What Nobody Tells You About Muslim Marriage
Our first year nearly ended because of biryani. What saved us was an imam who understood honest communication.
It sounds absurd. It was absurd. But the biryani was never really about preferences.
Zainab's father-in-law had a expectation about morning routines. 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. Zainab's list was 17 items long. Mine was 18. 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 polite acquaintances.
It took eighteen months of honest, painful conversations. Of learning that compromise doesn't mean surrender. Of understanding that my Bengali traditions and British traditions could coexist in the same kitchen.
We've been married 15 years now. We found our own rhythm. 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.