Letter to the Father of my Youngest Son

Over the last 10 years you have put me through an emotional roller coaster like I never imagined possible. And then…over the past few months you have proved me wrong and elevated the emotional turmoil to a level that was way beyond what I ever imagined…. But through it all, you did not manage to break me. Yes you hurt me, but you also made me stronger as I turned to be closer to Allah to understand all you have put me and my sons through in our life.

In 2002, when I came to Qatar, I came with a heart full of hope and dreams, and although from the moment I arrived here I was certain I was to face some difficulties, I did not let this break me. I never gave up on the belief that deep down in your heart that you were a good person that you would never hurt me as you have. When our son was born in 2003, although our life was less than perfect, I believed that Allah wanted this for us to keep us together.. and trusting in Allah gave me the strength to keep believing that in the end good would prevail.

Unfortunately, I was not strong enough to keep enduring the sadness in our life and yes, I did walk away in 2003 because nobody deserved to live the life of sadness and mistrust that we were living. Further to this, I had endured 4 years of your family treating me and my children badly without you ever standing up for me and defending me. You stood there once and watched your brother tell me I had to find a better job to help you in your financial needs and when I chose to leave the room you were angry at me for leaving and not sitting there to listen to your brother’s disrespect. Although it has been over 6 years since this day, I will never forget how I felt less worthy than a cockroach on this day. I felt like I was doing nothing to help in our family, when in reality I was the only one of your brother’s wives to even contribute financially to the matters of the family.

I am not here to bring back all the past incidences that have brought me to ask for divorce. There are too many to share. I am here to ask what have I done to you or your family to deserve how you keep treating me.

For seven years since our son was born, I have always taken the best care of him that I possibly could. Even in hard times, I took on extra jobs to make sure I took care of my family and I never once asked you for any money.

Yes, when I divorced you I did not insist from the Court that you be forced to pay child support. As Allah is my witness, I clearly remember telling the judge that “a man should not be forced to support his child because of a court order”. This responsibility is bestowed on him by Allah Almighty, and although the court never forced you to pay child support, nothing stopped you from offering any kind of financial support for your son. When I denied the court from ordering the payments, I knew I was helping you and your family as I knew you were facing financial hardships and I did not want to be the cause for further hardships. Allah had blessed me with allowing me to take care of my sons, so I felt no need to want to hurt you or your family by making you suffer.

Unfortunately, you have wanted nothing but suffering for me and my sons. You have emotionally tormented us, threatened us, disrespected us and refuse to let us find any happiness.

Regardless of what your ego tells you, regardless of how you have treated me, I have never treated you in any way close to how you have treated me…and I ask you why??? Why do you hate me so much that you just want to hurt me over and over again? I beg of you… for once in your life… be a man….and look at your actions…. See what you are doing?? You have never given me the respect I deserve for being your son’s mother…. for taking care of your son the best way I could….. for not turning my back on Islam after all the hardships you have put me through…for giving your son a better life than what you could give him.

I was a very new Muslimah when I came to this country. I trusted you completely. I believed in you completely. I also soon learned to dislike the Islam you and your family were teaching me…. But again…. Allah kept giving me strength to not give up. Allah kept showing me that Islam was more than being constantly unhappy. It is truly by the Grace of Allah that my sons and I are still Muslim and getting stronger day by day.

I will not deny that I am so scared to lose custody of my son. I cannot imagine him not living with us and us not being involved in all aspects of his life…. But I do know…that no matter what, if I lose custody, I will NEVER lose my son. I have raised him well and done all I can for him…and I trust that if you succeed in winning this custody, you will fail at wining your son. You will never truly understand the bond a mother has with her children. You will never truly understand the trust we have in ALLAH. As I stated earlier, you may have tried to break me but you failed to do so. You only made me stronger. You only made me turn to ALLAH even more…so for this I say “Jazak’Allah kheir”.

Allah's approval is all I need

I used to believe that it was important and essential to be liked by all. I could never truly understand why anyone would not accept me or like me since I always treated people with kindness and respect. I spent years of my life trying to reach out to people who treated me badly without really knowing why. I judged myself because of those who showed their dislike of anything I did, anything I thought, everything I was.

Because of this, I spent my life doubting myself and every decision I made. Always searching for other's approval had lead me to be a yes person regardless of what I was feeling inside. Now I am not saying there is anything wrong in trying to make people happy but the problem comes when this quality of mine turns into an obsession and affects how I see and treat myself.

In my life, the word failure has always been on the tip on my tongue whenever I failed to achieve any goal. The more I learned about Islam, the deeper my faith grew, the more I realized that sometimes we need to fail before we can succeed. I also learned that sometimes people do not like you because jealousy and being sad themselves rule their lives... so by understanding this, I have come to accept that I do not need to be liked by all. As long as I keep treating people with kindness and respect then I should proud of the person I am today. In Christianity I was taught "Do unto others as you want others to do unto you." This valuable lesson is also enforced in Islam by the quote "Love for thy brother/sister what you love for thyself." The unfortunate thing for me is that I have not loved myself as I should. I have not treated myself as I would treat others... so how can I expect everybody to like me when often I don't like myself.

For years I have struggled with my inner thoughts about myself. Unfortunately my low self-esteem has caused me to stop believing in myself at times and it has affected some of my relationships.

Islam has taught me that I do not need the approval of people to feel good. Islam has taught me that, although I should always treat people with kindness and respect, I should not seek their approval but rather only seek the approval of ALLAH Almighty. I used to worry about how people judged me regardless of my intentions or actions. Now I truly understand and live my life knowing the only and true judge is no other but ALLAH.

I am far from being perfect but I do know the value that is found in my heart. As I get closer to Allah, that value can only increase. 

I am truly blessed that Allah has blessed me in allowing me to get closer to Him and find this inner peace I was seeking. Although I am still just in the beginning stages of my journey, I look forward to what tomorrow will throw at me because I am better and stronger today just for having Allah in my life.

I do not need to be liked or approved by all.... ALLAH's approval is what counts.