My marriage is an arranged marriage. There were hardly any conversations between my bride and I before the wedding. I’ve only seen her pictures. I was told that she is Hafiz e Quran, and covers herself properly.
My in-laws refused to let me see my bride even at the time of the Nikaah. I came under the impression that both my in-laws and her are quite religious, which I liked very much.
Problems began from the very first week of our marriage. My wife was very reserved and unromantic with me. She mostly stayed quiet. It was difficult to hold a conversation with her, although she acted normally with her family.
She even shook hands with her male cousin at one occasion which was quite shocking. When I raised the issue, I was told that I’m overreacting.
I live and work in the UK, so we stayed together for 1,5 month. It was depressing and gloomy. I noticed that my wife would stay online most of the time, including night time.
Then, her visa got rejected and we had to stay apart for more than a year. During this time, she was online on social media platforms most of the time but showed no interest when I tried to reach her.
Last year, my wife’s visa finally got approved and she traveled to me. After living together for a few months, I realized that she had been into adult stuff.
She mostly watched when I left for work. After further investigation, I found out that she had been into porn for the past two years. She was also in touch with one of her male cousins whom she used to share marital issues.
I am not happy in my marriage. I feel heartbroken and insecure. I have no trust in her anymore. I am considering divorcing her. Please advise!
Answer
In this counseling answer:
• As it was an arranged marriage, you can utilize this time to get to know her properly.
• Try different approaches to engage with her such as having regular date nights or short getaways without other distractions to nurture love and feelings between you.
• Give some time to the marriage before seeking a divorce.
Wa Alaikum salaam wa Rahmatullah wa barakatuh brother,
It is clear how your current situation is causing you so much distress. Everything with the lady you were to marry seemed like ideal characteristics for a wife.
You were not allowed to see or talk to her. So it is only now, after you have gotten married, that you have been able to get to know her and find out that she has many undesirable characteristics. You are, therefore, having a hard time bonding with her which is bringing you much unhappiness.
Fulfilling your roles as husband and wife.
As I’m sure you are aware, marriage is a blessed institution in Islam that comes with so many benefits of which we find many supporting examples in the Qur’an and Hadith. For starters, our spouses should be a source of happiness and comfort, not sadness and distress as you are experiencing.
And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquillity in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought (Qur’an, 30: 21)
This alone without any further investigation indicates that there is already a problem in your marriage. However, not all is lost. There are some things you can try to nurture this marriage into one that brings the peace that it should, or at least bring ease into a difficult situation.
How did the scenario begin?
Having believed that your wife was an Allah fearing woman of piety it has come as quite a shock that she could be watching porn and having close relations with a non-mahram male. This may have left you feeling like you have been deceived.
As you were not allowed to meet or talk to her first, your assumptions about her character were solely based on what her family told you. Including the fact that she was perhaps so pious that she was shy to meet you beforehand.
The problem with this is that your beliefs about who she was were based on assumptions you had made about her. Realistically, her family wouldn’t have let you know any negative traits whether they knew about these things or not. They would surely only enhance the best things to improve her chances with you.
This doesn’t make it easy to accept that you were not made aware of her faults as well as good points. However, it might help you to understand that it wasn’t necessarily her who led you to believe these things about her. It was perhaps more of her parents efforts to secure her marriage.
Understanding things from this perspective might help to alleviate any hard feelings you might harbor towards her. You were not even allowed contact with her before marriage so anything you knew of her was from the mouths of her family.
Get to know her
You can utilize this time to get to know her properly.
Perhaps she is just extremely shy and this is why she hides away in her room on social media so much. At the moment, it seems that she is quite unresponsive to you so try taking a different approach in getting to know her. Be more forward in trying to encourage her to other things in a way that will also promote growth in your relationship.
You might consider taking her out for dinner together somewhere or organizing a weekend away together. Make it a rule that during this time together neither of you will take your phones so that you can solely focus on your time together.
Make this something that you do regularly. Try different places each time until you find something to do that you both enjoy doing or find a place that you both enjoy going to. This will help you to understand what each of you like as you get to know one another properly.
Once you have established the relationship a bit more perhaps she will back off from spending so much time on her phone, looking at inappropriate material and having inappropriate relations with her cousin.
If she does not, then since your relationship would be more established and close, you would be in a stronger position to raise these concerns with her. Help her make changes both for her own sake as well as her Deen. Ideally, you will attain a beautiful level of connection with each other.
They are clothing for you and you are clothing for them. (Qur’an, 2: 187)
Don’t dive into divorce right away
Right now you are not happy. You feel betrayed and like there is no hope of a happy marriage with this woman who is not who you were expecting. This is making you consider the option of divorce.
However, given the blessings of marriage in Islam, you are encouraged to do all you can to try and make it work first. By giving things a chance like this, should you choose to walk away, you will not look back with any regrets as you tried everything to make it work.
Check out this counseling video:
Even though your marriage has not gotten off to a good start, things could improve in sha Allah. Likewise, even marriages that do get off to a good start will almost inevitably face their fair share of ups and downs.
As is the nature of married life, it is these struggles that actually make the marriage stronger. Perhaps the bad start in your marriage is a means to push the two of you together and form a strong bond from the start.
Keep in mind that feelings can often take a long time to develop in a marriage, especially in a case like yours where you both entered the marriage blind without any contact.
Therefore, it is not surprising or unusual for such feelings to develop slowly. In sha Allah in time they will. If they don’t, make sure to try your hardest to make it work before seeking a divorce.
Continue to take this matter to Allah as a means of guidance to what is best and right. May Allah guide you to what is good for you and may He take away that which is not. May He grant you a righteous spouse who will be the coolness of your eyes in this life and the next.
Summary
You have entered marriage to your wife without having any contact with her first. It has brought many surprises to you as her behavior has not been what you expected. This has to lead you to feel very unhappy and unfilled in your marriage and to ultimately consider divorce.
It is advised that you give the marriage a chance first before seeking a divorce. Understand some reasons why she may be like she is.
Try different approaches to engage with her such as having regular date nights or short getaways without other distractions to nurture love and feelings between you.
Give the relationship some time to blossom, trying all you can to make it work first before seeking a divorce so that you will not look back with any regrets.
Salam,
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