Portrait of a Strong Woman - A Marriage Breaks Down

Alif Lam M’im. ¤Do the people think that they will be left alone on saying “We believe,”
and that they will not be tested? ¤
We did test those who have gone before them.
Allah has to see who are the truthful and who are the liars.
[Ankaboot, 29:1-3]

 … Those who endure with patience will be rewarded without measure.”

(Innama yuwaffa al-ssabiroona ajrahum bighayri hisabin)

[az-Zumar - 39:10]

A man marries for the first time.  They are deeply in love. Everyone tells them how perfect they are for each other. She has a lovely little girl from a previous marriage and the new couple are soon blessed with a bouncing baby boy. The family is well on it's way to becoming complete. Everything is fine until he decides he is bored and he starts hanging with 'as-shabaab' (friends). That is no excuse but alcohol and women soon follow.  Now he spends more time outside drinking with various women, than he does at home.


His wife hates this, of course, and does her best to get him to stop committing adultery and to come home to his family. 
She doesn't want a broken home.  Instead, she gets insults and beatings for her efforts. She cannot do anything, but pray and wait. She keeps good relations with his family, she thinks they love her because they can see her patience. The truth is they are embarrassed by their son's behaviour so they pretend they can't see. They even try to  blame the wife.  Maybe she doesn't please him?


He wants to do what he wants to do so he marries the other woman so that the accusation of adultery is nullified. He keeps it secret, but everyone knows.  He doesn't care, at least now when he is away from home, they can see that he is with his second "wife". 
Life at home deteriorates alarmingly. All the money is spent entertaining his second wife and her friends, parties, hotel rooms.  No.1 at home has to borrow to put food in her children's mouths.  Husband doesn't care, he is in love, he is busy, his life is exciting. 


After a couple of years of this, he's sent abroad for study.  His mind clears and he realises what he's doing.  He's destroying his family.  When he returns from his course, he has stopped drinking. He tries to make his two marriages work, but really he's leaning towards the first wife.  Without the drinking, he has nothing in common with second one. No.1 has the values that he likes to see in a wife. 


The second wife senses that she is soon to be dumped and she feigns an interest in Islam and becomes an abaya and hijab wearer.  It doesn't work, the man has made a decision, but not before putting his first wife through hell.  He divorces No.2 and continues life the same as it never was with wife No.1 and kids. But she is damaged.  She serves him, and takes care of her home better than ever, but she is broken and insecure. Nothing pleases him, he is so easily bored.  That is how they bring them up over here.

A couple of years later, he's at it again.  Drinking with a different woman every night.  Next thing you know, he marries another one of them.  He spends every weekend with the new No. 2 wife.  Wife No.1 is for weekdays, cooking and cleaning, washing his clothes in preparation for his weekends with No.2.  That's when his real party life begins. 


No.1 would have left by now, but she has nowhere to go.  If she initiates divorce she'll have to pay rent for herself and her two kids, she is not a local, she has no claims, no rights, no income, but she has her education.  He tells her "If you don't like it, you know where the door is, noone's stopping you."

Again, his second marriage disintegrates, how can you base a marriage on someone else's pain?  He returns to his first wife one weekend at 3 am.  "You win", he says.  "What did I win? The booby prize?" she thinks to herself. But she exercises patience.  She is very, very strong. But silently so. Allah knows what she is suffering and only Allah can help her.


The husband does not stop drinking or going out every night.  His finances are not good so he tries to bring alcohol into the house. He cannot afford to pay for hotel alcohol.  His wife is firm.  "No!".  She doesn't want her kids to be exposed to this seediness. He doesn't care about them.  He never wanted any children anyway. He fights her, insults her like a spoilt child. He doesn't have enough money to pay for his hotel trysts, so he steals his wife's only piece of gold and sells it to pay for a hotel room to sleep with a prostitute. His wife and he are no longer sharing a bed.  She's afraid he might give her a disease. She's sleeping in her children's room on the thinnest of mattresses, he never spends on the home, everything needs repair. He tries to sneak in a prostitute into his room, No.1 catches him and he smashes the door against her face, the blood pours down.  The prostitute runs down the stairs, clutching her clothes.


The kids are terrified. There have been too many nights like this. They are crying as they hold on to each other. No.1 calls the police at 3 am. She has to go to the hospital before she can make a police report.  They cannot drive her there, she has to find her own way there and back, at 3 am. The police tell her she can take him to court and ask for a divorce on grounds of abuse.  "Then what would happen to me, and my babies?" she asks.  "You will have to find your own house, he is not obligated to provide you with a house, you are not a local, you are not the governments burden".  She doesn't want to file a criminal case against her son's father. 


She goes home, silent.  The best she can do is get him to sign a promise that he would not beat her again.  He has signed that worthless piece of paper four different times, it does not deter him.  Every night she prays, "Oh Allah! If this man is good for me, my deen and my children, please help him change and keep him with us.  If he is not for us yaa Allah please, remove him from us in a peaceful manner".


He starts spending less and less time at home.  He has found another woman who likes to do what he likes to do.  They are in "luurve".  He does not hide it.  He displays their love letters and cards on the bedside table. He wants to hurt his first wife.  Why? The new mistress calls him while he is watching TV at home.  He calls her "baby" and "honey" in front of his child. He can't wait to be with her.  He starts spending nights with her. She has children from a previous marriage. He only sleeps at his first home when he's had a fight with the new love.  But he pretends he's living with "a friend".  Why when No.1 has already seen the love letters and messages?  Only he can explain the logic behind his actions.  As soon as they make up by telephone, off he goes.  


Soon he doesn't come to his home any more except to wash his clothes.  No.1 thinks "Doesn't she do laundry?" No. 1 went on strike a long time ago. She refuses to wash or cook for him.  He can go to hell. She is not his slave, never was.  He doesn't care about his child. He moves out gradually, all the doors in the house are broken, he did that during his late night drunken fests. The furniture is beat up, the kids clothes are worn out.  No. 1 is a dignified woman, she comes from royalty back home. She has been taught to never ask for anything, to rely on herself. Her parents have educated her. Now she has to work to make ends meet, to improve her children's lives. But how to start? She hasn't worked in so long. 


Her husband marries for the third time since he married her.  It seems he hates women but he can't stop marrying.  He thinks it's a secret, but everyone knows.  Sometimes when he is in a benevolent mood, he lets No.1 use the car on weekends to run errands, grocery shopping etc.  He asks her to drop him at his "friend's house" and take the car.  She sees a red haired little boy swinging on the gate of his "friend's house".  "That's her kid, poor thing!", she thinks.  He marries the divorcee, she has four children with her local ex. "She needs a man. She cannot be alone," he justifies later, not remembering that he's leaving No.1 alone, and has been doing so throughout their marriage.


No.1 is hurting, how much rejection can one woman take?  But she remembers her prayer to Allah: "Oh Allah! If this man is good for me, my deen and my children, please help him change and keep him with us.  If he is not for us yaa Allah please, remove him from us in a peaceful manner".  


Slowly No.1 starts to recover her self esteem.  She manages to convince him to renew her visa.  Alhamdulillah, she starts working.  She's earning peanuts but she refurbishes the entire house. New everything.  Now nothing reminds her of those miserable days when he was there.  His work still pays for the house rent yet he gives her barely enough money for food. He doesn't give her money to buy clothes or shoes, books or school bags, and all the other stuff that people need.   He has made up his mind, that's the maximum he will do for her and his child.  A roof over their heads and food.  Just like animals.  But even animals need petting.  


She has the patience of Ayoub (Job).  She is alone, but she has so many friends and family who love her and care for her (including me, much respect, dear friend. You are amazing!).  He has a wife and all those stepchildren, his family and so many people around him, yet he is alone.  Alone, alone, alone.  Nothing around him is real.  He has lost the only real thing he ever had in his life. He does not divorce No.1, neither is he a husband to her.  That's where it is now.
What happens next?  I don't know, but good things come to those who wait.


Watch this space...


Sorry this is so long but there's no other way to tell this story.