I am emotionally drained from my hu...

Egypt's Dar Al-Ifta

I am emotionally drained from my husband. Should I seek divorce?

Question

I am a mother of two and discovered that my husband is watching porn and cheating on me. He does not show any emotions and careless in dealing with me. He does not spend money on me or his children at all and he does not care about raising them or being there for them. I feel miserable and I met a decent man who proposed to marry me but I feel I am betraying my husband. What should I do?

Answer

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 you have been sick for some time now and he did not even show the minimal amount of care and he treats you with disrespect; 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 addiction to porn problem that your husband is having along with cheating on you and knowing many girls, I believe he needs to see a psychiatrist because he is sick and needs to go through some kind of therapy. Also if your husband is a constant liar, he makes it very difficult for you to trust him or to start a new page with him because honesty and integrity are crucial bases for a healthy marriage.

I personally believe that you have the right to seek divorce and allow me to use the term you used which is to plan a 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 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
As for the last part of your email that you have met someone and he is willing to marry you. I believe that you don’t need to rush off to another relationship right now. You have been suffering for the last five years of your life and that makes you emotionally vulnerable to any newcomer and this state might hinder your intellectual ability to make an educated decision regarding going through a second marriage. Why don’t you take it one step at a time? By thinking of another marriage, you are not betraying your husband as you are not going through a relationship with anyone else God forbid. It is very natural to think of an alternative to your miserable life so don’t tear yourself apart over this.

Tell this friend of yours that you are not accepting nor refusing his proposal, you just need to set your life straight first. Don’t ever get married out of need but out of want and love. You learned the hard way that you need to take care of yourself and your kids with no external support and I have faith that God won’t ever let you down and He will be right there with you at every step of the way, front and center inshAllah.

May Allah grant you strength, happiness and direct you always to the right path..Amen

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