Q: I am woman who was recently in an arranged marriage. My husbands side did not allow me to talk to my husband before the wedding, I only had a 10 min conversation with him. I raised concerns over my husband not talking much before the wedding and my parents chose to ignore this. A few days in to the marriage I discovered that my husband suffers from a mental health condition called schizophrenia. I was very upset that this was hidden from me and also my family. This explained a lot of initial difficulties that I was having with him, although I started to care for him a lot. I was worried that he may have another manic episode which will make life very difficult for our marriage. He is currently on medication everyday for this. I have decided to end our marriage because of all his symptoms and my worry for this getting worse in the future. I was with him for a few weeks and the marriage was not consummated because we were getting to know each other. I have since come home and prayed istikhara to see if I should go back to my husband. I have seen that I was being attacked by a wasp, the house was on fire and also that there were a lot of scary people and creatures waiting outiside to attack me and family. I don’t know what these dreams mean. I have decided not to go back to my husband. However I find that at times my heart longs for him and that my heart longs to be with him and share my moments with him. I’m finding it difficult to think of marrying other men. I am so confused and a mess. I know that I cared for him a lot but I worry about the difficulty his condition will have on our future as it is something no one told me about. A lot of people ask me to go back and give it a try but I cannot make his condition better, the issues for the future will still be there and I don’t want to consummate the marriage if we may end it again. Please give me your thoughts, am I in the wrong for wanting to leave? Will these feelings for care and love go away? I started to feel like his career and became overprotective of him and his condition.
A: If you feel that he is not a suitable match for you, you may ask him for a separation.
And Allah Ta’ala (الله تعالى) knows best.
Answered by:
Mufti Ebrahim Salejee (Isipingo Beach)