In this UNLAWYERLY episode, Ramin concludes the series of relationships with that of the relationship with the self.
In this UNLAWYERLY episode, Ramin concludes the series of relationships with that of the relationship with the self.
00:01
So how does one go from leaving a toxic relationship? And then approximately nine months later being engaged During that time period, I really focused on the areas of my life that I neglected, These were friends family, and more importantly, my own self and things were not initially easy, but just like with anything else as the days progressed time heals all.
00:34
Now look, there's a learning lesson in this and I think this is related to when there is a significant other a spouse. I should say that person should be. Prioritized, I think first and foremost that relationship holds a lot of weight and should prioritize that, But I also learned the need to to balance a relationship with.
00:57
Also the relationships that have previously discussed, you know, things related to parents, you know, children. When you have children siblings, your own self-making time for that. Now, I did socialize during this this period. But I stayed away from relationships. You know, often, there was this, this brutal honesty that came from me.
01:21
When I was speaking with that. Girl that I met during this time, period, I would tell them very upfront and vary at the beginning. Look, I'm not interested because you see some relationships, like, the one that I was in before. It's scarred me to the point that I just did not want to deal with any other relationships.
01:45
I wanted to be alone in the thing about it is, it was ultimately temporary. But I know there are people who jump from one relationship to another relationship to another relationship without really taking the time to figure themselves out. But I realized that's that's not what was needed here.
02:08
You know, I didn't want to just rebound, so to speak to use a colloquial term. And to on other relationship. And so, I took the time to just focus on other things, But even when I was telling these other girls, at this time, period, that look not interested in relationship, I'm speaking to other people at the same time.
02:35
It's like a moth being attracted or drawn to a flame for some reason this would continue to entice them. I think it's the, the, the idea that we all want something that we cannot have. You know, it's all that saying, nice guys finish last. Why? Because often the cases that people don't want a nice guy.
03:03
Now, I'm not saying that I wasn't a nice guy in any of my relationships or I was a nice guy all the time but I just realized the way that things were played was you want things, you can't have. And so even in this situation, this time period, I was just brutally, being honest.
03:19
I would just being my raw self and saying I'm not interested it would for some reason make the other people want to pursue something more with me, But let me let me sidebar real quick because I want to talk about the story of meeting. Osteoof meeting my wife and there's a lot I can talk about about this relationship and it's, it's a, it's something.
03:45
It always puts a smile to my face. I love our story. I'm very grateful for it because there was a lot of divine intervention in it, but I want to just give enough in there to kind of set the stage because I can go on a lot of episodes about our initial meeting and how we interacted.
04:09
There's a lot that that goes into it, but I just want to set the stage for a few minutes. Now I wasn't invited to her birthday by a mutual friend and that mutual friend had asked me remain. Look, I know you don't really get involved with little Middle Eastern girls.
04:30
But why don't you? And For me, it was just more of and I told there were like, where are they? I don't know where to find them because for a long period of time. I did have an identity issue. You know, I was born in Afghanistan but I came here when I was three.
04:51
So I had that aspect, which I really did not know. But was like, hey, you're Afghan. And then I have my American side where I pretty much was raised here. Took as much from my roots as possible. And The thing was, I didn't really feel American so to speak, You know, we can have another conversation about the whole idea of being an immigrant here or being naturalized here and all that and how that plays a role.
05:20
And then on top of that, I was a Muslim. You know, I was trying to trying to understand that more like what it really meant for me. I was a practicing Muslim but I think it's It's one of those things where you have to live it to be able to fully appreciate it and you want to fully transform into that and I hadn't fully done that.
05:42
I think all these likes life experiences ultimately molded. But so I told my friend I said, hey sure, Can I see a picture of her Because you know there was no shame in my game. I was a little shallow, but I was like, look, I might as well look at this person and see is there any type of you know, physical attraction just by pure looks and see if anything, you know, sparks my interest from even wanting to spend my time to go visit her or see her birthday.
06:14
And when I saw the picture as I had mentioned before I I just thought to myself that this person is out of my league, don't think anything is gonna call massive result of it. But sure enough. I went ahead and I went to her birthday. And the thing is, when I went to her her birthday, we said hello, we spoke literally for five minutes and that was it.
06:36
Nothing else. Five minutes of just talking and That was it. So I have to ask Asia because she knows I was going, you know, creating these episodes I was in my parts and I said, hey do you remember our story after that? And of course, she has journal a diary somewhere.
06:59
I haven't seen it, but she's documented a lot of our initial interactions, but I went ahead and ask her. I said what exactly happened after our initial meeting like that. I get in touch with you or did that you get in touch with me. And I know vast majority but I want to see what her recollection was and she's like, we're mean, you messaged me on Facebook.
07:21
You you sent one of those messages on one of my posts. And of course, this was before Instagram, or any of the other social medias Facebook was was really the thing and she said I put up a post and it was something about astrology. And I had commented the way that usually comment is, I give I gave backhand compliments enough to spark somebody else's interested and it goes back to the whole, you can't have what you want type thing.
07:46
But I left one of those types of comments, which kind of bugged her, but also intrigued her. And so she responded back and that kind of initiated the conversation. Now, if you're to ask me, well, Vermaine, you say there's a lot of divine intervention and and how you and her met but it seems like you were also doing things.
08:02
Yes, I was. It's not like I stopped being who I was, I was being remain. And so, you know, I, I left my little comment on there enough that it sparked enough of an interest in her to continue conversation. And you know, she said, from there we where we're messaging here and there from from Facebook, but I did enough to grab her attention and you know I was also a problem with her as we started to talk a little bit more that look again, not interested in a relationship.
08:38
I'm just figuring things out and I guess for her was also breath of fair share because I wasn't playing any games. I was being very upfront, about who I was at that time. Period. What I was trying to do and you know, During that time in our consider, it are according period.
08:56
Ultimately, because that's what it ended up being Now that I look back at in retrospect, there was stuff that I was working on as I mentioned, but during that course, especially once we met are our paths dead continue to merge. Of course, some of it was through our own doing for example, me messaging her talking, but a lot of it was more divine intervention.
09:20
Now, for those of you who are looking for your spouse significant other than your thinking. Well, so do I just let kind of things happen as they should? Yes. And no look, just like with anything else in life, and especially in the Islamic faith, we're required to take action and then leave the rest to God.
09:40
And I'll go into a little bit how I started to change things around in this particular situation with Asia as compared to my other ones. But yes, you are supposed to do things but also you're supposed to let God kind of pave the way. And so with Asia, she was going through a similar journey, and it's her story to share.
10:04
I won't go into her side of things. She's her own storyteller but she was going through a similar journey at the same time that I was. And so, a lot of the things that I was telling her but being honest, She didn't judge me for it and I didn't judge her about anything.
10:24
I didn't judge anybody at this point because I realized there's so much more that I had to fix about myself that I had, I was in no position to to judge somebody else or judge their actions or judge their lifestyle, or judge anything. I have to focus on me But as we got to know each other, We started to remove the masks that we often wear, you know, the mass that you put on because you feel that the other person if they really got to know you for who you were that they wouldn't like you, you know, being your raw self.
11:02
I remember one time we were having this conversation, there's it was on the Facebook chat, that was kind of our thing, and I eventually got her to around this time, Google was coming out with their Gchats. And, you know, we did a lot of online talking here. They're kind of was also way to pass the time at work as well, but I enjoy talking to her but we started to get to know each other a little bit more and and I remember one time We were talking and I was on online chat.
11:32
I must have been through Facebook and I remember was time for prayer. I didn't advertise anything about my faith or the fact that I actually practiced and I pray. But remember, we were getting in this conversation I just said, hey, I need to be back. I need to go, pray Salat and she's like, oh, you you pray?
11:51
I said yeah, I do. Pray, just like five times a day. I said yeah I pray five times a day and I could tell she was taken aback by this. You know she was taking a back by it And the reason why I bring this up is that we all have checklists.
12:10
We all have checklists in something that we want to see from who who's whoever's gonna be our spouse or significant other and apparently I had checked that box that was there. And I didn't know her checklist but clearly there was one and I had my own checklist for things I wanted.
12:28
In person things, I didn't want the deal makers and the deal breakers. Now, some of you may have a list that goes on and on and on and on and on. And I'll tell you this, don't do it, have a list but have a few items that are deal makers and deal breakers because look, I'm telling you this enough emphasized.
12:50
This a lot of times you're not gonna find a perfect person because a perfect person does not exist. Look at yourself, I hate to put it this way. Look at the person in the mirror. There's a lot of things there that can be worked on that can be improved.
13:07
So, if you can't find perfection in yourself, why would you look for perfection in somebody else? Have a checklist, but have a list of what our deal makers and deal breakers and be reasonable with it. Some of us are not reasonable and then we wonder why we are alone for such a long period of time or never.
13:24
Finding that person The person probably came. You just missed that opportunity. You know, I've said this God makes us in pairs but it is up to us to keep that pair when we find that person. Anyway, I digress but have a checklist she did For me. Obviously faith and religion was very important.
13:45
Now, you're probably thinking this is such a paradox for me. You're doing a lot of things. Again, I do have a Muslim base that would go contrary to your Islamic faith. Yeah, you're probably right but this is part of my journey. This is part of the things that got me to where I am.
14:04
And it's the decisions that I ultimately made that has transformed me into a person that I have, ultimately become Islam, is a spectrum. Religion is a spectrum and That's why there's different degrees of do things. I look there are certain things that are black and white, I give you that, but God opens that door of forgiveness for us that door of mercy because he knows that in our journey in finding him, we are gonna mess up.
14:33
That's part of the growth but for me faith and religion was very important. I stopped fooling myself into thinking that the person that ultimately wanted to be with what someone that could be of a different faith, It just was not gonna work. I realized that from my last relationship.
14:52
Another thing was communicating openly communication was huge. And lastly, not feeling like I needed to entertain the other person I felt like for so long. I entertained so much us so many times. The other person I got tired of it. You have so much of my past was me wearing masks, because I didn't know one who I was and I always try to act like somebody that I really wasn't.
15:24
In fact, Aussie, I called me out on a couple times, you actually got to know me and she said, look, I The person you're trying to be, that's not the real you and I was like, what are you talking about? Just like, that's not the real you, you know, this, this this this persona that you've put on and I would you do this little accent, which is again, part of the masks.
15:45
That would be like, yeah, happy. This is who I am. Just like, no, it's not. You know, I try to play this charismatic flamboyant outspoken person. Look for those of you who know me on a personal level, we'll say look a lot of those things are true about you.
16:05
You know, I I wherever I'm speaking to I will make them either the center of the room or you know, I'll make it very easy to speak to me. I'll make them very comfortable but there's a lot of things that I was trying to play a role that wasn't who I was.
16:25
And she said that's not who you are. Wasn't who we were at your core. Excuse me. And so one thing I want to say is when you find your significant other, it's ultimately about finding your full self. It's about finding your full self For those of you who follow me on Instagram, I had recently put a post in the post had to do with how people often say when you find your pair, when you find your soulmate.
17:00
So to speak that they say they are you're better half and I said they're not ASEA was not my better half, she isn't my better half. That ultimately does put too much on one person With that person. Is though that person, which what? They represent. What osteo represented was getting me to the best version of myself?
17:23
They will help unlock parts of you and they are the key for that, But you have to be willing to work on that transformation when that person comes into your life.
17:38
But you guys want to know something. Life is funny because I was about to make a same mistake again. There was another person. I was obviously speaking to a couple people at this point. They all knew about where I was in my life, but there was another person and you know, she was at the same culture and religion and so she checked those boxes but she embodied everything from my last relationship And here I was about to repeat a pattern and life will give you patterns.
18:16
Life is all about patterns that repeat themselves in order to see whether or not you have grown and are ready to move on from that pattern in so many of us, especially with relationships. So many of us fall into the same traps and patterns because we are afraid to learn.
18:34
We are afraid to move into the uncomfortable zone, we are afraid to go into that unknown and having faith that if we learned from our mistakes in the past that we can ultimately move on. But here I was about the fall into the same pattern it was just somebody who was at the same culture and same religion that check those two dots but everything boxes but everything else was absolutely the same.
19:01
And I remember one that I was on the phone and I was speaking with, with Asia at this point, we were, we were friends and I enjoyed her company and I enjoyed talking with her and she was, she was a good sounding board. And I basically told I was like this other person reminds me so much of my ex.
19:22
Now some of you are like, for me, that's not good to compare other people. She was their own person but no she was pretty much my ex. And truth is told, there was a lot of signs there that I was just again. Closing, my eyes signs that were repeating itself.
19:38
God was telling me for me, you're doing the exact same thing that you were before. You're gonna be not the exact same situation. You sure you want to do this. And so I knew I had to be honest with myself. The best advice I can give you is look each.
19:57
One of you knows what you want and what you don't want, it's best to just be honest and not people, please not please just to just for the sake of being in a relationship or being you know not being alone And that wasn't doing this because I realized it was fine for me to to be alone.
20:16
That's why I took a period of time to just kind of figure things out and change things, but I realized that stop making the same patterns. I have to stop repeating the same patterns and we'll often tell ourselves. The things are going to be different that it's going to play out differently.
20:36
But right before our eyes, we will see how life unfolds we know what's gonna happen, but we fool ourselves. And look, this is ultimately a test from God and it's not because God has vindictive. God is not and my transformation and my journey. One thing that I've really really realized there's the love that God has and a lot of you like, oh remains having another kumbaya moment.
20:59
It's true though. There's one thing about God that I've learned from my own faith is His mercy and His compassion that he asked for us. No matter our journey, as long as we're willing to come to him and ask for forgiveness, and ask for a bettering ourselves. He'll be there.
21:20
So this was a test again for me. And I think in this particular case, he helped me realize that I was about to repeat another pattern and essentially got me to to safety.
21:40
Now, Asia, as I'd mentioned, she had a very parallel term to mine around this time period. And when I look back at it, it was it was beautiful. Because now, as I was having this conversation with her at night time, I realized that there were certain decisions she was planning to make to.
22:02
And she actually told me as a result of this, but With that being said, what I will say is that our parallel experiences was beautiful. Because as we were going on this, this very, very brief journey from the time that I met her on her birthday and we were just talking we're being friends.
22:26
And the honesty that went into our lower conversations soon enough, that parallel journey was going to ultimately merge together into one. We just didn't fully realize it at that point. But that is exactly what happened, You know, within a very short period of time. I realized that I had someone before me, this being Assya, who was also changing her relationship with God, was on the spiritual journey.
22:59
She was tired of the game. She was tired of, you know, being and and situations where it wasn't really things weren't coming to to fruition from all aspects of life, trying to change things for the better. And I realized that I I really enjoyed this person a lot Now.
23:27
I asked, Asia, I was like, and this was most more recently asked, what was it that you knew that? I was the one for her. Now, she told me of course one of the first things she did was pray as Tahara. For those of you who are not Muslim, Muslim is, the horror prayers is essentially a prayer for for guidance when you're about to embark on a huge decision, you ultimately ask God.
23:52
If this decision is good for your livelihood, your faith, you know, you're afterlife to make it easier to open the doors and if it's not to take you out of that situation and bring something better Now, are you gonna have a clear-cut sign? Not always, but I think when you do praise to Hara and I've done it plenty of times things do open up.
24:18
If it's meant for you but she one of the first things she did was she prayed us to Hara and One of the other things that she said was that it ultimately was a situation where I felt like home for her. I felt like home for her. She just wants to spend time with me and it wasn't, you know, lost on us that so often a lot of these things in relationships can happen early on, I don't believe that you need to be with someone for a year.
24:51
Two years, three years often. Now, some of you may disagree and that's okay often when you are in a relationship with someone for a long period of time before you decide to to marry, There's a lot of problems that come with it. That's my, my belief, that's my perspective on it.
25:08
I don't feel like you need to be with someone for a long period of time to know if that person is the one for you or not. And we did have a lot of conversations, very early on before proposing. But three months later I did propose to her and that very short period of time.
25:26
We we talked about a lot of things that I think ultimately are items that will cause issues in a relationship. As I've said this, I wasn't perfect. She wasn't perfect but deep down I do feel like our souls knew each other and that's why it did feel like home.
25:51
But when I realized I was getting to this point. Now let me talk about how my faith came into. All this. I had made a decision especially with with osteo when I realized that I really did like her in that. There was a lot of things about her that I just couldn't put a finger on but it felt like I knew her.
26:14
I told myself I wanted to do things the right way and for me that ultimately meant look. If I see that this person is the one for me getting engaged and getting married. And so, we did talk about a lot of things early on finances. I was thinking about law school and so I had brought up, hey, what if we have to live off loans?
26:37
You know also set expectation from a cultural perspective when you do get married, you know that the family of the the bride can make certain demands. They get my daughter this or do this or do that. I told also. I was like, look if it's within my means and it's something you want and I can do, I will do it.
26:54
But if it's because your family's telling me to do X, Y and Z, I'm not the one for you. You know I was born in Afghanistan but there's a lot of the cultural things that for me growing up in the West I just looked at it very differently. We also talked about working together, children, religion, As far as children, I'll tell you this, we initially wanted seven kids.
27:18
We haven't gotten seven. I think we're stopping for my god bless them and given long happy healthy lives. But we talked about all this, you know, from religious perspective, we were in different phases, Aussie is very spiritual, I was very methodical and I needed that spiritual side rather than just going through emotions and she needed the methodological side.
27:37
So we're two pieces of the puzzle. That could really help each other so long as we were open but we talked about that as well. We talked about a lot of these things that, and we did go to one session of couples therapy, and The therapist said, look, it seems like you guys have been talking about a lot of things in a very short period of time.
27:54
You could stay here in couples therapy but I don't know if you guys ultimately need it. But we did talk about a lot of these things that we knew later on May. If may come to be a problem, and look at the time that we've been married, we've seen a lot of our friends and family members who at the same time.
28:13
Us got married, and they're divorced. I'm not saying that our marriage was was easy or that were perfect. There's a lot of work that goes into marriage, but early on, we did talk about a lot of these things. And the thing is, as you or in that marriage, you have to be ready to tinker and change things to readjust recalibrate.
28:38
You know, our families were very different. We or raise different, get different backgrounds. We have different life experiences in that played a role then and it's continues to play a role now. So the importance of talking with someone and talking with someone early on Some of you are like well that's gonna scare the other person, right?
29:00
It could scare the other person but if the two of you are on the same page and it seems like that person is wanting to move toward marriage and the union Don't be afraid to talk about it because look if they get frayed and cold feet Perhaps that person wasn't the one you know, that's the way I look at it.
29:18
I'd rather know early on than later, time is a very valuable commodity. But I think you can find out early on and you don't have to spend years and years because look, once you are married in your living together. That's when you really, really understand the quirks of somebody and you have to adjust and transition.
29:45
But look 13 years in now. Alhamdulillah. It's still working progress and love transforms and thought a bad thing that love transforms loved us transform. You know, often people say well, that was a honeymoon period at the beginning. Yes, hunting mini moon periods exist and they also change. You know, then you have kids that come in the picture.
30:07
You're your time is stretched. You have all these other competing interests and you have to understand the temporareness of everything because everything is tempered including a marriage. And so you have to remind yourself, why are you with this person? And every day it's a decision that you have to make.
30:28
Because as you have other competing interests, sometimes you'll forget about the other person and you never want to take the other person for granted. You shouldn't just like they shouldn't take you for granted. So it's important to carve time knowing that kids eventually leave and just gonna be the two of you for Asia.
30:47
Her biggest thing is having respect Respect for the other person, especially when it comes down to like this agreements arguments. Not letting ego, get in the way and that's not easy. It's not easy. Especially after you've been married for a period of time. It's, it's easy to be able to say something hurtful.
31:04
It's easy to let your anger, get in the way and Islam. There's this hadith where Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him says that when you're angry and you're standing sit down, when you're sitting down lie, down where you're lying down and move to another room, may not be verbating as that, but ultimately, it's getting to the point that you need to be in control of your anger, Healthy.
31:26
Disagreements are. Okay. In fact, I want our kids to witness healthy disagreements because they're bound to happen, and they will happen in any relationship, especially in the marriage. So I want to know that you can talk with your significant account other and disagree, but you have to be doing willing to do it in respectful manner, and there has to be love in it.
31:49
These relationships ultimately their gifts from God, you know, in a worldly sense. They are temporary and things can happen at times. That You won't be able to repair, you know, if you the marriages going well and you're able to live and share many years together at the end, one of you will die first.
32:13
You know, the relationship will end and may God give us those relationships where we are able to see or our spouse significant other, when we're in the Achara, when we're in the afterlife and reunite us and reunite our families. No children. But there are other situations things to happen, you know, we give in to our enoughs or desires and it causes issues in the marriage.
32:42
But really, it is through his mercy that he has made us into Paris. And when we work on relationship with Him, I think this will bring the person in your life that needs to be there. That's what happened with me. I decided I needed to prepare and change my relationship with God and I also wanted to move on a path.
33:03
That was in His way toward him and part of that. Also meant taking my next relationship in the manner that was different from what I had done in the past. Yeah. And so when I made those changes I think everything ultimately came together. I look, I'll leave you all this with us last part of the story.
33:29
Before I propose to Asia. I took her out for a dinner and I remember during that dinner. I was excited. I was nervous. I wasn't proposing to her den, But something happened. I it was meant to happen. We had this conversation. I won't go into what the conversation was, but at the end of it made me feel as if it ultimately made me question.
33:52
Do I really want to propose to her? I wasn't getting cold feet. I don't know. But there were certain things in that conversation, that hit my own insecurities and I left driving home. Questioning do I really want to propose to her? Is she the one? I was a lot of my insecurities and I think fear will ultimately always come into play with big decisions, but I took some time to reflect and I spoke to a trusted friend about this.
34:22
And ultimately, I decided to have faith and not. Let my own insecurities get into way because often when we, when we do find that person, we'll say, well, this isn't right, that isn't right. And sometimes those things are valid, but a lot of those things, those that's also Satan whispering into our ears and our years about the other person because Satan is not like a happy union.
34:45
He'll do everything to cause discord, especially in the marriage, but I was about to not proper post to her, Imagine how my life would have been completely different.
34:57
But when you do find a person, find someone that you're able to grow with, you're able to build with and you're able to transform life is about self-discovery. Marriage is a big part of that God will give us guides and that guide will be our other half to help us get to the best version of ourself.