shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

Lifestyle Relationships
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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

Gosh I hate men like these. They are not men they are cowards. Stay strong! Things will get better inshAllah.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

You are being too kind, sister Touche. Self-righteous idiot would be putting it too mildly. I usually try to avoid using harsh labels for an op's spouse or in-law as I don't want to fuel their anger......but if he still doesn't see anything wrong in beating his wife and even tries to justify it....I wonder if he might be a narcissist. You'd be luckier if he was only a self-righteous idiot.

I suggested you talk to him only to get some direction as you're undecided.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

touché - feel for you...stay strong and hope you come out of this unscathed.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

This right here should make the answer to the question you posed in this thread very easy. Next time you wonder about the effect on your child of not having her father in her life….think about this.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

IF you want to give him visitation, it needs to be through a third party...like a family member or lawyer or someone who is not biased and can be fair as well as trustworthy.

Do not communicate with him on your own anymore until he realizes what it means to be civil.

Do not feel the need to file for divorce right away...there's no pressure to do it now or later. If you want to bide your time...who says you cannot?

Consider yourself free from him...mentally and physically. You owe him NO explanations and IF he harasses you to see his daughter, tell him you'll only be communicating through a 3rd party from now on.

If he loved his child, he'd be a different man entirely.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

Yeah....try to make yourself feel better by imagining that growing up without a father won't have much emotional effecton your child...hovever you are wrong. It can lead to serious psychological imbalance....I feel bad when i hear such stories of broken homes. Thank God my child is growing up with both loving & protective parents....

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

jeez thanks for rubbing it in. Everyone has different circumstances. In this case, it is better for the child to grow up without a father than to grow up with an abusive one.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

I see similarities between your husband and situations I've come across.

Being a divorcee around desis can be so difficult even in the west but I'll say that I am much better off now than what I was around before. After two years, that fear that constant situation of walking on eggshells. Every time I leave my room, there isn't that fear....i'm kind of forgetting all of the bad stuff.

Your posts brought back all those bad memories because you're right the child mimics the parents behavior. My child even used trash and selfish b**ch to refer to me, like they were her every day words because she's heard her father say those words. She used to bite, hit, bully, ignore, defy, and hurt me too because that's what she saw to be right from her father. This is a child doing this. Now after the divorce she is a lot behaved and does none of the things that she was around before. Her tantrums are down to almost zero. But as much as her father was like your husband was and even worse in that in public he was a saint and showed himself to be completely different than how he acted with me behind closed doors. In front of the judge, he was saintly and so soft spoken. his hidden emotional, verbal, physical abuse never showed up in public. So it was very hard me to prove my case. He was granted every other weekend with her and some other special occasions with her because I needed alimony and child support. Us desi women devote our entire selves to our marriages and trying to make it work in every way possible.

I was a stay at home wife and mom so even if I have a job now, the small amount of work experience wouldn't get me a great salary right now so alimony and child support are a must, if I wanted that I had to give up something so that's why he gets her every other weekend. The huge possibility that he might have been gay too...i also don't have proof of, He would have to come out and say it even then I don't think courts favor the father not see the child. He was rough with her but she says that he has not hit her when she is with him or done anything to her that was inappropriate. I ask her every time she comes back on Mondays. I have to because he was someone I feared the most.

I have to deal with the fact that I might see his face during school events or any desi events. After two years of divorce I still haven't gotten over the fear or been able to handle. Recovering from the trauma and the pain and i should seek therapy but that is a luxury.

Being around the gay thing and the abuse, remarriage would definitely be nice but there is a fear with that too if it is at all possible. It reminds me of that woman in Pakistan who found out her second husband raped her daughter. "Damaged goods, easy prey by desi men(married or single...scum is scum) and blamed by women for taking the "easy way out" and not sticking in there." Exactly right! Dont expect anyone to understand what you've seen and gone through since they live in paradise compared to what you've been through. That's life for me too even if I live in the west, desis(not all) will think like that even if the white or black people might not. That would pretty much confirm that I would lead the single life. I'm thankful i'm not in that house with that arrogant abusive person anymore who blamed me for every single thing. I must have spent years in that situation(it was like that right from the beginning) trying to make sense of it or to see how I could make it better from my side so there was no regret when I took that huge step towards divorce. I am much much happier now although the divorced tag is a big challenge so I think long and hard before I volunteer that info. Even my friends now don't know that I am divorced, they just assume it without asking. I hope your family is good to you since that's my strength right now.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

Take him to court. Serve his behind to him on a gold platter. I'd throw the jewelry in his face and tell him to pray for his salvation at hajj because now he is a thief too.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

Yes everyone has different circumstances and everyone deals with them differently....I was married and divorced after several years of marriage...I decided NOT to bring a child in this world even several years of marriage because I was not sure about my relation. After my new marriage I only had my child after being sure about my spouse....there was no way i was gonna be like those people who reproduce 9 months after marriage

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter’s life? advice needed

You’re absolutely right about the part in red. Allah gives everyone different circumstances to deal with. Thus, you should remember that birth control isn’t 100% guaranteed. Once married and sexually active, a woman can get pregnant even when not planning on it and using birth control. Allah blessed you by you NOT getting pregnant when you did not want to. But not everyone is so lucky. So unless you’re suggesting that a woman refuse to have sex with her husband until she’s “sure” about her relation….there is no way for her to guarantee that she won’t bring a child into a bad marriage.

Women in Pakistan also face tremendous pressure from family to get pregnant after marriage. Again, you were lucky enough to either not face that pressure OR strong enough to resist it. Good for you! :k: Like you wrote yourself….other women may have different circumstances and deal with it differently.

So when a woman ends up in a different circumstance than you….perhaps it may be a good idea not to assume what was her “fault” and what situation Allah gave her to deal with despite her best efforts to prevent it since you don’t know OP personally.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

I think its important to realize and note that there is a world outside of your own. That world consists of different people, circumstances, experiences, backgrounds, etc.

Just because you were lucky doesn't mean everyone else is. Just because you did something YOU believe is right does not mean everyone is guaranteed the same opportunity. Its as if you're denying there's injustice in the world and as if there's no other place outside of Islamabad...that type of thinking is called narrow minded and uncultured. No offense, you need more exposure to people and life.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

  • enough good advice has been given to you about your relationship with your husband.....please take it to heart.....stay separated if that's what eases your heart and mind but put all the other rules in place in a firm (i.e. legal) manner. that's all some guys understand.

  • consider getting a therapist for your child. regardless of what your situation ends up being, I would consider strengthening my child's mental ability to handle the sort of parent her father is going to be.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

This is extremely insensitive. Please dont do this. you have no idea how sad it sounds and how crudely hurtful it is.

People marry not with the intention to divorce. People cling to every last bit of hope to make a relationship work , that includes starting a family and hoping that things will work and for loads many they do. But for unfortunate ones , it doesnt. They cant be blamed for bringing children into their lives because a child's birth is a miracle that is not dictated by humans but by Allah.

A much in love, happily married couple might try and try to get a baby and might never get one , and then there are people who dont want kids and using all the contraceptives and still get kids .. so please dont judge people harshly.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

This is so important , particularly because as much as it is hard for the wife to come to terms with divorcing her husband, its more or less equally torturous for the little girl to be going through this breakup of relationship with her abusive father.

It can create havoc of feelings inside her little heart to realize and understand and come to terms with why her father acted the way he did and why her mother has to take the decision she is taking. and most important why its not possible for the three of you to be together.

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Re: shall I allow my husband to be a part of my daughter's life? advice needed

If you aren't seeking divorce, you still have hope that there are possible solutions to making it a good marriage. Improve yourself as much as possible from within so if you are contributing to the marriage going downhill, improvements in you will get him to change as well since it is not so black and white. Or the fear of divorce will make him see the light, you know him better than us.

If there is no hope in sight and you've tried everything, I don't know how it is in Pakistan but if a divorce is seeked and lawyers and a judge are involved it does relieve a lot of the stress you might be feeling right now. A guardian et litem is assigned to your child as your child's lawyer which both sides have to pay for but she will decide if the bad marriage was an abusive, very unstable environment for the child, then she/he will require that the child see a therapist/psychologist that specializes in children of divorce and she would make sure the child is stable and able to handle growing up after seeing/hearing what she's been through. A divorce will cost you, not sure of the cost in Pakistan, depending on how much disagreement there is. Make sure you do a lot of research on what would be the smartest moves for financial security.

I just wanted out of the hell and abuse, dead "marriage" so I tried to seek agreement as much as possible because I kept thinking what would be less stressful for my daughter.

After divorce, in public, you have your single you, when your daughter will not be with you(when she is with him, if the courts decide not to give you sole custody) and then the divorced/single parent you with your daughter. You will have to come to terms with the two personalities inside of you.