“Team work makes dream work’’ Series 2 – Chapter 2 – Jamiatul Ulama KZN

Bismillah

Series 2 – Chapter 2

Disclaimer: The stories in our articles are not factual. Their themes however, are based on real life challenges.

In chapter 1, we helped the husband to understand his role as Ameer of the family. We also identified the value of his wife, that her opinions are important. The mashwera process with his wife is not a sign of weakness, but rather a reflection of his strength and maturity. We went on to providing a concise manuscript to guide him through the mashwera process.

In today’s chapter, we will describe the real-life experience of Danyal and his dilemma. When Danyal said ‘nikahtuha…’ 22 years prior, he had perhaps not fully acknowledged the sacredness of this process. He may have expected that marriage is just like we see on glossy magazine pages. The unassuming Danyal somehow did not expect to be the middle person between two very important people in his life…his mother and his wife. Yet he found himself sandwiched between both. A dramatic dilemma indeed. What to do with the ongoing unhappiness from both sides? How important he felt to be wanted, yet how could he appease them both without the drama? The conflicts in his mind didn’t end and naturally with these came the ensuing arguments and dousing out of fires…after 22 long years, he became a really good fireman, but he was really struggling with figuring out how to avoid the fire in the first place!

Thankfully for him, his wife found our social department (…because many of the males who do reach our doors have felt that seeking assistance was a sign of inadequacy, until they try it out and see the benefit). Within the consult, Danyal came to realise that our department was here to understand his perspective too. Together with this understanding, we worked on some guidelines which helped the couple to thrive. The mum-son dynamic also began to improve significantly. Within a few weeks Danyal could finally put down his fireman armour and finally enjoy some peaceful relationships.

What was their story and how did we work towards resolution?

It would be a perfectly good Sunday afternoon and Danyal’s mum would phone to say… ‘Beta, I got ready now, come take me to the vegetable shop’, or they would just sit down to eat supper and Danyal’s mum would call and ask him… ‘Beta, what you eating today?’ Naturally, his wife Dramatic Dilshaad would fire up immediately…she felt annoyed that their family time was being ‘stolen’ from them and that his mum would ask questions that sounded prying to her. On the other side of the fence, Danyal would try to eventually reach his mum’s place sometime later. His mum would be crying and upset as usual that his wife could not see she needed her son’s support or that her questions around her care for him was seen as invasion of privacy. How exhausting for Danyal to live with this constant torrent. Alhamdulillah for him they were Muslim and that meant that they were able to use the compass of deen to help with any and every dilemma. Gradually misconceptions were reviewed and corrected, and the root issue was resolved.

So just what was the root issue here? Was it even about the food or grocery trips? Very often we find that the thing someone is conflicting over is not even about that thing at all. Infact, most often, the conflict arises because of some deep-set feeling or fears that a person might be having. That’s when Islamic Psychology becomes useful. It helps us sift through the content and figure out the root of the issue and address that within the guidelines of deen.

Underneath the annoyance of his wife and the upset of his mum, both these important women in his life felt like they were being displaced by the other.

We began slowly correcting the pitfalls:

1. The current situation was not balanced and bound to attract upset. From the perspective of deen, it is important for both the spousal and parent-child relationship to be maintained with a good balance. Firmly but kindly, structure and system were put into place.
2. Over time, when Danyal experienced big emotions from both his mum and wife, he didn’t know what to do with these and in turn minimised or pushed away their feelings with his words or actions. Deen teaches us to validate the feelings of the other person.
3. We worked on removing the contributing factors such as assumptions or tale-carrying and replacing these with zikr or listening to quraan shareef.
4. Each woman here felt that it was her right to have the support of the male. Definitely, muslims have rights over each other, but it is necessary to determine how much of this right we exercise over the other. In session we worked hard on recognising these rights. Together with this, we identified that if we are to stand exclusively by our rights only, the relationship would become rather rigid. It was therefore vital to add some ikraam and ihsaan to the relationships which would make it more affectionate, caring and thus more enjoyable.

Alhamdulillah, with time, Dilshaad and Danyaal did their bits toward teamwork and found their own wings. We worked extensively on building affection, a critical component of relationships. Our next Chapter will look at how we helped Generic Gaffar and his wife Gentle Ghanimah with their rigid relationship.

Apa Z Aboobaker