What a perfect match!

What a perfect match!

What a perfectly matched couple….This marriage was indeed prepared in Jannah(heaven)….Its like a page from a fairytale…These were just some of the comments made after Yusuf and Fatima’s nikaah (wedding) ceremony.

A few years later and two Masha-Allah beautiful kids in their spacious home, “the sea was no longer so clam”…Like many other marriages, Yusuf and Fatima’s marriage seemed to be experiencing some turmoil. Both were sincere and not a night passed when they would go to bed without making peace and amends.

Fatima comes to her husband Yusuf with a proposal: “I read in a magazine, a while ago, about how we can strengthen our marriage.” She smilingly and lovingly offered.

“Each of us will write a list of the things that we find a bit annoying with the other person. Then, we can talk about how we can fix them together and make our lives happier together.”

The husband agreed. So each of them went to a separate room in the house and thought of the things that annoyed them about the other. They thought about this question for the rest of the day and wrote down what they came up with.

The next morning, at the breakfast table, they decided that they would go over their lists.

“I’ll start,” offered Fatima. She took out her list. It had many items on it. Enough to fill 3 pages, in fact. As she started reading the list of the little annoyances, she noticed that tears were starting to appear in Yusuf’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Nothing” Yusuf replied, “keep reading your list.”

Fatima continued to read and tears flowed now more profusely from Yusuf’s eyes and began to wet his beard. Fatima somewhat nervous read all three pages to her husband. She neatly placed her list on the table and folded her hands over the top of it.

“Now, you read your list and then we’ll talk about the things on both of our lists.” She said happily.

Quietly Yusuf stated, “I don’t have anything on my list. I think that you are perfect the way that you are. I don’t want you to change anything for me. You are lovely and wonderful and I wouldn’t want to try and change anything about you.”

The wife, touched by his honesty and the depth of his love for her and his acceptance of her, turned her head and wept.

Lesson: This is not to say that you must overlook every fault in your partner. If a marriage partner is abusive, or is an alcoholic or drug addict, or is unfaithful, or something of that nature then yes of course there must be changes.

But when it comes to the little things, remember that we are all imperfect beings, struggling to worship our Creator Allah as best we can, pursue our dreams in a Islamic way, raise our families, put food on the table, and balance all of the above fairly. We all have faults. We all make mistakes.

If you go looking for faults in your partner you will find plenty and that is for sure! You will find many mistakes, bad habits, and imperfections.

But you know what? If you look honestly in the mirror you will see the same things in yourself.

If you focus on your partner’s imperfections you will never be happy. You will always be dissatisfied, wanting more, feeling deprived, feeling frustrated. And you will end up making your partner miserable, and pushing your marriage into misery.

Instead, look for what is good in your partner. See his/her beauty, good habits, loving or kind gestures, relationship with the Creator Allah, hidden potential, and Islamic aspirations. If you look for beauty you will find it. Nurture that beauty by appreciating it, and it will grow. The love between you will deepen like a strong river, becoming more and more powerful over time. And those little things that used to bother you so much will seem not very important at all.

Allah, Most High, has given us innumerable favours and He has declared: “And if you were to count Allah's favors, you would not be able to number them; most surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.”(Holy Qur’an 16:18).

Allah is pleased with those who are thankful to Him. He increases His favours which become the means of comfort and respect in your marital home. If one fails to offer gratitude and reconcile our “petty” differences, then such an attitude surely amounts to disregard for the so many favours Allah has blessed us with.

Therefore Allah says: “If you give thanks, I will give you more: but if you are thankless, lo! my punishment is severe.” (Holy Qur’an 14:7).