His mother does not like his wife and that has led to him living with her family

Question

Praise be to Allah.

It is not essential for you
to live with your family, rather it may be better for you and your wife and
your mother for you to live with your wife outside your parents’ house. In
most cases the one who lives with his family – or even close to them – will
not have a problem-free life. Wise people who measure things against the
standards of sharee’ah and wisdom are very few, especially among women
because of the jealousy and competition that exists among them.

Your living away from your
family may set things straight between your mother and your wife. Distance
is a bonus in many cases, so there is no need to worry. You may see
something as bad and feel distressed because of it, then it turns out to be
good. Your mother may begin to miss you and her grandchildren because of
your being away from her, and her feelings may change towards your wife if
she is out of sight and she only sees her occasionally. This is something
that is tried and tested.

But if you want a solution
to the cause of the problem, which is that your mother does not like your
wife, you have to look for the reasons why she does not like her and find
out what is stopping her from liking her. These may be some of the reasons
why your mother does not like your wife:

1-Mixing too much with her, which
leads to too much talk, and the one who talks too much makes too many slips
of the tongue.

2-Jealousy of your wife and your
love for her. This happens a great deal. You often see the husband’s mother
being jealous of her son’s love for his wife and his responding to her
wishes, and she thinks that this wife has taken her son from her.

3-Your wife’s bad treatment of
your mother. Some wives do not treat their husbands’ mothers well, so they
do not answer their requests or show them respect, which leads to many
problems between them.

4-Your falling short with regard
to your mother’s rights and not paying attention to your wife’s rights. The
mother cannot hate her son, rather she tries to pick on something which she
things is the cause of the problem, which is his wife, so she hates her.

These are some of the
reasons which may make your mother dislike your wife. If you see that all or
some of them are applicable in your case, then you must deal with it in a
wise and good manner.

We advise you to take the
following steps to create love between your mother and your wife:

1 – Live apart from your
mother, and tell your mother that you are doing this even though you don’t
want to, for her sake, so that your mother will not put pressure on herself
and make herself ill.

2 – Advise your wife to
send a lot of gifts to your mother, whether they are material things such as
clothes, food etc, or intangible gifts such as sending salaams and asking
after her health.

3 – Asking wise people whom
your mother likes to intervene to change her mind about your wife. In this
case outsiders may have a greater influence on the mother than her son and
her husband.

We should point out that as
you are no longer living with your mother, you should try find separate
accommodation for yourself that is separate from your wife’s family too.
Perhaps your moving in with them has deepened the rift between the two
sides. Moreover it is not usually a good thing in establishing a marriage
and it may have a negative effect on the couple’s life.

Do not forget to pray to
Allaah and ask Him to guide all of you to that which He loves and which
pleases Him, and ask Allaah to reconcile everyone and bring them together.
And to guide them to the best of words, deeds and attitudes.

And Allaah is the Source of
strength.