Dear Hadi,
Asalamo Alaikum.
I'm a girl who has faced good and bad in her life. Bad things happen when they start to take away your family and yourself, it feels devastating.
By the grace of Allah SWT, I’m getting married but I am having problems with my brothers and father. I love my brothers and father, but they have been mean to me off and on for several years. They make unkind remarks about my relationship with my fiancé, and they are not treating me respectfully at all. If I talk to them in the same way they talk to me, then suddenly I am the bad guy, and the one that gets scolded. This is now harming my mental health and I don’t know how to fix it.
Dear Reader,
We’re so sorry to hear about the difficult relationship you’re having with your father and brothers. Let us first say that it is not your job alone to fix it. If your brothers and father want to fix the relationship, they also have to put in the effort to do so.
We would suggest that you try to have a serious conversation with them about how you feel. Remind them of the Prophet’s (pbuh) hadith, “The best of you is the best to their families” (Sunan all-Tirmidhi). Be clear with them about how you would like to interact with them, and how you expect them to interact with you. While in Islam, we must do our best to maintain familial ties, this is not an “all or nothing” situation. Let your family know that if they are not able to treat you with the respect and dignity that Islam requires us to treat each other, that you will not cut off familial ties, but that you will limit your contact and interactions with them moving forward.
If you feel they will not take you seriously if you try to do this on your own, you could also consider trying to get a trusted outside family or community member to help you mediate this situation with your family.
You should not be limited by the cultural roles or expectations your particular society may assign to women. Your guide should be Islam, which empowers women by according them dignity and respect. It will take some effort, but it is important, not just for you, but for the spiritual well-being of your father and brothers.
We end by reminding them, through you, that in his Farewell Sermon (Khutbatu l-Wadāʿ) during his last pilgrimage, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) enjoined his followers to "treat women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers." He stated that just as men have rights over women, women also have rights over men. These instructions emphasized women's rights and dignity at a time when they were often treated as lesser in society.
In peace.