Q Assalamu aleykum.

Thank you for this beneficial service. My silent cry for help is about my parents. I am in desperate thoughts about what to do regarding them. Even though their relationship is about to escalate, my mother refuses to divorce, but she is suffering hell on earth. My father is way older than my mother who married young and naively without the consent of her parents. They are cousins and my father was well known for his outrageous anger attacks, his stubbornness and humiliating attitude towards other humans. I do not remember a long period of a peaceful time at home, so I felt overwhelmingly relieved when I finally left this house to study abroad. I am still fighting with the lack of self-confidence caused by the permanent humiliating and blaming from my father. He provided me and my siblings every possible financial support, but emotionally he damaged all of us.

My oldest brother is suffering from depression and panic attacks. He was the most difficult child of us and at the same time the most beloved one by my father. He became the reason my father turned into an incapable paranoid being. For many years, my father has complex financial issues with my mother's brothers. He is blaming them and sees them now as enemies. As he has been aging, he lost friends and relatives because of his childish arguments or again financial fights. I have never ever heard him excusing or admitting a mistake of his. This fight with my uncles worsened the relationship of my parents, which already was damaged because of zero respect from my father towards his wife. My mother has a silent, submissive nature. She once said after a heavy argument between me and my father that she would endure him till death. Things became worse also between my brother and father. My father did not allow my brother to marry the girl he loved, destroyed their relationship with prejudices and irrational blaming towards the girl and they broke up. This incident also broke the last tie between my brother and father.

As usual, my mother was blamed and she suffered the most. Now that my brother turned his back towards my father, he became completely mad restricting my mother more and more. My uncles are seen as his enemies so he ordered my mother not to see them, otherwise he would divorce her. He has not restricted us, but every single silly thing became more and more the fault of my uncle; therefore, also the fault of my mother. Because instead of defending her husband, she was defending her brothers. In fact, my mother begged him for years to sit down and talk with my uncles to clear these money issues, but my father's ego never allowed him to do that. He was a hundred percent sure that he is right and in his eyes his wife and children were isolating him and leaving him slowly. He never understood that his own disrespectful behavior was the reason for him being alone. With years of being unemployed and without any beneficial occupation in his life, his thoughts and assumptions became his own reality. He strongly denies any psychological help even though his own daughter, a medical doctor, begs him to seek professional help. I am witnessing how my family is breaking apart. We daughters and sons are desperately seeking to flee from home and spending as limited time as possible with them. I offered my mother to divorce, it is not haram to divorce, and I do not understand why she should suffer every day within her learned helplessness. But she refused. After this heavy fight, I have mentioned before regarding the lack of peace in our family I recognized something that destroyed me completely.

My bed is close to our parents' room, so I heard them having intercourse that night even though I knew that my mother was mentally broken after the fight. My father has thrown the whole kitchen table on me, glasses were broken. She was crying a lot. I am not a married person, I cannot understand what is happening in the bed of two married persons, but more or less I have learned in medical school that the woman has to be ready for intercourse, otherwise she will be dry and feel pain. I think it is impossible for my mother to be in the mood for having sex, especially after this troublesome night. I assume my father abuses my mother; I have witnessed his psychological abuse dozens of times, we all grew up with it. But now that I have sort of witnessed also physical abuse, I am not able to stand still any longer. I am writing you on this very night.

My trust towards my father is completely gone. I wonder if I will be able look into my parents' eyes without remembering the noises I have heard that night. I wonder what I as a daughter can do for my mother and father. Almost all of our elder relatives are ceased or are crossed with my father. He is already old himself. I do not believe his cruel character and years of paranoid overthinking will recover, neither do I believe that my mother will someday stand up for herself and say stop to this cruelty. She even hinders us children when we stand up for her and defend her. She says he is our father, he wants our best.

We kids are all old enough to build a life, alhamdulillah. What I have witnessed is only a small peak of an iceberg because I am not living with my parents anymore. I cannot just wait for this situation to end till one of them dies, but I am also in a deep desperation. What can I do besides begging Allah to help my parents? My deepest thanks to you.