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Husband blames his wife because of her health problems and his parents are treating her badly

Question

AOA, My sister has been married for 1.5 years and has a daughter now. Her husband is causing problems for her saying that she has polio, hearing problems and also that she is older than him (3months). He has been extremely good previously and has changed just recently. He has said that our mother should ask for forgiveness from his mother for cheating with them and not telling them about these shortcomings and he is not willing to come home until our mother asks for forgiveness. My mother had feared this and told them before they agreement for proceeding with the marriage that my sister had polio attack before her first birthday which affected her leg; on that the mother in law asked my sister to walk in front of her. My sister walked and mother in law said she is fine. However my sister husband does not seem happy with this situation anymore. My mother is willing to do anything for a peaceful solution. I am very confused as I feel why we have to bear such insults. Allah created my sister that way and she is very beautiful MashaALLAH; so why is this happening. It is not upon her to correct her physical shortcomings. However we want a peaceful solution for this and I hope you may be able to advice. Regards, HS

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, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

Scholars have mentioned the deficiencies for which the spouse has the option to invalidate the marriage contract, but the deficiency that you mentioned is not among them.

For more benefit on these deficiencies, please refer to Fataawa 90593 and 81422.

Therefore, if your mother had not informed his mother of this deficiency, she would not have been in the wrong and she would not be obliged to apologize for this; more so since she had informed her. Therefore, this husband should keep his wife in kindness or release her in kindness, in which case she has all the rights of a divorcee.

However, our advice is that the rational people from the family of the husband and the wife resolve this problem wisely.

Finally, it should be noted that each of the spouses should inform his/her partner of his/her physical impairment [defects] before marriage so that the second party would be aware of the matter, as this puts an end to disputes and leads to harmony between them.

Allaah Knows best.

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