My ex husband...

Salaam World.....

Ok, so I have gotten a few questions about my past.  I guess I would be curious how a small town midwestern girl wound up in the Middle East.  While I wont go into a lot of detail, I will explain a bit of my life up until and during my past divorce.  I am only doing this because I dont want my ex husband to always get the "bad guy" card.  Even though circumstances do not allow my to conversate with him, I want people to know that he wasnt abusive with  me so on and so on.....

I was in my relationship for 17 years.  I met my ex when I was 15 yrs old!  Crazy I know... We married when I just turned 19.  I was one of your typical teenagers.....couldnt tell me NOTHING!  I was in love and thats all there is too it!

My parents left when I was still in school so him and I moved in together.  He was older than me by a couple of years but in no way were we ready to marry.   We didnt know nothing about nothing..haha.  Young and in love, we thought we could prove them all wrong.  And we did...for 13 yrs.

Problems quickly happened in our marriage.  When two people try to change one another, something is bound to go wrong.  He drank a lot.  Me, too young to go in the bars, I ate.  I put on 40lbs.  This of course didn't help things.  It just pushed him further away.  He wanted to hang out with the friends and I wanted him to be home.  Nothing new there.  Then the issue of children would come up.  I wanted, he didn't.  Again, we tried to change one another.  Doesn't work. 

Over the years, we drank, we fought, we cheated, .........we quit drinking, we quit fighting and we quit cheating.....but there was always an emptiness.  We learned to tolerate each other.  Became more friends than husband and wife.  The bills would pile up, medical expenses to the point of Bankruptcy.  Still, that didn't separate us.  What did us in was the gambling and the lack of "togetherness".  There was no love or tenderness in our marriage. 

Over the years, when you have nothing in common, you start to form your own life.  I worked , he worked and we lived our own lives.  The only thing we found we both enjoyed was gambling.  That of course didn't help with the paying the bills issue....haha

One thing I can say about him is he always pulled something out of his $%@@....  If we needed money, it was odd jobs, anything to make it thru.  During this time I began secretly learning about Islam.  My family at the time would have disowned me for sure!  I kept it to myself.  Sure, he was an asshole...but I was just as much as a bitch right back.  Things were unfair in the marriage but where does that get us pointing fingers.

We grew further and further apart.  We were best friends but you cant sustain a marriage on friendship.  We both wanted different things out of life.  I truly believe that us divorcing was the best thing for both of us. 

We separated, I moved out of the house and then filed for divorce the beginning of 2009.  On my birthday we filed the papers.

It was the saddest , yet most liberating day in my life.  I knew it had to be done and I was happy with us, that we had the strength to do it.  Saddest day because I lost a part of myself....17yrs felt like it was wasted.  I look back now and wouldn't change it for a million dollars.  I learned a lot.  Being with him made me who I am today.  Inshallah, he is happy too.

I only want the best for him.  Yeah, he can say I screwed him over, and I can say the same but where does that leave us?  I wish him the best out of life and we may not have been able to make it as husband and wife but that does not mean that ALLAH wanted bad for us....our life is a learning experience.

So I thank him.  For taking care of us when we had nothing.  I apologize for trying to change him all those years. 

I am not one of those spiteful ex wives... I don't speak bad about him, I just don't speak about him.  We both are at fault for the demise of the relationship.  I do believe that ALLAH had better things in store for both of us..... I have mine and I pray he does as well!!