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Fatwa CenterStaying out the house without husband's permission is recalcitrance
Question
I am from Saudi Arabia. I have been married for the last six years (since 2009) with one daughter and one son. Every year, I visit India two or three times and leave my wife at her parents home for four to eight days. This time, we were going for the Eid to India, and I took three weeks off. I told her several times that I would send her for one week to her parents' home as our vacation would last three weeks, but she refused to pack and said that she would not go to India if I do not send her to her parents' house for two weeks. I called my mother-in-law and explained the situation to her and asked her to make my wife understand, but my wife was stubborn and date of travelling approached, and I again called my mother-in-law and said the same thing. My mother-in-law told me to tell my wife that I agreed and should bring her and that she would explain the situation to her. So we left from here and travelled to our home. Then after arriving there, everything was normal. The day she was about to leave to her parents, I told her that she had to come back after eight days and that I would not extend her ticket because it cost a huge amount of money. She started shouting and throwing things at me and called her parents to come and take her. Her parents immediately came. My mother wanted to talk to my wife's parents and asked my wife to go and call her parents, but my father-in-law was shouting in my house and said that he did not want to talk and came to break the relationship. They took my wife and children. I did not allow her to take anything from my house, not even clothes, the day of my return, my father-in-law called me and again asked me to come to their house for dinner, and I refused and asked him to talk to my mother. My wife sent me a message to come and take her back, and I told her that she left without my permission and that her father said to my mother that he wanted to break off the relationship so that she had to talk to my mother or elder brother, but they did not come to my house to discuss this, and I came back all alone. It had happened before, in 2012, my wife left me and stayed at her house for two moths and I accepted her back. Now, I feel like divorcing her.
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.
Divorcing is permissible, especially if there is a need for it; it is an easy matter; and you can resort to it at any time. However, the benefit does not always lie in a divorce; therefore, divorcing must be the last possible solution. So you should try to solve the problem through any other permissible means, among which is to appoint rational and wise people to arbitrate between the two of you.
On the other hand, the wife is obliged to obey her husband in what is reasonable and permissible. Abu Hurayrah 
narrated that the Prophet said, "If I were to order anyone to prostrate to someone else other than Allaah, I would have ordered the wife to prostrate to her husband." [At-Tirmithi]
Hence, your wife not acting according to your instructions – if she has no sound reason for doing so – is nushooz (recalcitrance), and you are entitled to discipline her as stipulated in the sharee'ah. For more benefit on the steps to undertake for disciplining one’s wife, please refer to fatwa 85402.
Also, for more benefit, please refer to fataawa 90507 and 82969.
It should be noted that a wife is not obliged to live with the husband's relatives unless she is in a part of the house that is separate and has its own amenities. For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 84608.
We consider that this matter is the reason of dispute and that you can have a mutual understanding between you without being enraged, especially given that both of you live abroad. It may be that your wife needs to be with her parents during the vacation in the same way that you need to be with yours. In any case, there should be a mutual understanding between you and the both of you should do what is best in order to save your family.
Allaah knows best.
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