I am married to a man for five years now and I have three girls. My husband left us for five months now and I am totally alone with the kids with no financial support from him. When he came home he said he had financial problems and that his work is not stable but I discovered later that he was lying to me and that he was seeing another woman. I saw their pictures together and I went crazy and threatened him that I will file for divorce. He said that he does not want to lose me or the kids and he does not want to divorce me. So I asked him to leave this woman he is seeing and to my shock he said that he married her but illegally with no contract because he is not allowed to have officially two wives.

He begged me to reconsider for the sake of the kids and after few days I changed my opinion and decided to try again because of the girls love him so much and I still love him but things did not change at all. He also said that I should try to change myself and lose weight to please him. But he went away again with no prior note and kept on not spending on us and at the same time he bought an expensive house for him and his new woman and gives her valuable gifts. My older girl- 5 years old- is very attached to her dad and every time he comes over for a little while, she screams her lungs out when he leaves and she started to pee on herself and became aggressive as a reaction to the fact that she misses him.

All his friends advise him to take care of his family and leave the woman he is seeing but he does not listen at all. Please advise me what to do. I feel that I can’t think straight any more. I really appreciate your help.
 

After reading your inquiry, I believe you answered your own questions and solved the dilemma that you have been going through for sometime now. The husband in Islam has so many responsibilities some of them are financial and others are emotional, parental, and social. From what I understood in your inquiry, your husband is not contributing financially at all in supporting his family and probably does not believe that he has to. So he scores zero at the financial front. Moving to another important aspect which is the parental one, you said that he is not contributing at all in parenting and raising his children. That makes you a single mom in disguise, officially married and solely burdened with the up keeping of your household. So again your husband scores zero on the parental front. The third aspect of his responsibilities is the emotional one. You stated that he asked to lose weight to please him. There is no objection to the fact a wife should whatever she can to please her husband but the issue should be mutual.

It is unfair that he asks you to beautify yourself to please him whereas all he does is turning your life to misery. No wonder why you don’t feel happy with him as you are practically living alone separated from him emotionally and dare I say that you might be a victim of being emotionally abused. This makes him score nothing but big fat zero on the emotional front.
Regarding the issue of him illegally marrying another woman and cannot maintain justice between you both in terms of quality time and money, this goes totally against the Islamic teachings as he is committing a grave injustice to you. He has no sense of responsibility and he needs a wake up call to rise up to his parental duties.

I personally believe that you have the right to seek divorce because unhappy marriage leads to disastrous consequences and the ones they suffer the most are the children. Your husband is not making any efforts to lead a good example and he turns your life to a complete misery. I think you need to take matters into your own hand and have the courage to face him with his pitfalls as a husband and father. Maybe you can try to have a heart to heart conversation with him for the last time and maybe you should talk to his older relatives i.e. uncles and aunts and warn him that you will seek divorce if he didn’t change his attitude. If your words fell on deaf ears then you exhausted all means of reconciliation and you owe it to yourself and your children to move away starting a new life where they get to see their father whenever he or they want of course but without you taking the brunt of officially having a husband whereas literally you have nothing but a failed marriage.

I believe you need to start to seek ways of being financially independent through having a job and move out to a new city and make friends who can support you and I advise you to supplicate to God constantly as the power of supplication is so immense that it sets things right and you would feel serenity within you and a strength to pass through this difficult time inshAllah
May Allah grant you strength, happiness and direct you always to the right path..Amen