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How to Resolve Trust Issues in a Relationship
You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.
How to Resolve Trust Issues in a Relationship
Without trust you have nothing. With it you can do great things. Today’s breakthrough ideas are around spouses dealing with trust issues, suspected cheating spouse or a confirmed cheating spouse, How to process this strategies and how to move on. We will also look into who gets to define sexual morality for us. What does it have to with spirituality and various levels bad destructive behavior can be intercepted.
Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salam wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, and welcome to our episode #22
So, when we think about trust issues in a relationship, it can follow into various categories. Number one is that there is a doubt, a fear from one of the spouse. In that situation what I would typically recommend is to take a look at the root cause. What is it, right? Is this something related the insecurity of one of the spouses, has there been a sudden signs? Or just is affair because people have heard from their own friends, now the people around them of such cases, have they been listening to someone from their friend circle who has been putting into those doubts and those fears? Or is it because of the past experience? What is it, right? What is the root cause?
After that, I will probably recommend an honest conversation. We talked about this in episode 5, when we were talking about timing, and we were talking about checking, right? So we were discussing about various forms of checking that you can check it with your spouse, first to identify what is it that be right, and what is that their missing, right? We talked about languages of appreciation in our last episode as well. So things like, you know, respect, feeling love, feeling important in our significant, growth in relationship, happiness, and caring for each other, emotional needs and physical needs as well, right?
So, have a check around that, and then see what is important for each spouse, and how their feelings. Sometimes they can describe on a scale of 1-10, for example, and if it is relatively lower numbers and is important for them, than is important to figure out what is that is missing, right? So sometimes, one of the spouses may have higher expectations regarding to emotion needs, or one spouse may have higher expectations regarding the physical needs, right? And the other one may not be doing that, and that could be due to various reasons. That could be because their physical needs are not being met, or their emotional needs are not being met, they are too busy, they are stress out. So just having the conversation first to understand what is their need? And to than understand what is stopping the other person will really go a long way.
So once you understand that, it is very important to not think that why the other person have this need. People are different, and it is part of the companionship, and is part of being a spouse, you know there are certain of things to their expected, to be giving in that relationship, right? So once you know those things, and once you understand where your spouse is coming from, and then you can think about how you can remove the obstacle in your own life, right? It could be reduce some workloads, reducing stress, sometimes you maybe stressing out of other things, such as work and business, and career, and so on and so forth. And then you are saying that I am doing this for my family, so we can have a great vacation, or we can do this, we can buy this, right? And I can have more time in the future. But what is that for? If your current career, current job, your current activities, your current volunteer projects, and your community are stopping you from having a healthy relationship at home, then what is it for, right? Your priority is wrong; maybe you need to either outsource some of your activities, some of your projects, some of your tasks, or maybe you need to cut down some of your commitments.
Once you understand that, it is very important, I mean, I think I will repeat that to understand and to appreciate the needs of other person. Even though that maybe that is not you need. We talked about it in the last episode, right? What you need maybe completely opposite than what’s your partner need, right? It is very important to think about that.
Now then the second thing is to think about what I can do about it, how I can improve it. At the same time, it could be that, it is nothing wrong with you, there is nothing that is shortcoming from you, it is just that, due to faith issues, due to greed, due to the natural of his spouse; he/she has a problem, Himself/herself, right? That is the different situation, right? We are trying to understand what can be done from your side, from the side of the person who is expecting their spouse to be cheating, or have seen their spouse to be cheating, or is confirm their spouse is cheating. May Allah protect us all. Similar thing can be apply from a spouse who is wife or husband is suspecting them of cheating.
Ok, so now, let me move on, basically, let’s say, you’ve talked about it, there is nothing wrong, you know everything is fine, and it just a fear that you have. What can you do at that point? Right? So firstly you have to realize, look, you know we are influenced by other people, we are influenced by friends, influenced by what we read. So you may want to check what kind of content you are consuming, right?
Next thing is to think about what is your expectation from Allah. And you believe in Qadr, right? To always remind, look, there is nothing for me to doubt what I am doubting, right? There is no sign for that. I am just afraid of it might happen because of past experience, and so on and so forth, right?
So remember, firstly, no harm, no emotional harm, no physical harm, no discomfort can come to you, can approach you, can afflict you, except, it has to be a approved by Allah (subhana wata Allah) , right? And what is your expectation about Allah (subhana wata Allah). Is He going to choose good for you or is He going to choose bad for you? If you think Allah is going to choose evil for you, where is that coming from? Why you have that evil expectation from Allah (subhana wata Allah), right? And we’ve talked about this in various episode in what you expect from Allah (subhana wata Allah), right? And then remember, if it has to come to you, it will come, right? So why are you imaging this every day and living the same thing every day while it has not even happened to you, right? Isn’t that also sort of being ungrateful to Allah (subhana wata Allah) that you are not contemplating and reflecting on all the good things that He has given you? And you are thinking of something that may happen to you, right? So is something to think about it, why you could not focus on positive things in your life.
Next point here is act of investigation, right? Allah( subhana wata Allah) prohibit us from, you know, the justice, from spying, from investigating, from unnecessary just trying to figure out, from just always to chase, always figure out where my husband is, where my wife is, and so on and so forth, right? To the point that you know, when prophet (Sallahu Alaykum wa Salam) and his companions would come in, they would inform their family that they are coming, right? In part of that is not just like to show up, you know, and surprise their family, right? So something to think about, are you over investigating? Are you trying to find things that you don’t need to find? Are you trying to find something that is hurting you, right?
And finally, who are your advisors, right? So when you think about this thing, when you have fear, who will you talk to , do you talk to the people who remind you of good thing from Allah( subhana wata Allah), who would remind you to put trust to Allah( subhana wata Allah). Or are you talking to people who have experience this from their spouse, right? When you hear stories from them, maybe there is affecting you. So again, back to what kind of context you are feeding yourself. And this is something also applicable to another situation, in which, you know, some of the friends be likes: oh my God, your husband does this to you! How can you listen to this? How can you provide this much support to your husband, he should do this, and so on and so forth. And vice versa, right? Same things apply for brother as well.
And those people are not really aware of this situation. They don’t know what your spouse is doing for you. They are just like measuring, or checking on your situation from their own angle, right? that could be totally different, right, they may advise you that, oh, this relation is never going to work out, you know, this is tortures, this is oppression, this is abuse, right, and they are speaking from their own way, right? So do you have trusted advisor who know what they are talking about. And remember, any decision that you make should be own decision, right? you should not be just doing something because of your friend said, oh you should do this, you should not respond to this, you should not give this to your husband, you should not give this to your wife, you know, your wife doesn’t have right for this, your husband doesn’t have right for this, right? And they are talking about from their own cultural, their own families, whereas marriage and right, the spouse are very dependent on cultural, on how and where you both come from, how you both do, and what is it you guys expect from each other, right? And what is expected of one person, what is the ability one person can be totally different from the other. And beyond to see what we are able to do and what we are capable of doing, right?
Now, same thing is the, you know, if the demand of one of the spouse is higher than what the other person is able to do, right, then you know, you could think about, what are some of other alternative ways of fulfilling those desires, right, Which are permissible in the Sharia of Islamic, for the greater good, and so on and so forth.
Anyway, so next come to the point that this is not a fear, this is not a doubt, this not a concern, but it has actually happened. And you know the person, your spouse, has confirmed interest in other person, or has confirmed the actual intimacy with somebody else outside of marriage, right? Now this is something that is big trauma, is a big emotional set back. Right? So how do we deal with that? Now, if it has been done in the way of permissible in the deen of Allah, in the way of Allah, right? then is a different way to deal with it. And if it is not permissible in the deen of Allah (subhana wata Allah), then is a different way to deal with it.
Now we are talking about, like, who gets to define all this ethic? Who gets to define this sexual morality, in a bit, we will talk about our spirituality section. But let’s think about it right now.
First, think about it, it is say; it is a painful thing that is happened to you, ok? Now, as we talked about it earlier, look, if it was in your hand, if you were in charge, if you were running this school, if you were running the show, you would have had prevented it, right? Ok. But who is really in charge here? Allah (subhana wata Allah) is the real in charge here, right? And He allowed that to happen to you. Ok. Now would you expect Allah to do something evil to you, to do something bad to you, or you expect Allah to do something that has a greater good, right?
Now this is where your trust in Allah comes from, right? So imaging you are going somewhere with your friend, ok? And, you know, she takes a turn that is totally opposite to the direction that you thought you guys will be traveling, right? I mean, you’ve always gone to that places, and that restaurant and place, and she just took a total turn, right? If you trust that person, and she says, you know what, don’t worry about it, just trust me, right? Would you trust her, right? So depend on what you think her abilities are, you think that she is a smart person, she know what she is doing, and you are trusting her, right? Verses, if you think that, you know, the person is weak, you know, she make some not so great decisions at the moment, you probably you wouldn’t trust her, right? But what is it, you know Allah (subhana wata Allah) has highest example, what do you expect from Allah (subhana wata Allah), right? Why do we give it a wrong means? Yes, it’s painful, I am not denying it. Why do they give it the wrong meaning, right? So we are all encouraged to, for example, Surah Kafh right? And we have these three stories in which things happened like the ship, the incident of a boy being killed, and you know, the wall of the orphan, and in the short form, in the short term, the short vision, it looks like it is a very painful things that has happened. But there is a greater good, right? So what is our expectation from Allah (subhana wata Allah).
Now, second thing, is that Allah ( subhana wata Allah) says in His Kitab: (Quran,24:21)
“O you who believe! (Do) not follow (the) footsteps (of) the Shaitaan, and whoever follows (the) footsteps (of) the Shaitaan then indeed, he enjoy immorality and wrongdoing.”
So Allah has clearly instructing us not to following the steps of Shaitaan. And the Shaitaan, Allah has declared that he is the one who is going to be enjoying immorality and wrongdoing.
Ok, the next step, the next information, and the next part of verses is very important. Allah ( subhana wata Allah) says, “look, if not (for the) favor of Allah upon you and His Mercy not one of you (would) have been pure ever, but Allah purifies whom He wills. And Allah (is) Hearing, and knowing.”
Subhanallah!
So, think about it, why is that important? Go ahead and pause the audio. Let’s see if you can reflect the point that I am trying to make here.
So, I hope you got it. But think about this, look, had Allah will, situation could have been reversed, right? You could be the one who would have cheated and your spouse could be the one who has found you to be cheated, right? So think about it, that Allah protected you, and you are the one who are on the receiving end, right? So, you are the one who are receiving this painful calamity, your spouse, you know, cheat it. Verse is, if you would have done that, how bad would that be, right? Look, this is only from the fear of Allah (subhana wata Allah) that it is not the way it is, right? Otherwise, the situation could have been reversed.
The Second thing, Allah (subhana wata Allah) says in His book, (Quran, 24:22)
And look, this could also, you know, applicable to certain situation which a parent has finds out that their child did something outside their marriage. Right, Allah does say that, look, you know:
“Let them pardon and overlook”
And look what Allah (subhana wata Allah) says that, “Would you not like that Allah should forgive you? And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful”. So, think about it, how many rights of Allah do we violate? How are we with our Salah, with our prayer, with our obligations? How many of them do we violate? Left right and center(15:51), right? Don’t we want Allah to forgive us? So Allah is teaching us, and telling us to be forgiving as well.
Next thing to think about is what meaning will you give it, right? Is it something that you is going to reduce your own self-esteem, or your own self-confidence, right? As we talk about earlier, I mean, this may has nothing to do with you; it may be just the greed, desire, and desire from your own spouse. So it’s not something to be ashamed of in a sense that it’s not means that you are incapable, there’s something wrong with you, you fall short on commitment, and you fall short on your own will. I mean there maybe something that may have, you know, you will have to do with it.
And so, we have talked about this earlier, to have this regular checking, and so on and so forth. But in many cases, also the case is just the case, just the issue with the other spouse, and he or she basically is falling into their own desire and greed, and how to process this emotional trauma? We talk about it in episode 16; we talked about details step by step, ways of how you can understand the multi-layers, you know complex emotional experience.
Ok, now everything has been, you know, out there, now everybody knows what happened, like, hopeful within the family, and so on and so forth, right? So, something to think about is, what do we do next? Right? First, we try to understand is what is the root cause? Was that like a slip? Was it just like a one time thing? Just happened? You know, and the person is really really remorseful, and he has basically committed to true repentance, right? Are there signs for that, right? Was it because of some sort of issue between you and the spouse, right? is there something that can be fixed in the future? Or this is just the beginning, or this is just one of the various instances? Do you think it would not happen in the future? Is their sincere repentance? Are you still able to forgive them, right? I mean, are you physically, emotionally able to look forward and just move on? Are you able to do that? And so on and so forth. There are other ways to do it as well, just take some time off, the Islamic act of divorce is something that you get that optional, basically taking time experience what it would be like to not to be together. So this is give you time to process things, you don’t have to make a hesitate decision.
Ok, now let’s move on to our section of spirituality, where we talks about our relationship with Allah (subhana wata Allah). So let’s talk about sexual morality. In today’s world, we’ve seen various standard of it, right? I means, we are seeing different campaigns going on there, to different scandals coming out, different people being accused of sexual harassment, different type of, you know, weird behaviors, strange behaviors that used to be totally unacceptable in the society, is becoming acceptable now in our sub society, right? So, who really gets to define it? What is acceptable? What are we accepting in this society, Right? Even if you remove any religious boundary, most people, for example, would not accept adultery, right? Do you see that as a very inappropriate, a very curl and injustice thing to do, right?
But then, who is it that has the right to define what sexual morality is? What is acceptable for the society? So, think about this, who really has that right? Actually as I was looking at something that, you know, is accepted all crossed the world, I even found that there is certain people who are arguing in defense on the acceptance of adultery. If we really go for live and let live, right, I mean, in that situation, it has really no boundary. So if you do take that option, if you do take definition that looks into the adultery is accepted form of sexual immorality, right? And, you know, if your spouse does that than he or she is violating the right of the spouse. So, if you take that, then think about it.
Ok, so husband or wife has a route that their partner, their spouse should not use their body in the way of that is displeasing to them, right, to have exclusive access to them. Ok, but if you accept that, then what about Allah (subhana wata Allah), the one who created all of us, what is His right? right, so, imaging how our spouse feels if his wife or her husband cheat on that, right? How would they feel? Imaging now ..for Allah is the greatest example, right? how would Allah, what I’ve been doing for Allah, what I’ve been doing against Allah when we violate this right of Allah, when we violate this religion of Allah, when we violate this boundary of Allah? Right? How low are falling? So think about that.
Allah (subhana wata Allah) says, define in Surah Mumenoon, (Quran, 23:1), “certainly, indeed, verily, definitely, the believers has succeed.”
Right! And He defines several qualities of who true believers are, right? And then one of those qualities is what Allah (subhana wata Allah) is describing, He says:
(Quran, 23:5) “And they are the ones who guard their private part.” (Quran, 23:6)
So by default it is something private, right? It’s supposed to guard it. But Allah (subhana wata Allah) says that they guard it except the ones Allah (subhana wata Allah) has made permissible, right? So the ones, for example, take in marriage, right? So, if you have committed to obligation to the right of unmarried bond in the name of Allah, then is permissible. And so on and so forth.
So Allah is the one who has the right, who has the wisdom, who has the knowledge, who has the perfection to be able to even say that, to be able to even demand that.
So now we also from the perspective of how we are looking at the book: the disease and the cure, right? By Ibn Qayuim, we already on the chapter of Zina, the illegal, the impermissible sexual activities. So now, basically, that chapter he is describing how much of the evil is, how much great this sin is, it is from one of the major sin, right? And then it is describing in his book. Now one of the thing he say is that this happens, this act of cheating, and this act of adultery, this act happen in four stages, right? He’ll define those four stages and talk about those four stages. Today we’ll define those four stages. But we only talk about the first stage.
So, he says, look, this starts with a look, right, this starts with an impermissible look which brings about thoughts, and ideas, which leads to words, which lead to deep and repeated thoughts, then desire, then will and the will becomes establish intention. Right, which finally becomes an action, when we say action, we talking about the sin, the great sin of Zina, right? So it’s talking about all these different stage, right, in a way there are these four stages of looks, thoughts, words, and then steps. Ok, and then the following that it happens, right?
So, today, we will be talking about the look. So, from the advice, from the instruction of prophet of Allah, the messenger of Allah (sallahu alayhi wa salam) is the hadith, in which is reported to have said: “oh, Ali, do not follow a glance with another, for you will be forgiving from the first, but not for the second, right, so, if you have a lustful desire on opposite gender, right, the first one is forgiven. But when you intentionally look again, that is not forgiven, right.
Now, let me just first of all talk about how so many people made fun of this, right: oh, just keep your first one longer, right? I mean, this is off topic here, but this also comes in how we mock religion, right? So it’s an instruction of prophet of Allah, the messenger of Allah (sallahu alayhi wa salam) who is talking, who is telling us on behave of Allah (subhana wata Allah), how can we mock with that, Right? I mean, do we really have to make fun of everything? This could be a very serious issue. And I see many people that do that with many other things as well, I mean sometime people are just having fun about, let’s say, you know, the android and iPhone debate, oh, Astaghfilulah, you use IPhone. Like, “Astaghfilulah” is a Dua, if you are asking Allah to forgive us, right? do you intent to say that? Or you just joking way of saying that. I mean, this is a serious thing, I mean, are you confident that Allah is happy with you mocking and taking these words lightly? I know, I know I’m going off topic, but this is the serious things to think about it.
Ok, coming back about lowering gaze. Ok, now, we are not scholars here, trying to give Fatwa, right? And we’ve talking about it in our last episode, remember? We were talking about the strategy, we talked about the dangerous of innovation, we talked about the importance of taking information and guidance from respective scholar who have the knowledge, who have credential, who have the experience, who have the trust of the Ummah, right? So, we would say like, you go back and you understand from your own scholars what is lowering the gaze mean, right? And I mean obviously there are people; you know, both extremes here, right? You know, their ways, their places, their situations, which is permissible to look, right? How much, how long, how less, it depends on the situation, the uscle is it’s forbidden. You don’t look at the mahram women, for example, right? But their situation, may allow that base on the needs, based on your own personalities, based on your own conduct and base on your fear of Allah (subhana wata Allah), so on and so forth. But again, this not for me to dictate, this not for us to make fun of each other, but it is important for us to go ahead, you know, verify that and learn it, and get it from justice scholars.
Ok, so we talk about that, right? And then, you know, he goes to explain a lot about this in his book about what is the danger of having a look, right? And it is much better, and much easier to intercept it at the first instance, which is the look. It’s much easier to be patient on preventing once from looking, then to prevent once than when that desire already devolved. When the person has high desire and he is very intense, he is very passionate, but he cannot get it, right? He does it for various reasons, and he is very hard to be patient on that, right? Likewise, if there is a situation which one is already addicted to watch inappropriate content, right? And this is something to think about that, you know, why is that happening? What emotional need is the person meeting when he or she opens and watches things that are impermissible, right? And you know, they could be varies way of dealing with that, obviously, for one is to discipline oneself, secondly you think about what is it that they are missing, what emotional needs, or what is that they are trying to fulfilling their life, right? Is it because they are feeling loneliness? It is because they are feeling a lack of purpose? So, it is much better for them to go ahead, and you know, build those constructive behavior, constructive solution to those problem as it suppose to those constructive behavior.
We talk these two things in episode 6 and 7 on how to heal from emotional trauma, and you know, how do we replace destructive behavior. So please check out those episodes as well.
And you know, again, think about it may give you some temporally pleasure, but it’s going to have a very harmful effect on your heart, on your productivities, on your psychology, on your body, so on and so forth. It’s very important to think about those things again, recap it, think about it what is and where is your fear coming from, your level of investigation, and spying on the spouse, who are your advisors, you know, if you have fear, and your suspicious without any justification, you know, think about it, think about the Gadr of Allah, your expectations from Allah (subhana wata Allah). If there is a continue having you know, weekly check in the honest communication to understand each other, if it gets confront than how would you deal with it? We talk about those steps, and then we talked about, you know, Allah (subhana wata Allah) is having the right to define sexual morality. We talked about some of the dangerous of not following the orders of Allah (subhana wata Allah), and not intercepting in the earlier stage. And we talked about some of the ways hinted in the previous episode on how to deal with those situations.
So if you found these ideas beneficial, if you found them to give some new insight, and if you found them to give good reminder, go ahead and please share with your friends, and family members, and let us know what do you think about these episode and how we can make it better, and talk about the ideas and questions that you have, or I will consult it to you.
So, until next time, Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik.
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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.
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