My husband will leave me if I take off the hijab.

[Lotusflowerbombx]

I’ve been married and a revert/covert to Islam for 6 years now for, yes I did it for my husband but I was so blindly in love at the time theres not much I wouldn’t of done. 6 years on and 2 DC I’m questioning everything!! I always have tbh, I’ve spoke many times with my husband about the hijab and how I don’t want to wear it but he said he’ll leave me if I don’t. He’s very much practicing and prays 5x a day at the mosque and he believes I do too but half the time I’m not actually.. I do feel bad about it though that’s why I think do I believe in this religion? When I’m having a bad anxiety day I pray and it makes me feel better but soon as that days done I’m back to pretending :( I had a conversation with my husband the other day about if our daughter didn’t want to wear hijab when she’s older what would he do and his answer was he would wash his hands of her and I just catch fathom how a parent could be so cold.. I hate wearing the hijab I don’t feel free and if my daughter was in my position I would say get rid but I’m just so scared I’ll regret it, is losing love worth it to show my hair? In all other areas he’s great, he’s the best dad and always helping with house work.. if I could dress how I want I would never think about leaving him :( anyone been in a similar situation? I struggle to find anything relatable online

Under no circumstances get married to him legally. At the moment you can just walk away, don't have to worry about the complications of getting a divorce. You will be far better off thinking for yourself and not being controlled.

Like all decisions, you can change your mind. A load of sexist nonsense is what it is, most of us understand the significance very well, if it bothers this wanker so much he cal stick a scarf on his head.

Anti-Islam crew? I take it your first reaction to the Manchester Arena attack was to worry about the "backlash against Islam" rather than the victims and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

I am sick of men using religion as a means to control women. Thankfully, the responses here have been fairly unanimous in condemning this man, but there have been sporadic enabling posts.

If this was a white man attempting to dictate what his wife or girlfriend wore, and threatened to disown his children if they made sensible choices we'd be talking 100% about police, never mind anything else. But because its Islam many are accepting this swine's premise and talking about compromises with Niqabs etc.

Get away while you can. This man is evil.

OP is not religious. She doesn’t believe in Islam. She wants advice from people who understand that.
It sounds very much as if you want to private message her in order to emotionally manipulate.

He's not your DH he's a man you are living with. If he was so devout why wouldn't he marry you legally so your DC would be legitimate? I think you were blinded by love and would have done anything for him. I would not have any more DC with him and I'd leave to build a new life. If you leave him he would still have to pay your DC child maintenance through CMS. How does he work if he is praying 5 times a day? What organisation allows that?

be extremely careful with leaving a spouse in that religion and those views. Please seek advice.

Sounds like you both want different things in life at this point. You shouldn't be made to wear something you don't want to wear, and he wants to be married to someone a bit more religious than you are. There's no shame in wanting different things, but it obviously does make things very difficult! Good news is that you don't need to make any decisions today. You can think about it and take all the time you need to decide how you want to proceed.

Having said that, it doesn't sound like he'll allow your daughter the freedom to choose in the future, which would put me off big times.

@Lotusflowerbombx so you placed him above everything else in your life, ascribed to a religion and lifestyle you don't want or believe in and are sacrificing your own happiness and potentially that of your daughter to keep him happy?

What is he sacrificing for you? He's placing his religion and what it brings with it over your happiness, self worth and personal freedom.

Money being tight should bever be a reason to stay with someone that makes you miserable - that's a cop out.

Your first post is full of contradictions regarding his role as partner and father.

If you don't do it for you, please do it for your daughter.

Leave

I'm sorry? "Want different things"? If an atheist white man decided his wife of GF must wear a yellow hat for life, and his daughter must do the same or he'll disown her, you'd dismiss this as "wanting different things"?

Why does the belief in a sky fairy give these men a pass to be abusive and controlling?

I know that religion is a sensitive difficult topic especially when it comes to things like this.

I would not say he is a great husband/father just because he helps with the housework etc. He is willing to disown his child. He obviously has specific rules about this part of the religion, but like someone else said, there are many many Muslims I know who do not wear any religious dress at all. And who do not follow in so many ways.
Some women have also told me it would depend on what their husband was like/what he wanted. Easy for me to say but to me that is control. And the man’s possession. I know other women whose husbands are quite strict on things, but even their wives don’t wear the hijab.

I get it for him that he got together with you and this was all part of things, and now you want to change that, so he has his side that is valid too.

But you have to think about what you want too, and if this is a dealbreaker for him then you will have to separate.

Absolutely this.

Not ignorant at all.

Watch The Push on channel 4

Yes, I'd be saying they want different things. He wants someone pliable who is willing to go along with whatever it is he wants no matter how unreasonable, and she wants to be her own person who makes her own decisions and isn't controlled by her husband. So they want different things.

I was just trying to not put across any judgement in my post, which you have chosen to interpret as me supporting the husband. This would be an incorrect assumption on your part.

This is why I am against Islam.
People always say it's a choice for women but it isn't. Most women will tell you it is their own choice because thatbis what they are programmed to say. They are indoctrinated from the moment they are born with threats of being ostracised, shunned and even worse (look at Shafilea Iftikhar Ahmed, Asiyah Harris or Banaz Mahmood)

I like in a heavily muslim populated area and I do not like what I see, day in day out. I used to live elsewhere and was very much 'live and let live, their choice etc' but living amongst it. It is very clear to me that for the vast majority of my female neighbours it is NOT a choice by heart but a faux choice, embedded in years of threats of loss of community or worse.

Islam is not compatible with feminism and equality.

I feel so sorry for you.

If this was a white man attempting to dictate what his wife or girlfriend wore, and threatened to disown his children if they made sensible choices we'd be talking 100% about police, never mind anything else. But because its Islam many are accepting this swine's premise and talking about compromises with Niqabs etc.
@Everanewbie

It is perfectly possible, and quite common, to be white and Muslim. Bringing race into it seems to be rather a deliberate diversion.

And people saying 'remove it and leave', as if it is that simple and safe for these women, are very, very nieve.

One of my neighbours is locked in the house all day with her children. She is not allowed to leave the house. She has opened her back window before now (she wouldn't open the front window to shout me as its more open to everyone else on the street) and asked me to get her children a lolly from the icecream van as she couldn't get out.

She told me her husband locked her in everyday and I reported this to the police

I was told that its non of the polices business, its a cultural difference and we shouldn't get involved.

I'm sorry but locking a woman and children in the house all day is not right.
Do people really think that woman CHOOSES that? That she is happy??

And that is not an isolated incident of domestic abuse like it might be in a British household.
Of course there are Britmen that may behave that way, but the difference is the police would help. That man would be outed as an abuser, he may get arrested, a restraining order, publicly shamed as we do not, as a society accept that women are to be locked away in a house by a man. That a man can decide when are where she is allowed to go. What to wear. Who to talk to. That would be serious abuse in the western world.
But in Islam that is normality for many, many women and it is not seen as negative. They frame it as protection to that woman. Its not safe for her to be out alone, its not safe for her to show her face. Why? Because men are lustful?? Women have to suffer at the hands of lustful men that cannot control their urges?
Why do the men not have to cover their faces? Do women not feel lust towards men?

The inequality is staggering and i find it completely INSANE that anyone who claims to be liberal, progressive or a feminist would support Islam in any way when it directly violates so many things that we have fought against in the past.

Let him go OP. If he is using the hijab as a way to control you now and your daughter later, it won't end well. What I understand about hijab is that the wearer has to be willing to put it on and shd do so freely understanding why that is the case in relation to the faith. Culture and religion are interchangeable to some, enforcing it so rigidly is not on. Leave.

Good points.

@Khads94 and @TriesNotToBeCynical
Have you read my post? There are Muslim countries like Albania where women don't feel the need to wear a veil. Wearing a hijab is cultural not Islamic.
There are so many Islamic requirements that many Muslims quietly ignore like being Khalifahs for the environment. My post, please read.
I feel really strongly that wearing the Hijab is un-Islamic. Wearing the hijab is a cultural thing. Albania is a Muslim country. Most women don’t wear the hijab. Mohammed was all about the emancipation of women at a time when a woman had no rights. He worked for a woman ( and then married her). He was all for women being treated with respect and not being forced into marriage. He made it clear that women could own property.
The Qur’an simply asks that both men and women dress modestly. No mention of veiling for women. I think Mohammed would be so shocked and angry at the treatment of women in Afghanistan.
To be a good Muslim does not require performative dressing. There is a lot of evidence that wearing a burka leads to vitamin D deficiency. Islam is all about the body as a temple. There is a lot of statistical evidence that Muslim women avoid cycling because of restrictive clothing. Islam is all about being caretakers ( Khalifahs) of the planet. This is quietly ignored by many Muslims.
it is such a shame that performative Islam is more important to many Muslims than observing Islamic Law. I don’t think many people understand how forward thinking Mohammed was with reference to the treatment of women.

you are getting advice. You have a choice to make. No one can choose for you. Its evident to me that even though you may feel you love him, he doesn't love you or your daughter.

I had a conversation with my husband the other day about if our daughter didn’t want to wear hijab when she’s older what would he do and his answer was he would wash his hands of her and I just catch fathom how a parent could be so cold..

he is telling you who he is. So listen to him! That is not a good husband and definitely not a good father. Do you want your daughter to be trapped? Your son to share your H’s view in regards to women and religion?

Do you work? Do you have your own bank account? Do you have (personal) savings?

I believe it sounds as if you’re currently safe (physically). So you have time to start setting up a new life for you and your shared children.

I know 3 women who are Muslim and don't wear a hijab. One of whom recently moved from Saudi. They are all practicing at least to the extent that they celebrate all the festivals. I've no idea more than that as we haven't spoken about it.

One told me that the only requirement for ALL Muslims is to dress modestly, Men as well as women.

Remove the religious aspect and its coercive control; abuse, plain and simple. This is an abusive man controlling his wife and, horrifyingly, already looking to do the same to his daughter further down the line.

I would contact a women’s aid charity for advice.

The father of her children has knowingly denied her the full legal protection of proper marriage by only having a non binding religious ‘marriage’ and has threatened to leave her and disown his daughter if they don’t do something that is only made compulsory by the more extreme end of Islamic followers. But you suggest objecting to this is ‘anti Islam’.

I would suggest that if these extreme demands and behaviours were not done in the name of Islam, there would be far less objections to followers of the religion.