What Nobody Tells You About Muslim Marriage
Our first year nearly ended because of household chores. What saved us was an imam who understood marriage counselling.
It sounds absurd. It was absurd. But the household chores was never really about food.
Fatima's mother-in-law had a expectation about morning routines. When we married, the expectation was that I would prioritise their family. When I did things differently, the comments started.
What saved us was an imam who understood marriage counselling. He made us list every unspoken expectation. Fatima's list was 16 items long. Mine was 27. We'd married each other but expected to live in our parents' marriages.
The Quran says spouses are garments for one another — they cover, protect, and complement. We weren't garments. We were two people speaking different languages.
It took a year of honest, painful conversations. Of learning that compromise doesn't mean surrender. Of understanding that my Bengali traditions and Nigerian traditions could coexist in the same kitchen.
We've been married 15 years now. His mother brings her biryani. I make my koshari. We still disagree about how to load the dishwasher. But we do the dishes together.
Nobody tells you that marriage isn't about finding the right person. It's about becoming the right person. Every single day. Over and over. With patience, with prayer, and occasionally with raised voices that eventually soften into laughter.