Aslam

Praise be to Allah.It is not essential for you

to live with your family, rather it may be better for you and your wife and

your mother for you to live with your wife outside your parents’ house. In

most cases the one who lives with his family – or even close to them – will

not have a problem-free life. Wise people who measure things against the

standards of sharee’ah and wisdom are very few, especially among women

because of the jealousy and competition that exists among them.

Your living away from your

family may set things straight between your mother and your wife. Distance

is a bonus in many cases, so there is no need to worry. You may see

something as bad and feel distressed because of it, then it turns out to be

good. Your mother may begin to miss you and her grandchildren because of

your being away from her, and her feelings may change towards your wife if

she is out of sight and she only sees her occasionally. This is something

that is tried and tested.

But if you want a solution

to the cause of the problem, which is that your mother does not like your

wife, you have to look for the reasons why she does not like her and find

out what is stopping her from liking her. These may be some of the reasons

why your mother does not like your wife:

1-Mixing too much with her, which

leads to too much talk, and the one who talks too much makes too many slips

of the tongue.

2-Jealousy of your wife and your

love for her. This happens a great deal. You often see the husband’s mother

being jealous of her son’s love for his wife and his responding to her

wishes, and she thinks that this wife has taken her son from her.

3-Your wife’s bad treatment of

your mother. Some wives do not treat their husbands’ mothers well, so they

do not answer their requests or show them respect, which leads to many

problems between them.

4-Your falling short with regard

to your mother’s rights and not paying attention to your wife’s rights. The

mother cannot hate her son, rather she tries to pick on something which she

things is the cause of the problem, which is his wife, so she hates her.

These are some of the

reasons which may make your mother dislike your wife. If you see that all or

some of them are applicable in your case, then you must deal with it in a

wise and good manner.

We advise you to take the

following steps to create love between your mother and your wife:

1 – Live apart from your

mother, and tell your mother that you are doing this even though you don’t

want to, for her sake, so that your mother will not put pressure on herself

and make herself ill.

2 – Advise your wife to

send a lot of gifts to your mother, whether they are material things such as

clothes, food etc, or intangible gifts such as sending salaams and asking

after her health.

3 – Asking wise people whom

your mother likes to intervene to change her mind about your wife. In this

case outsiders may have a greater influence on the mother than her son and

her husband.

We should point out that as

you are no longer living with your mother, you should try find separate

accommodation for yourself that is separate from your wife’s family too.

Perhaps your moving in with them has deepened the rift between the two

sides. Moreover it is not usually a good thing in establishing a marriage

and it may have a negative effect on the couple’s life.

Do not forget to pray to

Allaah and ask Him to guide all of you to that which He loves and which

pleases Him, and ask Allaah to reconcile everyone and bring them together.

And to guide them to the best of words, deeds and attitudes.

And Allaah is the Source of

strength.