SPEAKER_03 0:00

I don't want to get married right now. I don't want to have kids.

Sharif Faizullah 0:02

Getting married and having children, separate them in your mind. By age 25, one out of four single men and by age 30, one out of two single men have already said I do. Single women in their late 20s and 30s.

SPEAKER_03 0:18

They say, how come no one told me this before? What if I am 20 and I do want to get married right now?

Sharif Faizullah 0:23

You could be more ready than a 25-year-old sister if you go through this process, inshallah. Does that mean you rush to get married? Be careful. Because that would be a mistake. On the other hand, is there something called getting married too late?

SPEAKER_03 0:37

A marriage sweet spot. How do I find it?

Sharif Faizullah 0:39

And that's exactly why you need to know your marriage ready score.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

I'm ready and I'm young. Does my husband need to be young too?

Sharif Faizullah 0:45

Forget what other people say or what they want. What do you want?

SPEAKER_03 0:48

I want to go get my doctorate. I want to be working. I want to get married when I'm 32.

Sharif Faizullah 0:53

Can you get married if you're ready and then have children when you want to? But do not compromise on your education and career. There are other solutions that you might not have thought of. I want you to write your own love story. I want you to design your own life, inshallah. 20, this decade is when you will make some of the most important decisions of your life. Am I too young for marriage? I'm only 20, right? I'm too young to think about love and marriage right now. Okay? So at 20, you might be too young to get married, right? But are you too young to think about love and marriage? Are you too young to prepare for one of the most important decisions of your entire life? See, you are actually old enough to recruit a co-founder and launch a million-dollar company. And many 20-year-olds do. So you are also old enough to prepare to recruit your future partner in life. Do you guys want to hear a bitter truth that your well-intentioned friends and influencers might not tell you? Take a screenshot of this. By age 25, one out of four single men, and by age 30, one out of two single men have already said, I do. I have met so many single women in their late 20s and 30s, and they say, How come no one told me this before? And that's why I'm telling you this now. And what I just shared with you is not just my opinion, it is the reality of many single women they wish they knew this fact before. Does that mean you rush to get married? Be careful. Because that would be a mistake. Because there is such a thing called getting married too early. And we're gonna talk about top 10 reasons why Muslims divorce. Getting married too early is one of the reasons why Muslims get divorced. And almost one out of every three Muslim marriages ends up in divorce.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

You're focusing on the wrong metric. You're focusing on age instead of maturity.

Sharif Faizullah 2:59

On the other hand, is there something called getting married too late? Yes, there is. But if you want a dink marriage, then it doesn't really matter. What do I mean by dink? It's double income, no kids. If that's the style of marriage you are looking for, it doesn't really matter when you get married. That's what you want, that is fine, that is cool, you do you.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

But tell the other person.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Don't be like, oh, I can get married whenever because I don't want kids. Because you also want to give yourself self the space to rethink that decision, because maybe later on in life you realize maybe I do want kids. Everyone around me is having kids. If you're considering a no-kids marriage, give yourself the space to reconsider after getting married.

Sharif Faizullah 3:40

But but if you want to experience motherhood in the future, and then depending on how many children you want, then yes, getting married too late is something many women regret.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

I would much rather be 30 chasing around a toddler than nearing 50 and chasing around a toddler.

Sharif Faizullah 3:58

I got good news now. There is a middle path. What is that? It's called your marriage sweet spot. That means you avoid getting married too early and too late. And this is also a balance between feminism and femalism. So we all know what feminism is. We grew up with that idea, all right? So a lot of our sisters are inspired by it. There are some good, there's some bad. It's a mixed bag. What is femalism? So on the extreme side, we're like, ooh, all men are trash and this and that, you know, this gender war that is happening. That's on the extreme side of this. On the extreme side of this is family, family, family. I'm going to sacrifice everything. And you know what? I'm going to get married to this guy because my parents are forcing me to just to make them happy, right? Or there are many other decisions that we make. There is an extreme version of feminism. There is also an extreme version of femalism. Interestingly enough, Islam balances between those. It doesn't go to one extreme, right? Khadija radiallahu anha was an example of that. Think about it. She was a businesswoman. She had a lot of people working under her. She was also an amazing wife and an amazing mother. We need to get back to that balance that Islam gave us and not swallow the pills of this color and that color. There's so much debate on this topic, but I'm going to tell you this. I want you to write your own love story. I want you to design your own life, inshaAllah. 20, this decade is when you will make some of the most important decisions of your life.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

What if I am 20 and I do want to get married right now?

Sharif Faizullah 5:33

First thing I want you to do, then take the marriage ready whiz so you get your score. That will give you a quantifiable way to like, hey, how ready am I for marriage? Because people would ask the question, Am I ready for marriage? Like, I don't think that's the right question to ask. Ask, how ready am I? There is a framework we use compare, and it'll tell you, hey, C is for career, always opportunity, M is maturity. So, like for each one, you will know exactly which area you have scored the lowest. Go and tackle those, build skills on those, develop knowledge in those and awareness and all of that, inshallah. And your goal is to get to 80, 90 in that area, inshallah, then you can confidently say, you know what? Even though I'm 20, I'm ready for marriage. Because it's not about age. There is actually a comparing a is one of them. Age has to do with your health and you know, future children and all of that, but it's not about age. You could be more ready than a 25-year-old sister if you go through this process, inshallah.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Marriage sweet spot, how do I find it? How do I know that okay, this is the time frame that I want to get married in and I'm gonna be ready then?

Sharif Faizullah 6:40

There are certain numbers that are like on the red zone, okay, in the mid-teens to the late teens, they're falling in the red zone. There are some numbers that are in the green zones, so 25 and above. And beyond that, it's not green forever, it starts to go to yellow and red again. You're looking for a place that's not too early, and it's not too late here. So this is too late, right? And this is too early. And what is this range? And that's exactly why you need to know your marriage ready score, because there is no one size fit-all answer. There isn't. A lot of people try to play this game by just numbers. But what I've seen from experience is that let's say at 20, if you have a score of 80 or 90 in your marriage ready score, you are in the green zone. You are in the green zone. But let's say you are 25, which technically is in the green zone just in terms of age, but then your score is let's say 60, then I would say no, even though you're 25, you're not ready for marriage yet. Does that make sense? So that's why finding marriage sweet spot is a little bit of a math and a little bit of knowing what you want out of life, how soon, what type of marriage you want. Inshallah, in step two, we're gonna talk about this in detail step by step. And I'll actually give you the exact formula so you will know with confidence, hey, I'm here right now. This is my green zone, inshallah. These are the exact next steps that I have to do to get ready.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

I know that culturally a lot of parents or families are more comfortable with their daughters getting married a little bit earlier than they are their sons. So suppose I'm ready and I'm young, does my husband need to be young too?

Sharif Faizullah 8:15

Again, it goes back to your preference. Do you prefer your husband to be the same age as yours, you know, within a two to three years or five to seven? And then the upper limit would be nine, ten, and beyond. So, what age gap you are comfortable with, that is actually based on personal preference. I've seen successful marriages where they are of the same age. Husband is two to three years older, five to seven years older, and 10 to 12 years older, this is where I would add a little bit of a caution. Look into this a little bit more carefully. So make sure there's not like a huge gap. That decade plus gap, sometimes it ends up being like a generational gap. I've also seen others. I'm an example. I don't fall into any of these categories. My wife is two years older than me. I think we're an excellent match in terms of everything else. Was I looking for someone who's two years older than me? No. But that wasn't one of my deal breakers. That's why don't be so rigid in these numbers, be flexible. But if it's someone who's five years younger than you, then well, that depends on how old you are, right? Remember, Rasulullah was only 25 and uh Khadijahuanha was 40, 15-year gap. Nowadays, if a 25-year-old man wants to marry a 40-year-old twice-widowed woman with children, there will be a lot of people that be like, What are you doing? Are you crazy? That's why I said forget, forget what other people say or what they want. What do you want? First, figure out your preference and then look into everything else, inshallah. So don't say no to a guy just because he's slightly outside of your preference.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

We talk about in the chapter, like you're too young to get married, but what are the steps that you can be taking at 16, 17, 18 if you're interested or you're thinking about it?

Sharif Faizullah 9:52

If you're 16, 17, 18 and and you're watching this, finish this whole book and the next couple of love mistakes. You will see some of the things you need to do to take care of your heart, to go back to your childhood, to heal your wounds, make sure they're not open wounds, they're healed scars. You'll see a lot of these skills in terms of calming your nervous system, in terms of communicating without criticizing. Some of these skills you can start developing now when you're 15, 16, 17. You don't have to wait.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Sometimes girls will be like, Okay, this is the first guy that likes me. He's gonna be the only one that likes me. I'm not allowed to talk to boys. So if this one talks to me, I have to marry him. That's not true.

Sharif Faizullah 10:29

Know how to stay away from Mr. Wrong. Even at 16, 17, you see a charming guy, and instead of being tangled up in a situation ship and then putting your hearts at risk, develop these skills and then stay away from Mr. Wrong at all costs. And then, inshallah, when you get to that transition age of 20, early 20s, you'll actually be more prepared than someone who hasn't done any of these work.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

What is the earliest you think someone should be implementing these steps or like familiarizing themselves with the concepts of the book?

Sharif Faizullah 10:57

Somewhere from mid-teen to late teen, pretty much everything in this book applies. So just because we sell it's for 20 doesn't mean like a 17-year-old cannot read it, right? 18, absolutely you're 100% ready to implement the book. If you are a parent, you know, older sibling, you're like, hey, should I give it to my younger sibling? If they're 13, 14, like hold off a couple of years. But if they're like 15, 16, 17 and they're mature enough, or maybe they're struggling with this, they need help in this, absolutely give it to them.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

You mentioned dinks in the book and like having a dual income, no kid marriage. How what do you recommend for people who want to convey to other people, other family members? I don't want to get married right now. I actually don't want to have kids. I want to get married when I'm 32, maybe, or you know, I have some stuff that I want to do before them. Like, how do you recommend people tackle those conversations?

Sharif Faizullah 11:40

Getting married, let's let's put an M for that. And having children, let's put a C for that. I want you to separate those two in your mind. They are completely separate life events. The reason why a lot of Muslims get tangled up and confused in this, and they say, I want to wait until I'm 30 to get married, you know what they're thinking? So that I get married and I can have children right away. No, separate them in your mind completely. You can get married when you are ready. When you're ready, find the right person. Great. And we even recommend that you live at least two years, at least two years before having children. Just you and your husband. If you're getting married in your early 20s, you can even wait longer than that. My wife and I, we had our first self five years after we got married. We're gonna tackle a lot of these in step two. Getting married and having children are not the same event. They are completely separate, and you can put as much gap, as many years in between, as you would like, inshallah.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

My family is like, you're 26, you're not married, don't you want a kids? Don't you want to do all these things? And I'm like, no, I've looked into it, I've got my marriage ready score, I want to go get my doctorate, I want to be working, and I want a capstone marriage. So I'm willing to wait. How do I tell them that? And how do I make them understand that?

Sharif Faizullah 13:04

Got it. Okay. Why can't you get married now and still pursue the education or the career that you want? So this would be my challenge for you. And we actually help you solve that in step two. We talk about marriage-friendly career and career-friendly marriage. We talk about what is the bare minimum level of education you've got to make sure that you have, even if you get married, right? The question is this how can I pursue my education and career while I am married? And yeah, wait to have children. You're getting married and you're having children are not the same thing. So can you perhaps get married, pursue education and career, have children when you're ready? Because otherwise, let's say you wait, let's say you're 26 and you get married when you're 32. You will feel the pressure to have children much more. At that age, finding the right guy would be a little bit more difficult because the pool would be smaller. So you're 26 now. Let's say alhamdulillah, you've been saved from any type of heartbreaks or being tangled up in a relationship with a guy. Well, the next six years, can you guarantee that? Can you guarantee that you can stay away from any type of emotional entanglement with any guy? So that's why I would go back to this question. Can you get married if you're ready? And then have children when you want to, but do not compromise on your education and career. That means find a guy who would be able to support you as you pursue those things. Or if you're younger than that, work on your heart. You learn more things in this step, inshallah. Work on those things. Because remember, the goal is this until you find the right guy, stay away from the wrong guy and prepare your heart. Keep an open mind. Because if you say, oh, my number is 32, well, you start searching at 32. What's the guarantee that you'll get married at 32? Nobody's going to guarantee that. I'm giving it myself as an example. I started looking when I was 23. You know when I got married? When I was 27. It took me five years to find my wife. For my wife, I was a 10-year-long journey. From 19, she started this family and all of that. When she got married when she's 29. So the life that you want to design, design it. If you never want to get married, whole different discussion. But if you do want to get married, consider these options. There are other solutions that you might not have thought of. I'll end with this question. What are two things that bring about the most amount of joy and happiness? Do you guys know? The first thing is how you make your money. The second thing is who you choose as your life partner. These two things, above everything else, will dictate how much misery, how much challenges, how much happiness, how much joy, how much satisfaction and contentment you will feel in your life, not just for a day or two, or a week or two, or a month or two, for years and for decades to come, inshallah. And that is my call to you. I invite you to design a life where you think about how will I make my money and whom will I choose as the father of my future children, as my life partner, as my co-founder of our future family, my future husband, who will be that man? What if every 20-year-old Muslim woman knew how to avoid marrying Mr. Rong? One day, when you get married in the future, you can ask your future co founder, your future husband, will you marry me in Jannah? If you want a happily ever hereafter story like that, if you want a marriage that leads to Jannah, if you want to divorce proof your future marriage, then welcome.