Ruling on the one who says to his wife: If you leave the house, you are divorced

Question: I am married to my cousin. Before I traveled to Iraq, I said to her: If you go outside the house while I am absent and without my permission—and I mean her leaving the house and traveling to Cairo—no matter what the circumstances are, you are divorced. She went to Cairo because her mother was ill, according to her. What is your opinion on what I said? May Allah reward you with good.

Answer: If your intention was to prevent her from going out, and not to divorce her, but rather to stop her, to threaten her, and to frighten her, then you owe an expiation for an oath. It is sufficient—in the most correct of the scholars' opinions—to feed ten poor people, or clothe them, or free a slave. Whoever is unable to do that must fast for three days, and it is better if they are consecutive.
However, if your intention was to divorce her, then one divorce takes effect on her. You should take her back, and testify with two witnesses that you have taken back so-and-so—if you had not divorced her twice before this. If you said: If you leave my house, or if you go to your mother, you are divorced, and your intention was to effect the divorce, then one divorce takes effect. You may take her back whenever you wish as long as she is in the waiting period by saying: I have taken back my wife so-and-so, or I have returned my wife so-and-so. You should testify with two of your good brothers that you have taken her back, and you return to your right of guardianship over her in this matter, provided you had not divorced her twice before.
As for if this divorce is the last one—that is, the third—then she is forbidden to you except after a lawful husband in a lawful marriage, and not a marriage for the purpose of facilitating remarriage, after the husband has had intercourse with her. This is because Allah the Exalted says: [al-Baqarah: 230], and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), when the woman whose husband had divorced her with the final divorce asked him to return to her, said: , meaning until the second husband has intercourse with you after the marriage. Therefore, a marriage is necessary, and intercourse within the marriage is necessary.