Marriage Myths
Found this today on AOL News: 10 Myths About Marriage – Marlo Thomas and found it to be full of wisdom.
Marriage is hard. We probably need all those myths (and estrogen and testosterone) or we would never get married, and the human race might fizzle! It helps to know that no matter what a marriage looks like on the outside, on the inside, each and every marriage has its own struggles.
Our moms passed down a lot of old “rules” about marriage. But ask anyone who’s been there and she’ll probably tell you that some of them just don’t apply to her marriage… me included. So I asked relationship expert Dr. Dale Atkins what she thinks about those bits of marital conventional wisdom. Read what she had to say – it turns out the knight in shining armor isn’t the only marriage myth!
Hi Marlo, and thanks for asking about the “rules” of marriage, or, as I call them, the myths! Really, so many of them are just that – they raise unrealistic expectations and can lead to disappointment and frustration.
I encounter people in my practice who think that a good marriage is built on romantic love and luck. One woman recently told me that she thinks a couple shouldn’t have to work at marriage if they are truly in love. The reality is that most successful marriages are built on commitment, respect, and companionship – and, of course, a shared history and a desire to support each other.
Coming to a better understanding of each other is the real key to a successful marriage. Now, let’s debunk some of those marriage myths:
MYTH #1: Your spouse is your other half, and now you are complete.
REALITY: A healthy person is complete in herself. Couples don’t complete each other, they complement each other (and they need to compliment each other, too!)
MYTH #2: Marriage is filled with romance and love.
REALITY: It is – but it’s also filled with anger and frustration, disappointment and confusion. It’s filled with lots of emotions, and couples should expect to experience peaks and valleys. The everyday problems and challenges of married life can often obscure romantic, loving, tender feelings, which is why couples need to remember the commitment that’s at the core of their marriage and realize there are full times and empty times.
MYTH #3: Your marriage should make you happy.
REALITY: You need to make yourself happy! Your spouse is not your source of happiness – that must come from within yourself. Marriage can and should augment a person’s individual happiness, but it’s not what makes you happy.
MYTH #4: You should never go to bed angry.
REALITY: That’s unrealistic – there are times you will go to bed with an unresolved issue, one that still has you fired up at day’s end. It’s not great to be lying next to someone while seething in anger, but it does happen. The best strategy is to table things so you don’t feel like you want to murder him! Remind yourself of all the positive things about him; ideally, you’ll have a fresh eye in the morning. By the way, one of you sleeping on the couch for a night is not the end of the world if you need time to think. If that one night turns into days or weeks at a time, that’s a problem. But taking a break for a night to have a calmer conversation the next day just might be more productive.
MYTH #5: A baby will bring you closer.
REALITY: Parenting together is a wonderfully intimate experience that can indeed make a couple feel closer. But it’s so hard on the body, mind, and emotions! New parents are exhausted and constantly questioning whether they are doing things right. Often the woman feels she is doing waaay more than her fair share and is resentful and disappointed in her partner. Then there are the hormones – a woman’s body goes nuts during and after pregnancy! A couple would be wise to recognize that these are all just normal feelings after having a child, and they shouldn’t feel let down that they’re not head-over-heels in love with each other: Take a deep breath, reserve some baby-free time for one another, and know that this is simply a new stage in your long-term relationship.
MYTH #6: Your husband should be your best friend.
REALITY: If you think this way, you’ll be in for a big disappointment. Over the years, you definitely develop an amazing friendship with your spouse. But it doesn’t necessarily start off that way, and it doesn’t replace the need for friends in your life. A best friend is someone you go to the movies with, someone you have a lot in common with, someone you can talk to. A spouse is the one you can go through life with, depend on forever – that takes time, so don’t expect to be girlfriend-close with him right away. And you may not tell him everything – for some things you want a friend’s help. It doesn’t mean you are not close to your spouse.
MYTH #7: You shouldn’t fight in front of the kids.
REALITY: If you don’t teach your children how to disagree respectfully, who will? I feel strongly about this – it can be frightening for children to observe parents going at it, but it’s instructive for them to see you work out differences in a civil manner. Most people don’t fight fair – they call each other names and diminish each other. Children don’t know what to do and they mimic it – and then what have you accomplished? If you fight fair in front of the kids, then make up in front of them, they’ll see that this is a process. You have a responsibility to teach your children how to interact with others in both good times and difficult ones. As a bonus, if you learn how to fight civilly, you’ll probably fight less – you’ll learn how to come to solutions rather than argue.
MYTH #8: You shouldn’t worry if you’re not having sex.
REALITY: It’s true that people can be so busy, and so tired, that sex becomes just one more thing they have to do. Sometimes in every relationship the couple’s sex life goes on hold for a while. And every couple is different – some make love a lot, some less. But most people who have really good marriages do have a sex life. So if you’re not having sex, it is something to examine. The frequency and intensity may change as you get older, but you still need to get what you need. You don’t want to fall into a boring pattern in which you are no longer interested in your mate or want to share your life with him.
MYTH #9: Your spouse should know what you need without your having to say it.
REALITY: Nobody is a mind reader, and it’s unrealistic (and unkind) to expect someone to know your every thought and feeling. It is imperative to communicate what is going on regarding your thoughts, feelings, and your needs.
MYTH #10: You shouldn’t take your spouse for granted.
REALITY: Well, this is partially true – you don’t want to treat each other like old shoes! But you should be able to take certain things for granted – that’s what trust is all about. After all, if you can’t rely on your spouse, who can you rely on? Just remember that it works both ways: If you want to let your guard down and walk around in sweats, that’s okay – you can take for granted that he’ll still think you’re beautiful. But be sure to keep that in mind when you see him in the dirty T-shirt!
Dale V. Atkins, PhD, has more than 25 years of expertise as a relationship specialist helping couples and families. She runs a private practice in New York City.
“Why Are Barns Painted Red?”
This is what I love about long road trips with AdventureMan. We have hours together in the car, and you just never know where the conversations will go.
We saw a lot of barns. Most of them are red.
“Why are barns red?” AdventureMan asked. “Like we just accept that barns are red, when we are kids and we are told to draw a barn, we reach for the red crayon, why is that? Why red?”
So we looked it up at the next wireless stop and found the answer on Wiki answers:
Centuries ago, European farmers would seal the wood on their barns with an oil, often linseed oil — a tawny-colored oil derived from the seed of the flax plant. They would paint their barns with a linseed-oil mixture, often consisting of additions such as milk and lime. The combination produced a long-lasting paint that dried and hardened quickly. (Today, linseed oil is sold in most home-improvement stores as a wood sealant).
Now, where does the red come from?
In historically accurate terms, “barn red” is not the bright, fire-engine red that we often see today, but more of a burnt-orange red.
Farmers added ferrous oxide, otherwise known as rust, to the oil mixture. Rust was plentiful on farms and is a poison to many fungi, including mold and moss, which were known to grown on barns. These fungi would trap moisture in the wood, increasing decay.
Regardless of how the farmer tinted his paint, having a red barn became a fashionable thing. They were a sharp contrast to the traditional white farmhouse.
As European settlers crossed over to America, they brought with them the tradition of red barns. In the mid to late 1800s, as paints began to be produced with chemical pigments, red paint was the most inexpensive to buy. Red was the color of favor until whitewash became cheaper, at which point white barns began to spring up.
Today, the color of barns can vary, often depending on how the barns are used.
My dad and grandpa have been farmers their entire lives and they used to tease us kids that the barn was red because it was the most noticeable when the snow was falling sideways and you could barely see because of the sleet and hail.
Just How Emirati Do You Have to Be? (Mixed Marriages)
Thank you, Little Diamond, for sending the article from The National. I totally love this article, and hats off to it’s author, Sultan Al Qassemi.
Mixed marriages bring strength upon strength to the UAE
Sultan Al Qassemi
Not too long ago, I boarded a plane in Dubai bound for the United States. There were a number of Emirati families on board, some of whom I recognised and greeted. After a 14-hour direct flight, we descended from the plane and made our way to passport control.
One Emirati family walked towards the line for US citizens and, in my naivety, I almost told them they were standing in the wrong queue. I hesitated, correctly it turned out. They were American citizens and obliged to stand in the US citizens section.
Many people who hear this story immediately assume that the mother was a foreigner. Not only is that incorrect – the mother is a true-blue Emirati – but she also works in the UAE government.
In the past week, I was reminded of this by an article in The National relating to mixed parentage. The Grand Mufti of Dubai, Dr Ahmed al Haddad, made controversial comments questioning whether there should be restrictions on Emiratis marrying outside their nationality.
In truth,a substantial number of talented Emiratis have been born to mixed marriages, a point that Dr al Haddad’s comments did not seem to take into consideration. According to one person who was present at the panel discussion, Emiratis from mixed marriages may have “mixed loyalties”. So are they Emirati enough?
Well, let us take a look at some of these Emiratis to find out. Ali Mostafa, the director behind City of Life, is the product of a mixed marriage. City of Life, which depicts contemporary life in Dubai in a powerful and realistic fashion, has become an international ambassador for the UAE after opening in Australia and Canada with a screening scheduled in Washington DC. Is its director Emirati enough?
Omar Saif Ghobash and Yousef al Otaiba, the UAE ambassadors to Russia and the United States respectively, both have foreign-born mothers and yet they serve the UAE with as much attention and dedication as any other Emirati ambassador. I have written before about how Mr al Otaiba has worked tirelessly on behalf of the country, in particular on the nuclear 123 agreement with the United States. Mr Ghobash speaks six languages and was heavily involved in bringing New York University to the UAE’s capital. Are they Emirati enough?
Razan al Mubarak is also a product of a mixed marriage. Her late father, like Ambassador Ghobash’s, gave his life for the country. Ms al Mubarak, in her roles as assistant secretary general of the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi and managing director of the Emirates Wildlife Society, is busy protecting the country’s wildlife on both land and sea. Is she Emirati enough?
At Abu Dhabi’s strategic investment arm Mubadala, the chief operations officer, Waleed al Mokarrab al Muhairi, also happens to be chairman of Yahsat, Advance Technology Investment Company and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. But perhaps most importantly, he is credited with being “one of the principal architects behind the Abu Dhabi 2030 Economic vision”. And yes, Mr al Mokarrab comes from a mixed family.
Wael Al Sayegh is a writer, poet, translator and founder of the consultancy firm Al Ghaf, which delivers “inter-cultural induction programmes to multinational organisations serving the region”. Mr Al Sayegh has spoken to many multinational corporations about UAE culture and offered a Dubai perspective to foreign news outlets, including the BBC, during recent high-profile criminal cases. Is he Emirati enough?
Sarah Shaw, an Emirati whose biological father is English, currently works at the General Secretariat of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and is a huge supporter of Emiratisation. Is she Emirati enough?
Other Emiratis from mixed families who have made substantial contributions include the director general of the Dubai World Trade Centre, Helal Saeed al Marri, the film director Nawaf Janahi and the columnist Mishaal al Gergawi, among many others.
There are examples in my immediate circle of Emirati friends who genuinely care about this country, not despite one of their parents being foreign born but perhaps because of it.
Should the UAE, and specifically Dubai, known for being hospitable and welcoming to people of all ethnicities, backgrounds and cultures, make our very own citizens feel unwelcome?
The truth is the UAE is a richer country because of these individuals of mixed backgrounds. What we should concentrate on is strengthening the ties that people have to this great nation. I have previously suggested military service for Emirati high school graduates, cultural immersion and social volunteering as ways to build civic participation.
Frankly, it would be insulting to question the loyalty of Emiratis who are born to a foreign parent. It is also unfair, un-Islamic and ultimately in this case un-Emirati to generalise about people of any background. The Emirates is a vibrant country of many colours – only seeing a single shade excludes too many of its strengths.
(The author, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is a non-resident fellow at the Dubai School of Government)
OOops! Ops!
The silence tipped him off.
He had just finished referring to his study as “The Command Center.”
The silence continued, then I broke it, quietly asking “and just whom would you be commanding?”
“Ummm. . . err . . . Ops Center! Operations Center!” he corrected himself.
We both laughed.
We’ve been married 37 years. 🙂
AdventureMan Wishes He Were There
I love our road trips. We always catch up on thoughts and pursuits that may seem to trivial in the activities of our normal busy days. It’s a time to talk over dreams, and hopes, and to sketch out some broad outlines of goals and calendars.
“Sometimes I read your blog,” AdventureMan starts off (and I never know where it will go!) “and I think ‘oh what a fun woman! I wish I were there with her having that adventure!’ and then I realize I was there!”
LLLOOOLLL!
People have told me I can make something out of nothing. I think the gift is knowing you are having a good time at the time you are having the good time. 🙂
How To Be a Southern Lady
You’d think moving back to your own country would be a piece of cake, wouldn’t you? We nomads know better. Young people who travel to other countries to go to school know better. Military people know better. Missionaries know better. Diplomats know better. Anyone who has spent time living abroad know that it works both ways – you have an impact where you are living, and where you are living has an equal impact on you. You may go back, but you are never the same.
With this move, AdventureMan and I have been too busy trying to get settled and to take care of the incredible amount of bureaucratic detail it takes to relocate. Even with AdventureMan ‘retired’, the days are flying by, and we don’t know why we are so busy.
For one thing, I am doing my own housework, and I am finding I am not very good at it. Like I am good at getting laundry done, and even folded, but I haven’t ironed in a long time, and the things that need ironing are stacking up. I have bought a beautiful new ironing board, and a beautiful iron . . . and some starch, the liquid kind I like, not the spray kind. . . but I haven’t set it up, and I haven’t ironed, not a thing. I have discovered that all my packed things looked a lot better after hanging in the closets for a week, most of the wrinkles fell out, lucky me. But . . . the day of reckoning is coming.
The worst part, for me, is cleaning my floors. My floors are supposed to be beautiful; wood and tile floors. They actually ARE beautiful, maybe two days a week, the day I clean them and the next day, but five days a week, they need work. I wish I had asked my cleaning lady in Doha how she got my floors so beautifully clean. I wish I had paid more attention. I keep looking in the store for some miracle, a machine that will clean them in a heartbeat and make them all shiny. . .
The wonderful thing about moving into this culture – and it truly is a different culture from the one in which I was raised – is that we have our wonderful son and his wonderful wife to give us hints on what to do and not to do, and we have his wife’s wonderful family.
Mostly, I try to keep my eyes open. Southern women admire things extravagantly, and after living for so many years in the Middle East and Gulf, learning to admire extravagantly goes against all my instincts.
In the MIddle East, when you admire extravagantly, you can make people nervous. Some people worry about attracting “the evil eye” of jealousy, evil intentions, people who envy you and wish you harm. Some people, if you admire something, will give it to you! It’s true, those stories, it has happened to me. So now I have to un-learn my lessons in retraint and learn to appreciate, if not extravagantly, at least enough to be polite.
One of my wife’s relatives gave us a house-warming gift, an iced-tea maker, with a darling card that states Rule #1 is that every Southern Hostess knows that a pitcher of iced tea is a MUST for all occasions. I like iced tea, but I have never kept it on hand to serve, and I guess I need to start!
Her second rule was one that made me burst out laughing – “A Southern Lady, the most interesting ones anyway, know that rules are made to be broken.”
“Just be prepared for people to leave your home saying “Bless her heart, she must be getting forgetful. There was no iced tea!”
And then rule #3 – “The only correct and acceptable way to criticize anyone is to add ‘bless his/her heart!’ and then, anything goes!”
At a party at her house this weekend, I learned a couple more – the first rule being that when you are invited to a great big family dinner, bring dessert! Thank God, I did take a little guest gift, but now I know – bring dessert! And it had better be sweet!
The next rule is would make any Kuwaiti or Qattari feel right at home – spare nothing in making our guests comfortable. This Southern Hostess had seating areas inside the beautiful air conditioned home, and also seating outside for those who don’t mind a little heat. She had a big basket loaded with all kinds of insect repellents to keep her guests from being bitten. She took time with each guest, and although she was running her little bottom off getting everything organized, she made it all look easy, and as if she was having a good time. I have a sneaking suspicion the truly was enjoying having all the people around and that her great big heart loves taking care of the crowd. She was the essence of gracious hospitality. Did I mention she has also lived in Kuwait?
Dinner was “Perlow” an old Southern tradition, made in a huge old kettle from her husband’s mother, and hung from a tripod over a roaring fire to cook. The actual cooking was the men’s work as they sat outside drinking iced tea:
Home grown peas and beans mix – delicious!
Serving up the perlow:
My Middle East / Gulf friends would be comfortable eating this meal – Perlow is a variation of Pilaf, and very similar to Biryani. No alcohol served. No pork. Lots and lots of fabulous sweet desserts.
It’s funny, I used to tell people in Kuwait and Qatar that it was a lot like Alaska; when the weather got too bad, you just stay inside most of the time. When the weather gets good, you go outside as much as you can. When it’s too hot/cold, you run from your air conditioned/heated car to your air conditioned / heated store or movie theater, or restaurant, and then back to your air conditioned / heated car and back to your air conditioned/ heated house.
In the same way, I am beginning to wonder if the South and the Middle East know how much they have in common? In Pensacola, on Saturdays, we have the religious people on the corners shouting at passing cars, not a whole lot different from the volunteer morality police in Saudi Arabia. In the South, as in the Middle East, ‘family’ isn’t just blood, it’s also who you’re married into, and there is a lot of emphasis on family getting together and spending time together. In the South, as in the Middle East, men tend to gather in one area, women in another.
In the South, they drink iced tea; in the Middle East, it’s hot tea. Both have passionate patriots, fundamental believers and a tradition of gracious hospitality. Both have a passion for hunting and fishing. Nobody much likes obeying the rules in either culture. Maybe I’m still in the MIddle East?
Ketchup Entry
“It’s been five days since you blogged,” my friend wrote to me. “Isn’t that some kind of a record?”
Well, no.
Back when I went to Damascus for Christmas, it was also the Eid al Kebir, and I was gone for a week and everyone was so busy with their own celebrations that no one really noticed. 🙂 Well, maybe my Mother. 🙂
This time, it has to do with AdventureMan.
AdventureMan became semi-retired this last week. He and the Qatteri Cat flew to Pensacola, where we met up and now the three of us are staying in a hotel while our heroic contractors are battling to have us in the house by April 15th. Will we make it?
The Qatteri Cat was totally freaked out by his long long trip to the United States. First, for all my annoyances with KLM, we have to tell you that they are totally superb when you are shipping an animal with you. At every stage of the journey, they kept AdventureMan informed on QC’s progress, and he was in great shape when he arrived, except that he was really, really scared. He didn’t understand any of this, the long flight, all the noise, the vibration and then the hotel room full of strange smells of a 1,000 previous guests. (If you are a cat, you can smell things we can’t even dream).
He is OK now. He has a short memory.
Meanwhile, AdventureMan and I have been doing the business of getting ready to get settled, and at the same time, AM is jet lagging. I tell him I think he is catching up on months of sleep deprivation, and he says he thinks it is just jet lag. It makes me happy to see him sleep.
Today, we went by the house so I could pot a cherry tomato, a very special heirloom tomato that I found at the Emerald Coast Garden Show this last weekend. It is a black cherry tomato, and I have never seen one! I have sent for some other heirloom seeds; I love cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes, tiny little tomatoes with intense flavor. I love to mix them all together with some green onion tops and just a little lemon-y vinaigrette dressing, maybe on some lettuce. YUMMM!
Anyway, AdventureMan likes gardening, too. He comes by it honestly, both his grandfathers gardened. One of them had chickens, too, and grew peanuts, and corn as well as a garden full of vegetables. I garden on a much smaller scale. Mostly I plant things that will take care of themselves – lavender, rosemary. Here, in the mild climate of Pensacola, basil becomes a perennial (I saw that in Kuwait, too, at our Kuwait gardening friend’s house) and I have planted some bougainvillea, which I am hoping will be hardy enough to weather an occasional cold winter or two like the last one.
When we got to the house – and this is Sunday, in the heart of the Bible-belt deep South – the ceiling and drywall people were there, working on a ceiling. We were surprised to see them there, but we know they are all trying really hard to get us into the house as soon as they can.
I was thinking AdventureMan was going to kick back and take it easy, but it hasn’t turned out that way – we are up and at-’em every day, and we have accomplished amazing things. More about some of that in future posts.
Just wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten about you – just haven’t had the opportunity to sit for very long to organize my thoughts.
Places I’ll Remember . . .
I’m not very good at being sad. Today is one of the saddest days of my life. I’ve been weeping all day, and I’m not one of those women whom the camera loves when they weep. My throat gets thick, so clogged with emotion that I can’t talk clearly, and my eyes get all red and swollen. My cheeks get all blotchy. I hate it, my eyes are leaking, and my nose is running. I think I’ve got it all stopped, and it all starts up again.
Most of the house is packed, the kitchen cupboards cleared out and all the goods not going with us distributed. I weep as I pack my bags. I weep as I take out the garbage. I weep as I load one last load of wash into the washer.
“What is it in particular?” AdventureMan asks me, as I weep, yet again, as I start to write this entry.
“It’s the end of an era,” I choke out, and the tears start rolling once again in spite of all my efforts not to succumb.
“We’ve lived our lives as nomads ever since we met,” I continue.
“It isn’t like we want to live in Doha forever, Doha is changing, too, old friends are leaving.”
“It isn’t like I love packing up and starting over in a new place.”
“I shouldn’t have scheduled to leave on a Friday after church,” I philosophized, but it’s too late now. The waterworks started in church and have turned on and off with ever fresh goodbye.
I steeled myself to smile cheerily at my oldest friends, knowing we’ll meet up again – a wedding, a retirement, a gathering of old hands. But small things defeated me. The friends who switched their normal place in church and sat beside us. The communion hymn “Lord of the Dance” sung as a duet. One of our friends provided our very very favorite meal for lunch. The priest blessing my travels and sending me on with the prayers of the people. The difficult ceremony of saying goodbye to the people we love in a place which has nurtured us, spiritually and socially.
And one young woman painted a watercolor for us of our new grandson.
It is a stunning watercolor, I can hardly wait to have it framed. There is something very special in it – I have a friend who knits, but is constantly telling us how badly she knits. She knit a blanket for the grandson, and it was COLD in Pensacola, and that blanket was used over and over again. The blanket is in the lower left corner of the watercolor. 🙂
It’s going to be a long trip to our new life. We are going to a happy place – sunshine, but not so much heat. Humidity and lightning, but also four seasons and seafood. Our son, his wife, our grandson. All these are happy things. Our new house, a new life, closer to our families. All good things.
I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to my Palestinian friend, like my sister, and she shared all her children with me through these years of friendship. Saying goodbye to her was horrible. We know we may never see one another again. Her daughters assure me they will help us correspond; they will help her use modern technology to stay in touch. 🙂 I don’t know when I will ever see her again . . . and it breaks my heart. I guess I kind of thought she would come visit me. “No,” she said sadly, “no, I will never have the right papers to visit you.” Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how devastating are the restrictions on her life. And I’m just a friend. She hasn’t seen her own father, in Palestine, for years. Sometimes they can meet up in Egypt. . .
I’m not the first expat to leave here. One good friend left Doha last summer, she led the way. We all know that leaving the nomadic life is charting new territory. We’ve had a lot of fun, we’ve loved (most of) the expat experience. We know it’s time. It’s just the inner twenty-five year old is not ready.
AdventureMan’s company keeps saying “when you’ve had a break . . . ” and AdventureMan laughs and says “I’m not taking a break, I am RETIRING!” His company is savvy; they know that three months down the road the domestic life may get a bit old for these high testosterone kind of guys and they will invite him back for a special project or two. He promises me, if it is Doha or Kuwait, I can come with him. Even just a week or two, to see old friends . . . I’ll take it!
Thanks be to God, for creating us, and for giving us this wonderful life we were created to live. Thanks be to God for all these great adventures, for the exotic, the sights and smells and sounds, and for the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Thanks be to God for the generous spirited friends called to his life, who have shared the path with us. And thanks be to God for this outlet, this blog, where I can share the good, the bad and the ugly with friends from all countries who have ever lived as strangers in a strange land (even when that ‘strange’ land is the USA, LOL!) Thank YOU, friends.
Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, Supporting Family with Book Proceeds
This tiny little 10 year old girl, who knew she didn’t want to be married, and stuck to her guns, has had a life-long effect, changing the laws in Yemen so that a woman must now be 18 to marry. On the other hand, if the legal age before was age 15, how on earth was she allowed to marry at age 10?
Divorced Before Puberty: Former Child Bride
New Book
by Amy Hatch (Subscribe to Amy Hatch’s posts) Mar 5th 2010 10:30AM
From AOL News: Parenting
Divorced at age 10. Credit: Amazon
Nujood Ali walked into a Yemeni courtroom and asked to see a judge, because she wanted a divorce. This may seem like a common tale of marital dissolution, but Nujood Ali was just 10 years old when she defied the cultural traditions and walked out on the husband who was more than 20 years her senior.
Nujood, now 12, chronicles her journey from child bride to celebrated hero in her new autobiography, “I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.” Ghostwritten by French newspaper reporter Delphine Minoui, the book details how the young girl shocked citizens of her native Yemen after she walked out on her arranged marriage to a motorcycle delivery man. Nujood’s father married her off to the man for a dowry of $250, and for two months she begged her husband every day to return her to her family.
He refused, and so Nujood decided to take action. One afternoon, when her mother sent her on an errand, Nujood took a bus into the crowded capital city of Sanaa. She then hailed a taxi to the courthouse. Not knowing what else to do, she sat on a bench outside a courtroom all day, until a judge noticed her lingering in the empty hallway. He asked what she needed, and the girl said simply, “I came for a divorce.”
Now, two years later, the girl tells Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times that she is back in her home land and is supporting her family with the royalties from her book, which spent five weeks at the top of the bestseller list in France. Her brothers, who once criticized her for shaming their family, seem to have no problem with their sister now that Nujood is the family breadwinner, Kristof writes.
“They’re very nice to her now,” Khadija al-Salami, a filmmaker who mentors Nujood, tells the Times. “They treat her like a queen.”
Nujood’s story isn’t just one in which a single child takes a stand and changes her life. The preteen’s courage set off a domino effect in Yemen, where very young girls are routinely sold into marriage. Following Nujood’s successful divorce petition, two girls, ages 9 and 12, also filed to legally end their marriages. Her ordeal also prompted Yemen’s lawmakers to increase the age of consent for marriage from 15 to 18.
Nujood has been honored and feted by journalists in many countries, and, on a visit to Paris last year, even met with France’s Human Rights Minister, Rama Yada, and Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara, with whom she discussed the problem of child marriage.
What are Nujood’s feelings on marriage now? She tells Time magazine she “no longer thinks about marriage.”
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Abou Tabblouleh on t… on Waiting for Snow Abou Tabbouleh on in… on Waiting for Snow intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 