Zahra Akberali - Marriage or Mating? Rules to a Marriage No One Told You

Marriage or Mating?

Rules to a Marriage No One Told You

Zahra Akberali

Copyright 2021

All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents

Dedication

I would like to dedicate the book to people who are less fortunate and especially to those who live their life out of fear, constantly worrying about how the world would judge them.

Acknowledgements

Sofia Larson, Leyla Simbizi, Merline Macaulay & all those who never walked out of my life and believed in me. I have many people to thank, and I want my family and friends to know how much I appreciate their support. I want to thank you all for raising and such a strong independent woman out of me. I am proud of the person I am today, and I am proud to say I am the daughter of my two lovely parents. This book is a dedication to my parents since no matter how much difficulty I experienced while growing up and throughout my childhood, I am here because of those challenges and hardships I have overcome with my parents by my side.

About the Author

Zahra Akberali is a Tanzanian girl from a middle-class family who got married after being madly in love with a husband A husband who realised he didnt love her anymore. She lives in the UK now, and knowing full well she doesnt have a family here, she yet managed to get a job. It didnt come easy, and she had to face plenty of rejections, but they eventually came to an end. Zahra started from a job at the retail store to an amazing company she currently works at (shes not sure what the future holds, but shes not interested in predicting it).

Becoming a British Citizen was not easy for her considering she had a tough marriage especially finance-wise. Despite all the other responsibilities she had, Zahra accomplished getting her British citizenship on her own.

Zahra got independent from a young age, from where she has been supporting her family in spite of all her own personal challenges. She has continued to ensure the survival of her family back in Tanzania and is grateful to God for the strength he always gave her.

After having to go through a difficult life and facing all sorts of challenges (such as sleeping in a basement), Zahra is here today, with the grace of God, renting her own apartment. People desire to own a house, own a car, but her dream has been to OWN MY

BOOK and to be the author of her own life. Here she is, accomplishing this with a wonderful team at Savvy Marketing.

Preface

Look for the times when your life changed the most, and whenyou changed the most.

- Janice Ebrahim

I have lived enough life to know what its like when your life changes and when life changes you. Fortunately, I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. As much as I would like to forget all that, I cant quite do that. Most of the ugly I had to deal with came with my marriage that I have now put behind me by stepping out of it.

I was raised and lived in Tanzania. I moved to the UK after I got married. There I had no family and still get amazed at how I built my own circle of positive friends who lifted me up and people who I started making my family. My divorce has already happened, but I went through a lot since this was an unintentional divorce.

Many women from my culture don't look very kindly to the notion of divorce, but I well, I believe differently. I feel that a loveless marriage should come to an end as soon as possible or at least before it drives one of the two people in the marriage crazy.

Like other women, when divorce first came up in the relationship between my husband and me, for the longest of times, I refused to accept he didnt love me and didnt want to be married to me. I asked myself questions like, did he ever love me? Why wouldnt he try harder for me?

But then, I already knew the answers to such questions. I do believe when a man does love his woman, he would keep her and fight for her tooth and nail. I didn't feel that way since I was easily asked to leave and was never fought for, and this was disappointing because I loved my husband A LOT.

So the bottom line stands men who refuse to understand and respect what love is cannot love anyone. And what is love, you ask? Love is thinking about the other person. Love is unconditional. It lies in being unselfish. Love is sacrificing for another person. Love is truly expressed when you go half the way or sometimes even 75% or 110% to meet the needs of the person in your life.

Most men dont know what love is, I guess. But that could just be my experience of the man I have been married to. I wouldn't know about other men, of course, but I do know how men think and look at the women in their lives. Most men see women as sexual objects than a whole different person. Such a perspective only brings down the woman in the relationship and turns her into a submissive creature who does as her master tells her to. This often happens when the woman believes she has to sacrifice without limits or that such behaviour from her end will allow her to avoid any conflicts in her marriage.

I have been through similar circumstances in my marriage to know exactly what that feels like. I learned, quite late in life, that such an attitude doesnt bring peace and harmony to the relationship youre in. It merely deteriorates it further.

This book is for all the women out there who have been through something like this or have been raised to believe by their

culture, religion or traditions that theyre the ones who have to carry all the weight in their marriage.

If you truly believe that, know that youre wrong. You deserve a partner of equal standing who contributes to your marriage just as much as you do. Who makes as much sacrifice as you do? Who gives you the room you need in life to create and live your own happiness.

I need you to know that you are worth it all!

Chapter 1: Do What Feels Right

If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. That is the lesson, and thatlesson alone will save you a lot of grief.

- Oprah Winfrey

In many cases, living by the norms and principles of society is important. There are many reasons for it, including protecting ourselves and ensuring security. For instance, think about the decision for marriage itself. Family and friends start reminding you when you come of age and when its time for you to marry.

Sometimes, the decisions we have to make need to be made upon consultation and after taking suggestions from other people.

However, it is a truth universally acknowledged that other people dont always understand what is best for you, and sometimes, they dont want what is best for you either.

It is perhaps for this reason that mystics, sages and many wise people of the world have written on and urged for the importance of listening to yourself. The famous Sufi poet Rumi says, Hear only the voice within. Im sure he does not simply mean listening to the voices in your head, which can provoke doubt and all sorts of dissonance. Rather, we ought to listen to something more deep-seated, something way down in the soul, the soul which is the seat of self-knowledge and discloses important truths after deep introspection sometimes.

I have found my life bloom when I have made the important decisions of life, keeping myself first and listening to myself alone.

You may ask, why is it important to listen to your feelings?

Because feelings come from the heart and soul, that is where intuition and enlightenment are seated. No one knows you better than your own soul than your own heart; in other words, your own feelings.

Sometimes, knowledge is not the only motivator for decision-making. It may surprise you, but while I criticise my husband and other men who do not know what love is, the sad part is that I myself never knew what love was either. My misinformed knowledge had come from my own house, where all of our misinformed knowledge initially comes from. The family I grew up in had taught me love is you doing things for others always, without expecting anything in return. No one stressed the importance of one of the most important aspects of loving, that what its like to love yourself.