For Susie

Submitted by syk (United Kingdom), Jul 9, 2013 at 11:01

Thank you for replying.

I'll be honest, I never 100% trusted him. I tested him a few times; you hear so many horror stories about being women being used for visa's etc. So I will be honest when I say this, I thought if we split up it would have been about that and not about religion. He even sent me a Christmas card last year! I think this is why it came as such a shock (Although it shouldn't have, if I had just did more searching for people like us on the internet.)

My parents always had doubts, even when I said he's not that Muslim (who was I kidding?) Obviously my mum met him and wasn't impressed by his controlling of me. The clothes (I mentioned in RLT's reply) I smoked - he hated that. I was never going to smoke forever but I would need support to stop, not constant nagging. Once when in his home city, he counted my cigarettes when he walked me and my mum back to the hotel (I thought us staying with them was a bit too much) and then next day counted them again. Although I was smart, I just had a feeling he would check them, so (I had duty free cigarettes) I opened another packet, put cigarettes in minus 2 and started smoking the other packet. My mum was stunned that she needed to defend me when I am a grown woman. His anger was always a problem, even his silent angry face. So stubborn.

Just before I met his dad, (he was in another city but came back) I saw he was really worried, I had never saw him like that before, so it made me worried. His dad came in, shook my hand and then we all sat down, he and the dad proceeded to talk in Turkish (my Turkish is terrible, so I couldn't understand). He told me that he had asked his dad's permission to be with me and his dad had said its fine, it's your life. They were all very nice to me and my mum. Treated her like a queen, she was not to help clearing the table or anything. One part about that night bothered me, we were talking about countries and cities and he was telling me where his dad had been. I said oh and your mum too? He said no. I asked why she hadn't been, he asked her the question in Turkish and she looked at me with a sad smile and a shrug. She obviously didn't know the answer either. He would hold my hand in front of his mother, but didn't in front of his father. Until one time we went to the coast, we met up with friends of his dad's. The woman was lovely, she did not believe in covering herself up, she was open of her disgust at it. She didn't speak much English but her hand gestures were very clear. Once at the beach she told him to take my hand, while his dad was there. He did but he hated every second of it. And felt he had been disrespectful to his dad. I doubt his dad was so stupid he didn't know what we did in private.

We went to a historical site once (I'm trying to be really careful in not disclosing exact locations!) for a BBQ with the whole family. It was a hot day, me and my mum in t-shirts and the women in his family in long clothes and headscarf'. His sister explained through him that they chose to wear the headscarf, that it wasn't because any man had told them to. She kept saying "she was a feminist". Not my idea of a feminist. He told me that any woman, who doesn't cover up, doesn't believe in allah and it's a sin.

The thing is he has admitted to me he hasn't read the koran fully, and he only listens to what the imam says. "The people of the book" is interesting, I said the koran mentions them, allows you to marry them, so do they get in to paradise too? He said no, only Muslims.

You are right when you say they feel no remorse about anything they do to us. In smaller arguments, I would have more often than not had to push him for a sorry.

There is an excuse for everything in that book. If you ask a question – they send you a verse from the koran that apparently explains it all. Including mohammed marrying a little girl, although I have been told various excuses about that from "girls were more fully developed in those days" to "If its was for the good of Islam it can't be wrong" I was told the koran has never changed a word since it was written in the 7^th century. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest, I feel they are still living in that time.

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