Wa alaikum salaam wa rahmatulahi wa barakatuh,

 

It certainly can make for an uncomfortable marriage when both spouses have different ideas about things. In this case, your husband expects you to obey him and have intercourse at his request, but you don’t believe it should be this way. This is causing difficulties in your relationship, especially due to your lack of desire to have intercourse with him.

 

One of the most effective ways to tackle this is to improve the love between you. As the love is strengthened between you, your desire to be intimate with him will also increase. There are several ways you can improve the feelings between you.

 

Remember why you fell in love with him in the first place. At some point in your marriage, you will have been completely in love with him for one reason or another. Perhaps you liked the way he looked, the way he treated you or his manners. Find these qualities in him again and spend time focusing on appreciating these, rather than those things that you despise. This will help to soften your heart towards him.

 

Spend quality time together. Block out 1 evening a week/fortnight/month depending on your usual schedules, where you will spend time alone together doing something enjoyable that you both enjoy, such as going out for dinner, or a walk. On these occasions you can talk about good times you have shared together and smile over past memories with gratitude. Sharing positive moments together can be a way to promote positive feelings between you both.

 

Work on common goals. You might think of starting a new hobby together, such as a sport, or a course. Working on a common goal plans you in a pi2where you will be encouraging each other to perform well. This seeks to strengthen bonds between you as you achieve things together by supporting each other.

 

Talk and compromise. It may be that your husband is unaware of your feelings. If he is not aware of them then he can’t do anything to change his behavior towards you.  This is most easily resolved by talking to him about it to make him aware of this. This way you can come to some kind of compromise where you can both have your needs met to some extent at least. Perhaps he could agree to be less demanding, if you agree to abide by some of his requests. Perhaps there are certain things that might be easier to make a compromise with. If he is willing to make some compromises for you, then you should also be willing to do the same for him too.

 

Seek counseling. You could attend marriage counseling or even seek counsel with your local imam. The latter of which may be especially used as he will be able to advise you both based on Islamic wisdom. In particular, he will be able to guide your husband on how best to utilize, without abusing his position as a husband according to Islamic values, and likewise for you too.

 

Spend some time apart.  Often when couples spend every day together they can easily come to take each other for granted. When this occurs, it becomes easy to focus on their faults out of frustration and overlook their positive points. This can lead to the feelings of repulsion that you seem to feel right now. Taking some time apart can be an easy way to give you the space to miss each other and remember all the good points and good times you have shared in your marriage.

 

May Allah bring you happiness and contentment in your marriage and make you the coolness of each other’s eyes both in this life and the next.