i read all your comments and it’s all pretty much true. it boils down to not implementing islam and not having a marriage based on the guidelines of islam. our deen if perfect and if we would just follow it, we would be in a much better state.

from experience, i can say that the woman’s career is a big deal. if she sacrifices family for career, then it’s pretty much a downward spiral. i made the mistake of expecting my husband to cook when i come home late. again, goes back to not clarifying expectations before marraige.
another issue is children, one wanting children the other not being ready. and then how to raise them.
husband not adhering to islamic laws- not lowering his gaze, intermingling with females (”oh, but they are my cousins” - as if they are mahram), watching movies with half naked women (bollywood, anyone?)

really, if we just lay down everything before taking the plunge it would save us from a lot of distress. deen and akhlaq, most important.

Woman are now working and are educated, so if she doesn’t like something she will not stick at the marriage if say her husband was cheating on her….she can support herself.

Some marry just to please their parents choice of partner. They give it time and call it off as one of them really wanted to marry someone else but wasn’t allowed maybe “wrong caste or ethnic group”.

Most are marrying their own choices, but even this is ending in split. The person they knew before marriage wasn’t what they want after marriage and try changing them and ends in conflict.

Extended family can also be a result especially if you are still living with the in-laws. The couple don’t have privacy and the girl is expected to cook, clean for all and it’s something she doesn’t want to do.

People have become too materialistic. They now marry a spouse chosen on their career. They start of falling for the charms but later it wears off as personality is differenent.

Most people are cultured rather than religious. Some are now having multiple divorces. It is far easier and accpted now a days to go through a divorce than it was 10 years ago and has now become the norm.

The community has to be more supportive and respect families privacy. The community are well known to gossip and shame others when they haven’t looked beyond their own front doors.
When looking at potential spouses the community/ family think two single people- get married. They don’t look at compatibility at different levels

The main reason probably, as many ulema have suggested, is that we go into marriage without having knowledge of, and being prepared to fulfill our responsibilities. This has nothing to do with age as somebody above suggested, rather getting married young is highly emphasized. Whether young or old, we still need to be aware of our Islamic responsiblities as Muslim husband/wife/father/mother. See this article, Is Marriage Sinful? http://www.islamicamagazine.com/issue-16/is-marriage-sinful.html

Though I have also heard a scholar make a comment about bollywood similar to what i said above!!

In the Indian/Pakistani culture, many girls seem to love these ‘bollywood’ movies and these only taint their expectation of marriage. They imagine living such a bollywood movie and then are disappoinited that their husband doesnt meet their fantasy expectations.

We forget that marriage isn’t a wordly deed, but rather an act of worship.

I also agree with one of the above posts that divorce is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it is the halal solution that needs to happen.

In my own experience, the divorce process itself became much worse when the entire community self-righteously mobilized to “save” our failed marriage - creating a circus atmosphere that made everything much, much worse.

Paradoxically, our divorce and subsequent handling of custody went a lot better when we took it to the lawyers and a very good judge (who are PROFESSIONALS) rather than “friends”, imams and lots of community folks who may have “good” intentions but become quite hysterical when the dissolution of the marriage occurs - they don’t know what to do about divorce; their only reaction was to keep trying to trick us to get back together through any means necessary - primarily through trying to assess whose “fault” it was, which only poisoned our relationship even further - or totally diss one or both of us. There was no Plan B. You want to divorce, we wash our hands of you.

If anyone cares about the children - then please, try to keep the parents’ psyche, honor, dignity, etc. intact, without forcing people who can no longer live together through humiliating public scrutiny of the community to keep them together “for the sake of the children”.

Allah allows marriage, and shariah certainly allows for multiple divorce and remarriage. I wonder how any couple could get remarried after a first divorce, when the community browbeats, goes on witchhunts to ascertain whose “fault” it is, spreads rumors and destroys reputations, etc. all in the quest to reunite the couple!!! The first divorce is so horrible, it makes a reunion almost impossible!

I think we should worry about the divorce rate, yes. But we should worry about the quality of divorce more. Make it a dignified, honorable, confidential process, that is about communication not courtroom. Then maybe the divorced couple could actually maybe reconcile and start on a better footing at a later date. Now, it is the scorched earth method of divorce. If you want divorce, then you will get destroyed. Almost to teach a lesson to people about how horrible divorce is? Self-fulfilling prophecy.

We should also worry more about fornication and adultery, which is haram. I would rather to divorce twice than slip once into fornication. That will be the much bigger challenge in our society if young muslims become so frightened of marriage, divorce, etc. that they might do like their non-muslim counterparts and skip marriage altogether! May Allah protect us from that!

Marriage is beautiful, and quite frankly divorce can be very needed, good, gives a fresh start, as well.

Like it or not, divorce is halal! Allah describes exactly how to do divorce in the quran!! We are in surat al baqarah and we start learning about it! It is part of the sunnah.

Just one example, Zaid and Zaynab (raa) were matched together by Prophet Muhammad (saws) himself - and they still divorced. Clearly, some people’s fate are not with certain people. They both remarried and had blessed marriages by the Decree of Allah SWT. Zaynab was married to Prophet Muhammad in the Heavens by Allah Himself subhanahu wa ta’alaa after her divorce!

Another example of a woman who was divorced for the 3rd time by her husband. She was immediately taken to the Prophet saws to help her get remarried. She had some offers, but the Prophet saws recommended against those men because they were not good enough (I remember one always had his stick up to beat his wife)! She was not considered “bottom of the barrel” because she was divorced! Prophet saws highly recommended she marry Usama (ra) one of the best companions!

If the stigma of divorce and divorced people were not so absolutely bent out of proportion nowadays, I think we would be more rational and mature in going into marriage in the first place.

We become so focused on “what if the marriage fails and this horrible divorce happens” that we create systemic fixes that start marriages off on a weak foundation, including:

- depressingly low standards (so we don’t get our hearts broken in case the marriage fails). This reminds me of a line from a movie, to paraphrase: Marriage is hard enough without bringing such low expectations to it.

- huge dowries (for security in case marriage fails)

- Unrealistic fantasy expectations of wife/husband (have to marry perfection and/or be perfect so we don’t divorce - can’t just be regular folks like everybody else)

- girl has to have education and good career (in case her marriage fails)

- delayed marriage (fear of divorce)

- playing the field, testing the waters, dating!, extensive secret courtships (to really check out the prospective partner - so we don’t get divorced!)

- overinvolvement, threats, etc. from parents and family (to pressure and guilt-trip the young couple never to shame them and the clan with the black spot of divorce!)

On and on.

Sometimes the more we work to prevent something, the more we focus on the problem, the more the problem surfaces for us to “fix”, the more we introduce non-islamic solutions to “fix” the problem, thereby getting away from the quran and sunnah, in a vicious circle. Sowing the seeds of the marriage’s demise.

It really has to be more simple than we make it.

I agree we need more positive, real life, stories and examples, and analsyis, giving the nitty gritty, on successful marriages - all kinds including first time, remarriage, polygynous, same age, age gap - that really work, how and why. Also, really practical scholarship on the different marriages of rasoolullah (saws) and the flexibility in the shariah in terms of marriage styles, mates, ages, etc. We are not all the Muslim equivalents of Barbie and Ken.

Assalamu Alaykum wr wb bros and sis,

maybe some people do not take enough time to learn who they are going to marry. When they had enough time to know more about the partner, maybe they have chosen the wrong criteria- like beauty, youth, wealth…Or they just took a person who is a believing muslim(a) but has a bad character (Nafs is not educated enough and commands them, e.g. being angry easily, or dunya-factors like parents or job disturb the love between them)- we know that eeman gets up and down…such happens- and divorce is something what Allah s.t. dislikes. It is not impossible to divorce for a muslim, but it is actually the case when an individual differs from the other so much that they cannot live together anylonger in the same house. Marriage is a struggle too! A divorce can turn someone to a better human being (like any loss-it takes of course time) - repent and do it better the next time- insha allah. May Allah bless you all with a successful marriage. Sunna does not function without the regular implementation of the quran in our hearts! Salam bros and sis