It’s my first time sharing my experience online. I really don’t know how I feel or what I want at the moment. I’m just really really numb and confused. But I’m not going to give up is what I tell myself so that’s been helping from falling apart and I have a lot of support from my parents. I don’t know how they feel personally tho. It surely must be hard on them too I think.

So it’s been a 4 months and I’m nearing towards my divorce hearing. I can’t wait to flip this page over in my life and start new.

I met him online towered the end of the pandemic in December of 2021. At that time I was looking for a job in Dubai and didn’t knew anybody there. It was all new and exciting so I thought I’d make some friends so I don’t feel lonely while I’m there. After just few months of chatting I was there in Dubai, he came to pick me up at the airport and helped me out with my accommodations
We just had a lot in common, Atleast that’s what I thought at that time. He is Muslim born in Dubai but his nationality is Afghanistan and had Pakistani citizenship. I never cared about race religion culture before so when I was attracted to him I was just in love with his personality. I was so happy with him in the beginning and I still have all the pictures from all the fun adventurous things we did together- camping hiking horse riding. We even went to Sri Lanka together!!! we dated for about a year n a half and it was a real whirlwind romance. He popped the questions in Sri Lanka and I couldn’t believe it. It was absolutely romantic. I really didn’t know what I was getting my self into. I knew his big family was conservative but what I was about to experience was no less of an emotional n mental torture.

We got married last January. Had our own separate house but we never had privacy as his family would come over to stay at our new house. The avalanche of rules engulfed me from the first week of our marital life. They told me I cannot work because it’s brings shame to the men of the family that their women have to go out and earn money. Absolutely no interaction with the opposite sex. So I can only ever speak to my dad or my husband or my father in law. I always have to have my gaze lowered and I can’t speak loudly. I always have to have my head covered in from the males of the family. His brothers clearly disliked me because of my bold and outspoken nature. They always use to tell me girls shouldn’t be allowed to get too educated then they think they can outsmart guys. Women can never become male or just alpha in general. I just kept quite out of respect and followed what they said or he said to me out of love n respect. But I was slowly killing the real me. He deleted my social media isolated me from my friends and pretty much deleted my entire photo albums from the time before I met him. Ik this all sounds crazy and you might think how did I let all this happen but honestly in that moment I thought it was all for my good. I was psychologically tricked into believing what’s good for me in the afterlife. They all pretty much thought of me as a cattle thay own and my life’s objective is to produce kids and look after my husband needs. In total I only lived with him for 7 months and after all the pressure one day I just blasted. I packed my things and moved back to my country. He always said he loved me. He still says that and accept that his family did me wrong. He’s always willing to give them up to start new life with me but I just cannot go back anymore. Now I’m in my country I have no friends at all. I don’t go out much. I don’t have any confidence to speak to people so it’s hard for me to find a job rn. And I extreme anxiety attacks. My marriage was short but it has affected me for life. I don’t think I can trust anyone ever again. But I don’t want to give up and give him this power of bringing my sprit down. I know it’s going to be hard and will take sometime but it was be good in the end.