Scared

And then you meet a guy and everything feels exactly right.

You mesh well, you laugh a lot. He’s an amazing conversationalist. He is a terrific listener (and God knows you’re a great talker…). He is handsome and warm and ready to be married. No divorce to finalize, no wife to get rid of. Just ready, stable and available.

But he’s too ready. He is entirely too ready for marriage. Like, he’s ready to come marry you a week after you met on the internet.

He is clear he doesn’t need a visa from you, but clear he does want to leave here. To go anywhere at all. Even ‘the jungles of Africa’ he says are better than here.

And there’s his parents. They don’t mind him marrying a foreigner, or a divorcee, or even a woman with kids. But 4 kids? Maybe they’ll mind…

He alternately assures me he wont care even if they don’t like it. He’ll marry me anyway. He’s that into me.

But why?

I am a revert. Reverts are more serious about keeping to pure Islam than culturally raised muslims. I am white. He likes white women. (hey…I like dark men, so…no judging here.) I am funny and smart and also, yeah…I admit I also love sex (these men are amazed to find women who actually enjoy sex since women from their own culture are taught it’s a man’s pleasure and a woman’s duty).

He loves kids. All kids. He would be honored to raise my kids. But he wants babies too. And does it have to be 2 years from now??

We make plans. We agree on a very nice mahr, one I feel is totally appropriate. He says he just needs to talk to his family–something I insisted on when he was fine with just eloping and telling them later…will I regret this demand?– and pray istikhara, but he feels sure I am right for him.

But then at times he asks me what I’ll do if his parents are opposed to it? And would I really not help him find another revert? Wouldn’t I want him to be happy as he would want me to be happy?

Just 12-24 hours I have to wait to hear from him, but my mind starts to panic.

Maybe he isn’t right for me. This is all so fast. What am I thinking?? Maybe he is going to be depressed all the time waiting for a chance to leave Egypt! Maybe. maybe. maybe. maybe.

And then logic. He checks all the boxes.

Stable, mature, intelligent, very good at communicating his thoughts, very observant of me when we talk, great at listening and connecting, similar religious views, and he adores kids. And we laugh so, so much. He is a jokester like me.

I have this habit of sabotaging everything that seems good or boring because it lacks drama.

Is it my American personality finally catching up with me? This strong resistance to marrying, MARRYING, a man I have never even kissed.

32, Egyptian in Ontario

We hit it off right away. He had an infectious smile and a warm countenance, and unlike me, his emotions didn’t show through in his words.

He spoke perfect, fluent English and understood all my jokes, and he had such a passionate undertone in the way he interacted with me, like he may tear my clothes off in 2.3 seconds (after the nikah was signed, of course. Come on!).

He was divorced, had 2 kids, and when I saw them bothering him, he shooed them away in exactly the same way I did mine: calmly, nicely, trying to seem sane. He said his ex-wife and he had been married for 10 years and that he had loved her once but that over all those years, they had each hurt one another very deeply, and it just couldn’t be overcome.

He explained the law in Canada regarding divorce: you must be legally separated for 12 months, a full year, before you could apply for a divorce. He had 2 more months in his year left to fulfill.

On the first day we started talking, he gave my number to his mother. He said she was visiting town at the time, from Dubai, and that he wanted her to talk to me because she was an incredibly intelligent woman and he was sure she would adore me. I freaked out, but agreed, albeit really reluctantly.

He told me that he could come here in December and spend a few weeks with me, sign the papers, and then I could move into his parents villa in Cairo for 6 months while he finished his divorce papers, and I would be taken care of by his family in every way.

There was just one problem: he was ‘between careers’. In other words, homeboy had no job.

Yeah, sure, he was qualified. But he had gotten laid off a few months previously and was living off savings and mommy’s deep pockets. He said even if he had a job, 70% of his income was garnished by the state to give to his ex-wife for child support and alimony.

He admitted there was a good chance he would be moving to Dubai in a few years to work for the family company, and therein a new problem presented itself.

He made the point, quite adamantly, that if I came to Canada, my ex-husband could and likely would place a traveling ban on my kids and prevent me ever taking them out of Canada again. He pointed out that history has shown my ex-husband had no issue with lying, no problem doing things in a less-than-legal way, and an overpowering, intense love for his kids.

Therefore, he said, there was a good chance we would face a major issue when it came time for him to go take up the mantle of the family business in Dubai if we got married and my ex-husband was a jerk.

But the end came suddenly when he admitted to me that he had been talking to a girl for a little time before me, and this girl had recently taken shahadah, in the states. He admitted he was looking solely for reverts because he wanted someone who would work full-time while he was …’between careers’.

He insisted he had feelings for me (in 48 hours of knowing me, without ever meeting me) and had spilled a lot of very personal details with me (like how he hated giving his wife oral sex and it was degrading). But he said that he needed an easier marriage, an easier life than our marriage would give him. I told him to find his happiness with the new shahadah.

NEXT!

Mid 30’s, Egyptian living in Jeddah

Soul mate. Other half. Me, but a dude.

Perfectly intelligent, totally on-par with me in every area.

Highly educated, hilarious, geeky like me. We spoke for 3 hours, and I have never forgotten the way he made me feel. Like I was talking to myself, only less weird and crazy than that.

He was hot, in that sunnah way. Nice, full beard, nothing scraggly. Piercing eyes. Nice smile. Great laugh.

He was financially well-off enough to actually sustain a woman and four kids. He owned a few flats in Alexandria, and would be returning here after his contract with a University in Jeddah finished in the following June.

He had four kids of his own, as well, who lived with their mother here in Alexandria. He had no interest in having any more which appealed to me.

There was only one issue.

He was like me in every single way, including the whole ‘I can’t stand being around messy, noisy kids’ thing I’ve got going on.

I reasoned with myself that although he was my dream man in every way, my innocent kids would be relegated to a play area and told to be quiet and not make a mess because mama and abi were busy painting, or writing a screenplay, or discussing Eschatology.

We went back and forth, between speaking and saying khalas, enough torture. One day, he insisted we must marry one another, it’s our destiny, and that all I needed to do was accept the very real truth that my kids were better off with their father, send them away for their own good, and then live a happy, artistic life with him.

NEXT!

Mid 30’s, Yemeni in Australia

He was sexy in a terrifying way.

He messaged me on Facebook when I was still in my ‘iddah and said he had seen some of my comments on a group we were both part of. He said he hoped God would bless me and protect me and that if I ever needed anything, I could absolutely come to him.

I blew it off, and then decided to respond. I told him thanks, but I don’t need help from some random brother somewhere. I am only interested in a good man for marriage, nothing else.

He responded that yes, that was his intention, too.

We talked day and night in short snippets. He was always, always busy. He was a businessman, and he owned a gym in a major metropolitan area, and was also opening a cafe. He sent me snapshots all day of his excursions, along with candid photos of him with those juicy lips.

He said he was married still, but about to divorce her because she was fucking crazy. He said she was innocent enough, but crazy. I snickered to myself about how he had no idea what sort of messed-up he had coming from me. He said he had married her a year ago and moved her to his country, so he felt bad for her if he divorced her because she had nowhere to go.

Then he said she may be pregnant.

We stopped talking because I told him I could not handle the guilt of knowing I was wrecking an innocent woman’s marriage, and that his history of going behind his wives’ backs and searching for a replacement was terrifying.

NEXT!

32, Kenyan Somali in SA

He told me was married to a Moroccan once, but it didn’t work out because her family was domineering and refused to allow him to take her back to his country. So he left her and his newborn son and went back to SA.

He had an electric smile, and we laughed a lot. He said he had an issue of being highly sexually needy, and I said I could relate. This pleased him, apparently.

He always cited ahadith and Qur’an verses, and he was a hafidh of Qur’an. This both impressed and nauseated me.

He said I was too negative all the time. I needed to have more faith, more tawakkul in Allah. He said my depression issues came from a lack of devotion to Allah and to reading the Qur’an.

Everyday I spoke to him, I had a knot in my stomach, a certain reassurance he was not the right guy, but on paper he checked off all the boxes.

I wasn’t attracted to him at all. Except that smile…

I accepted his proposal after praying istikhara and after he spoke to my wali, who was my old therapist. He was in his 70’s and understood my particular brand of fucked-up all too well. He said the guy seemed nice, but then he had to travel and they didn’t speak again.

We broke off the engagement after two weeks because he confessed that he never sees a doctor when he is sick, and that people who get sick have a lack of faith and that psychology is a western joke, all of them liars.

NEXT!