My Family Doesn’t Get Along With My Spouse’s Family
Answered by Ustadha Zaynab Ansari
Question: My husband and I got married with our parents’ approval.
At our wedding there was a bitter exchange of words between our parents on trivial matters like wedding venue, clothes, food, etc. Three years later our parents still refuse to meet.
It started with the bitterness on the wedding, however things went out of hand when deaths happened in our families and our parents didn’t visit after the deaths. This increased the bitterness.
We recently had a child and his parents traveled to see us and we met them every other day. I’m on good terms with his parents. However, neither parents exchanged congratulations or even met despite a grandchild coming in our marriage.
Some days, me and my husband feel really low and I wonder if this marriage will last. He has to deal with our parents not meeting and my mom and dad who have now distanced themselves from him. I, however, have to carry the burden of my parents disliking him, my husband disliking them and the parents not meeting. Due to all this, I have not even enjoyed my own pregnancy and motherhood.
Now my parents live in the same country and insist on meeting us and our child. My husband wants to cut down the meetings drastically because he feels very hurt.
I feel all this has started to affect our married life. We are always fighting, arguing, tired of carrying these emotional burdens.
I need advice on how to find my happiness again. I want to love my husband without feeling angry at him for hating my parents and I want to love my parents without them hating my husband. I feel stuck in the middle, and don’t want my child growing up in this bitterness.
Answer: In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Dear Sister,
Thank you for your question. I pray this message finds you well.
Given the high improbability that all concerned parties will agree to family counseling, you and your husband should focus on what you can control: your relationship and your behavior.
This is the sort of situation where you simply decide to LET IT GO. Just drop all of it for the sake of God. Holding on to this kind of bitterness, keeping score (who visited whom, ignored whom, criticized whom), and tallying up the affronts consumes a colossal amount of emotional energy and drains your spirits. Why be weighed down by this kind of negativity?
Focus on your baby and your marriage. Pray together. Make dhikr together. Keep the atmosphere in the home as tranquil and spiritually elevating as possible.
Organize family gatherings and remain cheerful and positive. Overlook people’s rudeness. Eventually, they will figure out that they can’t get to you and will, hopefully, desist from this foolishness.
Above all, ask Allah to reconcile hearts.
May Allah make things easy,
Zaynab Ansari
