My dear sisters,
I never imagined I would one day write something like this. But after twenty-six years of marriage, years filled with children, responsibilities, mistakes, and heartbreak, I feel almost obligated to share what I have learned. Not for sympathy or to give men unyielding ammunition, but so that perhaps someone else may be saved from the pain I am living through right now.
When I look back at my marriage, I see now with painful clarity that I spent many years mistreating my husband without realising the damage I was causing. I got caught in a vicious cycle of anger, irritation, harsh words. Constantly arguing, constantly hounding him. I disrespected him, shouted at him, and spoke in ways no wife should. I need to say this clearly, I became emotionally abusive without realising what I was doing. And what hurts even more is that this behaviour wasn’t who I truly am. With everyone else in my life be it family, friends, or colleagues, I am soft, gentle, warm, and kind. But with him, something inside me would change. I can’t explain it. I’m sure many will know exactly what I’m talking about. It was almost like a storm I couldn’t control, as though I was under a spell that made me aggressive towards the one person Allah had made my companion. I didn’t realise I wasn’t helping myself or him, but in fact shaytan was winning. Because of this, my husband slowly became emotionally disconnected from me. Every harsh word pushed him further away. Every argument closed another door in his heart. Every disrespect chipped away at his love. And I didn’t see it, not until it was too late.
There was a moment in our marriage when he lost his job. It was one of the lowest points of his life. Instead of being his support, I became another burden on him. Instead of comforting him, I criticised him. Instead of calming him, I pressured him. I forgot that when a man falls, he needs his wife’s softness more than ever. Looking back now, the guilt of this moment sits heavy in my heart. It was around then that the cracks became gapingly large.
For years, I chipped away at him without noticing making him feel unappreciated, unloved, and unwanted. The warmth faded. The affection evaporated. He withdrew. He emotionally shut himself off. He became distant, cold, and disconnected. At the time, I blamed him. Today, I see that he wasn’t cold, he was wounded.
And then the unthinkable happened, he fell into an affair. It broke me. It shattered me. But it also woke me up. When I confronted him and asked for details, painful as it was, he was honest with me. He never justified what he did. He recognised it was wrong. But when I asked him how it all started, he told me something that hit me harder than anything else, he said it began with just conversations. He said she was someone who listened and he enjoyed talking to. When he said those words, my heart sank. Because I realised he hadn’t had that from me for years. Emotional intimacy… I never realised how important it was, how much he craved it, how much he needed connection. I had starved him of something that should have come from me.
My dear sisters, in today’s world, it is frighteningly easy to slip. A lonely moment, a friend request, a sympathetic ear, a private conversation. Shaytan decorates sin and the nafs whispers. Pornography is so easily accessible. Private chats open instantly. Social media and apps offer a thousand strangers in seconds. Even good men can fall when they feel unseen, unvalued, or emotionally abandoned.
I have seen this not only in my own marriage but among sisters around me. One friend found her husband watching inappropriate things online. Another discovered her husband had visited a call girl during a moment of weakness and deep loneliness. These men were not inherently evil, they were unguarded at a vulnerable moment, and shaytan took advantage of the emptiness inside them.
This does not excuse betrayal, nor does it justify the wrong they have done, but it explains how emotional starvation weakens a marriage until it collapses under the weight of its wounds. My husband now says he has nothing left for me emotionally and he wants to marry he woman he fell into sin with. Those words felt like a death sentence. What hurts even more is that I woke up only after it was too late… after he had given his heart somewhere else… after the damage had reached a point he feels he can’t return from.
Yet even after everything, he is not leaving me homeless or abandoned. He told me I can stay in our home. He will continue to support me financially. He isn’t cruel, he is empty. I now have to face the reality that I played a role in creating that emptiness.
I am not writing this to humiliate myself or defend him. I am writing this because I don’t want any sister to find herself standing where I am today, realising too late that she pushed her own husband away without intending to.
Sisters, please understand you have more influence in your marriage than you realise. A wife’s tone, her gentleness, her appreciation, and her warmth build a man from the inside. Harshness, disrespect, negativity, and emotional neglect break him, slowly but surely.
Please, from a sister who learned too late, treat your husbands with kindness, affection and respect. Not out of fear. Not out of weakness. But because this is what Allah loves, and this is what holds a marriage together. A soft word from you can protect him from a thousand sins outside. Because when a husband feels loved at home, Shaytan’s whispers lose their power.
Small gestures matter more than you think:
A warm smile,
a soft greeting when he enters,
a gentle hand on his arm,
a moment of listening,
a bit of admiration,
a kind word,
a sincere “thank you.”
These are the things that keep a man faithful.
Today, I know I didn’t do enough. But I am not giving up. I have promised myself I will fight for this marriage. I have asked him for one real chance, one chance to show him who I truly am, who I should have been all these years. I want to show him I can be better than the woman he turned to, not out of competition, but out of conviction that these 26 years… these children… this life we built… deserves to be repaired, not abandoned.
My beloved sisters, don’t wait until your husband’s heart goes silent. Don’t wait until shaytan finds him when he is broken. Don’t wait until the pain becomes irreversible. Love him now, value him now, speak gently now and protect your marriage now. Before regret reaches you, before Shaytan reaches him, before your home pays the price. I am living in the aftermath of what I failed to do. I pray you never have to.
I would like to take this opportunity to ask you all to make duʿa’ for me that Allah turns my husband’s heart towards me and creates ease for our family.
From a sister who wishes she could turn back time, but hopes her pain saves someone else.
