Samaiya Mushtaq
speaker
81 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2025
last heard Jun 2025
Samaiya Mushtaq’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
The Daily · ‘Modern Love’: If You Want This Kind of Love, Don’t Expect it to be Easy · 1 Jun 2025
podcast
There wasn't anything wrong with him. Sure, he's not emotionally complicated, but maybe emotionally being simple is a good thing.
I didn't really hear about marriage as this really joyful or emotionally connected type of union. It seemed like much more. You marry somebody that you have a lot of shared characteristics with, you have children with them, and you raise those children.
Those moments where I was really vulnerable talking about something and the reaction wasn't like an emotional hug. It was just, it was, those were so painful.
He was watching TV or something, and I just went into our room, and I sat down, had my back against the door, and I just cried. And that's when I think I really understood this is not something that's sustainable. I liken it to death by a thousand paper cuts.
I had separated, stayed with my parents, tried to go to couples therapy, went back, separated again. And then that second time, I was like, you know, I just have to make a decision, go through that tunnel of anxiety and fear and shame and get to the other side.
Thank you, Anna. I'm excited to be here.
I think at that time, it was definitely made harder that I just didn't know anyone who'd gone through that. And it just seemed like such a U-turn and failure. And I don't mess things up so colossally. So to be able to acknowledge that, not just to myself, but then to have this be announced to anybody I've ever met and have them know, it just felt so embarrassing and shameful.
So we're all in my parents' living room. It was middle of August or something, I think, in 2016. Their formal living room, which is also, I think, interesting. And my husband was there, my parents, his parents. And my understanding going into it was that this is where my husband and I were going to share this decision that was, if not necessarily mutual, but we both had aligned on.
But then it was more the parents in particular really trying to talk me out of it. So lots of questions from his parents, my parents. I remember my mom specifically saying, he doesn't hurt you. He's not a bad person. And his mother saying something about how, you know, he took me traveling to so many countries.
It was like a case being made by everyone about why what I am deciding is wrong and how he's right and I need to course correct. And I think that's probably the peak of loneliness for I felt so solitary and so alone in that decision. And it was like, is my judgment off? Like, have I just been interpreting the last three years wrong?
It had such an impact on my psyche of like, I can't trust anything I think or feel or decisions I make. I can't even make eye contact with anybody because I felt so ashamed. And I'm looking at my parents' rug. And I just, I don't know what I reached into within myself, one little like flame left of like, maybe I am right.
Maybe I just need to trust this tiny shred I have left of certainty in myself and belief that what I think and feel and understand matters. And I just said, I can't do it anymore. And I looked at my husband at the time then, and I knew how much I was hurting him. I knew how much I was hurting everybody. And I felt like the most selfish and terrible human being, but I knew it needed to be done.
It's like somebody has to call the time of death, and I just had to do it.
It felt like I had possibility again and that that was a good thing, that there was joy and excitement and anticipation. And it wasn't even for a different person. When I made the decision to end the marriage, it was never with the idea that I would meet a better person or have a better marriage. It was with the idea that I may be alone, but And that's okay.
Like, that is a better place to be than the loneliness of being married in this marriage. And so it was like that just burst open and life could be so many things and that wasn't scary anymore. I am so damn happy for you.
It was exciting. And then once I got on the apps, it's interesting because they ask you your marital status on these apps. And there's a never married option. One of them didn't have single. It had never married. or divorced or widowed, I think was another option. So I had to select divorce. I couldn't put single.
And so it was from the get-go on my profile, it's right there, which, you know, I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it filters out anybody who's just not going to be interested in someone who's been divorced. But on the other hand, it's just so reflective of some of the stigma still that that's a filter. Yeah.
Regardless of my first experience, it was important for me to meet someone who was Muslim. That was just something that I knew was non-negotiable for me and for the marriage I wanted and the lifestyle I wanted. And so I only went on apps specific to the Muslim community. And so there's two. At that time, they were called Minder, like Muslim Tinder, and then Musmatch.
Yeah, I think it was a little bit more passive. It was just sort of starting to almost... Just start to think about the next chapter. I think that's really what it was about. Just what could it look like for me to find someone and be married again?
Yeah, I think the biggest thing was just I wanted to feel a sense of home and belonging. And like, this is my person. This is my best friend. And that's what I wanted. I just wanted the person who is going to be my emotional rock.
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