Islamic marriage advice and family advice

Controlling husband, am I asking too much?

Controlling husbandAssalam Alykum brothers and sisters,

My message might be a little long, but I wish if you all can be a bit patient with me. I am very confused where my marriage is heading and I need to make a decisions maybe....I'm confused.

My husband is coming from a totally different culture and background. He is an engineer who is earning quite good in the Middle East. Most engineers wont easily earn as much as him. He has loans however which he is trying to get rid of.

We got married at the begining of this year and before marraige he told me his mother will live with us after marraige since she is divorced. You all might now be thinking it's all related to mother-in-law, but no, there is a lot more. It's true my mother-in-law has been a total torture to me. She stayed with us for 6months and she has crossed all her boundaries during this period. The only remaning thing was for her to kick me out of the house. My husband didn't trust her much, however he got affected and he did a lot of things that hurt me..but I am not going to dwell in this side of my married life for now since her Visa expired and she had to leave the country and now she isn't with us. My husband is trying to get her back but now he is going to provide her a seperate accomodation which is good.

She has left, but her painful memories still haunt me everyday and it's not like my husband even feels guilty for what I went through. He says things like, "she is your mother and you should not have anything in your heart against her."

She has even tried to accuse me of fancying another man in building we stay in. Astaghferullah...but anyway according to him she is like my mother and I should think good of her always. Ok. No comments.

My main problem at the moment with him is something completely different. Even though my husband prays 5 times and sounds like a very strong muslim with the things he says or tries to do (some of them) there are areas where he is very inconsistent. He is always ready to tell me how deficient I am in my religion and he loves to order me, do this, I don't want to see you do this again...OKAY? That's how he says it. He is strongly inspired by traditional cultural men who control wives. He isn't that kind of person but when he sees his friends he gets inspired and then I see how he changes the way he deals with me just so he can feel he is the man who deserves all obedience and respect. He keeps telling me always how I should be obedient to him and if he hurts me and I speak up, he says you are very disobedient to me. I am really sick and tired of hearing all this all the time. I have 2 broad problems with him at the moment. 1. My family 2. Money problems

I'm coming from a background where the girl often visits her parents and he knows that. He is shown me reluctancy towards this after Nikah and before moving into his house. We got into a fight for multiple reasons. We even spoke to a sheikh so he could solve some of our problems and I mentioned this to the sheikh, he got very angry at me and said why did you tell this to the Sheikh, you could've spoke to me about it and I would reach an agreement with you. When I moved in with him, I realized everytime I wanted to visit my mom, he would act like he feels very upset about it and that I have no care for him, I just leave him. His mother would brainwash him a lot on this. So I reduced visiting my parents and gradually whenever I spoke about visiting my parents when we move to another country, he would try a new technique saying women can't travel alone. The only time I visit them is with him. My parents aren't very well healthwise and when I visit them on the weekend with him my mother is just in the kitchen cooking all day long for him. She gets tired. She gets stressed. Sometimes she wishes to spend a day with her daughter as I am the only daughter and she misses me a lot, but it's just one of his strategies to limit my visits to them and to have no privacy with them whatsoever. My husband is always taught to be the most important person in any relationship and thats exactly what his mother is like too. In any circumstances, they come first.

Recently he told me about his friend and how experienced he is in treating his wife. I tell my husband to read islamic books on husband wife relationship, he obviously hates to read, he likes to learn from stingy people around him. He tells me his friend says don't give everything your wife asks for. Show her you wont give it to her and she should be content with that and later bring it for her. This is how you discipline her. My husband is a generous person generally but recently he has started to change his behaviour with me in many ways. What hurts me is that I spend every penny of his after deep thought. Ever since marraige I havent even been to a salon to get my hair trimmed just so I could let him save money. Everytime he wanted to take me to a good restaurant, I would say lets just eat something quick and not waste money. I don't shop much either. I try to be as good as I can as a wife to help him pay his loans.

On the other hand his mother makes every use of his money to buy herself all luxury she can in this world. She wants the most expensive of everything and he gets it for her. Everything from designers or high end stores. Its all ready for her and he would have no shame showing me the double standards always saying she is my mother..she is my mother. Am I not the wife? I don't say he wouldn't bring me things I want. Sometimes he even forces me to get stuff because he knows how stingy I get with myself for him.

His new strategy is. Don't give wife money for anything. Whatever she needs get it for her but don't give her money in hand. His strategies really hurt me because they make me feel as if he plots things on my back. He gave me a credit card which he recently took from my wallet hidingly. I just found it recently. Initially he would give me some pocket money but as time is going by, he has stopped it. If my husband had any problems, he could tell me upfront, why such sneaky behaviour at my back?

He is usually scared i'll spend my money to help my parents if they are in need. That's what I have started to understand from his rehtoric statements. I feel very unloved. I am 15 weeks pregnant. Most days I am alone upset, I feel like he wants to control me and not show me love. He always says he loves me, he would bring good food for me always. Come home hug me always... But all this has started to feel very fake with the new strategies he tries to implement. There is a lot more stories, but I think this is where i'll end for now.

-MuslimSister01


Tagged as: , , , ,

1 Responses »

  1. Walaikum aSalaam.

    After reading your post, I would advise to run a mile. He will get worse as you mentioned. The friends he hangs around with are giving bad advice, and your dumb husband doesn't have a brain to think for himself.

    When he told you about his friends tactics, did you ask his take on this matter? If he agrees to his friends tactics, I would be worried.

    I fear after you have your child, he may be more controlling. His mother may give him ideas. You already feel unloved as you mentioned, hes sneaky behaviour. Its a cause of concern. You may need to re-address this issue. Get a respectable elder from the community or imam to have a talk. See if they can knock sense into him.

    Some men are crazy.

Leave a Response