Connections
Got married today. At least technically. The actual wedding will take place in Jan. A New Year's wedding.
Shouldn't being married feel different?
Him:I don't know. I feel more possessive I guess.
Me: I feel possessive too.
Silence.
Me: Don't you think we should feel something more profound?
Him: Like what?
Me: Don't know. A deep spiritual connection.
Him(laughing): I refuse to get into metaphysics tonight.
No but really. How come I don't feel any different?
posted by LouLou @ 12:00 AM
39 Comments:
you make me crying.
Have been a frequent reader to your blog, and have been following your story with K, but first time for me to comment here.
When I read the first line of your post, the first thing that came to my mind was “Congratulations”. Going through the rest of your post made me feel a little bit worried.
Sometimes we need something very much, and we feel if we got it, we would be the happiest on Earth. But putting very high expectations on something, and not getting or feeling what we expect, gives kind of a weird feeling.
I think that happens because we think that a certain incidence will change our life, but this never happens suddenly. We need time to comprehend what is happening and get along with the new changes. And this only happens by time.
Seems, I’m not making any sense.
Still, I’ll be telling you congratulations, and wish you will make the best out of it, and I’m sure you will :)
Mabrooooooooooook !!!!!!!!
Can't say how happy I am for you !!! weird how you can feel that happy for a person you haven't met in real life...
Don't worry ya Loulou ... I think you just feel numb... still in a state of "happy shock"...why do you want to feel any different by the way? Rabena yehanneeki enti we K ya gamila :-)
MABRBOUK... WOW!
I think you should've done the two things (katb ketab, and farah, and everything else), on the same day. Now your worries will be weird, "am i stuck yet, can i change my mind or not, is this just technical or final"!
I'm kidding, alf mabrouk ya Lou. You'd better send us those wedding inviatations along with the plane tickets 3ashan nefda7ek felfara7!
gabri,
Crying?Why?
Now that sounds like my Mom & his Mom.
Moonlight,
You expect a day that you thought would irrevocably change your life to feel a little more earth-shattering.
Maybe it's because it happened so quickly?Have been involved in so many weddings that took months to organize & had all these plans for my own wedding. In the end the whole thing took 48 hours - from the point when the decision was made to the point when I saw that piece of paper saying that he's my husband.
Also it's a bit confusing the way we Arabs do marriage sometimes. Officially he's my husband. By the end of this week am going to be on his visa. But everyone calls him khateebi.
So which is it?
Maybe in Jan everything I was expecting will happen - including the major panic attack I always thought I'd have at my wedding which also failed to materialize yesterday.
"Don't worry ya Loulou!"
Am not worried!That's the whole point ya meme. What am I doing not worried when I just got married?
Mohamed,
"Now your worries will be weird, "am i stuck yet, can i change my mind or not, is this just technical or final"!"
We had our first post-marital argument last night - about where we're going to live.
Together we can easily afford the apartment I want - which he also loves btw. But he says no he's got to pay rent alone so we have to look for something else 3ashan howa elragil hina wi kilmitu hiya illy timshi.
Did he mean that last bit or was he just being Egyptian & funny?If he means it can I change my mind do you think?
What is it with this paying business?You know his mother is also like that. She wants to pay everything too.
See, I told you you should've done everything at once we khelesty. Now, even the things you know are him for sure, you're starting to think about again. Don't we know already that hes a conservative traditional Middle Eastern guy when it comes to you (otherwise he's liberal).
Live with it ba'a.. 7add tayel her spouse wants to be ragel elbeit we yesheel kol 7aga lewa7do. Now, you can take all your money and waste it on drugs (coffee) and makeup :)
Mohamed,
Are you going to be ragel elbait too?
mabrook ya bent! i just sent you an email 5 minutes ago asking how things are going!!!
mabrook tsny. don't worry khales, this is a normal feeling. after katb ketab there is just this phase of gettting used to it. esp, that u weren't expecting this step right now. a friend of mine katabet ketab very quickly too (even though she had known the guy for years) but soon after he propesed, they katabo ketab in like a couple of weeks! it was ghareeba shewayya
for a couple of weeks he started doing some noveau authority practice: where are u going? why are u late etc etc. but it wore off, and now they are more like engaged again, but with out the worries.
it is like an engagement but with more security and stability. enjoy it ya habibty. and NO MORE WORRIES!
tell him a fellow dentist is egypt tells you mabrook!
Mabrouuuk ys Loulou, i am so happy for you can't even tell :)
like Me says , ir is weird that you are happy for someoneyou don't know personally.
I actually knew bec i was reading your comment at BP and i saw you saying just married , so i said what ? who ?
Happy that you married the one you love
I am very happy for you , at the beginng before i make my blog when you started with K , i was worried about you and i even adviced as anomynous to forget about it so that you won't get hurt but elhamdAllah you didn't folloow what i said :)))
Send us yes the invitations , are you gonna come to egypt then ?
Alf Mabrouk !
Akeed, dana 7atalla3 3einha.. and I'll insist to pay so I can have reasons to exercise my authority. Unfortunately, the old simple argument of "I am the man" doesn't work anymore :( Women are getting smarter walla eih?!
You should actually enjoy his male authority figure (a wall to lean on ba'a we kiddah), and with time you'll do like all women where they get everything done their way indirectly, and just please men when they play the mucho man thing. Bass I bet that's not why he loved you though, considering that part of the reason he loved you must be that you're an atypical Arab woman.
Or, you can clash with him mel'awel we tenakkedy 3aleih. Bass you love him too much to do that.
bravo! congrats LouLou.
"No but really. How come I don't feel any different?"
"What am I doing not worried when I just got married?"
But you are worried ya Loulou... worried that you're not worried !!!! ;-)
congrats Ya loulou...
Wishing you the very best of happieness & Sweet Worries ..
I'm afraid I agree with Mo...
Don'like this "Technical Marriages"
thing..
Oh well it's done now & you should make the best out of it..
If you're libral enough...Just take out the "Technical" part & enjoy...
Start celebrating NOW & march up to the people night @ new year...
do not let the waiting spoil any moment...
Nothing will be perfect anyway...
I wonder How 's your married "blogging" will be now?
Good Luck..
You guys are making me cry. Am very mushy & emotional these days so you really have to watch it.
It's so weird that when I started this blog I never imagined it would be about my love life because I had no love life really. K & I had met but it was still at the beginning & I wasn't taking it very seriously yet because I knew I was leaving & didn't think there was enough time. So I told him we should be friends.
This blog was just supposed to be an outlet for everyday worries & worries about leaving UAE, my job and all my friends here for good & starting a new life in Morroco.
Sharief,
Thank you. We don't normally have these "Technical Marriages" in my family. My father hates the idea. And my parents would have preferred not to commit like this before they had a chance to know K & his family better.
But because of issues related to my visa status it was necessary. And my family back home would be really offended if I got married in UAE. So this was a compromise to keep them happy while at the same time resolving my visa problem.
Don't know if you're married or not but in both cases I wish you happiness.
roora,
Allah yibarik feeki ya 7abibti. 3obalik.
A word of advice. Don't be too scared to give love a chance. Be careful but not too careful.
Really appreciate your concern for me both as anonymous and as roora.
doshar,
Allah yibarik feeki and 3obalik. Will give him your message:)
Yes this nouveau authority thing can be a bit of a pain but then am the woman who gets jealous of his mother so I guess I shouldn't talk:)
Mohamed,
"Or, you can clash with him mel'awel we tenakkedy 3aleih. Bass you love him too much to do that."
Yes I do. To tell you the truth he gets away with so much now because am so happy when am around him that I don't really care.
Am not the kind of person who suffers from this authority complex. Sometimes I even prefer not having to make decisions. So I'll go along. If I object to something it's usually because it's something that upsets me big-time. And I think by now he understands me well enough to avoid these areas.
Congratulations, LouLou :)
When I got married, we eloped to Las Vegas... I guss that's like a technical marriage, not sure what that term means :)
We had a big (huge!) wedding banquet a few days later.
I didn't feel any different at first either. It took a while to set in I think. It did become a very special feeling, being married, after a few months though. Maybe it will be the same for you.
Best wishes to you and your husband :)
Good morning Craig,
Thank you. An elopement to Vegas sounds very romantic. God I miss California.
A "Technical Marriage" is just a term for an Arab cultural practice of seperating the process of getting married into 2 parts - the legal/official part & the actual wedding. So now despite the fact that we're legally/officially/religiously married - society just considers it another stage of engagement. Even though if we choose to break up now we'd need to get divorced. But people still refer to him as my fiance. And we can't live together yet. Not until Jan.
Hope that explains it. It is very confusing.
Btw Craig are you a programmer or is it just a nickname?What kind of programming do you do?Am a software engineer. Worked as a programmer for a few years but don't get to code much anymore. Now that they have me working as a system analyst it's all CASE & Rational Rose:(
Mohamed,
"Bass I bet that's not why he loved you though, considering that part of the reason he loved you must be that you're an atypical Arab woman."
Forgot to ask you about this yesterday. Why do you think am an atypical Arab woman?What is a typical Arab woman?
I was hoping you won't ask :) I'll answer why I think you're atypical, but not the other question :)
Simple, from what I read of you, the most obvious to me is that you're honest and straight-forward. That's atypical to me! Ok, also that you're looking at your marriage as a partnership, and you're getting married simply because you want more of the guy.
I'm sure everyone here is atypical in their own way.. ehem.
Loulou, you are a software engineer?! I thought so as well. I like analysis, but I hate Rational Rose.
Moon,
"I like analysis, but I hate Rational Rose."
You too?I love analysis too but I miss writing code.
loooloooloolui Zaghrouta Masria from me :) Congrats! I know I owe you a response but I have been very busy and will catch up on my blogging by October InshAllah.
Twosret!
Welcome back. Thanks a lot:)Yes do catch up on your blogging asap. You've been missed. Roora's been looking for you.
Hi LouLou :)
I was accused once of being a software engineer! They even put it on my business card! That was my first programming job, doing embedded systems in Assembly and C language. That was about 1990.
I've been doing commercial and industrial software development for the last 12 years, for Windows. That means, I work for software companies, like Microsoft. I don't work for Microsoft, that's just an example! Microsoft is the devil.
Mostly, I do the client applications for client/server tools. I do a lot of custom applications also, though... one offs for small companies. I do most my programming in C/C++.
I take it(based on the Systems Analyst title) you work in IT? My mother worked in IT/MIS her whole career. She still does, but as a consultant now.
I'm usually called a Software Developer, or a Senior Software Developer, or a Project Leader, or "Hey you" but I still like Programmer best. So many terms have gotten muddled in the software industry, I like to just keep it simple :)
I thought most programmers don't like to be called programmers anymore. It limits the scope of their work. Since they're usually building a whole system using a complete engineering process they like to be called engineers, developers, or architects, no? I think developer is the most accurate.
I work in the same field as you guys, and I like to be called "hey you". I can't seem to stop some of the guys working with me in my new job from calling me "7adretak" ("Mr.") though, I hate it. I keep telling them, no 7adretak, no 7adretak, I swear I'm not that old!
24/7: That's certainly not what I meant by partnership! You think I'm weird? Most of my friends think I'm crazy, I guess you're not that far off. So what exactly triggered you in my comments?
Hi Craig,
Yes I work in IT/MIS. Had a double major in software engineering & MIS. But in terms of job title I was first hired as a programmer & later promoted to system analyst. My next step up should be business analyst then business consultant. And then I might be considered for project leader.
I work for an IT consultancy firm. Our clients are companies & government departments that require some sort of software solution. We also help some of our clients in building or restructuring their own IT departments.
Programmer is what they call you if you're purely technical. If you're involved in the business side of things at all then you're a system analyst & so forth. The more you get into the business/management side of things the better you do in this firm which is weird because really everyone here is a programmer originally!
There's no software engineer title which sucks because that's what I like to be called. It's what I went to college to be.
Have done most of my programming in Java - although I've also had to work with C, C#, VB, Oracle etc...It's really not up to us to choose the platform or the technology. That depends very much on the client.
Don't like Microsoft much either although I must admit it's difficult to imagine life without datasets or XML webservices or server controls i.e. life before .Net. I think it's the influence of my college professors. They all worked for Sun:)
Mohamed,
Not all programmers get involved in the whole software development life cycle. In my company there is a seperation I had to fight very hard to get through between those who do analysis & design & those who do implementation & testing.
Love writing code but hated the fact that I often had to implement someone else's design that I didn't agree with at all. And it made maintenance hell. Everytime the client calls you with a problem or a request for enhancement they tell you no that's a structural change so you have to go back to the analyst.It was extremely frustrating.
The reason I wanted the system analyst position was that I thought that if I get it I'll get to build the whole system like you said with less interference. The problem now is that as soon as you're done with analysis & design & the system has moved into implementation they consider you free & give you another project. So staying involved in the implementation becomes a real challenge.
You just can't win.
Congratulations, Lou! As for the metaphysical connection, it's there...just not very obvious at the moment. But you will probably feel it in a moment of exchanging looks and no words, or one time when you'll guess his every move, or in the weird plot of a dream. Love always means such a deep bond. Sometimes to deep to be felt as something new and different.
Kayla,
"Sometimes to deep to be felt as something new and different."
Yeah I figured it must be something like that. What I remember most about that day is feeling happy for my parents. They were so happy I was glad.
Me & him were already so close the connections were already there. In a sense marriage is something you do for other people -to make it acceptable for you to be together.
"they like to be called engineers"
Mohamed, I totally disagree. I myself don't like to be called an engineer. May be I'd accept it to be a Software Engineer. But when it's translated into Arabic, it sounds horrible. They call you ya bashmohndes, and I hate that!
Programmer might be called a Software Developer. A system analyst and a business analyst is more into the business processes. But still, translating these names into Arabic would sound horrible!
I don't like coding that much, I'm more into the analysis and design. But seems that you gotta start with pure programming first, then move on to other phases.
Forget how it sounds in Arabic, just think of the suitable term that reflects what you do. We ba3dein I think mohandesa sounds great aslan, 7add yetool ya benty.
Thanks Loulou and Roora....I'm trying to do my best to keep up but I have been very busy.
I had to kick the habit of blogging the texan bootie :) too many hours of surfing.
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