthy relationship, love, which is the fruit of it, will come out naturally. That's why there is no need for you to condition yourself and say, "I must be in love to get married." In fact, at some points being in love can even prevent you from seeing reality. In such cases of intense love, when the marriage takes place, it can even harm the marriage.
So love is not something you need in the first place to get married, but rather a result of a healthy relationship. But then what is trust? Trust is something you feel as a result of thoughts like, "I can make a lifelong journey with this person. He or she will always be with me." Thoughts that make you not worry about the future. Why do spouses become distant from each other? Isn't it possible to maintain love like it was at the beginning of the marriage? That's a great question. Let's think of it this way. Imagine you have a close friend. If your friendship is strong, would it suddenly break down? It wouldn't, right? So what could cause this to happen?
For example, it can break down when you face a problem. If you hurt each other's feelings, it can damage the emotional bond between you, which can then harm your friendship and eventually lead to its end. Or if you don't do anything to keep your friendship alive, over time, you may become distant from each other. The same applies to marriages as well. If you let your marriage go on its own, it will always go in a negative direction. So what do I mean by letting the marriage go on its own?
For example, if you don't spend time with your spouse, if you don't have nice conversations with each other if the husband is work oriented and the wife is children oriented, if you're living separate lives, this means your marriage is on autopilot. In other words, no one is making any investment in marriage. And on top of that, in such couples, we generally see that there is constant fighting, hurtful behavior, criticism, defending against accusations and humiliation. Needless to say, these are the things that harm the very foundation of a marriage.
And because the foundations are now damaged, unity and togetherness become corrupted and the bonds between them get damaged, and eventually both sides start to become distant from each other. As I mentioned earlier, love is the fruit of a healthy relationship. So naturally when there is an unhealthy relationship we cannot talk about love. That's why there is no such thing as marriage kills love. Love dies because of not having a quality marriage. So to sum up, I can tell you this. Marriage doesn't kill love. A low-quality marriage kills love. There's a question that usually comes from men. Brother, why do women never forget an event and keep bringing it up again and again?
Actually, this is asked because of not knowing the nature of men and women. Since women are more emotional compared to men, they get affected by past incidents more. Just as our fingers can get hurt easily, their feelings can get hurt in the same way. If you don't solve the issue that upset her in the first place, it turns into a kind of disorder for women. And from time to time, when something triggers that bad memory in her mind, she feels pain. And as she feels pain, she starts reacting against her husband. In a moment when both of them are very happy, the past incident can suddenly come up in a conversation because something happened there that triggered that feeling.
Men need to be aware of this. Saying "I apologize" doesn't completely fix the issue. You have hurt your wife's feelings. Maybe you have made her feel insignificant. And after all this, you cannot get out of the situation by just saying "All that is in the past. What can we do now?" Actually, there's a very simple method to resolve this issue. I guarantee you that if you apply this method, your wife will never mention the past incidents again. So what is this method? Now, when your wife comes and tells you about the incident that upset her in the past, you must listen. She might get emotional while talking about that. Maybe she will shed a few tears. Then what you should do is apologize.
You should say, "You're right, my dear. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." At that moment she will feel understood and think, "Yes, my husband had treated me unfairly, but now he realizes it." And she won't bring that up again. But sometimes men's approach is not in that manner. By saying things like, "There's nothing we can do, this is in the past. Why go back 20 years?" You're actually hurting your wife even more. Her heart has already been broken by what happened in the past. Why do you make it worse? What you need to do is let her share her feelings with you. Listen and try to empathize with her.
Now you can ask, "Why doesn't this happen with men?" Because men tend to be more rational in their approach to situations. In other words, they build walls so that they're not deeply affected by the events. Because they are more engaged with the outside world they need to be strong. They need to be tough. On the other hand, a mother is busy with her baby, busy with her child, and the person who will take care of a baby must be very sensitive. She needs to be very understanding of the child's feelings. She should be loving and caring to be able to get up at night when the child cries. So such a sensitive woman is vulnerable. Your words can easily hurt her.
On the other hand, a man can build a wall and keep his emotions inside. But of course, there may also be events that men don't forget as well. During the process of meeting before marriage, wouldn't it be better if there were no privacy boundaries so that couples could get to know each other better? Isn't it better for them to be closer? The answer is no. There are no scientific findings on this claim. Have you ever heard such a thing as two people need to shake hands to get to know each other better, or you must hug the other person to really know him or her? There's no need for this. This doesn't mean don't ever meet with the spouse candidate, meeting is a disaster.
No, if it were like this, you would end up marrying a person you don't know at all. You should definitely meet before marriage. For example, you can meet each other in public places with a third person one or both of you know. You can eat a meal, drink tea or coffee while being mindful of boundaries. You can ask questions, try to get to know each other. You can also talk and get information from other people who know that person. During this period, spouse candidates should try to analyze each other's manners, behaviors, and words. So how can this be done? I'll give you an example. Imagine man and woman meet in a restaurant, not just the two of them, of course, with a third person.
They order a meal, but the waiter brings the food a bit late. Then the man gets angry and punches the table. What the woman should realize here is that when things go wrong or in times of crisis, the reaction of this person is anger and violence. You can understand that with such a small incident, but you cannot catch it just by talking, because people's true identities and personalities come out in times of problems and crises. At such moments, consciousness gets out of the way, our subconscious problem solving methods come out. But if you only focus on having fun and always try to see the other person's positive sides, you won't be able to see the natural state of that person.
Therefore, it's beneficial to meet with the spouse candidate from time to time to observe their behavior along with our own behaviors. There is another question from our single brothers and sisters. They ask, how should we spend our engagement period to have a good marriage life? This is a very important question because engagement is actually a trailer of the marriage. Because in that period you're going to witness almost everything you will experience in marriage. However many people tend to ignore the warning signs and the negative traits in their fiances, believing that they can change them in the future.
And postponing to solve the problems in this way leads to even more complications after marriage. Engagement is a time to get to know and understand each other, but it's not marriage. For some couples, we cannot tell if they are engaged or married. Rules are broken, feelings are expressed too much, personal boundaries are crossed. They become too intimate with each other. In addition to all this, sometimes it doesn't seem like the engagement will turn into a marriage. So at that point they need to end the relationship, but they cannot do so because they are now emotionally very attached to each other. It's really hard to break up now.
This happened because in the engagement period, they didn't pay attention to privacy boundaries and they acted as if they were already married. We have another interesting question here. There are some bad habits of my fiance. Is he going to change when we get married? Do you want to know the real answer? No, they won't change. This is wishful thinking. There's a problem at hand, but you're not addressing it. You're not doing anything to solve it. You're just leaving it as it is. All you're doing is to say "He or she will change once we get married." How do you think your fiance will change? Whatever you're going to do after marriage, do it now. I mean, during the engagement period.
See if he or she gets better or not. If you have a problem about something, discuss it now. If you need to go to a family counselor, just go. Why should he or she change for the better once you're married? There's no logical explanation for this idea. In fact, contrary to expectations, things can get more complicated after marriage. There's a saying, "Marriage kills love." That's because during the engagement period, there is a longing, a desire, an expectation to finally get married. These positive factors keep the relationship alive and strong, and after getting married, this longing becomes fulfilled.
So as these few positive elements start to disappear, problems start to come to the surface. So there's no logic in this statement, "He or she will change once we are married." If there is a problem, solve it first and then get married. Sometimes I see people come with a similar question. They say if you were to have a child, would our problems be resolved? No they wouldn't. There is no truth to this. It's not based on any research. In marriage, sometimes a very small problem can grow like a spark and turn into something very bad if it's not taken care of. Have you ever witnessed such an incident? Yeah, there's a very interesting story I heard from one of my friends.
There's a couple who is living in a small town in Turkey. On the morning of Eid, the wife is preparing breakfast. She boils eggs for her husband, and the man is sitting at the table. At that moment, their child starts crying. The wife has to take care of the child now, so she turns off the stove. By that time, the eggs have been boiling for three minutes, but they should be boiled for four minutes. They had decided to cook them like this. They think eggs are healthier and cook better that way. Anyway, the wife calms the child and gets back. She sets the table, and serves her husband the eggs and she says, "Darling, the eggs were boiled for three minutes.
Just so you know." Husband replies, "And why don't you complete it to four minutes?" And the wife says, "I'm going to go back and take care of the child now, do it yourself." And he says, "Whatever, don't do it then." And the wife says something offensive to her husband. Husband gets up and asks, "How dare you say that? I'll go now and file for a divorce. I will divorce you." Then he leaves the house. But the husband suddenly remembers that it was Eid that day. He asked himself where he would go, so he goes back home and because he's still angry, he tells his wife that he won't divorce her, but instead he will make her suffer. Then he slams the door and leaves again.
All of this happened because he couldn't manage this crisis. The story continues. Then the husband comes home in the evening. He rings the bell. No answer. No one opens the door, so he opens it with his key. He enters the house and finds no one there. He goes to the living room and sees that half of the curtains have been cut off. He checks each room and all the curtains have been cut in half. Then he goes to the bedroom and looks in the wardrobe and all the clothes have been cut in half again. He then finds a note from his wife that says "We have left," that's all. Shortly after, he finds out that his wife took the children and went to her parents' house.
She stays there for five, six months and they don't come together during that period. Eventually their friends get involved in this situation. Then the couple is advised to go to a family counselor and the problem gets solved. But of course, some costs were spent. Here's my takeaway from this story. Even if you have a little spark, a very small issue, whether you're right or wrong, don't let it grow. If you cannot manage it properly, it can burn down your entire house. In the scene where the wife boiled the eggs for three minutes, if the husband had taken over to cook, or if the wife hadn't said something offensive to him, things wouldn't have come this far.
As Omar (ra) said, "When your spouse is angry, you should be calm. When one is fire, the other should be water." So then, how can we solve problems in families in times of crisis? I'm going to make a very assertive statement here. In marriages, if the problems end, love ends too. Because when we look at it, we actually grow the love between our spouses through solving our problems together. We can think of spouses as a key and a lock. Just like a key and a lock need to feel each other's... What I mean here is, of course, our spouses will have flaws and imperfections, but if I can complete my spouse rather than being hurtful, then I can win her heart. Let's give a small example.
Let's say my wife dropped a plate and broke it. This is a problem. She exhibited a flaw, a gap in a way. If I approach my wife with insults at this point, I'll break her heart and damage the love between us. But if I approach her in a kind manner and say, "Honey, no problem, you're okay, right?" Then I'd have won her heart through this problem. In fact, in the Quran, in Surah Al-baqara, Allah says, "Your spouses are a garment for you as you are for them." By saying this, Allah guides us on how we should behave towards our spouses. On the contrary, if you constantly take a blaming attitude for every mistake she makes, it can cause deeper wounds.
Because she already feels incomplete at that moment. Let me give you an interesting analogy. Depending on our choices, problems can either turn into an atomic bomb or nuclear energy. Because in both cases, the energy emerges from the splitting of an atomic nucleus. If you split the atomic nuclei randomly, it becomes an atomic bomb. But if you split them in a controlled way, you can get nuclear energy, which can provide you beneficial things like electricity, light, and energy. Just like this, if you address problems in a controlled manner, love and sympathy will emerge and you will benefit from that.
But if you approach a problem randomly, you can turn it into an atomic bomb that destroys your marriage. In other words, it's your approach that determines how things will go. There is another question. How is anger management achieved? If one of the spouses is abusive towards the other, how can this be stopped? Honestly I've learned from my experience that almost all the sparks are actually caused by anger in men and untimely and inappropriate speaking in women. What needs to be done here is that men should work on their anger management, and women should learn to speak at the right time and right place, meaning she will pay attention to her speech.
Anger management is a whole issue on its own. I mean, if a man or a woman cannot control their anger, it's their personal problem. They should work on understanding the reasons for their anger. But when they become angry, the most basic thing to do is to stop talking for a while. Don't react and talk in the heat of the moment. Just wait. After some time, when you have calmed down, you can talk. Because when you're angry, your common sense gets out of the picture and anger takes control of you, and you lose your ability to think logically and evaluate the situation clearly. Wait for some time to calm down. Go outside, make wudu, move to a different room, lie down.
In other words, change your physical and spiritual environment. After a while, you will also realize that you weren't thinking logically at that moment. There's a problem that happens very often. People say, I have issues with my in-laws. Is it a reason for divorce, what should I do? Yeah, in-laws. Big issue in marriages. Now let's get to this topic. Many marriages are actually ruined because of this. A mother doesn't want to let go of her son and constantly holds on to him from behind, with both hands, even after he gets married. Or a mother who married off her daughter keeps calling her all the time.
She asks for a daily report from her, as if she's trying to control her with a remote controller. These are huge problems. Interventions from the outside can seriously damage marriages. That's why I would like to emphasize this and call out to all mothers and fathers who married off their children. Whether you are a mother or a father, if you intervene in your children's marriage, you will cause harm. Let them solve their problems on their own. Additionally, I want to talk about the responsibility of the husband. If there are problems going on between his family and his wife, it's the husband himself who should solve the problems. I'll give you a method based on years of experience.
If a husband is caught in the middle between his parents and his wife, his methods should be this. To try to solve their problems, he must work with his wife shoulder to shoulder. They should even try to solve the problems about the husband's parents. But on the contrary, if he collaborates with his parents to solve the problems about his wife, because the husband's parents are already exhausted from raising him, they raised you, they made the effort. They are already stressed. When you complain to your parents about your wife and say, "She does this, she doesn't do that, she doesn't cook," et cetera, you make your parents worry. They start to fear now.
They might say, "What has become of our child that we raised with such care and affection?" And they might take a stand against your spouse. For this reason, we strongly advise the husband not to tell his parents the private matters between him and his wife. But at the same time, he shouldn't say overly positive things about her to them either. He shouldn't say, "Mom, my wife cooks so well that I learned what good food means from her." Don't do this either. You will make your mother jealous. There is no need for that. In short, I can say this. The husband will not share his wife's private matters with his family. He will take his stance and that stance will solve the problems.
But wouldn't mothers object to this and say, "Why should my son cooperate with his wife instead of us?" And also men can ask, "What should I do when I'm stuck between my wife and my mother?" These are very good questions. We should try to understand the situation of the mother here, because it's not easy for her either. You give birth to your son, you raise him, always make him your priority. Take care of him more than yourself. But just as he reaches the age of productivity, he moves away from you and begins to live with another woman, his wife. Yes, the mother gave birth to him, raised him. But she must understand her son's situation now. She shouldn't make things hard for him.
And as for the son, he should always be thankful and respectful to his mother. But since he is with his wife now, he should hold her tightly. He should always stand shoulder to shoulder with his wife. Problems can only be overcome in this way. Since they have started a family, the person he should cooperate with is his wife, and the person he should try to understand is his mother, not the other way around. The man shouldn't confuse the roles of the two. Let me give an example of the right attitude. Imagine that the husband's mother yells at the wife. Then he says to his wife, "Honey, I noticed that my mother raised her voice at you the other day. I apologize on her behalf.
You know, as she's getting older, she started reacting like this. Please forgive her." By talking with his wife in this manner, he can overcome the issue. But if the husband cooperates with his mother and say, "Mom, my wife did this and did that," then the mother will get involved in the process and then the father will get involved, and maybe third and fourth people will start to intervene in this situation. Other relatives will also learn about that issue of the wife. And as a result, this will lead the whole family to an extremely uncomfortable scenario.
Should couple end their marriage because they are not happy, or should they show patience and continue to stay married thinking that it's a test from Allah? First of all, the reasons that make the marriage unhappy should be identified. For example, when we listen to the couple, we might hear them saying, "I did my best, but it didn't work out." From their perspective, it looks like everything necessary has been done to save the marriage. But the real question is, were the things you did to save your marriage actually right? Think about it. Even when a person has brain death, we cannot be completely sure that he is really dead or not.
We consult a doctor for this because they are experts and they can tell us if the person is dead or not. But in marriage, we see that the spouses decide on their own whether they should end the relationship or not. They say, "This marriage is over, let's get divorced." According to whom? And based on what? In such a situation, couples must seek the assistance of an expert. As for seeing this as a test from Allah, I want to say this. Now, let's say a couple has consulted an expert about their marriage, which is on the very edge of ending, and the expert thinks that their marriage has emotionally ended. But the man says, "This is my test. I want to continue to stay married." Okay, as you wish.
Go on. But then we see that neither side is doing anything to solve their problems. What does the test mean? It means this is the exam I will take and I can answer these questions. But is it possible for you to answer the questions without doing anything? No. You say this is my test, but you don't study for it. Nor do you make any effort to answer the questions. You're still avoiding the problem. You run away from home. You still act indifferent and insensitive. You don't bring any reasonable solutions to your problems with each other. Yet you say, this is my test. Nowhere in the world can you pass an exam by doing nothing. You will fail.
If you accept that it's a test, you need to act accordingly. You need to take a problem solving approach and to achieve that, you need to try and struggle. Is it right to continue to stay married just for the sake of the children? I mean, is it right to be patient and put up with it? Should this be done for children? Based on my experience, I think that a marriage that continues only for the sake of children will harm the children even more. You can imagine the situation of a child growing up in a chaotic family environment, where there is constant fighting, conflicts and negligence.
Spouses are trying to continue their marriage thinking that we can take care of them better as a couple or the children should not get harmed. But as they do that, they are turning their home into a hell. There shouldn't be such a marriage. Besides, if the spouses are not happy, the children won't be happy either. Imagine there's a tree that is rotting. Both the tree and the soil beneath it are in a very bad condition, but you're only focused on whether the tree gives good fruit or not, without watering and feeding the soil, without removing the weeds, without taking care of the tree, the fruit will not grow and mature.
Just like that, there cannot be a situation where the mother and father are unhappy, but the children are happy. This cannot be. But if the husband wants to repair the relationship with his wife, or the wife wants to solve the problems with her husband, then they can try to save the marriage and stay together with their children. I'm not saying that they should definitely divorce, but at least I can say this. A marriage that continues only for the sake of the children is not good. It's even harmful for the children.
Brother Ahmad, welcome again Towards Eternity. Today we have prepared some very interesting, but at the same time difficult questions for you about marriage, communication between spouses and family. We want clear, clarifying and convincing answers from you. If you are ready, let's begin. My first question is, what are the essentials in a family? Let me list them like this. Trust, respect and love. Actually, these words have lost their weight a little bit in our everyday language. First, you need to trust. But what do we mean by this? We can think of trust as a table, respect as the glass on the table, and love as the water in that glass. So love is the fruit of respect and trust.
If there is no mutual trust and respect in a marriage, there cannot be love, because love is the result of those two. Is being in love necessary when you are getting married? No, it's not. Warming up to each other emotionally is enough. Because if you build a healthy relationship, love, which is the fruit of it, will come out naturally. That's why there is no need for you to condition yourself and say, "I must be in love to get married." In fact, at some points being in love can even prevent you from seeing reality. In such cases of intense love, when the marriage takes place, it can even harm the marriage.
So love is not something you need in the first place to get married, but rather a result of a healthy relationship. But then what is trust? Trust is something you feel as a result of thoughts like, "I can make a lifelong journey with this person. He or she will always be with me." Thoughts that make you not worry about the future. Why do spouses become distant from each other? Isn't it possible to maintain love like it was at the beginning of the marriage? That's a great question. Let's think of it this way. Imagine you have a close friend. If your friendship is strong, would it suddenly break down? It wouldn't, right? So what could cause this to happen?
For example, it can break down when you face a problem. If you hurt each other's feelings, it can damage the emotional bond between you, which can then harm your friendship and eventually lead to its end. Or if you don't do anything to keep your friendship alive, over time, you may become distant from each other. The same applies to marriages as well. If you let your marriage go on its own, it will always go in a negative direction. So what do I mean by letting the marriage go on its own?
For example, if you don't spend time with your spouse, if you don't have nice conversations with each other if the husband is work oriented and the wife is children oriented, if you're living separate lives, this means your marriage is on autopilot. In other words, no one is making any investment in marriage. And on top of that, in such couples, we generally see that there is constant fighting, hurtful behavior, criticism, defending against accusations and humiliation. Needless to say, these are the things that harm the very foundation of a marriage.
And because the foundations are now damaged, unity and togetherness become corrupted and the bonds between them get damaged, and eventually both sides start to become distant from each other. As I mentioned earlier, love is the fruit of a healthy relationship. So naturally when there is an unhealthy relationship we cannot talk about love. That's why there is no such thing as marriage kills love. Love dies because of not having a quality marriage. So to sum up, I can tell you this. Marriage doesn't kill love. A low-quality marriage kills love. There's a question that usually comes from men. Brother, why do women never forget an event and keep bringing it up again and again?
Actually, this is asked because of not knowing the nature of men and women. Since women are more emotional compared to men, they get affected by past incidents more. Just as our fingers can get hurt easily, their feelings can get hurt in the same way. If you don't solve the issue that upset her in the first place, it turns into a kind of disorder for women. And from time to time, when something triggers that bad memory in her mind, she feels pain. And as she feels pain, she starts reacting against her husband. In a moment when both of them are very happy, the past incident can suddenly come up in a conversation because something happened there that triggered that feeling.
Men need to be aware of this. Saying "I apologize" doesn't completely fix the issue. You have hurt your wife's feelings. Maybe you have made her feel insignificant. And after all this, you cannot get out of the situation by just saying "All that is in the past. What can we do now?" Actually, there's a very simple method to resolve this issue. I guarantee you that if you apply this method, your wife will never mention the past incidents again. So what is this method? Now, when your wife comes and tells you about the incident that upset her in the past, you must listen. She might get emotional while talking about that. Maybe she will shed a few tears. Then what you should do is apologize.
You should say, "You're right, my dear. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." At that moment she will feel understood and think, "Yes, my husband had treated me unfairly, but now he realizes it." And she won't bring that up again. But sometimes men's approach is not in that manner. By saying things like, "There's nothing we can do, this is in the past. Why go back 20 years?" You're actually hurting your wife even more. Her heart has already been broken by what happened in the past. Why do you make it worse? What you need to do is let her share her feelings with you. Listen and try to empathize with her.
Now you can ask, "Why doesn't this happen with men?" Because men tend to be more rational in their approach to situations. In other words, they build walls so that they're not deeply affected by the events. Because they are more engaged with the outside world they need to be strong. They need to be tough. On the other hand, a mother is busy with her baby, busy with her child, and the person who will take care of a baby must be very sensitive. She needs to be very understanding of the child's feelings. She should be loving and caring to be able to get up at night when the child cries. So such a sensitive woman is vulnerable. Your words can easily hurt her.
On the other hand, a man can build a wall and keep his emotions inside. But of course, there may also be events that men don't forget as well. During the process of meeting before marriage, wouldn't it be better if there were no privacy boundaries so that couples could get to know each other better? Isn't it better for them to be closer? The answer is no. There are no scientific findings on this claim. Have you ever heard such a thing as two people need to shake hands to get to know each other better, or you must hug the other person to really know him or her? There's no need for this. This doesn't mean don't ever meet with the spouse candidate, meeting is a disaster.
No, if it were like this, you would end up marrying a person you don't know at all. You should definitely meet before marriage. For example, you can meet each other in public places with a third person one or both of you know. You can eat a meal, drink tea or coffee while being mindful of boundaries. You can ask questions, try to get to know each other. You can also talk and get information from other people who know that person. During this period, spouse candidates should try to analyze each other's manners, behaviors, and words. So how can this be done? I'll give you an example. Imagine man and woman meet in a restaurant, not just the two of them, of course, with a third person.
They order a meal, but the waiter brings the food a bit late. Then the man gets angry and punches the table. What the woman should realize here is that when things go wrong or in times of crisis, the reaction of this person is anger and violence. You can understand that with such a small incident, but you cannot catch it just by talking, because people's true identities and personalities come out in times of problems and crises. At such moments, consciousness gets out of the way, our subconscious problem solving methods come out. But if you only focus on having fun and always try to see the other person's positive sides, you won't be able to see the natural state of that person.
Therefore, it's beneficial to meet with the spouse candidate from time to time to observe their behavior along with our own behaviors. There is another question from our single brothers and sisters. They ask, how should we spend our engagement period to have a good marriage life? This is a very important question because engagement is actually a trailer of the marriage. Because in that period you're going to witness almost everything you will experience in marriage. However many people tend to ignore the warning signs and the negative traits in their fiances, believing that they can change them in the future.
And postponing to solve the problems in this way leads to even more complications after marriage. Engagement is a time to get to know and understand each other, but it's not marriage. For some couples, we cannot tell if they are engaged or married. Rules are broken, feelings are expressed too much, personal boundaries are crossed. They become too intimate with each other. In addition to all this, sometimes it doesn't seem like the engagement will turn into a marriage. So at that point they need to end the relationship, but they cannot do so because they are now emotionally very attached to each other. It's really hard to break up now.
This happened because in the engagement period, they didn't pay attention to privacy boundaries and they acted as if they were already married. We have another interesting question here. There are some bad habits of my fiance. Is he going to change when we get married? Do you want to know the real answer? No, they won't change. This is wishful thinking. There's a problem at hand, but you're not addressing it. You're not doing anything to solve it. You're just leaving it as it is. All you're doing is to say "He or she will change once we get married." How do you think your fiance will change? Whatever you're going to do after marriage, do it now. I mean, during the engagement period.
See if he or she gets better or not. If you have a problem about something, discuss it now. If you need to go to a family counselor, just go. Why should he or she change for the better once you're married? There's no logical explanation for this idea. In fact, contrary to expectations, things can get more complicated after marriage. There's a saying, "Marriage kills love." That's because during the engagement period, there is a longing, a desire, an expectation to finally get married. These positive factors keep the relationship alive and strong, and after getting married, this longing becomes fulfilled.
So as these few positive elements start to disappear, problems start to come to the surface. So there's no logic in this statement, "He or she will change once we are married." If there is a problem, solve it first and then get married. Sometimes I see people come with a similar question. They say if you were to have a child, would our problems be resolved? No they wouldn't. There is no truth to this. It's not based on any research. In marriage, sometimes a very small problem can grow like a spark and turn into something very bad if it's not taken care of. Have you ever witnessed such an incident? Yeah, there's a very interesting story I heard from one of my friends.
There's a couple who is living in a small town in Turkey. On the morning of Eid, the wife is preparing breakfast. She boils eggs for her husband, and the man is sitting at the table. At that moment, their child starts crying. The wife has to take care of the child now, so she turns off the stove. By that time, the eggs have been boiling for three minutes, but they should be boiled for four minutes. They had decided to cook them like this. They think eggs are healthier and cook better that way. Anyway, the wife calms the child and gets back. She sets the table, and serves her husband the eggs and she says, "Darling, the eggs were boiled for three minutes.
Just so you know." Husband replies, "And why don't you complete it to four minutes?" And the wife says, "I'm going to go back and take care of the child now, do it yourself." And he says, "Whatever, don't do it then." And the wife says something offensive to her husband. Husband gets up and asks, "How dare you say that? I'll go now and file for a divorce. I will divorce you." Then he leaves the house. But the husband suddenly remembers that it was Eid that day. He asked himself where he would go, so he goes back home and because he's still angry, he tells his wife that he won't divorce her, but instead he will make her suffer. Then he slams the door and leaves again.
All of this happened because he couldn't manage this crisis. The story continues. Then the husband comes home in the evening. He rings the bell. No answer. No one opens the door, so he opens it with his key. He enters the house and finds no one there. He goes to the living room and sees that half of the curtains have been cut off. He checks each room and all the curtains have been cut in half. Then he goes to the bedroom and looks in the wardrobe and all the clothes have been cut in half again. He then finds a note from his wife that says "We have left," that's all. Shortly after, he finds out that his wife took the children and went to her parents' house.
She stays there for five, six months and they don't come together during that period. Eventually their friends get involved in this situation. Then the couple is advised to go to a family counselor and the problem gets solved. But of course, some costs were spent. Here's my takeaway from this story. Even if you have a little spark, a very small issue, whether you're right or wrong, don't let it grow. If you cannot manage it properly, it can burn down your entire house. In the scene where the wife boiled the eggs for three minutes, if the husband had taken over to cook, or if the wife hadn't said something offensive to him, things wouldn't have come this far.
As Omar (ra) said, "When your spouse is angry, you should be calm. When one is fire, the other should be water." So then, how can we solve problems in families in times of crisis? I'm going to make a very assertive statement here. In marriages, if the problems end, love ends too. Because when we look at it, we actually grow the love between our spouses through solving our problems together. We can think of spouses as a key and a lock. Just like a key and a lock need to feel each other's... What I mean here is, of course, our spouses will have flaws and imperfections, but if I can complete my spouse rather than being hurtful, then I can win her heart. Let's give a small example.
Let's say my wife dropped a plate and broke it. This is a problem. She exhibited a flaw, a gap in a way. If I approach my wife with insults at this point, I'll break her heart and damage the love between us. But if I approach her in a kind manner and say, "Honey, no problem, you're okay, right?" Then I'd have won her heart through this problem. In fact, in the Quran, in Surah Al-baqara, Allah says, "Your spouses are a garment for you as you are for them." By saying this, Allah guides us on how we should behave towards our spouses. On the contrary, if you constantly take a blaming attitude for every mistake she makes, it can cause deeper wounds.
Because she already feels incomplete at that moment. Let me give you an interesting analogy. Depending on our choices, problems can either turn into an atomic bomb or nuclear energy. Because in both cases, the energy emerges from the splitting of an atomic nucleus. If you split the atomic nuclei randomly, it becomes an atomic bomb. But if you split them in a controlled way, you can get nuclear energy, which can provide you beneficial things like electricity, light, and energy. Just like this, if you address problems in a controlled manner, love and sympathy will emerge and you will benefit from that.
But if you approach a problem randomly, you can turn it into an atomic bomb that destroys your marriage. In other words, it's your approach that determines how things will go. There is another question. How is anger management achieved? If one of the spouses is abusive towards the other, how can this be stopped? Honestly I've learned from my experience that almost all the sparks are actually caused by anger in men and untimely and inappropriate speaking in women. What needs to be done here is that men should work on their anger management, and women should learn to speak at the right time and right place, meaning she will pay attention to her speech.
Anger management is a whole issue on its own. I mean, if a man or a woman cannot control their anger, it's their personal problem. They should work on understanding the reasons for their anger. But when they become angry, the most basic thing to do is to stop talking for a while. Don't react and talk in the heat of the moment. Just wait. After some time, when you have calmed down, you can talk. Because when you're angry, your common sense gets out of the picture and anger takes control of you, and you lose your ability to think logically and evaluate the situation clearly. Wait for some time to calm down. Go outside, make wudu, move to a different room, lie down.
In other words, change your physical and spiritual environment. After a while, you will also realize that you weren't thinking logically at that moment. There's a problem that happens very often. People say, I have issues with my in-laws. Is it a reason for divorce, what should I do? Yeah, in-laws. Big issue in marriages. Now let's get to this topic. Many marriages are actually ruined because of this. A mother doesn't want to let go of her son and constantly holds on to him from behind, with both hands, even after he gets married. Or a mother who married off her daughter keeps calling her all the time.
She asks for a daily report from her, as if she's trying to control her with a remote controller. These are huge problems. Interventions from the outside can seriously damage marriages. That's why I would like to emphasize this and call out to all mothers and fathers who married off their children. Whether you are a mother or a father, if you intervene in your children's marriage, you will cause harm. Let them solve their problems on their own. Additionally, I want to talk about the responsibility of the husband. If there are problems going on between his family and his wife, it's the husband himself who should solve the problems. I'll give you a method based on years of experience.
If a husband is caught in the middle between his parents and his wife, his methods should be this. To try to solve their problems, he must work with his wife shoulder to shoulder. They should even try to solve the problems about the husband's parents. But on the contrary, if he collaborates with his parents to solve the problems about his wife, because the husband's parents are already exhausted from raising him, they raised you, they made the effort. They are already stressed. When you complain to your parents about your wife and say, "She does this, she doesn't do that, she doesn't cook," et cetera, you make your parents worry. They start to fear now.
They might say, "What has become of our child that we raised with such care and affection?" And they might take a stand against your spouse. For this reason, we strongly advise the husband not to tell his parents the private matters between him and his wife. But at the same time, he shouldn't say overly positive things about her to them either. He shouldn't say, "Mom, my wife cooks so well that I learned what good food means from her." Don't do this either. You will make your mother jealous. There is no need for that. In short, I can say this. The husband will not share his wife's private matters with his family. He will take his stance and that stance will solve the problems.
But wouldn't mothers object to this and say, "Why should my son cooperate with his wife instead of us?" And also men can ask, "What should I do when I'm stuck between my wife and my mother?" These are very good questions. We should try to understand the situation of the mother here, because it's not easy for her either. You give birth to your son, you raise him, always make him your priority. Take care of him more than yourself. But just as he reaches the age of productivity, he moves away from you and begins to live with another woman, his wife. Yes, the mother gave birth to him, raised him. But she must understand her son's situation now. She shouldn't make things hard for him.
And as for the son, he should always be thankful and respectful to his mother. But since he is with his wife now, he should hold her tightly. He should always stand shoulder to shoulder with his wife. Problems can only be overcome in this way. Since they have started a family, the person he should cooperate with is his wife, and the person he should try to understand is his mother, not the other way around. The man shouldn't confuse the roles of the two. Let me give an example of the right attitude. Imagine that the husband's mother yells at the wife. Then he says to his wife, "Honey, I noticed that my mother raised her voice at you the other day. I apologize on her behalf.
You know, as she's getting older, she started reacting like this. Please forgive her." By talking with his wife in this manner, he can overcome the issue. But if the husband cooperates with his mother and say, "Mom, my wife did this and did that," then the mother will get involved in the process and then the father will get involved, and maybe third and fourth people will start to intervene in this situation. Other relatives will also learn about that issue of the wife. And as a result, this will lead the whole family to an extremely uncomfortable scenario.
Should couple end their marriage because they are not happy, or should they show patience and continue to stay married thinking that it's a test from Allah? First of all, the reasons that make the marriage unhappy should be identified. For example, when we listen to the couple, we might hear them saying, "I did my best, but it didn't work out." From their perspective, it looks like everything necessary has been done to save the marriage. But the real question is, were the things you did to save your marriage actually right? Think about it. Even when a person has brain death, we cannot be completely sure that he is really dead or not.
We consult a doctor for this because they are experts and they can tell us if the person is dead or not. But in marriage, we see that the spouses decide on their own whether they should end the relationship or not. They say, "This marriage is over, let's get divorced." According to whom? And based on what? In such a situation, couples must seek the assistance of an expert. As for seeing this as a test from Allah, I want to say this. Now, let's say a couple has consulted an expert about their marriage, which is on the very edge of ending, and the expert thinks that their marriage has emotionally ended. But the man says, "This is my test. I want to continue to stay married." Okay, as you wish.
Go on. But then we see that neither side is doing anything to solve their problems. What does the test mean? It means this is the exam I will take and I can answer these questions. But is it possible for you to answer the questions without doing anything? No. You say this is my test, but you don't study for it. Nor do you make any effort to answer the questions. You're still avoiding the problem. You run away from home. You still act indifferent and insensitive. You don't bring any reasonable solutions to your problems with each other. Yet you say, this is my test. Nowhere in the world can you pass an exam by doing nothing. You will fail.
If you accept that it's a test, you need to act accordingly. You need to take a problem solving approach and to achieve that, you need to try and struggle. Is it right to continue to stay married just for the sake of the children? I mean, is it right to be patient and put up with it? Should this be done for children? Based on my experience, I think that a marriage that continues only for the sake of children will harm the children even more. You can imagine the situation of a child growing up in a chaotic family environment, where there is constant fighting, conflicts and negligence.
Spouses are trying to continue their marriage thinking that we can take care of them better as a couple or the children should not get harmed. But as they do that, they are turning their home into a hell. There shouldn't be such a marriage. Besides, if the spouses are not happy, the children won't be happy either. Imagine there's a tree that is rotting. Both the tree and the soil beneath it are in a very bad condition, but you're only focused on whether the tree gives good fruit or not, without watering and feeding the soil, without removing the weeds, without taking care of the tree, the fruit will not grow and mature.
Just like that, there cannot be a situation where the mother and father are unhappy, but the children are happy. This cannot be. But if the husband wants to repair the relationship with his wife, or the wife wants to solve the problems with her husband, then they can try to save the marriage and stay together with their children. I'm not saying that they should definitely divorce, but at least I can say this. A marriage that continues only for the sake of the children is not good. It's even harmful for the children.