What Nobody Tells You About Muslim Marriage
Our first year nearly ended because of where to live. What saved us was an imam who understood listening instead of lecturing.
It sounds absurd. It was absurd. But the where to live was never really about money.
Ahmed's mother-in-law had a specific way of running the household. When we married, the expectation was that I would continue the tradition. When I did things differently, the passive aggression began.
What saved us was an imam who understood marriage counselling. He made us list every unspoken expectation. Ahmed's list was 19 items long. Mine was 28. 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 eighteen months of honest, painful conversations. Of learning that compromise doesn't mean surrender. Of understanding that my Egyptian traditions and Malaysian traditions could coexist in the same kitchen.
We've been married 12 years now. His mother brings her biryani. I make my koshari. We still disagree about whose family is more dramatic. 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.