Advice requested on unusual living situation after marriage

Salaam respected brothers and sisters, I hope this finds you in the best of health and imaan.

I was hoping to get some advice regarding an unusual situation/circumstance that I find myself faced with when considering marriage. I would be especially grateful for advice or points of view from sisters around the world.

To begin with as background, I'd like to talk about a common issue that affects newly married Muslim couples particularly of south Asian ethnicity. Traditionally, the new wife becomes part of her husband's family, and often there is an unfortunate pressure from the groom's parents that the wife should move into their family home. Understandably, wishing to keep her husband and in laws happy, the bride agrees. However a number of issues then arise:

1. Due to living in close proximity, there is diminished privacy for the couple. The newly married couple of course desire their own space for intimacy and companionship as has been made lawful for them by their nikkah - and yet they feel uncomfortable with parents or siblings one or two rooms down the hall. There are privacy or other difficulties when sharing bathrooms, a kitchen, etc. In effect, the families are effectively living 'on top' of one another.

2. Secondly, and tragically, due to lack of education or support for women's rights, there is often poor treatment of the bride. She is made to cook or clean or in some ways be a servant of the husband and his parents. I hope we can all agree that this is totally wrong - she should not be made to do anything she does not want to. If she wants to help around the house out of love for her new family then by all means, but this should not be a requirement.

3. Interference from the groom's parents in the relationship. Again unfortunately not an uncommon situation where the parents seek to maintain some influence in the relationship and question the groom/bride, get involved in their decisions when not asked for, set curfews etc.

Understandably as a result of these three potential big issues, and other smaller ones, the wife will put pressure on her husband (if he himself did not already feel the same way), and they will move out to a home that is solely their own. While there are undoubtedly numerous benefits to living as part of a larger family, in terms of the extra support for the couple, the lack of financial burden of renting/buying a property, the closeness and love, etc, they unfortunately cannot overcome these issues.

This may cause some tension, or some difficulty in the household but alhamdullilah usually things work out better for the young couple. In the long run anyway, having children etc means the extra space is necessary.

So now I come to my unusual situation. Alhamdullilah a few years ago I graduated from medical school as a doctor in the USA, and i'm happy with all areas of my life (islam, family, friends, career, financial, hobbies, etc) and am looking to fulfil that last area of marriage. Currently I live with my parents, and alhamdullilah we have a fantastic loving relationship. Perhaps it is unusual for our culture/ethnicity but they treat me as an equal (while of course I maintain that respect for them as my parents). We freely discuss and debate decisions, and they allow me total independance as an adult. I am so so blessed by the grace of Allah swt that my parents are both highly educated and successful in both the dunya and in deen. As a result of His blessing, we are fortunate to live in perhaps one of the most beautiful dream homes in the country. This is a home that if I worked my entire life as a doctor, with many hours of overtime and private practice on the side, I would still not be able to afford on my own or with my wife. In short, it is somewhere where people would kill to live and raise a family. At the moment I have an entire wing of the house to myself, with my parents on the opposite wing. The distance between wings is far enough apart that you cannot tell if anyone else is in the house unless you physically walk over there. There is also inside the house things like a sauna, tennis court, basketball court, swimming pool, gym etc.

I have discussed with my parents in detail about this topic of marriage and living together. They are of the opinion that generally speaking, educated girls of my current generation are not likely to have the same mentality that women of previous generations had, of compromise in living close to the groom's parents, and instead tend to prefer a greater degree of independance in the western style. (Please note, this is not a criticsm of this desire or mentality at all). So as a result my parents suspect it would be easier to get married and live in a house of my own to please my wife with this mentality, and indeed they say that if it is what I want then I should do so. However I don't wish to do this. The reason I talked about the common and big problems that these situations face above, was because I want to highlight the contrast between those circumstances and my own. To be specific and in the same order as listed above:

1. The ample space in the property means there would be no impingement of privacy at all. My wife and I would have an entire wing of the house to ourselves, which would include roughly 3 or 4 bedrooms and bathrooms. The equivalent size would be a penthouse suite in a modern skyscraper in a big city. When we are in that wing, nobody else comes there to respect the couple's privacy and space.
2. My parents by the blessing of Allah swt themselves highlight these common problems, and are very clear that they would never ask the bride to do anything around the house that she did not volunteer to do herself. My mother (also a surgeon) would be delighted to cook for her or clean for her, as her daughter. (Please note, I would of course like my wife to want to help out around the house, just as I help my father with DIY or cutting the acres of lawn - but this is something that I would discuss with her as her husband, my parents wouldn't ask her to do this).
3. Again my parents are very clear about this that the marriage is between my wife and myself. In the same way that they give me total independance as an adult, to come and go as I please, early in the morning or late at night, to host friends etc, my wife would absolutely be in the same boat. Naturally when it comes to important decisions in life, I will of course ask my parents for their advice which they are always happy to share their wisdom for - but as always the decision is mine (or in this case my wife and mine).

My parents have always said they they can't take any of their material wealth in this world to the grave with them, and that it is for my brother and myself. At this point in their life they are more concerned with the afterlife and acts of worship. It seems to me that I am in the extremely rare position of having an opportunity to get married and live with my wife, as well as with my parents, with all of the upside and yet none of the downside. However, I am very conscious that many sisters having grown up like myself in the west with a different ideology and culture are intrinsically against the idea of even being near the groom's parents, because they've heard too many negative stories like the problems I mentioned near the start of this post, regardless of whether his personal situation is different.

In my mind I have a beautiful dream. In this dream, my wife and I come home from work to a stunning home that fills our hearts with contentment. We go to our wing of the house, can change and get comfortable etc, and then go down for dinner. Perhaps my wife and mother arrange a few days each per week to do cooking, so they can each make recipes that they like and so the burden is shared and lightened. Perhaps this day is one where my mother has made a delicious fresh meal for the whole family, and we just need to sit down and eat and enjoy it. We talk as a family about life, our day, whatever else and gain the barakah from eating together. Afterwards maybe i'll train in the gym while my wife swims peacefully in the pool or spends some time in the sauna if she likes. Then we'll retire to our wing and have the rest of the evening to spend alone together in each other's company.

Fast forward a few years and the house is a little noisier because we might have been blessed with a couple of children. Each child has their own comfortable room and bathroom, there is space for them to play and study, and plenty of space in the private secluded lawns surrounding the house for them to run around and enjoy themselves and play sport. Perhaps my wife and I have a regular date night for just the two of us, which isn't an issue because my parents will be there to look after their beloved grandchildren and put them to bed in their own rooms. Perhaps my wife and I are delayed by a traffic accident up ahead on the road and don't get home until 2am, but that's ok because we come home to our children safely tucked in their beds. Perhaps some nights there are multiple emergency patients at the hospital and I can't leave work because i'm operating late into the night. I send my wife a message to let her know, but i'm not worried because she won't be lonely at home by herself, if she wishes for it she has but to walk over to the other wing and have the company of her parents - or perhaps they can look after the children for a few hours so she can have a well deserved rest after working that day.

Lastly, as a result of living in this beautiful home for no cost at all, we have a lot more disposable income. This means that (inshaAllah I hope to marry a doctor like myself) we can take a few months per year to work abroad in a refugee camp without worrying about bills, we can contribute greatly to charity and charitable projects, I can travel the world with my wife and eat at many stunning restaurants.

Don't you think this dream is a beautiful one?

To conclude I would respectfully ask brothers, and particularly sisters, for their opinions on this. Is this something that you would accept if you were to get married to a husband (assuming of course he ticks all your other boxes like piety, attractiveness, personality etc)? If not, could you give some detail as to why?

JazakAllah Khairun for reading this lengthy post; may Allah protect all of our intentions and grant us pious spouses for the rest of our lives. Ameen.

tl;dr: Would it be too much to ask a potential wife in 2019 that she live in my family home where my parents also live - even if we would have a huge amount of private space just for us, my parents would not interfere with the marriage in any way, we would have as much independence as we wanted as a couple, and it is an ideal place to raise a family?

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