As salamu aleikum, Beautiful 🙂 What’s the biggest mistake in a marriage? It’s something that almost everyone of us is guilty of doing. It can drag along for years and drag down our marriages with it without us even realizing what is going on. Shall we?
First of all, let’s establish the fact that making this mistake doesn’t make you a weak person or anything like that.
Second of all, answer one question: have you got married and kept up your good girl face for far too long and now you feel like you have done EVERYTHING to make your marriage work, but it’s just a painful mess rather than a blissful relationship?
Let’s come back to the beginning of marriage. In the beginning everyone puts up their best self for few months, cause it’s just cute, everything is great. You two are newly weds and into some serious love stuff and slowly and surely you feel that you are going adrift and your marriage doesn’t seem such a great idea after all.
Here comes the pressure to have kids and to be a ‘good’ wife. Make your home nice and cook 3 dishes for the guests.
You are like ‘Maybe, that’s what ‘good and successful’ wives do, so I will do it too. I will bite my tongue and go along with what my husband wants/needs, cause why not. In shaa Allah, I will reap the rewards’.
And as much as you push towards the award for the Wife of the Year you get more and more miserable.
You start to doubt yourself and the lack of happiness in your marriage, and in life in general just confirms it: you are failing it.
‘With all THIS effort?’. It feels unfair. After all, why other women get married and are being treated like princesses around the house and their husband’s families do get along just fine with them…
Why this happens and why did it happen to you?
Because you were afraid to show your real self from the beginning of marriage.
Take time to take it in. Breathe in and out.
You sucked it up a few times and a few times more until it became so natural that you don’t even think about it anymore. You gave up your identity, your hobbies, your passions and forgot everything and everyone else. It was just about your husband and making him happy, and no sacrifice seemed too big.
Until you ran yourself down and got on the brink of either depression or a divorce.
As I stated in the beginning, making such mistake doesn’t prove that you are without a backbone or that your husband is a horrible man.
It means that now you can finally identify and name the problem. That’s a start.
Now, I don’t suggest you have a go at your husband for making you falsely believe that the more sacrifices you will make, the more happy you will be in the marriage. It’s very likely that he doesn’t even know what caused the fallout.
How to re-set the boundaries and finally re-discover yourself?
Start with knowing yourself.
- What makes you special?
- What are your likes/dislikes?
- What are your hobbies/passions?
Don’t throw you marriage in the bin after reading this blog post. Everything is fixable and no marriage is completely perfect. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Look how could you start incorporating things that you like/want in every day life:
- Maybe it’s some home decor according of your taste
- Going to lectures/halaqas/classes or taking them online
- Indulging reading a book
- Taking some ‘me’ time, even if it’s just 10 minutes a day
As I mentioned above, don’t rush and attack your husband for coercing you to be the way that you became. You are an adult and it’s time to (re)claim your name! It’s very likely that your childhood played a significant part and you haven’t put all the dots on i’s. It’s a subject of another blog post, in shaa Allah.
Now take the time and let yourself know who you really are. The woman that you never allowed yourself to become.
One step at a time. Don’t rush things, just take your time to know yourself.
Love and hugs xx
Ma salama,
Veronika al Mahdiyah
Ps. If you need help finding yourself again and guidance to go through issues you are facing in your life, contact me at contact@muslimhousewife.com to book your first session, in shaa Allah.
