Mo3, Eclairs, Mysti, words cant express the sadness I felt whilst reading your experiences ... thank you for sharing such sensitive memories from your lives , you ladies are surely extremely brave to have come out of the situations so grave .
For those of you who are settled mashallah, I wish you a very happy life ahead and those who are yet struggling to come to terms with life, I hope Allah mian brings his most chosen blessings your way ..
i think one can avoid divorce even before getting married.avoid getting married to a wrong family.u r not just getting married to a guy/girl.u r getting married to the whole family.so if they are complete strangers then I-N-V-E-S-T-I-G-A-T-E about them.about him,abt his family,his siblings and his extended family. and secondly,man can avoid divorce by lo0king at the fact that he is not marrying a girl who has to take care of his family or his siblings.he is wholely solely responsible for taking care of them.its not her duty.if shes taking care of his family then its just because of her husn-e-ikhlaq and one shud be grateful to her.so divorce shudnt be given on this statement that she never cared abt my family.anyway.divorce can be avoided in so many ways.but wen nuthing works "Divorce" is the final deed and it is as bad as it sounds. =)
Eclairs , you said a very important thing and I totally agree , if divorce is on the rise , perhaps its because we need to learn new ways to see through the man's family and investigate them irrespective of how honourable or honest they seem.
In many cases I feel the focus of the girl's family is on the boy's earnings and the family's status whilst finalizing a rishta .. everything else is automatically taken at face value (like believing what ever the boy's family tells the girls family and viceversa)
bringing back a marriage thats on the rocks due to issues between 2 people on a level of miscommunication or misunderstandings might be resolvable - but something that involves abuse, or cheating of ANY kind doesnt really deserve a second chance - jo banda eik baar aisa kar sakta hai woh baar baar aisa kar sakta hai -
Mystical , you are absolutely right , this is one of the grave mistakes that men and inlaws make .. they think their bahu is vulnerable , and will carry on taking the abuse being sent her way. In my opinion such individuals should be reported to the police immediately and I am extremely glad you did just that.
I feel sorry for those mothers who raise such idiotic, coward sons who have the audacity to raise thier hands on women ... such absolute losers they are and so are their parents for not realizing their child's upbringing intime.
But I do know some people who went through painfull divorces. Both males and females. In some cases they both made mistakes, in other cases it was either the male (and sometimes his parents and sibling(s) too) who was at fault and there were cases when it was the fault of the female. In a marriage both male and female have to give up something, you can't have everything your way. You have to listen to each other, try to understand each other, sometimes you have to be silent about certain small misunderstandings, issues, unless the inlaws really go too far with insults of course, you have to draw the line somewhere.
NB, you have highlighted it very very beautifully the points that lead to a successfull marriage. I hope more people out there can realize the importance of this institution, Allah blessed us with this beautiful concept of Marriage to make our lives smoother and to keep us civilized and sane ... however unfortunately there are many amongst us who make it exactly the opposite experience for their spouses through their mentality and actions.