My father (45M) is hurting my mother (40F) by trying to bring another woman (?F) into our household as his second wife.
Hi Reddit, I don't really know how to use this platform but I do know that people get a good amount of advice here and I just needed somewhere to put this all out on. I'm sorry if this may seem disjointed.
I am a 21 year old woman who is going to uni and am living with my parents for the summer(will be moving back to dorms in two days) And yesterday morning I overheard a 'conversation' between my mother and father where my mother was crying trying to convince him of something and him being quiet. Immediately red flags began blaring in my head and so many emotions and panic and stress just began flooding me. I'm always hyperware of every little thing or gestures that goes on between my parents I've learned, and my nervous system starts going haywire anytime I sense something wrong. This tangle of emotions is something i'm still learning to heal from.
For context my family is muslim and we moved to US from India when I was 7 and my younger sisters(now 13 and 17) were under 4. my mother was in her early 20s and my father is an Imam. (Prayer Leader) To date they have been married for 20 years. I've always thought he would uphold his values and morals as a good muslim man but all of that changed about 5 to 6 years ago when I was still in high school and my mother seems to be crying more often and my father seems to be colder than usual to her. My mother is not a confrontational woman. She was arranged married to my father at 18 and has always been content with her life as a housewife supporting her husband the way she was raised. We come from a particularly rural part of india where things are very traditional. I found out that he was angry at my mother because way back when my youngest sister was born, the doctors had to tie her tubes because the c section was so dangerous, he wanted a son because he was resenting coming home sometimes to all girls.
Apparently there was a woman in his recital classes that he taught who apparently had been getting familiar with him and had asked him to make her his second wife. She has a six year old daughter.
i find the concept of having multiple wives disgusting and repulsive so you can guess how I reacted when i found out. I raised hell, I screamed, I cried, I threatened to never speak or interact with him again if he did this to my family. My mother was also crying and trying to keep us all together and he finally seemed to come to his senses. After that I heard the woman married another man, apparently everyone in her family knew about it. Only last year in december 2025 when I was moving away for college in my junior year for the first time did I learn that she was back and he was being distant to my mother again. Once again I reacted angrily and screamed at him and lost my mind. I don't have a very good emotional stability when it comes to these things, I panic and my heart rate goes crazy and some days I get so stressed I lose chunks of hair. I was prepared to tell my sisters and mom to move in with me, I was prepared to graduate early so I can have a job to support them myself. Words cannot describe the hatred, the disgust I felt for that man. but somehow he came back and my parents made up, my mother convinced me not to take on any burdens on myself and to live my life. The other woman was gone again and I lived through my semester away from home always stressed for my family. Its summer, im home again and she is back. I feel dead inside because I know this is breaking my mother.
For those who could be asking why she just doesnt divorce because she doesn't have any way of income or that many close friends here, they had always planned on returning to india once all of us children have settled in our lives. There's only five of us here. so she likely would have to move back home if she did but like I said they are extremely traditional there and it wouldn't bode well for her mentally to be there. Plus my sisters are 17 and 13. There is no way they can go back to india at the age, there are no opportunities for them there either they are and my mother wouldn't be able to survive being away from them while they're still growing. And there is no way in hell they would ever want to stay with him here in US if they hear she is back. The only thing I'm hoping I can do is wait two years until I graduate and manage to find a job. I hate being in his proximity and him trying to act like everything is normal.
Over my dead body will a second wife come into this home and I won't hesitate to ruin his new life if he does try to go through with this. But for now I just want my mother to not be so heartbroken because I know for a fact that her entire world will crumble if he's not there with her along with us, her children. I don't know what I'm able to do as i'm moving to my dorms tomorrow with my student loan debts and with this current job market where i haven't even been able to get a single part time job over the summer. I just don't want the only members of this family that i care about to be alone like this. Genuinely where do I go from here?
Tldr: My father is breaking our family apart by suggesting bringing in his other woman as a second wife and I feel numb.