why i am decentering my husband.

which came first: the happy spouse or the happy house?

whether you’re single af, married af, or in a complicated af situationship, i’m confident this message found you for a reason.

20 year old me would be judging me rn.

20-something y/o rima could have written a novel on being happily single (and trust me, it would’ve slapped).

the main theme would have been this: if you focus on making your solitude feel so sexy and irresistible, then you’ll realize that “finding a man” isn’t an accolade, but more like a valuable accessory to an already gorgeous life.

and since 20-something y/o me knew that she was on to something, she would not have predicted that the happily married, 30 something y/o version of herself would forget everything she once learned.

*cues jcole* “the realest sh*t i ever wrote (lol)

i’m not sure exactly when, but somewhere in the last 4 years of my happy, healthy relationship, i unconsciously made my husband ahmad the star in my story.

before we get into that though, i want to tell you a story about 20 year old rima (so you can see that i clearly knew better lol).

when i was in my early 20s, i bought this really cute easel from ikea to put in my bedroom. every here and there, i would write affirmations or poetry on there for me to look at every day.

during this time, i wrote a short poem called “self assurance,” and it went like this:

for me, for me, for me. before it could ever be for you, too.

i decorated my easel with these words and kept them there for months. i needed the reminder.

one weekend, my oldest brother was coming back home to visit from dubai. i prepped my bedroom for him to stay in for the weekend (it was actually his bedroom first — you know, younger sibling things).

while i certainly didn’t want to be perceived by my (at the time) judgey big bro, i didn’t even think to hide the easel. i guess i had just grown so accustomed to looking at it that i kind of forgot it was even there.

not even a day into his trip, and he turned my poem into a punchline in front of my family: “for me, for me, for me??? really? i mean how selfish can you get?”

i just laughed it off and deflected, feeling super misunderstood and ashamed.

any creative will feel me on this: someone witnessing your work when you weren’t ready feels like such a violation. so i def wasn’t going to further humiliate myself by trying to explain just how unselfish my poem was.

it would take years before i’d open up to my (now not at all judgy) big bro about what that moment really was for me. that the poem was about my relationship with our dad — the only man i’ve ever idolized. i explained that the poem was a coming-of-age reminder that, despite how badly i wanted to make baba proud, despite how tempting it felt to do things *for him,* i needed to know that my decisions were my own. i needed to do it for me first.

that short poem was an every day reminder to decenter my favorite man and re-center myself. a wise declaration that my life can only ever be my own.

just years after writing that poem, baba passed away unexpectedly. and while his untimely death left me with way more questions than answers, one question stuck with me for life: if i had done it all for him, who would i even be in his absence?

my 20s: finding sexiness in my solitude

after losing my favorite man, i felt determined to really double down on self love. i didn’t realize it at the time, but i lowkey romanticized my grief journey lol.

i took it as an opportunity to re-evaluate relationships that weren’t serving me. i poured into my mental and physical health. i even donated or sold over half of my closet. i was also living alone at the time, so i spent tons of time with me, myself and i.

i found something so insanely beautiful in my solitude. i found that i was so much more than enough. that anything or anyone else was just…extra. i was still just as enthusiastic about love and marriage, but i wasn’t in any rush at all. there was no need to “fill the void” because…there was no void to fill.

just a daily invitation to savor my sweet, sexy solitude.

(you probably guessed it by now) just when i wasn’t looking, ahmad started pursuing me (if you’re interested, THIS vid tells you more about our hilarious dating story).

when ahmad and i got married, i just assumed that the natural next step would be to grant him vip access to everything. to make him my all day, every day companion. we worked out together. we worked from home together. we cooked and ate together. for the first two years, it felt like we were literally never not together.

and while i know that this is pretty “standard” for married couples, it was less about what we were doing and more about my extreme shift in focus. i decentered myself to center him. ironically, i did the exact opposite of what attracted this relationship in the first place.

why (and how) i’m re-centering myself

before i explain further, i want you to know that my boo is beyond worthy. i mean, i did choose him. but what marriage is teaching me is that we would both actually be happier if i focused on myself first. that “decentering men” doesn’t just stop when that man is your man.

in fact, you’ll know you have a good one when they support you putting yourself first.

so after reflecting on all of this, i outlined the following 5 rules for decentering ahmad and recentering myself. i go through them in way more detail in this youtube vid i just posted, so check it out for a deeper explanation:

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my rules on decentering your man:

1. as a woman, you set the tone: i really hate to be cliché but, happy wife, happy life isn’t wrong lol. i find that most women are emotionally stronger than men. we have incredible capacity to not only hold space for our man’s emotions, but we also really do set the tone for our household. when you make sure you’re good, you have the capacity to make him feel good too.

2. do it for you first: people pleasing truly pleases no one. lately, whenever i’m making a big decision, i ask myself: why am i really doing this? if i’m *only* trying to please him at my own expense, i re evaluate. but if i find that it’s one of those things where making him happy will also make me happy, i go for it. doing it for you first will ensure you don’t set yourself up to resent him later. which brings us to….

3. resentment is always about you: you need to hear this boo. resentment is a map. follow those feelings and you’ll find out exactly where you fell short on supporting yourself and upholding your boundaries. i know it feels so much better to self victimize or even criticize, but it’s nobody’s full time job to have your back but you. (watch the vid above for more tips on how to prevent resentment from creeping in)

4. your life is a pinterest board: and he’s just a pin or two. remind yourself that your life is your own. that you get to curate your own vibe, and you’re grateful that he gets to witness some of that with you. these days, i go to the gym with or without him (even though lately he’s been tagging along because i’m ON IT hehe). my morning routine is mine. i’m picking up volleyball again this year.

5. stop trying to make him understand you: i can’t remember the exact moment when i stopped caring to be understood (yes even by my husband), but it was exhilarating. and then an insane thing happened — i started feeling more and more understood (by him and other important people in my life!). what if you looked at your relationship as an exciting work in progress? where every day presents new opportunities for deeper understanding of one another?

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