When Life Takes a Different Turn: Embracing the Unexpected

Growing up, I always saw that life goes in a linear manner. I thought that life happens in the following order:

1. School

2. Graduate from School

3. College/University

4. Graduate from University

5. Get a job and stay in a company for several years (interchangeable with the next step or simoultaneously)

6. Get married

7. Get children

8. Grow in your career

9. and life goes on..

The first few steps were as listed, although I moved schools more than anyone I know and changed majors in university 3 times. Despite that, I believed I would meet the love of my life during university and get married right after. I really wanted to be with someone who knew me as a student, whether someone who knew me through highschool or university. I wanted someone who knew me in my youth. I still think that's nice, but at the time that was a major point for me. And that was exactly waht I manifested.

I met someone during my second year of university. We were both mutually interested in each other and he checked off everything I had on my list at the time that made up a perfect partner. He was older, very good looking, stylish, older than me, working, similar culture, from a neighboring country, and had the same faith. I believed these were the first things to check off my list before getting to know him as a person. I fell in love with our story. I loved him. As I got to know him, he matched everything that I liked. He matched my interests. I was very non judgemental at the time, I gave the benefit of the doubt 10 times before I judged someone. I was only 20 years old. I had my doubts, but I overlooked them as I believed I needed to really get to know him before judging anything or following any strange gut feeling. How I saw the plan going: I would graduate, get married to him right away, work, and continue life together.

Two years pass and we were together and had discussed marriage. Upon graduating university, he met my parents. I gave him the chance to continue his Masters degree before coming to ask for my hand while also waiting for my parents' approval of him. Another 2 years go by before we were officially engaged in 2017. The plan was delayed. I thought we would be married by the end of 2015.

Another year goes by before we have the wedding. In April 2018, we are finally married and living together. My plan was a little off, but I thought that it's fine, we can just continue the plan from where we are. The next steps were save a bit, travel around for a year, and then have a baby. Simple right? I couldn't be more wrong.

Life through a batch of curve balls I did not see coming.

I started working in Dubai in August 2018 and began contributing to the household. With every month that went by, the more serious life got. Phone bills, electric bills, car service, rent, and many more payments kept increasing. I was not exactly aware of the amount of debt he had accumulated over the years. I wasn't aware of the level of insecurity we were living in. I wasn't sure why we were in such an insecure state. The first year goes by and we hadn't traveled anywhere but to Jordan for about a week to visit my family. Not the traveling I was expecting. Time was flying and we weren't getting anywhere. I ended up changing jobs 3 times in the first year of working in Dubai as the environments, the pay, or the companies were not stable or sustainable.

The more time passed, the problems between us increased. We were in no financial position to have a baby. Despite this, we were trying, at least I was. Nothing seemed to happen however. Two years go by and I'm now turning 28, with zero savings, no children yet, stuck at home due to the pandemic with no job, waiting for my 4th job to decide to resume. End of 2020, I had the shock of a lifetime when I followed my wrenching gut feeling for the first time when I checked my husband's phone for the first time to find out that he had not exactly been committed to me since we first got together in 2013. I was devastated. I still held myself together and decided to give him a chance to change his ways (because we were had already had many problems in the present, let alone the past which to me now no longer existed, the core/foundation of our relationship).

I changed jobs again to my 5th now. I was still helping financially, but somehow we were going backwards rather than forward. Debt was increasing, payments were increasing, and the idea of having a baby was getting further away. Despite the logic that it was not time for a child, I still really wanted a baby, and I went through numerous checks with doctors to ensure that I was okay. And I was perfectly fine, so the next step was that I now start enhancements to increase the chance of conception.

The plan I initially had had begun to fall off the wagon...

After 2 years of actively trying to have a child and going to doctors, and the 3rd year before those two of just montoring and tracking ovulation and following the timing without success, I was in my 6th job. I decided that after the final pregnancy trial that it was a sign that we were not meant to have children then.

I had a major car accident that year (2022). It was a turning point, and things took a turn for what seemd to be worse at the time. Definitely making life more difficult than it already was for me. Just when I thought the craziness would end and I would finally follow at least some of my plans, life said I have other plans. I found out I was married to a narcissist (more about narcisissm in other posts). I knew that matters would only get worse if I choose to stay and that I really needed to make a decision on how I wanted my life to play out. We had been together for almost 10 years by then, a third of my entire life, which only makes such decisions as leaving that much harder. However, even though I loved him, living with him was coming at a great cost, myself. I was beginning to lose my mind. I knew it, I saw it, but couldn't do anything about it so long as I was with him and under his influence. I knew I had to leave the false reality I was living in.

The next thing you know, I'm getting scans for my neck after the car accident, then find out I have a lump in my thyroid, which turns out to be stage one cancer. I will spare the details but getting the official diagnosis took about 6-8 months of a whole sequence of events. Now I had a bigger problem to take care of than my relationship. I put my relationship aside and started to work on taking better care of myself. I had the operation and was still healing, when my husband decides to sell the house we were living in without my knowledge. I knew I needed to leave but still nothing was happening, until one day, he twists my arm and pinches me and I call the police and leave the house.

That day was a turning point in my life. As was finding out I had cancer, having not gotten pregnant after hormone therapy, eye-opening discussions with some people. Leaving the house, though, was a physical change and action that I took. I felt strong but also broken.

I loved that house. It was my home, I had been through so much while living there. I chose it (it was the second house we lived in and this one we bought, I paid the downpayement then continued helping him with his mortgage payments monthly), I decorated it, I took care of it.. it was mine.

My life as I knew it was over. It was bittersweet. It was a positive move when looking at it logically, but that is not how it feels when you are living it. The issues that emerged after leaving were far from over but I'm dealign with them.

Here I am, at the age of 31, without children, single, 11 years after initially meeting the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. Now focusing on myself and on my life, I realised that life doesn't work in a linear direction, pattern, or order. It can shift and twist and turn and morph and change in ways you can never imagine or never expected. All you can do is be grateful for whatever does come your way and work towards what youwant to come your way. But don't get too hung up on things happening in a specific way or order. Be open to the way life wants to fulfil your soul. Sometimes its not in the ways we imagine or expect. In the end of the day, God wants the best for you and you have to believe that. Because what's the alternative? Life works in mysterious ways to bring you want you desire most. I am excited to see what life has in store for me or to find out why I had to go through what I went through because the bigger the challenges, the better the rewards.

Throughout the challenges, remember that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, despite you not being able to see it yet. I know what I went through could have gone much worse, but you need to find the little blessings that are always there along the way, like catching my cancer at an early stage due to the car accident, and having left the relationship without children rather than being connected with that person for life. There are many ways we can see the challenges we go through, but it is of utter importance to focus on how your challenges are happening for you rather than to you.