Islamic marriage advice and family advice

Oppressive Husband

Muslim woman in hijab

Salam allaikum dear brothers and sisters!

As a newly married woman I have some difficulties in my marriage which make both me and my husband unsatisfied from our communication. I hope that here I can find some answers.

My husband and I are both students. Currently he is concentrated on some very important final exams. I am trying to combine studying with work, and doing all the housework. However, instead of kind words, support and understanding, I often face pressure and offending statements from my husband. He seems to never be happy with what I do, requires more and more and although my whole time from dark in the morning to dark in the evening is busy with some tasks from school, work and home, he always says “You did nothing, Everyone can do it, You are stupid, I question if I am so intelligent or you are just mentally disabled”. When I try to bring in a new idea or show what I have read he always takes it as something stupid or says “Is that all you did?”. I always feel down and oppressed. I talked to him many times to share that his words are like knifes in my heart but he says that he wants me to awake and to be more creative.

Of course, I understand that he is stressed at the university and maybe this is his style of expression but still, I cry every day because my efforts remain unseen and when I hope that I will finally receive his encouragement and will hear some kind words, he again starts yelling at me and telling me that I am “complete zero”. Also, he is then angry why I don’t smile or talk a lot, but how can I when I bring all this load in me? I cannot handle this constant pressure and endless requirements any longer. He even has mentioned couple of times that I am too limited for him and he doesn’t know how it will end…

I am very scared and try my best to be the wife he wants but I see that he will never be satisfied. In our marriage, I have only listened to critics, critics, critics and at the end of the fight always he remains angry and expects me to apologize for my stupidness. I lost all my self-confidence. I do not claim that I am very smart or deserve special admirations but I also do not think that I am really so limited as he always says (and even if – is it correct that one person talks like that to another?). I just feel broken because my husband who has to be my support and security has used all rude words that exist and that people do not say even to animals to offend me. There is also no one who I can talk to – I definitely do not want to involve my or his family in this and I am just trying to cope with it alone but I am extremely unhappy.

I cannot think of divorce because I love him very much and I know that he has a very good heart. Besides that, he is very wise, caring and responsible. That is why I am looking for a way to solve this specific problem and somehow make him concentrate on the positive sides and not only on what I did not do.

Please give me any advice how can I escape this situation and make our marriage and home a place where we want to go back and not a place we offend each other and bring us down.

Thank you very very much for your help! May Allah bless you!


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1 Responses »

  1. You need to stop being so understanding of your husband. Stressed or not, he has absolutely no excuse to belittle and verbally abuse his wife like he is. I suspect you are not defending your boundaries, and your husband clearly has no respect for them either...so you've got this messy situation on your hands. Please tell your husband that he cannot talk to you like that, and that if, for whatever reason, he's stressed with his studies...tell him to find another punching bag than you. You have to be firm and let your husband know that you won't stand for being degraded in this marriage. Give him a list of your tasks and chores, and tell him that he can start doing them himself since he seems to think they take so little time and effort to complete. Seriously, don't be a doormat. Don't let people enjoy your generosity only to then hear from them that you never did anything nice for them. It's disgusting. That's not the kind of people that deserve your kindness, honestly.

    Islamically, it's not your responsibility to pay bills, work and clean the house...so you wouldn't be doing anything wrong in refusing to do these things. Especially not when your husband clearly doesn't appreciate that you are trying to make things easier for him. Let him be a man and do what he's supposed to do.

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