Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. How does dad tell the kids about the divorce? What do I have control over on the days the child is with me? I take him to the masjid. I try and be the best example. And part of being that best example is even if you know the mother is not the most practicing, I will never bad mouth his mother in front of him because that's the example of a true Muslim. Like what can truly mentally prepare you as a father or even as a mother for not being able to like kiss your kids every night before they go to bed. Nothing will mentally prepare you for that. No way. That's okay. Your kids, when they grow up, they do not care who was right or wrong. They don't even want to hear it. They do not care. They just want normalcy. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. How's everyone doing? I'm Abdullah Oduro and welcome to the Iman Cave where we discuss issues of male excellence while being grounded in faith. I think we need to get a divorce. It's time. I just can't handle this anymore. Some of us have said this before. Some of us have heard our friends say it or you'll be in the gym with your friends and he's like, yeah, it's not working out, man. I think I'm just going to go ahead and divorce her or she wants a divorce, but I don't want to divorce her. What should I do? You know, we see these groups such as, you know, you hear the red pill, you hear of a group called MGTOW, which is an acronym for men going their own way. A lot of these groups, yes, to admit, to be truthful, is that some of these men are toxic and the term toxic masculinity is present. Is it inherent within the man to be masculine that it is toxic? No, we don't agree with that, but there are men that can be toxic just as there are women that can be toxic. So there is an element of toxic masculinity and toxic femininity. And by the Qadr of Allah, by his predestination,
this has emerged from toxic divorces, from divorces of two individuals that it just didn't work out, but they decide to get back at one another through divorce, through the children, through alimony, through child support. We're going to talk about that today because this is a huge challenge, which if we do it by the permission of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala correctly, it can be an opportunity. Within the chapter of talaq, there's a chapter named talaq, a chapter in the Quran named divorce. You see throughout the chapter, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions one concept, whether it's the verb or the noun of mindfulness of God, taqwa, being mindful of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Why? Because as the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, I'll never forget one of my shuyukh in Medina. He mentioned the hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam where he said, khairukum khairukum li ahlih wa ana khairukum li ahlih. He said, the best of you are those who are best to their families and I am the best to my family. And then he made a small ta'alik, he made a small little element and explained it briefly. And he said, no one knows you like your wife. No one will know you like your wife, gentlemen, because behind those walls, that lion that came out, your mother saw that when you were younger, but now you're a man and the only one that knows that is your wife. Sometimes you're afraid to announce the divorce because the wife may be narcissistic, she may be overbearing, but divorce in Islam can be a solution to an existing problem. We're gonna talk about that from a legal perspective and from a psychological perspective, all within the realm of Islam. That's why we're here in the Iman Cave to increase our faith and manifest masculine excellence. So the guests that we have today, alhamdulillah, we've seen our returning guests, mashallah, brother Usman Mughni, licensed marriage and family therapist. Alhamdulillah, you saw him on the previous two episodes
when we talked about before marriage, during marriage, and today we're going to talk about after marriage for the divorced men. And we have a guest that has come from Chicago, hailing from Chicago as well, Naveed Hussain, mashallah, may Allah bless you. Divorce lawyer, is it okay to say divorce lawyer? I guess so, yeah. You wanna introduce someone in the community as divorce lawyer? Some people say it's family lawyer. Family lawyer, there we go, there we go. Sounds a lot better. Yes, alhamdulillah rabbil alameen. Mashallah, both of these brothers, I look up to them, they're doing a lot for the community. And I humbly believe that the communities in the future will need them much, much more. They've needed them because this is a human issue. Man and woman don't get along. Incompatibility, both religious, both doing their best, but sometimes they're incompatible. We see this with the companions of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. But in our days and times now, you will need to get a lawyer involved. You will need to get a therapist involved. Before, during, and after the process of gender interaction, of having that bond for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I want to make this caveat, and dare I say, disclaimer. We are not going to cover every single thing that deals with divorce. Whether you are the divorcee, you're the one that, you know, your wife wanted to get let go, she wanted to proceed on and not continue the marriage, or you're the one that initiated the divorce because, as some would say, you know, the wife was narcissistic and vicious, or you're the one, humble enough, to admit that you divorced because you were the one in the wrong. We're not gonna cover all of the problems that we see, all of the challenges, but we will do our best to have some general guidelines by introducing it with certain challenges that men face that can be compromising to their leadership, compromising to their masculinity, which, in my humble opinion, can compromise the value of family in the household, and in the neighborhood, and in the world.
So, we're going to cover it from three particular aspects. It's going to be from community, courts, and consciousness. Use those three words for us to just kind of have some milestone to start from and expound upon. Let's start from the community. When we look at the community, you know, you walk in, I was just at the gym, subhanAllah, and speaking to a brother, talking to the brother, and he's saying, yeah, I live right around the corner from the gym. I'm like, there's only apartments around the gym. He's like, yeah, I live by myself. I said, by yourself? Don't you have kids? He's like, yeah, I've been divorced for four or five years. I didn't even know. Hence what you were talking about before, the importance of men getting together, because these conversations can be had much earlier. But then he goes on to talk about how his wife was very vicious, right? And he himself didn't wanna go around the community, because him going around the community, everybody knows. Everybody knows that they got a divorce. And this is the key word when talking about community, stigma. There is a stigma for him being the abuser, verbal abuser, for him being the physical abuser. What have you all seen in regards to men that deal with these community issues after divorce? I don't know if the tide is changing, but right now I feel like the default is, what did he do wrong? You know what I'm saying? So maybe that embarrassment comes from there. And there might not even be an embarrassment. This might be like somebody recovering from just the trauma of it all, right? It's interesting. I'm sorry, jumping right into it, because we were talking about the idea of, let's suppose somebody goes through this process and they're divorced, right? When are they ready to possibly remarry? And you hear this term a lot. Well, you haven't healed. You haven't healed yet, right? And it's not, what I realized,
especially if you've been through the court system, it's not just about healing from the marriage, but it's about healing from that whole entire process. And I mean, just to jump right into it, right? Like I went through it, SubhanAllah. So I divorced and then I got remarried. And so we went through it. Unfortunately, we didn't do it the right way. We didn't have somebody cool like you. But it was a learning process, Alhamdulillah, right? And before I got married, when I was going through different rishda and so on, rishda perspectives, I was told over and over again, dude, you're not healed yet. You're not healed. And I'm like, no, I'm not sitting there thinking about my ex, anything like that. But what I didn't realize was there was still trauma from the entire, like the hearing, because if it gets ugly, like your dirty laundry is out there in the open. And I'm sure you have seen your share of nasty cases where the other, the opposing counsel, their job is to poke and prod at you on stand. And so, you know, the whole experience is traumatic, right? Dealing with the amicus attorney, dealing with this, dealing with that, right? So you said, okay, you didn't realize that there was some trauma there. Now, do you see that the communities contribute to the trauma? Absolutely. I mean, like you said, there's so much stigma behind getting divorced. There's so much blame on the man or even the woman, and there's no support system, right? Men, for some reason, we go into our cave. We're not coming out there. We're not seeking support. We're not talking to other men who have been divorced, other men who are going through divorce, other men who have lost their children through divorce. And so there's the community aspect of being stigmatized, but also there's no support from the community either. Many misogynists don't want to talk about this topic. There's, you know, the Ds. They don't want to talk about the Ds. They don't want to talk about drugs. They don't want to talk about divorce.
They don't want to talk about these real issues that everybody is going through. Why do you think that is? I think they think that if you talk about divorce, it's going to increase the rate of divorce. I think that's the mentality that these misogynists have or these institutions have. And divorce is a bad thing, point blank, in this case. Exactly, divorce is a bad thing. If we don't talk about it, maybe it'll go away. If we don't talk about it, it'll go under the rug and maybe that'll solve the problem, right? Okay, but you mentioned, and I've seen this with sisters, just to be totally honest, and with brothers since you have some of these red pill movements. Would you advise, would you think, brothers, divorced brothers to get around, only divorced brothers? It's not about getting around or making them your friends, but having a support group to let you know this is what is going to happen, right? Your lawyer's going to tell you the legal side of things and advise you on, okay, this is what's going to happen to your money, this is what's going to happen to your kids. But you need a group of guys to talk about the reality of, hey, every night you used to come home from work, you used to see your kids, and you're not going to see your kids anymore for weeks at a time. Every man looks forward to coming home. Even if they worked eight hours, you get that two hours with your kids, you get to play with them, see them, put them to sleep, and that's what you look forward to. And just missing that out and not having somebody to talk to about that can be traumatizing. Yeah, man. I mean, I remember there was a brother who was saying, he goes to the masjid, and he stays in that city because of his kids, which is commendable, man. But it does hurt to go to the masjid to see his kids and to leave without them. Allah, man. SubhanAllah. Allah. So that's rough. I mean, you mentioned on one of your videos, the toxic divorce video, and you talked about, you'd use a term, the nakhays, or something that come in the picture, they get involved. What is that? So I think I was talking about the other people around, right, what they try to do is they put fuel in the fire. This argument is between husband and wife, right? And then you have the wife's parents coming in,
you have the husband's parents coming in, putting more fuel in the fire, and instead of trying to help them resolve it, they're taking their side and making things much worse. Okay, firstly, do you all advise, from a legal perspective, from even a psychological perspective, for the mother, father, friends to get involved? And if so, at what time? I think it's a case by case, but I've seen situations where a husband and wife were just on the track of an amicable divorce, and then family got involved, and they got kind of pushed and prodded and said, oh, you're gonna take that? Don't you know how much he put you through? And then they lawyer up, and then it's just, you know? And they were so close. I literally plead with my clients, please don't go this route, because- Don't go the route of what? Of just duking it out in court unnecessarily. You know, that money can go to sending your kid to Harvard or something, right? That's how much we drop on- Otherwise, you're sending the lawyer's kid to Harvard. Yeah, exactly. Ooh, say that again, please. Just say it again. I don't think they caught that. No, that's the big problem, is that through all of this animosity and this court fighting, instead of the money going to your kids, going to your kid's college, you're paying for the lawyer's kid's college. SubhanAllah. SubhanAllah. And to the point of the parents being involved, again, we are supposed to refer to a mediator, we're supposed to get people involved, have them talk so that we can try to resolve things, but only if they're actually helping you trying to resolve problems rather than, you know, making the problems worse. So I would say that if your parents or your family is there to help support you and help you minimize the fighting, please have them involved. But if they're the ones who are making things go, they're the ones racking the bills up, then maybe that's not a good person to be involved in the case. Okay, then what does a man do when he sees the mother-in-law getting in their business? Because this is what happens. Or the sister-in-law getting in their business, you're gonna take that from your husband?
After all, you've raised his kids, so on and so forth. Or his mother getting in their business. How does he, as a man, I don't wanna say embody masculinity, but maintain the integrity of cordiality between them, which is taqwa, again, this is why taqwa's mentioned so much. What should he do at this moment, at that time, when he sees people getting involved and they're making statements that do not lead to any type of cordiality or a healthy divorce, tasrih unbi ihsan, right? So I think it depends on which stage in the game you're in, right? Like if you're in, during marriage, I think Usman would be better to answer, but if you're in the divorce stage and now they're getting involved, you almost are helpless in that situation, right? Because once the divorce starts, you lawyered up, there's barely any communication happening now. All the communication is happening through the lawyer, and you have no control as to who has your wife or ex-wife to be's ear at that point. So you can't stop who's putting anything into their ears or putting anything through their head at that point. That problem has to be addressed during the marriage. But you can stop people from putting stuff in your ear. Yeah, exactly. Because you're right, when you're actually in the thick of it, you're advised not to talk to the other party at all, right? Or anybody from that person's family, right? Okay, so yeah, we're gonna get to the core parts. I really wanna talk about that lawyer up, when, where, what, and why, right? No, no, no, no. No, for real, like, okay, you think the divorce is the right thing to do. You go to your therapist, the therapist, just like what you said, the therapist pleads for them not to do it. But let's be honest, the guy, helpless man does not work. Like a man does not want to feel helpless. Especially if he was a provider, I paid all this money, and then you are just going to threaten me with the kids, you're going to threaten me with this, you're gonna threaten me with that.
Okay, he goes ahead and gets the divorce, right? Now people are in his ear, you know, you need to take the kids, you need to take, or the sisters, a lot of times, which I've heard a lot of times, take him for everything that he has, right? Psychologically, at that moment, in the process, he said the talaq, they're going through with it. This is when sometimes, well, numerous times I've heard brothers say, man, I've never seen this side of her. Yeah, or of the family. You know, I've never seen, I was close to my mother-in-law, I was close to my father-in-law. Now, all of a sudden, they forgot all the khair that I did, and so on. Our egos get in the way. So at the minute, that moment, like, does he need a little ego to protect himself? Set your boundaries, right? But keep taqwa at the forefront, right? So, you know, when I plead with couples, it's not that I'm pleading with them not to get a divorce. I want to make that clear. There are some couples who, honestly, it is better that they get a divorce. Not that we're encouraging that. Obviously, we try our best to, you know, keep healthy relationships. But sometimes when it's not working out, it's best sometimes for the children, even if the couple separate. But I will always push for them to take an amicable route. Because at the end of the day, and Navid, you've seen this a lot, your kids, when they grow up, they do not care who was right or wrong. They don't even want to hear it. They do not care. They just want normalcy. And you are putting them in a situation where, like, even if it's amicable, for a child to have that instability of going from one house to another, from one house to another, right? Like, grow up and, I'm talking to the parents, grow up and do right for your kid. You know, that's where the taqwa over here translates into swallowing your pride and looking at what's important. Because believe me, your kids will thank you later. You know, it's interesting. You said grow up and be do as amicable for your kid. Whether your kid is the guy going through the divorce? Yeah. The parents, right? The parents as well. I have seen, alhamdulillah, I don't want to portray that everything is horrible. I've seen some amazing parents who will,
sometimes they'll stick up for their daughter-in-law or they'll stick up for their son-in-law and say, look, this is wrong. You know, it doesn't matter if you're my blood. Right is right, wrong is wrong. I have to answer to Allah. It's few and far between, but I immensely respect people who do that because taqwa is at the forefront of their decision making. Yes, inshallah. To the helpless man point, I think you have to pick your battles, right? The battle of your money being divided doesn't make sense to fight because that's the law. Unless you got a prenup, too bad, right? But when it comes to the kids, I would tell every man that you should fight, that you should put in the effort to try to get as much time with your kids as possible because that's going to impact the future of the kids. I think you might've mentioned in this podcast as well, the boy crisis, right? There's a book about the impact that a child has when the father's not involved in their life. So for nothing else, you should fight, a man should fight to have his kids as much as possible because that's going to have a great impact on the child's life. So I would say fight about that, stand up for that, have an ego, quote unquote, when it relates to that issue. When it comes to the financial issue, you might be throwing money in the fire because the law of the land is going to divide everything. It's going to have alimony, it's going to have child support unless of course you dealt with that prenup. So I think you have to pick and choose your battles. All right, you mentioned a number of, I think it was another language. Sorry, I'm so sorry. But let's go ahead and dip into it. Let's go ahead and dive into it, man. The court system, lawyers. Firstly, let's start because Mashallah, you have this Nikah Masterclass and I think you've done some stuff with Sohbah Institute, Mashallah, some great work with pre-marital, post-marital counseling, right? When should a man lawyer up? It really depends on your situation, but I would say that the sooner, and again, I'm talking from a lawyer's perspective, not from a therapist's perspective. If you're coming to me,
you're not coming to me to fix your marriage. You're coming to me because you need to protect your money, you need to protect your children. So I personally, I would say the sooner the better. And I know that sounds so bad because I've had clients come to me three years before the divorce, male or female, preparing for the divorce, right? So that I can coach them in terms of how do you set up the situation so that you can get as much custody as possible? How do we set up the situation so that we can minimize the impact on your finances or lower the alimony payment? Strategically, the sooner you talk to me prior to the divorce, the easier and better the divorce can go. The problem, but there's another side to it, okay? The problem in the Muslim community is that we go to the lawyers right when we fight. Okay, as soon as the fight happens, we go to the lawyer, emotions are high, and then that emotion carries through in the case. Non-Muslims, on the other hand, they'll separate first. They'll separate, go on with their life. They'll come up with their own schedules, all of that. And then six months later, a year later, they'll go to the lawyers to formalize things. So there's like a balance between strategy and making sure that your emotions don't necessarily drive the case. So can I ask you a question? Do you see? Cases where somebody is not sure that they're gonna divorce or not. Like, look, I'm on the fence, but I just want to be informed. So let me go talk to a lawyer. I have a gut feeling. It's not, it might go south. It might not. 100%. So most, so let's say in a given year, you have 500 consultations. Of those 500 consultations, maybe 175 will sign up. Okay. Right? So there's still a rate of people just coming in. They're unhappy in their marriage. And I mean, that talks a lot about the status and the well-being of marriages right now, but that many people are unhappy or thinking about divorce. So, yeah, you'll have a vast majority of people just wanting advice. What should I do with my finances? How does this work? How does that work? And they end up never divorcing or they end up divorcing many years later.
I think that people are interested in what impact it could have and then also start preparing their finances for that event. Does it ever discourage people from divorcing? Oh, 100%. Like, you know, they look at all the, oh my God, I have to go through this, this and this, like. 100%. But is that healthy? That's what I'm saying. Like, is that healthy, right? Because it's like then you're, you feel like you're trapped in a marriage, right? And, and, you know, there is a reality that, I mean, even, even with therapy, like what can truly mentally prepare you as a father or even as a mother for not being able to, like, kiss your kids every night before they go to bed? Nothing will mentally prepare you for that. No way. That's, okay. And sometimes people are kind of held at gunpoint. I've seen, you know, fathers who are kind of like, look, I'm in a miserable marriage. I'm not happy. I've tried everything, but just, I cannot fathom not seeing my kid every night. And so I will put up with whatever, but then it just eats away at you, you know? And then unfortunately it makes you the parent you don't want to be. Okay. What are some of the things they do? Well, I mean, you get irritable, you lose your patience. If you're not happy, if you're not, you know, obviously you're never going to be the best version of yourself, right? But, but if you're not mentally sound and stable, how are you going to be there for your family? Being a father is one of the most difficult jobs on the planet, right? You have to balance everything. You work hard. And, you know, we spoke about this last time. You work hard and, and, you know, what puts a smile on your face is seeing everybody else around you happy. We have this, like, innate altruism, at least real men have this innate altruism, this thought in them that we just, we want to see our family happy. Right. But like, if you are just constantly being beat down, beat down, beat down, eventually we're all human. It's going to, it's going to chip away at you. And then that's when you get short with the kids. That's when you, you know, might not even be that present with the kids. So what you were trying to achieve by staying in your child's life, you know, you, it might backfire on you, you know what I'm saying? Like, so, yeah, you're not the best parent you could be at that time.
Just to kind of get back on, it's going to go back for between court and legal and, legal and psychological here. When you find the blame game between the husband and wife, you know, husband is abusive, wife, she's narcissistic. Okay. The husband is, is really irritated with the wife that will not allow him to see the kids on the days he's supposed to. And, or, you know, he doesn't want to go through this process, strenuous process of paying for the lawyer, the retention. He doesn't have the kind of money, and the wife with her big family and his small family, there's so much pressure on him. He just doesn't want to deal with it, but he's trapped. He hasn't reached out to anybody or he's reached out to, which I've heard numerous times, you know, and there's a message to imams as well. We as imams, you know, we have a lot on our plate, but it's very important to know what you sign up for within your imamship. Right? Like, you know, there's certain imams, look, I'll deal with the youth. I can't deal with marriages. It's fine to do that. Believe in yourself and know what you can provide to a community. But you'll see sometimes imams that do sign up for this, they don't respond to a number of these men, right? To where they come disenchanted with the message. Yeah. So he's alone. The wife is, you know, let's say, hypothetically speaking, the wife is someone that is narcissistic and oppressive, and she doesn't allow him to see the kids. But most importantly, she's not practicing. She's not practicing the faith. So you're talking about psychologically? Because I want to know from you. I mean, it's one of those things that, like, you know, once that's passed, you can only control yourself, right? And you can only control what you can do. And sometimes, like, you know, you just have to keep that balance and say, like, OK, what do I have control over on the days the child is with me? I take him to the masjid. I try and be the best example.
And part of being that best example is even if, you know, the mother is not the most practicing, I will never badmouth his mother in front of him because that's the example of a true Muslim. Because if I let my ego get the best of me, I'm going to I need somebody to vent to. And if I don't have bros to, you know, vent to, and I've seen this so much, right? I'm going to vent to who? My child, who doesn't want to hear it in the first place. You know what I'm saying? Right. That, oh, I can't believe you. And sometimes it's like it's not direct. It's kind of like, you know, under your breath, underhanded, just like, oh, but your mother did this. Oh, of course she forgot this. Of course she didn't take you to the masjid. Of course, you know, right. And the kids, how does the kid suffer from that? Well, you know, there is this, like, dichotomy now. And they're in their mind. They're like, wait a minute. I'm supposed to love my mother. I don't want to choose sides. But now, if I don't show a certain amount of anger and frustration towards one parent to the other, oh, my God, am I betraying my father? Am I betraying my mother? It is, wallahi, it is such a tough, such a tough position for a child. And, you know, this is why I really, you know, we have to do better as parents. What are we going to say to Allah on the Day of Judgment? How do we? It's not just about physical abuse, but this is emotional abuse, wallahi. No child wants to be put in that position. And we do it sometimes knowingly, sometimes we do it unknowingly. Right. I mean, mediators say this a lot, but I mean, I wholeheartedly believe in it. Even if you hate your ex with all your heart, you need to show that child that your mother is the best mother. Because that's your mom. You want him to grow up hating his mom because you can't deal with your emotions. And these kids, like they're playing two sides, right? There's a certain way at mom's house. There's a certain way at dad's house. They have to appease dad when they're with dad. They have to appease mom when they're with mom. And so just imagine that that stress and the trauma on the child having to live two separate lives. And they want the love of both. They want the love of dad. They want the love of mom. And so they're catering to them in different ways when they're with each parent. So what does he do? Okay.
So, for instance, he's going through that and he knows he shouldn't, you know, badmouth his mother. But mother, because you mentioned we mentioned the taqwa piece here, right? But the mom's not. She's not. She's she left. She left the dean. Sometimes I've seen. So that may be a lot on him because he's still being badmouthed. You know, hence, I mentioned in the introduction, I met a guy at the gym and I told the guy, keep coming here. You know, gym sessions to me. It's like that's that's where I can really, really help a lot of these guys because that physical exertion, as I've seen in young boys, it's so healthy for the man to where in between sets he's venting in between sets. He's like, yo, man, look, man, this happened last week. You know, and then he wants to hear from somebody. So the gym is like a cave as well. So I think it's important for, you know, men to to come together and at least take a walk in the park. Like we mentioned, just have a cave doesn't have to be a stationary place, but it's spending time with each other to when you go through the trauma of divorce and you're going through like these depressive like symptoms. Right. One of the one of the most curative factors to depression is something known as the internal locus of control. And what that means is basically there's something that I can do about it. So the rule of thumb is you do the opposite of what depression is telling you. Depression tells you to stay at home, to be isolated. No, you go out, you meet Sheikh Abdullah, you go, you work out, you talk to people, you know. So sometimes you have to push, you have to force yourself to do it. But eventually, you know, eventually it gets better. And then to enter into your piece about like, you know, the kids, like, what do you do if I'm trying to do my best, but the other person is that I can't control the other person. Eventually, you make the eventually the child will see it. And sometimes it's later. Sometimes we plant the seed. And, you know, I work with children of divorce who are young adults now. Right. And later they will say, like, I grew up thinking one parent was the villain and now my eyes are open.
Right. And, you know, they see it. Eventually they see, you know what? Like, dad never said anything bad about mom. And now I see it. Now I see the wisdom. I maybe when they're 30, 40, they see it. And, you know, I saw this on like some Instagram post or something where like life is short with our kids. The majority of the time that we follow gives us long life that we're going to spend with our kids is actually when they're adults. Right. And so, you know, eventually it'll click. You know, you do your part. Yeah. I remember I was on the phone with this convert brother, brother converted to Islam. And it was a lot of wind in the background. Like, you OK? He's like, yeah, yeah. And he sounded a little distressed. I'm like, where are you going? He's like, I'm going to go see my dad. OK. He's like, no, man, you don't understand, man. And this when he opened up, he was like, he sounded distressed and saddened. He's like, yeah, man. My mom gave me this whole false narrative of my father for 20 years, bro. He said, now I'm going to go see him. And, you know, I said, did your mom admit it? He's like, yeah, I squeezed it. I got it out of her because when I finally met my dad, who I thought wasn't around. She finally admitted it. The first thing I told him, man. And that's why the hadith is so sadqa to the Prophet. And he, man haqq al nasbi sahabati, who is the most right of me. My mother, my mother, your mother, your mother and your father. The first thing I told him, I said, just forgive your mom, man. And that's the true man right there, man. You just got to forgive your mom. You know what I'm saying? You know, let's just be totally honest. Maybe, I don't know, I'm not saying, I'm not saying your father, brother, you know who you are. You know, it was probably, which happened in a brother's family. He cheated on his mom way back then. And I'm not going to say like she hasn't got over it. I don't mean to belittle that at all. It's Islamically, it's impermissible to cheat on your wife, period.
But it's something that, you know, it carried over to the child to where there was a narrative about, about dad, you know. And just like you said, when he grew up, he was able to, he was able to distinguish and see, OK, mom was affected by this, etc. So, yeah, that's a huge point. So when we're talking about the man, because I was going to ask you, have you ever, and this may sound like an oxymoron, it may sound so counterintuitive, but I was asked this one time, this is going to be weird. Have you ever met a man that wanted to lawyer up in the premarital stage? Yeah, I mean, I think that's actually a smart thing to do. So the reason why is the reason you would get a lawyer in the premarital stage is for a prenuptial agreement. I don't see any other reason but for a divorce lawyer. Yeah, divorce lawyers help with prenups too. OK, yeah. So as a divorce lawyer, a lot of my work or some of my work, and it's increasing as we're trying to educate the community, is doing prenuptial work and putting prenuptial contracts in place so that can dictate how the marriage rules. But to your question about does somebody talk about divorce in the premarital stage? I haven't necessarily had that just directly. Hey, what would happen if I divorce this girl? I think they would approach me in the premarital stage to get a prenup. OK, OK, now let's dive into that. Never mind, there was a new caster when he went to the Shaykh, Allah bless him. He was reciting the verses of Talaq at the time, people were like, I don't know. So preparation? I don't know. That was weird. Yeah, there was a wedding where someone like, you know, in the beginning, like when they were reciting Qur'an, they were reciting, كل نفس ندعي قتل الموت, you know, it's like, this is worse.
What was he trying to say about marriage? Was that like, you got married with children from the past? No, but OK, so so prenuptial agreements. I remember I was talking to a dear friend of ours, Mashallah, and it really hit me about a year or two ago, some time ago, like, OK, this issue of prenuptial agreements needs to be talked about within the Muslim community. There needs to be education. I think initially amongst the scholars and the imams, it needs to be talked about at these scholars' conferences. What a prenup is, you know, the Islamic validity of it. Is it halal, right? Is it halal? You get that a lot, right? Right. Where do we find the taqrij of it? Like, also, is there a foundational presence within the authoritative text? Firstly, if you can introduce to the brothers, ancestors as well, what a prenup is and why it is something to be heavily considered for the man upon marriage. I think prenups are, yeah, 100 percent. I think prenups are very important in us as Muslims living here. OK, and this question about whether it's halal or not. What is it? What is it, though? Sure. A prenuptial agreement is an agreement that a husband and wife sign prior to marriage to dictate what happens if you get divorced. Right. What's going to happen to your property? What's going to happen to alimony? And specifically for Muslims to have an enforceable provision for mahr to be enforced. Because when you sign this nikah contract at the masjid, right, it's like a one page thing. That's usually not enforced in court. So you could have a $50,000 mahr, you put that on the nikah contract and you go and take it to a judge, enforce this. They're going to say, wait, this doesn't count as a prenuptial agreement because there's certain formalities that have to be considered when you're doing a prenuptial agreement.
For example, you don't want to have duress, meaning that you don't want to have any pressure around signing it. But this paper is being signed in the presence of all these people. Everybody's dressed up. They flew from all over the country and you're signing this nikah contract. The other element might be financial disclosure, right, where both parties understand the financial situation of each party. But again, when you're signing this nikah contract, you have no idea. And then third is going to be some type of representation. Right. So attorney representation usually is going to make this prenuptial agreement strong. So both sides having a lawyer to advise you of what your rights are, what rights are you giving up? So these are the three elements duress, financial disclosure and attorney representation. All three of those things are not there when you're signing this one page nikah contract. Right. So that's that's what a prenuptial agreement is. Now, the important thing to understand is the concept of marriage versus the concept of nikah, because those are two different things. Right. You have an Islamic institution and you have this Western institution. OK. In this Western institution, there's a few common things that take place. Number one is when you get married in the West, you are what they call or what I call unified. It's unity theory. Right. So much so that the man or the woman takes the man's last name. Right. So you become one. And so what happens is that from the date of marriage, anything either party owns belongs to both of them. Marital property belongs to both of them. So it doesn't matter if you have a retirement account in your name. It doesn't matter if she has a savings account in her name. It doesn't matter whose name is on the title. It matters. When did you acquire it? OK, so that's one very big concept that is different than marriage versus nikah. Right. In our concept of marriage, your property is yours, your property is yours.
There's certain responsibilities that take place, but it's not like magically your money becomes his money or vice versa. Islamically speaking. So that's a very big difference between Islamic marriage and marriage in the West. And then the other difference might be alimony. Right. And in the Western system, you might have alimony, which is payments made well after the divorce is over. OK. So alimony is? Alimony is payments made by the higher earner to the lower earner to either compensate them for, you know, being a housewife, for example, or to help them get back on their feet. So it's payments for the ex spouse. OK. Right. So this prenuptial agreement can dictate how marital property is defined. Right. How are properties going to be divided when we divorce? OK. It can define is there going to be alimony? How much alimony is there going to be? And then finally, for sisters especially, is to make sure that your mahr is actually enforced. So these are the three reasons why I make sure that people should have prenups, because instead of the state defining your marriage and how your marriage should operate and how your divorce should operate, you are taking that into your own hands and dictating, look, I have this house. You have this house. I have this business. You have this car. Do you believe this is ours? Do you believe it's yours? Do you believe it's mine? So you have this discussion up front in the marriage to make sure that when you hate each other, Allah protect us, that that doesn't impact how all of this gets divided. So it's having a conversation when you still love each other and also taking the power out of the state. Sheikh Joe, a mutual friend of ours, masha'Allah, he talks about how sovereignty has been taken out of the family and put into the state. Oh, no doubt. And so with the prenup, we're taking back some of that sovereignty. And it depends on what state you're in, right? Yeah. I mean, depending on the state you're in.
By the way, how enforceable are prenups? There's a misconception that they're unenforceable. You could get them thrown out. Every prenup that I've dealt with, except for maybe one in the last 10 years, has been enforced. There was one, the one that didn't get enforced was they basically said that the imam gets to decide whether we get to divorce or not. Oh. So obviously that's not going to get enforced. But everything else, dealing with money, dealing with alimony, has been enforced in my experience. I love the way that you explain it, because one of the huge misconceptions is that prenup only benefits the man. That's one. And I love how you kind of redirected it back to like, this is giving you autonomy, taking autonomy away from the state, right? Because I'm sure you've heard all of the negative connotations around prenup. Oh, like if we're already talking about money, if we're already fighting about it, what's the point of getting married? As you're explaining this, I'm thinking like, you know, in premarital counseling, we have people ask the important questions, including finances, roles, responsibilities, expectations, so on. Something like a prenup will really force you, I guess, to get into the nitty gritty of things that you wouldn't ask otherwise. What are the top reasons for divorce? Finances, in-laws, addictions. So finances being one of the biggest reasons for divorce, if you can tackle that issue upfront about expectations of what this money is going to mean, right? As much as marriage is a romantic institution, it's more of a practical institution of finances. I would even argue that marriage should not be a romantic institution upon marriage, because even in the books of fiqh, it's about compatibility. To the degree you'd find, like in books of fiqh, لَيَ تَزَوَّجِ الْحَدَّادِ بِخَبَزٍ Right? You know, the person that deals with iron, you know, it's about compatibility, right? You know, even Islam, I was sitting with a, I think I've mentioned this before, with a group of sisters in a classroom. I was saying, you know, love is not a condition for marriage. That is not Islamic. You should not be in love where you get, you don't even know the sister. But I mean, now, realistically speaking, pragmatically speaking, I met her in college. There is an emotional connection.
We both forget the MSA. It's halal. It's great. But still, there's still like, if you're sitting together alone in the MSA office, like, hey, I got to go do something, which is get out the office. So you should maintain that barrier to maintain the integrity of her emotional investment and the integrity of your testosterone. Right, right, right. So when looking at this particularly, and that's why, you know, I was mentioning the books of fiqh, it's more of like business. She's not a commodity, right? But she is someone that is honored. She is someone's daughter that the guardianship is literally being transferred over to you. Right. That's what I tell you. Amen, like, look, the guardianship is going to be yours now. The father is kind of left indirectly helpless to a degree, but he's watching from afar with the bird's eye view, right? But he has to know it to close his eyes at the same time. The word that comes to my mind for a man that's going to introduce prenuptial agreements while he's sitting with this man that he hopes to be his father-in-law is courage. Because, I mean, this is going to be an era where it's going to be introduced a lot. And moms are probably not going to want to hear it to a degree. But most of the prenups in the last two years that have come to me have come from sisters. Wow. Sisters are the ones who, they have their career, they're making good money, and they want to make sure that their money is protected. I'm telling you that right now, our sisters are killing the guys when it comes to financial wellness and education and being actual go-getters versus a lot of the men, unfortunately. Is that a problem? It's a big problem. It's a big problem. It's a big problem for men, not for women. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. No, no, because this is an issue. This is an issue because you find, okay, the sister's getting educated, great. You'll find some sisters that get educated to have something on the back burner just in case they get a divorce. I don't know if that's a good way to approach it, but you do not want a sister that's divorced and has nothing and three kids, and the guy is a loser, and he's not taking care of her because they didn't sign a prenup,
or whatever the case may be. You know, he didn't come from this country, so he doesn't know, or she doesn't know, right? The sisters that are educated and that are making a lot of money, which is good, but then at the same time, you said it's bad for brothers because the brother may not be the higher earner. Is that the primary reason? Yeah, they might not be the higher earner. You might not get the respect that you need. From who? The brother might not get the respect he needs from the wife. Why? Because he's making less money than her, and she can now make the decisions, and she's the one paying for everything, or she's not getting that financial benefit from the husband. Okay, let's not take it from the Hethershore. Let's just stop here real quick, because you know what I thought? That's what I wanna get. Sorry, no, you're good, you're good. Now, do you find if she's the higher earner, is she paying the, like, is all that money she's making going into her purse, or is she, okay, I'll take care of this bill because I'm making more, okay, I'll take care of this. Do you find that at a time of divorce, when stuff comes out, she's like, look, I was paying this, and you should have been paying for it. I don't care if you make less. Does that? Yeah, I mean, it's a favor. If the wife is making more money, and she ends up paying for something, if she ends up paying for something, it's a favor, right? And that favor needs to be recompensed if the marriage falls apart, I mean, in terms of the psychology of it. So, to answer your question, I don't see, necessarily, the women paying for the mortgage, and paying for the utilities, and paying for all of that. Rather, it's paying for the luxuries, right? It's paying for the vacation, or it's paying for something, whatever random things there are, but the bulk is still, the man is paying. Whatever the wife pays, usually ends up being a favor upon the husband. Then why was it a problem for him? Where does it become a problem for him? It becomes a problem for him because if he's unable to provide the lifestyle that she wants, he's not getting the respect from her that he desires, because he's not being a man in her eyes, I feel like. Right, right.
So, because I don't want this to be misconstrued as women being educated, or women earning a lot of money, is the issue, is the problem. Because we hear that a lot, and that's not true, right? Khadijah and Halak had wealth, right? It's not about that. But if you, as a man or woman, use or weaponize your wealth and your education, that's the problem. It's not a money problem. Whether you make 100K or 600K, it's a you problem. That's your ego, you know what I'm saying? If you weaponize it. And I've seen women who are at the seven-figure salary, who are married to men who are not making as much, but we spoke about this idea of hustle. The man hustles, and she respects him, and she gives him, he feels extremely respected because she's like, it's not about a monetary value, but it's what I see in this guy. I feel safe, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's a good point. Because of course she's gonna feel bitter if she's paying the bills. And sometimes guys, and this is really antithetical to manhood, are okay with that in the sense of, it's okay, I can kind of hit the brakes a little bit on my responsibility. That's a problem. No, no, no, even if you're a plumber and your wife is a neurosurgeon, you find a way, right? And then as far as meeting her needs, that's why you said a baker shouldn't be married to an ironsmith or something, right? Yeah, I mean, compatibility does have a role. There's a cultural nuance to it, there's a societal nuance to it. I think that should be considered. I mean, you find men say, the woman should know her place, but then at the same time, the man should know his place as well. And I think knowing their place has relevance in saying it, but sometimes it can be used for toxicity on either side. And I forgot who mentioned it, but once people know their lane, stay in their lane, there won't be any accidents, right, right, right? So, okay, so when talking about this prenup, right?
So, okay, the man introduces this in a respectable fashion when he's sitting with the father-in-law. When should he introduce this if he's looking to get married for our young collegiates out there? So I think that it shouldn't come as just a topic of prenuptial agreement. I think it needs to come through the premarital counseling, right? And I think that, MashaAllah, Sohbah Ihsan Khodri, there's so many different institutions that have made this part of their premarital counseling sessions, where as part of the financial discussion is, hey, have you thought about a prenuptial agreement? So that the thought is not born by either of the spouses, the thought is born by a third party. I think that's important, and I think that's gonna be the way that this grows a little bit, is if the imams, the counselors, and the community are the ones who are kind of bringing this up. In terms of, if you're in that situation where you didn't have that, I think as part of the mahr discussions, a prenup should be brought up, or bring it up in the other way that, hey, you're looking for a $25,000 mahr, well, yeah, we can sign this agreement, but hey, did you know that this is not gonna be enforceable? This is the way to get it enforceable is through a prenup. And then that prenup can then bring up the discussions of mahr enforceability, property, and everything else. Oh, that's how she can get protected. Yeah, right, that's what I was saying, like the misconception, this really helps so much, and you're debunking that myth that it's only for the guy. I mean, I think, like you said, from a larger scale, if we standardize it, if we just make it part of, I've seen imams now kind of standardize this to, I'm not going to marry you until you go to premarital counseling. Yeah, I'm not, that's what I do. Yeah, right, so just adding that on there, and then on top of that, and I think this is a lesson for most therapists, because I do a lot of premarital counseling as well, let's make this part of the process. A module, a module within the whole. What about the brother,
and this has been introduced to me or asked me numerous times, where brothers, he's an entrepreneur. Started his business off, got his grind, in the midst of his grind, in the midst of seeking the barakah, he marries his sister. It's at the infancy of his business. While they're getting married, he blows up, mashallah, like within the second year. Fourth year comes around, one kid later, doesn't work out. Just doesn't work out. It gets kind of ugly. The wife, religious wife, religious husband, they're both practicing, mashallah, she decides to take the children. He says, fine, you can take the children. I just want to see my kids. You can see your kids, it's fine. But she wants a portion of the business. Like you said, by default, when you get married in the States, everything is mashuba, everything is together. It's not like, you know, Islamically, it's what was yours before. But she's saying, I'm gonna go to the court system, through the court system, and I'm going to take, I want half of the business. He's like, you were not there when I was grinding in the basement with the swinging, hit light, you know, nothing there, and you know, only had one item of clothing. You weren't there, right? She's like, I was there taking care of your children. I was there making the food for you when you were grinding, whatever you're talking about. I want a portion. Is that amicable? What should be considered here? Well, I think the question would be, and there's a lot of like legal implications here, but if the business was started prior to marriage, it should retain its non-marital nature throughout the marriage. No, when you say started, he establishes LLC and all that? Yeah, if he establishes LLC, he established the business well before the marriage. It grew, it grew, and then after marriage, it started to grow more. She may not get a portion of the business, like shares of the business, but she can still benefit from the income
that is generated by that business, right? She might benefit from getting alimony. She might benefit from getting extra child support. So the income may be considered, but the asset may not get divided. Now, if shares changed hands or there's some other deal happened in between, that could add some complexity, but you have to divide an asset based off the actual ownership of it and the income that's generated from it, right? So those are two different questions. So in this scenario, she would absolutely benefit from the income being generated, but she may not get a share of the business if he maintained the non-marital nature. Now, again, it's also very important to have a prenup to make that very clear that, hey, I started this business, and as this grows, that you're not gonna get a share of it, but yes, you can't stop anybody from getting child support. You can't stop anybody from getting the income or the benefit of the income that's derived from that business. Right, okay, okay. So that, mashallah, mashallah. Now, the issue of postnup. Yeah. How credible is that, and how often does that work out? I mean, postnup means after the marriage, or the divorce, it gets pretty ugly. Can you define what that is? Sure. So a postnup is signing that same agreement, but sometime after the marriage takes place. It doesn't even have to be after divorce. Okay. It could be like two, three years into it, you hear one of our talks, and it says, hey, we should get a postnup. So you can get a postnup right now, even if everything's fine and dandy, right? But most of the time, however, postnups come up when somebody's filed for divorce, and it's like, okay, this is way too much. I can't handle this. Let's reconcile. But we understand now that there's a lot of financial implications with a divorce. So if we ever get divorced, let's sign an agreement to dictate what happens if we end up getting divorced later. So that's typically when I see postnups happening, is they filed, they're going down the road,
they're a little scared, or they want to reconcile, and it's like, all right, let's define our financial parameters now that we understand what marital property is, and we understand what alimony and all of that is. Have you found it hard for the husband to introduce if we get divorced wife? Not necessarily. Again, I think it depends on the financial situation of the parties. I mean, if you have a housewife, yeah, it's gonna be a difficult conversation, but if both parties are working, here's the other thing that happens, is that when both parties are working, let's say they both make $80,000, and they have the traditional setup where the man's paying for the house and everything like that, what ends up happening after a few years is that the wife has a very, very big savings account, and the guy might have a modest saving account. So at that point, it actually makes sense for the sister to have a postnup to protect the savings that she's accumulated over the years, right? So it's interesting that we keep on thinking that postnups and prenups are bad for sisters, but in this day and age, when you have such a high work rate for women, it makes more sense for women. Right, exactly, to protect her assets as well. What she's received from her husband, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, received from her husband or from her own earnings. Her own earnings, exactly, exactly. What about when the man, they get a divorce and they're going through that divorce process, going to the lawyers, you mentioned something, and this is where we're gonna need you to chime in as well, how you will be paying for the lawyer's children's college. We charge by the hour, right? And so, I mean, a typical case, you might have a $3,000 to $5,000 down payment. What? Are you serious? Oh, that's not, I've seen more. I mean, there's more. I've seen 10. Yeah, yeah. My retainer was five, and that's just for the lawyer. That's the start. Yeah, the amicus was three, and then other therapists involved, whatever the judge orders,
and you don't have a choice at that point, you know? $5,000 to start, and that retainer, there's different ways, but basically, it's a prepayment of services, okay? And so, the average divorce, okay, so if you have a typical amicable divorce, maybe one or two issues, okay, maybe you're looking at 10 grand over the course of a year, but a lot of, unfortunately, in the Muslim community, when you have high drama, you have people trying to keep kids away, you have shady money stuff happening, 30, 35, 40 is not extreme for the cost of a divorce, so that's what I'm saying is that when you are going through this system and fighting about things, it's going to cost you a lot of, lot of money, so instead of that money going towards your kids, that's why I say you're paying the lawyers, and the lawyer's kid's now gonna have a nice car and going to college. Are divorce lawyers vicious? That's what we're paid for. I mean, that's what, okay, so, you know. I'm just, yeah, I mean. That's what you're being hired for, right? My job is to be a counselor and an advocate, so when I'm talking to you when you're in my office, I'm trying to say, hey, look, you should do this, you should do that, and I'm trying to appeal to their psychology and to who they are and what their goals are, but when I'm in court, they don't want me to be fuzzy old me. They want me to be a bulldog, right? And so when I'm in court, I have to show that aggression. I have to show how much I know about the law, cite cases, cite statutes, tear down the other lawyer, tear down the other side. That's what they're paying me hourly for is to be strong in court, so I think that you have to be smart as a divorced lawyer, but you also have to be very aggressive. How does it work? Because, I mean, this is with you, too. You know, you have to make that distinction between, okay, I won't say distinction. You're trying to bring the synergy between psychology and Islam, right? But then there are certain statutes, depending on what state you may be into, where you cannot, you know,
be religious within your counsel or your therapy, right? How does it work for a divorced lawyer if a sister comes to you and she clearly wants to just clear him out unjustly, or the brother comes to you and he's not humble enough to mention that he was abusive and he just wants her to suffer? So the system is supposed to, the system is not good, but the system, my job is to put the case up in front of the judge, okay? So I'm going to paint this wonderful picture for my client. The other side is gonna do the same thing. They're gonna paint this wonderful picture, and the judge is going to be the one to decide who's right or wrong. So I'm not necessarily deciding who's right or wrong. I'm just putting their case up in a way that makes them look good, or, you know, obviously without lying, without, you know, doing anything illegal or unethical, but putting the best case forward so that the judge now decides, was he an abuser? Was he not an abuser? To decide whether the kids should go with him or not go with him. So I'm not making the decision. The judge is making that decision. Isn't most of that stuff, doesn't it usually come out during discovery anyway? Yeah, yeah, it's gonna come out. Exactly, there's a whole procedure in the court process where you're exchanging documents, you're exchanging evidence, you're exchanging videos and text messages, and everybody gets to see, before you ever go to a hearing or before you ever go to a trial, you already know all the evidence that's going to be presented at that hearing or that trial. Isn't that interesting? We shy away from the community knowing our business, but then in the court system, in front of these non-Muslims, your entire dirty laundry, everything is laid out, and you're okay with that? Kind of weird, right? No, it's beautiful. It's beautiful with the Sharia because as I mentioned earlier, in the last one, it says, fa ba'athu haqaman wa in khayftum shiqaqa bayn hima. If you fear that there's gonna be any dissension between them, fa ba'athu haqaman min ahlihi wa haqaman min ahliha. in yurida islahan yuwafiqillahu baynahumma. So it's beautiful how you mentioned that
because Islam does bring the solution in this to where the man can maintain his masculinity and she can maintain her femininity and they don't clash with each other to where they just do things that they will regret because the verse is saying, if you fear some dissension between them two, i.e. the husband and wife, basically it gets kind of ugly, search for someone, a hakam, someone that is adil, someone that is just, someone that is upright, someone that fears Allah from her family and someone from his family. But there's a condition. If they want islah baynahumma, right? In yurida islahan yuwafiqillahu. If they want islah, then Allah subhana wa ta'ala bring tawfiq with them. And that's why this issue of masculinity is so important with the Muslim because their purpose is transcendent. As we always talk about the purpose of the man, it's not something of this dunya, it's not something of this world, it's no. This woman, Allah provided her for me. It didn't work out, that's what Allah's predestined. My responsibility is to go through this process as a mindful person of Allah, as a mutaqi. Even if, even if she lied and said I was abusive, in your office, in your office. You know, and we'll conclude with that. I mean, what would you tell the man? Because what I tell the men sometimes is look, give her the house, man, give her the house. If you're the provider and you bought the house, believe in yourself and get another one. That's coming from a person from the religious side. You know, in the same chapter of Talaq, Allah mentions Taqwa, he said whoever is mindful of Allah, he'll make for him an easier way. And then right after that, what does he say? Wa yanzuquhu min haytu la yahtasib. And he provides him from ways that he would have never, let me go for Hispanic, he would not have imagined. I mean, each and every one of us have our mahr story. I mean, I have my mahr story. I was literally in Riyadh about to get, my friend of mine was joking with me. We were sitting in Riyadh and I was, you know,
trying to, you know, teach English in order to get money for my mahr. And we're at the stop sign and there's guys that sell water like at the street light. He tapped me, he was like, he's like, you know, you need to be thinking about going to sell some water. Wallahi, in my mind, I was like, that may not be a bad idea, man. Just go wholesale and do what needs to be done, right? So I told this particular brother, just give her the house, man. Don't fight, just give her the house, you know? And move on, you know what I'm saying? Because it's getting ugly now. What do y'all say to men in this regard when it gets ugly or, because you know, as you mentioned, you just present the facts. Which I was even gonna ask, like, emotional distress, is that considered a fact or not? Or, you know, she's consistent on that. When does the man, as we used to say, just chop it up to the game? And it's like, look, all right, you can have that. You can have that. It's all right, man. I'm gonna be okay as long as you take care of the kids. Make sure that I can see them twice a week, three times a week, whatever the case may be. Okay, you said not five times a week. All right, four times a week. I'm good with that. It's tough, right? Because if you're dealing with somebody who's vengeful and angry, you're not going to get even nearly as close to what you were hoping to get, right? So it's a tightrope walk between like, yes, I want to be adil, and I know that Allah will recompensate me more than I give, right? Especially if I'm just keeping taqwa at the forefront. But at the same time, we also don't want to encourage guys to just completely cower and forego their rights, right? Or say something like, let her decide how often I see the kids or something like that. Maybe you're in that state where like, okay, it's okay, khalas, let it go. The imam told me, let it go. The rest is telling me, let it go. And they forego all of their rights. And then once it's in the final decree, khalas. So it's very difficult, right?
Because our children and our wealth are al-malu wal-banu n-zinas al-hayat al-dunya, right? That's what is so beautiful about this life. And to advise somebody, hey, yeah, give up the money, give up the children, is very hard for me, at least as a lawyer. I mean, obviously, as an imam, it's going to be very different. But as a lawyer, it's very difficult for me to advise somebody to do that. On the money side, I'm definitely more flexible, right? I'm definitely more flexible when it comes to the money side to say, yeah, give the house. Your children need a house. Let them live in that house. You know, they need a car to get back and forth. Okay, give them the car, you know, that type of thing. And I think the problem is that there's such a dichotomy between Islamic law and Western law that it feels unjust. It feels like somebody's ripping this money away from you. So it's a very difficult balance. And I think that that man has to be in a particular place to even think in that way that Allah is going to pay me back, that I'm going to get this benefit in the hereafter. It's a very, you know, specific state they have to be in that's difficult to get into. And then, as I said earlier about the children, it's not typical for it to be two, three times a week. The average dad's schedule is every other weekend. What? Yeah, yeah. You kidding me? Is that natural? Because I think I was actually going to ask if we have time to jump into the whole child custody. I think you were about to complete this. As you said, as far as finances, maybe you're a little bit more linear, but with seeing the child, because you know the statistics of how important it is for a man to be in their child's life, boy or girl. And these statistics have been there for a while as far as the rates of children falling into crime, into lower education, drugs, all of that from single-parent households. And our community sometimes is creating this so that for the next generation, Allah protect our kids, right? So, you're a bulldog when it comes to protecting the kids.
Yeah, because every other weekend and maybe a weeknight dinner, maybe, is the average starting point for a dad. If he wants more, he has to fight from that point forward. That's what we call standard possession, correct? Well, Texas is different. Illinois has different things. But at the very least, most dads are going to get every other weekend. Is that enough? No. No? No way. But, okay, standard possession, meaning that it's an amicable, cordial divorce. If the court decides, the wife says, yes, we're going to get a divorce, and they enter into the subject matter of custody, it'll be a default position that he sees them every other weekend? It's not default, but that's usually the minimum. That's like the starting point. Wallahi. That's if he's a higher earner, she's a lesser earner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, that has nothing to do with man or woman. What is the court looking at when it defines who gets? Because statistically, from what I understand, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the overall majority of women get, I don't want to say full custody, but majority custody. Why is that? So, there's different factors that a court's going to look at. So, in Illinois, for example, one of the big factors is who took care of the primary caretaking functions over the last 24 months. So, if the dad was working and the mom was staying at home, she's going to win that left, right, and center, that factor, because obviously she was the one being the primary caretaker, being there all the time. And then, now you think about school. Okay, well, if they're going to go to school from mom's house, dad lives 20 miles away, it doesn't make sense for there to be back and forth during the weekdays. So, you know, and then mom needs some downtime with the kids too, so she's going to get a weekend. So, then it just boils down into every other weekend because of those circumstances. Ah, so school's a huge factor. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's so important that you live close to your kids. If you want to get more time with your kids, live close. That's probably the one benefit or the one advice I can give
when it comes to custody is try to live as close as possible. I remember you mentioned this, how when they grow up, they realize... I don't want to get to your point, but... Now, they grow up, they realize that dad wasn't such a creep after all. You know, I had to advise dads, like, bro, you... But my job, she's moving... There was one individual I met, he was an older person, female, and she had resentment towards her father because she found her father was in a city that whole time she grew up about four hours away. That's my mom. And the mother was wrong in what she did, but she's like, you should have fought. Yeah. You didn't even fight. Like... Even if the outcome's not in your favour, if the child knows that, look, I tried my best and I really fought, that makes a difference. And it isn't... I don't know about the laws in Illinois, aren't you confided to a certain radius anyway after? Once a divorce is over, 25 miles is usually, like, you're defined to that radius, unless they agree or some situation changes and the court approves it. But yeah, there is some limitation there. There's so much to cover here. There's so much, man. I wish I could do a completely different episode. Because we haven't even delved into the idea of, OK, what happens now, now the custody schedule is set. How do you remain cordial at that? Because that's really going to test you, because you're still carrying these emotions. And during exchanges, you're going to see the other parent. Like, kids will read your body language, dude. You know? So, like, are you smiling? Are you, like, frowning and, like, quickly, like, pulling the kid away? I've seen... I've heard horrible cases where literally, like, you know, moms will be, like, clinging on to the kid. And the father's like, OK, what do I do? Like, do I pull the kid? And so now imagine this kid is, like, being treated like a rag doll. And then in the child's mind, he's like, OK, I didn't think dad was dangerous, but if mom is clinging on to me like this, and mom might be thinking, no, I just don't want to let him go because I love him,
and he's going to be freaked out, or she's going to be freaked out, and thinking, like, oh my God, is she trying to protect me? Is there danger? Is there something I don't know about? You know? There's so much to get into with that. And, like, the psychology of, like, even things like exchanges, it's a lot, bro. Yeah, it's a problem. But I think within the course of this, you know, it's important, it's important, we use the word higher road, right? It's important that the man leads in taking the higher road. In that particular situation, you know, he sees that, depending on how intense it may be, if she gets dramatic in front of the master, in front of people, the guy's just got to just, you know, just, like, how you can have the house or whatever the case may be, it's like, OK, we need to talk later. We need to talk later. Or we need to go visit, you know, this man again. Right? And sit with him. And then what do you say to your child after? It's OK. It's not your fault. You're not responsible for other people's emotions. You're not responsible for their, you know, because children carry that, too, right? Did I make Mama upset? Did I make Mama upset? Right? That was a segment I wanted to touch on. If you have time, we're going to touch on it. Yeah, of course. Children. That's what you want to do. No, child support. No, that's a part of what we do. All right. My first thing is, how does dad tell the kids about the divorce? Like, how does he? OK, let's say they're at the age of discernment. Let's say that they're eight, nine, ten. Dad's moving out of the house. Yes, subhanAllah. OK. Emphasize over and over and over again that it has nothing, zero, absolutely nothing to do with them. You know, your mama loves you, your baba loves you. Sometimes two really good people just don't get along in the best way. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to be there for you, always. You know, kids will, especially younger children, they'll make up these scenarios in their mind. Oh, yeah, because I got an F in my math class.
That's why mama and baba are divorcing. And they carry it with them, you know? Oh, because like, you know, that one time I was really loud. And so I caused it. You know what I'm saying? So emphasize that over and over and over again. And what kids look for is stability. They want normalcy. And it's difficult to achieve when, you know, now the court is dividing up this and that, right? So as much as you can, normalcy, right? In a good co-parenting situation, right? It's like if he or she has like a favorite pajama, right? That's being exchanged back and forth. If they have a certain routine at night, that's being maintained. Whatever of their normal routine can be maintained, maintain that, right? And then again, like, you know, in a situation, and you know, I'll be real, like, it's where, you know, let's suppose the mom is like holding onto the child. And like the dad's already like, OK, she already took all my money, this, that. Now she's trying to get away with my child, right? Afterwards, what do you tell the child? What do you do with your own emotions at that point? Now you have your child, and you're driving back, right? Do you say, oh my god, I can't believe she did that? Or do you, you know, step up and think about, OK, forget about my emotions right now just for a second. What are the psychological implications that's going to happen to my child when I start bad-mouthing his mom or showing that frustration? Instead of, you know, it's OK, again, priority. It's not your fault, number one. And number two, it's OK, you know? She really loves you a lot. We both really love you a lot. And I know these transitions can be difficult. And that's it. That's make it about him, not about you. It's not about you. Right, right. If she, if the man finds out that there's false, the father finds out that there's false accusations about him from mom, from the child. Yeah, that happens a lot. That happens so much, right? I mean, I have so many cases where mom has said that dad has sexually abused the kids, that dad has hit the kids, that dad has done X, Y, Z to the kids, and staging videos of the children saying things.
I had a case where mom put cocaine in the kid's shoe because the dad was going to fly with the kid. They lived in different countries to fly the kid so that he would get caught and get arrested for having cocaine with him. So I mean, you see crazy, crazy setups. I mean, you have parents who are training their kids to respond in a certain way to say that, oh, dad touched you here, right? Or mom touched you here, right? And basically feeding that into them before they go into the interview with the court-appointed GAL or something like that. So I've had cases where dad wasn't able to see the kids for years, two years. We had to get psychological reports, get all these things. So finally, dad can get some time and get some custody. I mean, from a legal perspective, again, that's why you need to, if you have the money, the patience, fight for your kids to show that you did not do these things, that this is not you, because this is going to have such a big impact on the kids. I mean, there's no other way except for get a good lawyer and make sure that your lawyer is at least on par or better than her lawyer. Don't go the cheap route when it comes to this. I'm not trying to give an advertisement. I'm just being really honest. No, no, I mean, get the advertisement. And I was already just telling you before. Yeah. I mean, what if you don't have the money? And this happens a lot, too, right? Is there such a thing as a public defender-type thing for, in family court, they don't? So here's the thing. There's legal aid for abuse only. So if there's domestic violence involved, then legal aid will step in to defend. Typically, moms are the ones who will get legal aid, because they will be the ones either being abused or accuse the husband of being an abuser. So typically, the wife will end up with legal aid. I don't think I've ever, in my 10, 15 years, have seen a guy get legal aid. So I mean, with this, now we talked about, OK,
addressing to the children, make sure when you speak to your children, you assure that it's not their fault and that it's something that, what, it's a disagreement between mom and dad? Right, right. And again, it's because if you are better as a parent separate, your job is to be the best possible parent to that child. And so that's kind of what you're showing, that you don't have to go thoroughly in text. But in fact, we overshare sometimes with our kids about, oh, she did this. They don't need to know all that, right? Sometimes we think that, or we think that we're being transparent, and that's a good thing. No, they don't need to hear that at all, because at the end of the day, that's their mother. That's their father. That's all that matters. That's what allows you to be destined to be your mom or dad. You want somebody saying that about your mom or your dad? A lot. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, it's, again, make much more the focus on them, their stability, their ability to express their emotions. I strongly, strongly recommend that the child goes to therapy. Shout out to brother Fozan, who was here last episode. That's his thing, inshallah. So even if things seem OK, there's a lot that they keep in. Because you're so consumed, like talking to lawyers, figuring stuff out, and so on, you may not even pay attention to what the child's going through. So have that set up as well, where they have someone to talk to. So what are some things that they should consider? He comes to you, and he says, man, I'm being eaten for the child support and alimony, and it's taking 80% of my paycheck. And there's a stigma in the community. I can't even go back to the community. Communities don't really cater to a 35-year-old single man. And the other, I think, as guys, we need to ask the follow-up question. I think a lot of times what happens is that a guy will say something. They'll give you a little cue, right, that something's going amiss, something's wrong.
And the guy just says, oh, man, I'm sorry. Or they'll say something, but they don't ask the follow-up question. So a lot of times, even myself, I feel like I'm burdening my spouse. I'm burdening somebody with my problems, unless they take interest in that problem and ask the follow-up question. So that's what I try to do for others, is just ask that one follow-up question, and you'll see the gates open. So that's, I think, number one. Number two is, as Shaykh, as you always mention, going and playing basketball or going and working out together. Do that physical activity. And then maybe when you're going to 7-Eleven after to grab a drink or you're going to sit some coffee, then that comes out after that activity that you had together. So taking time out, asking the follow-up question, and just taking interest in your brother. Right, right. Are you good? And then it's like, are you actually really good? And then for the guy going through it, don't deprive your brother of the adjutant of being able to help you. Subhanallah, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, don't deprive. And just to be, it takes a level of humility and digging deep to be vulnerable like that. Because guys being vulnerable, it's difficult. It's challenging. And I say that on our show, but it's a beautiful jihad in the fighting. So child support, I would say, versus or along with alimony. I mean, Those are two separate things. They're two separate. Yeah, you know, he gets a divorce. You know, he's making $200,000. She's making $100,000. The $100,000 has always been hers. And then now the $200,000, I think you mentioned the equation on one of your videos with the alimony, right? How should a man appropriately journey through that child support if it's two or three children? And you find a lot of guys within this red pill movement, and a lot of brothers even that are non-red pill as well,
let's say, look, they don't need that much to go through. Is that really the case that, and I know it could be state by state, how to journey through that? Because you'll find some that will say, look, I'm not getting married in California. OK, that's not happening. But the president can change. So I mean, it's like, so what are some considerations that he should take in regards to child support? When it comes to child support, there's different mudhubs of child support. You'll have one mudhub talk about taking into consideration both parties' income. And they'll basically add up both parties' income, put it onto a graph, and then that graph is going to tell you how much the guy needs to pay the girl, for example. Or you might just have a state where they only look at the payor's income. And it's like 22% for one kid, 24% for two kids, 28% for three kids, for example. So it depends where you're at in terms of what the child support actually pays for. Me personally, I always tell my clients, pay the child support. You as a man, it's your job to pay for the expenses of the child 100%. So much so that I argue in Illinois, for example, that taking into consideration the wife's income is actually, try to stay away from that. And I try to negotiate, hey, we'll pay a higher child support, get rid of the alimony. So I don't think that child support is really what's killing guys. I think really what's killing is the alimony piece of it, more so than child support. To your point, the theory behind child support is to pay for their housing, food, and clothing. And sometimes, on top of child support, you have to split child expenses. So uncovered health care, extracurricular activities, educational expenses. These expenses are on top of child support many times. Meaning on top, meaning that the state will legislate that, will mandate that as well? On top of the child support.
Because the child support is only covering these three areas, so you still got to contribute 50%, let's say, on top of that for the expenses of the child as well. Those other expenses are typically split? Those are typically split. Those are going to typically split. But child support might be, let's say, a grand, two grand for child support. And there's no way for you to monitor how that money is being used. So it's very difficult to see, is this really being used for the kids or not? Is it too much or too less? But I think the real problem is alimony. So you're able to negotiate that. So the man, upon divorce, he has the liberty to negotiate allocating more funds for child support versus alimony? If the other side's open to it, yes. If the other side's open to it. If they're going to leave it up to the judge, the judge wouldn't do that. He would not do that. No. He's just going to apply the formula. This is alimony. This is child support. Everything's divided 50-50. In Illinois, actually, it's equitable. So it could be more than 50-50. One party can get 70% of the estate or 80% of the state. Texas is community, so it's usually always 50-50. But in equitable states, it could be more than 50-50. And you're not going to know how that money is being spent. But just have the intention, this is for my child. Just let it be. Just let it be. Alimony, I would feel a pinch of that. Is there anywhere they could go online to see these formulas you were mentioning, which states have which equation of alimony to where a guy could just kind of become astute to this, even the sister as well? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so each state is going to have child support calculators. And many law firms have a child support calculator on their website. That might be something you can put in your incomes and see what that spits out. And the other thing, too, is that if there's alimony awarded, typically, alimony will be taken into consideration to calculate the child support. So for example, if I have to pay somebody $3,000 for alimony, then that income is going to be considered her income
and then deducted from my income. And then we're going to calculate child support. So child support, in many cases when there's alimony, child support is actually much less than what the alimony payment is. Alimony payment usually will be much more than what the child support amount is. Because alimony is going to take care of the children as well. Well, it's not. It's supposed to. That's spousal support. That's spousal support. It's just for the wife. Yeah, it's just for the spouse. Why would it be more? Why? Because let's say, for example, in Illinois, for example, 33% of your income could go for alimony. And then on top of that, child support's bringing you close to that 50% of your paycheck going to your ex. So the percentage of alimony is 33%. But let's say the child support for one is 21%. Oh, wow. Yeah. In Illinois. Yeah. That's just one child. It could be one child, yeah. But if it's two. Oh, yeah. 24% or whatever. I mean, the formula's a little different now, but yeah. It's probably an easier pill to swallow when you're paying more child support. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Because it's like, that's my child. Yeah. Yeah. The psychological aspect of just having that negotiation is usually a win for my client. Well, Jazakum Allah khairan. May Allah SWT bless both of you. I think it was heavily informative. I think all of you should take notes on this. As we do, we try to look at the comments and respond to the comments in an adequate fashion. Please leave the comments. As I mentioned before, brothers, particularly brothers, mashallah, we are not able to cover all of the aspects that deal with the legal ramifications or the legal legalities of divorce, as well as the psychological effects and ramifications of divorce. But we just wanted to touch on some milestones to kind of give you a mabdat, to kind of give you to spark conversation. Hopefully some of you that are looking to get married,
you know, you current MSA guys or girls, you know, invite these brothers, mashallah. You go to, you know, you look up, mashallah, Brother Naveed online, Brother Usman online, mashallah. You look at these resources that are there because they're doing this, inshallah, to worship Allah by helping you in the different realms due to society, what is happening now. Getting a lawyer is very, very important. Having a therapist is very, very important. Having premarital counseling is very, very important. So alhamdulillah, I think this is a huge, huge, huge aspect in regards to a man that is currently going through a divorce and he's alone. Reach out, man. Reach out to some of your brothers there. One may not respond. Reach out to another one. It's easy for me to say, but that struggle that you're doing, Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala is not unaware of it, and he knows that you're doing it to be the best version of yourself, which is embodying male excellence for his sake. So may Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala bless you all, inshallah. Naveed Hussain with Nikah Masterclass, right? Nikah Masterclass, you can go up online. Mashallah, we have Brother Mahad here with Sohbah. You can look them up, premarital counseling. We have Brother Faizan in the studio as well with Salaam, Salaam, what is it? Simply Sukoon. And alhamdulillah, we have Brother Usman Mughni with PeacefulYou.com, .org, .org. Mashallah, it's a miracle, Allah. May Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala bless you all and make you of those that embody masculine excellence in this life to be protected by him, inshallah, and loved by him in the next life. Jazakumullah khairan. Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
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