Am I asking for a miracle, or is this my fate to have no love?
My name is Jennah, and I reverted to Islam Nov 2007, I live in Seattle, WA. My 12 year old son lives with me and my husband whom I married in Aleppo Syria, was living with us, from March 2009 till October 2009, when he entered the US Army.
Prior to that when he first arrived from Syria, it first seemed everything was good between us, then in May 2009 he discovered some things that I did not tell him from my past, and he proceeded to dig and dig deeper into my past. Even the past that I had before reverting to Islam.
Our relationship started to really go downhill, with arguments, and accusations from him, name calling, threats of divorce, and he even hired someone to surveil me when I would go to work, he also followed me for months without my knowledge. Of course, his surveillance did not reveal anything that I did or was doing was in anyway prohibited, I would go to work, and come home, go to work and come home. I didn’t mix with non-Muslim men, or speak to them other than what is required to maintain my job.
Anyway, it was not only me that had kept secrets from him and didn’t feel it necessary to tell him all the details of my past before reverting, he did this too. In fact, he was doing this at the same time I was there in Syria, (after our marriage), and he continued to speak to women, and his excuse was for the purpose of marriage, but he didn’t tell me this, or explain that he was looking for a second wife, he only said that he was doing this for the purpose of marriage, after I discovered his secret.
Now he has been gone to the Army since October, he finally graduated Basic Training in February 2010, and he is now at his Advanced Training class, but he has been there since February, and just recently started his class on May 3rd, prior to that he on April 21st he took the oath of citizenship.
During this extended time, he has actually pronounced divorce to me, over 3 times. The first time was when he was so angry at me, because I would not answer the phone, when the reason I didn’t want to answer was because of his foul language he was using against me, and the horrible things he would call me, text me, and call me such horrible names.
The second time, he actually said it 3 times once right after the other, and then he texted me the same. The reason for this was I had actually called the father of my son, before my husband’s graduation in February, primarily because my husband said he wanted my son to go live with his father because he couldn’t tolerate his behavior, and that as long as my son was in the apartment, his penis could not erect when he would want to have sex with me.
Anyway I called my ex husband, the father of my 12 year old son, to discuss with him a visit for the summer for my son, but I also did it because I thought my husband would at least feel somewhat better if it were just a temporary time that my son would be gone. Well unfortunately I wasn’t even trying to hide the conversation that I had with my ex husband, and I told my husband about the conversation. When I told him, if he would have been in the same room, I believe that he would have actually murdered me right then and there.
I was born in the states, and raised by my mother and father who never ever raised their hands to one another in violence, nor did my father ever call my mother a name or curse her. They didn’t separate because of violence or anything like that; they were separated by death, when my father died. So this is the way that I believe a relationship of a wife and husband should aspire to, and not about who is in power and who is not. I was working from the time I was 12 years old, and I was supporting our family many times when I had been married, while my mate was not working. The same in the current relationship, I was more than willing to support my family and continue to work while my husband didn’t have a job. Now he does, and the strange thing is, that although he is Muslim and born and raised Muslim, he does not even support our family. He keeps all his money to himself, and I am expected to pay all the bills here. He says, well I don’t live there, why should I pay the rent, and the utilities, and all your bills? Yet I am expected to answer his calls when he treats me like I am just a useful item to have around to do tasks for him and make calls for him, and things he could do but just is lazy to do, or likes to order me around, treating me worse than a Secretary!
The third time, it was on the phone, and it was because he thought I hung up on him but it wasn’t that at all, it was the reception in the building I work in, and he said it once, and then to make sure I heard him he said it again. So each time he has found some way to take me back into his custody, but still he doesn’t show me any affection in his conversations, and in fact has asked me to agree to have sex outside of the marriage, like swinging, or swapping. He wants to do this because it’s a sex adventure. I wouldn’t agree to it, and told him that I have made such a grave mistake in marrying him. That he was not this type of person when we met, and that if I agree to this, and even if I don’t, and he does this sin, that I will be required to answer for him on the Day of Judgment, and I will be punished for the sin as if I had done it myself.
Then he changes, and he starts praying, and reciting encouraging Quranic verses, and then it seems he has tried to purify his thoughts of sin from his mind, but then, he goes back to it and it’s just a matter of time before he repeats the cycle. He will tell me, I told you when I met you I am not religious, I pray but I am not religious. Well now he tells me I am corrupted, but I pray, and he says “I am too much for you, you cannot handle me, and no one can control me, and no matter what you have done for me, it doesn’t matter, you can never do what I need from you.”
It seems that maybe he is pushing me to accept a divorce, because my heart has really hardened towards him. And I find that I don’t like him most of the time. He calls me names on a regular basis and he threatens me on even more of a regular basis. I don’t know what is wrong with this man, and how he can actually think that a woman from this culture is going to accept this type of treatment. Is it something that the men from the Middle East expect? That their rotten behavior toward women is something that Middle Eastern women love….? Is it because they think that there is no way for a woman to survive in the conditions there, without him in her life, and if she doesn’t love to be treated like a dog, most of the time, then she is not worth keeping, and treating with respect.
It just seems so very opposite type of behavior of a Muslim or of Islam that it really makes the faith get a bad rap. Its not just one man that gives the entire culture a bad image, no, it’s not just him, I have been married to 3 Arab men, and they all have shown this type of sinful type of behavior, how can you continue to justify their behavior by saying that Allah knows best, this is something that is a weakness with the male, and not in the female, so why is it that women are the ones that are beaten for not agreeing to do something as sick and disgusting as having a threesome, or a foursome, because their Muslim husband wants to have a SEX ADVENTURE?
Can you even conceive a convincing answer, I don’t think you can, because you are a man, and you have no idea how a woman looks at this type of behavior and what it means to a relationship. It means that men – in general, not just Muslim men, not just the Islamic religion, but really when you think about this, its within each individual, that has to understand that if you forcibly keep something out of your life, the natural response is to want it, like when you were a kid, your mother said, “Don’t touch”, what did you want to do? You wanted to touch, just like all other normal kids. So this has nothing to do with religion. It’s human nature, and one can’t change the nature, nor can a religion, only the will of each person can change a behavior, and tendencies will be to revert back to bad habits, and a cycle of repeating good, bad, good, bad behavior will continue until the person is actually disgusted, or abhors the action he/she committed.
- Jennah
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asalamu alaikum,
hi how are you? hope you are doin well. also would like to welcome you to the path of islam. sis if he pronounces divorce three times then its considerd as a divorce. but the thing i dont understand is if he is treating you like this why are you still hangin around? plz dont say cos you love him cos this aint love, also in order for a relationship to work it needs to be equally done from both partys otherwise its a high possibility to fall through.
also i would like to point out you wrote "now he tells me I am corrupted, but I pray, and he says “I am too much for you, you cannot handle me, and no one can control me, and no matter what you have done for me, it doesn’t matter, you can never do what I need from you.”? hes already tellin you, he doesnt care what you did for him. so is he worth the trouble?
so i suggest you part from him for the sake of you and your child. i dont know if your child is witnessing any of this but the last thing you want is your son to follow the footstep of a scoundrel.
peace.................................
Salaam my sister,
I am going to tell you a true story now, and I hope there is something in it for you.
***
When I was working for a large counselling charity, we were approached by a large, international, on line dating website in the UK to provide studies and relationship counselling session for people coming out of bad relationships and onto dating websites . The main crux of their problem is that women were still finding abusive partners, people would fall madly in love first - then fall out really badly when they met in real life and there was a lot of problems in the best way to match people to create long lasting relationships. Also, there appeared to be more terrible breakups and disappointment from on line dating than in real life.
Part of the study was women and abusive relationships. What they did was take a women who had a history of being in abusive relationships, and put her in a room with 100 carefully selected males. Each male fulfilled what she stated that she was looking for in her ideal man, on the scale of appearance, work, economics and interests. Of the 99 men, one known abuser was planted in the room without the woman's knowledge. They introduced her to every single one, and then afterwards interviewed her as to which one she wanted to see again. She had to pick one.
She chose the abuser.
***
What we learned from this study, and many other studies which confirm the same phenomenon, is that our subconscious seeks out the same scenario and character again and again, in a repeat cycle. If you are finding that you are experiencing "different man - same ending" all of the time, then it's time to learn more about yourself, the choices that you are making and the qualities that are attracting you to these men, because at the beginning of every relationship there is something that pulls you toward it - otherwise the relationship would not happen. Until you learn what it is that is attracting you towards this particular kind of man, you will not be able to change what you are doing, thinking and feeling in order to achieve a different outcome in your life.
On the subject of this particular man, sister, please leave this waste of your time and source of agony as soon as possible and don't put up with any more of this rubbish.
A bright, loving future with a good, clean Arab (or any other race) man is more than possible - but you must change what goes IN to your decision making, before you see a change in what comes out.
Relate (if they have it in your country) are the foremost experts on relationship counselling, and will see you even if you are not in a relationship, if you are trying to get out of a relationship, if you are trying to get into a relationship and they can counsel you through the things that driving your attractions towards people who are treating you poorly and help you get out.
Peace,
L
PS: You have said many things about Muslims, culture and Muslim men and their behaviours toward women. This is a deep and lengthy debate about law, history and politics and so I will not get into this here, however one thing I will say is that if you want an example of what a Muslim man should be, towards women, society and people in general - the example to look at is our Prophet (pbuh) and not your husband.
There are good an bad males the whole world over, we notice the Islamic ones more because we are Muslim, but please remember that not everyone on their knees is praying, and learn to identify danger signs in males early on to prevent getting in these situations.
Men from every country the world over beat, batter, abuse, lie, cheat, steal and worse - it is not unique to one culture, or one race of peoples: it is just packaged in different ways, forms and techniques. Having said that, there are many good men the whole world over and all we (women) need to do is learn how to identify them successfully.
Peace,
L
Assalamu alaikum Sister,
I am also a revert of 13 years. When we come into Islam we tend to look at it through rose colored glasses. We think that everyone who is Muslim is good, and all Muslims who were born in Muslim are the best of the best. As we grow in Islam we begin to see that just because a person was born Muslim or from a Muslim country it does not make them the best of the best. In many cases they are the worse examples of Muslims. Why, because they take Islam for granted. For some of them Islam is not in their hearts, it's just something that do. Just going through the motions because it's expected.
Now that I said that I would like to address your situation. You said that you were married to 3 men all of Arab backrounds. It sounds to me that you were marrying these men because maybe you thought that they were good Muslims because of where they come from. As you found out for yourself that is not always true. My question to you is did you have a Wali to check any of these men out. If so, was that Wali of the same culture. Sometimes when the Wali is of the same culture they sometimes look past the faults of the brother because they are from the same place. Also as sister Leyla mentioned, women seem to gravitate towards the same type of man over and over again. It appears that you have done the same thing.
The first thing you need to do is formulate a gameplan for getting out of this situation. If you have friends that you can trust then you need to ask them for help so that you can move on. No one derserves to be treated like you have. He may tell you that he is going to change but in most cases they don't. You have to ask yourself, is he a good Muslim, is he trying to follow the example of our Prophet (PBUH). or is he trying to pull you into the hellfire with him. And you have to ask yourself, is this an invironment that you want your son in. I don't think so. Leave this man as soon as possible. It doesn't sound safe for you or your son.
Remember, these men do not in any way represent Islam. Never judge the religion by what the people may do. You will always be dissapointed. Instead always turn to the book of Allah and his messenger.
Insha Allah, you will find the right man who will treat you with respect and dignity. I will reference something that Sister Leyla said earlier. "Men from every country the world over beat, batter, abuse, lie, cheat, steal and worse". You are going to find the same disgusting acts from men across all social, religious, and cultural backrounds. Be patient when choosing a husband. Never rush into any marriage. You will find the right man but you have to change your decision making process. Once you do that then you will find what you are looking for and deserve.
Your Brother in Islam
Abdul Wali Carter
Peace
I pray to Allah to give you a blessed , loving and faithful muslim husband . Ameen.
Assalaam Alaikum,
I am a male, and I hate sick behavior by Muslim men towards their women in general, and wife to be specific.
Today's world needs good Muslims very badly. Muslims who can be role models and examples, whatever degree of intensity it be. We need Allah-fearing, loyal, generous, kind, caring and loving Husbands, and we do need Allah-fearing, modest, chaste, loyal and Islam-loving wives.
May Allah (swt) bless my brothers and sisters with Hidayah to be good Husband and wives.
May Allah bless you with a righteous Husband. We live continents apart, otherwise would have attempted to initiate a marriage proposal with you. May Allah (swt) bless you from his mercy, my dear sister in Islam.
I totally agree with Ali here. It's a shame how Muslim men treat women's. I thnk this so called man u married, only married u to get citizenship. That y he joined the army to speed up the process. Sister I would hate to say tis but u should of never gotten involved with him, especially the men that r living in middle east, for majority of them treat women's worse than dogs. U should leave him. Inshallah Allah has something better planned for u. Good luck with everything.