Listen to yourself

Motivational speeches don’t do it for me, although this one will sound like one! Ironic.

If you’re going through a bad marriage or a horrible prolonging divorce, you probably need all the help, advice, and opinions you could get to help you decide or help you have peace with your decision. It’s ok to ask for people’s advice, it’s ok to get all the self-help books you can put your hand on, but for the love of God, don’t let advice or books block your own thoughts and instincts from getting to you.

Listen to yourself. Don’t look for comforts in other people’s words that tell you things you want to believe. Listen to advice, but only do by it when you think you’re ready; otherwise, you’ll never really move on, and your ghosts will keep haunting you and pulling you back from you approval-induced happy place back to your misery.

My dad always says: “la nadema man estashar, wala khaba man istakhar” (or the other way around, it always confuses me) but he also says “nakhod bel asbab”, and no one would know your reasons or understand them more than you.

Sorry if it’s too brief and direct to the extent that it almost feels like a slap on the face, it’s not!! But sometimes it’s better to get things that way to make sure they don’t get confusing or boring.

End of transmission.

Pride and Stupid Ego

A couple of weeks back I stumbled on this, and since then, and due to so many things going around, a few thoughts have been coming and going…

When is a marriage not worth fighting for?

In our faiths, marriage is what a couple should fight for, it’s not something a couple should give up on just because they don’t get along; there has to be good substantial reasons for a couple to end the marriage. However, our society makes staying in a marriage –especially a bad one-, a holly mission, for all the wrong reasons! You stay, you’re a martyr… you leave, you’re a coward!

And no one wants to be a coward; we all seek pride in that sacrifice, even if it’s nothing really but stupid ego! That’s why a lot of people in our society never stop to evaluate their decisions, to know if their marriage is working the way it should be or it’s just a futile attempt to keep false pretenses of a good life. Makes me wonder how staying in a bad marriage is supposed to make one a better person when every bit of good dies day after day?!
When a husband says straight forward that he would not grant a divorce, when he abusively threatens to use all his power and authority as a husband to make you miserable if you dare ask for a divorce? Is that a man worth wasting one breath with?! I mean, what kind of life with such a man could possibly be worth living? Marriage is hard, that’s why we’re urged to fight for it, but it has to be worth it, it has to be with a good person who shares it because it just does not need to be any harder.

When a wife uses her own kids to pressure her husband to stay in a marriage of which he has grown tired, does that make her feel loved and wanted? Does that make her feel like a winner that she has a man who would probably end up cheating on her because he can’t leave her? That’s not fighting for a marriage, that’s ruining a marriage and refusing to admit it.

When did people lose sight of that line between pride and stupid ego?! The line was never thin, and pride is something entirely different from stupid ego; if anything, each leads to different consequences. Pride makes you know when you can take no more abuse and walk away with your dignity intact to start a new life, even if against all odds, while stupid ego makes you insist on staying despite all the signs, and sometimes makes you abusive of your spouse making them stay when both of you should know better. When did society promote being egotistic rather than being proud?!

Ma bye3rafsh!!

This is where the society plays the selective twisted game of using a "taboo" against men only when it feels like it.

Recently that conversation took place:

Friend - So, after those long years of enduring his abuse i finally had the courage to walk away and I filed for khol3.
Me- I am so sorry to hear that. I had no idea you went through this as you've never showed any signs but then again, who am i to comment on that...i kept my mouth shut for eight years.
Friend- Has he been abusive too " with a horrified look"
Me- Not physically no...It was different but not less destructive.
Friend- Even now you don't want to share.
Me- I had to share one aspect of the problem when i asked for divorce but till this day no one knows another destructive aspect and no one will.
Friend- Aseela...anyway it's hard to speak up in front of people...good that my lawyer has dictated exactly what to say in court.
Me- Oh, and what's that?? I mean, I guess it's enough to say that he was abusive...it is khol3 anyway and its procedures aren't difficult as ordinary suits.
Friend- Oh, No, the lawyer told me that the judge will ask me why do i want divorce and i should say: akhaf alla 2oqeem 7odood allah!
Me- na3am!!!!!
Friend, while laughing- akhaf alla 2oqeem 7odood Allah means that I fear slipping in adultery but in a legal term the judge knows.
Me- was your husband..mmm...i mean, did he have problems??!!
Friend- Oh No, he was just like a horse!! it is only that this reason isn't discussable nor negotiable!!
Me- eh dah...you are willing to accuse your husband of being ma bey3rafsh instead of stating the truth which is horrible enough to get you your divorce....and, this is actually sort of sick funny that the justice crooked system would give women such a tool that simply...I can imagine you standing in front of the judge and when he'd ask you you'd reply in a corny voice: akhaf alla 2oqeem 7odood Allah followed by a wink ;) oo howa yefham ba2a!! heheh enty habla?!!!
Friend- Rasha, if I would say that he used to beat me up and curse my whole family I would have to sustain my claims with witnesses and stories and hear say...but the other thingie would spare me that.
Me- Look, I just state what i think is right...enty 7orra tab3an...but i invite you to consider this: this is a false testimony and you may end up in prison if he - tab3an tab3an- got angry for his machoism and proved you wrong...shahada zoor!!! are you really willing to take that to your grave??!!
Friend- ..................

Now correct me if i am wrong. this is the same society that tames a woman forever for having any mere clear- Natural - sexual desire. this is the society that titles love making" 2elet adab" and this is the same society that treats a woman like a slut if she complained about lack of sexuality and I'm referring to Marriage related subjects not affairs...and this is the same society that allows men to cheat, beat, curse elly khaleffo a wife and tells her she should take it for the kids' sake, her family's sake and elbawab' sake!!

That same society gave women a sharp fake stick to get out of a marriage while it closes every legitimate door to do just that for the right reasons.

I'm puzzled and sick to my stomach from such hypocrisy and fakeness.

Believing in our rights has to go parallel with believing in others' rights or else, that crooked curve will decline sharper every day and sadly by the same hands that It hurts.

I've always believed that any human being is the predator and the prey...both at the same time...just like a chain that will go on from generation to generation...something will hurt my mom and leads her to make some sort of mistake with me and i would carry the hurt and deliver it to my sons and so on and on and on...but, I also believe that founding individual correctness and pure bases mends and adjusts slowly but consistently towards a pain fre society.

Awareness of ones rights along with everyone else in that universal lesson we are sharing is what makes us either a predator or a prey.

Our choice.