![](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Feuw2-mdc-prod-website-4k96qtui.muzz.com%2Fwp%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F06%2Fheader.png&w=640&q=75)
September 19, 2015
Dear Happily Married SuperMum,
Hi there.
You won’t find your soulmate on this blog post but you might find them on Muzz - the world’s biggest Muslim dating and marriage app.
You already know me so I won’t go into too much depth describing myself: I’m basically the antithesis of everything you are – the all-too visible single brown elephant in the room. You know, the +30-year-old “bogey-woman” who looks like she’s having way too much fun being single to get married and who, instead of being the heroine little girls used to be told to look up to, is now used as the subject matter for multiple horror stories (“warning little would-be astronaut: this is what happens to you if you’re TOO outspoken/opinionated/intelligent and don’t get lucky like your mumsy did. You die ALONE”).
It’s hard being me.
No, really.
It is.
Mainly because the likes of me are constantly being compared to the likes of you. As though in between looking after ourselves and our families, holding down jobs, paying our taxes and mortgages, looking after ageing parents and basically surviving how we can, we’ve been sleeping away the years instead of attempting to reach that supposed pinnacle of human endeavour: marriage.
And to be honest, it’s exhausting.
Because at the end of the each and every day, what we are essentially having to defend ourselves against is a serious case of victim-blaming. We’re the victims – nay survivors – of a world (be you Muslim or not) that still places women’s worth on their marriage v singledom status. We’re not the ones at fault here. Trust me. And here’s why:
So, to all Happily Married Supermums out there, I offer my congratulations. You got lucky – extremely lucky, and I’m truly happy for you. But your circumstances were/are not the same as mine, so nor will my life-path be. I didn’t meet the love of my life in/before/straight out of university. Nor did I encounter him in my work-places or through my family’s attempted arrangements. So instead, I’m simply getting on with my life – refusing to marry men who I know I could never love and who simply wouldn’t “get” me. I don’t deserve censure for the way my life is going – nor do I need to be constantly treated like something that needs to be ‘fixed’.
So please, the next time a 25-year old comes to you for marriage advice, tell them what I tell their counterparts: love and marriage will come, if and when God wills it. By all means look and be open to it, but don’t forsake your own life – or careers – or sanity waiting. Men certainly aren’t expected to. Women shouldn’t have to either.
By Onjali Qatara Rauf
Source article: http://shespeakswehear.com/2015/09/11/an-open-letter-to-happily-married-supermums-who-got-lucky/