Q&A: Avoiding Divorce in a Mismatched Marriage: My Spouse & Me Are Incompatible | Dr. Rania Awaad

Duration: 5:30 1024 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

The core message of the discussion revolves around navigating marriages where significant incompatibilities exist between spouses. The speaker emphasizes that no two individuals are ever identical, regardless of their shared background, culture, or tribe, meaning some level of mismatch is inevitable in every relationship. While acknowledging that working through these differences is challenging, particularly when one partner is unwilling to try, the most crucial factor for survival is mutual willingness to make an effort. The speaker argues that arrogance, which manifests as blaming the other person entirely, is a major obstacle, whereas humility—admitting that both parties contribute to the problems and are willing to compromise—is essential for resolving conflicts. To address these deep-seated issues, the video advocates for professional marriage counseling rather than relying solely on family intervention or untrained religious figures like imams. Although seeking help from one's own family is mentioned in Islamic tradition, families often lack neutrality and may inadvertently worsen the situation due to their own biases or unresolved baggage. The speaker clarifies that while many imams are respected community leaders, they are typically not trained as clinical marriage counselors, much like a plumber cannot fix a car engine. Therefore, couples need a neutral third party who understands both psychological counseling techniques and Islamic cultural nuances to facilitate a constructive dialogue aimed at salvaging the marriage rather than simply ending it. The ultimate goal of this counseling process is to foster an environment where both partners can admit their own shortcomings and meet in the middle through mercy and compromise. The speaker encourages couples to view marriage as a continuous journey of adjustment, where saying "no" to one's own desires for the sake of the relationship is a form of love and mercy. By engaging with a qualified professional who respects Islamic values, couples can gain clarity on their specific dynamics and develop strategies to work together effectively. The video concludes by reinforcing that seeking such specialized help is not a sign of failure but a proactive step toward preserving the family unit when internal efforts and informal support systems are no longer sufficient.

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The question is uh a sister's asking if somebody's already been married for some period of time and there's a lot of mismatches in this couple and they want to continue it. It's definitely going to be hard cuz there's different there's differences, but the most important thing you just said to me now is both have a willingness to try. The harder thing is when one is willing to work and the other isn't. Even worse when neither one of them sees that there's a problem in the first place. Subhan Allah. But anyhow, let's take this your your question directly, which is that there's a mismatch in the marriage and which is like I said, we are not there's no husband wife pair that's ever going to be a cookie cutter template of the other one. Even if you come from the same background, even if you come from the same social, economic, cultural, uh, religious, even if it's the same cast or family group, even if it's for the same tribe, I mean, at the end of the day, one family, one household's culture literally is different than the household next to it. the neighbor right next to it. So there's no way you're going to be an exact replica ever of each other. And if there are too many mismatches then but they want to work it out then alhamdulillah now we have where we want what this is now humility. Humility is to say we're having trouble. We're struggling. Arrogance is to say I'm fine. You're the problem. [laughter] Which happens all the time in couples. There's a lot of like you ask a couple what's happening. He he he or she she she and the reality is it's a every road is a two-way street. So it's both of you actually. And as we said at the beginning so much of marriage is compromise and so much of marriage is Oh baby does not like what I said. Okay. [laughter] I said no. [laughter] So much of marriage is compromised and so much of marriage is literally mercy. So part of this is and I encourage you I did mention of premarital counseling and that's for couples before they even get married. However, the from marriage onwards it's marriage counseling and ideally it would be with somebody who if not Muslim themselves then at least fully understands and is respectful of Muslim cultures because the goal of this is not to get divorced. That's not the point. The easy way out is to say everybody go their way. No, the harder and more important thing is to say if we can salvage this, what does it take? And it often takes a lot of compromise and it often takes a lot of humility to say I'm doing things that need to change. You're doing things that need to change. Let's try to meet at least somewhere in the middle. Do you see what I'm saying? I encourage this heavily. And people will say, well, I'll just talk to the imam. I cannot tell you how many imam trainings I've done, alhamdulillah, in which our dear imams say, "But I am not trained in marriage counseling." [snorts] In fact, I have problems in my own household. Subhan Allah. They're not trained. Your imams are not trained in marriage counseling. With all respect, just like you're not going to take your car to your plumber, and you're not going to have call up your mechanic when your sink backs up, right? Everyone has their disciplines and what they're trained in doing and what they're not trained in. And by the way, I don't know your imams. I heard that there's like five of them. May Allah bless them all. May Allah bless them all. But my understanding is I don't think any of them are actual marriage counselors. And it's not just your masid. It's every masid with the rare exception that you have someone who's dual trained who did both counseling and uh Sharia. Okay. And I I feel like I have to give all these disclaimers. And my husband is an imam. I have no issues with imams. Okay. Mah [laughter] like she's bashing the imams. I'm married to one. Okay. Mah bless him. Alhamdulillah. The reality is everyone has their own disciplines. Does that make sense? All right. The other thing I want to say is counseling has always been part of our Islamic tradition. It has always been there. It has always been part of our tradition. Many people will start with the family. And the Quran specifically talks about that if there is a concern or issue, you bring one from her family and one from his family. Right? If that can work, alhamdulillah. But sometimes the families as you know make it worse. They mean well but they don't know how necessarily or there's some other baggage that's causing there to be you know not clarity. This is why the idea of counseling is to bring a neutral third party to listen and they have no investment in the story. So I'm listening to this side. Okay. Listening to this side. Okay. And now the goal is to try to actually make this work. That's the point of the counseling that they're neutral third party. So I could spend the next hour and I'm not going to do that to you talking about counseling in the Islamic tradition and how it's been part and parcel of our tradition. This is why we have now Muslim counseling centers because it's so part of our Islamic tradition but we've lost it along the way. So I encourage people as best as they can. They can't make it work together with each other and they always get stuck. Right? Then you can try friends and family potentially intervening. And if you get stuck there, this is your sign that you do need to have a professional help you in the counseling process. Does that help a little bit? Yes. Inshallah. Okay, other questions maybe on this side.