Jewaira's Boudoir

Dear Jewaira,

He married someone else secretly and now they have a child.

How many times have I heard this story in women’s gatherings, on silly TV series, and in gossipy magazines? I always listened or read with remote interest. I never thought it could happen to me.

Of course with that kind of introduction, you will know that it already has. I was shattered when my husband finally opened up and told me. After bearing him four children and ten years of marriage he has the audacity to meet someone else, marry her in secret, and have a baby with her.

And then he was thoughtful enough to tell all.

I had endured months of incomprehension. There were nights when he would not come home and not give me a good reason. There were frequent business trips that I thought were part of the job. But it seems that while I held the fort and looked after four young children, he was out mixing business and pleasure.  I remained patient and waited as I grew increasingly aware of something seriously amiss in his frequent unreasonable absences. How many times could he attribute those absences to needing peace and quiet from the children? Those very children he had waited so long for me to bear?

Perhaps you’re thinking it was an arranged loveless marriage? Maybe you think I am his cousin and it was his duty to marry me and the second wife is his due. I know that happens often in those situations.

But what is incomprehensible to me, and to his family is that we were very much in love, very much unrelated, and we fought for our right to get married. He stood up to everyone in his family and said: she is my choice. Accept her or I leave.

What happened in the past ten years?

Does having children destroy the love between husband and wife?

I converted to Islam for him. I changed my name for him. I left my country for him. I did everything for him and his family treat me like their own daughter.

His family is shocked by this unexpected behaviour. He is neither the type to be secretive nor the type to play around. He is successful in his career and the kind of man any woman would love to marry. He exudes reliability, honesty, and kindness.

What happened? Was I to blame? Was he seduced by the other woman? Is she his colleague? Where did he meet her?

I wake up in the middle of the night choking, unable to breathe with the anger that has filled my being.

I feel deceived.

Yes, it is his right to marry 2, 3, or 4 wives as per Islamic law. But it is also my right to be informed. What kind of family allows their daughter to marry in secret? Those were the whispers going around the family home. He married her secretly. He had a baby with her secretly. And finally he was pressured I believe, into revealing what he had done.

I have invested the best years of my life in this country; my youth. I have devoted myself to a different culture, a man I was in love with, a second family I can honestly call my own, and four young children who have known only love from us.

Do I leave? Where do I go? And what about my children?

As a woman, I am crushed. And I keep thinking, what if it had been me that had strayed? What if it had been me that had gone off and had another child with another man?

Don’t give me that talk of a man’s marriage rights. A woman has rights too and the true spirit of Islam promotes love, understanding and a strengthening of family ties. At least that is what I understand. A man doesn’t just go off and start another family with someone else and in secret just because his marriage is not as exciting as it once was.

I had him on a pedestal. But now he has ruined my life and crushed my love for him. If I stay now, it will be only for the sake of the children.

I hate to sound pessimistic but I have lost all faith in men and in marriage. If the perfect man with all the desirable qualities, can be so deceitful, then there is no hope left within me regarding loyalty and sacrifice for the sake of marriage.

Deceived & Left with no Choice