What Nobody Tells You About Muslim Marriage
Our first year nearly ended because of the mahr amount. What saved us was an imam who understood honest communication.
It sounds absurd. It was absurd. But the the mahr amount was never really about money.
Imran's father-in-law had a expectation about morning routines. When we married, the expectation was that I would follow the same routine. When I did things differently, things went cold.
What saved us was an imam who understood marriage counselling. He made us list every unspoken expectation. Imran's list was 12 items long. Mine was 24. 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 six months 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 11 years now. His mother brings her biryani. I make my koshari. We still disagree about the thermostat. 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.