Answer
In this counseling answer:
“What needs to be done is that the both of you must come together and honestly talk about your relationship in a safe environment. You both need to be fully willing to listen to each other without judgment. Have empathy towards your wife and seek to understand why she feels worthless in this marriage. ”
As-Salamu ‘Alaykum Brother,
Thank you for sending us your question. I am sorry to hear about the situation in your marriage. I ask Allah to help you and your wife come together and find a mutual solution to your challenges.
Brother, I am sure that you must feel devastated by what your wife has told you. From what you have written, it seems you were surprised about her telling you that she wants a divorce after ten years of marriage. It seems she has been suffering silently for a long time and for some reason has not been able to tell you about her true feelings. It may be that she was finally able to tell you how she felt after all these years. You, on the other hand, didn’t see this coming.
I do not know the details of your relationship with your wife, but what needs to be done is that the both of you must come together and honestly talk about your relationship in a safe environment. You both need to be fully willing to listen to each other without judgment. Since she has verbalized that she wants a divorce and seems to have been silently unhappy for some time, I would advise that you initiate this safe environment. You need to let her know that you are willing to listen to her without judgment and make her feel that you welcome whatever she says without taking it personal and without reacting negatively. It could be that she needs time to calm down and process. If that is the case, then give her space. However, I can only assume how your wife feels at this time based on what you have written in your question.
Of course, in order for you to reach the point of being emotionally able to listen to her nonjudgmentally, you must first take time to calm yourself down, take a step back, and reprioritize everything.
In your question, you mentioned that you felt that everything was going well in your marriage until suddenly, after a decade of marriage, your wife tells you that you are a bad husband who made her feel worthless. After allowing yourself to feel hurt, frustrated, angry, etc., take the time to look at the whole picture and seek to understand why your wife said what she said.
Instead of looking at your relationship through your eyes, try to look at it through her eyes. Try to understand why she feels the way she does. In other words, have empathy towards your wife and seek to understand why she feels worthless in this marriage. It may be that she has been hurting for many years and simply apologizing and doing chores around the house is not enough. The both of you need to get to the root of the problem, and the way you both communicate about your issues needs to desperately change.
Why has she not been able to express her true feelings all this time? Did she feel threatened? Did she feel like her feelings were not important enough to talk about? Did she feel that her feelings will improve with time? How does she see you? These are all questions that should be asked by you after you create a safe environment for you and your wife to have honest communication.
This is the first step you must take to attempt to connect with your wife. You must find a way to connect with her and to stay connected to her in order to have a strong marriage. Do you think that you were really connected with your wife on an emotional level throughout your marriage? Your wife telling you that she wants a divorce indicates that she may feel disconnected from you as her loving husband, and you need to seek to figure that out.
In addition to these conversations that you must incorporate in your marriage, I would also highly recommend marriage counseling. A marriage counselor is trained to help couples discuss their issues in a safe and structured environment in order to work together to nurture mutual respect and empathy.
What you must know, is that there is no quick fix for a marriage. In order for a marriage to thrive and your marriage to improve, you both need to work on it long term. In your situation, doing the chores and not showing your wife that you are mad at her is not going to solve your issues. You both need to work together to help each other understand what you long for in a marriage. That is true empathy and that is what makes a marriage thrive.
I ask Allah to help you both gain the strength and courage to understand each other and to help your family as a team through this difficult time.
Salam,
***
Disclaimer: The conceptualization and recommendations stated in this response are very general and purely based on the limited information provided in the question. In no event shall AboutIslam, its counselors or employees be held liable for any damages that may arise from your decision in the use of our services.
