Sadaf - Egypt
    Title    Evaluating Emotional Chemistry
    Question    As-salamu `alaykum.
Please help me. I am a 26-year-old Arab woman raised and educated in the West. My problem is that I have come to an age where my parents want me to get married, and a large part of me also wants to follow the Prophet's Sunnah and get married. However, on two separate occasions, I was introduced to a good practicing Muslim man, and accepted him only because I found no reason to refuse him. During a long-distance engagement conducted mainly via e-mail and phone—both times the brother involved lived in a different country—after a few months I felt very uncomfortable with the person and the proposed marriage between us. In both cases, over time, I felt more and more confused, miserable, and unwilling to continue. After much heart-searching, du`aa', self-blame, and guilt, I broke off the engagement, although the only reason I could give my parents was that I felt uncomfortable and was not willing to marry the man. I could find no rational explanation why I was unwilling to go ahead.
The first time, although my parents were frustrated, they supported me in my decision. The second time, I felt uncomfortable from the start, but again I could find no rational explanation that would satisfy my parents, and I allowed myself to be convinced to agree to an engagement. When I broke this engagement off, my parents were angry and sorrowed that I had once again agreed to marry a good man from a good family and then afterwards refused him for no good reason, embarrassing my father in front of people he had given his word to. My father then told me that I should arrange my own marriage after this, as he was unwilling to be shamed in this way again. I felt great sadness at this, as how am I to establish a relationship leading to marriage in a halal (permitted in Islam) way without my parents' support? But I left myself in Allah's hands. Recently, my mother has told me that a sister she knows was asking about me for her brother-in-law, and she has told me to speak to her myself and decide what I would like to do. Al-hamdu lillah, that should be a good thing, but instead, I find myself plunged into misery and stress and self-questioning at even the thought of meeting a prospective partner. I recall that I felt this way each time I was introduced to a man for marriage, as if it was a great trial that I should fear and that involved much crying and many sleepless nights.
I don't know what's wrong with me; I know that marriage is half my faith and a positive thing, but I fear that I will choose the wrong partner, or that I will feel emotionally uncomfortable in my marriage and make my husband's life miserable, or that we will both make each other's lives difficult and stressful. As an intelligent educated woman, I know that my fears are pessimistic, but nonetheless, they are very real to me. This fear is making it almost impossible for me to be calm while even the possibility of a marriage lies ahead of me. I know the fault is in me, and I fear that if I don't manage to find some internal peace, then I will either go through life without experiencing marriage and motherhood, or I will live down to my own gloomy predictions and cause a tragically unhappy marriage. Please help me to understand how I can change my thinking.
    Name of Counsellor    Layla A. Asamarai

    Topic    Want to get married, Parents against my choice of spouse
    




Answer    




Wa `alaykum as-salam.
Dear sister,
I am so sorry to hear of your struggles. You have been engaged twice and have broken it off both times due to an uneasy feeling that you yourself don't fully understand. While your parents were understanding the first time, they were less understanding the second time, after you had gone through more formalities in an attempt to hush your inner voice that was uncomfortable. As a result of this last broken engagement, your parents have pulled themselves out of your marriage talk and have told you to do this by yourself. Their stance has made you even more confused, as you are not sure how to go about finding a spouse in a halal way. Before we talk about how to go about finding a spouse, let's go back and evaluate what happened the first two times.
I find that many young Muslim men and women brought up in the West are very confused about how to find a suitable partner and stay in accordance with their cultural values and religious teachings. What most of these young men and women don't realize is that in our Eastern cultures and especially in Islam, there is value to romantic chemistry. Chemistry doesn't mean having a love affair or cohabitating; however, a comforting glance, physical attraction, a warm and fuzzy feeling, and other subtle hints like such will let you in on how you are reacting to this person. I think that, unfortunately, when one grows up in the West, there isn't this level of sensitivity to one's emotional state, resulting in young men and women accepting a prospective spouse by simply going down a checklist of "features" as if they are buying a car. Our parents don't understand our lack of emotional sensitivity to these types of emotions, and so they don't always know how to guide us towards such an emotional process. Even Prophet Muhammad when speaking with a young man about marriage to a certain woman asked him whether he felt joy when looking at her. This teaches us that there is value to the felt experience of meeting someone.
My sister, of course you are caught in this predicament! You are trying to go about this in a very mechanical way and it just doesn't work that way. Practice listening to your inner voice and feelings about certain things. You are more than your degree and your measurable qualities, as you have a larger part of you that is far more valuable, although it isn't as quantifiable. It is this qualitative part of you that holds your compassion, your spirit, your heart, and your instinct. Your parents will scrutinize a prospective spouse's specifications, but it is up to you to allow yourself to experience yourself in his presence. If something feels wrong, it most likely is. This is not something that is easily explainable to others, but is nonetheless valid. In order for you to begin to be able to act based on a collaborative between your mind and your heart, you first need to recognize the voice of your instinct and validate it such that your decisions are not out of anxiety, but instead out of valid reasons; some of which you can explain and others that you can't.
Everyone has an instinct, but sometimes more educated individuals have a very hard time validating it and listening to it, let alone even daring to act based on it. We have this belief that if it is not empirical, scientific, and provable, then it is not valid; however, experience teaches us otherwise. While our minds know a lot, our hearts know even more, and there is a breadth of knowledge that you can access if you allow yourself to open up to it. Do Istikharah (prayer for guidance) when you are approached with a prospect, and you may have a dream that will help you know how to proceed, but most likely, if you listen, you will get a feeling inside you that will push you toward or away from this person. Even Allah speaks to you through your innermost passages, rather than a fax machine that will have statistical probabilities of success. Even Istikharah is confusing for many as they wait for "signs" of what to do, when the answers lie within them.
It sounds like even though your parents said that they are not going to work with you on this, they still are. Do not regret those two past relationships that could have been, and TRUST that it was good to break them off because your instinct was not at ease. It may be that your only mistake was not breaking them off earlier. People are so much more than their resumes, and so you need so much more to help you in your important decision.
I hope that this has been helpful to you, and I ask Allah to help you in your journey and to help you find a spouse that is most suitable for you.
For your further guidance, please try the following link:

From www.islamonline.net

apo bondo eh ni...tak paham den cakap omputih ni