✒️ :. Zahoor Ahmad /Budgam
In the relentless pursuit of careers, financial goals, and daily survival, we’ve quietly normalized emotional absence at home. We exhaust our best energy out in the world, come back depleted, and treat our closest people … our partners, parents, and family … like permanent fixtures in the background. The unspoken assumption is that because they are always there, they don’t require daily care. Then a crisis hits, and suddenly everyone shows up. Sympathy flows, calls are made, and affection is readily offered.
“حیاتی میں نہ پوچھا اور میرے مرنے پہ روتے ہو
یہ کیسی رسم ہے دنیا کے رسم و راہ والوں کی”
While support during hard times is vital, reserving warmth exclusively for emergencies is profoundly damaging. A relationship shouldn’t require a tragedy just to experience tenderness.
Human beings don’t just need support when life falls apart; they need emotional connection in the quiet, mundane, ordinary days.
We need the unprompted kind word on a stressful Tuesday, Five minutes of genuine, undivided attention without screens, A gentle touch that reassures without having to ask for it, Feeling seen, appreciated, and valued in everyday life.
Material provision and practical duty mean very little if home feels emotionally vacant. Genuine care isn’t performative, and it isn’t something to pull out only when the stakes are high. It is the steady, quiet choice to stay tender, attentive, and present … especially when life is normal.
“درد دل کے واسطے پیدا کیا انسان کو
ورنہ اطاعت کے لیے کچھ کم نہ تھے کروبیاں”
ISLAMIC TRADITION DIRECTLY addresses the preservation of ties during ordinary times and explicitly warns against making relationships transactional or limited to convenience.
AFFECTION AS A ROUTINE, NOT AN EMERGENCY MEASURE :
In classical narrations, the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) frequently practiced casual, physical, and verbal tenderness on normal days … resting in his wife’s lap while reciting the Qur’an, laughing, racing, and verbally expressing his love RATHER THAN KEEPING IT CONCEALED.
When a man saw the Prophet (SAW) kissing his young grandson Al-Hasan and remarked, “I have ten children and I have never kissed any of them,” the Prophet replied:
”He who shows no mercy will not be shown mercy.” (Sahih al-Bukhari )
The Islamic term for womb and kinship (rahim) shares its root with Rahmah (mercy, tenderness). Neglecting relatives during ordinary life and saving warmth only for disasters runs contrary to this principle: mercy is meant to be a steady, living environment, not an episodic reaction to distress.
Several notable books address this exact theme … how daily busyness, emotional neglect, and modern burnout hollow out personal relationships until only crises seem to matter :
1.”Running on Empty No More : Transform Your Relationships by Jonice Webb” … Focuses directly on emotional neglect in intimate relationships and families. Webb explains how partners and relatives can be completely functional on the outside … paying bills, managing homes, coordinating logistics … while remaining emotionally absent. It breaks down why the lack of everyday emotional attunement leaves people feeling intensely lonely even when living under the same roof.
2.”The Relationship Cure by John Gottman … Directly challenges the “emergency service” mindset of relationships. Based on decades of observational research, Gottman proves that lasting emotional connection isn’t built on dramatic declarations during crisis, but on how couples respond to mundane, everyday “bids for connection” (small questions, sighs, a touch on the shoulder, or a passing comment). He demonstrates how ignoring these quiet moments causes relationships to slowly starve.
- “Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love”… by Sue Johnson
Rooted in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), this explores adult attachment needs. Johnson explains why physical closeness without emotional responsiveness triggers deep distress, and how partners often withdraw into work or routine to avoid vulnerability, mistaking non-conflict for actual connection. 4.”If We’re Together, Why Do I Feel So Alone?”… by Holly Parker Explores the experience of feeling isolated within an ongoing relationship, identifying patterns of emotional unavailability, complacency, and neglect that erode closeness over ordinary days.
Don’t wait for a CRISIS to REMIND someone they matter. Show up in the ordinary moments.
(Zahoor Ahmad)
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