Sitting too close with cousins

[Paheli00]

Re: Sitting too close with cousins

@Laiha

Recently at a family event, she saw her husband sitting “too close” (by her definition*) to a female cousin of his.
Long story short, my friend was pretty upset but her husband thinks she is overreacting and should have complete trust in him.

@Laiha

Also,** he is like that with all female cousins, not just this one and it bugs my friend every time.**

So does your friend get upset every-single-time her husband acts like this with ANY of his female cousins and brings it up?

In my family there are NO cousin marriages. We are taught from birth to treat/view our cousins as a brother/sister. Even now as adults, it is not unusual for a male cousin to sit next to a female cousin (obviously the two bodies aren’t tightly pressed against one another or anything…just two adults sitting next to each other on a couch). It’s also not unusual for us to greet each other by a quick hug and put our arms around one another during family events while taking a picture.

If this guy was hanging out with the cousin and doing these things alone then I can see her issue. But he’s sitting next to his cousin, and putting his arms around her to take a picture while surrounded by other family members…including his wife.

What exactly about this makes your friend uncomfortable? Is it religious reasons? You wrote that her family is more liberal than his family in other aspects so I’m assuming her family does plenty of things that are not 100% Islam approved either. Does she think her husband is really going to do anything sexual with ANY of his cousins?