Consultations
My Husband Second Marriage Broke Me!
My Respected Professor, Dr. Yehia,
peace be upon you,
I write to you from my hospital
bed, not due to any physical illness, but because of the one I loved. The shock
I experienced because of him utterly shattered my soul. My psychological state
collapsed to the point that my blood pressure spiked suddenly, I lost
consciousness, and an ambulance rushed me to the ICU. My blood sugar levels
rose so high that it led to kidney failure, not to mention the disruption of my
liver functions. I wanted to document my tragedy, before I leave this world,
through the resident nurse in my room.
All praise is due to Allah. I was
raised in a simple family. My father struggled to provide our basic needs, and
my mother did her best to create abundance out of little. We were showered with
love and affection. We were even brought up on values and ideals that we lived
as behaviors rather than just preached about.
My father showered my mother with
love and appreciation, treating her like a queen. She returned his affection
with waves of love, respect, and admiration. You can imagine how eager we were
to come home from school each day.
As I entered puberty, I began to
dream of marriage, to complete the natural emotions I felt and continue the
experience of love, but with a new flavor. I didn’t wait long. A young man came
forward with all the qualities I had dreamed of. He was praised by my father's
friend. By the grace of Allah, I had been raised properly, with abundant love
and respect from my family, so I had never tainted my eyes or heart with
disgraceful behavior. I lived my dream as reality, and my husband filled my
entire life.
We lived—or rather, I imagined we
lived—the most beautiful love story. My husband turned out to be a masterful
actor, exaggerating his affection and generosity in every interaction. Allah
blessed us with three sons and two daughters in university. Our life was good, until
our children began to join university and we needed a bigger apartment. We
started struggling with living expenses despite my husband's efforts at extra
work.
Although my husband specialized
in computer manufacturing, he worked in maintenance because there were no
computer factories in our country. About six months ago, he came home cheerful
with surprising news: a computer factory had just opened and was looking for
specialists with his experience. He had contacted them and was hired.
We were all delighted. But then we
were shocked, he told us the factory was in another province, over an hour away
by plane, and we would all be relocating there. I was devastated. Our families
and friends were here. The province we were to move to was remote and lacked utilities
we enjoyed in the capital. I was actively involved in many social activities
with my friends, not to mention the children's attachment to their schools,
club, and friends. They were born and raised here and had grown accustomed to the
ease of life.
I tried to stop my husband from
going, but he chose not to respond. He said, “I will go and start the job. It’s
an opportunity for all of us. You know how difficult it’s been to meet even the
minimum expenses for living and education. The kids are growing, and costs are
rising. I, too, am making sacrifices, leaving my family, friends, and a job
that had become easy for me to start a new struggle.”
He left, and my heart flew with
him. He called us every day and visited about once a month. At his insistence,
I traveled to visit him twice on weekends despite the high cost of travel.
Praise be to Allah, the salary difference was significant, and our standard of
living improved.
At the end of the school year, about
a month ago, he asked us to prepare to move and use the summer vacation to get
familiar with our new city. For the first time, we disagreed. I confronted him
and refused. The children, encouraged by my stance, also insisted they wouldn’t
go.
My husband traveled again, and I
thought the issue had been resolved, that he’d accepted our viewpoint and that
we would continue as we were, with him visiting us and me visiting him whenever
possible. I could also spend most of the summer with him.
Then, to my surprise, in one of
his calls, he told me he had booked a flight for me to visit him alone. I
traveled. He told me he was suffering from loneliness (a false excuse and
flimsy pretense as he speaks to us for more than an hour every day) and that
life was full of temptations and he feared for himself (as if he were a
teenager again, even though he’s over 50!).
I told him, “If you would lower
your gaze and guard your tongue and set boundaries in dealing with women, your
desires would not overpower you. Seek help from Allah and fast, for it is a
shield, as the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said. I am your wife, don’t I feel pain
from being deprived of you? But I protect myself and stay busy with my
responsibilities. Why do you want to shatter our stability and the children’s?
I will stay with my children in my home, and whenever you need me, you are
welcome. I will not move to a new city and start searching for new friends.”
I returned home, and he continued
calling as usual. Most of the time, I ignored him. He persistently asked us to
join him.
About two months later, I was
shocked by a call from him telling me he had gotten married. Of course,
everything he had said before was just an excuse to hide his premeditated plan
to marry another woman. I woke up to find myself in the hospital. I learned
that he came after the children told him about my condition, but when I
realized he was there, I screamed and demanded a divorce. The doctor then
forbade him from visiting me. I asked my brother to contact my husband for a
divorce, but my brother refused!
I’m losing my mind! How could he
have another wife? How, when I loved him so deeply? How did I not discover his
deception, pretending to love me all these years? How can he claim that
marrying another hasn’t affected his love for me? What kind of love is that? My
love for him has turned into hatred and disgust for what he has done to me. What
a deceiver! Claiming that I’m sinful for requesting a divorce due to the harm
he caused me?
Dear Professor, he is one of your
magazine's readers. I am ready to forgive him and consider this a nightmare if
he divorces her and returns to me apologizing!
Make Your
Homes a Sacred Sanctuary
Analysis:
Allah, the All-Wise, All-Knowing,
is the One who legislated the rules of marriage. This is not the place to
discuss some of the jurists’ opinions that polygamy is the default or the other
opinion, that is an exception. However, what is agreed upon is that marriage is
generally permissible, but its ruling can range across all five categories of
Islamic legal judgment: forbidden, disliked, permissible, recommended, and
obligatory, depending on the circumstances.
Obedience to the husband is
obligatory in what is reasonable. Thus, when a husband moves for work to
support his family in a safe place with means for a good life, the wife must
comply and become a model for the children, who typically resist leaving familiar
environments, friends, and conveniences.
The objectives of marriage in
Islam are fulfilled only when the family is united; a husband fulfilling his
duty of qiwamah (leadership and care), raising the children, providing,
and living Islamic values; a wife fulfilling her responsibilities alongside
him; and children nourished by love and good character, eager to learn and grow
into strong individuals who are assets to the Ummah.
The couple can only shoulder
these responsibilities if they are emotionally, affectionately, and sexually
fulfilled. Meeting once a week is not enough. There’s a difference between a
single act of intimacy and a continuous sexual relationship that includes
looks, words, touches, jokes, hugs. Emotional connection isn’t built through
digital communication—it requires living together in affection and care.
One of the mistakes that can
destroy a family is when a spouse judges the other based on assumptions or
presumed intentions, this is a major sin. Allah says, “O
you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some
assumption is sin.” (Al-Hujurat: 12) Another error is claiming insight
into something that only Allah has knowledge of. Making such assumptions turns
positive actions into negative ones and leads to misery.
You accused your husband of
marrying with intent and of never loving you—that all his kindness was an act!
In doing so, you’ve wronged yourself first, and it naturally reflects on your
husband and children. The Prophet ﷺ warned women against ungratefulness toward
their husbands, as it is ingratitude to Allah and His blessings, and leads to
lies and despair in the husband’s heart. It may even cause him to regret all
his kindness.
Your husband, like you, enjoyed
the familiarity and ease of life in the city where he grew up, as well as the
job in which he excelled, and which had become easy for him. However, stemming
from his responsibility and the increasing needs of family life as the children
grew older, he chose to accept a new challenge in an environment that lacked
the ease of life he was accustomed to. He asked you to prepare to join him by
the end of the school year. And to ease the hardship of separation, for both of
you, he would visit you and ask you to visit him. It was an obligation upon you
to prepare the children emotionally for the move so that the family could be
reunited. You committed a sin by refusing to obey your husband, leading to the
hardship of living apart. (1) And that hardship was not just about
preparing his meals or cleaning his place despite his busy work schedule, but
more importantly, it was about fulfilling his emotional and sexual needs, that,
if unmet, may expose him to temptation.
As a result of your rejection,
your husband got married. It was your insistence and your preference for the
familiar comforts of your environment that drove him to it.
Sexual deprivation tolerance
varies from man to man (and also from woman to woman), and it can push some—may
Allah protect us—into sin. Especially in this age of Western moral decline
infiltrating our homes via the internet, your husband's marriage may have
become obligatory for him to avoid falling into sin.
It’s natural for any wife, out of
love and jealousy for her husband, to feel sadness at his marriage to another
(except those upon whom Allah has mercy). But there is a difference between
jealousy that remains within the boundaries of Allah’s law, and possessiveness
and selfish desire.
Some wives (and a few husbands)
fall into pathological love, as if the one they love isn’t even human. They
become obsessed, as if their beloved is the air they breathe. With such
overwhelming love, they feel entitled to their beloved and refuse to see any
flaws in them. So, if they discover otherwise, that their beloved is just a
human being, the shock becomes devastating.
Your upbringing, and the love and
care of your parents, negatively affected your perspective. You were unable to
distinguish between the love of a parent and the love of a spouse. You believed
that the love between you and your husband would cause him to endure
loneliness, but the shock you’re now living through has shown you otherwise.
You—and only you—are responsible
for what you’re going through. Your husband is completely innocent of your
accusations, for the following reasons:
- Excessive love: Boundless love should be
directed toward Allah—the Majestic Creator—His Messenger ﷺ, and His
perfect divine law. They should be more beloved to us than ourselves and
our desires.
- You must seek forgiveness and ask your
husband for pardon for not obeying him by moving with him. His second
marriage was to protect himself after you returned his request.
- You must repent for asking him to divorce his
other wife, (2) for she is your sister in Islam, and you should
love for her what you love for yourself.
- If your husband, after marrying another,
permits you to remain in your preferred city, then that is a generous
concession on his part. But if he asks you to relocate and rejoin him, you
must do so willingly. And if he gives you the choice, my advice is: join
your husband.
I also remind the husband of the
importance of justice, and the sin of favoritism between wives. (3) I’ve
discussed previously that justice, not absolute equality, is required between
wives.
10 Common
Mistakes That Destroy Marriages
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(1) It was reported
that the Prophet ﷺ forbade a man from spending the night alone in his house. In
the Musnad of Ahmad, from the narration of Ibn ‘Umar, the Prophet ﷺ forbade
solitude—that a man should spend the night alone or travel alone. Al-Manāwī
said in Fayd al-Qadeer: “That a man—or similarly a woman—spends the
night alone,” meaning in a house where there is no one else. End quote.
(2) It is not
permissible for a woman to ask her husband to divorce her co-wife so that she
can have him to herself. It was narrated from Abu Huraira that the Prophet ﷺ said: “It
is not lawful for a woman (at the time of wedding) to ask for the divorce of
her sister (i.e. the other wife of her would-be husband) in order to have
everything for herself, for she will take only what has been written for her.” (Narrated
by Al-Bukhari 4857 and Muslim 1413)
(3) Abu Dawood narrated
and it was authenticated by Al-Albani that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Anyone
who has two wives and inclines to one of them will come on the Day of
Resurrection with a side (of his body) inclining.”
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