Ms. Humaira Salman, Director of “Learner’s Resource Galaxy” has introduced a much-appreciated marriage counselling programme titled “Marriage Matters”. “Hiba” reached out to Ms. Humaira regarding the inspiration and need for such programmes.
Why did you choose to conduct this course?
As a teacher, trainer, counselor, and a generally social individual, I get the chance to interact with and observe people from diverse backgrounds with different beliefs and ideas. One thing that I noticed amongst all families was some degree of dysfunction. Most of the issues arose from problems between spouses. For example, most parenting failures occur when there is a failure of communication between the parents, leading to personality issues in children.
For this reason, we wanted to provide a platform where people could identify, discuss, and solve their marital issues by working on themselves. This plan had been in the pipeline for a very long time, but there were two factors which finally pushed us to launch our programme ‘Marriage Matters’. Firstly, a survey in 2021 reported that Pakistan had hit an all-time high divorce rate and, secondly, we had found an excellent team member Nyda Taqi, who is an NLP Practitioner and Relationship Coach from the UAE.
Who can benefit from it?
Initially, we wanted to target girls who would be getting married within a year or two and women who had been married for five or less years. However, once we launched the course, married women showed most interest. The final group of participants varied from women who had been married for ten or more years to women who had no intention of getting married any time soon yet. The age group varied from 19 to 40 year olds, including women who had signed the marriage contract but had not yet started living with their husbands.
Eventually we decided that we would counsel all married women, regardless of how long they had been married as well as unmarried girls preparing for marriage. Both these groups benefited from the course, as the key was to work on yourself. Unmarried women also have relationships to nurture, and they could practice the concepts taught in the course in their current households.
As for divorced and widowed women, they too can benefit from the course, as it helps build confidence and self-esteem as well as encourages self-care.
Do you have any success stories about participants who benefited from your course?
Some of the women who attended the first batch of “Marriage Matters” were suffering from depression and one was even contemplating divorce from a bitter marriage that had lasted for more than a decade. By the end of the course, they felt reasonably more optimistic towards life and their relationships by Allah’s (swt) will. One of them had an insightful reflection to share with us:
“Life is too short of a journey to waste in painful memories and grudges. They negatively impact our emotional well-being and prevent us from doing the good that we all are capable of. This course, Alhamdulillah, has really helped me. I found faith and have realized that the power is in us. If we truly are sincere towards finding Allah’s (swt) pleasure and if we truly want to be Muslims, we must surrender completely, especially the false sense of ego that stops us from taking that step forward in the right direction against our Nafs.”
Another married woman said: “I was a very reluctant participant to begin with, but then I just dived in. I have been so open to all sorts of self-evaluation and analysis in this class, because no one passes judgments. I am very thankful to Allah (swt) for this opportunity. I had been looking for something like this for the last six years.”
An girl had to say: “I was not ready to attend this course, and I kept thinking, why this course is for women only. What can one partner do on their own? Now I understand that regardless of what other people do, we are accountable for our deeds, actions, and efforts.”
Another young participant shared: “My brothers pushed me to do this course because I was not ready to get married at all. I feel ready now.”
What are the three most common causes of failed or troubled marriages today?
In today’s world of awareness, information, and technology, it is difficult to single out specific reasons for troubled marriages. In South Asia, there is a self-concocted mixture of religion, culture, and personal opinions in each household. Still, I would say the top three reasons are as follows:
- Lack of gratitude
The Prophet (sa) said: “I was shown the Hellfire and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful.” It was asked: “Do they disbelieve in Allah? (or are they ungrateful to Allah?)” He replied: “They are ungrateful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favours and the good (charitable deeds) done to them. If you have always been good (benevolent) to one of them and then she sees something in you (not of her liking), she will say: I have never received any good from you.” (Bukhari)
Two of the most important topics of our course, which women found difficult to understand, were ‘gratitude’ and ‘receiving graciously’. When we hear a fellow woman complaining about her husband, we are the first ones to remind her to be grateful that her husband does not do a greater misdeed. Empathy goes down the drain. But we always want someone to empathize with us when we complain and are never thankful for own fallible husbands.
When our men make the effort to actually bring something for us out of their own choice, we often start picking faults with it rather than acknowledging their love and care. This is what a boy sees since childhood, when he gifts something to his mother or sister or sees how his father’s gifts are received by the women of his house. He registers it and eventually understands that his thoughtfulness does not make a difference; chances are that he will become cold, distant, and unexpressive towards his wife, because of the behaviour of other women at home.
Here, positive role modelling by parents is important. Girls also learn the manners of receiving gifts by observing their mothers’ behaviour. We all have heard women complain that their spouses do not know their preferences, even though they have been married for so long.
Does this mean we should keep accepting gifts we do not like and completely dismiss our likes and dislikes? Absolutely not! There is a way of making your likes and dislikes known, and this is where empathy comes in. How would you want someone to react when you give them a gift?
- Incomplete knowledge
The second problem is that there is a whole new world of knowledge and information available at the tap of our fingers. Alas! The media we use does not give complete knowledge of anything: not the Deen, not the Dunya, not parenting, and not marriage. The adults around us are our source of religious knowledge, and this understanding is often incomplete and sometimes even corrupt. South Asia is a region where many cultures and religions have co-existed, and this has led to innovation in religious and cultural practices. Hence, we should learn about Islam from authentic sources and try to educate ourselves about the obligatory aspects of our Deen and basic Sunnahs.
This incomplete knowledge and its mass distribution by married women in the society often instills false ideas and beliefs about wives, their husbands, and in-laws. They enter into marriage either with a false sense of identity or absolutely none at all. This causes temperament challenges – marriages can become toxic and even eventually fail. The same people who teach them their religious obligations often tell them to lie, in order to control their husbands and in-laws. There is much confusion and distrust.
- Self-esteem issues
Since childhood, most girls are taught to be ‘people pleasers’ and especially ‘male pleasers’. This results in them placing their self-esteem in the wrong hands. All women need to understand that they should generally be kind, generous, and empathetic towards the people around them – however, this should not be done for pleasing others but to please the Creator. The only entity they should be worried about pleasing is Allah (swt).
When the expectations of any person contradict Allah’s (swt) expectations from you, whom do you obey? What happens when we are unable to please those that we really want to please? We feel unworthy and useless, which results in loss of confidence. We are unable to fulfill our responsibilities with excellence, and our relationships, especially with our spouses and children, suffer. It is very important for women to be confident and have a sense of self-worth.
Secondly, when women are not appreciated, they believe they should focus on themselves, but their concept of self-care is warped. We discuss self-care, selfishness, and self-esteem in detail in our course, and many women were able to recover their self-worth afterwards.
Do women from different socio-economic backgrounds face different problems?
Since our education system does not talk about marriage at all, these problems remain consistent throughout the society. Perhaps the financially independent woman seems more confident and has a better self-esteem, but that is only as long as she is financially independent, for she too has not been taught where to derive her self-worth from. Often in our society, marriage is only ever discussed in extremes: either as a utopian bliss or a negative path of suffering. The only prepping girls get for marriage is in the beauty parlour when they should actually be getting it from their families and the stakeholders of education.
Every relationship, commitment or action requires a strong ‘why?’. After our interview with Humaira Salman, we realized that currently people do not know the ‘why?’ of marriage. Learners’ Resource Galaxy’s “Marriage Matters” aims to do just that. May Allah (swt) help us all in finding reasons to keep the good things going, and may He enable us to become the initiators of great things. Ameen!
Hiba wishes Mrs. Humaira Salman and her team all the best and prays for their success.
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