Areas › Your marriage › Shared spiritual life
Talk with your spouse about what your roles at home mean to each of you, not just who does what.
Not a chore chart. What providing, nurturing, or protecting means to you underneath.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Guard yourselves and your families (Qur'an 66:6). The roles at home carry a trust; naming their meaning honours it.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ قُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَأَهۡلِيكُمۡ نَارࣰ ا وَقُودُهَا ٱلنَّاسُ وَٱلۡحِجَارَةُ عَلَيۡهَا مَلَٰٓئِكَةٌ غِلَاظࣱ شِدَادࣱ لَّا يَعۡصُونَ ٱللَّهَ مَآ أَمَرَهُمۡ وَيَفۡعَلُونَ مَا يُؤۡمَرُونَ
Believers, guard yourselves and your families against a Fire fuelled by people and stones, over which stand angels, stern and strong; angels who never disobey God’s commands to them, but do as they are ordered
Qur’an 66:6read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
When a couple understands the meaning each attaches to their roles, the daily labour stops being a negotiation and becomes a shared project.
John Mordechai Gottman; Nan Silver (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work
Lay presentation of the Gottman Method: Love Maps, fondness and admiration, turning toward, accepting influence, solvable vs perpetual problems, shared meaning.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Shared meaning around roles turns duties into a jointly held purpose.
Where this sits: Gottman method, Create Shared Meaning.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.