11. From the Captain’s Log…
Dear Sister in Islam,
101. You reach the end of the voyage, only after being immensely patient and having battled fiercely to save your marriage over years and years of conflict, anxiety, anguish and trauma. It is only after years of trying that you abandoned ship and dove off the side into deep and unknown waters, in order to save yourself and your children.
102. It isn’t enough for one person to fight to save the marriage. It takes two to come together, to sit together, to willingly acknowledge what went wrong, to seek the necessary external assistance, and to work together to solve the problems and make a change. When only one spouse is invested in saving the marriage and the other is in pursuit of everything else or is oblivious to how much damage there is, there’s no point in clinging on to a sinking ship full of holes. No matter how fast or how much water you bail out, the damaged ship is continuously taking in more and more water, faster than one person can keep up with. This can be so very draining, exhausting and it will have a huge impact on your health and well-being.
103. There comes a point in the marriage where the unwieldy knots are so warped and twisted, that the tangle can no longer be unravelled, and therefore must now be cut. It is the only way to save yourself and your children. Your very survival as a human soul created for the sole purpose of worshipping your Creator depends upon this severance.
104. Many of the marriages that finally end in divorce in a court of law, are long over inside the home, before one spouse finally finds the courage to severe the cord in order to put everyone out of their individual and collective misery.
105. Divorce is like death, except without the closure of death and the sympathy of the people for the loss. To put it starkly, it is death. The death of a marriage. The death of dreams and hopes. The death of future memories of family togetherness. The death of a family unit. Your children will forever have milestones, where both their parents will never appear together, holding hands together, hugging the family together, chasing after grandchildren together. The breaking apart of a family deserves to be mourned, just as the passing of a soul is mourned. Do please honour this for yourself, for your children, and for others who will find themselves on this same journey.
106. Grieve the loss of what a truly beautiful Muslim marriage should have been, based on the Qur’an and Sunnah, a marriage with deep, expressive love (mawaddah), compassionate empathetic mercy (rahmah), friendship, companionship, safety, security and tranquility (sakeenah) that should have been yours, but sadly never was. In other words, what didn’t happen but should have happened, is as important and poignant as what happened but should never have happened. That loss is deep and hurtful and it needs to be mourned for you to be able to embark on a new voyage.
107. It’s unfortunate that many places don’t have the genuine, caring, Madinan community of the prophetic era. Upon a divorce, hardly anyone visits you to offer their condolences, sits with you in your sadness, checks on you and your children, assists with the difficult tasks that one has never had to do before, offers financial or other assistance if needed, or even take the time to show love and caring by bringing warm meals to help tide you over the days of sorrow and grief as they would if you were dealing with the death of a spouse instead of the loss of a spouse. Why is that? Is it the stigma of divorce?
The Muslim divorce rate in America is almost at 47% and is expected to surpass that alarming number. So the Muslim communities had better get over the stigma in a hurry and start sorting out what is going wrong with Muslim marriages. It’s vital to understand how to help sort this mess out, so that Muslim children can do better than their parents did. Just by looking at the statistics, even if you are not divorced yourself or you don’t know someone who is, you soon will because there are many Muslim marriages on the rocks.
108. Many well meaning people will advocate self-care to deeply troubled souls during the times of hardship and difficulty. It isn’t self-care that individuals who are hurting need. It is community care that they are in desperate need of.
When she doesn’t even have the strength to stand, how can you tell her to implement practices of self-care? Don’t relegate your communal responsibility back to her and advocate self-care to her, when she barely has the strength to wake up in the morning to face a new day. What she needs is your care. Show up at her door and lend her your strength for her to lean on, because she has none of her own. Perhaps one day, when she has regained her strength, she will show up at your door to hold you up in your time of trial and tribulation.
109. People need people. The Muslim community is a community of the ‘jamaa’ or congregation. It is of paramount importance that those who are in deep trial, tribulation and trauma are offered community services and holistic care from the Muslim communities they live in. There is an immense trust and honour placed upon people when someone turns to them in their time of desperate and dire need, opening the door to allow others to serve them, where being real, raw, ugly and messy is their only choice.
When someone who is not used to asking for help says, “Help me. I need your strength. I need your advice. I need your presence. Help me walk this difficult path that is facing me. Lend me your hand. Hold me up. Be there for me. I am lost. I need you until I find my footing.” then offer tangible to the best of your ability. It’s not easy for people to ask for help. It’s not easy for people to accept help when offered. Shame and pride always get in the way so communities must make it easy for people to ask for help in the first place. When people do ask, communities must offer help wholeheartedly, in whatever capacity they can through a coordinated effort that is consistent over time.
110. Marriage is an Ayat of Allah - a sign, a symbol, a direction. Marriage is also a strong sunnah. ’Tis a firm covenant with a formula: Love + Mercy = Tranquility.
“And of His Signs is that He has created mates for you from your own kind that you may find peace in them and He has set between you love and mercy. Surely there are Signs in this for those who reflect.” [Surah Rum/The Romans, Verse 21].
