The Ruling on Obeying One's Father in Divorcing His Wife

Question:
Also, my brother has been pressing me to submit this statement to your Eminence. He says: Yes, I married five years ago, and I have a son and a daughter. Problems arose between my father and my first wife's father. I was abroad in Saudi Arabia for about a year, and then I went to Yemen. My wife was in her father's house. I went to my wife's father to bring her back to my father's house, but my uncle asked me to bring my wife to his house. However, my father said: "You provide for her and clothe her, and she helps her family in the house, but she does not help us." Now, my father is giving me a choice between two things: either choose the path to Paradise and marry another woman, or go another way, and I will not know you, you will not know me, and I am not your father. I married the second woman with my father's permission. My father asked me to divorce the first one. My uncle, who is the father of the last wife, asked me: "Have you divorced your first wife?" I said to him: "Yes," but I have not divorced her; I only promised him. I do not want to divorce my first wife, nor do I want to divorce the second one. Now, I am confused by this promise I made to my uncle to divorce my first wife. For information, I am married to the second one because I took his daughter and married my sister to his son in exchange. Every time I think about going to Yemen, my chest tightens with these problems, and I am afraid that if I go, they will occur. What is the solution? I ask your Eminence.

Answer:
You must strive, my brother, to please your father and treat him with kindness, because being dutiful to him is obligatory, and visiting him is important. You must take care of your father, strive to please him, and address him in the best manner. You should seek the help of your good relatives, such as uncles and others, to persuade him. If the wife is good, if the wife is good and there is no concern regarding her, and she is upright in her religion, then do not be eager to divorce her, and do not hasten to divorce her if she is upright.
As for if your father criticized her because she is corrupt, then she should not remain. Obey your father and separate from her. But if she is upright, religious, known for prayer and other matters of religion, but your father does not have love for her in his heart, then do not hasten, and divorce is not obligatory for you in that case. Obedience is in what is good, not in what harms you.
So you must not hasten, and you must address your father in the best manner, and seek to please him through his good relatives, neighbors, and the like, so that perhaps he will be persuaded and perhaps he will be satisfied, so that the wife remains with you and you attain the pleasure of your father and be dutiful to him.
As for the first wife, whom you told her father that you had divorced, a divorce takes effect on her by this. If you said that you divorced her, you are held accountable by your admission. If you said you divorced her, then it is a divorce for you. You must take her back if she is in the waiting period. You must take her back. If she has exited the waiting period, she is not lawful to you except with a new marriage contract and a new bridal gift, after her consent and the consent of her guardians. You should never hasten in divorce. You should handle matters in the best manner, with a good approach, and in cooperation with your neighbors, brothers, and relatives regarding your father, so that Allah guides him.
And take this as a rule: If your father criticized her for the sake of religion, and you asked about her and found out that she is not religious and not upright, then there is no good for you in her remaining. Obedience to the father in this is a right, and removing her is obligatory. And Allah will provide you with something better than her if you divorce her and are sincere.