BK (before kids), our relationship was built during our trips to the grocery store. He made the mundane fun.
AK (after kids), it was the moment I came home from the grocery store to find him playing the guitar for her; and I describe the look on her face as dadoration.
My current relationship is “impossible,” as my mom puts it. He and I been together now for almost eight months. I bumped into him in the streets of Alexandria. He was a tourist from a Western country, but (thank God!) not from a first world country. We became friends quickly. Our conversations were mind blowing (they still are). I had never thought back then that it’d come to anything. He is an atheist, though. I am not a religious person, but I do see God everywhere while he was never able to see God anywhere. We had so many wonderful conversations about that. It’s like the ebb and flow of the sea.
In the end, I realized that all my previous relationships had one goal in the end: marriage. I questioned, and I am still questioning the idea. Now I also question interpretations of my religion that made women get married only exclusively to Muslim men, while men can get married to women of other religions. I question how religion should be this guide that brings people together, but it sometimes ends up building walls. Long story short, I think Islam needs to be reinterpreted, and this time by women.
When he came to Egypt, he was planning to stay for ten days. He ended up staying for seven months. We are still together, but now it’s a long distance relationship. There’s a lot of pain and joy in this.
Our relationship was made through gritty conversation. When he told me he had cheated with three other women, I was shocked to realize our relationship was unmade months beforehand. When exactly? I didn’t know. Maybe it had been unraveling for a while. More likely, it was never made to begin with. My younger-self assumed that I would walk if ever in this situation. Of course, I would walk away. But this is when life surprised me.
Our relationship was truly made in those six weeks of vulnerable, raw, angry, hurt, honest, forward-thinking talks. It became a beautiful and sustainable thing. I am so thankful for him and what we have. Surely changed my life for the better. Turns out, the sh*t makes you stronger.
How our relationship was made…
Thank God it Has Ended
I thank God it has ended because I do not have the nerves to take this kind of man. I should be the one and only.
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