Bad reasons to get married (and bad reasons to get divorced)

[Islandsandmirrors]

People get married all the time. Some stay together, others divorce. Here are some reasons why getting into a marriage might be a bad idea. 

1. For sex and intimacy 

I get it; you want to keep the relationship halal. But getting married solely for sex and intimacy or because you need to satisfy your desires is a sure fire way to regret getting hitched. Rushing to get married solely for the sake of the fear of crossing boundaries might make you neglect how right of a partner you’re with is for you. You can find anyone to get married and have sex, but you can’t find just anyone to understand and support you during the good times and the bad. What if you married someone with a different communication style, has anger issues, or are generally incompatible? Then you’ll be forced to work out, all because you rushed into getting married without really getting to know someone.

(And married couples aren’t getting it on 24/7—there’s something called living life—cooking, being in school, living together, having to spend time with each other, going on vacation, raising kids. Most relationships don’t revolve around sex and intimacy.)

And if you think you can just get divorced, think again. When you’re married, and likely have children, shared finances, a support system counting on you to stay together, divorce becomes a lot more complicated. Divorce is expensive. Divorce can be a complex emotional process. It’s better in many cases to try and work things out with your partner than it is it leave. (And lets not forget that divorce regret is very real—up to 40% experience divorce regret)

 

2. Pressure

You think you have a “biological clock that’s ticking”. Maybe it’s family that’s pressuring you to get married. Maybe it’s the community or maybe that people are starting to ask you questions. Getting pressured into marriage might lead you to not pick a suitable match. 

Heres the deal: get married when YOU want to. Not because people are gossiping, not because you’re a single mom/dad, not because “it’s what you’re supposed to do” and don’t get married on anyone else’s timeline such as, “you’ve been talking for 6 months-one year—when are you going to get married?” No one else is going to be married to that person but you, so make a good and smart decision about a LIFE partner and not Mr... Right-Now. 

 

3. Guilt and manipulation (see above)

 

Some bad reasons to get divorced

1. “We’ve drifted apart”

Every relationship has its ebbs and its flows—sometimes the ebbs last a few days, a few months, or years—but just because things have become boring or “you’ve become two different people” it doesn’t mean that you can’t learn and navigate coming back together as a couple. 

Find little ways to connect again, with no expectations. Go for a date night, communicate, bring fun and laughter into the relationship. 

 

2. No longer feeling “in love”

Getting married in the infatuation phase, which lasts anywhere between 3 to 6 months, when the relationship still feels new and exciting, sets the expectation that things will always feel intensely lovely. As attraction and love mature and develop, the strong feelings of lust and desire will be more toward an equilibrium. 

Getting divorced just because you don’t feel strong feelings is wrong because love is not only a feeling, but a commitment. 

 

3. Lack of sex and intimacy

if your sex drives are mismatched, or you’re tired because of raising children, and one or both of you are dissatisfied with the amount of intimacy, you can put in the “spark” back in by one or both of you doing things. Getting divorced for the sake of having sex with someone else is selfish and cruel. 

 

4. Rushing into divorce (for any reason unless the person is abusive, has money management issues to the point of ruining your stability, or the person has cheated, or has an addiction.)

I’m a firm believer that abusers, addicts, cheaters will never change. Quit enabling their bad behavior by making excuses for them, or by staying. Find the courage to leave, and never look back. 

However, most people are not abusers, addicts, or cheaters. Most people get divorced over “lack of commitment” (70%) and “irreconcilable differences”. Fix your marriage, don’t divorce over nothing! 

Edited April 20, 2019 by Islandsandmirrors

[BowTie]

Is this for the forum, or you wrote it for yourself? 

[OrthodoxTruth]

As always, we follow maraji’ on the fiqh issues, and that includes their rulings on marriage and divorce. You don’t get to know anyone much before your marriage, apart from possibly meeting your future partner for an hour or two with his/her parents being present non-stop. You work out things after the wedding. In 99% of cases, people that simply fail at it do so because they aren’t religious enough and do not know their own religion. That’s why it’s important to encourage people to read, read and once again, read books by the marja’ they follow.

Sexual needs is more than a valid reason to get married, in fact it is one of the main ones because the built up of sexual tension leads to chaos and anarchy in society, such as masturbation, prostitution and rape. Therefore ulama encourages people to get married as soon as possible. 

As for the divorce, dependable on one’s maraji’, the criteria are defined and outlined. In the risalah of each are entire chapters on what can allow anyone to seek divorce, what are it’s consequences etc. The process itself in orthodox Islam is more complex than for the People of Ignorance, because we put great emphasis on justice in our school of thought. We don’t have “triple talaq”, where the husband will just say it randomly without you even knowing realising since months that you’ve been a divorcée (which in itself leads to ridiculous situations of living in kufr for both). 

[Islandsandmirrors]

54 minutes ago, BowTie said:

Is this for the forum, or you wrote it for yourself? 

Definitely NOT for myself. I have a wonderful marriage. This is guide for people as to not get married for the wrong reasons. Because we all know people who have rushed into marriage and bad things happen to them. 

Edited April 25, 2019 by Islandsandmirrors

[Guest Itsme]

This is in large part a pretty decent OP. 

3 hours ago, OrthodoxTruth said:

Sexual needs is more than a valid reason to get married, in fact it is one of the main ones because the built up of sexual tension leads to chaos and anarchy in society, such as masturbation, prostitution and rape. Therefore ulama encourages people to get married as soon as possible. 

Yes, but they also give a long list of things to look out for in a potential spouse. Encouraging people to get married as soon as possible also means they have to use a sensible criteria and not just jump into it gung-ho. 

[BowTie]

12 hours ago, Islandsandmirrors said:

Definitely NOT for myself. I have a wonderful marriage. This is guide for people as to not get married for the wrong reasons. Because we all know people who have rushed into marriage and bad things happen to them. 

You just got married. You barely have been experienced in a marriage enough, heck you barely even know your husband, since you claim you married him after a week of knowing him. How can you lecture people about something you barely have knowledge about?

I still believe you’re reminding yourself with this thread rather than people

[Simon the Canaanite]

15 hours ago, Islandsandmirrors said:

Definitely NOT for myself. I have a wonderful marriage. This is guide for people as to not get married for the wrong reasons. Because we all know people who have rushed into marriage and bad things happen to them. 

If you have a wonderful marriage, then lookout for yourself & children.

We don’t need your advice on divorce and marriage, with all due respect.

We’ll follow the Holy Family of the Prophet, it’s enough for us.

[Islandsandmirrors]

6 hours ago, BowTie said:

You just got married. You barely have been experienced in a marriage enough, heck you barely even know your husband, since you claim you married him after a week of knowing him. How can you lecture people about something you barely have knowledge about?

I still believe you’re reminding yourself with this thread rather than people

No, you’ve misunderstood. I’d been with him for two years prior to marriage (in a relationship) and I was friends with him before that. Our engagement lasted a week. 

I’ve been married a year. I met my husband when I was 20, (and I’ll be 24 this year) and he was 26. We got together when I was 21 and he was 27. 

I think I know something about relationships, especially within today’s society—where people hop from partner to partner in the West, and the Ummah who marry for status and men who disrespect them but then stay married.

Stop assuming things which you have no knowledge about. 

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Islandsandmirrors

[Islandsandmirrors]

2 hours ago, Simon the Canaanite said:

If you have a wonderful marriage, then lookout for yourself & children.

We don’t need your advice on divorce and marriage, with all due respect.

We’ll follow the Holy Family of the Prophet, it’s enough for us.

So you’re saying that no one should inform others that you should go into marriage with better intentions? Divorce today is a fairly newer set of reasons than in the past. These are real problems. 

People get married for things that should be secondary or tertiary. Within our Ummah, the reasons are typically sex and status and disregarding happiness and compatibility (which come first). 

[Islandsandmirrors]

15 hours ago, Guest Itsme said:

This is in large part a pretty decent OP. 

Yes, but they also give a long list of things to look out for in a potential spouse. Encouraging people to get married as soon as possible also means they have to use a sensible criteria and not just jump into it gung-ho. 

Thank you. 

This is exactly what I meant. Too often people jump blindly into marriage at the first opportunity without getting to know someone, or they get married for shallow reasons like sex and status and “keeping the relationship halal” without any real regard to compatibility. 

You need to talk about everything prior to marriage to know that person. The people within our Ummah get married to people they hardly know well and don’t talk about the necessary things such as finances/money-budgeting and sexual expectations. Especially not about the latter since it’s a largely still a taboo topic for many to discuss. 

[2Timeless]

What on Earth is wrong with everyone? Seriously. Keep your condescending and rude opinions to yourself. If you're jealous then keep your envy to yourself. No need to drag everyone down with you. Be thankful that someone is actually giving some sincere advice to people who might actually need it. 

[Islandsandmirrors]

1 minute ago, 2Timeless said:

What on Earth is wrong with everyone? Seriously. Keep your condescending and rude opinions to yourself. If you're jealous then keep your envy to yourself. No need to drag everyone down with you. Be thankful that someone is actually giving some sincere advice to people who might actually need it. 

Thank you for your support. Honestly I’ve been asking myself the same question. 

I think more people need to talk about the reasons why people get married and divorced today, as to make sure that they pick the best suitable match possible, and to help keep people’s intentions in check. How often do you see on the forums where someone is struggling which certain parts of the nafs and they tell them to get married? As if marriage is as simple as submitting a resume. The reasons for marriage should go deeper than that which is promoted within our Ummah. 

 

 

[Hadeel]

Simon this is not the first time you have assumed something wrong of some of the brothers and sisters on this site, you need to take it a bit easy. We all here follow the Ahlul Bayt. Though if you really thought that her advice she gave was wrong then you could write why you thought so, without saying ''We don't need your advice on divorce and marriage''. She was being honest and you are being honest too, but you misunderstood. Bowtie Included. 

Lately there have been a We and You attitude in this site, it needs to stop. I wan't to remind people to read surat Hujurat. 

(I am an avid reader of shiachat)

   

[Ruqaya101]

20 hours ago, BowTie said:

Is this for the forum, or you wrote it for yourself? 

whats it to you? If you got nothing good or beneficial to say, then please excuse yourself and don’t say anything at all. that number one. 

number two,

7 hours ago, BowTie said:

You just got married. You barely have been experienced in a marriage enough, heck you barely even know your husband, since you claim you married him after a week of knowing him. How can you lecture people about something you barely have knowledge about?

I still believe you’re reminding yourself with this thread rather than people

I don’t need to be a married woman to know that the points she has stated are good point, and have been statistically proven in many cases, that these are factors and reasons that could lead to either a good or bad marriage depending on whichever route you take. Please consider the ignorance of your words.

I don’t need experience in something so logical. please remember once entering this thread or any thread whatsoever, to bring in your common sense  

 

 

[LeftCoastMom]

2 hours ago, Islandsandmirrors said:

Thank you for your support. Honestly I’ve been asking myself the same question. 

I think more people need to talk about the reasons why people get married and divorced today, as to make sure that they pick the best suitable match possible, and to help keep people’s intentions in check. How often do you see on the forums where someone is struggling which certain parts of the nafs and they tell them to get married? As if marriage is as simple as submitting a resume. The reasons for marriage should go deeper than that which is promoted within our Ummah. 

 

 

Glad I found the trophy. 

I have observed that there is a distinct difference between how ( most) men encourage marriage in here and how women do. Interesting.

I don't remember if it was in here or elsewhere that one Muslim woman finally typed " Idiots! A woman is more than something to stick yourself into!" 

I'm sure a good many Muslim men already know that, but she was getting pretty frustrated.