Marriage Failures in Arab Countries

Marriage is a social institution where a woman and a man decide to live as wife and husband through religious rites or legal commitments. Marriage is one of the most essential covenants between a man and a woman based on commitment and love. Many challenges face a couple in a marriage. The spouses must work hard to fight off hardship in their marriage. Some couples are able to handle some of the problems amicably, while others might not be able to manage them. When they fail to do it, disagreements between them arise that leads to the dissolution of a marriage.

There are many challenges in a marriage that might lead to its destruction.

In Arabic countries, several factors can make for the increasing number of divorce cases.  Blame is one factor that leads to disintegration of marriages. Some partners are blaming each other for their problems rather than solving them or accepting the mistakes. This may result in divorce (Alami, 2010).

Communication breakdown is one the major problems that cause breakup. When there is no communication between spouses, disagreements remain unresolved for many years eventually resulting in the dissolution of marriages. Some partners in a marriage also have very high expectations of each other. In any case, the partner does not meet the expectations of the other in marriage. In some instances, a spouse can feel too pressured in a relationship. Some people also expect that their better half will change once they settle in marriage, and in case this does not happen, it leads to divorce (Alami, 2010).

The cost of getting married in many Arab countries is very high, which interferes with the married life of a couple thereafter. A big ego is another marriage issue. When one partner has a very big ego, he or she can have problems with listening to the opinion of the other spouse, which affects a relationship a lot (Ismail, 2010).

One of the issues that cause divorce in Arabic countries often ignored is domestic abuse. A serious problem in many Muslim countries is that the voices of women are silenced. Majority of abused women in the Arab world fear raising their voices about their abuse because they dread the reaction of the society.  Domestic abuse is one of the leading causes of divorce in Arab countries. Cultural expectations are also another factor that results in breakup among cross-cultural Arab marriages. This kind of marriage brings the issue of clashes of cultural expectations, identity issues, and expectations due to the different cultural views. Such couples can divorce due to irreconcilable differences (Ismail, 2010).

Difficulties of balancing between demanding work environment, family life, and maintaining household duties and roles wear many relationships down, which brings to the dilution of them. Another cause of divorce is the inability of a couple to deal with the emptiness of their home when children walk away years after raising them. These individuals record the greatest number of divorces in the Arab world, where breakup seems to be the most likely action following attempts to work via mediation, marriage therapy, or marriage counseling (Ismail, 2010).