Disgust

“Salaam Alaykum,” I announced as I came in the door.

She walked toward me a mug of something in her hand. Herbal tea perhaps, maybe she was coming down with something.

“Wa alaykum salaam,” She replied as she continued toward me.

Then, splash, the contents of the mug were emptied across the front of my shirt. My mind staggered, trying to comprehend what had just happened and why, when suddenly a realization came over me. Human urine has a unique aroma, a distinct smell that cannot be mistaken for anything else. My staggered mind then goes into overdrive, racing to understand what humiliation has just been visited upon me. I go into a kind of shock as the notion that someone has just purposefully peed into a cup and thrown it on me, registers in my brain. I say nothing. I walk stoically down to the basement, and as I do so I hear my car keys being collected by her. It is her feeble attempt to prevent my escape. I remove my soiled shirt and start the washing machine. I know I should be enraged, but I can only manage one emotion, disgust.

I silently march up to the shower I crank the water up as hot as I can bear to rinse my lover’s filth off the front my body. As I stand there in the hot water and steam I imagine that this has been retaliation for the nights I’d probably stumbled into the bathroom half-awake forgetting to put up the seat, or I’d remembered to put up the seat, I’d just forgotten to put it back down. These were the rules in this house, accidents and forgetfulness were met with swift and severe retaliation. At this point though, the how and the why were just passing thoughts. Even as I was soaking under the hot spray of the shower I was still overwhelmed with this all encompassing sense of disgust.

I worked the night shift and work was a half an hour away. Setting aside my contempt for practicality, I ask her, “Can I have my keys, I need to go to work,” knowing full well that further humiliation was her intent in taking them, the sleeping children down the hall need to eat so I am forced to play this game. This engineered confrontation where she held all the power, was as planned as her earlier ambush at the front door. Silence, was her response. However, in that splash of nastiness earlier, something had changed. This game of appeasement that had gone on for seven years was over I couldn’t do this anymore.

So, I left. I grabbed a jacket and I left on foot. I really didn’t know where I was going. I had just come back from the masjid, from the last prayer of the day. There wasn’t likely to be anyone there, perhaps a door had been left unlocked. I didn’t have a phone. Not that I wanted to tell anyone this horrible story anyway. It was about 3 miles away, I found my way in, I spent 3 days and nights there. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. she had all the money. I had no car. I’d missed work for 3 days without calling, so I’d probably lost my job. On the third day, some friends took me in with minimal explanation. I was able to beg back my job, and find rides to and from work.

After a couple of weeks I received an email from my mother.
“Your wife called me, she doesn’t know where you are and your youngest is sick.”

I dismissed this as typical, this wasn’t the first time I’d fled, and it always seemed that one of the kids would turn up sick when I did. I called my mom and explained what had happened, I told my mom that my paycheck was deposited in her account and she had the car keys, I had neither any money nor the car, there was nothing for me to do. My mom said she’d take care of it.

A couple of days later my mom reports back, “Your son is fine but they were very concerned at the doctor’s office that he is terribly underweight and that at 15 months he is not yet walking.”

I explain to my mom that my wife believes that, Islamically speaking, children should not be given anything except breast milk for two years. Then, when she herself gets upset, she refuses to eat, so my son is probably malnourished. She also believes that she should not have to drive herself anywhere, so she refuses to go buy groceries, so I’m not surprised that my son is in the state he is in.

“Well, I took her to the store and we bought groceries, we got some pedia-sure to help boost his weight, but your wife is terrified that the government is going to take him away. I understand that you can’t live there right now but you should at least go check on them once and a while,” says my mom.

So I go back, I get my car and a few clothes check on my children, everything seems as I left it. A couple of weeks later I am visiting, checking in on things. My son has gotten over his cold.

“We need to talk,” she says.
“I suppose we do,” I reply.
“Things can’t stay like this,” she says, matter of factly.
“I know” I reply, equally matter of factly.
“Am I forgiven?” she asks.

In that moment I realize that she’s may be sorry for what she’s done, but she’s not sorry to have done it to me. In other words, it wasn’t something she should have done, but I had it coming. My disgust comes racing back.

“Well if I’m going to come back, it doesn’t make sense that I hold that over your head now does it?” is my non-answer to her question.

Seven years of appeasement had come to an end. I knew then this wasn’t going to work out. My ability to tolerate the daily insults and the occasional violence visited upon me was gone, it simply could not coexist alongside my disgust. I’m back, but I can no longer share a bed with her, I can’t stand to speak to her unless necessity dictates that I do. I have no stomach for it, appeasement is a failed strategy. It has become the lie I can’t live anymore.

After a couple of months her family shows up, another ambush, arbitration this time. Since I have no relatives who are Muslim they suggest that one of their family can act as my representative. The suggestion makes me want to laugh, it has to be a joke, right? I stifle my laughter as it would be seen by them as contempt for the Islamic process and not what it really is, contempt for a sham masquerading as religion. They explain to me that the marriage is bad because my religious practice is lacking. They want me to sign a paper granting her a divorce if my practice is not brought up to standard. They also extoll me to try to appease my unhappy wife rather than argue with her.

I reply, “Allah has seen fit to grant her the means to get a divorce if that’s what she wants, I’m not signing anything,” a rare moment of assertiveness for me, too little too late though.

They let me know these things are serious and that for the sake of the children, if nothing else, things needed to change. I nod in agreement making a half-hearted attempt to conceal my apathy. In their defense, I understand that blind loyalty to ones relatives is only natural, I am only minimally upset with them, but now my contempt, my disgust for her is complete and permanent.

Two months later I divorced her.