Back to Dont Fall in Love
Part 03
Dont Fall in Love
One Foot Out | The Marriage Series
What happens when we enter marriage already keeping an exit in mind? Read more to know further on half-hearted commitment, the lost art of marital repair, and why growing in love requires putting your full weight into the home you have chosen.
Don't Fall in Love. Grow in Love.
Part Three:
One Foot Out
"If it doesn’t work, I’ll leave." "I’m done." "There must be someone better out there."
Some of these sentences are spoken aloud in the heat of an argument; many more are never spoken at all, and sit quietly in the mind on an ordinary evening, behind a perfectly pleasant face. It is worth asking what stands behind them, because in my experience the sentence is rarely the beginning of the problem. The beginning is much earlier, when a person entered the marriage with one foot already out of the door.
This is a failure in its own right, and it deserves to be named plainly. It is not the same thing as a difficult marriage; plenty of difficult marriages are held by people who have no intention of leaving, and plenty of comfortable ones are held by people who always keep the exit in view. It is a posture and a quiet reservation that says: "I will give this my effort for as long as it is easy." And Much of it comes from forgetting what we entered...
We said at the outset of this series that marriage is a sign from the signs of Allah, and a solemn covenant made lawful by His word. Hold that weight in mind, and a hard season looks like one thing: a test of something Allah Himself has called His. Lose it, and the same season looks like something else entirely, a verdict on the arrangement. When marriage is a lifestyle choice, every difficulty is a reason to review the choice.
To this we have added something no earlier generation faced: an exit that has never looked easier or more attractive. Attention is available without effort, a stranger’s polished life is a thumb’s movement away, and so the imagined better match is always just beyond the current one.
Nobody’s imagined spouse ever falls sick, grows tired, or fails to understand. A real spouse does all three, and set against a fantasy, a real person will struggle to compete. An admirer meets your best self; but a spouse meets all of you, and stays.
Here is what the posture costs, and it is not what most people expect. It rarely produces a dramatic ending. It produces something more subtle: a marriage in which nobody repairs anything. Why would they? Repair is work, and work is for a home you intend to live in.
From the perspective of a system; an open escape route removes any reason to build a way of correcting itself, so every friction is routed to the exit instead of to repair, and, year by year, two people who once chose one another simply grind apart. Nothing is broken in a single blow. Everything is simply left unrepaired.
Consider what Allah teaches us instead:
“Live with them in kindness. For if you dislike them, perhaps you dislike a thing in which Allah has placed much good”
(Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 4:19).
Notice what is not said. Allah does not promise that you will never dislike; He confirms that you may. What He teaches us though is that dislike is not a verdict.
The Prophet ﷺ said something of the same wisdom:
“A believing man should not hate a believing woman; if he dislikes one of her traits, he will be pleased with another”
(Muslim).
The words address the husband, and the wisdom serves every spouse.
Necessary Disclaimer...
That said, it is imperative to note that none of this makes marriage a prison, and I would be failing you if I left you with that impression, as the same revelation that commands kindness also provides for release with grace (see Surah Baqarah, verse:229).
And regarding the question of compatibility, the preponderant view in Islamic jurisprudence is that it is a condition for the marriage to continue, not for it to be valid. Meaning: if a spouse concludes that real incompatibility exists, they are not sinful for seeking to leave, and it is a valid excuse. And where there is abuse, I will say it as plainly as I can: this is not an instruction to stay. Safety comes first, and ṣabr is patience in pursuit of a lawful and sustainable good, never the endurance of harm. And Allah Almighty knows best.
The distinction I am drawing, then, is between an exit held in reserve for genuine harm or irreconcilable difference, after honest effort, and an exit held in the heart from the first week. The first is a mercy from Allah. The second is an input failure, hiddenly seeded, which turns every difficulty into an audition for departure.
The question to ask yourself is not whether you could leave; as almost anyone could. It is whether you have put your full weight on this home, or whether part of you is still standing in the doorway. Growing in love begins with closing that door in the heart, so that when friction comes, as it will, the only direction left is towards repair. And how we repair, or fail to, depends on what comes out of our mouths when we are hurt, which is where we turn next.
Action points for this week:
-
For one week, listen for the exit sentence in your words and thoughts (“I’m done”, “if this doesn’t work”, “I could just leave”). Do not punish yourself; simply notice when it rises, and what was happening just before.
-
Write down three things you dislike in your spouse, and beside each, one thing Allah has placed in them that you value. Then thank Allah for the second list.
-
Choose one unresolved friction and take one step towards repairing it this week: a calm conversation, an apology, or a request you have been too proud to make.
Important note: If you are not safe in your marriage, none of these is your first step. Your safety is; speak to someone you trust, or to a qualified professional.
Your brother
Sajid Umar
Location: 'somewhere en route to the hereafter'
03/06/1448 (AH) - 13/10/2026
Sajid Umar
Location: 'somewhere en route to the hereafter'
03/06/1448 (AH) - 13/10/2026
Previous
Are We Raising Marriage Material?
Next
This is the latest part
Comments
2