Recently, I was at a friend’s house. We were seated together in his living room when a young man who was about to be married came to him for counselling. My friend did such a wonderful job that I felt I had nothing to add. Still, he invited me to say something.
Since I’ve never been known to be a marriage counsellor and I’m still struggling to be the ideal husband, the invitation to speak was probably out of courtesy. But in fairness to my friend, he did say “Ibraheem Dooba is the author of the Social Science of Muhammad (SAW): Actionable Strategies on How to be Happy Here and the Hereafter.”
In other words, he felt that the book qualified me to speak.
So I asked the guy: “between the two of you, who is more easily offended? That is, who is the quickest to anger?”
“I think I am. But when angry, her anger is worse than mine.”
In essence, both of them had anger issues. It’s a problem I had struggled with so I thought I could give him one strategy I use to manage mine.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. Meaning, that it doesn’t matter who is the most easily offended.
“But before marriage, you should enter into an agreement or a contract. The agreement should say that you shouldn’t engage your partner when he or she is angry. You should be firmly united on this prenuptial agreement.”
This merits repeating:
If your husband is angry, don’t engage him. If your wife is angry, don’t engage her. Even if you’re right. Especially if you’re right! Because if you’re right, you tend to have a lot to say. You want to defend your honour. Don’t do it! Don’t say it!
That’s a thousand pages of marriage counselling compressed into one paragraph.
By engage I mean don’t argue. No repartee. Don’t laugh and don’t correct. Don’t pray for him or her (Allah Ya ba ka hakuri), that will only escalate the situation.
This is not easy. But it’s something that we must do. Indeed, it’s one of the difficult skills to learn that will pay dividends for decades.
A very accomplished woman once told me that “when Maigida [her husband] is angry, I don’t say anything. I don’t even cry. After he has calmed down, then I talk to him or cry if I want to.”
When she told me this, my respect for her quadrupled.
Indeed, the only thing you can say to your partner – if your ego would allow you – is that you’re sorry. Or that they are right. But that can also be misconstrued as sarcasm, so I advise against it.
After the storm, talk to him or her about the incident.
But if you insist on “winning” the argument, that would make both of you angry. Then that would make you say things that would make you resent each other.
Then that can lead to the worst emotion of all: contempt. It’s almost impossible to recover from that.
John M. Gottman in his bestselling book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” said that contempt predicts divorce more than any other emotion.
That’s why scholars and leaders of the past avoided steps that would lead to it.
Consider Umar. My father doesn’t tire of telling me this story: A man came to Umar (one of the most powerful leaders in the world at that time) to report his wife. But he heard Umar’s wife telling him off.
“This is even worse than my situation,” the man reasoned and started to walk away. Umar (RA) said that he should be called back. When the man told him why he left, Umar said “why shouldn’t I be patient with her when she takes care of my children?”
What Umar is saying is that if there’s a part of her that I don’t like, there’s a part of her that I like such as helping me to raise my children and being a good mother. In doing that, Umar was implementing the tradition of the Prophet, may Allah be pleased with him.
But there’s something equally compelling that scholars don’t usually point out. When the wife was telling him off, what did Umar say? Nothing!
As the Amirul Muminun (Commander of the Believers), Umar was the leader of the Muslims everywhere in the world. He could have easily said: “woman, should I remind you of who I am?”
And what would the wife say? She would have said more unprintable things to undermine even his leadership until Umar gets angry (he is human after all).
But he said nothing. And preserved the relationship.
So when your partner is angry, shut the heck up!
If not, one day, even if you’re still together, the relationship would’ve been dead and buried.
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