Perspectives on Marriage

Glimpses of Marital Bliss: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI

By Anonymous

Different couples have different perspectives on marriage and what it’s really all about. Below are two different narratives from two different individuals on what marriage is to them:

Couple 1:

“Marriage is work. It’s sacrifice. It’s compromise.

I watch romantic comedies, and I think, “This is pure nonsense.”

Love is being there for your spouse, no matter what. I was hospitalized for two weeks, and I had temporarily lost my ability to walk. I saw a depth in my husband that I had no idea was there.

He visited me twice a day while I was in the hospital. We’d talk on the phone after, then he’d get our children ready for school, drop them off, and bring me breakfast before he went to work.

After work, he’d bring me dinner, walk with me in the hallways, encouraging me even when I was too physically tired to walk further. He’d leave to get the kids ready for bed and then call me again after `isha [the night prayer]. He’d bring the kids to see me every other day.

After my discharge from the hospital, he continued to encourage and support me while I was recovering from my illness. He doesn’t like biking, but I found that biking was helping me to regain my ability to walk, and I would drag him with me on 25-mile bike rides in the mountains every week while I was getting better. My disease continues to play like background music in our life, but he is so understanding, so patient, so thoughtful.

Songs and movies portray love as this steamy and passionate emotional tsunami. That may be true for the very beginning of a marriage, but love evolves as the years go by. In the course of that evolution, I’ve found love to be kind, practical, and gentle. Someone who doesn’t know you can’t love you in the way you need to be loved.”

---

Couple 2:

“AlhamduliLah (all praise and thanks to God) we have a blessed marriage. We can’t thank Allah enough for each other and our families. My husband and I have been married for about 5 years now. We don’t know what we would have done without each other. We feel like we have been married for 20+ years and sometimes we even tease each other about acting like an old couple.

My husband, may Allah bless him, always says, “Look, we are all humans. We all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. You bring peace and joy to my life. So, in times when I am upset, I try to remember the rest of the 99% when things were great, and I try to forgive you, so that Allah may forgive me on the day of Judgment. So you should also do the same.”

Anytime either one of us does something extra for the other, we remind each other not to and the other says, “It’s ok, I am doing this for the sake of Allah. So that Allah may be happy with us.”

We make du`a’ [prayer] for each other. We say things like, “May Allah be pleased with you. Grant you the highest level of Jannah [paradise] and fulfill all your wishes.” Though I have to admit that my husband does this a lot more often than I do.

When we are upset with each other, we remind each other that Satan is trying to come in between us, and the one who is upset rushes to defeat Satan, and tells the other, “You did this and this. Shaytaan [Satan] took advantage of it, but I was able to overcome him. I forgive you for the sake of Allah so Allah can forgive me.” We try to clear things right away.

Even when I am slightly upset, my husband can tell. Even when I am hiding it. He pushes me to blurt it out. I do. Then he helps me feel better. And I am always glad he pushed me to say what was bothering me.”

---

In both of these narrations, the couples emphasize one point: marriage is about being with someone who will truly understand what you need, someone who will help you become a better person and who will encourage you to improve with that gentle love.

*If you would like share sweet glimpses from your marriage with hopes of spreading awareness of positive relationships in the Muslim community, please email info@VirtualMosque.com with a short narrative. Your submission may be featured anonymously in this mini-series of Glimpses of Marital Bliss.