DUBAI // A wife told her husband her brothers would "teach him a lesson" if he did not change his philandering, money-grabbing ways and refrain from downloading pornography on her laptop, a court heard today.
KA, a 34-year-old Emirati, sent a number of texts to her 37-year-old husband SM between September 13 and November 10 last year urging him to change his behaviour.
"Your life is not blessed. The life of a dog is more honourable than yours - you are running around like a dog and you are a liar," read one of the messages, while another warned: "Don't make my brothers act in a way you won't like - I have been silent until now, but if it makes it to court don't blame anyone but yourself.
The wife admitted sending the messages, saying she did so "because he did not support me when I was tired and sick, and because he never asks about his son." She also said she did not mean to threaten him, but only to let him know that if they were to divorce she would not waive her rights to what was rightfully hers.
The pair have a seven-month-old boy together, but the wife said that since marrying her husband about a year-and-a-half ago the relationship had soured and that he had been having affairs.
"I am the one who pays for everything and he uses my car often and always leaves womanly items in it," she said, adding that he had taken Dh6,000 from her to open a cafeteria, but had not given anything back.
The wife showed the court several pictures of her husband kissing other women and said she found he had been using her laptop to download pornographic videos.
She told prosecutors that while she was pregnant he would flirt with nurses when she had doctor's appointments, and that after she gave birth he molested the maid. When she told him she knew what he had done he threw her out of the apartment in the middle of the night along with her newborn baby.
She said that he would often insult her in front of his children from his previous marriages and in front of the maids.
The wife told the court she believed her husband treated her so badly so that she would ask for a divorce and waive her rights.
The husband, a manager at a well-known firm, told prosecutors that his brother in law threatened to assault him. He said his wife sent a number of insulting messages in which she said he was "in and out of relationships with bitches" and that he spent his life in hotel bars.
"I didn't want to lodge a complaint at first but when she sent more messages, I did" he said. The wife was charged with issuing threats and insulting her husband.
The next hearing was scheduled for August 28.
salamir@thenational.ae
