When a Marriage Turns Without Reason: Sihr and Marital Breakdown

Surah Al-Baqarah, describing what was learned at Babylon, names one effect specifically: that which separates a man from his wife. Of everything attributed to sihr, this is the only application named in scripture.

That gives the concern a legitimacy others lack. It also makes it the most over-applied idea in the entire field, because every struggling marriage now has an explanation available that requires nothing of either person.

The pattern described

Practitioners describe something with a distinctive shape:

• Sudden reversal. Affection becomes aversion, and there is a point where it changed.
• Physical repulsion. The spouse becomes difficult to look at or be near, which the person cannot explain and often feels ashamed of.
• Distortion of perception. Minor faults become unbearable. Good qualities become invisible. The description of the spouse no longer matches what anyone else sees.
• Disproportionate conflict. Trivial matters escalate immediately and severely.
• Reasonable apart, hostile together. Each is calm and fair-minded when alone, and the hostility returns on contact.
• Nothing behind it. No betrayal, no incident, no accumulated resentment either can point to.

That last item carries the weight. Marriages fail constantly, and the reasons are usually painfully visible to both people and to everyone around them.

What normally explains it

Before anything else, consider these honestly.

Resentment that was never voiced. Years of small grievances, none raised, accumulating into something that eventually surfaces as contempt. This looks exactly like a sudden change from the outside, because the buildup was invisible.

Unmet expectations. About roles, money, in-laws, children, intimacy. Rarely discussed directly, and corrosive over time.

External pressure. Interference from either family. Financial strain. A new baby. Illness. These change marriages profoundly and the change can be abrupt.

Untreated depression in one partner. This is enormously underrecognised. Depression flattens affection, produces irritability, and removes the capacity for warmth. To a spouse, it reads exactly as sudden inexplicable coldness.

Something being concealed. An affair, a debt, an addiction. The withdrawal that accompanies concealment looks unexplained precisely because the explanation is being hidden.

Why misdiagnosis is so damaging here

Concluding that sihr caused a marital breakdown does three things, and none of them help.

It removes responsibility from both people. If a spell caused the problem, neither partner needs to examine their own conduct, apologise, or change anything. The work that would actually repair the marriage never begins.

It produces accusations. Almost invariably the suspicion lands on a mother-in-law, a sister-in-law, a rejected suitor, or a neighbour. Extended families have been permanently divided on suspicions with no evidence behind them whatsoever. This is a serious wrong, and it is committed constantly.

It delays real help. Marriage counselling works. So does treating depression. So does one honest conversation that has been avoided for three years. Time spent pursuing treatment is time those things are not happening.

A reasonable approach

• Both of you talk, properly. Not an argument. A structured conversation about what has changed, ideally with a counsellor or a respected third party present.
• Both of you see a doctor. Rule out depression, thyroid problems, hormonal issues.
• Both of you strengthen your practice. Pray together. Recite together. Establish adhkar as a household.
• Perform ruqya on each other. A husband and wife reciting over one another is Sunnah, costs nothing, and requires no practitioner.
• Accuse no one. Whatever you suspect, keep it entirely to yourself. This single discipline prevents most of the collateral damage in this area.

If it does turn out to be sihr

The treatment is not dramatic. Consistent recitation, ruqya water, daily adhkar, and time. Both partners participate. Both keep praying.

And the ordinary work of the marriage continues alongside it, because a marriage that was struggling before will still be struggling after, and recitation does not substitute for the conversation neither of you has had.