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Fatwa CenterHer husband wants to harm her financially and marry another wife
Question
Assalamu Alaykum, I am a pious Muslim woman of age 38 years. My husband and I have been married for 18 years and have 2 children. My husband put himself on a Muslim Matrimonial website and has been chatting with several women & promising them marriage. He sends his picture & they send him theirs. He also chats with them with web camera. I have told him this is haraam & for him to focus on his children & me but he insists on continuing this behavior. He told me that he has every right to marry a second wife in the US. I told him it is against the country's laws. He told me that he will leave us & go to a Muslim country to take a second wife. I am against this since he does not fulfill all of his duties as spending on our needs & he does not fulfill my emotional needs. I also work & contribute to spending on my children & the home due to him not spending enough. He has positioned his assets all in his home country in the Middle East, so that if any divorce were to occur, my children & I would get nothing, not even a home to live in. He also stated that the home that we built in the Middle East is his alone, even though I had contributed my money to help him build it. He would like to leave the US & start a new family in the Middle East so that he does not have to support his children in the US (nafakah). Please help me with this dilema and I ask Allah to guide me.
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 
is His slave and Messenger.
The chatting of men and non-Mahram women on the internet is a great and widespread evil, and this is a wrongdoing which Islam does not approve of. The fact that a man wants to marry does not make it permissible for him to do what does not please Allaah. Therefore, we advise you to continue admonishing your husband and reminding him with wisdom and in a gentle manner to fear Allaah.
You have the right to demand him to accommodate you and spend on you because Allaah obliged him to do so. However, you have no right to object to him in marrying a second wife because this is a matter which Allaah made lawful to whoever is able to be just between his wives, Allaah Says (what means): {…then marry those that please you of [other] women, two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then [marry only] one.}[Quran 4:3] For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 84411.
We hope that you will be wise in solving this problem with your husband and we hope that this will not lead to divorce, because divorce has bad effects especially on the children. Nevertheless, in case divorce takes place, the wife has the right to take her entire dowry: the immediate and delayed one, and she has the right over her husband to accommodate her and spend on her as long as she is in her waiting period; for more benefit on the rights of a divorced woman, please refer to Fatwa 83934.
As regards spending on the children who have no money and accommodating them, it is on obligation of their father in all cases according to his ability. If you fear to lose some of your rights or your children’s rights, then we advise you to take the matter to one of the Islamic centres.
Again we confirm to you that you should discuss the matter with your husband and seek the help of some righteous people if necessary. Furthermore, you should know that if a wife gives some money to her husband as a loan or as a contribution to help him in the expenses of the house, then she has the right to ask him to repay her whatever she had spent, and he is not permitted to refrain from paying her back. However, there must be evidence on her claim or that he should swear to Allaah if he denies it. Nonetheless, if she had given the money to him as a donation, then she has no right to ask him to pay her back.
For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 85012.
Allaah Knows best.
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