My Wife's Boyfriend - I Get Offerred A 'Harem' - 'Transfering' My Son's 'Energy'

At the start of 1994, our marriage was deeply troubled.  

I was stricken with the return of panic disorder.  Which I had experienced earlier in life under emotional stress, mainly when my intimate life was exposed or challenging.

I also had virtually given up all pretense of sobriety and drank 'secretly' at home almost daily.

I had trouble leaving the house and sometimes felt overwhelmed by fear when I did.

 For example, I had to run out of the supermarket several times, leaving a half-full basket of groceries behind.

And any form of travel was an utterly terrifying experience!

I interpreted my latest bout of panic as a symptom of my own psyche's revulsion at itself for cheating on Aisha.

I was making a terrible mistake, and my deep psychology knew it. 

I was coming unglued under the stress of my own double life.

I rationalized that I always took precautions and drew no emotional intimacy from my 'encounters.'  

But I couldn't stop engaging in them.

It was a total shock when Aisha unexpectedly showed up with her own outside relationship - a much more serious one than the furtive, one-time liaisons I'd been guilty of.

The first indirect evidence of it came one night, ironically the same night I first happened to be experimenting with 'Ecstasy' or MMDA.

A teenage friend I had given a ride to offered me a complimentary dose. 

Aisha Interrupted My Trip on the 'LOVE Drug'

So, it was extraordinarily counter-intuitive when Aisha interrupted my 'trip' on the 'Love Drug' to announce that she wanted a divorce from me.

I could hardly believe it.  For all our conflicts and disagreements, I never CONSIDERED that we might one day separate.

 I naively assumed that whatever conflicts arose would just pass away by themselves.  

I HAD been working with a therapist to try to stop drinking.  I had been prescribed Valium by our doctor for my alcohol addiction.

(And  I didn't know that that wasn't how you did it!)

But no, she would have none of it.  I thought the reason might be that Sidi was in America for the first time and destined to arrive in our Marin home in a few days.  

She may have associated his arrival with the beginning of a Sufi Millennium in North America.  With 

New Shadhiliya Order Zawiyas popping up all over the U.S.!  

This did, in fact, happen.  However, the leadership was not really in her hands or in the hands of any of Sidi's 'Old Guard.'

A new generation of disciples had arisen, as described in the chapter about Nurideen Durkee, who was ambivalent about their intentions.

The Next Generation was an 'Energy Healing'/ New Age group whose leader already had many followers.  He brought all of them to Sidi, and over time, Sidi allowed the energy healers to mainly fill his calendar in the U.S.

Aisha and other Old Timers continued their earlier version of Sidi's Teachings.  

They just tended to not bother with the 'Energy Healings.'

Aisha found her quiet niche as the de facto transcriber/publisher of Sidi's writings and oral teachings.

Or that's how it seemed to me.

I settled back into a comfortable delusion.  Sidi was coming, and I knew he was famous for rarely granting divorces in the Islamic court in Jerusalem. 

He apparently took pride in his ability to save any marriage.  So, as dependent as I believed Aisha was on Sidi, I expected her to obey him. 

So, I sat back and waited, expecting him to fix our marriage for me. 

Even though I was generally unhappy, I couldn't imagine leaving my marriage. As usual, I thought the problem was 'me.' My thinking went no further than that.  

The drinking and drugging were also destroying my ability to think clearly.  Events were proceeding rapidly—too rapidly for me to keep up.

Plus, I still needed to start attending AA, where I would find the beginning of freedom.  I hadn't even heard about it yet, really.  

So the day came, and Sidi arrived in our area.  A big meeting was organized at our house, and Sidi immediately called Aisha and me up before the crowd. 

As he had done long ago in Jerusalem, he urged us to put our hands in the other's and told us to reaffirm our marriage vows. 

Everyone Expected Sidi Would 'Fix It'

I looked around the room, and everyone was smiling.  Everyone already knew the story and expected Aisha to give in and for Sidi to 'fix it.'

Shockingly, Aisha stood her ground, refused, and ran out of the room.  

I had to ruefully admit that part of me was impressed that she was publicly DEFYING Sidi's orders, as well as my own opportunistic male chauvinism.

And, of course, MOST of me was praying she'd continue in her usual subservience to him.

I discovered that Sidi was not going to ally with me this time.  While he publicly demanded that she stay married, he had a wait-and-see attitude behind the scenes.

"Let's see what Allah makes," he told me. 

A phrase  also known as polite 'Muslim-Speak' for, "You're shit outta luck, Pal!"

The same inconclusive performance with Sidi continued for another day or so until Abdul-Hayy, a 'brother' from New Mexico, took me aside and pointed to the new person, Ali, who had been staying at our house. 

Ali had met Sidi earlier in New Mexico, where Aisha had also been, and they began a rather intense 'friendship' there. 

Ali had also taken Sidi's hand as his Sheik, giving up his commitment to another Turkish Guide in the Bay Area. 

Abdul-Hayy said, " If you want to save your marriage, you'd better get rid of that guy." 

Suddenly, it was clear!  

Ali was not staying in our house just to learn more about Sidi from her.  He was also there to steal Aisha away from me!

 Hot rage reared up inside me, and I screamed at him to get out--barely containing my impulse to seriously hurt him. 

 Aisha tearfully rebuked me for sending away "the best friend I ever had!"

I couldn't BELIEVE this was happening to me!

So, off he went, but it was already too late.  He remained in the neighborhood, and they had clandestine meetings around town and talked for hours at night on the phone.

 I complained to Sidi about this interloper and expected him to expel Ali from the Order and send him away for good.  He did NOT do so, and he did not explain why. 

 He may have thought she might come around gradually.   Or, he may have thought better about giving orders to Americans if he had been in the U.S. or if he had been a USurist.  Who knows? 

"He was the best friend she'd ever HAD!"

I was very disappointed in him.

 I began writing letters to Aisha every day, begging her to return to me and promising to be a better and more serious Muslim husband in the future.

But her heart was set on this guy.  Or just leaving.  He was wily and endlessly flattering.  He acted as if she were the Oracle of Delphi—perhaps he really believed she was. 

I realized she was letting herself be sweet-talked.  She was overcompensating for some inadequacy by imagining herself as an Oracle or Seer. 

Perhaps as she had once done with ME!!  I had sung her praises to the Heavens!!  I thought her CERTAINTY about spiritual things was the same as her REALIZATION!  I had felt the same about Sidi.

Aisha may have gradually realized that Sidi could be manipulated to accept the formerly unacceptable.

However much I speculated, Aisha was not telling me anything.  Nor was Sidi willing to threaten Aisha with any penalties to force her to defend the marriage he had so earnestly encouraged 14 years earlier!

I should have asked him to pay me rent for the hall.  I'm kidding - kind of.  I always seemed to be stuck paying the bills!

I'm lucky she ran off with an ass rather than a man of substance.  Ali couldn't even feed or house himself.  He seemingly relied on other people's charity.  (He had that 'Visionary' Thing as well.)

The kids didn't like him.  He had hit them both.. He was preachy and sanctimonious.  A more accomplished man might have charmed my children more and pulled them further from my grasp.

A more substantial guy might have taken the initiative and fended me off.  In fact, Ali had to 'borrow' money from Aisha- and thus ultimately from me—to defend himself against me in court. 

 I wanted to know more about what was going on with them.  Of course, I was concerned about what they planned with the kids and had recorded them talking about 'running away.' 

My Secret Weapon

I set up an automated cassette recorder in a corner of my office and connected it to our phone line.  Whenever someone picked up the phone, the recorder began recording. 

Hence, each morning, I listened to their excruciatingly long and (to me) vapid conversations, many of which concerned my demerits.

While some part of me reveled in my wicked cleverness, I was also heartbroken to hear myself described as a beast.  

Though admittedly, I was at a low ebb.  Dammit, I didn't WANT to be a slave of alcohol.

The final blow came one night when I heard Ali say, " Something, something...

this idea of turning Ibrahim's energy over to ME!"

My blood ran cold!! 

As I recall, Aisha didn't react or comment. 

But she said nothing against the idea, either.

 Being angry enough with one's ex-spouse might lead one to seek more exemplary adult role models for one's children.

But no one, not even a parent, owns a child's  'energy' to give away, especially to a casual lover one has just picked up at a Sufi gathering.

And how exactly does one "transfer" it? 

Suddenly, it all made sense.  Sidi himself had casually assumed authority to create marriages between total strangers.

Why wouldn't his followers, particularly those with some seniority, as Aisha had, also presume to acquire influence over the lives of unsuspecting others and try to WIELD THE SAME AUTHORITY?

In my view, Aisha and Ali were interested in gaining the power to manipulate other people through their personally-presumed spiritual superiority, the same way they saw Sidi controlling people's 'energy.'  

They were just sincere imitators of Sidi's pathological MANIPULATION of others.

I believe Ali was the WORST OF ALL in this regard.

He was lacking in personal dynamism.  He seemed to be in the habit of attaching himself to the most powerful person(s) in the room and making plans to manipulate the even weaker.

He brought out the worst in Aisha! They loved to plot against me, not knowing I heard every word—small compensation. 

It served me right for listening in, I guess

Though I was ALSO concerned for my children.  It turned out for a good reason.

A bit later, I discovered that Ali had resorted to slapping to discipline both children, something neither Aisha nor I had ever done.  

(On second thought, I once did it to Ibrahim, and he SMACKED me RIGHT BACK.  And we dissolved in laughter and tears and promised each other we'd never do it again.)

Finally, I  exhausted my patience with Ali and asked my lawyer to prepare a restraining order against him.  Although I  neglected to attend the court on the appointed date, Aisha may have realized that the man who had relied on her (and, therefore, ultimately me) to cover his legal defense expenses would not be the savior she had hoped for.

And that he was being hauled into court for his corporal punishment of her children probably sealed his fate.  But not before the damage was done to our son, who must have been utterly confused about what to do, believe, and what family loyalty meant.

I couldn't deny that my behavior was at an all-time low.  I barely even remember my life with my children after the divorce was announced, and we continued to live unhappily together as we waited for our house to sell.

                           Video of Newly Installed 'Father' Ali Attempts to 'Transfer Ibrahim's Energy'

When we did separate, and I no longer had access to their conversations, I grew worried that Aisha and Ali might run away to parts unknown with the children.  I should have known better since they were still living off of me when she and he lived together in Napa. 

But Aisha had mentioned something about running away in an earlier recorded call.  I was nervous.

I hired a private investigator to monitor their movements.  

The above video is part of what he captured.  It is significant because it indicates Ali's too-eager, 'staged' intimacy with Ibrahim.  And Zooey's total dislike of him.  Ibrahim seems only too anxious to extract himself from the embrace of this person.

I'm so grateful to have this incontrovertible record of what happened back then.  

Aisha even wanted me to handle the details of the divorce, possibly to try to escape responsibility for it.

Trying to be fair-minded, I insisted she get her own lawyer.  Who, of course, was combative and made me wish I HADN'T!

I even had to pay the lawyer to defend Ali from ME in the Restraining Order I filed against him.

The children seemed perplexed by Ali's sudden appearance in their lives, which a month earlier still included seeing me daily in our long-term home.

Zooey, notably, didn't like him and told him so to his face.  I was so proud of her.  Later, I saw another video Ibrahim had recorded.  In that video, Zooey is disheveled and ignored in a messy bedroom.  

Zooey Suffers from Ali's Indifferent 'Step-Fathering'.  Tell him off. And Cries for Mom!

I was shocked that Aisha, who usually cared about dressing the children impeccably and providing them with a clean home almost to the point of sterility, could have ended up leaving the kids in Ali's indifferent and unloving care.

I can only assume Aisha was engaged elsewhere in a proselytizing frenzy, as Sidi's First American Road Show generated all new disciples and/or curiosity seekers.

Ali had accepted our hospitality and lived in our home for a few days before I realized he was stabbing me, his host, in the back.

And Aisha kicked me to the curb as the 'Opportunity-of-A-Lifetime' arrived for her with a whole new crew of murids for Sidi!

Yay!

DOUBLE OR NOTHING?   WOULDN'T THAT BE 'Big-of-Me'?

Another indication of Aisha's UNSTABLE MENTAL STATE was her SUDDEN suggestion that I TAKE ANOTHER WIFE!!

I KID YOU NOT!  This was during the 'grace' period when we were still living in the same house together while we waited to sell it and for the divorce to be finalized.

This was HER version of a compromise to the problem of splitting up and the kids losing contact with me.

It ALSO, I think, was her attempt to SATISFY my sexual desires and absolve her of that function.

(Although, that idea hurt my feelings.  I was actually a ROMANTIC kind of person.  I wanted HER, not just a nameless female.  Mere sexual satisfaction without love was NOT what I ultimately wanted!)

It was a startling suggestion, although it seemed more like a momentary 'brainstorm' than a plan she had already worked out with Sidi .

Aisha Suggested A Two-Wife Household Compromise

Given his sexual leanings, I imagine that Sidi would have LOVED to be in the middle on some new wrinkle in the sex lives of his disciples that he could be in the middle of !

Sidi was soon to get a second wife himself, although he did wait until he was widowed.  

And she was AT LEAST 40 years his junior.  And American.  It was strange, to me anyway.  

But, then again, what wasn't strange about Sidi's personal life

I wish I could remember more about Aisha's offer.  OF COURSE, I rejected it immediately.

For one thing, bigamy is illegal in America.  And even if it weren't, it's not easy, in practice, though it's not forbidden in Islam.  (Four is still the limit, though. Just in case you needed to know.)

For another, it would have drawn me even DEEPER into the cult because I'd have TWO wives practicing within it. 

Moreover, I could see Aisha becoming WIFE NUMBER ONE in a Big Way and bossing the new one around with plenty of room for drama.

Ick.

Maybe I'm just OLD-FASHIONED, but the whole idea creeped me out.  

The other woman she mentioned was attractive, but...my God!

It creeped me out that Aisha DISLIKED me enough to divorce me but LIKED or PITIED me enough to stay married to me, so long as it was in a THREE-SOME!!

It was another "ALL OR NOTHING" moment like I had experienced 15 years earlier in Jerusalem.  I'd just be jumping from the frying pan into the fire AGAIN! 

And the poor young woman I passed on was already sickly with some auto-immune disease and passed away shortly thereafter.

How Preposterous of Aisha to presume she had the right and/or authority to set up a second marriage for her former husband.

How would she 'sell' the idea to the 'new woman'?

How would she make me look like ' New Husband material' when it was already well known she was divorcing me? 

The SADDEST THING of all was that there seemed to be NO Emotion on Aisha's part.  

She didn't seem to CARE about ME at all!

HOW could a woman that CARED about me propose to SHARE me with ANOTHER WOMAN?

It was so utterly depersonalizing and depressing.  

Maybe Aisha just didn't know how to be a 'person'.

Maybe she considers everybody a chess piece. Including herself.

Once again, its difficult to parse out the truth without active participation from either her or Sidi.  And even if there were participation, how could I be sure it would be 'honest' after so much LYING !?

The Little Birdies Leave the Nest Too Early!

Aisha had a choice whether or not to leave me.  Our son, Ibrahim, didn't.  

Ibrahim had to go with her because I was employed and on the road a lot,  and she wasn't.  As far as I know, Ibrahim didn't blame me for the divorce at that point; he was only 11.

But given his proximity to Aisha and Ali's chattering about my demerits, he ultimately began to refuse court-ordered visitations with me.

Children, particularly boys, often like to take on all the power they can.  It makes them feel powerful.

Aisha was not discreet about her negative feelings toward me.  Zooey reported that she had told them, "He's a father, but he doesn't act like a father."

Aisha also never sought anyone else's opinion -  certainly not that of a therapist or other psychological practitioner.

Like Sidi, she held that 'therapy ' essentially was the realm of self-serving quackery.  

As the story went, it was in the self-interest of counselors that their clients would never get well because if they did, they would stop providing income for the therapist.

Of course, this was only a wildly fanciful conjecture and entirely self-serving. At least with Licensed Therapists, a long series of supervised accreditations existed.

 This is much more substantial than, say, the fact that Sidi's genealogy can be traced back to that of the Prophet, which is also breathlessly included in Sidi's biography as if a person's 'bloodline' alone carried some sort of weight - some sort of special permission to push around others.

We were required to attend one counseling session with a Court-appointed Therapist as part of getting a divorce.  

It was likely Aisha's first therapeutic experience, clearly hated it!   She sputtered about it for days afterward--how invasive it was, how 'impolite' the therapist had been, etc.

As I recall, the children were also required to undergo at least one psychological evaluation, a fact which Aisha also hated and considered potentially undermining of her authority and likely damaging to the children also.

The County also offered a longer-term therapeutic service for children of divorce called "Kids First."

I would have loved for our children to receive external guidance and help from someone outside the family.  

But with this, as with every other case, Sidi's laughable, 8th Century misunderstanding of the role of psychologists and Aisha's cultic predilections were the determinative factors, and the kids lost the opportunity to have their feelings about their parents' upcoming separation explored and their requests honored.

Ibrahim Learnd of Our Divorce By Overhearing It.

I had already witnessed Ibrahim's grief-stricken reaction when he had learned of our upcoming divorce.

It is a moment burned into my memory.  He accidentally overheard a conversation I was having about it with a friend on the phone.  

I couldn't help but put myself in his position, and I felt such helpless pity for him and for all of us.

I didn't know how to comfort him, and I barely knew how to comfort myself.  My world was collapsing around me, and I couldn't help but compare him to myself and wonder how I might have adapted to such a blow.

Aisha would try to belittle any sadness the children expressed and stress 'the positive', whatever that meant, rather than admit that breaking up, in the kids' view, was not the same as it was for her.

In fact, I saw her behavior as inadvisably drawing the children closer to HER world, into her own grief and pain, and feeling victimhood.  

I imagined her constantly repeating her grievances in endless conversations with Ali and others who, not knowing me, likely would be sympathetic to her point of view.  

Zooey's precocious, naive sincerity and courage to love me despite all the confusing and adverse conditions gave me the courage to try to continue living—at least to support them and see them as much as I could.

Zooey soon told me everyone was dissing her and felt she was being urged to choose between her mom and me.  I genuinely thought that she was mistaken and told her as much.  She firmly told me she was not.

She said she'd stood up for me, too.   I was so grateful for my precious child, who had continued to enjoy seeing me despite the non-stop accusations.  She validated for me that I was still worthy of somebody's love.

"Daddy...Daddy...I love you more than her!!"

One time, a few months later, I took her back to her mom's home after a visit with me.  She started crying before she reached the door.

Then, she turned around and murmured, "Daddy...DADDY!  I love YOU more than HER!"

My heart fell down into to my shoes.

Of course, I wasn't competing in a personality contest with Aisha.  But Zooey gave me a desperately needed encouragement not to despair—and simultaneously, yet another wound.

Muhammad has an oft-quoted saying that "divorce is the least pleasing to Him of all the things Allah reluctantly allows".   

That's very wise, but in those days, children reverted to their father and his family, unlike most Westerners today.

Both of my girls seem to have gotten through it okay.  (Teresa was already grown up, in any case).  Not my son, though.  He's still fighting his own demons.

Anyway, divorce is almost always a sad story.  I've never fully heard Aisha's side, which differed from the one portrayed here. 

There's no doubt I bore the responsibility for the suffering I visited upon my ex-wife and kids vis a vis my addictions. 

In Aisha's mind, I'm guessing,  the marriage itself was based on the unspoken assumption that a few days in Sidi's zawiya, taking his hand as his student, and marrying a total stranger should have been sufficient grounds for recovery from alcohol and drug addiction.

I later learned that while a change in my spiritual condition was necessary for me to overcome my addiction, neither being Sidi's disciple nor Aisha's husband ALONE was ENOUGH.  I needed a Program.  I needed the help of other addicts/alcoholics who understood the condition from the inside.

I hadn't APPLIED myself with sufficient force.  Yes, but why hadn't Sidi QUESTIONED ME MORE CAREFULLY right at the beginning about that?

In fact, why hadn't my DISCIPLESHIP or my MARRIAGE been made conditional on my attainment of sobriety for a certain length of time?

In AA, it is generally advised (though not actually in the literature) that people REFRAIN from initiating a relationship of a forar from the date of their initial sobriety.

Their brains are too addled, and usually, their circumstances are too chaotic for alcoholics to even ATTEMPT to start a long-term relationship in early sobriety.  

Yet there I was, with less than 30 days' worth of sobriety back in Jerusalem, being given an Arabic spiritual name, membership in a new spiritual group, a new wife, and a new stepchild.

What LUNATIC would have thought that THAT was a good idea?  

Well, (ahem)   I did.  And Sidi and Aisha did, too.

I gradually learned that Sidi's spiritual guidance was a farce - he was just too far out of the loop -  and Aisha routinely overrode it to get what she wanted.

Too often, in my own case, I often retreated rather than raise a fuss and let Aisha make the decisions about the children. This worked out okay for the two girls, with me present as the mostly unseen financier.

It failed miserably with our son, Ibrahim, who was yanked around from school to school, never able to put down roots anywhere or continue school friendships.  Always getting new and different curricula.

Yet she rarely, or possibly never, admitted she needed help managing h  m. To do that would be to admit that her spiritual expertise was insufficient grounds to make uninformed, subjective choices about anything and everything. 

It turned out that there were some things she just COULDN'T do alone, including the parenting of a young man.  In that regard, she evidently thought the best thing to do was to let him do ANYTHING he wanted.

Ibrahim was eager to enter the adult world, and at the beginning of his work life, he made quick progress in IT. 

Unfortunately, he also found it challenging to sustain balanced long-term relationships - with most of his early ones being with 'safe' divorced women who were 20+ years older.  (Some of these were women first came to his mom, seeking advice).

And his substance addictions were monumental.  I hope and pray they have finally relented.  Though, as someone who has spent 30 years in Recovery, I have yet to see the spiritual transformation in him that I usually see in others who have long-term periods of sobriety.  

I threw away my earlier opportunity to pursue a genuine spiritual life on my own terms in a Buddhist Sangha because I let myself get greedy for a free airplane ticket, and hence ended up part of Sidi's Sufi Theater. 

And then, having instead become a 'householder,'  I had the children I was given through my marriage yanked away from me by a manipulative disciple of my flawed 'Guide',  who didn't know how to let me have a role in their lives once she was done with me.

It was for me to learn later that I had been the victim of Sidi's long con, which continues to entice the broken and unwary.

-------------------------------------------

Footnote:

*Which DID, in fact, happen.  Only the 'leadership' was not in her hands.  Or in the hands of any of Sidi's 'Old Guard.'

Or so, at a distance, it seemed to me.

A second generation of disciples had arisen. They were highly ambivalent about their intentions.

The Next Generation was an 'Energy Healing'/ New Age group whose leader already had many followers.  He brought all of those to Sidi, and Sidi allowed his calendar inUS U.S. to USaken USith events organized by the Energy Healers.

Aisha and other old-timers continued with their earlier iteration of Sidi's teachings and fuqara.  Which still revolved around traditional formulations of Islamic Sufism combined with some of his signature innovations such as the Automatic Writing 'seances' and 'instant marriages.'  They just tended to not bother with the 'Energy Healings.  'I don't know how these two sets of 'bedfellows' interacted.  They didn't seem to be mutually exclusive or in conflict.  Perhaps the presence of Sidi kept them in alliance.

Aisha found her niche as the de facto transcriber/publisher of Sidi's writings and oral teachings.  After all the stress and frustration of trying to find another place to live after we were married, she had to surrender to living in Northern California to be close to Teresa's family, to allow me access to our children, and because Northern California had become a hotbed of people interested in Sidi's Teachings.

But she continued to flaunt convention.  Rather than keeping my last name or resuming her maiden name, she changed her last name to 'Al-Jamal'—not typical in Sidi's branch of Sufism.  She also usedthis previoust name when enrolling Zooey in school—a slap in the face to me and my parents, and I am sure it was not a decision that Sidi was consulted on.

I recall that I received a letter from her a few months after we'd broken up.  It was odd.  It had a strangely dark and medieval tone to it.  It was a request to get back together.  But it also sounded like she was trying to pull the wool over my eyes and trying to say the whole episode with Ali had somehow been for my benefit.  To put me through some sort of trial by fire.  It asked if I was ready to start a new chapter in my life.  I think.  I wish I had saved it.

Aisha was so bottled up that she couldn't admit to being human. I felt sorry for her, but I also felt sorry for myself—sorry for all of us.

But she shattered, ultimately, my self-confidence and my self-worth.  Even a relatively successful second marriage couldn't put me all back together after I lost my children.  Ah, well.

And I really did lose them. Even though, on the surface, 'at least' I had this or that experience with one or both of them, all those tiny scraps of memory hardly seemed like enough to compensate for all the lazy weekend mornings, boring long drives, school projects, etc., that I missed—the ' dailies.'

When I DID see them, I was always conscious that I was not in favor of their mother.  I couldn't relax, or only just barely.

Most of the time, anyway.  I rolled with it.  And maybe it's the job of a lifetime many of us experience- to not wish for a different past than the one we had.  But accept it for what it was and PLAN for a better future!

Aisha's Issues Are Still Waiting to Be Addressed

Reading over everything I have written, I realize I've made one important question that is STILL to be answered.

Is Aisha 'Playing With a Full Deck?'

I've more or less tried to be humorous about the personality factors she presented, but I think there is a sadder reality inside her.

I don't think her parents loved her enough.

She used to talk about how they favored who two brothers, basically turning her into a house maid for them.

And while they had ambitions for her brothers, only saw her as a future hairdresser.

I don't think her parents hugged her or said, 'I love you' very much.  In fact, she told me the first time she remembers it, she was heading off for college and her mom hugged her goodbye.

She said she spent the whole journey thinking about that wonderful embrace.

I've complained about how we're STILL nothing like 'friends. '  

I've been, frankly, mystified why that persists.  Why she ignore all my emails and texts. And I've blamed her for being that way - assuming she was just making ME the 'fall guy'.

And, as a Black Belt, Co-Dependent,  my first impulse IS to blame myself.

My second impulse is to get made at her for 'deliberately' putting the blame on ME for the failure of the marriage.

I rarely got as far as my Third Thought, which is that She Never HAD the Bandwidth for a Mature, Loving, Human Parnership.

Well, I believe that part is still missing.  And she is 'pretending' she doesn't need to find it.

All along, I was 'presuming' she had a normal childhood but just, like me, somehow got tracked into a search for Enlightenment.

In my own case, I was fortunate to have found a second wife who loved me more-or-less unconditionally.  

And, as the only child of two loving parents, I was capable of loving others, and myself, though that ability got clouded over by drugs and alcohol and a certain pernicious 'worldliness'.

Aisha's limited capacity for love may have been further extinguished by a First Marriage wherein her husband cheated on her.

I STILL believe there were times WITHIN our marriage when love emerged from it's shell.

But Aisha had wagered EVERYTHING on my becoming a SUFI KNIGHT.  Someone who was simultaneously 'In the World, but not Of the World'.

I even think she lowered her standards in my case, because, as the marriage went on, I clearly lost interest in Sufism.

But my one-time refusal to continue our sex life might have marked the end for her.

Then, she dangerously repeated the SAME SCENARIO WITH ALI that she had with ME.  

A crazed, leap in the dark with someone who LOOKED like a spiritual aspirant along the same lines as her, but who had obvious personality defects which were visible to everyone but her!

Aisha's story is far from over, but I can't write it for her.

I begins with accepting one's past the way it is and not hoping for a different one.

It helps me remember 'the good things', which in our case were the children we had together.

It also helps to get professional advice and help.  Not the 'magical' and mostly irrelevant guidance of a fallen Guide from another culture.

It truly makes me sad to think that not only was there no love in her heart for me near the end - but maybe there never WAS to begin with.  I guess I had just sort of assumed it.  I know I loved her, although, at this moment, I can't explain it very well.

We both may have had a hard time with the 'love thing' for different reasons. That may be why we gave up and let a third party set up our marriage FOR us.