The Early Qualms of Marriage

The Early Qualms of Marriage

All my life the one job I had ever wanted to excel in, was motherhood. For that reason I spent most of my bachelor days grooming myself to best fit the roles of a wife & a mom. From cooking & crafting to courses after courses on ‘how to be best at marriage’ and ‘how to raise perfect kids’. And then, I thought I was ready.

Besides, in my sibling’s words, I was an ‘incredible bachelor’. I had a lot on my credentials from academics to house managing, if not extraordinary, I, he said, fairly qualified for the above average.

Therefore, years ago when I was getting married, amidst the joy of the big day approaching near, I was sure of this one thing – I would naturally excel in marriage and everything that is a consequence of marriage. And of course I would be an awesome mom.

My second vindication of being so sure was: I could pretty much manage things at work, managing things at home would be easier, a piece of cake!

I was utterly wrong.

In the first few months of wedlock and moving to Cayman Islands, almost everything was a wreck. My life was a mayhem; the food I made was mostly weird, if not awful, and just didn’t taste like my mama’s perfect meals (whereas I thought I got the hang of it all), the house wasn’t the spotless clean, I was least crafty, lazy to my bones, I didn’t want to do dishes and had almost no desire in me to embark on the journey of culinary adventures, I didn’t want to go out and socialize with anyone at all and I was soon-to-have my first child.

I was stressed. I was troubled, mainly because I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong and where. What happened to my desires of making my own home a heaven? What happened to all the overflowing bursting energy in me? It seemed like all the vigor is sucked out of me and flushed away.. (as if demons really exist! as if they really suck out life & joy). I could not blame everything to my own unborn baby.

The worst of all was that I was not happy. I was living a dream that I had dreamt for years – being alone with my husband in a Caribbean paradise, and I was not happy!

All of this was very disappointing. And it disappointed ME, the most.

In this turmoil, I slugged and lost something I was very confident about – self-confidence in my capabilities. I started to doubt my ability to do anything at all. The bubble of narcissism popped and almost then I had my baby, everything just went into frenzy!

The new mom that I became was insecure, unsure, frustrated, tired and pessimist. I was so scared of myself, I didn’t know if I was able to manage her? Most of the times I didn’t know the reasons of my baby’s crying, I didn’t know how to soothe her. Luckily, her father was there to help but the total aura about this was, ‘oh you can’t even calm your own baby’ (what kind of a mother you are? what a failure??) and in many years that followed – it haunted me.

It haunted me like crazy. Because it broke the perfect picture I had painted of myself for years.

I kept asking myself, ‘Am I a failure being a wife? Being a stay-at-home mom? Do I worth anything?’ It was derogatory to my own self. The self doubt would sink me lower and lower in my sadness. It was a downhill ride.

I appeared to fail at almost everything I was trying to do, or I was failing to do it as awesomely as it was in my head. All this was so frustrating!

While my husband was terribly busy making money for our comforts – I was also being very lonely at Cayman, with no family to help and support, we didn’t have much friends either. So there was no support system to help me understand what I was going through.

What I didn’t understood back then was, I was going through marriage anxiety, and pregnancy anxiety – I was Overwhelmed to say the least.

So much had happened so fast, my marriage, traveling, settling to an alien land,  a baby – and I thought I was ready for all this.  Time proved that I wasn’t! Also because I had set very high unrealistic expectations of myself, which I couldn’t meet. .

I failed to understand that it was just a transitional phase from a bachelor to a married person and a mom. And it was normal. I was just settling in and adapting to the new roles. I was just so secluded, so naïve, so vulnerable and alone to handle all the emotional baggage that kept coming – it weighed me down and made me so fuzzy to think clear.

I thought the wife I became in the first few months of marriage and the new mom I was – will stay and remain like that forever and it meant I was a horrible mom and an awful wife. I forgot that we grow; I forgot that we learn and excel. I forgot that it is normal to get overwhelmed with so much change. Everything has its own pace.

But it took me a long time to learn this, years actually. And then, after two babies I decided to go easy on me. I decided to accept that I am not a perfect wife, and I can never be a “perfect” mom. Because there is nothing, called as “PERFECT” in this world, we all have our own crooks and kinks. Besides, over time my cooking improved, my creative side shone back again, my inherent messy and careless nature took a side and I rigorously worked on keeping the home organized if not spotless clean at all times. And slowly with every milestone I attained, I gained my confidence back.

Now, I can guess just by listening to the sound of footsteps of my toddlers, what they are up to. I can even predict when they are hungry or sleepy or have any other need..

It does come naturally, just that we need to give it time. We need to go easy on ourselves.  We need to sit down and accept that we are flawed but we will learn and grow, we need to tell ourselves that despite life seems stagnant at one juncture it is eternally flowing and in the ebb and flow of life we will find our own rhythm, sooner or later.

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May Allah SWT bless all Muslim brothers and sisters with happiness in their family life!

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