Family problems faced by Palestinian families from the husband’s point of view

Written by: Nancy Att

Rick Riordan, author and novelist, says, “Some families become messy, and some families stay messy forever. Sometimes we can remind each other to stick together to live a beautiful, peaceful life.”

A phrase that carries with it the importance of the family and its role in the upbringing of an individual, because the family is the first place where a child is raised, and whenever a child grows up in an unrelated family with numerous problems, it negatively affects his psychological, social and emotional development.

If we look at family problems in Palestinian society, we will see that they are increasing day by day, except that there is a difference in the quality of these problems and their connection with the technological age that has led to the emergence of new problems between spouses and among family members as a whole.
Through the interviews I conducted with a randomly selected sample from different regions in the province of Nablus, which consisted of 5 wives ranging from 25 to 38 years old, where the “semi-structured interview” was used as a research tool with the aim of examining family problems and difficulties and challenges with faced by families in the Palestinian context, many of these problems, difficulties and challenges emerged, and some of them were repeated for all wives.

The interview consisted of 5 main questions, which I will summarize and present in order and give answers to them.
The first question: It is an investigation of the most important family problems that spouses face and how these problems affect their children. There were several answers, which I will reduce to the points with which most respondents agreed:

• Interventions of the husband’s family in their personal and family life.
• Husband’s neglect of his wife and lack of interest in her.
• There were also relationships for couples outside of marriage represented by conversations through social media.
• Problems in the sexual relationship. All respondents of the sample agreed that this problem exists, and some of them said that it is the main cause of all other problems. Also, this problem is related to the economic factor, due to the lack of housing. , because there is no space for the spouse’s privacy.
• From the problems of the other women, a different problem arose, namely that the husband of one of them is bisexual.

As for the children’s influence on these problems, it was uneven due to the different ages of their children. Wives reported many different symptoms and behaviors, including their children’s academic decline, disturbing dreams, screaming during sleep, and being withdrawn at home. and at school, as well as escaping to sleep, and their children spend most of their time outside the home. In addition to these children’s behavioral and emotional problems, other children had difficulty expressing their feelings, but most of the time showed some physical symptoms such as fatigue and loss of energy.

If we move on to the second question, which is how husbands deal with problems, then all the responses of the respondents agreed that they were exposed to physical and verbal violence by their husbands, and one of them came to the hospital because of this by using different tools for abuse , which forces her to keep quiet when her husband screams for fear of making the problem worse. However, he beat her badly, and despite her silence, the problem can end with physical and verbal violence and humiliation. It is worth noting that part of the sample tried to solve their marital and family disagreements with physical violence, where the two sides use an intense discussion that takes the form of a “war” between the spouses and who will win in this. struggle, he once again found himself in the circle of violence.

Regarding the difficulties and challenges they face as spouses, the first place in their answers was the interference of others in their lives, either the husband’s family or the reform committee, which in their opinion worsened the situation and increased the pace and severity of the problem . . In second place is living with the husband’s family, which had a large share in the difficulties faced by the spouses. Another difficulty that wives faced in their married life was the mocking of their husbands and taking their problems lightly. Other difficulties appeared, which represented the couples’ addiction to alcohol, cannabis and narcotics, as an escape from life’s difficulties or due to unconsciousness and unawareness of their reactions.

From the point of view of the sample, decisions concerning the woman and the family as a whole are made exclusively by the husband, who is also the commander-in-chief. One of the women described it and said: “I am just a servant in the house and he gives orders.” That is, there are no joint decisions between the spouses.

With the last question, the researcher wanted to examine how individuals see counseling and psychological treatment, especially family counseling, and how it can help solve their problems. .
From the above, we can conclude that there are old problems known to everyone, which are still being inherited for generations, and are present even today, and the emergence of new problems that did not exist in the past, but which have appeared in the components of our society. in all its spectrums with technological development and the spread of social media.

It should be mentioned here that all the respondents got married early, which represented an obstacle in their education and work.
It also seemed clear that some wives had symptoms of depression, as one wife said, “I got to the point where I thought about ending my life.”
On the question of the impact of the presence of children in the light of family problems and domestic violence, two types of children were affected during the interview: children who formed a union with their mother and other children who adopted their father’s style by identifying with his thoughts and behavior towards their mother.

Recommendations:
 Implementation of an awareness raising program on the importance of mental health for spouses.
 Conducting awareness raising sessions for those who will get married under the topics of pre-marriage education for couples.
 Illuminating domestic violence in the media and on social networks, especially violence by husbands towards women.
 Implementation of specialized programs to raise awareness about the importance of the father’s role, whether on a psychological or social level, in the lives of children.
 The existence of a law that deters the crime committed by some husbands, which is the crime of violence, in all its forms, against their wives.