As mentioned in a previous post, I am taking a *free* online course with seekersguidance.org. Recently I participated in an online session with our instructor, Imam Afroz Ali. This session was extremely illuminating and he answered all of my questions in a succinct yet comprehensive way.
One question I had was about patience in marriage. How long should we remain patient in a difficult marriage?
Imam Afroz made some great points. He said that patience is certainly a virtue and that divorce should never be the first recourse. He said that every marriage has problems, but we should ask ourselves this: “Overall does it help you to be a better person?” “Is this marriage worthy to be a part of?” He also said that we should ask ourselves, “Are we thankful for what we have?” He advised us to be thankful for the positive qualities of our spouse. He also said that we need to understand what the real problem is in the marriage. Often, couples get tangled up in the reactions to the problems/how they react rather than the actual issue that needs resolving.
I really loved his advice. Alhamdulillah I’ve been married for almost 14 years, and although I’ve had difficult points in my marriage, I am thankful that Allah (swt) helped me to “weather the storm” and stick through it. I’ve definitely grown spiritually, and really my husband is a good guy!