Answer
In this counseling answer: “Every time you cheat on your wife, you cheat on all the Muslims. The Ummah has enough problems and wants the mercy of Allah to fall on us. We need strong marriages and men who want that, otherwise, we as an Ummah will continue facing many problems. We need you to “man up”. Your sins affect us all.”
As-Salaamu ‘Alaikum,
It’s well known in Islam that there are conditions of marriage: (a) mutual consent; (b) wali (guardian) for the woman; (c) a contract; (d) witnesses to the marriage; (e) gift to the bride. But there is one condition of marriage that is so basic that it’s normally not mentioned. This is that both believe there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and that they will stand before Him and be judged for what they have done. This is actually the most important part of a marriage.
If someone marries another person and they don’t fear Allah or believe that they will be judged, then the person will be a person with no limits. A marriage is not having a fancy wedding and having sex. Marriage is about pleasing Allah and making the next generations of Muslims strong. After that is pleasure, fun and the like.
If a man marries a woman and he knows it’s first and foremost an act of worship, whether he loves her or not, he will be just to her. If he fears Allah, if he is angry with her, he will never cross a line because he knows marriage in itself is a form of worship like salah, zakah and anything else. When a person puts the focus of marriage on love alone and how nice a wedding ceremony is, it’s a bad sign for the marriage to last.
No matter whom you marry, 20 years later, you will both be different people from how you were when you married. However, if the fear of Allah stays the same, they both can get along as long as they make the Quran and teaching of the Prophet (saw) as a guide. Without that the marriage has no foundation and is no different than a shallow television soap opera marriage.
With that being said, I don’t know if you fear Allah for your evil deeds, but I do know the end of the famous hadith in Imam Nawawai’s 40 hadith …”
By Allah, other than Whom there is no deity, verily one of you performs the actions of the people of Paradise until there is but an arm’s length between him and it, and that which has been written overtakes him, and so he acts with the actions of the people of theHellfire and thus enters it; and verily one of you performs the actions of the people of the Hellfire, until there is but an arm’s length between him and it, and that which has been written overtakes him and so he acts with the actions of the people ofParadise and thus he enters it.”
So, there is hope for you to choose another path in your life and take the laws of your Lord as a serious thing. You can choose to spend money on getting the help you need to save yourself from the hellfire. (Maybe you want to seek marriage therapy with a professional marriage counselor.)
The best thing you can do (in case there is no way to fix your marriage with a marriage therapy) is to “man up” and leave your wife in a situation where it is just as good as she was before she met you or better. When she met you, she was a virgin, she had no children and was free, she had hopes and dreams and you destroyed them. If you divorce her, you should spend time working and sending her money to help her go back to school maybe, start a business or the like. If you did not behave as a good man during the marriage, you can still do the honorable thing after it! You can’t just walk away like nothing happened. Help your sister in Islam get in a better position. After all, she is the mother of your child, a fellow Muslimah and a person whom you spent a significant part of your life with. Don’t justify your actions saying she did this or didn’t do that. On Judgment Day, all that talk won’t fly.
Every time you cheat on your wife, you cheat on all the Muslims. The Ummah has enough problems and wants the mercy of Allah to fall on us. We need strong marriages and men who want that, otherwise, we as an Ummah will continue facing many problems. We need you to “man up”. Your sins affect us all.
How is your child going to be a strong and a good Muslim with no example of a good father? When your child marries and did not have the proper upbringing, those problems will affect his future marriage that involves the life of someone else’s child. Can you see how we are all connected?
You don’t love this other woman because if you did, you would not want her to be a fornicator. You would want her to be safe from Allah and to be a respectable person. You don’t love her; you are infatuated by her, and you will be infatuated with someone else in an endless cycle until you do two things: working on your obedience to Allah and joining a system of sexual recovery.
As far as working on your obedience to Allah, it starts with the intention to want to be a better person. Go to lectures, put energy into praying 5 times a day, and help others in your community. You need to do things to help you earn as many good deeds as possible before you die and which teach you not to be selfish. Feed the homeless, help in the masjid, or be socially helpful. Doing these things are important for you to choose another destination.
As far as sexual addiction, if you are serious about doing something about it, then order 3 different books by 3 different authors on sexual addiction and read them. If you can’t put that minimal effort into it, then you are just fooling yourself.
May Allah help you,
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