Ask Shaykh YQ #76 – I discovered my spouse had a relationship before marriage, what should I do

The second question that we have some very difficult questions from heinola brother, ie from Vancouver, he mentioned that he knows of a couple that was happily married for a few years. And a few years have gone by since the marriage, then the husband discovers that his wife had some type of an Islamic relationship, you know, with another person before marriage, you get the point what I'm trying to say here, now, the husband is devastated and heartbroken. He doesn't know if he can continue. And he's asking that is the marriage valid, knowing that she had a previous relationship, and then the nigga has performed? And now what advice you know, would I give him?

One?

out of seven? Me in?

No, he lay him first.

So this is a very difficult emotional question. At the same time, we have to be very clear here. As for the validity of the Nika as for the concept that the nikka was correct or incorrect, dear brother, please don't go there at all. There is no question that the nikka was valid. Whatever sins were done at a previous point in one's life, it doesn't affect the validity of any guy, then it got contract has its own conditions. And as long as those conditions were met, which inshallah they were because you were saying is, you know, you you were married for many years. So I'm assuming that again, everything was made them out of the though the witnesses everything was done there. So, if

there was a wrong relationship in the past, that has nothing to do with the validity of the niqab. So, please don't let your bond whisper to you and make something you know, different in this regard than it is valid. Now. The question a number of questions arise, the the one of the questions that arises is that in hindsight, in hindsight, should a partner who has had an undisclosed relationship and of course, you understand what I mean here, and to be explicit, because it is a sensitive question, I mean, that a person has actually engaged in Zina and done something that is completely beyond a major sin. Obviously, as for minor sins, these are not things that should be told to

anybody, and who amongst us has not committed minor Sins of flirtation or whatnot, this is something that you know, it is something that not to justify, but again, this is human nature, that things happen of this of this nature and to to make this a major issue, to have feelings for somebody or whatnot, then you this is something we should ignore completely. However, in this case, there was an actual physical relationship with another person. And now the husband discovers this so many years later that in the past, you know, his wife had had this type of relationship. So the question now, in hindsight, should she have told her husband to be before the marriage or the other way around?

Suppose it was the husband who had had a relationship with a lady and now he is proposing to a sister, the sister is pious she's been you know, Mashallah protecting herself for marriage, but he has fallen short, should he confess his sins? Should he go tell her or, again both ways gender is irrelevant. By the way your brothers and sisters gender, in this case is irrelevant. The sin is the sin, the sin of the man the sin of the woman, it is exactly the same, this issue of Xena is equally reprehensible upon a man and upon a woman in this particular case, the question I'm getting has it that the female you know how to relationship but in reality, it doesn't matter which gender had a

relationship should either of these partners have confessed to the other and the response might shock you, but in reality, we say if there has been genuine repentance, then no, you should not tell the person necessarily it is not a requirement, but you may choose to do so you may opt to do. So, the prerogative is up to you as the individual that if you feel that it is in your best interest to to to inform your partner to be you may gently hint at it without being explicit and then see if your partner wants to take that and press you further. So for example, if such a situation arises, you may say that look, I want to be very clear here that I have done things in the past that I

regret. And I asked for less forgiveness for and you can be honest to say and I would rather not say them explicitly leave it at that. Now your partner to be says, I want to know tell me, it's up to you. You can say I don't want to tell you and you know, it's up to you know, whether you want to propose or not. Or you can confess and say okay, if you're insisting I want to tell you, but with the caveat that I've repented to Allah subhanho wa Taala so

The general rule dear Muslim, or Muslim, when you've committed a sin, and you've repented from that sin, you cover it up, you don't go tell other people about it, you don't go and expose the sin to other people, it's a private sin between you and Allah, you did something wrong, you regret it, repent to Allah, there are certain timings where it might be beneficial to say something to somebody, and that's your own situation, you know. So she did not necessarily do anything wrong by not telling you of her past if she had completely repented. So whether she should have said it or not, it's up to her and she did not do something wrong by by, by necessarily by covering it up. But

she could have told you and it's a two way street, you know, the man would have also said to his wife to be if he had done something of this nature, it is up to them. Now.

Another point before I move on, is that I've said this, a lot of times when I give lectures to to younger audiences, college aged, you know, young men and women or even teenagers these days, and I've said to them, you know, you guys need to think long and hard about playing around about these types of relationships, because they will come back to haunt you. It's not easy, getting married with baggage behind you, it's not easy, it will scar you every single how long relationship that you have every single relationship that crosses the red line. And again, there are things like to have feelings for somebody, this is completely highlighted, if we don't act upon it to have a crush, we

call the job, you know, you you imagine, I wish I could marry this person. I mean, this is human nature, if you didn't have this, maybe something's wrong with you, that's completely valid, that's innocent, you don't have to act upon it. You don't have to tell anybody about it. You know, to go a little bit more than this and do minor sins, you know, this is not good and healthy. And you know, May Allah forgive if anything like that has happened, but definitely, to cross the red line and to actually engage in Xena Warrior to be law, you are scoring yourself, and you will have repercussions in your own life. And I say this to every young man and young woman and everybody out there, that

this is not a light matter that you are going to potentially harm the relationship that is going to be for the father of your child with the father of your children, the mother of your children, your life partner is going to be harmed because of what you did as a 2021 year old, 22 year old. So it's not trivial. And save and protect yourself for your partner, it will be better for you, and it will be better for your partner as well. And the love and the joy and the happiness that comes when two people have protected themselves for each other, and the happiness that they discover and the joys and the intimacy and the love that happens between two people that have discovered each other's love

and not been with other partners. That is a totally separate level. And that is the Islamic goal. That is the Islamic point of view. So my honest advice to all young men and women is that it's not just a question of some tense, some fun, some, you know, a few weeks or even some hours that we that we love, just fun. And that said no, it is a lifelong repercussion. And we see this in this question here. So how long do we have here? A couple that apparently everything is going fine. Everything is fine, you know, happy marriage, the wording used in the question is that we had a happy marriage. And then this discovery is made. And now everything comes shattering down, save yourselves the

hassle of being put in such an awkward situation. And don't do that. So that's another piece of advice here. Now, the other advice the the brother says that, what should he do now, like he feels as if his whole world is shattered now because obviously he feels betrayed. Now.

First thing that we need to do is that nobody can make this decision other than you. It's a very difficult decision. And really, you have to think long and hard. I ask and advise you to practice the harp and then to ask your immediate, you know, those who know about this or if nobody else knows, by the way, then don't tell anybody because you're your partner has done a sin that nobody knows then it's not your job to go and expose that sin to anybody else. Anybody else. If you feel you must, you know, get advice from one or two people whom you very much trust, try to be generic, even if they will understand say what would you do if you found out that your spouse Don't say I

found out because there is no need to expose the sins of anybody else. Now she is your wife. There is an extra layer of protection due upon you that there is no need to go to anybody else. So my advice is you don't even tell anybody else. But if you must get advice then speak generically and don't speak specifically. And we all understand when you speak generically the person will understand but you have not done specifically mentioned your wife by by name but praise the harp and do is the Shara as I've said in many, many lectures now in the end of the day dear brother or your sister if is another

The way around because again, it's a two way street here.

Nobody can force you to remain or to leave. This is a general rule. Marriage is not like a binding contract on either party, even, you know, a man or a woman for any reason, if there's a legitimate reason, they may work to dissolve the marriage, you know, no doubt for humanity is easier in Islamic faith. But even in a lady can dissolve the marriage if she really wants to, she's not satisfied completely. And she really, you know, for whatever reason, and in this case, she would have a legitimate reason as well that if she felt betrayed or whatnot, that her husband had done this, and she had, you know, protected herself, she would have a legitimate case to say, Look, I don't I feel

uncomfortable, etc. And that's her prerogative. So nobody can force a person to remain in a marriage, they don't want to at the same time, at the same time, you yourself have said, from your own email, you were saying that it was a happy marriage until this discovery was made. Now, I don't know the details, but I'm assuming that the discovery happened by accident by chance that something must have come up. And you know, whatever it came out, it wasn't something that, you know, that was persistent right. Now, obviously, it goes without saying, by the way, it goes without saying that if either partner discovers that the the their partner is currently engaged in these types of things,

or they have contact with a previous partner, and they're still texting and you know, doing indecent messages and or even more than this, that is a whole different issue. And I'm not discussing that issue at all that issue without a doubt, it is much more problematic. And the default in that case, might be a divorce, the default might actually be a divorce in that meaning that you should think primarily of divorce and then see why you should not divorce by conducting your confronting your partner, and just being honest, saying, Look, I've discovered this and that so that we're not even discussing, according to your email, it appears to me this is a past incident, it happened eight,

nine years ago, now you've been married, like six, seven years, right? It happened way before the marriage before she knew before anything, and she was involved with somebody. And now that person has nothing to do in her life. And you've discovered this, by whatever reason, however, it was discovered, it was discovered. Now, as I said, Nobody can force you to remain at the same time, dear brother, you yourself have said that the marriage was good and happy. And if it is pretty clear to you that your wife has repented, your wife has moved on, then there is no doubt that the better thing for you is also to accept that repentance if Allah is gonna forgive her inshallah, which you

will if she's renting, then why can't you and find it in your heart to move on, and to forgive and to forget, and to cover up that is really the the better thing to do? And I'm asking you a blunt question to your brother in Islam, that are you 100%, innocent before you accuse anybody, have you done nothing in your life that you regret. Imagine if your wife or anybody held you to a mistake that you did 10 years ago, imagine it for the rest of your life. Every time something happened, you walked into the doors of a employment or whatnot, and they said, Oh, I remember that mistake you did when you were you know, 1819 How would you feel you're gonna say, I know I made a mistake. I'm

sorry, I moved on. Well, like you would like to be forgiven for a mistake. also forgive others that are again, underline this bold, italicize it for those that are genuinely repentant. A past mistake. Again, we are not talking about a persistent current mistake, that is something else altogether. We're talking about something that happened a long time ago. And clearly it looks like to me that you know, she has moved on she has repented, she's turned over a new leaf. And if she has demonstrated that she is repentant, and she is no longer you know, you know, like this, then why go back and bring this up you as well forgive. And also let me also tell you something, dear brother in

Islam, that this incident that you've discovered, in reality, it could be something that is an opportunity to make your marriage very, very strong, and to solidify your marriage. How so? And I know some of you are going to be shocked How so? So Pamela, your wife, no doubt, you know, she feels you know, guilty for what she has done. She feels vulnerable. She feels that she has committed a mistake and she has committed a mistake. Now. What is your good response? If your response is to accept her with her past mistakes, and to give her another chance? What you are doing is that you are accepting her with her past mistake and you're validating you're making her feel that she has

another chance and she knows she has that chance and she's inshallah not going to mess up in shallow data. You are empowering her. You're telling her you know what, you know I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. You know you

Had a mistake and I'm sure I have some mistakes as well. Let's make this work together what you're doing is that you will believe it or not increase the love that she has for you the respect that she has for you, and she will insha Allah tada inshallah, I don't know, either of you. I'm just assuming this is human psychology, every decent person will feel this way that if you give them a chance, if they made a mistake, you give them a chance, they're going to work, double the effort, they're going to work even harder to make sure that they don't disappoint you, it is likely that because of this, your marriage might actually take a turn for the better because your wife now has been empowered by

you. You have come to her she was vulnerable and instead of turning your back you validated you embraced You said you know what? We made a mistake you made a mistake but let's you know be use of here use of it his salon when he said to his brother's not that the bionic woman you're really what the brothers of use of did to use of is worse than this, you know, relationship. They tried to murder their brother, they threw their brother into the wall, they sold him into slavery. Can you imagine a seven year old kid and they threw him into the work? Can you imagine that? And yet, when the end of the story happens, what does use of say, the three by the Kuma Leone, there is no sin on

you today, Allah she'll forgive you. If you can forgive his kidnappers that are his brothers, and can forgive those who sold him into slavery. And forgive forgive those who threw him into a well insha Allah me and you can forgive someone, you know, our partners if they have done something wrong in a past life. It's not even right now. And again, I stress I'm not talking about right now, if this were right now, it's a whole different scenario. And then different situations applies. But this is something in the past. So my advice to your brother is that nobody can force you to remain. But at the same time, I asked you to be the better person now I asked you to find it in your heart

to forgive, to move on with the condition that your partner has repented. And there is no contact with this person. Again, I stress if there has been constant contact and messages and emotional even if it's emotional support with this person. This is a red flag. And honestly, I don't like to say this, but in such a situation the default would be to divorce unless there is extenuating circumstances that she or he can explain otherwise, no, the but if it's something that happened long time ago, and there's been complete cut off and she has repented, etc, etc. Then the better thing to do in shallow to Allah would be to forgive and to turn over a new leaf and to ask a less forgiveness

for her and to show her that really you are giving her another chance and the both of you inshallah we'll work on that. And by the way, again, I stress this question posed to me was a lady that had done the sin. In reality, the same situation is the opposite. If the lady had discovered her husband had a friendship in the past that cross the red lines, that relationship with a lady the same things that I've said here would apply to her as well in this regard in this regard, the sin of either gender is the same and the feeling of you know, pain, you know, is the same between the both of them, so they have the option and I would recommend both partners. If they're able to forgive

something of the past and move on, then they should do that and a lot subhana wa tada knows best.