first - to the one nameless reader of this blog, I have tried to comment unsuccessfully several times on yours but it errors out. I am truly sorry for the loss of your mother. May Allah swt raise her ranks in Jannat ul Firdous and give you and your family the courage to bear this loss, Ameen. I know all pain pales in comparison to the loss of a parent, but I hope you find respite in that one day you will be reunited in the most beautiful of places inshAllah, and have eternity to fill each other in with all the missed events, milestones, and meaningless nothings of your lives.

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i thought things were going well. 

S had been sober 3 months. longest ever, in 12 years. that's crazy, isn't it? I had never before known what 90 days of sobriety looked like.

normal. i would catch myself wondering, is this how normal couples live? they go out for dinner with friends and come back unafraid of another drunken disaster? they trust each other. they laugh together. there's no fear of impending doom every 48 hours. they dont hold their breath because they KNOW nothing bad is awaiting them just around the corner? no rummaging through the corners of the house finding bottles, empty or full, no secretly planning to empty and toss them out without being caught.

a whole being of existing, a whole way of being lifted from me like a burden I didnt know I had been carrying.

I went for umra. I cried in sujood. I stood in front of the kaaba and cried. i didn't deserve this happiness, this peace. The pieces falling together. 

We did ivf. i had 8 frozen embryo's, one of which (or hopefully more) would have one day called me mama.

i have waited 12 years to hear a tiny little voice call out that name. a scrawny pink fist reaching for me in the dark.

it's been too long. the waiting has destroyed me. so much time lost. so much life.

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we came back. it hasn't been a month. he relapsed 24 hours after arrival. again 5 days ago.

the berating has gotten worse. the cursing. this time, it's personal. it's not just me anymore. it's abbu, its all the things abbus says. you are your father's daughter.

i am. all his good and bad. yes i am. i stare him down defiantly. i will not be embarrassed of my lineage. however crazy they are, they are me and i am them.

you are controlling. you belittle me. humiliate me. disrespect me. that's why i don't talk to you anymore.

12 years of waiting later.

12 years of silence and sacrifice and keeping his respect and nights spent wandering the streets to escape the abuse, locking myself up in spare bedrooms to get away from his anger and aggression.

I am the problem? I was the problem all along?

my mind feel like it's slowly broken. my reality seems like a figment of my imagination. i go to a buzurg in Madinah, one I have always respected.

he tells me, when you play with the dark it plays with you. 

I have been played alright.

he tells me, what khaloo did to me was my own fault. i approached him because of an unfulfilled first love (?!?!?!) everything bad that has ever happened to me, was my own fault.

i am in shock. my insides churn. molestation? the addiction? everything that came after?

how was any of this my fault?

and hearing it in front of S has only emboldened him to believe he the victor, the innocent, the pure. I am the problem. 

no one in this world says to him point blank, YOU messed up. no one. no one dares. even our therapist skirts around it. it has made him a monster, because then he feels entirely justified in all his anger and language towards me.

i am so so tired.

there's nothing left in my marriage, for me. it feels like a scam I have been playing for so long just to pretend I am happy. to pretend i have a companion that fulfilled me.

i am tired. i can no longer play this game, anymore.

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e