Why We Fail in Relationship With Our Dear Ones?

There is a Hadith of our Prophet peace be upon him which means “The best among you is the one who is good to his family at home”. But  it is becoming difficult to have good parental relationship. Even for a good person, it is becoming difficult to be good at home in the present society.  A lady who is liked by everyone outside except her husband and her children. Similarly a gentleman who is liked by everyone except his wife and his children. How strange?

A person who cannot get a character certificate from his wife, this person still needs to do a lot. Similarly, a lady who is unable to please and be praised by her husband and the whole world is happy with her, she still has a lot to do. We should understand that social excellence is secondary importance and first is the family excellence. There is only one person in the whole of universe on whom you have full control and that person is you yourself. However, we need to work on ourselves. This is the whole issue.

Relationship is very important. Particularly relationship between husband and wife. If someone does not have a strong relationship with his spouse, he or she will always be in problems. The ideal situation is that if you are asked who your best friend is, you should be able to reply it is my spouse, my life partner. Right now the problem is that the life partner is not a part of an individual’s life. But he is only a partner in property or a room partner. And we think that the partner in property or a room  is the partner of life.

Actually the life partner is the one who has importance in your life. My life and his life is becoming one. If we say that I have my own life and you have your own. I will not interfere in your life and you do not interfere in mine. This is not the attitude of life partners. There should be a strong bonding between husband and wife and also with the children. Why we are unable to create strong relationships. At least with the person whom we like very much. In our society strong relationships do not develop due to two main reasons.

The first reason is work. The work is becoming more important than the human beings. We started giving importance to the work, not to the human beings. For example, a women says that for me giving time to the kitchen is more important than giving time to my husband. Do you understand? Work is a lot and its importance has increased, whereas the importance of humans has decreased. We are occupied all the time with extra activities. Every person is doing something all the time and because of that activity he is ignoring the human beings.

Sometimes we are doing some very good work. For example a person says that I do not have time for my family because every day I have to attend a Quran class and then I have to conduct a Quran class. And then I have to go to those people who are not doing such activities in order to persuade them. So we can imagine that this person who attends Quran class and also conducts a Quran class then after that he goes to those people who are not involved in such activities to persuade them. But in doing all this, he cannot find time for his life partner. This deal is unprofitable. Similarly, many people have been concerned about the Ummah. But they forgot that the people in their homes are also part of Ummah. This creates many problems, meaning that even a useful activity if it has become more important than human beings, which is wrong.

Nowadays men are involved in too many activities. Even they bring office work to home. It looks like after 8.00 o clock the home has acquired office status. First he was at the office and now the home is the office. And it happens. Work and only work. Some people if they are allowed will work even on Sundays. Specially those who have their own businesses, their work never finishes. All the time they are thinking about their business. They are worried about their work. So as a result the quality of the relationship is suffering. When they see their wives, suddenly they remember their job. And if the wife sees her husband suddenly she remembers chapati which she has to prepare. We should have moments for personal reflection and also have time for others. Nowadays people don’t visit others just for the  sake of seeing them. Long ago our grandfathers and grandmothers used to do it. So the activities are becoming an obstacle in the way of relationships and we must understand this.

Just imagine, if a lady is praying. Meaning she is in state of meeting with Allah. This is the most important of all your obligations. She is busy performing her most important duty and suddenly she hears the child crying. She realizes the child is in some pain and has a problem. Now shall she continue her prayer or make it short and immediately attend to the child. What do you think? She should attend to the child. Our religion guides us that offering prayer is obligation, but if our child in some pain or has a problem, we have to make our prayer short and immediately attend to the child. Now imagine that you are standing in front of Allah and you are offering prayer and in a state of meeting with Allah and the child cries and you are told and given permission to pick the crying child, hold him tight to your heart and continue the prayer if this is possible. So what does it tell us? Is human being important or unimportant? Sure they are very important.

The second reason is materialism which has affected our relationships. The material things have become very important. For instance, if you cannot buy a mobile for your child, it might be considered that you do not love. The child might reply “My friend’s mother loves her daughter too much as she buy mobile for her but you do not love me. And because you did not get me a smart phone that means you do not love me. If you got me a simple phone that means you love me only a little bit.” Similarly, the wife thinks that if the husband loves her then he should buy something for her. What type of husband he is who does not buy anything for me? The husband says that only last month he bought her something. The wife replies okay, it means you loved me last month. But how can I know that today, right now at this moment you still love me the same way you loved me last month. That means that today also you have to spend on me. So when you think that the material things will create relationships. The relationship which is created because of material things, that is not relationship.

You buy things for your children. So they develops relationship with things and not with you. You think that the relationship has developed with you. Because, let me ask you if you know how to please them without material things? The answer is, in today’s world nobody knows any such formula. By spending time with him or hearing him out or being together with him for sometime or telling him a story or solving any of his problems or engaging him in conversation, this approach is important no more. Rather too much materialism has entered our lives.

There are many people for whom the most important thing in their life is their car or their mobile phone. For them the body of the car should be shining. If the car only gets slightly scratched, not even a dent, which can give them a heart attack… God forbid. They do not want to see even a slight scratch. They want to see their car scratch less. It is a big problem. Why we have become so? It is because of the education we got. This needs to be corrected.