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Nightmare Surfer Soufian from Agadir MoroccoReader comment on item: Advice to Non-Muslim Women against Marrying Muslim Men Submitted by Amber, May 2, 2017 at 02:28 Hello, everyone! I wanted to share more of my experience with everyone here. Please keep in mind that this is just MY experience, and I realize not all are the same, just another that happens to unfortunately match up to the stereotypes. I met this young man about a year ago online and we instantly hit it off. There was a sweetness and a sincerity in the things he would say that made me want to get to know him more and more. My very first instinct, which I regret not following, was to ignore his initial messages and not take them seriously because he was over 6,000 miles away. He kept messaging, for an entire month, like he just had to get to know me better. I gave in and talked to him and things got really serious really fast. Not even 3 months into talking, I was on a plane to see him for the first time. We were so in love and had to see each other. The fighting started before I even went to see him the first time. He would make rude comments about my body, and that really upset me. I am a curvy girl, but in a way I think a lot of people usually appreciate. I had a little bit of a belly at the time, but wasn't soooo big. He told me I needed to be more active and healthy and exercise more and eat better. He kept pushing me to go to the gym and asking me how much I weighed, things like that which were really annoying to me. He told me he loved my curves before that. He just didn't make a lot of sense, but that continues later. I went to see him the first time and I saw that he still had some active dating profiles and was still having inappropriate communications with other women on Facebook. He told me a bunch of lies and tried to manipulate me into thinking I was crazy and everything was my fault, a common theme here, it would seem. He wanted to work things out, so I told him to get rid of the accounts. He hesitated to delete them, but after a little more persisting, it finally happened. There was a point during that trip where we had a fight following what happened with the dating stuff, and we didn't say a word to each other for 3 days, after which he tried to manipulate me into apologizing by saying he was going to leave for the remaining week and leave me with his family, who barely spoke any English, while he went and did what he wanted with his friends. I was terrified by the thought of that, so I made nice for that time and for the rest of the trip, but I was really shocked at how he played that card. I went home after that and planned to return last December for my Winter Break. The fights continued, and his comments about my appearance and sometimes even my character continued. I swear, this was the MOST fighting I have ever had with someone I have dated in my life, and it is exhausting and unnecessary. One night after I finished an exam for school, he thought it was cute and funny to call me a fat ass. I got up from my class because I couldn't help the giant tears that came from my face reading that. Of course that sparked another fight, because who wants to be treated that way? We had a long discussion after that, and he agreed to stop with those comments, although he still tried to say a lot of the same things more tactfully after that. I was really nice and helped him build a website for a business he was interested in promoting, and paid the fees because he asked me to help out a little, and that wasn't a problem for me. He treated me like an employee and was constantly bossing me around and making me make one change after another to perfect things his way, which was far from the fun project I hoped we could do together. I noticed that he seemed to have less interest in playing with me on webcam, as we had done at least once a week before my first visit, and the enjoyment seemed mutual. Something he seemed to really want a lot before, suddenly coming to a screeching halt. I began to wonder if he wasn't satisfying himself in other ways, so I looked up an old username from when we talked before. The search returned results from different adult sites, many of which were webcam communities, and one said that he had broadcasted very recently. This was, of course, on a night that he told me he was really tired and needed to sleep soon. I confronted him about it, with the concern that he was camming with other people and completely neglecting me. He told me he was just on there testing his camera. He tells the dumbest lies known to man, but there is so much more! He promised he would make things right and we should 'focus on our love and just forget,' about all of the bad things he was doing. Finally, I made it back to visit again in December. I brought some very nice and thoughtful gifts for him and the family just out of the kindness of my heart. His family had been very warm and welcoming during the first visit, so I offered to bring them something. I bought him two different wetsuits and some other spear fishing equipment, which he was supposed to just hold onto the money for our adventures since he couldn't send what he had through their Western Union. I helped, but I don't think he put as much money aside as he said he was going to. We seemed to almost always be doing things that were either very cheap, or free. I think he was keeping as much of the money for himself as he could, because it didn't add up, and there should have been a bit left over. I didn't make a big deal since I was a guest and they took me in. During this second trip, I noticed he had been signing into a couple of fake Facebook accounts. I decided to check them out, and both had correspondence of the inappropriate nature with women from all over the world, of course. The conversations made it obvious he was meeting these women from the webcam sites and trying to get them to play with him when he said he was going to sleep. He had been talking to these women the entire time we had been together. He even told some of them to come visit him in Morocco. I guess they were a little smarter than me. I felt really humiliated at that point and tried to leave, but the family stepped in and asked me to stay. I don't think they really understood too much, and of course he lied to them to make it look like I was just upset for no reason. Later he apologized for all of that and agreed to delete the fake accounts he was using. Not too reassuring when you know he can just make another one in minutes. I don't think the trust was ever the same after that point. I just felt awful the rest of that trip. At one point, I was literally sick one day and he basically said I was just lazy and didn't feel like doing anything. I really didn't feel like explaining myself to a complete idiot that day, so I let him leave me there and go surf with his friends. I hung in there for the rest of that trip, also, and it seemed like almost all of the things we did centered around what he wanted to do. He didn't take the things I wanted or needed into consideration too much. I think there was ONE day we actually spent the whole day together without any friends or family or surfing. I had bought a camera for that trip as well, and I spent about 1/3 of the time I was there filming him at his request, which made me feel like he was being a little selfish with the time I had left. I was only there for 3 weeks. After I left to go home, it seemed like he suddenly missed me more and wanted to try to work on things. We were to meet in Bali next, in June. I was a little nervous and unsure about him being responsible enough to handle paying his own way. He did end up asking me to pay for his whole ticket, and when I told him I wasn't going to have the money for two tickets at once, he told me he should just go alone if I can't help him. That felt pretty awful after all of the other sweet things I had done. I stopped talking to him again at that point, but I continued to make excuses for him. He was just younger and stupid and maybe his culture encourages certain behaviors. It still didn't make it any more fun for me. I also found out that he had gone back to the fake Facebook accounts he told me he deleted because he 'needed something from them.' I'm sure that was exactly it, but he promised to make them gone after that, and they were deleted soon after. We kept going and fighting again and again because he kept making choices that were bad for our relationship. The biggest thing that was bothering me were the comments he would make about my appearance. I think he said things more to try to break my spirit so I wouldn't feel good about myself, because he was always putting himself up very high and thought he was better than me. He had some cute Facebook pics, but in person it wasn't quite the same. Still not BAD, but you know what I mean. He had an inflated ego based on the attention he got as an Instagram surfer, that kind of thing. He really seemed to need a lot of attention from social media. A LOT. I think he had some problems with his own self-confidence and wanted me to feel like I was beneath him to control me more. Too bad for him, I wasn't having it anymore. I came to the realization that I was a lot happier with myself and the way I looked before he came along, and the only way I could feel good about myself again is to get rid of the one person who made me feel like there was ever anything wrong with me. HIM. I tried to approach him nicely and tell him how he has made me feel about myself, and he just started blaming me for everything again. It was my choice to feel the way that I do, and I could just choose to be happy instead. It was my fault for starting all of our fights and just being so sick and so crazy. I told him I didn't want to be with him anymore, because I was tired of being treated that way, and he started attacking my character and appearance again. He reminded me again that I was not the only girl in this world. I told him he was welcome to go find someone he was actually happy with, since he seemed to have such a big problem with me. We didn't talk for 5 days after that, and when we did, I told him my decision to end our relationship was final. He went on to create several different fake Facebook accounts to harass me with over the past couple of days. As soon as I would block one, he created a new one that wasn't blocked. He says the same things every time. He was soooo sorry and he loves me so much and he will make everything better if I just give him one more chance, but then nothing changes. Typical pattern of abuse. Speaking of which, I found a checklist that mental health professionals use for victims of psychological abuse by their partners, and the ONLY things I could not check off and rate at the highest degree of frequency were because we did not have children together. I have hesitated on the ideas of children and marriage. He seemed to want to rush both, but we had agreed to wait until I finished school for children to be a possibility, which was two more years. For the marriage, he kept insisting we hurry on that since the paperwork could take a while and he just wanted to come see me so bad. He did nothing to help me financially with anything during this whole process. None of the trips or the paperwork he wanted me to submit for the fiance visa (still haven't, and definitely not happening now). He claimed he worked and made some money helping with a small family business attached to their house, which may have been true, but he never said anything about it or mentioned it until I started getting curious about what he was doing, other than surfing, and why I seemed to be expected to handle so much financially. He never seemed to have anything to show from that, and certainly never helped me with anything at all, if he did. At one point, he told me he had a former girlfriend who died in an accident to make me feel bad and talk to him when we were fighting. These men will literally say anything to make you come back to their madness. I asked him when he first told me about it what the girl's name was, and he told me. Later I would ask him that again because my better instincts were telling me I still can't trust him, and of course the second time, he forgot he had already been asked the same question and gave me a completely different name. He also stated before that when I asked that nobody in his circle of family or friends could verify this girl ever existed. I told him he was a terrible person who can't seem to stop telling so many lies, and have since deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts, because that was the only way I could keep him from contacting me in those places. I have also had to block his phone number so he can't call or text me. IIt is REALLY going to take NO CONTACT with this person to rid him from my life, but it needs to happen. I came into this situation with an open mind and open heart, not wanting to believe any of the negative stereotypes I have learned. Unfortunately, HE made all of those things true all by himself. I'm sure things would only get worse if I stayed. My advice to anyone who is contacted by these men is to stop everything before it starts. Ignore them, block them, whatever you have to do. Just keep them away from you because they will promise you love and happiness and break you down instead. Sorry that was long. There is more if anyone has any questions. Time to take care of MYSELF again! Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". Reader comments (21922) on this item
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