Dear Sharky:

You wrote that you feel like a fool bringing food to your husband and (at the time) his other wife. But you didn’t know, at the time, that he had an affair with her/ married her. You didn’t know, so you were not a fool.

What is your current contact like, with that woman?

The fact that it is legally and ethically possible and acceptable in Islam to marry a second woman is part of the making sense of what happened (making sense of it is what you are aiming at, in the title of your thread). If it is a common enough practice, in the society in which you live, that men marry a second wife secretly so to avoid distress in their relationship with the first wife, as a motivation, that will also be part of making sense of it, that is understanding what happened.

People are more likely to do what is acceptable by their peers (other married men, in his case).

You have four sons with your husband, and you are the mother of his four sons. As far as I know, in the context of Islam, you, as the mother of not only one son, but four, would have a way, way… higher value to your husband than a second wife who gave birth to no sons at all, no children.

Your husband gave in to his desires by having an affair with this woman, hoping perhaps that your feelings will not get hurt as long as you don’t find out about it. When a man has a desire for another woman, other than his wife, it does not mean he doesn’t love or values his wife. I don’t think there are many, if any married men who do not experience a desire for a woman who is not his wife.

It is not the desire that is the problem in a marriage, but the acting on it. He acted on it. You are wondering how it is that you keep living as you lived before, with him, how you “can still be normal with him”- I am thinking, you can be normal because nothing has changed in your life, practically. You are married, like before, to the same man, like before, being a mother to the same four sons…

Sometimes you get angry because he did an unloving thing to you and he has hurt your feelings. It is natural to get angry when hurt. And I hope he does thoroughly regret his actions.

I hope you post again.

anita