Thank you Jordana

Submitted by Darya (United States), Aug 29, 2016 at 13:28

Jordana,
Thanks so very much for your valuable insight from MENA perspective, things are very clear for me now.
I am a Muslima, 41 years old (originally from Central Asia-former Soviet Union republic), divorced with 2 sons, living in US for 10 years now. I was genuinely looking for a spouse on one of the Muslim matrimonial websites ( I have been divorced for 6 years now).
Got contacted by Egyptian guy, living in Germany who was 37 y.o and never married. When I asked him how come a handsome and successful guy of your age is still not married? He said it was Nasib (destiny?) – yea right . I was so Naïve ...lol
I told him right away:
1. I am not considering long distance relationship
2. I may not want/can have more children
3. If I was his parents , I would not approve of him getting married to a divorced women with 2 kids ( as we have the same "standards" in our culture- man who are never been married marry mostly virgin women, even man who has been divorced once can easily marry a virgin.

He responded to all of these questions, and I naively believed at first:
He said:
1. It's not going to be a long distance, since he is working for Airline Co and have great discounts for travels and as German citizen he doesn't need a Visa to come to US.
2. He doesn't know if he wants children yet, or maybe he only wants one.
3. He said it is his life and his parents would accept his choice of marriage.
He sounded as practicing Muslim, that's why I was persuaded into wrong assumption about him. I believed him, he was very open in the beginning, answered all my questions regarding marriage and family etc. Although he blamed me of overthinking and making things complicated (but I was hurt once, hence my divorce and should be very cautious this time around).
We met once and his behavior was not quite as of practicing Muslim. Before our meeting I told him numerous times- there will be no physical contact between us whatsoever and we have to respect boundaries set by God , I didn't even want to hold his hand, as I know it is not allowed in Islam . He assured me that everything will be fine. But when we were together he kissed me very unexpectedly and I very much regret that I didn't end everything right at that moment ... Authibillah, may Allah SWT forgive my transgression. This was one big red flag, but I naively found an excuse for him... - That he was alone for a long time and missed being affectionate.
Red flags continued to fly when he wanted to do the Nikah and registration at the same time. I said let's do the Nikah first and take things step by step, and see how our relationship goes (as I didn't want to have any legal complications if things didn't work out between us), but he insisted on marriage registration from the start.
I asked him to introduce me to his parents, but he found an excuse- that he can't introduce me to his parents as he doesn't know where he stands with me, as I am only offering a Nikah. He started pushing for marriage registration, arguing that Nikah is not a complete marriage.
This was the end...things got clear ...Alhamdullilah. ... He had a Green Card Agenda, but it wasn't obvious for me at the beginning. I felt hurt, deceived, disrespected. I am still making lots of istighfar .
Thank you Jordana again for sharing your knowledge about MENA men. To all women in this forum who has been hurt by deceitful men – May Almighty God heal you, continue protecting you, may He bless you with true love and happiness. May God bless you with righteous spouse with whom your heart and soul find peace and contentment. Talk to God, get closer to Him, He will never let you down.
God bless you all dear sisters.

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