How does tawbah work if I keep relapsing?

If you have repented for the same habit ten times, fifty times, more times than you can count — this question is probably less theological than it sounds. What you may really be asking is: am I still allowed to come back?

The answer from the Qur’an and Sunnah is unambiguous, and it is yes. What follows is how tawbah actually works, why repeating it is not hypocrisy, and what to change so that this repentance becomes a turning point rather than a loop.

Does Allah still accept repentance after many relapses?

The verse most directly addressed to someone in your position was revealed about people who had gone much further than you have:

Qur’an

۞ قُلۡ یَـٰعِبَادِیَ ٱلَّذِینَ أَسۡرَفُوا۟ عَلَىٰۤ أَنفُسِهِمۡ لَا تَقۡنَطُوا۟ مِن رَّحۡمَةِ ٱللَّهِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ یَغۡفِرُ ٱلذُّنُوبَ جَمِیعًاۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلۡغَفُورُ ٱلرَّحِیمُ

Say, "O My servants who have transgressed against themselves [by sinning], do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful

Notice who is being addressed: not the consistent, not the strong — those who have transgressed against themselves. Despair itself is the thing being forbidden. Elsewhere the Qur’an calls despairing of Allah’s mercy the mark of those who are astray, not of the sincere.

The Prophet ﷺ described Allah’s readiness to receive the returning sinner in terms of time itself:

Hadith

Abu Musa reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying that Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, Stretches out His Hand during the night so that the people may repent for the fault committed from dawn till dusk and He stretches out His Hand during the day so that the people may repent for the fault committed from dusk to dawn. (He would accept repentance) before the sun rises in the west (before the Day of Resurrection).

Night sins are covered by the day’s open hand; day sins by the night’s. The system is built for people who keep needing it.

What does tawbah actually require?

Scholars across the Islamic traditions describe sincere repentance (tawbah nasuha, from Surah at-Tahrim 66:8) in practical terms:

1. Stop the act. Tawbah made while continuing the sin is a contradiction in terms — but tawbah made after stopping, even if you have stopped many times before, is simply tawbah.
2. Feel remorse. Not performative self-hatred — honest regret that the act happened. If you are reading this at all, this condition is likely already met.
3. Resolve not to return. A firm intention now, judged now. A person can fully intend to leave a sin and later be overcome; that later fall does not mean the earlier resolve was fake.

If the sin involved wronging another person, there is a fourth element: putting right what you can. For a private habit, the wrong is against your own soul — which is exactly the language the Qur’an uses.

Qur’an

إِنَّمَا ٱلتَّوۡبَةُ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ لِلَّذِینَ یَعۡمَلُونَ ٱلسُّوۤءَ بِجَهَـٰلَةࣲ ثُمَّ یَتُوبُونَ مِن قَرِیبࣲ فَأُو۟لَـٰۤىِٕكَ یَتُوبُ ٱللَّهُ عَلَیۡهِمۡۗ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ عَلِیمًا حَكِیمࣰا

The repentance accepted by Allah is only for those who do wrong in ignorance [or carelessness] and then repent soon after. It is those to whom Allah will turn in forgiveness, and Allah is ever Knowing and Wise

Isn’t repenting again and again hypocrisy?

No — and this worry inverts the actual teaching. The Qur’an praises, by name, people who sin, remember Allah, seek forgiveness, and do not knowingly persist:

Qur’an

وَٱلَّذِینَ إِذَا فَعَلُوا۟ فَـٰحِشَةً أَوۡ ظَلَمُوۤا۟ أَنفُسَهُمۡ ذَكَرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ فَٱسۡتَغۡفَرُوا۟ لِذُنُوبِهِمۡ وَمَن یَغۡفِرُ ٱلذُّنُوبَ إِلَّا ٱللَّهُ وَلَمۡ یُصِرُّوا۟ عَلَىٰ مَا فَعَلُوا۟ وَهُمۡ یَعۡلَمُونَ

And those who, when they commit an immorality or wrong themselves [by transgression], remember Allah and seek forgiveness for their sins - and who can forgive sins except Allah? - and [who] do not persist in what they have done while they know

The person who relapses and returns to Allah is not persisting in the sin. Persisting is relapsing and shrugging. The very fact that each fall sends you back to repentance is the difference between a believer struggling with a habit and someone who has made peace with it.

The Prophet ﷺ himself sought forgiveness constantly — the Sunnah normalizes repentance as a daily practice, not an emergency measure for rare catastrophes. And in a narration beloved in the Shia tradition, Imam al-Baqir described Allah’s response to the returning servant like this:

Hadith

I heard Abā Jaʿfar (a.s) say, 'Allah is more pleased with the repentance of a servant when he repents than the man whose mount, that was carrying [all] his food and drink, gets lost in the wilderness. Then, as he is in that state [of perplexity] not knowing what to do or where to turn, he places his head down to sleep when suddenly a person approaches him and says, O man, have you lost your mount? He replies, Yes. He says, Here it is.'

A man stranded in the desert, his mount gone with all his food and water, lies down expecting to die — and wakes to find it standing over him. Allah is more pleased with your return than that man is with his. The same image is narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. On this, the traditions speak with one voice.

If tawbah is always accepted, why do I keep ending up back here?

Because forgiveness and habit change are two different processes, and only one of them is instant.

Tawbah wipes the slate. It does not rewire the routine that led to the relapse — the same triggers, the same device in the same room at the same late hour, the same stress with no other outlet. If nothing about the routine changes, the routine will produce the same result, and each cycle will feel like more evidence that you are beyond help. You are not. You are running the same experiment and getting the same result.

So attach your repentance to a concrete change:

• Name the trigger. Boredom, loneliness, stress, a specific time of night. You cannot interrupt a pattern you have not identified.
• Add distance. Make the habit mechanically harder to reach — where the phone sleeps, when the internet turns off, what stands between the urge and the act.
• Replace, don’t just remove. The urge is a wave that passes; have somewhere to stand while it does. Prayer is the tradition’s own answer — the Qur’an pairs repentance with re-establishing it:

Qur’an

وَأَقِمِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ طَرَفَیِ ٱلنَّهَارِ وَزُلَفࣰا مِّنَ ٱلَّیۡلِۚ إِنَّ ٱلۡحَسَنَـٰتِ یُذۡهِبۡنَ ٱلسَّیِّـَٔاتِۚ ذَ ٰ⁠لِكَ ذِكۡرَىٰ لِلذَّ ٰ⁠كِرِینَ

And establish prayer at the two ends of the day and at the approach of the night. Indeed, good deeds do away with misdeeds. That is a reminder for those who remember

• Get real support. You do not have to confess to anyone — Islam does not require it — but a trusted accountability structure changes outcomes. This is what Hayaa was built for.

A last word on despair

Imam Ali is reported to have said:

Hadith

Commander of the Faithful Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (as) said: "There is no intercessor more successful than repentance."

There is no version of your story in which giving up on repentance improves it. However many times you have been here before, the door is the same door, and it is open. Repent, change one concrete thing, and keep walking.