Last week I shared an article titled: “Should I forgive my husband?” – which was in the context of a woman who reached out to me because her husband was cheating.
A subscriber reached out – as someone who was cheated on and recovered and moved on. She said:
*****
Salaam Mamoon,
I loved this piece. May I please add, as someone who has been cheated on,
* This might not have been the first time, he probably got caught which means he’s in the habit of cheating. I love how you’ve said you don’t need to wait for the transformational change. That’s very true.
* Also, I was ready to forgive my ex husband but in hindsight this was due to me being financially dependent on him, feared being alone and embarrassed to have been cheated on. Any spouse needs to question what void they are trying to fill, by staying with a man like that.
Thanks
Iram
*****
Hidden amongst the many gems in her response, there is a solid bit of life-advice for every single and married person on the planet.
NEVER be totally financially dependant on your partner.
Instead, have what I like to think of as a “Charlies’ Angels” abundance fund.
“What’s that…?” I hear you ask…
It’s a fund for, in Beyonce’s words, “All my ladies who independent”.
That’s not to say that the husband shouldn’t pay for the “four walls” of accommodation, bills, transport and groceries – he absolutely should from an Islamic perspective. The masculine role is meant to be: protection and provision. But that just gives the woman more space to save up.
What this backup fund is really about is having absolutely zero worries or major financial concerns about walking out and getting divorced if things ever (Heaven forbid) get really bad.
You’d be surprised at how much your decision making can be clouded by ‘needing’ the other person for purely financial reasons. I’ve seen people staying in marriages WAY too long, just because they’d almost forgotten how to make ends meet on their own.
Put $20-30,000 dollar-bucks in your bank… and do you still really want to put up with all that abuse?
This doesn’t just apply to marriage. It’s equally true of working in a job you hate or having pain-in-the-neck clients who you go out of your way to over-serve only to hear them complaining, and pretty much any other life or business situation. There’s something pretty swell about having a fully-funded Charlie’s Angels ’emergency fund’ in your bank pocket that no-one else can touch.
Somehow, valuing yourself enough to keep 3-6 months of expenses available as a backup sends out a signal to the world (and your family) to value your time and presence too.
This is a sensible thing to do, logistically. And it may make life a lot easier, if you ever do have a life-changing decision to make. However, it doesn’t get to the root of the problem.
The root of the problem is…
Insecurity.
Not just financial – but psychological insecurity.
The false belief that you wouldn’t be totally okay without your partner. (Or job, or boss, or client or whatever…)
Call me a romance-killer. But you don’t actually need anyone, unless you’re in an unstable state of mind.
You could have all the money in the world, but if you’re insecure about your marriage and believe you ‘couldn’t live without’ the other person, all that money won’t help you one bit.
The only thing I know of that will absolutely get you to the place of having a totally confident, secure, loving marriage that stands the test of time, is Psychological Switch marriage coaching like this:
