This column is the first in a series exploring the anatomy of relationships. Need advice regarding a significant other, family member or friend? Submit your questions and stories here, and Anum may answer you in her next piece.
We talk about marriage tremendously in our communities. Wait, let me put that accurately: We talk about getting married and wedding festivities tremendously in our communities. But once the wedding is over, how are the couples expected to foster that marital bliss that was promised to them ever since they were old enough to read a book or watch a movie? After all the negative internal and external influences, how do they maintain the same twinkle of adoration, that shine that they had in their eyes during their wedding portraits, when they gaze at their partner five years later? No wonder the American Psychological Association reports that 40-50 percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce. Furthermore, in another pilot study done on Marital Trends in the American Muslim Community, Noha Alshugairi (2010) found that 21.3 percent of Muslim marriages end in divorce. In fact, being in any committed relationship is difficult, and most married couples often feel they are expected to maintain a façade that their relationship is perfect, for fear that “airing out their dirty laundry” will lead them to be ostracized by their friends. However, rather than keeping your concerns locked inside, I’m asking you to use this space to confide in those issues that you feel are unyielding in your relationship. Then, we can work together to help you maintain a wholesome relationship.
In our communities, we don’t discuss what happens or how to reside with a person of the opposite sex after you’ve taken the big plunge. Most people are left to their own devices to interpret and base their relationships off social media feeds, their parents, or even movie scenarios. However, even if you were to study Cosmopolitan or other relationship magazines like a biochemistry textbook, they don’t provide you with a real understanding of what it is like to spend day-to-day life with a person of the opposite sex.
For the first two years, most people incessantly flounder as they look for anything to keep them afloat, unless they’ve had previous live-in relationships. I can relate to the former because, growing up, I wasn’t surrounded by older married cousins, siblings or friends who disclosed wisdom about their marriages. In fact, I remember one of the first big fights my husband and I had. I ingeniously tried a solution from the “I Love Lucy” playbook, where I thought I’d be cute and we’d both end up laughing on the floor; instead, it ended up being a big cultural faux pas because he took my actions as sheer disrespect. After the never-to-be-named incident, I decided I needed outside help.
See, I’m naturally inclined to be solution-oriented. I used to love the timed math worksheets in fourth grade, in which you had to complete a long list of multiplication and division problems in under a minute. So, when it came to marriage problems, I reacted to it just like I would any other problem. Having not been in any relationships prior to my marriage, my husband was the first man I ever had any intimate emotional or physical contact with, and then to top that off, we were arranged (meaning, anything that I was told before marriage was just as truthful as your grandmother raving about the suit you tailored on your prom night or the samosas you learned how to fry when you were 10). Even after three and a half years of being married to him, there are times when I still wonder if he is just being a guy or if this offsetting trait is specifically related to his personality.
I asked as many married women who could possibly bear to listen to my woes, tried to see it from all angles, and go about it fixing the issues. Frankly, most of them just thought I was clingy and venting. In actuality, I hate complaining about something I can’t change, but I was just obsessed with solving the algorithm to marriage. However, I would soon figure out that marriage is a bit more subtle and complex than that. Even when the problems are in your face, there are so many variables and factors that surround each issue. Nonetheless, bless their hearts, they would listen and advise week after week over cups of Seattle coffee and baked goods. I learned an amazing amount from them about how most women tackle their marriages, but I still didn’t acquire any knowledge about men. I did discover that most women never give you the full picture about their lives; thus, you have to be careful in what capacity you utilize their advice when you apply it to your own life. What bothered me the most was that their views were poles apart from what my instincts told me, and from the training I received about healthy relationships in my Counseling Psychology graduate program.
Luckily and by complete coincidence, during my practicum, more than three-quarters of my clients ended up being men. Alas, my prayers were answered. These men were divulging their hearts and souls to me, giving me the answers to questions I had been baffled by a year earlier. Finally, men didn’t seem like a different species to me, but their distinctions in which they viewed life became clearer. I was able to see where I had been going astray and what I needed to change within myself to be more apt in all my relationships. I had finally found the missing x in my equation.
So, in this column, my goal is to share all that I have learned in my six years of counseling — plus all that my girlfriends and I talk about when we’re not Snapchatting our favorite foods. I am here to listen, empathize and be honest with you. I am here to analyze and help you in your struggle with your personal relationships, whomever they may be with — your spouse, partner, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends or even family members. I will be mindful of your situation, rather than sticking you with one-size-fits-all advice, in order for you to create deep, authentic and meaningful relationships that help you reach your full capacity of living and serving others. There is no such thing as TMI in my book when it comes to gaining self-awareness, but feel free to share as much as you’re comfortable sharing, and hopefully we can process and help you gain peace.
Along with working at an inpatient psychiatric hospital and running her own private practice, Anum is currently working, organizing and planning Pre-Marital and Marital retreats for Muslims with AlaNur. You can learn more about her psychotherapeutic style at: Psychology Today.
This column is the first in a series exploring the anatomy of relationships. Need advice regarding a significant other, family member or friend? Submit your questions and stories here, and Anum may answer you in her next piece.