Qing Monisola_Matti♥

The sheer number of variables that must align for a good person to also be the right spouse for you is quite astonishing when you think about it. Their Deen,temperament, upbringing, family, in-laws, parenting instincts, conversational depth, physical attraction, background, values, even the particular flaws you can live with and the ones they can tolerate in you. And beyond all these, the timing of your lives, the circumstances of your meeting, and your capacity to keep choosing each other as you both change. So when you find someone whose virtues suit your needs, whose imperfections you can bear, and whose presence makes the responsibilities of marriage easier to fulfil, you begin to appreciate how much of it was beyond your own planning. A compatible spouse is one of those remarkably particular gifts from Allah, so carefully suited to you that the more you contemplate the variables that couldn't be accidental, the more your gratitude deepens.

And also infidelity is not one of the "ups and downs" of marriage. Disagreements, financial difficulties, illness and changing circumstances are. But betrayal is a violation of the very trust upon which marriage rests. We should be careful not to normalise it in the name of weathering "marital storms."

Much of what a husband provides, a woman may already have received in her father’s house. What marriage promises beyond that is being chosen as a partner, having her inner life matter to the person she shares her days with. Provision is indispensable, but it cannot answer every complaint about loneliness/neglect or emotional emptiness. One wonders how often “I give her everything” means everything he can account for, while what she is asking for is to feel considered without having to make a case for herself each time.