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my storyReader comment on item: Advice to Non-Muslim Women against Marrying Muslim Men Submitted by shelly (United States), Mar 16, 2014 at 13:46 I just wanted to share my story about my relationship with my arab american christian ex fiance. Although my experience may not have been as bad as I have read on here, we did end up breaking up months before our wedding. This is just my experience with one family so i do not want to generalize for all arab people. First of all, I let me start out by saying really really cared about this man. I did so much to try to make him happy, little did I realize until close to our wedding that I was doing ALL the compromising in the relationship. We had a good relationship for the most part, but there were some things that he did and said that just didn't seem right/fair to me. I hindsight, I should've been more outspoken during our relationship but I chose not to in order to keep the peace. As I continued to date him I was realizing that he was not one to compromise. Relationships are all about compromising, especially intercultural relationships. I understood that he is from a different culture. I was fully aware of this going into the relationship and was very open minded the whole time. I had dated a European man for many years prior and we broke up amicably, I am still in good relations with him and his family, who by the way ADORED me. While dating him (arab ex) I saw some things in his culture, as seen by interacting with his family, that I really liked as well as some things that I did not like. I guess in my mind, I wanted to take the good things from Arab and American culture and to combine them into our marriage. I don't want to bash arab culture as they do have things that I think American culture lacks. For example, arabs are much more hospitable and family oriented. On the other side, arabs tend to be very judgmental, think they do things the correct way and no one else's way is correct, liars, hypocritical, care too much about class - look down on people "lower" than them. Although I think that it is great how family oriented they are, it comes to a point where it can be detrimental to a relationship. During our engagement, I was starting to realize that he cared more about what his mother wanted, how she felt, more than my feelings and what I wanted for our wedding and our future. While I think it is good to listen to your parents, I do not think their opinions and wants need to be the be all end all and I certainly did not want to be under his mother's thumb for the rest of my life as he seemed to be. I was starting to feel like he was engaged with his mother and I was a bystander. There was going to be no leave and cleave in this relationship had I stayed. It also didn't help that I am not arab so his family was very cautious when I was around, dissecting everything I did and said. They even did this to my ex's sibling's boyfriend (American) so I knew it was happening to me. It came to a point where they were becoming highly critical of me, over the most ridiculous, trivial things. I experimented making their food, went to church with them, kissed both cheeks, learned some arabic words, visited often. Didn't they realize that I was putting in great effort and was interested in their culture? Didn't they respect this? I wasn't criticizing them for not being American enough and we all live in the STATES! And above all this, my job wasn't good enough to marry their son. Yes, my ex makes 10x more than me, is very educated and a professional. Good for him. But then I thought, what kind of educated successful man asks his fiance who lives paycheck to paycheck and that he supposedly loves to pay for a chunk of the wedding, a wedding that only he could afford, a wedding that would be a good "show" for guests. Yes, I wanted that beautiful wedding and marriage with the man I would've done almost anything for. But there came to a point where I needed to respect myself and I did not want to loose myself to a man and his family who would put my feelings secondary to theirs and to whom I would potentially never be good enough for. He told me as we were breaking up that he was going to give me everything. I am not sure what that meant, but I was not willing to put the risk into finding out. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". Reader comments (21923) on this item
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