When We Discovered Each Other Anew

1. The Silence That Expanded Between Us

Once upon a time we finished each other's sentences. Now we finished each other's tasks — not always lovingly, but in the way survival required. Work schedules, kids' homework, bills and a thousand little disappointments had built a wall Aisha and I never saw until one evening when we were sitting in the same room and felt like strangers.

There was no drama. There was no anger. There was stagnation. I had come home talking deadline and numbers; she had come home talking school lunches and the neighbour's issue. Our conversation had become logistics, not souls.

I remember the one night I found her awake in bed at 2 a.m. reading a pamphlet on mercy. Her face looked older, softer; it seemed she had been carrying grief for both of us. I sat beside her and for the first time in months asked the simplest honest question: "Do you miss us?"

She looked at me and said, "I miss the us that listened."

That hit harder than any fight could.

2. Pride and Minor Injuries

Both of us were guilty of some little brutalities: an open-handed remark, the fretting “you'll understand later,” the theatrical sigh. Each act alone might be manageable, but together they were a cumulative fail.

I, a prideful person, rationalized my non-apology as a maintenance of dignity. Aisha, my more tender-hearted partner, was looking for leads: a gentle touch, or when I would offer "I'm sorry" without being forced. We regarded our silences as contempt or carelessness instead of hurt.

In the Islamic tradition, marriage is spoken of as comfort and mutual clothing — to cover the other's mistakes with compassion (Qur'an 2:187/a related idea). We had made the clothing into an impermeable wall.

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3. The Session that Changed the Mood

On one occasion, Aisha went to visit her aunt. She returned home with a folded paper, and a plan: we will sit with phones put away for one hour in the living room and talk — not about the laundry — about one small thing in our lives that week that moved us. No convincing. No rebuttals. Just knitting.

4. Repentance and the Little "I'm Sorry"

Islam encourages returning- taking the humble initiative to turn back to Allah and to each other indeed. It is something we started to practice at home. Every time I noticed one of us being careless with words, I simply stated: "I'm sorry." Not to find out who had the right or wrong to argue about. But to heal the bond.

Those three words, spoken defensively, changed the rhythm of our home. They taught us how to catch ourself before a casual comment turned into resentment. Instead of strife, our children now began to see tenderness.

We also introduced a nightly dua. Each night before bed, we held hands for a few moments together and asked Allah to make our home a place of mercy. There is something powerful about sincerity in our intentions with small acts we do repetitively.

At first I felt resistance - an hour felt extravagant. But then came Sunday, and we were both sitting in our chairs with two mugs of tea and suddenly a small and unexpected thing happened. She told me about a neighbor who had been gentle with her in a small and almost forgotten way, and I told her about a coworker I had seen struggle only to smile at a small mercy. We laughed and we cried, we began to remember each other's interior lives. That was not an easy hour; our weekly ritual was not a magic wand, but it did become a portal. After enough weeks, the walls began to soften.

5. Relearning Each Other

We came to recognize that we had been living parallel lives, present physically but absent emotionally. Relearning meant asking simple questions that we had stopped asking, like "What made you smile today?" "What worried you?" "Where do you feel tired?" Sometimes Aisha's worry involved a grocery list, sometimes mind was about a life long fear of failure as a provider. Both were significant.

We stopped assuming. We started to invite. When she spoke, I listened. When I spoke, she listened. Together we were not fixing everything all at once, but we were learning the art of presence.

6. The test that followed.

It wasn't long before life tested our delicate peace. The company announced layoffs and my position was eliminated. Old fears stirred. I could have shrunk back, retreated to silence, and let the wall emerge again. But now we had practice.

Aisha took hands in her hands and said, "Let whatever happens, happen. We face this together." She had spent an entire afternoon calling contacts, asking about part time options, and coordinating the kids schedule so I could have time for interviews.

I felt humbled. Aisha's dua in the quiet hours, and her circumstantial courage in the daylight, were two kinds of worship I had once dismissed as little. Together they were saving us.