What Nobody Tells You About Muslim Marriage
Our first year nearly ended because of the wedding guest list. What saved us was an imam who understood listening instead of lecturing.
It sounds absurd. It was absurd. But the the wedding guest list was never really about money.
Ahmed's mother-in-law had a Sunday cooking tradition. When we married, the expectation was that I would continue the tradition. 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. Ahmed's list was 17 items long. Mine was 26. 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 roommates with a marriage certificate.
It took two years of honest, painful conversations. Of learning that compromise doesn't mean surrender. Of understanding that my Bengali traditions and Indian traditions could coexist in the same kitchen.
We've been married 5 years now. We alternate Eids between families. 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.