Despite Marrying the Wrong Person, Your Divorce is not a Failure

If you a Muslim woman who went through a divorce, you may feel that you have  made a mistake by marrying the “wrong person”. Trust me that it is natural for a woman to feel that way because when your marriage ends, believing you married the wrong person is the only way to make sense of your choices. Oftentimes, the feelings are followed by a set of questions.

Why should I go through this after all the efforts I’ve made? 

I’ve done what I was supposed to, I’ve followed the script, and I trust Allah, but why do things still go wrong? 

Why did I fail to make this marriage work? 

And how did I lose myself in the process?

A divine purpose behind your divorce

However, as a divorced Muslimah, you can see your decision to end your marriage either as a failure OR a destined path—with a divine purpose behind it. Especially if you sought Allah’s guidance through istikhaara prayers (prayers to seek counsel from Allah) when you decided to marry a man from whom you have divorced.

In Islam, you as a divorced woman can see divorce as a failure only if:

1. The divorce takes you farther away from Allah because you choose to dive deeper into despair and hopelessness. You have to remember that your opinion of yourself is reflective of your opinion of Allah. So, suppose you see yourself as failures and think that your bad experiences are completely bad for you. In that case, you unconsciously believe that Allah does bad things to you. At that point, you will detach yourself from Allah.
2. You don’t learn, grow, and evolve from the experience. If you are still the same person—you don’t take lessons from your divorce experience.

How divorce is part of Allah's plan

However, a divorce is NOT a failure if:

1. It is bringing you closer to Allah. You have a more intimate relationship with Allah as you elevate in your state of Taqwa, Tawakkul, patience, steadfastness, and resilience.
2. You grow spiritually and emotionally in conscious awareness. You learn from the past to be a better version of yourself now.

The question is, how can you do that? How can you accept the reality that your marriage ends and it is a part of your journey?

Let’s etch this hadith in our heart and mind as a reminder that Allah will surely guide you to go through it all. This hadith can help you to make sense of navigating through “bad experiences”.

“Wondrous is the affair of the believer for there is good for him in every matter and this is not the case with anyone except the believer. If he is happy, then he thanks Allah and thus there is good for him, and if he is harmed, then he shows patience and thus there is good for him” (Sahih Muslim 2999).

Upon realizing that divorce is not merely a failure, any divorced Muslim woman must take the next step. We are going to deepen our discussion in the next article.

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Seeking that supportive community while you are navigating your divorce? Join my group To Divorce or Not To on Facebook where I frequently answer your questions, anonymous or directly.