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What is the religious ruling on dealing with an overbearing father who interferes in his married son's life, abuses his wife, and demands control over his financial assets?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Our advice to you is to seek Allah’s help, rely on Him, persist in supplication, endure harm with patience, and anticipate your reward from Allah Almighty. Strive to be dutiful and benevolent towards your parents, even if they mistreat you or oppress you and your wife. Treat your wife kindly, and appreciate her good companionship and her patience with your parents. If you are unable to live separately with your wife in a dwelling away from your parents’ house, then beware of oppressing your wife or exposing her to harm from your parents. For, showing dutifulness to parents does not entail oppressing one’s wife, restricting her, or exposing her to harm. It is not obligatory for your wife to seek permission from your parents to leave the house, or for any other of her actions. However, she must obey you in what is good and permissible. Likewise, being dutiful to parents does not obligate you to mix your money with theirs, or to give them any of your money, as long as they have sufficient means of living. Balancing the rights of parents and the rights of the wife when they conflict requires wisdom, by giving each person their due rights to the best of one’s ability, with gentleness, forbearance, and patience with shortcomings.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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