Then There Was Us
Ah Amore. Love is in the air, flowers everywhere, I scream to the world I found you. Yeah yeah.. And so the story goes. Love. But what does this mean when you are divorced. Depends on your outlook I suppose. As for me I may be a bit jaded and a helluva lot more cautious. Do I want to get married again oh yes. My first marriage was the bomb I can only imagine that the second and last one will be even better. However I don't think that I am going to be rushing into anything. I'm not desperate and I don't think that I am going to marry anything less than what I absolutely want. I'm not short changing myself on anymore relationships. And why should I or you? Life is too short to get involved in a relationship and start thinking that the person that you are with is less than what you bargained for. Then again Shaytan always makes you think that. So what do you do? First thing that you look for is Taqwa (intensity of genuine faith). Actually usually the first thing that you look for is physical attractiveness then ascertain if she or he has any faith or not, but for most of us as Muslim males and females (this is true for most kaffiroon (non-believers) as well)we tend to stop after ascertaining the looks and then just trust in Allah for the rest. Usually a lot of us come up short.
I believe that you know if the person is right for you or not in the first sitting. How do I plan to find my next wife. I don't know. I think that the first thing that I'll do is stop looking and really enjoy life. Murphy's law usually comes into place at that point anyway. "if something will go wrong it will." So along she will come. Maybe. Not saying that women are wrong, just saying that adjustments will have to be made on both parts and you have to make room for that other person, and that usually causes stress, and messes up your flow until you get into each others groove.
Now I can suppose if I may share with you all some of my knowledge of marriage and later I can share with you some of my knowledge about divorce. I don't think that I will go into the father thing. One thing that I can say for sure though on the family issue. Fathers if you don't get involved in your daughters life someone else will and they won't wanna just take her to the park. My daughter is 3 and I am in no way looking forward to her reaching puberty. I know how I was I can only hope that my son and my daughter can hold themselves out until marriage, but if they are anything like their parents they are doomed.
Now on with the marriage. You have decided that you want to get married. I honestly don't know if I want to get married right now. I know that I want to get married again, but right now I don't know if I want to go through the hassle. Now I am going to be honest with you because a lot of you out there have really screwed up notions of marriage. I am in no way bashing marriage, especially since I do not wish to have any more premarital relationships (Allah keep me strong). However what I keep seeing and seeing in chat rooms or in otherplaces where people talk about relationships is that people are looking for a china doll. A perfect image of a perfect mate. That is on one hand on the otherhand people are looking for someone who will just do. Reality check folks that is not going to work, and both of those unions (whether they lead to marriage or not will fail. In a nutshell marriage is about finding someone with the most acceptable amount of faults that will in turn accept all of your faults and a desire to continually achieve a mutually supportive bond. I believe that is it because the "love" that you actually feel for someone is given completely and solely by Allah. So the rest of the relationship is about how merciful you can be to the other person without oppressing them (consciencely or unconsciencely), and fulfilling all of your needs within limit of the relationship. Hmm. Now I am probably going to go off babbling about some esoteric meanings so I suppose that I will add to this page as these concepts formulate a concrete bond in my brain because right now I'm just winging it with this paragraph, but the concept is close.
Now since I have my name on some marriage pages I will go into some specifications that I look for in a wife. Since my divorce I have thought and thought about this "My wife who will she be?". First and foremost she will be Muslim. Why because I can't see wasting my time with anyone else. To spend this entire life so that she will be a testament for me on the Day of Judgement and I for her, and then lose it all because she is not Muslim is ridiculous. Furthermore I know that I would have hypocrisy issues if she wasn't Muslim. One of the reasons that my first wife left was because she percieved herself as less than the perfect muslim which she thought I was looking for, and to marry someone who is not even a Muslim would be a slap in the face for her. I'll get into the feelings about my ex-wife later.
Though I would like to say that I can't see my wife not being Muslim, because I would have too many issues. She doesn't cover, she wears too much make up, she wears this she listens to that etc etc etc... she believes this... yada yada yada. So no I couldn't do it. No matter how incredibly fine she is. Furthermore I can't see myself getting into a fornicating relationship with a non-Muslim because I have such a hard time breaking it off. I couldn't in clear conscience come up and be like "hey I'm going to get into a relationship with you, we can't get married so this is a dead relationship, but we could have fun." I can't do that. I have kids to look out for as well. So she has to be Muslim.
Just because she is Muslim though isn't the end all be all. First and foremost quality that I would like in a wife is that she prays all of her prayers (with no input from me) but especially Fajr. I think that is one of the most important things that a Muslim can do is pray all of their five prayers. Muslims that don't pray creep me out so she emphatically has to pray all of her prayers and view it as a serious transgression if she misses one, and dutifully makes it up except when she is excused by Allah. This quality above any other is most important to me. Next as you could have probably guessed is the Hijab I view it as a Muslimas crown, a testament of her beauty, faith, trustworthyness. However I want her to wear it because she wants to. I don't want her to wear it because now she is getting married, or her father made her wear it or it seemed like the right thing to do at the moment. I want her to wear it because Allah told her to wear it so she does out of her love for Him. Next is thirst for Islamic knowledge, because I want to grow in Islam and I want her to grow with me, and I want our children to grow up strong in this Deen.
Of course it wouldn't be correct if I didn't say the physical stuff too. Well I don't care where you were before you were at the description above, all I care about is are you there now. I don't care what race you are from because it all comes back to Mom and Dad, Adam (AS). I don't care how tall or short you are. I would venture on weight but it always seems like those who believe they are too heavy are just fine and those that believe they are just fine are either too heavy or too bony so I will let weight slide in proportion to attitude. I don't care what your disposition is as long as you believe that Allah will ultimately make the best way. Children, I don't believe that I can take on more than one and I say that shyly because as it usually goes the girl with just the one, will have that one more challenging than the one with three. So I would venture to say that it would depend the level of patience (and money) that Allah would bestow on me in such a situation. I don't care if she makes more than me or less than me in wealth. I don't care the status of her family. I would prefer for her to be educated and hold education in high esteem, but taqwa wins out over education any day. Intensity of attractiveness is mildly important, cause after fifty or sixty years it won't matter anyway. She must absolutely have a sense of humor, that is a must. I think that is about it. Oops between the ages of 22 - 32, mainly because I think that this thing will be up for at least a year before anyone sees it.
My vision of an ideal wife is someone who will wake me up for Fajr or not whine when I wake her up. Pray with me on those days that I don't go to the Masjid to pray. Make dhikr with me in the still morning, while holding my head in her lap. Recite Quran for me as the sun gently spreads its rays over the land. When I think of getting married I think of that scene the most. Someone who would walk along the beach with me hand in hand and watch the sun set. Someone who would freshen our house with flowers and inscense. Accent it with impeccable style. Spend quiet nights holding each other in the cool night. I would cook for her and pour her bath. Place around her tub candles, and put rose petals in her water. I would massage her aching bones and caress her sorrows away. Mostly I would cherish her and pray to Allah that each day was better than the latter. I think if I could share a day like that a couple of times a month I would be straight.
Well that is all I have to say about marriage and love and what not at this point of the game. I have included a comparison chart of how I stack up to the online Muslim checklist "Checking out a brothers Islam" I feel that it is pretty honest so if your Wali is checking this out he can give you a good opinion of me as a brother or you could decide yourself if I am too fanatical for you.