Love after marriage

Love after marriage…. Why does it end and how do we preserve and celebrate it throughout our lives? Love after marriage between the bickering, emotional rigidity and constant blame… and between the compassion, forgiveness and living the eternal dream. Mr. Amr Khaled prescribes four points for achieving marital happiness in life, from Islam's point of view, in an interview by Mr. Esam Ghazi on Wed. 17/9/2003.



This is how it went:



After the engagement, the betrothal and wedding night… how can a couple build a home based on understanding and happiness… how can they guarantee the continuance of their love and the stability of their marriage?



Mr. Amr Khaled assures that all of this is possible on a condition that both spouses take their responsibilities. The husband should be patient, just, gentle, forgiving and compassionate, while the wife has to be the tender heart where her husband can lay down his troubles, embracing him and easing his pains instead of bickering with him and blaming him for every little thing. He says that past trials show that the best way to bring back the love and emotions between the two spouses is by them to worship God together.



Amr Khaled's prescription:


I asked Amr Khaled about the correct foundations of love in the beginning of marriage, especially in the honeymoon?



He responded by giving a prescription made out of four points:



The first point concerns the man alone. The man should deal with his wife with extreme patience, justice, gentleness and forgiveness. He has to be very compassionate, never insulting or hurting her, and he shouldn't prevent her from visiting her parents. He shouldn't be on the constant lookout for her faults and shortcomings to criticize her and make her pay for it. This doesn't mean that the man shouldn't be assertive but the basis of the marital relationship should be based on compassion, forgiveness, justice and tenderness. She will always remember the husband’s treatment, so she won't insist on wrongdoing. Past trials show this, however much the wife was upset with her husband she learns to forgive him, knowing that he didn't mean it. The woman needs a man who can be both strong and tender. If the woman is insulted, hurt or treated cruelly by her man, her love for him will fade no matter how much love they started with.



-How did the Prophet (PBUH) deal with Aisha's jealousy?



The Seerah (Prophet Muhammad's life story) show's an example of this when Hafsa prepared a meal for the prophet and his companions in front of her house. The stew meal was made in a clay pot. When Aisha saw the companions and the Prophet assembled around the meal that Hafsa prepared, she was so jealous that she went over to the pot and kicked it so that it fell and broke.



-What was the Prophet's reaction to this?



He bent down to gather the stew back in what was left of the pot, then looked towards his companions and said, "Your mother was jealous." He didn't say "My wife was jealous", reminding them that she was one of their mother's (the mother's of the Believers who are the wives of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)) because he didn't want the companions to be mad at her.

He was forgiving in front of his companions but was assertive when he dealt with Aisha. He went over to her house and told her, "Aisha, you have ruined a pot for Hafsa and you owe her another instead." He was both compassionate and just. Aisha only asked for him to pray for her that God may forgive her, and he replied, "May God forgive you."



Is there better wisdom than this in dealing with the problems faced by a family? The wife felt the strength of the man as well as his compassion so she admitted she was wrong and asked her husband, the Prophet (PBUH), to ask forgiveness for her jealousy and anger so that she doesn't go back to them. His actions made her love for him grow in her heart, and this is a man's responsibility.