Salaams,
My question is more for advice on what to do?
Background – I recently got married 3 years ago and I am having trouble in my marriage.
Me – 34-Year-old multiple business owner working 7 days a week
Her – 35-Year-old surgeon working 2 days a week
My issues within the marriage:
- She does not cook for me – on the days she works, I almost always cook and majority of the other days when I am working and she is not, I also cook. When I cook, I make a nice meal with a nice drink and dessert. Most of the time, she is not even bothered if I have eaten when I am working late. Sometimes probably around 20% of the time, she will cook.
- She does not clean the house – on the days she works, I always clean the house and majority of the other days when I am working and she is not, I also clean.
- She does not do laundry – I am responsible for my own laundry and ironing, and she does her own also.
- She does not look after her body in any way, I always encourage her in the nicest way possible to go for walks together, but she is always too tired. On the other hand, I go to the gym a couple of times a week and play football once a week.
- She does not keep any relations with my family to the point where she goes out of her way to ignore my mother and father. My family do not feel welcome in the house that they helped me purchase. She never answers my mothers calls even though my mother makes every effort to make sure she is okay, to drop food off and ask if she needs anything. My mother also gets her gifts. She did not want to live with my family, so I purchased the house with the help of my family. I made sure that anything my mother needed doing, I did as I had heard all the stories about Asian mother in laws and I did not want my wife to go through a similar experience. However now she does nothing at all and feels it’s a burden to spend one evening at my parents’ house.
- She expects me to make effort with her family members to which I must go once a week to their house. Note that her entire family were unhappy with the marriage and some still do not talk to me or treat me in the right way, but I have swallowed my pride and honour again and again and continue to go to their house. Some of her family members did not even attend the wedding but I let it all go. Her family members do not even entertain my mother or father even though my mother sends gifts on occasions etc. Their family have not helped me in any way shape or form with regards to anything, money or even support with the house (not that they are required to)
- She has been unable to have proper sexual relations due to medical issues (undisclosed before marriage) to which in the three years we have been married, we have had sexual intercourse a handful of times. I asked her to make appointments, but she will not go. She does not do the exercises she has been told to do. We have had many questions with regards to children, but I am unable to even approach the topic with her.
On the 5 days she’s not working, she will sit on the sofa and watch TV all day.
Certain days I will wake up and pray fajr, go to the gym, come home shower and go to work, after a 11 hours shift, I get home about 7pm to find her on the sofa watching TV, having done nothing all day and there is no food and when I ask has she made anything to eat, she makes me feel bad so I rush to the supermarket and get food or we order takeaway.
I try to pray five times a day and encourage her to pray but she doesn’t, or she will pray and be annoyed at me.
I always take her out to eat and spend on her, but she never does the same for me.
I do work a lot and AH she has always been understanding of this as she understands that I am trying to give her a better future. AH we are extremely well blessed in terms of worldly things and are both on generous incomes.
It’s difficult when I see other family couples including her own where the men do not lift a finger and it’s the woman’s role to do everything (not something I agree with at all) but it feels like I am being taken advantage of.
If I try to mention any of this or even ask her to do anything, she will either start crying or make me feel bad for mentioning it or turn it around on me and make it my fault. Therefore, I have stopped mentioning any of this or evening thinking about mentioning it. I feel like I have turned into a doormat.
I am quite stuck now as my entire family are now slowly not liking her because she doesn’t want to be involved in any way. I have given her everything I have and own. All my effort and strength but day by day my strength is waning, and I am unsure of how long I can keep this up.
I am not perfect at all but I am working on myself and I try my best in every situation.
May Allah forgive me.
Does your wife know how to cook? If so, have you requested from her that she cooks for you?
If she doesn't, have you requested that she learn and that it's important for you because you work hard?
Even if she starts crying or guilt tripping you, what exactly are her excuses?
You're going to have to ask yourself the tough questions. Is it worth it for future years? Can you cope with this lifestyle?
You seem to want to progress and grow in life, improve yourself, and she is allowing herself to become stagnant, maybe even regress.
That's not fair on you, and that's not fair on the marriage. Three years might not be a long time, but another few years from now you're going to feel like you've wasted so much of your life.
Also if you do have kids, will you be the one taking care of them? Can you rely on her? cuz if you can't I'd say it's a good thing that it's not happening.
I don't know your entire situation, but if you have hope in the marriage and want to see it through, then you have to communicate and see some progress for it to work out.
If not, it's early enough to move on with your life and a blessing that you don't have anything to hold you back like sharing kids with her. Don't feel guilty about wanting better for yourself. The way she's living life is not even healthy for her either.
Everytime I try to mention anything or even try to talk to her, even ask her to do anything, she will either make a huge deal out of it and make me feel bad about even asking or she will just start crying and then not talk to me for days on end.
I now don't even mention it as it's not worth the hassle and I just carry on struggling.
I feel she is going through her own struggles and is not open about them.
She has almost given up work but she has no friends, no hobbies and nothing to occupy her mind. I suggested (many times) she does more baking as it's something she really enjoys and I said I was happy to pay for all the ingredients but she just brushed it off.
I just feel like she is a really lazy person and she needs to work on her relationship with herself before we can work on our relationship.
Normally she is a reasonable person but I feel she isn't in the relationship.
A few things I forgot to mention;
- We actually didn't consummate our marriage until over a year after our Nikkah which was tough on both of us
- She falls asleep on the couch downstairs 4/5 times a week and I will sleep in the bed alone because she won't come up to bed (She is a very heavy sleeper)
- It was a Love marriage and I don't feel I am able to go to my parents or her parents and ask for their guidance as they will just say it was your decision.
I would never even consider Divorce as this is something I would never do but maybe we need some sort of counselling. I feel if I bring this up, all hell will break loose and even if I find someone and she agrees then she will get annoyed if they take my side as I will have been the one that picked them!
It seems there either might be some underlying issues going on with her that she's not open about, or she's really not marriage material. Also this might be difficult to hear, but it also could be that she is not romantically interested in you anymore and that she sees you more of a close friend? If she has no desires towards you, it might be difficult to put in the effort especially as you are very tolerant and kind towards her (as in she doesn't feel the need to change because you accept her as she is). The more you give her space the less guilty she feels because you're not requesting anything from her during that time, so it has no effect on her when she throws a fit and stops talking to you. She is freed from the obligation to please you because you've already taken the blame. It's something worth asking or talking about.
You can suggest counseling, but from the sounds of it, it seems she is emotionally blackmailing you whenever you are trying to improve things. Since you can't change her reactions towards this, maybe you should change yours? Like instead of adapting to her ways, stick to your stances, continue to talk to her until she can actually open up. Tell her you are unhappy and you need her to change, that she needs to change for her own sake as well. Communication is so important in a relationship. If you can get her to go to counseling then I think its a good first step.
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