Married but living separately apart
7-2-2006 | IslamWeb
Question:
I have been married to a Muslim man for the past fifteen years. He pre-fers to live without me in a separate house. He says that he loves me, yet he thinks that it is better that each one of us lives separately. Sometimes I feel that he feels ashamed for being attached to me or that he fears to pre-sent me to his children. What is your advice?
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.
Islam urged the husband to treat his wife kindly as this would cause more affection between them. Allaah Says (what means): {And live with them in kindness.}[Quran 4:19]. For a husband to treat his wife kindly, he should spend the night with her in his marital house, and he should not live in a house other than the house in which his wife lives without any religious reason as this causes vacuum and contradicts the objective of marriage. Any woman, who has a husband like this one, should be patient and advise him, and she should find out the reasons which pushed him to do so, and she should help him in solving them.
Among the good marital relations as well, is that the husband should fulfil the right of his wife in regard to having sexual intercourse with her, if he is negligent in this regard without any religious reason, then he is wrong. His wife should also be patient with him about this and advise him. However, if he still persists in refusing to fulfil her rights in this regard [having sexual intercourse with her and staying overnight with her] then she has the right to ask for divorce, especially if she fears to be harmed by this [by committing illegal sexual intercourse].
We answered the question in details because it might be that the husband refuses to have sexual intercourse in addition to not spending the night with her [in her room].
Allaah Knows best.