 I know of two people, two different situations, the exact same thing. One family, the son has a girlfriend and the other family, the son had a girlfriend and the parents found out about it. So family A, the mother told me, and I witnessed this myself and had seen it the entire time the kids were growing up, they did not teach their children the religion. They did not teach their children, Fik and Shadia was not a priority in the home. And so the mother admitted that she was disappointed, that that was a choice her son made and now he's even living with his girlfriend, he's in college, but they're a Muslim family. The mother said that I kind of feel like my hands are tied, my husband and I did not teach our children the deen at all, so how can I now tell him that he needs to fear Allah or that this is a sin or that it's hadam, so fair enough, fair enough. The other family, I learned a lot from their situation, so the other family actually always taught their children about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they taught their kids about Fik and Shadia and what Allah's rights are and what the sunnah of the prophet, sunnah and the sunnah is and they themselves followed the rules of the religion in the home. Despite all that, the son took a girlfriend in high school and the mom found out about it, the parents found out about it and I learned a lot from their response. What the mother told me they did is they sat their son down and they said okay so here you have a girlfriend and they had found out from siblings and the family had let out the secret and the son confirmed it, that he did indeed have a girlfriend and so the mom said okay well what are we going to do about this because you know that even though she's not Muslim she has rights, your girlfriend has rights and I'm not going to ask you like how far you've taken your relationship with her, I'm just going to ask you how now do you want to make this relationship halal and he was in high school he's 16 years old and the son's like what do you mean make it halal and the mom's like well you know that we in Islam that there's no premarital relations and if you've decided that this girl is important to you and important enough that you're going to cross this line then we need to do what we need to do to make it halal and here are the options. Your dad and I can go to Mr. and Mrs. Smith's home and we will give a marriage proposal on your behalf and the son was horrified he's like what are you talking about and the mom was like I know their address so this is not a problem and she was actually speaking very respectfully to her son and she said that I know their address and we can go and have a talk with the parents and explain that you're Muslim and we've raised you Muslim and these are the rules of our religion and she said to her son don't worry honey you don't have to live together you don't have to be a husband and wife the way your mom and dad or husband and wife you just have to make your relationship halal and if you decide to break up with her then you're going to pay her her mehar and she's going to have her rights fulfilled and then you guys will go your separate ways but she needs to know that she has rights according to our religion you're not going to hide that from her and so the parents made it about really about compassion and caring towards other people and she said I know that in you know other religions or other cultures it's okay boys and girls can get together before marriage and do whatever they want and they can have their hearts broken and there's no justice and everyone goes on but in our religion we have rules and so the son was like obviously not going for that he was completely terrified at the idea of his parents showing up to his girlfriend's home with the marriage proposal and the mom even painted a like a lovely scenario she's like you'll be able to go to the prom with her you know you'll be able to do all the things that you want to do you don't have to do it behind our backs and the community can know about it it will it nobody will say that oh look mr. and mrs. Muhammad's son is has a girlfriend behind their backs and they don't know this we will have dignity we will have respect she like painted it as something that was actually doable but what she did tell her son was she said you have let me see if I remember this correctly she said you have three options she said one you can end the relationship with your girlfriend and there are going to be tears and it's gonna it's gonna hurt it's gonna hurt her it's gonna hurt you but in the end you'll be choosing a law and you will be choosing to do the right thing and have a halal relationship by breaking up you can choose to get married and then continue doing what you're doing right now but it will be out in the open and it will be approved by Allah and it will be halal or the third is you can choose something that is going to take you to the Hellfire she was very very blunt with her language she didn't say you're gonna choose something we're gonna cut you off we're gonna have nothing to do with you and we disown you she said you will you can choose something that is going to take you to the Hellfire because you will be committing her up and she's like we have always taught you the rules of our religion these are your three options in front of you and she told him she had this talk with him and then her husband had a talk with them she said we're gonna give you a week to decide and he said okay I need a week he said I'm not gonna just give you the answer you want right now she's like that's fine and she they set a date they set a time they went out for brunch and she said in a week we're gonna go out to brunch and you let us know what you want to do and we will facilitate and he was not happy about it he met with them a week later and he accepted that he was going to end the relationship and it was not easy the mom told me there were a lot of tears and after the son ended the relationship with his girlfriend the mom cried with him she cried with him which blew me away because I was trying to think about how I would react if this was my situation and I don't know if I would have had that kind of empathy or sympathy I think I would have been like serves you right this is what you got yourself into now deal with the repercussions or the feelings but Michelle this mom had a lot of compassion and she held her son as he wept because it was so hard for him but what I loved about that example that I saw was she empowered him to make the right decision but it was only possible after a whole lifetime of showing that this is where the buck stops everything ends at Sharia and thick and what Allah expects of us if you haven't been doing that your entire life then all it then it's like the family a the first family I told about they their hands are tied what can they tell their kid now about what he can and can't do when they've never said anything before