Hi guys welcome back or to my youtube channel! If this is your first time coming across any of my
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So jumping right into this video, i'm not gonna do an introduction because i think it's pretty
self-explanatory. If you clicked on this video by reading the title there's a reason why you're
here so i'm going to get right into it. I'm going to start off with a bunch of disclaimers because
i'm so worried that people are going to take this video and spin it around or misinterpret it
and i want you guys to know from the get go my intentions behind this video. I just want to help
anybody who is either having marital problems who is considering divorce who is going through
a divorce and having a difficult time or if you're seeking a partner and you just don't know
how to gauge or know if he's the right one or what to look out for then i'm hoping that from
my experience i can share with you guys some of the lessons and things that i've learned to help
you guys make a sound decision so with that being said i want to first start off with the number
one disclaimer i am definitely not advocating for divorce by any means i want to make that
very very clear if you are having problems in your relationship right now please exhaust every single
option there is before you resort to divorce because divorce should always be your last option
the second thing i do want to point out is not all marriages are equal not all marriages are the same
so everything i share is just basically my experience so please take everything
with a grain of salt my experience in my marriage may not be the same for you so please just have
like an open mind while watching this video and the last thing i want to point out is i didn't
have any kids involved nor did i have to move or stay in a different location from my ex-husband
so i resided in the same state as my ex so there was not a lot of moving going on at all
i had family right here by my side and yeah no kids were involved so those are some of the things
to keep in mind now getting into the actual part of the video i'm gonna tell you guys just a very
brief overview so i was married for a little over five years so a little over half of a decade
um i got married really young when i was 20. um my ex-husband and i met at a local masjid
so a lot of times people ask me was it arranged was it love i guess it was like a combination of
both maybe a fusion so we met the masjid we spoke a couple times and then we told our parents to
take it for us further on um so it's kind of like a mix i definitely wouldn't say it was love like
we weren't dating for a while and stuff like that just to point out there was a lot that happened in
my marriage this is by no means the entirety of my marriage and there were some very very big things
that happened throughout the marriage that led me to my final decision of divorce which i won't
mention just for the sake of privacy but i'll give you guys a few tips of what i learned and
red flags and things to look out for so you guys don't make some of the same mistakes that i made
and one of the main reasons for divorce is usually due to incompatibility or differences
so i really wish somebody had given me this advice when i was getting married
so i'm gonna pass this on to you some of the things to keep in mind is that person's lifestyle
their living conditions like do they live with their parents do they live with their siblings
also their upbringing like where they were born and raised i think that's a very very critical
thing because i learned that through the hard way i had more of a american mindset whereas
my ex-husband was raised in saudi arabia where a mindset was more conservative and its upbringings
were just different i'm not saying one is better than the other i'm just saying it provides a clash
that you can probably avoid if you look out for that in the beginning the thing to look out for in
their social life are things like do they have a lot of friends or do they only have that one good
friend that they rely on do they hang out with their friends often or do they only hang out like
time to time um what are their friends like um do they hang out in mixed gatherings stuff like that
is really important because although their friends truly don't define them you have to realize your
friends influence you to a certain extent so if you don't like your significant other's friends
then you're gonna have lots of problems also you want to make sure that they're able to adjust to
their new priorities of course priorities will change throughout the marriage so like once kids
are involved or if you end up having to live with in-laws or stuff like that but you just want to
be sure that the person you are going to marry is able to adjust to those things and it's not just
set in stone in their ways the last tip i want to give before getting married or when seeking a
significant other is to look at their character it is so important that the person you are marrying
has good morals and good beliefs and good ethics i made the mistake of going for somebody who is
religious i really don't necessarily think that religious translates into good character because
when somebody is a good person you will see that throughout their daily life like simple things how
they communicate with people how they interact with people who can't give them anything so
youngers or elders how they do their dealings in their business and stuff like that i think it's so
incredibly important because somebody could pray five times a day but still not have that fear of
god and you have to have somebody who fears allah first for them to treat you right so please keep
that in mind that something that i really really wish i knew from before being so naive at 20 i
just thought if somebody was pregnant five times a day then they had to be a good person right
but it's not always the case a few more tips that i forgot to mention and i think they're so
important so i want to squeeze it in red flags and listen to your gut red flags are huge when
you are getting to know somebody and you see red flags and red flags could be anything like
white lies that they're making or them acting suspicious or them hiding their cell phones or
them interacting differently with friends versus how they interact with family anything of that
sort please recognize and pay attention to these red flags because the last thing you want to do
is just keep those red flags in your back pocket or in the back of your brain and then you end up
getting married to this person and the entire time you're just dwelling over those red flags
or every time a conflict arises you go back to your red flag file that's only in your brain you
can't even bring it up like months and years later and then it tears you apart because you don't know
what the truth is so red flags if you see them either bring it up politely to your partner and
address it or have it open communication where you guys sit down and say like okay these are a
few things that i want to know more about can you elaborate and just get more clarity for yourself
because that's only going to help you in the future in the long run either it's going to save
you from somebody who is not who they're saying they're going to be or like somebody who's not
a good person or it will help you understand and have a clean perception of this person
now that we covered the basics of like what to look for in a person say you end up getting
married now you're having either problems in your marriage you don't know when to keep
trying or when to give up um you don't know who to seek help from or what you should do
then i have a bunch of things that i have listed on a piece of paper here just because i don't want
to forget some of the main things and i wrote down everything that i personally experienced so i hope
this could help some of you guys so the first thing how to gauge if you want to move forward
with a separation or how to try harder and stay in the marriage okay the first thing i will say
is please exhaust every single option you have so go to counseling talk to your friends talk
to your family get the parents involved and maybe have a friend come over and talk to you guys try
everything the things that worked for me and i'll tell you guys the steps that i took
from beginning to end the first thing i did was have open communication with my partner and i
think that's so important both of you guys need to sit down and have a very mature conversation
when there's no anger or no emotions involved and just kind of talk through the differences try to
talk through the struggles and come up with a game plan of how you can resolve all of these issues
you also want to be able to have like an open mindset so neither of you guys get angry and
i think it's so important to have a healthy conversation between the couple first before
involving other people so when that doesn't work then you can definitely involve like one person
definitely don't get the entire community or like all of your relatives involved at first because it
could be degrading so the second step is to get um either a close family member or a friend involved
in my case i had my sister involved so she came over and kind of helped us walk through
our differences and she even kind of told us like how both of us can change and she
listened to both sides obviously trying to be unbiased as much as she can
and if you don't have a sister or sibling that you trust then choose a friend i will say having
a friend involved is a little bit tricky because it depends on whose side the friend is coming from
so it could be a little bit biased of course with siblings too but at the end of the day like family
just wants the best for you so like your friend your family will have more unbiased opinions
versus a friend but of course i think friends work great too and the third step is to get family
involved so like parents involved so have both the families come together sit down and talk and if
that doesn't work then definitely seek counseling i think counseling is wonderful i know in our
community especially south asian communities it's like kind of looked down upon and it has this
really big stigma and taboo around it but i really don't think there's anything wrong with it at all
my personal advice is to find somebody outside of the community to be your counselor so you're
not feeling degraded or embarrassed and you don't have to worry about going out in public and facing
that person so that just would be one of my tips i think it makes just both parties feel comfortable
and then my last resort would be to go seek advice from a local imam or a sheikh or somebody
with authority in the community because normally these type of people will give you advice from a
religious perspective they'll give me islamic perspective on what to do
and then from there you can try to separate for a couple months and see if that works out that
was like one of the last things that we did we separated for a couple months maybe two or three
months to see if that was best for us and usually by that point you will know if you guys want to
be together or just go separate ways so i think separation should be the second to last thing
before divorce i think separation purely is so you guys have time away and you're able to think about
everything as an individual and internalize your thoughts and i really feel like separation helped
me a lot that is one of the things that helped me make a sound decision when i realized that divorce
was the best option for me because in isolation or in separation i was able to really lean on a
lot i was really able to do tons of istahada make a lot of sincere dua and really pray for
either a sign or pray for allah to guide me and a couple things that i did while i was separated
or a couple things that i did while i was going through like maybe a divorce process possibly was
i wrote down a list of pros and cons so i wrote down a bunch of things that i think was beneficial
for me to stay in the marriage and then i wrote down a bunch of things that i think was probably
not so good for me staying in that marriage and i think it really helps you see things written out
on a piece of paper that you're able to see kind of all the things that you've tried all the things
that don't work and you're able to really see that okay maybe this isn't going to work out or
maybe this will work out and i just haven't tried enough and now i'm trying to think what else i
did i think those are pretty much all the steps i took before i made the final decision of wanting a
divorce obviously there was a lot involved and a lot of emotions are involved and it's a very
it's a traumatic time so don't let yourself make a judgment all by yourself definitely seek
guidance from your peers your family and somebody with authority because you're so emotional you
don't want to make a unsound decision if that makes sense but yeah i really hope that helps
some of you guys if you guys are going through a difficult time all of my prayers are with you
marriage is so hard and you have to realize that for a marriage to work both parties have to give
hundred percent it cannot be fifty percent fifty percent each it has to be hundred and hundred
and marriage is always kind of like a lottery you never know um if you're going to win a successful
one or not it takes a lot of work and compromise so don't give up easily at all sacrifice as much
as you can and if you feel like you're getting pushed out of your limits and you're sacrificing
more than your spouse is then just have a conversation write those things down
and take it with you maybe to counseling or have that conversation with your spouse one-on-one and
i feel like you can really really help if both of you guys are wanting it to work so i really
hope that helped you guys so now moving on to the final stage you've exhausted all of your options
and you tried your very best but you do feel like divorce is the best option for you i feel like
this is everyone's biggest fear and people fear getting divorced because they fear being alone and
it's a very valid emotion to have i felt that myself too because especially when you have this
intimate relationship with someone you think like how can i live without this person and i feel like
everyone feels that with a heartbreak or when you're in love or when you're married to somebody
but don't let the fear of it being alone or the fear of the unknown the fear of the future
stop you from making the right decision or right choice for you i for like the last six months of
my divorce feared being alone like you guys don't understand i was having like separation anxiety
i just thought my life was going to be over after i was not with this person anymore but you guys
everyone who has gotten a divorce has made it out alive if your ex-husband didn't murder you it's
just a joke you will make it out on the other side and i want you guys to also know that as
muslims we have that belief that allah is the best of planners and you have this theoretical
this trust in allah so have trust in him and his plans his plans are far greater than the plans
you had for yourself so that is something that i had to remind myself all the time once i was going
through my separation i was going through divorce i literally had a notepad and i would write
like 100 times over and over this dua that i read all the time and i'll put it here on the screen
and in the description down below so you guys can have it it translated to allah is sufficient for
me and you guys it gave me so much comfort and so much relief so if you're struggling
and you're going through divorce and you're having a very very difficult time emotionally
read a bunch of duas and make a lot of sincere dua because at the end of the day allah is the
best of planners he's the best of healers he will cure your broken heart he will give you
somebody so much better and if you rely on him he will be there for you one thousand percent so
what i did after my divorce was pray a lot i made a lot of dua i did a lot of thicker
i just kept my mind engaged in a lot of like religious remembrance because it gave me comfort
and also it kept my mind off of what was really going on another thing that i did a lot was talk
to my friends and family about the situation until all of us were exhausted like people's ears were
bleeding they were like please shut up already but i talked about it day in and day out and it really
helped me i'm the type of person like i want to talk about it 5 000 times over and over again
to know that i made the right decision so that helped me a lot and the last thing is seek
counseling if you feel like you need it i never ended up going to counseling or therapy but i've
heard so many people go and it works wonders if you just want someone to talk to and if you
don't want it to be your friends or family then i think that's a great option and lastly i found
things that made me happy so to fill that void of a missing marriage or spouse or significant other
i found things that made me feel whole so for me that was blogging it was traveling it was
learning new skills whether that was investing getting better at my job things that improved my
well-being my skill set my talent my qualities i really fell into that self-development self-growth
kind of mindset and i really feel like that's the best way to get out of a situation they always say
like the best form of revenge is like success and i feel like that is true like i was able to
take my negative emotions and all of my negative experiences and make it a positive one i feel
like i'm now successful and independent and i don't rely on my ex-husband to provide for me
or to make me feel whole i give myself that power so yeah those are my few tips i really hope this
video helped you guys and again if you guys are going through something that's very difficult
all my love and prayers to you if you guys want a part two answering more of like q a and giving
guys more tips then let me know i know this was so long and i hope this wasn't a blab session
because this is my second time recording this and i feel like even now i was just like venting and
blobbing on and on so i really hope this was helpful i'll see you guys in my next one bye