My ex is distracting me in my marriage and I want it to all stop
Hi, I need advice. I'm married so far 3 yrs umdullah. I love him and he loves me.
We have a daughter Allah has blessed me umdulahh. But theres this one person that sort of distracting me and feeling guilty about. Before my husband, I had a boyfriend yes. I knew it was haraam but at the same time my dad really was never home. neways he was a muslim and me too.
I loved him tooo much. I gave him all of me he was my 1st and I was his 1st. My husband knew this and knew what I was going through before and still love me and wanted to marry me umdullah. But right now, I have him on my fb as a friend and his number and he stopped by one time at my job. I dont talk to him alot maybe, like once in a blue moon hardly but since i seen him I dreamt about him. Not sexually but just his face.
Now, wana ask even if hes my first and im married, is it haram that I have him as a friend and that I dreamt of him and I have his number?
Plz help. I'm embaressed and love Allah and love my family.
Thankuuu
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Salaam My Sisiter,
I am sorry that you are experiencing this feeling of not being able to let go of your past and the way it is disabling your ability to recognise and enjoy the blessings Allah has given you in the form of a good husband and a healthy child.
It is absolutely haram for you to be in touch with this man and a great betrayal to your husband and your faith. For your husband, there can be nothing more painful than loving someone, and having a child with them only to learn that for the whole time they are thinking of another. This is pain beyond measure, and so I advise you to recognise this and work at letting go of this past relationship.
Meanwhile, you also suffer because your thoughts have abandoned the situation that you are in, rendering everything that is good in your life "not good enough". No reality can compete with a dream, and whilst you may not be able to recognise it right now - these constant thoughts are a way of escaping your reality and living in a dream world at the cost of your real life.
It is natural for us to grieve when we lose something, and it is natural for us to revisit memories of what we have lost - however you are holding onto these memories and not letting go of them. The longer you hold onto this past relationship, the more of your life you are wasting - because you have a family now, and a husband and they need you and you need them, so you must mentally engage with this and start to enjoy what you had instead of pining over what you had in the past.
Its essential that you go through the process of letting go of your past relationship because you are breaching the conditions set by Allah, the conditions of marriage and you are disabling your ability to be happy with what you have.
You must look at these thoughts as an unhealthy and damaging addiction for which you must go through a process to stop. Step one is to cut off the source of the addiction, by cutting off contact with this person. Step 2 is to go through withdrawal which will be a range of emotions: anger, grief and depression. Step 3 is to mentally accept that this is a process that you have to go through and that it is a good process that is good for you, for your faith, for your husband and for your future. Step 4, is to be free of it completely. This will take time, and it will require a sincere intention from you to do what is right by Allah, by your husband, by your daughter and by yourself.
Do not feed your addiction to these thoughts by revisiting them and staying in touch with this person. This will only lead to pain and heartache for you, and is a breach of everything we believe in as Muslims.
I sincerely hope and pray that you will see the light and get off these thoughts with strength and faith.
Peace,
Leyla
Editor, Islamic Answers
I agree with Leyla. Send the ex-boyfriend a message that you need to focus on the halal marriage that Allah has blessed you with, and that you want no further contact with him of any kind. Then remove the ex-boyfriend from your FB, delete his number, and relegate him to your past.
Wael
IslamicAnswers.com Editor
The advice here is really sound and I hope it helps her out and the thing is my situation is similar. But what if the tie cannot be cut? I am engaged to be married to my cousin and I had a previous relationship with my future husbands younger cousin(which is also my cousin), he is aware of this and is accepting, they grew up together and are very close.
My first love and I had a very intense relationship and went through a war with our families and almost made it, but at the end we didn't. We never actually officially ended the relationship and many things got miscommunicated by the involvement of our families. So we never got closure and I don't know what happened or how we ended up like this but it was the will of Allah.
Anyways soon after he was married and I had to accept this. And I did and I do. As a cousin I cut him out of my life and my other cousins to break away and move on. I blocked him from fb so my curiosity does not overtake me and our other family members, I deleted all his information, threw out all letters and gifts and took out all trace him. I have made sure to never attend the same dinners or functions and essentially ended my relationship with my fathers side of the family..He has never tried to contact me and is a faithful and Islamic man so no haram was ever committed.
I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the wrath of Allah and respect that he has a wife and one day will be the father of HER children. I am truly happy for him and wish him the best.
It would be a lie to say that I do not care, and that I do not cry because I still believe I do love him but he is married end of story. As my cousin he became my best friend and later we fell in love.(I met him when I was 15 he was 21) And it does pain me to the point of wishing for death that he is no longer someone I can marry, but I understand that this is life and it goes on and that because of our past we can never be the same and I do not wish for it either.
I have met my current fiance also cousin for the first time almost a year ago and he knew of my past and etc because it was a famous topic in our families.However he wished to marry me so he had it fixed by the families, it caused some issues considering I had a relationship with our cousin. They are a very joint family and my fiance spoke to my ex and conveyed to him his wish to marry me. And my ex said that my fiance is their elder brother(mine too technically) and that he knows best and spoke about other things concerning me but my ex said that he is married that our chapter is closed.My fiance told me that he believes that my ex still cares deeply for me and asked me if I do. I answered him honestly that at times that I really do miss him but I love and wish to marry him. I told him that I would be uncomfortable being anywhere near my ex slash cousin and my fiance also cousin said the same. But he said due to the fact that we are family and as much as he would like us to avoid the family that there would be run ins.
I really do NOT want this to happen. I have not seen my ex in almost 3 years and I already am aware I have lingering feelings and do NOT want to spark anything. AT ALL. Its wrong, plain and simple and I dont want shaytan to have any effect cause its like putting a litted candle next to a trail of gasoline. So its just plain stupid.
I mean my family and I literally cut all contact and now they are discussing joint wedding ceremonies(my exes nikkah took place but not ceremony) so me, and my ex having a same wedding and traveling on the same plane to go to our homeland to meet with our spouses.
I told my family that I don't want it and expressed my concern and discomfort, but the elders are very much going ahead of the plans. So I am going to be around this guy, what do I do? I mean I will avoid as much as I can, but astakfurillah if my feelings come( I won't act on them) will I get sin, he is married and I don't want to be a sinner.
He is deeply religious so he would not to anything to betray his marriage so I already know he will do everything to avoid me as well, he is a good man. But the feelings, what will I do with the feelings? The thought itself is making me want to throw up.
I hate the fact that I care for him but he is my cousin, my blood and I do love who I am with now but what do I do about my lingering feelings about my cousin and it looks like I will have him in life every few years, what do I do about that? What do I do with that fact that my past is about to be in my present and sometimes in my future?
(Keep in mind my father is VERY CLOSE TO HIS FAMILY and when I say JOINT FAMILY , I mean it they all live under one roof like 21 of them; my brothers,my mother and I have had like ZERO contact with them cause of the issues but never pressured our father cause its his family but now I am marrying the eldest boy in the family and my father said that its by responsibility to deal with it and all the families since technically I will be the eldest sister in law.)
salaam sis. Thats a difficult situation. I pray that Allah swt removes your feelings for your ex. Do you have any one in your family you trust a lot that u can talk to. Maybe explain how u feel its not a good idea, and could be awkward.? If you can maybe they can mediate changing this... If it doesnt work and u do have to have joint ceremony. (i think the idea is ridiculous an quite inconsiderate to both of u) then i think where possible is best to stay away a bit. If you feel an inclination to him or feelings, remind urself that hes a chnaged person now - hes not the same man u loved before - an hopefuli IA this will ease the pain somewhat.
As far as I know we are not accountable for our thoughts unless we entertain them. So a passing thought/ feeling is ok, but if its wrong then try to change it. Focus on the nice things about ur fiancee. Most importantly know tht Allah swt doesnt place a trial on anyone greater than we can bear, so it will InshaAllah be ok for u dear sis. Ask Him to help you through this.
I pray that Allah swt blesses your marriage, helps you to move on with your feelings and gives u and your fiancee lots of happiness in this world and the next!
Assallam sister, i sympthise with you totally i have been in a similar situation. And the best thing to do from experience is you should "cut it from the root". For example you dont need to be friends with him? Your husband is your best friend. Alhamd as you said You are a happily married woman with a daughter now you dont want anything to come in the way. You may think you are not doing anything wrong-as you dont have bad intentions but shaytaan works in mysterious ways. By seeing dreams like that it is leaving thorts in your head, it may come to a point were you realise your feelings have come back for him. I think an ex will always stay an ex meaning because you shared so much together you likely to have a soft spot and from experience you should stay away from anything reminds you of it. Your in a point of your life where you should be solely concentrating on the other half of your deen. Being a role model to you r daughter.
You are strong to acknowledge your feelings, but you need to be a little bit more strength to understand that your feelings are not sincere. Why? You are married, with what you said to "a husband that you love and loves you", MashaAllah.
Your 'ex-boyfriend' is nothing more than the whispering of Shaytaan and a need to make sincere repentence.This is why gender relations is an issue we as an Ummah NEED to take seriously. Between two, the third is always Shaytaan. His goal; greatest acheivment is to seperate couples , because a strong base produces strong children. And strong practising youth are a great asset to our faith, to our community, and to our ummah as a whole. There are too many factors that are hard to avoid in marriage (ie finances, mental disorders, adultry etc). Do yourself a favor and protect YOUR FAMILY. How? .. Follow Islamic protocol regarding gender relations. He is not your mahram therefore understand there is no need for any sort of communication. No Facebook, no phone numbers, and if the brother decides to see you at work (HIGHLY inappropriate, I'd smack him silly if I were your husband) then tell him firmly that you are married and would not like that he visits, or keeps in touch. Why hurt your husband?(though I don't believe it's intentional it's still a sting) You wouldn't like it if you were in his place, so switch roles put yourself in his shoes and follow through. Be firm with yourself sister, and please protect your bond from the evils of Shaytaan and yourself... please.
When thoughts of this man comes to your mind, seek refuge in Allah swt from Shaytaan the accursed...it's the whispering of the Shaytaan, it's not you. It might help to also, do something special with you husband to make you appreciate your union that much more, and make a bi-gone .. be a BYE --- GONE!! 🙂