Cute Polka Dotted Magenta Bow Tie Ribbon -->

Young revert living the cutie life while trying to keep her heart as soft as possible, iA.

I Love Only You


I have mentioned my fiance a few times in the past, and while I sometimes post pictures of the two of us, I always make sure to cover his face with an emoji since I don't feel comfortable posting his face on such a public platform. Despite this, I love him with my whole heart and can't imagine being with another man, even though I know it might seem cliched and even a little ridiculous, I fully believe we're soulmates, subhan'Allah. When I think of all the different things that had to happen just for us to even meet, it reminds me of the proverb:
"What is destined will reach you, even if it be underneath two mountains. What is not destined, will not reach you, even if it be between your two lips!"
Something that I've hinted at but never fully addressed is the fact that I am engaged to an older man, and while it's not something I'm ashamed or embarassed of at all, it's something that I know is still viewed negatively by many people. When we first began our courtship, I received very hurtful and negative comments by co-workers who, I'm sure in their minds, meant well, but after about six months, all the comments stopped. I'd like to believe that they saw how in love we were and so they stopped, but I know that they probably didn't want to be seen as an asshole so they stopped.

Despite this, I've never had someone make me so upset from their comments that it made me actually tear up and want to cry, but I'm sorry to say that on Friday morning, that's exactly what happened. Even though it was two days ago, I still keep thinking about it and going over everything over and over.  

So, for a little background:

My Darling is twenty-six years older than me. I know that it's a very unusual thing and I'll be the first to admit it, after all, if you'd told me three years ago that I would be with a man so much older than me, I would've told you you were crazy. But, as cliche as it sounds, I didn't fall in love with someone because of a number, but for who they were as a person and how well we got along and how happy and safe I felt in their company. So yes, if someone asks me, I'll tell them his age, but I don't feel ashamed, because I know that I'm with the person who loves and cares for me the most and I don't think there's anyone that would love me the way he does. The Quran states that we should pick a partner not because of how attractive or young they are, how much money they make or anything superficial like that. Instead, we should choose someone based on their personality, their characteristics, how they act and treat others and how religious they are. We should choose someone who is compatible with us and not someone who looks nice in our selfies online or someone who pays all the bills but doesn't treat us well. For this reason, I chose my fiance over the three young muslim men I work with, because not only are they not very religious, but we have absolutely no compatibility at all. 

Before we became a couple, I would want to spend as much time as possible with him when we were at work, but being so shy, I would just sit next to him in the break room and read or study and he was perfectly happy and would sit next to me for an hour straight, just looking at his phone or watching tv. We were happy in this nice, warm bubble and I look back on this time with extreme fondness. We would talk over video chat sometimes, but we always made sure that it was halal in nature and he never called me with his chest or anything exposed and I always made sure my hijab was on and we would talk for five minutes or so before hanging up. I would read articles online on how to tell if a man liked you and how to show you were interested, but a lot of the "tips" just seemed way too far for me so I took one tip that I saw a lot that said you would touch them to see how they react. I waited til we were talking and put the tips of my fingers on his arm and he didn't respond at all, though he did ask why my face was so red lol. Later, when we were courting, I asked him when he fell in love with me and he told me two years after knowing me!! He had just kept his feelings a secret since he didn't want me to feel uncomfortable and had just made dua and asked Allah (swt) to let us be together, the same thing I had done! It really touched me to think that he loved me so truly and deeply and I loved him so much for not imposing his feelings onto me and I knew no one would ever love me this much while also loving Allah (swt).

So, on Friday, this co-worker came up to me and asked me who I was engaged to since she had heard that I was engaged to "the Deaf man". She asked if I was engaged to this awful, nasty man that my Darling talks to at work since they're both Deaf but doesn't like either. I told her no, that I could never be with someone who thinks grabbing female associates and rubbing their backs and almost touching their chests and butts is ok! She then looked shocked and said, "Wait?! There are TWO DEAFS here?! How is that possible?!". I didn't really say anything, because I didn't really know how to respond. I told her my Darling's name and she didn't know who he was; I described what he looked like and told her what department he was in, but she still claimed to have no idea who he was. So I told her I would show her some pictures I had and opened the album in my phone that has my favourite pictures of him and us and started showing her the pictures. As soon as she saw what he looked like and recognised him, she immediately started gagging and acting like she was going to throw up and told me that our relationship was "disgusting", "wrong" and that "what you're doing is just not right!". I felt like I got hit with a bucket of ice water and felt my emotions bubbling up and tried to keep calm, I told her that I love him and he loves me too, so that should be the only thing that matters. She just gagged and told me it's so disgusting for me to be with someone who is "old enough to be your father! NO! YOUR GRANDFATHER!!!". I told her I'm almost thirty so there's no way he could be my grandfather, but she just kept gagging and shaking her head. 

Normally, when I get really upset, I become very quiet and don't say anything and just retreat into my own mind, but this time, I managed to speak up and told her, "I think you're being very disrespectful towards me and towards my fiance and towards our relationship and I'd like you to stop." I know it doesn't sound like much, but it took a lot for me to say that and it made me even more upset when she completely ignored me and kept on telling me that my fiance was disgusting to be with me and that I needed to break up with him, because our relationship was just plain and completely wrong. I felt my eyes almost filling up with tears and everything just felt so completely overwhelming. I'm happy to say that my therapist and I had started working on DBT methods and I used self-soothing to calm myself down and stop myself from getting too overly upset and worked up, alhamdulillah. If I'm being honest, I don't even remember or know when or why she walked away and finally left me alone, and I suspect it's from how overwhelmed I was feeling at the time. 

I understand why people might find my relationship unusual or "weird", but I really believe that it's wrong to be so hurtful and abusive. While it's true that he's a lot older than me, he loves me in ways that I've never felt before when I was with men my own age and I wouldn't trade his love for anything. He's pushed me in a wheelchair when my sugar was so low that I couldn't walk, held me and rubbed my back and calmed me down during panic attacks, driven me twenty minutes to a walgreens to get me midol when my cramps made me almost throw up from the pain and so much more. When I first became muslim, I remember him watching youtube tutorials and teaching me how to wrap hijab, he bought me my prayer beads and cooked me daal when I was sick with a fever just because I asked him to. Back in December, when I was very cold, he came all the way to the far corner of the store and all the way outside in the cold just to lend me his winter jacket even though it meant he'd be cold, and after I asked him if I could borrow it a little longer since it smelled like him, he didn't even blink and immediately said it was ok. When I first learned how to cook and made really disgusting dishes, he would always eat them and encourage me to keep going, even though we both knew it wasn't anything resembling food. I remember when I was very into doing my nails, he would take the pictures for me and would take as many as I needed til we got a good picture and this extends to my mehndi. He loves me enough to listen to me talk and talk about history and foreign languages and when we're driving and I start singing, he bursts out into a huge smile and tells me how beautiful I sound. 

Back when Harvey hit, he drove an hour through dozens of detours to get to me and took me out just to get out of the house and we drove around holding hands and when we tried to get back to my home, he held my hand and squeezed it and told me, 'Everything will be ok. You're safe with me.'. We drove by dozens of vehicles floating and abandoned in the water and past homes and buildings completely destroyed, but never once did I feel scared, because he told me I was safe. That's what it means to be in love. It's not the racing heartbeats or the lovey dovey eyes you make at each other. It's the warm feeling that shoots through your whole body when you're together and the fact that you feel safe and secure just by being together. Love, real life at least, is when the other person shows you their faults and ugly parts and you tell them that the two of you are going to get through this and you love them despite those things. You love each other and grow together, and it's like a flower growing around the two of you, bringing you closer together and blooming bigger and more beautiful with month and year that passes. When you see an obstacle, instead of tripping the other and leaving them behind, you grab hands and work together to overcome it together as a team. It's knowing that no matter what happens, they will always love and support you, but also tell you when you're being ridiculous.

If that's "disgusting" and "wrong", then I don't want to be right, because there will never be someone who loves me with his whole heart. When I look at him, my heart sings, "I love you and only you~" and I know his heart does the same, and I thank Allah (swt) for blessing us in this way.


No comments

Post a Comment

Blogger Template Created by pipdig
Cute Polka Dotted Magenta Bow Tie Ribbon