separation from husband

that's just a question, not a command. i just want to know why she feels she needs her own space. because, in my naive mind i thought it'd be safer if we all live with family. especially if you need medical care. family can help care for you. usually families will love to care for their own member. that's why i speak of the relationship thing...

maybe i know less. (or maybe i watched too many Hindi movies ) just to say it's a question, that's all.


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i'm sorry. but what bothers me is.. it's the me-them attitude going on here... ur all family. it shouldn't be, me or them. it should be us. it could work out. it bothers me -- why can't the in laws care for her too? i can't fathom why in-laws should be deemd taking away a husband from his wife -- you're not an outsider. ur their daughter in law as well. ur all family too. ur a part of them. not someone else.

if u can have good relationship with ur in-laws, maybe ur in-laws can care for you. be ur counsel. help u when needed. it can be ur support. it will be healthy for your family. for ur husband. for u.

if i have a daughter in law who is sick, i'd be willing to care for her. maybe when i'm old, i don't have anybody to go to except my son. & i'd hope my daughter in-law will accept me too. coz i'm family. she's family. family cares for each other. family don't play tug-of-war.

wallahu a'lam...


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Assalamu Alaikum dear Sister:

Your situation has really bothered me, first because I think that you are very vulnerable right now and you really need love and support, which you are not getting, and second because it reminds me of me a long time ago.

Before I became a Muslim, I was married once before to a Palestinian. When we decided to get married we chose to stay in my apartment as it was a big two bedroom and he had been living in a very small place with other guys. He basically showed up on my doorstep with a suitcase and some plastic trash bags full of clothes.

The night of our wedding he told me that he had told his cousin, who had just arrived from Kuwait, that he could live with us. He had not discussed this with me, I didn't even know his cousin. Needless to say I was pretty shocked and angry. It was our wedding day and his cousin was moving in with us before we had even lived together. We had a fight, which should have been a sign of how I would be treated throughout our marriage, and I agreed that his cousin could stay for 6 months or until he found a roommate, whichever came first. This was also made worse by the fact that my ex had two brothers who were married who lived in the same city. Their excuse for not taking the cousin was that they had children. It didn't seem to matter at all that it was our wedding day and we would have no privacy or intimacy.

As you know, in any community where there are Arabs it is very easy to find a single guy or guys to live with. I thought this would be the case and he would move out fairly quickly, so I decided to make the best of it. However, the same thing happened to me. I would come home exhausted from work and we would be having a party I didn't know about or we would have to go to his brother's or a bunch of guiys would be in the house. I was always outnumbered about what to eat, what to do, what to watch on TV. They would sit together and speak Arabic as if I were not even in the room. I felt like a total outsider in my home, and I was. It was horrible and extremely stressful for me, and I was healthy. I can't imagine how bad it would have been if I were ill. We had no privacy at all, we couldn't even have a good argument without a witness, who usually took my ex-husband's side.

When the six month deadline came around, his cousin went nowhere. My husband acted like nothing was going on. I finally confronted him and we had another argument. I told him that someone was going, one of them or both of them, he could make that choice,  because I had married only one of them and not both. His cousin moved out, but it became a huge family issue and up until our divorce I was still talked about as that selfish American. 

At the time it occured I was worried that I would seem selfish and I didn't want to cause a problem with my new husband. When I looked back on it later I wish I would have stood up for myself earlier. I wasn't the selfish one. Who asks their cousin to move in with them on their wedding day, and what kind of a family bullies you into accepting it? In the long run it didn't matter because he always chose his family over me, so I could have saved myself a lot of heartache.

You have a right to stick up for yourself, even in Islam. It is sad that you have to give your husband an ultimatum, but he is supposed to be the person who is closest to you, your other half, and your protector. If he is not fulfilling his obligations toward you in this sense, then you should do what you have to do without feeling guilty. Instead of thinking how bad you are for giving him an ultimatum and for being selfish, why don't you ask yourself why it had to come down to an ultimatum in the first place, and what kind of a husband would allow his possibly terminally ill wife to move out of her home and then not even come and spend the night with her?

I think that when things happen to other people we tend to see them a little more clearly and we also tend to want things to be more fair, so  this is a test I use now to determine if I am overreacting about things: if this were happening to another Sister, or to one of your sisters, how would you feel about the situation. Would you feel that her husband was treating her fairly, in a loving manner, and that she was being selfish and unrealistically demanding?  Would you advise her to stay in a situation that is clearly causing her stress, heartache, and unhappiness?  If you can honestly say that you would advise another woman to stay in this exact same situation then perhaps you should go back. If not, then you should know that you deserve to be treated fairly, with respect for your needs just as any other person does.

My heart is really going out to you Sister and I pray that Allah helps you to have peace of mind and body.

May Allah bless you,

Dwanna