30 Days of Reflection - Day 1
Apr. 19th, 2026 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angenoirI don't know what good this will do, when I'm in a problem of my own making and, on the one hand, I feel like I'm giving up because it's too hard, which is something I never thought I would do, but on the other hand, I feel like I'm pushing forward and trying to meet this halfway and instead I'm expected to do all the work.
So I'll start from the beginning, I guess, and I'm hoping that by taking 30 days to think this through, talk it out here, figure out what I want and whether this can meet my bare minimums or if I will continuously be disappointed. I'm sincerely hoping that I'll know closer to May 15 than May 20th, if only because it seems more cruel to do what I'm considering closer to the beginning of June than not.
In any case.
I got married in November, 2025. It was a surprise to my siblings, who weren't sure if my to-be husband was the right fit for me, and my father (who, for all his flaws and faults and conservative views, I still respect and wanted him to be a part of the decision process of picking my spouse) also expressed his doubts, but he did it in a way that I felt wasn't an issue I would face. Who knows, maybe he was right all along, and I'm just that inflexible and impatient.
In any case, for context, I'm Muslim, and that to me means that I as a woman get married to a Muslim man with my father's blessing. I do believe in divorce (I need to state that, because some ultra conservative Muslims [in my opinion, mis-] interpret the Quran to say that divorce is only from the man's side, not the woman's) but I also felt like divorce wasn't something I'd ever have to worry about. I fully expected to talk out future goals, future expectations, to lay out all the contingencies and what-have-you, and to have a fairly good grasp of my intended spouse's behavior and way of acting. Maybe that was too optimistic, I don't know. In any case. I met this man through a matchmaking event at the masjid [mosque] and our short conversation there was interesting enough that I indicated I wouldn't mind continuing to talk to further get to know him. He was up front about the fact that he had married before and had a child, and that never bothered me, though I did want to speak to his ex-wife because a) I wanted to know her side on why she broke up with him and b) if I did decide to marry him, we'd have to co-parent and I wanted us to have a decent rapport. He stated that she was in the marriage for the green card, and when he found out that, he ended the relationship. I figured, at the start, that since we were still in discussions it wasn't important.
We met every other week from January 2025 to August 2025, which for a traditional Muslim relationship is a lot. (My father joked when I was younger and expressed wanting a year's engagement "What for? You meet the family one weekend, and you're married the next." I never forgot that joke.) To me, the problem was that he was a nice guy, but not someone I was a) romantically inclined to and b) someone who was more than a friend. I tried to initiate date-like things - going to an arcade, going on a picnic, playing games together, going to meet his friends - but like, I've never been in a relationship before. I didn't know what to do, and there's limits as a Muslim as to what I was comfortable with anyway. He was okay to talk to, but that was pretty much it.
In August, his mother basically had a sit down with me and was like 'this is taking a long time' and in my head I went, well, people in the past didn't get to know their intended spouse for this long, and there's nothing really objectionable beyond my inability to see him as anything but a friend. I had already, for years, figured I was on the aro-ace spectrum - while sex fascinated me and I wanted to try, it wasn't the end-all be-all and I am of the opinion that love is something learned and relearned over and over, it's not instantaneous. So at the end of August I agreed to the marriage.
Now, hindsight being a bitch and everything, I can now look back and go ah, I should have seen this as a red flag instead of a yellow one, but oh well. At the start of the planning, he was very specific about money and who would pay for what. Admittedly, this might just be me being spoiled, but in Islam, the husband cares for everything financially in return for sexual relations. Saying it out loud makes it sound crass, but that is literally in every book everywhere on any Islamic laws on marriage. The wife is only obligated to obey her husband and provide said relations; she is not required to cook, clean, even breastfeed if she does not want to. So when he began being specific about money - and I know I said this more than twice - I pointed out that if we weren't financially ready to move in together than we shouldn't go ahead with the marriage. He backed down and we did a budget and I agreed to pay for groceries and the internet and he would handle the rent and electricity. Don't ask me what will happen when we need to get car insurance or the toll road pass on our own, but for now, that's our bills and that's how they're divided.
I had taken it as a yellow flag, I will point out, because he was also pushing for a prenuptial, and I gathered that his wife hadn't been kind in the divorce and so I was willing to let it slide - to chalk it up to him being worried about being taken advantage of or something. Maybe I shouldn't have, I don't know.
Anyway, we found a place, we settled on a move-in date, we got married (my parents, I feel, paid for the lion's share of everything, as well as my sister, which is another reason why I'm so hesitant and unsure right now). Then, we actually moved in together.
I am now going to point out that I'm closer to 40 than 30, and he's the same age as me. This is important because I found myself needing to explain basic things, like trash doesn't go on the floor, like please stop chewing with your mouth open (at this point, now in April, I just leave the room when he's eating), like please pick up your own trash. I found out that that stupid viral tiktok about men not wiping their ass was true and now he does his own laundry because I refuse to wash shit-stained underwear. He constantly asks me to make decisions for him.
And, on the one hand, my dad had initially been against the marriage because, in his words, this man was 'clearly autistic' and I didn't think someone being autistic should have anything to do with why I will or will not marry them, but maybe this is god proving me wrong, I don't know. Because on the other hand, I don't know if I can chalk this up to autism. I constantly feel like I'm an adult leading a child, and I'm sorry, but I'm not a pedophile and I don't want to be one, and I can't move him out of "needs constant guidance, like my students" to "an adult who can make his own decisions."
It doesn't help that when his daughter is with us - we get her every other weekend, Friday night to dropping her off to school Monday morning - that he clearly can't control her, can't set rules for her, doesn't know how to watch her. I can point out that she needs a diaper change (she is highly autistic, and at 5 still uses pull-ups / diapers) if she won't voluntarily walk to the bathroom with him - if she sits down because she doesn't want to stop playing with her toys or reading her books, or if she pulls out of his hand, or if she just lies down flat - he will stand there and basically do the equivalent of 'come onnnnnn' and then he'll go to sit down and get on his phone. I timed it once - after mentioning her needing a diaper change, it took him almost a full hour to do it.
And i could do it, is the thing, Again, maybe this is god telling me I'm not patient, but I was the eldest of five, with there being a 12 year gap between me and the youngest. If she pulls away or cries or lies down flat I just... pick her up? Sometimes football style, sometimes just gripping under armpits and lifting straight up. And then... I walk to the bathroom with her. He claims he's not strong enough to pick her up, and I don't know what to do with that.
This weekend, I've been trying to not be around a lot, so that he's forced to pay more attention, but then again if she starts breaking shit or things because she's a literal child I do have to deal with that, because he doesn't know how to. There were two weekends where I did not help out previous - one, I was sick as a dog and the other was a deliberate escape to visit my brother and have a breather from this.
Because it doesn't feel like a marriage. I feel like a roommate. I cook - he doesn't eat any of it unless I put it in a bowl and hand it directly to him. And I'm not his mother, if it's hot on the stove he can get his own dish, especially as I've said many times that of all household chores, I hate cooking the most. Anyway, he doesn't eat it unless I hand it to him and one especially bad day (which doesn't excuse it, but still, it was an already bad day) I came home to find out he had left the house to go eat at a fast food restaurant instead of the food I had cooked literally all the day before (I fucking hate meal prepping but it helps because teaching is such a fucking draining profession I'm so tired all the time). And I basically snapped and said I wasn't going to cook food the specific way he likes it any more because it didn't matter, he doesn't eat it, so I'll be cooking things I like and eating things I like. And either he misinterpreted this to mean he can't eat anything I cook, or he's just continuing the trend, because now he goes to his mother's place every Monday and picks up food for the week for himself, because god forbid he cooks for himself from the pantry that I stock and the food that I have.
I digress. Anyway.
I feel like a maid, babysitter, or mother, but I have never felt once like a wife. I even pointed this out to him - he said he was ready to marry me in March of 2025, and I asked why, and all he mentioned is that he could talk to me. Which, forgive me, but that's friendship shit, not relationship shit.
Anyway.
I'm at the point that I am seriously considering divorce. I never thought I would, because I'm a big believer in coming to compromises. And he is neurodivergent, there's no ifs ands or buts about it, but I feel I am also not fully neurotypical? And that still doesn't justify me spending all my time trying to pick up all the weight of all the jobs of a household.
Don't even get me started on sex. It doesn't exist. He can't do it. I don't know why, because I've never had sex before (conservative Muslim, remember, first relationship) so I can't even help him figure out why he can't do it right. All I know is that we have had two sexual encounters - the wedding night, and then about a month-ish later - and both left me basically feeling like shit and crying. Not because I was hurt but because it was so humiliating. Anyway.
I just - I will swear on anything and everything, I did not go into this thinking I'd ever get a divorce. I thought we had talked everything out, that we have similar life goals, that we were on the same page. But the primary drive for me to get married is because I wanted - want - kids. And I can't raise kids with a kid already in the household. I just can't. He can't watch his own 5 year old, how the hell will he help me with a newborn? Assuming he ever figures out penetration, of course, but that's a whole fucking other story.
And then I'm sitting here going... my parents put a lot of money into the wedding. So did my sister. And while I don't believe they'd want me unhappy, I also feel like that's still a major reason not to just give up on the marriage. And I'm not someone - or I thought I wasn't someone - who just... quits when something is hard. Marriage is about growing together. But I don't see any attempt from his side - and maybe the problem is me. Maybe I'm just primed to always look for the bad in a relationship.
So. 30 days of reflection. I don't really want to possibly divorce close to the beginning of June - a) the lease on the apartment is until November, b) his birthday is in June and that would suck, and c) June is the month of summer that he has his daughter the whole month, not just every other weekend.
But my brother pointed out - holding onto something that I know that isn't working is only going to make it harder in the long run. I was going to give it until the start of the next school year - August - to see if anything could improve. We did have a sit down conversation because he was aware I am regularly upset at him and his inability to do anything around the house. I pointed out that he doesn't really try to improve the house - he waits until I notice a problem and start fixing it before he begins to do anything - and that he hasn't ever treated me as a wife. He gave me - I had them listed, 5 things - 2 of which were nice (a rose and a gambit figurine) and the others were all either prompted by someone else to give me or were tangentially related to my interests but were not actually something I liked. Hell, we haven't kissed - the one time he asked I was in the middle of eating and I literally paused and was like... now? And he went oh, no, and then that's it.
But I can't be faultess in this, right? I'm sure there's something there that I need to be doing. I'm too impatient, and when I'm angry he acts like I'm going to physically attack him, which only makes it worse for me honestly. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I need to be more affectionate, though that's not who I am as a person, really, and even thinking about it seems strange. There's never only one side to a story. I just don't know what else I can be doing. I don't know what else to improve or change.
I went into this wanting and expecting a partner, not someone I have to lead around, and maybe that's something I just need to accept, but I also don't know if I'm only focusing on the negative. The problem is I cannot literally think of a single positive currently that he brings into my life that I did not have previous before him. And again, maybe I'm just catastrophizing but... I really do feel like I'm trying. I really do. I don't know how else to do this.
So I'll start from the beginning, I guess, and I'm hoping that by taking 30 days to think this through, talk it out here, figure out what I want and whether this can meet my bare minimums or if I will continuously be disappointed. I'm sincerely hoping that I'll know closer to May 15 than May 20th, if only because it seems more cruel to do what I'm considering closer to the beginning of June than not.
In any case.
I got married in November, 2025. It was a surprise to my siblings, who weren't sure if my to-be husband was the right fit for me, and my father (who, for all his flaws and faults and conservative views, I still respect and wanted him to be a part of the decision process of picking my spouse) also expressed his doubts, but he did it in a way that I felt wasn't an issue I would face. Who knows, maybe he was right all along, and I'm just that inflexible and impatient.
In any case, for context, I'm Muslim, and that to me means that I as a woman get married to a Muslim man with my father's blessing. I do believe in divorce (I need to state that, because some ultra conservative Muslims [in my opinion, mis-] interpret the Quran to say that divorce is only from the man's side, not the woman's) but I also felt like divorce wasn't something I'd ever have to worry about. I fully expected to talk out future goals, future expectations, to lay out all the contingencies and what-have-you, and to have a fairly good grasp of my intended spouse's behavior and way of acting. Maybe that was too optimistic, I don't know. In any case. I met this man through a matchmaking event at the masjid [mosque] and our short conversation there was interesting enough that I indicated I wouldn't mind continuing to talk to further get to know him. He was up front about the fact that he had married before and had a child, and that never bothered me, though I did want to speak to his ex-wife because a) I wanted to know her side on why she broke up with him and b) if I did decide to marry him, we'd have to co-parent and I wanted us to have a decent rapport. He stated that she was in the marriage for the green card, and when he found out that, he ended the relationship. I figured, at the start, that since we were still in discussions it wasn't important.
We met every other week from January 2025 to August 2025, which for a traditional Muslim relationship is a lot. (My father joked when I was younger and expressed wanting a year's engagement "What for? You meet the family one weekend, and you're married the next." I never forgot that joke.) To me, the problem was that he was a nice guy, but not someone I was a) romantically inclined to and b) someone who was more than a friend. I tried to initiate date-like things - going to an arcade, going on a picnic, playing games together, going to meet his friends - but like, I've never been in a relationship before. I didn't know what to do, and there's limits as a Muslim as to what I was comfortable with anyway. He was okay to talk to, but that was pretty much it.
In August, his mother basically had a sit down with me and was like 'this is taking a long time' and in my head I went, well, people in the past didn't get to know their intended spouse for this long, and there's nothing really objectionable beyond my inability to see him as anything but a friend. I had already, for years, figured I was on the aro-ace spectrum - while sex fascinated me and I wanted to try, it wasn't the end-all be-all and I am of the opinion that love is something learned and relearned over and over, it's not instantaneous. So at the end of August I agreed to the marriage.
Now, hindsight being a bitch and everything, I can now look back and go ah, I should have seen this as a red flag instead of a yellow one, but oh well. At the start of the planning, he was very specific about money and who would pay for what. Admittedly, this might just be me being spoiled, but in Islam, the husband cares for everything financially in return for sexual relations. Saying it out loud makes it sound crass, but that is literally in every book everywhere on any Islamic laws on marriage. The wife is only obligated to obey her husband and provide said relations; she is not required to cook, clean, even breastfeed if she does not want to. So when he began being specific about money - and I know I said this more than twice - I pointed out that if we weren't financially ready to move in together than we shouldn't go ahead with the marriage. He backed down and we did a budget and I agreed to pay for groceries and the internet and he would handle the rent and electricity. Don't ask me what will happen when we need to get car insurance or the toll road pass on our own, but for now, that's our bills and that's how they're divided.
I had taken it as a yellow flag, I will point out, because he was also pushing for a prenuptial, and I gathered that his wife hadn't been kind in the divorce and so I was willing to let it slide - to chalk it up to him being worried about being taken advantage of or something. Maybe I shouldn't have, I don't know.
Anyway, we found a place, we settled on a move-in date, we got married (my parents, I feel, paid for the lion's share of everything, as well as my sister, which is another reason why I'm so hesitant and unsure right now). Then, we actually moved in together.
I am now going to point out that I'm closer to 40 than 30, and he's the same age as me. This is important because I found myself needing to explain basic things, like trash doesn't go on the floor, like please stop chewing with your mouth open (at this point, now in April, I just leave the room when he's eating), like please pick up your own trash. I found out that that stupid viral tiktok about men not wiping their ass was true and now he does his own laundry because I refuse to wash shit-stained underwear. He constantly asks me to make decisions for him.
And, on the one hand, my dad had initially been against the marriage because, in his words, this man was 'clearly autistic' and I didn't think someone being autistic should have anything to do with why I will or will not marry them, but maybe this is god proving me wrong, I don't know. Because on the other hand, I don't know if I can chalk this up to autism. I constantly feel like I'm an adult leading a child, and I'm sorry, but I'm not a pedophile and I don't want to be one, and I can't move him out of "needs constant guidance, like my students" to "an adult who can make his own decisions."
It doesn't help that when his daughter is with us - we get her every other weekend, Friday night to dropping her off to school Monday morning - that he clearly can't control her, can't set rules for her, doesn't know how to watch her. I can point out that she needs a diaper change (she is highly autistic, and at 5 still uses pull-ups / diapers) if she won't voluntarily walk to the bathroom with him - if she sits down because she doesn't want to stop playing with her toys or reading her books, or if she pulls out of his hand, or if she just lies down flat - he will stand there and basically do the equivalent of 'come onnnnnn' and then he'll go to sit down and get on his phone. I timed it once - after mentioning her needing a diaper change, it took him almost a full hour to do it.
And i could do it, is the thing, Again, maybe this is god telling me I'm not patient, but I was the eldest of five, with there being a 12 year gap between me and the youngest. If she pulls away or cries or lies down flat I just... pick her up? Sometimes football style, sometimes just gripping under armpits and lifting straight up. And then... I walk to the bathroom with her. He claims he's not strong enough to pick her up, and I don't know what to do with that.
This weekend, I've been trying to not be around a lot, so that he's forced to pay more attention, but then again if she starts breaking shit or things because she's a literal child I do have to deal with that, because he doesn't know how to. There were two weekends where I did not help out previous - one, I was sick as a dog and the other was a deliberate escape to visit my brother and have a breather from this.
Because it doesn't feel like a marriage. I feel like a roommate. I cook - he doesn't eat any of it unless I put it in a bowl and hand it directly to him. And I'm not his mother, if it's hot on the stove he can get his own dish, especially as I've said many times that of all household chores, I hate cooking the most. Anyway, he doesn't eat it unless I hand it to him and one especially bad day (which doesn't excuse it, but still, it was an already bad day) I came home to find out he had left the house to go eat at a fast food restaurant instead of the food I had cooked literally all the day before (I fucking hate meal prepping but it helps because teaching is such a fucking draining profession I'm so tired all the time). And I basically snapped and said I wasn't going to cook food the specific way he likes it any more because it didn't matter, he doesn't eat it, so I'll be cooking things I like and eating things I like. And either he misinterpreted this to mean he can't eat anything I cook, or he's just continuing the trend, because now he goes to his mother's place every Monday and picks up food for the week for himself, because god forbid he cooks for himself from the pantry that I stock and the food that I have.
I digress. Anyway.
I feel like a maid, babysitter, or mother, but I have never felt once like a wife. I even pointed this out to him - he said he was ready to marry me in March of 2025, and I asked why, and all he mentioned is that he could talk to me. Which, forgive me, but that's friendship shit, not relationship shit.
Anyway.
I'm at the point that I am seriously considering divorce. I never thought I would, because I'm a big believer in coming to compromises. And he is neurodivergent, there's no ifs ands or buts about it, but I feel I am also not fully neurotypical? And that still doesn't justify me spending all my time trying to pick up all the weight of all the jobs of a household.
Don't even get me started on sex. It doesn't exist. He can't do it. I don't know why, because I've never had sex before (conservative Muslim, remember, first relationship) so I can't even help him figure out why he can't do it right. All I know is that we have had two sexual encounters - the wedding night, and then about a month-ish later - and both left me basically feeling like shit and crying. Not because I was hurt but because it was so humiliating. Anyway.
I just - I will swear on anything and everything, I did not go into this thinking I'd ever get a divorce. I thought we had talked everything out, that we have similar life goals, that we were on the same page. But the primary drive for me to get married is because I wanted - want - kids. And I can't raise kids with a kid already in the household. I just can't. He can't watch his own 5 year old, how the hell will he help me with a newborn? Assuming he ever figures out penetration, of course, but that's a whole fucking other story.
And then I'm sitting here going... my parents put a lot of money into the wedding. So did my sister. And while I don't believe they'd want me unhappy, I also feel like that's still a major reason not to just give up on the marriage. And I'm not someone - or I thought I wasn't someone - who just... quits when something is hard. Marriage is about growing together. But I don't see any attempt from his side - and maybe the problem is me. Maybe I'm just primed to always look for the bad in a relationship.
So. 30 days of reflection. I don't really want to possibly divorce close to the beginning of June - a) the lease on the apartment is until November, b) his birthday is in June and that would suck, and c) June is the month of summer that he has his daughter the whole month, not just every other weekend.
But my brother pointed out - holding onto something that I know that isn't working is only going to make it harder in the long run. I was going to give it until the start of the next school year - August - to see if anything could improve. We did have a sit down conversation because he was aware I am regularly upset at him and his inability to do anything around the house. I pointed out that he doesn't really try to improve the house - he waits until I notice a problem and start fixing it before he begins to do anything - and that he hasn't ever treated me as a wife. He gave me - I had them listed, 5 things - 2 of which were nice (a rose and a gambit figurine) and the others were all either prompted by someone else to give me or were tangentially related to my interests but were not actually something I liked. Hell, we haven't kissed - the one time he asked I was in the middle of eating and I literally paused and was like... now? And he went oh, no, and then that's it.
But I can't be faultess in this, right? I'm sure there's something there that I need to be doing. I'm too impatient, and when I'm angry he acts like I'm going to physically attack him, which only makes it worse for me honestly. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I need to be more affectionate, though that's not who I am as a person, really, and even thinking about it seems strange. There's never only one side to a story. I just don't know what else I can be doing. I don't know what else to improve or change.
I went into this wanting and expecting a partner, not someone I have to lead around, and maybe that's something I just need to accept, but I also don't know if I'm only focusing on the negative. The problem is I cannot literally think of a single positive currently that he brings into my life that I did not have previous before him. And again, maybe I'm just catastrophizing but... I really do feel like I'm trying. I really do. I don't know how else to do this.
