Why Emotional Intelligence is more important than Mere Understanding in Marriage

What Marriage Has Taught Me So Far:

INTRODUCTION

Let’s start with some random quite interesting quote (so to speak)

Love needs time to be found and when found needs Intelligence to be applied to solve problem

The ability to manage our emotions and feeling is very crucial, nevertheless, so is our ability to understand and interpret the emotions of others.

Could you picture a world where you cannot understand when a friend, a spouse, a sibling, a parent, or a co-worker is depressed, sad or angry?
Psychologists refer to this ability as emotional intelligence

and some experts even suggest that it can be more important than IQ.

While IQ proves your smartness and determines 15% of your success, emotional intelligence determines 85% of your success.
Since 1990, Peter Salovey and John D Mayer have been the leading researchers on emotional intelligence.

They proposed a model which identified four different factors of emotional intelligence namely;

emotional perception,

emotional reasoning,

emotional understanding,

emotional management.

All the factors above enhance the smooth sailing of Marriage. This is to point out that marriage and emotional intelligence are like inseparable twin.
Since “Emotions Elites defined as a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity that produce different physiological, behavioral and cognitive behavior”, the more couples are able to master these four factors mentioned above, the less room they create for chaotic clashes.

Allah has made it clear to the believing men that women are more emotionally vulnerable, sensitive, responsive, and tender.

Women are emotional creatures, one minute she could be all happy and sweet and the next, she looks pale and unhappy. So, it is up to a husband to be able to put up with such moodswings and try tackle the problem.

Part of the reasons for failed marriages today inclu

• Man’s will to show superiority over women.
• Egoistic behavior.
• Disobedience to the commandment of Allah.
• Negligence
• Ingratitude
• Arrogance.
• Impatience
• Lack of self control

These among many others clogs one’s emotional intelligence. Hence, this is a show of arrogance to Allah. And Allah said in Qur’an 85 v 60:

“And your Lord says: “Call on Me; I will answer your (Prayer): but those who are too arrogant to serve Me will surely find themselves in Hell – in humiliation“

A man returns home from work and suddenly observes the floor is unusually becoming too sticky due to oil stains. He gets furious and tries to correct his wife but puts it in a harsh manner. Consequently, he gets a negative response or reaction from her. This is not because she intentionally intends to get picky or offended, but because she is more emotional. Thus, it is now left for the man to reconsider and apologize for his wrong choice of word or mannerism, then look for a more subtle word or expression to pass his message across. Doing this show’s his emotional intelligence – his emotional reasoning on the one hand, which is what made him prioritize what to pay attention and react to amidst other observation he made upon his return; his emotional management on the other hand, proving his ability to feel an emotion (irritated and furious) without having to act upon it.

Allah has also commanded the believing women to respect their husband and control their tongue.

In any case , women should be soft, linient understanding and know how to approach or talk to their husbands, when she called him 5 times to ask him why he forgot to get steaks from the grocery and he did pick up, to why he didn’t complement her since 3 days and not remembering their Saturday morning pre yoga ritual, everyone has emotions and the husband isn’t an exception. So wives should be try to be considerate as this gradually sums up to create a lasting impression about them and emotional intelligence.

Never forget that your relationship with your spouse is an emotional battle 24/7. So,the way you handle your emotions decides the happiness quotient ( a measure of the amount of happiness one has achieved in life) and in your married life.

In terms of tolerance and perseverance, these are some of the

QUALITIES AN EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT PERSON MUST POSSES:

• Ability to understand the emotions of ur spouse from his/her view.
• Capacity to make your spouse understand your emotions from your viewpoint.
• Your skills to channel your emotions in the right way to make your spouse happy and content in your relationship
• Your gift to realize that your spouse is an individual. So, you accept him/her for what he/she is.

For an emotionally unintelligent person:

1. You never understand the emotional need of your spouse which makes you unhappy and miserable

2.Your inability to convey your emotional needs to your spouse which makes you angry and get frustrated and dippressed.

Emotional intelligence is two sided and must be used positively. The couples inability to understand this is partly the reason for domestic violence. A man is not supposed to beat his wife, doing so is a sign of his physical strength but emotional weakness and inability to positively use his emotional intelligence. This when he let’s his emotions override his intelligence.

Rasullulah (SAW) is a perfect example for the Muslims to follow as he is the best in character and manner.

It was narrated that Aisah (R.A) said that :

“The messenger of Allah never beat his servants, or wives, and his hand never hit anything” Sunnan Ibn Maja

HOW TO ENHANCE YOUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE:

1. Don’t interrupt or change the subject
2. Don’t judge or edit your feelings or your spous’s too quickly
3. See if you can find connection between your feelings and see if other times you must have felt the same way.
4. Connect your feelings with your thoughts
5. Listen to your body and your spouses body language
6. If your don’t know how you are feeling ask someone else
7. Tune into your unconscious feelings
8. Ask yourself, How do I feel today?
9. Write your thoughts and feelings down
10. Know when enough is enough.

Marriage is a place of work where you are given a long term appointment. It is left to you keep your job or loose it. To develop emotional intelligence we need to practice enlarging our inner passion at every moment. It doesn’t matter what is going on in our world or even how we feel within ourselves at every moment. Infact , the best we accomplish something is when we least feel like trying because the hopeless part of our lives need the light.

Finally, the way you approach yourselves, when you need money, when you are tired, when you need his attention, when you want to complain about something he did wrong or the way you generally respond to his flaws gradually sums up to creating a lasting impression about you and says a lot about your emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is two sided and must be used positively. The couples inability to understand this is partly the reason for domestic violence. A man is not idealy supposed to beat his wife. Doing so exemplifies his physical strength but tantamount to his emotional weakness and inability to positively use his emotional intelligence. This is when he let’s his emotions override his intelligence.
A pious wife is keeper not breaker. A pious husband builds the home not collapse it. As a woman, the way you treat your husband reflects in his attitude in public. From his boost of self esteem to his successful day at work. As a man, the way you handle your wife also reflects in her face and her general comportment in public. All these are due to how peaceful your inward coexistence has been as a couple. Ability to practicalize the tenets of the religion of Islam (peace) to over power impending chaos, ability to agree to disagree, ability to master positively, your emotional intelligence help save your marriage.

In Shaa Allah