Her husband is too obedient to his mother
15-11-2007 | IslamWeb
Question:
Me and my husband, we living at my husbands mothers house with her. Every woman like her husband to make his own decesions as an independant man for his family (Wife and children). But in my case my husband only does everything what his mother says anything more than that with using his own sense, even sometimes when she's wrong, he still listens to her and when I ask him to explain to his mom to correct her mistake, he hesitates saying he can't hurt his mother,and he wants me also to do the same as what his mother says. Mufti saab this has hurt me alot in many ways. Please give me a solution as to how I should diplomaticaly cope with this situation without not making any problems between me and my husband. My mother in Law is very old and is a widow and we are unable to live separatly at the moment due to my husbands does not have sufficient funds to buy a house of our own. I would like to look after my mother in law as my own mother as I love her and does not consider her as an 'in law' but her behaviour annoys me sometimes becuase it has led to problems between me and my husband. Is it right for parents to involve into the personal problems between the husband and wife? Is it wrong and hurting them if we ask them not to involve?
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.
First of all, we ask Allaah to greatly reward you for taking into consideration the circumstances of your husband and for being kind with his mother; this is evidence of you having a good reasoning and wisdom.
Therefore, we advise you to continue to help your husband in being kind with his mother especially that you mentioned that she is very advanced in age. A person needs to be very diplomatic in dealing with the such a person due to her age, so you and your husband need to have a good understanding and be patient.
However, this does not mean that your mother in-law is permitted to interfere in your private life as she has no right to do so. Besides, it is not wrong to ask her kindly in a good and wise manner not to get involved.
If your husband fulfils his duty towards you but fails to fulfil something in which there is no obedience to Allaah as a way of being kind to his mother and in order to attain her pleasure and avoid making her angry, then this is permissible. However, he is not permitted to obey his mother in disobeying Allaah even if this makes her angry but he should clarify to her the mistake in a nice way.
Allaah Knows best.