My husband’s family treats me badly because of my humble origins, even in front of guests and my husband does not defend me; what can I do?

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Question: My husband is a rich, young man and because I am not from a rich family, the mother and the sisters of my husband gibe at me at every occasion and even before the guests sometimes. Would you please tell me what to do with this problem, which has begun to deprive me of my happiness with my husband, who does not defend me before them?

The answer: Material poverty is not a defect; rather the defect lies in lack of morals. You are actually rich while they are the real poor ones. Your faith, good morals, and patience will make you defeat your problem and these are the strongest weapons in defeating unjust situations against yourself.

Dear sister, try to be a strong wife who seizes her success from the depths of her suffering to enjoy real happiness! Even if your husband does not defend you, it does not mean that he agrees with his family’s being unjust towards you. He may not know the proper way of defending or he may think that his defending you shall complicate the problem further; therefore, he is trying to keep the stability of the family. Waiting for a suitable time of defending and in a wise way will be better.

Thus, you would be better off appreciating the situation of your husband and being more patient. Be sure that the right side will win at the end of any crisis. Beware of pride when one day you shall feel your success, because pride then shall make you as blamable as those who gibe you today!

Besides that, you should try to be more humble and kind towards them, and especially to the ones who gibe you, so that they may feel ashamed and regretful when they are alone with their consciences and when they find your good morals and kindness in return for their bad doings. Do not hesitate, whenever the opportunity comes to you, to say good sayings with smiles to those who do you wrong that they may be more reasonable and stop their injustice towards you!

FOR A BETTER FUTURE

How can my wife and I get past our poor match and our quarrels for the sake of our children?

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Question: Between my wife and me there are several differences in intellect, physique, and wealth. These things often cause disagreements and quarrels between us. Sometimes, these quarrels break out before our children. We are well aware that these disagreements and quarrels have bad effects on the children’s mentality and education, but our violent anger is uncontrollable. How can we get rid of this state and live tranquilly to build the future of our children?

The answer: There is no doubt that religious beliefs, cultures, arts, traditions, and good habits have good effects on the manner of the relationship between spouses, their views on life, and their way of making use of the abilities they have. However, reason and wisdom lead us to the knowledge that these differences between spouses do not mandate disagreements and quarrels. In fact, a reasonable person should deal with these natural differences wisely. He should look at them from these five viewpoints:

First, these differences complement each other. The existence around us is composed of different elements, but they all complement each other in the best way. Spouses should not let their natural differences destroy the bridges of love and understanding between them.

Second, spouses should try their best to change the cultures and habits that Islam does not accept. How many habits and ideas have families planted into their children who grow up with them without pondering on whether they are right or wrong, and how many habits have the social milieu (school, friends, the media, etc.) planted into children while these habits and ideas are far removed from the pure Islamic culture. Therefore, spouses should change the ideas and bad habits that trouble them.

Third, to make the mutual understanding between spouses easy and to decrease disagreements between them, each of them should give the other side the right to show his\her opinion freely without suppressing or interrupting him\her before completing his\her speech and clarifying his\her opinion.

Fourth, we should know that the differences between people in general, and between spouses in particular, are trials that people are tried with. Instead of thinking of running away from these differences or sinking into melancholy and psychological distresses, we should know how to deal with this divine decree, which is inevitable. It is a trial for man in this life, and Allah will accordingly determine for him the reward and Paradise or the punishment and Hell. Therefore, let man think deeply of where he wants to be!

Fifth, life is too short to comprehend problems and troubles that are trivial. Hence, a reasonable person should overlook problems and live his life, which he does not know when it shall end, happily with good fame and honor.

The Prophet (S) has asked husbands to forgive their wives’ mistakes even if they are seventy in one day. Once a man asked the Prophet (S) about a wife’s right on her husband and the Prophet (S) said, ‘He covers her body with clothes, satisfies her stomach with food, and forgives her if she commits mistakes.’ The man asked, ‘How many times does he forgive her?’ The Prophet (S) said, ‘seventy times a day.’

FOR A BETTER FUTURE

I suffer from forgetfulness and it upsets my wife; what should we do?

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Question: Why am I so forgetful? My wife is angry at my state, and my dignity does not permit for her to raise her voice against me. This is the focal point of our problems.

The answer: Forgetfulness has several causes, such as worry, problems that press on one’s nerves, psychological troubles, fright, melancholy, and sins, especially the hidden major sins. From among these reasons, there are also some diseases and accidents.

These things are like black clouds lying heavily on a man’s memory. In order to cure this case, you have to organize your life. For example, you should assign a certain time for sleeping, follow a healthy diet, practice sports, and strengthen your relation with Allah the Almighty by performing the obligations and avoiding all kinds of sins.

There are some tested things that strengthen one’s memory such as memorizing Qur’anic verses, always being with wudu’, reciting supplications, and avoiding quarreling with others.

FOR A BETTER FUTURE

My husband does not appreciate or help me in the excessive work I have to do to care for our home and seven children and this has caused me physical problems; what should I do?

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Question: I am a mother of seven children. I suffer from physical troubles because I do too much work in the house that is beyond my ability. My husband is a hard-hearted man who does not appreciate my efforts and this increases my exhaustion. Would you please tell me what to do?

The answer: Distributing tasks in the marital life should be done fairly and consensually. If you have children, they should be entrusted with some tasks according to their ages and abilities while instilling sincere motives inside them to do those tasks willingly and with interest.

This is what should be done, but when the opposite takes place, it means that there is a defect in someone’s mentality and this defect can be cured by a sound mentality.

Dear sister, what you suffer can be cured by patience while expecting your reward from Allah and showing love and respect towards your husband so that he may someday awake out of his severity towards you. Besides these steps, you should encourage him to attend the meetings of good Ulama’ and scholars and listen to the speeches of good preachers so that he may be affected by a word from those Ulama’and preachers and then he may be rescued from his injustice, for the true religion has brought man solutions to all problems if he believes in religion.

FOR A BETTER FUTURE

My husband and I are very poorly matched and have almost nothing in common and I am much more educated than he is; should we get divorced?

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Question: I am overcome with despair for my marital life to proceed happily. This is because, as I think, of the difference between my husband and me in intellect, culture, and understanding affairs of living. I am a university ­graduate while he has not even finished elementary school. I have a scientific position while he is weak and he stammers when he wants to show what he intends to say. Therefore, I feel that we do not understand each other. Do you think that divorce will guarantee happiness for both of us?

The answer: Dear sister, there are three choices before you:

The first: you may choose to be satisfied with the situation you are in and to not compare your life with the lives of others. This requires you, first, to not think of others besides your husband, and second, you should try your best to make him understand what you understand. You should be aware that the basis of success in this life is sincerity in love and looking forward to the reward of Allah and the good end of patience.

The second: you may continue feeling dissatisfied and continue worrying about your life and relationship, which definitely means eliminating marital happiness.

The third, you may choose divorce, which is lawful but Allah hates it and His Throne shakes for it except when the joint life of spouses reaches a dead end.

If you ask me, I will not hesitate to advise you to follow the first way. Mutual understanding most of the time means submitting to the lawful wish of the husband and neglecting your personal wishes, but with making him feel that this is only for the love of Allah and for the continuity of a happy marital life.

Beware of being proud of the elements of preference you have, such as a university diploma and the like, because this is a way leading to a bad end and is a defect that does not befit a learned Muslim girl. Your intellect requires you to know that happiness is gained through morals and faith while university diplomas and scientific information alone do not produce happiness and ease.

Dear sister, I hope that you pay attention to this fact before you are filled with regret. This is my opinion if the reason for your despair is as you have mentioned. However, if your husband is in a state that makes him unsuccessful and unfit for you, the solution will be to follow the third way. May Allah be with you!

FOR A BETTER FUTURE

My husband does not communicate with me and I sometimes doubt his feelings for me; what can I do?

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Question: I have been married for six years now to a husband who speaks little with me. He always keeps silent. Would you please tell me how I can bring happiness to my marital life with this silent husband, though he provides me with all I need for living? Sometimes the Satan whispers to me that my husband hates me. Am I normal?

The answer: As spouses have to follow an appropriate program to run the economical affairs of their joint life, they also have to follow an appropriate program to achieve the most balanced sentiment possible, because when love becomes firm between a husband and a wife, it gives them tranquility, liveliness, and interest in their shared fate, and then little talking between them does not affect their life.

Dear sister, what is important is that you have to do your best to strengthen the love and the feeling of interest in your mutual fate with your husband. Do not let your husband’s silence deprive you of his love to you, because when love dries up, the train of your life will enter into a tunnel of problems that will lead to a bad end. I think that talking little is not an excuse for you to throw your life into dangerous problems.

Your behaving lovingly towards him will defeat his hatred for you, if he has any hatred towards you. In fact, not every silence of a husband means that there is a hatred towards the wife. It may be a habit in the husband since his childhood. However, if it is a new habit, you can talk to him about it openly. Perhaps he may have suffered a psychological shock, and this can be cured by your wisdom or that of other wise people or specialists.

FOR A BETTER FUTURE

How can I handle the issue of a wife whose temperament I do not like?

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My wife is often nervous and angry. She scolds my children for anything they do that she does not like. I fear for their education and future if she continues in this state. In fact, I fear for my sincerity to her and the remaining of my life with her. What would you advise me to do?

The answer: Anger, as stated in the traditions, is a soldier of the Satan and a flame of Fire like any other destructive means. If your wife continues in her state and you also lose your patience, you both will in fact arrive at the end that you fear, and the first losers will be your children except if the stepmother will act towards them as a sincere and real mother, and such stepmothers are few.

Hence, I advise this wife to be prudent and patient and I advise you also to be more patient and to give her enough opportunities to ponder on the outcome of anger, which has destructive results in the family. You also have to think about the outcome of your patience because a day will come where your wife will awake out of her errors, and then she will appreciate your patience and compensate you for your previous days with her. And a day will come to you when you will find your great reward near Allah, and then your eyes will be delighted on (the day when wealth and sons avail not (any) man, except him who comes to Allah with a heart free (from evil)). You must try to identify the reasons for her anger and when you are able to remove the causes of her anger, you will be happy with her. You have to be patient with her, advise her, and pray to Allah for her.

FOR A BETTER FUTURE

How can a wife advise a husband without upsetting him and harming the family structure?

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Question: My husband has good characteristics, but nevertheless he also has some extreme bad conducts. I do not know how to advise him without causing his anger against me and throwing my marital life into troubles.

The answer: Dear sister, criticizing and advising are like surgical operations but are not conducted on the body; rather, they are done on the spirit and the soul. Therefore it is a very difficult operation requiring accuracy besides the following points:

1. Criticism must be preceded by love and a close relationship on both sides because without these, criticism becomes more a cause of disagreement and reluctance between spouses.

2. You should begin your talk with him by praising his good characteristics and then proceed little by little to criticize his bad behaviors. Praising him will make him trust in your love for him and will strengthen his morale, and then you will find he will accept your criticism sincerely.

3. After professing his fault, you should encourage him and give him hope and confidence. For example, you could say to him “I think you are able to change” or “It is not like you to say ‘I cannot’” or “I trust in your will and I admire your personality”, etc.

4. You should not repeat criticisms on the same subject too often, because repetition causes obduracy and anger.

5. Sometimes it would be better to criticize indirectly such as, for example, by a hint, mentioning a tradition, mentioning a story that has something to do with the matter, or playing a cassette of a lecture discussing that specific problem.

6. Let your criticism be free of insult and mockery, because the goal is to reform and rescue and not to destroy or avenge.

7. You should ask him for his criticisms about you, and when he tells them, you should accept them and thank him. This will make it easier for him to accept your criticisms about him, for humbleness brings humbleness.

8. You should limit your criticism to the matter of the fault itself and not generalize it to other sides of your husband’s personality.

9. Your criticism against your husband should be done when you are alone with him and not in the presence of anyone else. It has been mentioned in one of the traditions that “he who advises his brother secretly does him good, and he who advises his brother openly does him wrong.”

Here, I have to mention an advice aimed at myself first and then to this husband and those like him. It is a saying by the greatest of the wise and the master of the pious, Imam Ali (a.s.): “He who advises you, fears for you, does good to you, thinks of your ends, and reforms your defects, in obeying him lies your guidance and in disobeying him lies your corruption.”

Imam Zaynul Aabideen (a.s.) said, ‘The right of the one who asks you for advice on you is that you have to give him sincere advice and be kind and pitiful to him. And the right of the advisor on you is that you have to be lenient with him and listen to him carefully…” .

FOR A BETTER FUTURE

How should wedding ceremonies be conducted?

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Question: We have seen and heard about many accidents that have happened during wedding ceremonies and changed them into ceremonies of sorrows. Would you please guide us as to how we can avoid such bad accidents in order to make the ceremonies of joy the best moments in the lives of spouses?

The answer: The ceremonies of marriage, especially those which take place during the night of wedding, are based on joyous traditions that leave sweet memories in man’s life. Therefore, spouses care a lot for these ceremonies. They take pictures to remain with them until the last days of their lives and to remind them of those special hours, which are different from any other hours of their life.

How nice are those moments and especially the influence left in spouses’ hearts by the words of this supplication, which is read by the marriage official in the midst of the songs of the relatives who gather around the bride and bridegroom:

“O Allah, bless their marriage, unite their hearts, make their offspring good and their life happy, send Your blessings on us and them! O Allah, support whoever supports Your religion and disappoint whoever disappoints the Muslims! O Allah, make them (these spouses) among those who support Your religion and the people of Your religion and make them successful in receiving Your contentment! O Allah, satisfy our and their needs in this life and the afterlife by virtue of Muhammad and the pure progeny of Muhammad!”

Such a beautiful scene from amongst all the scenes of life deserves the best efforts and cooperation of relatives so that these ceremonies are carried out with joy and delight in the best way. However, unfortunately, in some of these weddings, quarrels take place by some irresponsible persons that do away with the joy of the young spouses who will not experience this occasion again with the same pleasure.

Such quarrels take place due to ignorance, bad education, whims, drunkenness, mixing of sexes which provokes lusts, and making passes on others that leads to disputes and suspicions, and consequently many troubles are caused.

Blessings and happiness do not come to marriages that begin with unlawful acts or encourage opportunities to commit unlawful acts. Handicaps in newborn children and disagreements that lead to divorce or griefs and distresses are the results of such unlawful actions during weddings. Exciting songs, transparent clothes that display women’s charms, bare faces with flagrant makeup before non-mahram men…all of these will extinguish the marital happiness sooner or later. Let people not think that it is harmless to celebrate the joys of a night or two in one year! Everything has its enduring effects, and how often it is that a simple matter troubles the situation and frustrates a marriage whereas its beginning was simple and trivial.

Hence, since religion and its moral teachings are very important, we continuously insist on and invite all classes of society to revive themselves in a modern and attractive way and in a language that is understandable by the youth.

Besides all that, the wedding ceremonies should be carried out accurately. Supplications and charity to the poor should not be ignored because they ward off misfortunes.

FOR A BETTER FUTURE

If I have divorced, can my family prevent me from choosing a second spouse by myself?

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Question: I am a twenty-five year old girl. I have undergone an unsuccessful marriage that ended with divorce. My family prevents me from choosing my second marital life by myself. Legally, do they have the right to do that or am I free to choose my husband?

The answer: Legally, you are free to choose the husband whom you think will be suitable for you, but you would be better off, in order to live free from family troubles, to agree with your family in any way you find will have an influence on them.

Always decide to avoid what causes quarrels in your life, because a life full of quarrels and nervousness is nearer to death than to life.

Man lives happily with his family and relatives when he behaves with them leniently, smilingly, and wisely. It is wrong when man thinks of attaining happiness through violence, nervousness, enmity, and hatred. Those who think so are but moving corpses until a certain day.

Support for your situation in convincing your family of your free will in choosing is a saying of Imam as-Sadiq (a.s.). When he was asked a question similar to yours, he said, ‘She is worthier of herself. She can entrust a qualified one with her affairs if she likes after she has got married to a husband before.’

Imam ar-Ridha (a.s.) has said, ‘The permission of a virgin (concerning marriage) is her keeping silence and the permission of a widow or divorcee is up to her.’

And you should not forget that a family often prevents their daughter from choosing her husband by herself because they do not want her to be involved in another failure, for it is quite often that young girls and women are deceived by the nice words and shapes of men, and then when those men satisfy their desires with these women, they leave them to look for other victims. Therefore, Islam has emphasized the necessity of the interference of a father in the matter of marriage of a virgin because she has not had enough experience in this concern and she may be liable to be deceived more than divorcees or widows who have some experience in this matter.

Yes! There is a special exception that if a virgin is rational and prudent, and her father is ignorant and cannot decide for the advantage of his daughter, Islam permits her to choose a suitable husband by herself even if her father objects to her choice.

Ibn Abbas reports that one day a bondwoman came to the Prophet (S) and told him that her father had married her to somebody while she was unwilling and the Prophet (S) gave her the choice (either to accept her husband or to leave him).

Imam as-Sadiq (a.s.) said, ‘There is no problem in marrying a virgin if she agrees without her father’s permission72.’

In the light of this, our jurisprudents have given a fatwa that if a virgin’s guardian prevents her from getting married to a qualified man whom she wants, her guardian’s permission will be of no effect.

FOR A BETTER FUTURE