Answering Kinzi's tag Re Marriage

I finally got around to answering Kinzi’s tag, I am sorry it is too long, but you know me, I love to talk talk talk.

I have been married for almost 9 years. Our 9th year anniversary is on July 18th, our first anniversary being apart. Wow I do not believe it has been this long, it definitely does not feel like it!

When we met, neither of us was really thinking of getting married. I was at a point where I have boycotted marriage due to few bad relationships! Hubby was being badgered by his family to get married. He was 32 and to them he was an old maid. He looked for someone in Germany, and then he went to Saudi Arabia, then to Jordan. Finally his sister suggested he comes to Canada to visit his uncle. He might like and marry his very cute cousin. Hubby decided what the heck, I’ve never been to Canada.

He came to Canada, his cousin was not his type, neither was he hers. So he was introduced to few girls but none were his type. Finally a week before his return to Germany, his uncle and his aunt decided to take him to a goodbye dinner in Hamilton, which is where I lived. The owner of a restaurant is a mutual friend of my family and his uncle’s family. We just happened to be dining there that night. The minute Rami saw me, he would his eyes of me, I gotta admit, I did look good that night!:)

His uncle asked the restaurant owner to introduce the families and before we knew it they invited themselves for coffee at our house. The next day they invited us for dinner and after a lot of convincing from our friend I accepted the invitation. That is when hubby and I got to sit alone and chitchat. We talked for over 3 hrs and decided we will go out the next day. He so friendly, easy going and great to talk to, not to mention so cute and adorable!

We immediately clicked. We went out almost everyday. My work at that time was close to where his uncle lived, so we would go out for lunch or for coffee after work. A month later we were engaged and ten glorious months later we were married. The reason I gave hubby a chance is the first place was because I loved his name (I was always saying when I have a son I will name him Rami), he was a cutie, and I fell in love with his aunt. After that I could not help falling in love with him, he is just so darned cute and so nice and has the qualities I always wanted in a husband but was sure that they did not exist. When I got sick one day, he came to our house right away and spent the whole day with me, and he read me a book. I will never forget that day. His voice was so soft and comforting. The book he read was the story of Remi allakeet in Arabic, which was my favourite cartoon and book.

Hubby never made it back to Germany. I would not accept a long distance engagement. I wanted to be together and get to know each other, so there were no surprises after the wedding.

My husband is my best friend. He is the one person I can talk to about everything and anything. We do have ups and downs, but thankfully our ups are a lot more that our downs. We do argue and drive each other crazy at times, but at the end of the day we lay in each other’s arms and all is forgotten and forgiven.

Communication is very important. By nature I am not a very talkative person. But with my husband I can talk up a storm. This is what I loved about him, he made it very easy for me to open up to him, and talk. You need to put on listening ears and hear what your partner is saying.

In marriage you have to learn to compromise, you cannot always get your own way. You give a little and take a little. You come up with a solution that will make you both happy. That was the hard part for me, but eventually I learned how to compromise.

It is very important to spend time alone every once in a while. We have not been able to do it much here since we do not have a baby sitter here in Saskatoon. But when back at home in TO, my mom watched the kids every few weeks and we got to be alone and do couple things. A date night or weekend is very important and renews the relationship.

O kinzi requested I elaborate on the amount of traveling we do with kids. Both hubby and I share the love for travel. The reason we waited for awhile to have kids is because we wanted to travel and have fun together. We used to take 2 long holidays per year, in Canada that means 1-3 wks off. We would travel to the Caribbean or to the US. It took us a while before we could travel outside N/A since my husband did not have Canadian citizenship yet. Through out the year we took several road trips throughout Ontario and Quebec on long weekends.

We thought that when we had kids all this traveling would stop. But our kids are great! They travel great on the plane, and they do well on long road trips. Right now our travels are mostly from Saskatoon to Toronto and from Toronto to Amman, with long road trips within SK and Alberta here and there. Zozo and I are dying to go to Cuba, but we’ll have to wait after we come back from Amman. We want the kids to know their family in Toronto and Amman, so our destinations have somewhat changed. I do like travelling with my kids; my mom always offers to watch the kids for a week or so while we go away. I know I should, but our kids are so young and willing to join us for so little time. Once they hit their teens, god help us! We hope that by taking them with us all the time and doing thing we all enjoy, they will still enjoy traveling with us, as they get older. I have friends whose kids will not travel with them at all! I pray we will never get to that point. We do enjoy family vacations together. On long car trips hubby and I get to talk all we want without many distractions, this is another reason we love road trips.

So there you go, marriage is great. Having someone there to comfort you when you wake up from a bad dream. Someone who will listen to you whine about your weight loss or lack of and in hubby’s case someone who will listen to you bitching about work and annoying coworkers. You always have a date to any party, wedding, and get togethers. You have someone kill the spiders and icky bugs for you, go out and get you a Tim Hortons cup of coffee in the morning, someone to come and get your car out of the snow when you are stuck in a million inches of slippery snow, someone that will clean up the house and watch the kids when you are sick, and make you soup that does may or may not taste awful, but it is the thought that counts, someone to cheer you up when feeling sad.

Annoying People

I just got off the phone with my friend. She has been married for 11 months; she got married last June. We are chitchatting and she tells me that the inevitable has already started. She is already being asked about when she and her husband will start a family. I am not sure it is not this bad, but she says wherever she goes, weddings, mosques, friends and family gathering she is asked when they will have a little nono. They have not even celebrated their first year anniversary yet for god’s sake, khalas leave them alone!

I would understand family member wanting grandkids, nieces, nephews, cousins, but to strangers, really what the heck is in it for you? And really, you do not know, maybe they are trying and it is not working, so why make them feel worse about it??

I am sure it is just an Arab thing, I’ve never heard any of none Arab friends complaining about this! Ok maybe it not just an Arab thing, I am sure the are other cultures who nag about this as well..

I remember going through this and OMG was it ever annoying. Hubby and I decided to wait for at least one year before having children. We really wanted to get to know each other better, and to do fun things together. It was important especially for me, as I come from a somewhat strict family and I was not allowed to do lots of things. So hubby and I got to lots of fun stuff. We travelled a lot, we partied, and did what couples only did, we had lots of fun and I am glad we waited.

In those 3.5years before we got pregnant at every gathering I had to hear about it, some even suggested I see a doctor about it. We were working on preventing pregnancy, I do not know if we do have fertility problems or not, but for some it is hard to understand that not everyone get married and they start working on having kids from the first day. Ufff!

It was especially hard for my in-laws. Every week my mother in law would call and ask, do you have anything on the way yet? She said just try to have a baby now, jarbo 7alkom, and then wait to have another baby. Hmmmmmmmm wouldn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? Once you have one, it is not different than having 2 or 3 really. Apparently my mother in law was being tortured more than I was by family in Syria, making her feel bad, that maybe her son or his wife are not fertile, which alhamdoullah was not the case, actually we had our first son the first time we spontaneously said what the heck, lets try and see, and with our second son the month we decided to get pregnant it happened.

As much I love my kids, I am glad we waited those years. It was so much fun doing all those adult things. Now when we do things it is more kids geared, and forgot about spontaneous road trips, which hubby and I are famous for. One minute we would be driving around Toronto, and in few hours we are in Montreal or few hours away from home in northern Ontario. Now there is no way we could do that. Our trips have to be planned with kids’ entertainment here and there.

So now my poor friend has to endure this, and the do not have an plans to get pregnant soon. Of course it will not stop after the first baby, the minute the baby is born, starts the so when are you planning on having a second, do not wait too long, have them all together, blah blah blah..then the second baby comes, and they start asking about the third and so on. Ya3ni 3an jad, I do not understand what it is to them, why can’t they just mind their own business? I am at the when are you going to have a third baby stage, and I am being scolded for waiting too long, OMG my baby turns three in July and I still do not have a third, what am waiting for, until he turns five, maybe sho feeha ya3ni?