Member-only story
For me, marriage has been a blissful journey. I whole-heartedly believe that the reason why I have been able to find the happiness that has always been unknown is that I was lucky to marry the very first man I fell in love with.
When Fahad and I knew we were ready for a lifelong commitment, we knew our union would be based on foundations of love, loyalty and understanding. But more than that, it’s what we were offering one another that convinced us that we wanted to spend our life together — companionship, independence and openness.
For me, the single most important thing my marriage has offered me is liberation. When you marry someone you share a friendship with, you expect love, honesty, affection, and empathy to follow. What I didn’t expect was how liberated I would feel being with someone who is in so many ways different than I.
I choose the word liberation because it was only through my marriage that I felt free from limits on thoughts, perceptions, behaviours, etc. Growing up surrounded by cultural and societal norms, the constant pressure of doing things a certain way for the sake of others perceptions, the constant uneasiness of being in the wrong had placed humongous limitations on me as an individual and prohibited healthy self-growth.
