CHOOSING YOUR REFLECTION
TITLE: Multiplying Happiness
DURATION: 33:24

Getting married is an event that holds a different meaning for everyone. For some, itÕs based on religious traditions, and for others itÕs a validation of an earlier choice they made to live with that special someone they love.Ê

Hi, IÕm Lauren, and welcome to Choosing Your Reflection; a series of discussions that reflect upon the reasons we have for choosing our wedding day outfits.Ê Our guests are diverse, but they all share a common journey.Ê

As they share their stories, theyÕll help us unravel the mystique that exists around choosing that special outfit, and what they learned about themselves along the way.

Lauren: Welcome, welcome, welcome, Md Ansar Ali! Thank you for joining us today. I'm excited to get to talking and learning a little bit more about you. So could you just introduce yourself, tell us about you, what you do, when you got married, and anything else you want to share.

Ansar: Thank you, Lauren, for having me. It's a pleasure being here. I don't know why my dad put Md as initials, it stands for Muhammed. But I'm known by everybody as Ansar. 

I'm currently a relationships and mind coach. I help people through getting past traumas, healing through that, building confidence, and then learning in depth about relationships, attraction, dating, understanding the foundations of what makes great passionate relationships. 

And I've basically been doing this and learning this myself through the last ten to twelve years when I took a self-discovery journey myself in overcoming these problems that we commonly face in society -- in I think the beginning of mankind to be honest with you -- when it comes to relationships. 

Originally I started in the concept art industry, design field, illustration. I was very passionate about doing illustration and stuff. And I got my artwork published in books and magazines. And it was after that period I started questioning myself as to what do I want in life now? What do I want in terms of intimacy? Where do I want to go in terms of my marriage and the person that I want to find for my life partner?

Because within the culture that we grew up in the Bangladeshi Asian community, a lot of that is done by your parents, right? You need to make sure you have a good job, a good degree, you have a house. And once those things are established, then your parents start hunting for possible brides or husbands. 

But the issue nowadays is that itÕs not as easy as it used to be. And also people are very skeptical in terms of your earning potential. If I recommend somebody else's daughter a husband and it doesn't work out, I'm the one to blame later on. So people become very much like ÒOh, I'm not recommending anything to anybody, right?Ó 

And then you have the issues of what do I really want? And this is one of the biggest things in which I'm trying to open minds of people within my community in that, yes, there are some good traditions within our culture, just like every culture has, but there are some that aren't. And you have to be able to say, ÒOkay, which ones aren't good for me that we need to be removing, or at least looking at it in a different wayÓ for our own happiness, for our own health.

And so this kind of introspection started me on a long journey of about ten years, whereby I was looking for, first of all, learning how to actually attract the opposite sex. Like by the age of 28 I hadn't come close to even interacting intimately with the opposite sex at all. And that was partly to do with my religious upbringing as well as my culture. The aspect of dating is taboo within Islam within the Southeast Asian culture itself. Even the gentle things of just being intimate in terms of just holding hands and things like that with your spouse, with your partner, is frowned upon within our community. 

And so coming up and growing up in an Asian community and a family whereby you don't see that expression of love, of affection between parents and siblings so much, it doesn't really bode well in your future to think that you know, you're able to do that comfortably. And for the longest time, we never hugged in our family. Like I've É to this day I've never hugged my father once. Not that I can ever remember right? And so how are you supposed to create this kind of intimacy and affection and love if you're not able to express those basic fundamental things that human beings need? 

And it wasn't until I passed my driving lessons, that's when I went and I just grabbed hold of my mom and hugged her. And from that day I started hugging everybody, right? At first theyÕre like ÒWhat are you doing?Ó right? All my siblings and everything! But now when I go to visit my family and siblings, everyone's hugging each other! My dadÕs still old school, so I'm not gonna attempt that without a É without an attempt on my life! So I gotta stick, I just leave É let's leave that one aside for now!

But it feels a lot more like the normal thing to do, you know? To just, you hug your siblings, hug your parents, and hug each other when you see É just to show that. And that was the starting point for me in terms of that. If I É if that can happen, I can do other things. 

So I would say I became the black sheep of the family because I was the first one to marry outside of our race. I was the first one to more or less go against every tradition that we had. So my wife, she's an Irish Catholic. But as I got to know her, and as I got to know her in her religious upbringing, as well as her cultural upbringing, I found that there are aspects of, as I mentioned earlier, of every culture, that there's beauty in it, and itÕs because tradition is what is rooted in your identity, right? 

And there were parts within my culture which I still love and like and I embrace, but there were parts which I didn't agree to, which was tribalism, which was the aspect of this color is better than that color. My religion actually puts all that aside. So it was kind of like a É it was a battle within my mind. And so I said ÒHow can I be brought up in a religious perspective where it says color doesn't matter, your race doesn't matter, your social status doesn't matter, but then my family are against me marrying somebody outside of my race only because she's not Bengali?Ó 

And so for me, I always put my religious understanding ahead of my cultural beliefs. And so I said, ÒYou know what? I don't care. I'm gonna break some hearts.Ó The ones that really care about my happiness -- I'm talking about my own family -- they'll be there for me. The ones that care about their religion, care about their faith and pleasing God, they'll be there for me because they'll understand what I'm doing. 

And so it came to the point that by the end of it, half of the family didn't come to the wedding. A lot of those were the older siblings. My father didn't come for political reasons. I understand his wisdom behind it. He didn't want to take either side so he kind of stayed in the middle. 

So initially, I was quite upset. But then because of the stuff that I've done over the years in terms of my mind coaching and things like this, I quickly looked at their perspective. I said, ÒYou know what? It's understandable.Ó They have a certain upbringing from a very, very young age, they're, like ten years older than me. So I won't put anything against their reasons why not to come. I'll accept that their reason was due to their lack of understanding or their need to protect their identity and culture. 

And so for those reasons from my heart I forgave them and I said, ÒThat's fine.Ó The other way I looked at it was, those people that came are those people that deserved to be in my life, are the ones that really are showing that they'll be supportive of my happiness. 

And so it was kind of like a revelatory experience, because it showed me those who really care and that family isn't always blood. ItÕs those that are there to support you, those who are there to care about what you care about and always there to make sure that you know, you're making decisions for your happiness. 

Lauren: I would love to know a little bit more about how you guys met.

Ansar: Well, as I said before, I've had zero experience with the opposite sex up until about twenty-seven, twenty-eight. And so after one year of being in Birmingham, I was so focused on my job. At the time I was a menswear designer for a company here. And that's why I came over to the city. But at the same time, I was focusing on my art career as well in the background. 

And so after a year of being here I realized I hadn't made any friends. Like I used to just go to the gym, I used to work my artwork, go to my job, and that's what É that was my life for a year. But I was so focused on getting my artwork published, and I did by the end of that year. But I thought I need to make friends. 

And so I also obviously started thinking about love, about intimacy, finding a woman. And so I started on some dating sites, the free ones and and it wasnÕt really É there wasn't really much happening. And I came across one of these ads about getting someone's number in a minute and I said ÒHere we go É OK let me have a look.Ó And I downloaded the ebook. I started reading and I thought ÒThis makes sense.Ó And so I started learning some of this stuff. I started testing it out in my daily routines, and it started giving me some results. 

And I became very successful in making friends. So I made a lot of friends from around the world, around Europe, Japan, all these places, just from being in Birmingham alone because there was so many students and people coming in and out in terms of their job. 

And so it was a couple of my Spanish friends, which was housemates of my now wife. They invited me for a going away party. So they were leaving, going back to Spain. And I said, ÒOkay.Ó And that's when I actually met my wife Paula. She seemed kind of É what shall I say É laid back, but also, I was able to flirt in a like kind of É with the use of some of the stuff that I learned, right?

And it was, it was it was going well. And so I said, ÒOkay, you know what?Ó I told her ÒAt the moment, I'm not looking for anything serious. I'm just trying to see my options. I'm trying to find out people that I'm compatible with and things like this.Ó And so it was through that we exchanged numbers. 

We met up for going for a walk to one of the local reservoirs there. And as I started talking and getting to know her I found out that her mindset and her kind of idea of what she wanted for the future was quite compatible with mine, even though at the time she was still a Catholic -- upbringing and mindset. But she said that she had kind of lost her way because some of the stuff that wasn't É it wasn't making sense to her. 

And I started to know more about her beliefs, her ideas, her cultures and things that she was struggling with. And I was just there, being very supportive of her. And I think with that support and her kind of giving me that companionship that I needed at the time, we kind of just bonded. 

And so I said, ÒOkay, look, I go to meditation every month. Would you like to, you know, go and check it out?Ó And she did. And she really thoroughly enjoyed it. And from that point, she started wanting to learn a lot more about my religious stuff. 

Because I had grown up with a group of the, within the religion that was kind of like the Jehovah's witness of Christianity, they still do a lot of door knocking. But in the fourteen years that I've been with them from the age of twelve, I believe, I didn't feel any spirituality. I didn't feel any connection to God, right? 

So it wasn't until I stumbled upon the mystic side of Islam, the spiritual side of it, the Sufism branch that I really started now finding myself, my inner peace. And so I said, ÒYou know what? I want to share that with her. Let's see if she experiences it as I do.Ó And funnily enough the first time she went, she came back and she, she felt like so, so good, so energized and said, ÒOh, God, I want to go more often.Ó I said, ÒOkay, no problem.Ó 

And so it just like, we didn't force anything upon her. I said to her, ÒLook, just to let you know, as a Muslim I can marry you, you don't need to convert to Islam, okay?  You are É you going to remain as a Christian, and we're allowed to marry each other.Ó So I made sure from the onset, I removed that pressure from her.

There's a lot of Southeast Asian marriages happen whereby the woman is converting for the guy. And that's not É that's not real, right? Because suddenly now, if the relationship doesn't work out you're having to say, ÒWhat do I do? You know, do I É Ò You're not being true to yourself, right? So I had to make sure that I was building the relationship from ground up based on being genuine to yourself. Because I don't want to be with somebody who doesn't value themselves. Doesn't value their beliefs. DoesnÕt value what they want from life. Because I don't want to be the one that's responsible for your happiness, you should be responsible for that. 

The way I see a relationship is that you multiply each of those experiences. You're multiplying that happy moment! And so that's what a relationship is about, that marriage is about for me personally, and I wanted to make sure I started off at the foundation with my wife in that way.

This is the first time I'm actually talking about this in depth as I haven't É I've kept it, like, under the under the table for awhile. And the reason I think it still is in the back of my mind É there are certain elements of it I don't want to say in public because it still hits on the taboos of our cultural religion, right? And so I'm trying to be careful not to say those things whilst of course, making sure I'm telling the story, the most important parts of it.

Lauren: That's a fantastic and such an inspiring story. Clearly you said that you want to engage with your culture and your religion in certain aspects and I would love to hear more specifics on the actual ceremonies. What religious and cultural things did you keep and which did you not keep, and how did you integrate that with your wife's religious beliefs as well and her cultural traditions?

Ansar: Both of us actually already had the idea that we wanted to have a small wedding. Secondly, I was thinking in terms of finances, because we both want our own business in the future. And I said, if we are putting in twenty, thirty thousand pounds into one day, you know, what about the rest of our lives? So I didn't want to go into that cycle of cultural ideology, just go all out on the day and just you know, by the time you finish you're in debt fifteen, twenty thousand pounds. It doesn't make sense to me. I'm a very logical person so I always analyze these things. 

And so luckily, I have a wife that is also intelligent in these aspects. And she's, she's like, ÒOkay, that makes sense.Ó So my wife, she bakes a lot. So in terms of the wedding cake, we baked it ourselves, and I cook a lot as well so I supported her. She had to bake it three or four times, because we did one practice one here and then we made the real one. 

And we've been healthy for about É for about four years actually now where weÕre eating mostly plant based stuff. And so when we made the cake, we made the bottom two tiers with normal ingredients for everybody else and we made the top tier a healthy vegan version. And so when we cut it up everybody got what they wanted in terms of the cake. It was a really good experience in terms of making it but also cost wise, we saved at least two thirds of the original price if you hired and got somebody else to do it. 

And the decorations and everything, we picked our flowers. Bluebells from the garden, that was all free and everything. We ordered some, you know, for the chocolate boxes and stuff she made chocolate truffles herself. We put all those individually in there as well. So a lot of the cost in terms of setting up and everything, it was reduced because we kind of did it ourselves. 

Also we were catering for about forty people only. And so É you know there's a blessing in having a smaller wedding. You're not overwhelmed with the idea ÒOh my God, I have to feed hundreds of people! Oh my God! You know, what É how do I arrange all these people?Ó Just having your best friends and your closest family members. It's such a blessing because those people you know, even if the wedding doesn't go as planned, they'll still be happy to be there. They're not going to start criticizing you and you know, saying bad things about you or ÒYou didn't do this, you didn't do that!Ó 

And in terms of the dress, because of our religious upbringing we wanted modest clothing. A lot of the time, especially for women now, modest clothing is difficult to find. So my wife, she searched online, didn't find muchÉ finally she went to London with her auntie and her sister and her mother and they eventually found a few options. But that required several alterations.

So it was a long-sleeved wedding. I have always found you know the Victorian time clothing very elegant, very feminine, very modest. Also, for me, coming up with a religious perspective, I've always grown up wanting to be with a woman who dressed in that way. For me it felt closer to say Mary mother of Jesus, or to the pious women of before. So I had this mentality in my mindset due to my upbringing that for me, a woman that is modestly dressed is beautiful because she's protecting her beauty for me, for our personal intimacy and not to share it to the world. 

So I spoke about these things to my wife and she said, ÒYeah, totally, I totally understand. I totally agree with you.Ó So she bought a wedding dress which was western style, with the veil and everything else. And I said, ÒOkay, I mean, that's from your culture. That's from your religious upbringing as well. I'm gonna find something towards my side.Ó 

So I went on the hunt for an Asian sherwani. I didn't want to spend hundreds and thousands like some guys do. After that one day is over I'm not gonna wear that item ever again. So I ended up finding my piece on sale. It didn't fully fit me but then I got it altered in a tailors to fit perfectly. And all in all it cost me about 140 pounds and it was like É like beyond anything I would wear in my life! Like so much like designs and embroideries and everything, right?

Normally a lot of the functions that people do are big, huge halls and grand venues and stuff. We didn't do that. We did it in our weekly meditation center. And so the person who's in charge, we kind of became friends. I've known him for like a few years now. He actually is the one that was the one that got us married.

And all the people that were important to us were there. Her parents flied over from Ireland, her siblings did as well, and most of her aunts and cousins they couldn't come. A lot of them hadn't traveled outside of Ireland so they didn't have passports ready and things like this. So for that reason, we said okay we will do a second function back in Ireland whereby everybody else then can enjoy kind of like a second wedding there.

So the initial wedding in Birmingham, my family came from all over the north and south. They came together and by the end of it, you know, we actually made money instead of losing money, based on the money people gave towards the actual ceremony and everything else. 

But one of the most important things that I had to do internally was ask myself was I ready to disown my family if they didn't come. I É internally I made that decision. If, if they don't want to come, then so be it because I know what I'm doing is the right thing to do. I know what I'm doing is not something that's going against my religious teaching against God in terms of I'm marrying somebody which God approves of within the religion. 

I'm marrying somebody. That has nothing to do with racism, or tribalism, or status, or material gains and stuff. This is about me expressing my love, and to be with somebody who's going to be understanding of each other, and who we are compatible with each other, regardless of color or culture. 

But also, there is the element of cultural difference. You have to take into account that there's not that many people that are willing to compromise on cultural ideologies and beliefs and say, you know, ÒIs there a balance that I can embrace some of yours and you can embrace some of mine?Ó And very often, within cultures that are very strong, they can't see the foresight in that. Like, ÒBut can I eat that kind of food? Can I do that kind of things?Ó And that's, I think, why a lot of the times our parents, older generations just say, ÒNo, it's not gonna work out, it's not gonna work out.Ò

But it just goes to show you if you prepare well enough, if you keep it small, if you keep it in a way, with all those people that matter to you, first of all you get a spiritual blessing in that everybody there will actually be happy for you. Everybody will actually be praying for you, for your health, for your happiness, and not the ones that just come to give you saying by mouth and meaning in the heart ÒThat was a crap wedding! The food was bad! That was this, that was that!Ó So I think a lot of that also helped towards encouraging us to say that, ÒYes, definitely! ItÕs going to work for the future.Ó

I think it was a month later or a couple of months later we did the second one back in Ireland. And that time her parents obviously wanted to take a lot more control, but I said ÒIt's okay, no, I will take a step back.Ó And they hired out a huge wedding venue and all her family, everybody came there. A few of my siblings went over. It's a bit of a trek because where they live is like the west side of Ireland. And it's quite difficult to get to by public transport. They actually have very minimal public transport. It's like a countryside type area. 

When I first got married, they actually don't have postcodes in that place. I'm like, ÒHow did the post people find you? How does Amazon get there?Ó Right? So right now currently, I think they've started having postcodes. But other than that, I think the postman they should just know the houses and the numbers, right? So my siblings they had a bit of a struggle getting there!

But yeah it was, it was really good event. Personally, I didn't want alcohol in there but because I didn't É obviously within Islam itÕs forbidden to drink alcohol and stuff but I spoke to my wife about it and she said, ÒLook, I understand what you're saying but I think a lot more people here this is part of their culture.Ó I said, ÒOkay, I'm not gonna be held accountable for this in the Day of Judgment, right?  But I'll hand it over to your family side if they want to bring alcohol and stuff they can. I'm not gonna pay for any of that!Ó

And so they did, they were happy to. Again, you know, it was a really, really great day! We felt loved, you know? And so yeah, it was it was double, like two weddings and both of them are really enjoyable and good. And I got to know her family a lot more because up until then, actually, we hadn't really met each of the family very much. 

I remember her mother, you know when we proposed to each other. And then her mom and her younger sister came to UK to interview me, essentially. And they were asking a lot of questions. So I said, ÒYeah, look, this is not everything, and I understand this is unorthodox.Ó I said ÒBut this is very, very unusual for my side of the family as well!Ó

Lauren: I'd love to know a little bit more about your outfit what it looked like how you felt in it, could you just give me a bit of a description about it?

Ansar: The outfit itself, because my wife's dress was kind of a creamy white, I had to make sure that it complimented that. So I was limited to that color. But then also the actual embroidery, the jewelry, the ornaments on the sherwani itself, most of the embroidery was around the neck area and the actual fastening in the center. It had some elements of wine red colors in there, but most of it was jewellery and the actual elements that were there were mostly white, pearl, creamy type colors. 

ItÕs quite heavy because of all the heavy embroidery on it and all the heavy jewelry and stuff that's attached to it. The idea is that when you wear a sherwani it should make you feel like a prince É like a king. And to be honest with you I felt really good because the fitting was really good. And because I also took it to the tailors afterwards to get it well fitted. 

In the moment that I was wearing it, it is something that I would never wear normally. And so that in itself was a new experience. And they say that, you know, it's those new experiences with somebody that makes you draw closer to that person. So I know that with her attire and my attire matching each other's É and I could see it from the expressions of everyone's face, how, you know how it came across to them, that ÒWow, they look really good together, right?Ó

And so I think that was the one of the most important things I was making sure that I didn't make my wife's dress feel like you know, it was less or mine was less -- that there was a balance between both of our cultures. The compromise was that she had to find something that was modest and elegant, and I had to find something that wasn't overbearing, and also matching the color that she had. Because a lot of the time I think the sherwanis, they don't come that much in cream colors. They come with a lot of vibrant ethnic cultural colors, like greens, reds, and things like this. 

Lauren:  IÕd love to know what you specifically felt like if you can even put it into words, and maybe what that symbolized for you, as, you know, stepping out in that.

Ansar: For me when I put it on, at that moment, things became real, you know? I'm no longer a single person anymore. I no longer have to make decisions just about me. I have to take into consideration this other person who's taken so much effort and time to look beautiful for that day, to make that decision also to have me in their life. 

And so all of those things came into it but all of those things É at the time that it was, it was overwhelming, right? Because suddenly a lot of things would change for me from being single to being married. But knowing that I had those people, my siblings, my family members and her family members that actually really wanted to be there, that helped to balance it down. That helped to really take that moment of overwhelming away from me and actually put it towards excitement, put it towards, you know what É this is happening! 

And this is the right time, this time, because when we decided to marry I was É I thought to myself, there's no reason why I can't marry this woman. She's everything that I want. And so at that moment as well it really made me feel good about my culture, because I was able to express my culture at the time through that item that was there. And it's so profoundly different from the dress and the attire of the western culture, right? 

But to be able to bring that together and say ÒYou know what? It works.Ó We have two different cultures coming together and the two dresses and the two attires are like the perfect expression of that coming together because it balances out even though I had some so much more embroidery and things like that. That kind of coming together of something that balances it out.  I found that balance to be there on that day.

Lauren: ThatÕs the best way to move into a marriage is being able to say all of those things to each other. Like ÒThis is what I need, this is what you need. We're going to come together and figure out how they blendÓ and it sounds like that's exactly what you guys did. And I guess my last question would be Is there any advice that you would give to anyone listening, whether it's about finding an outfit or financially, or any sort of advice that you would give to someone who's going through this process right now? Maybe someone who is trying to combine two cultures in their wedding and their marriage, that's difficult for them since you can speak from there.

Ansar: I'd give three points. One, be sure that the person that you're with, you're willing to marry them regardless of what may happen. And that that will mean making sacrifices. It's natural. If you're going to bring in two different elements, there's always going to be compromise and sacrifice. You have to be ready to have that sacrifice, and say, ÒYou know, if I'm willing to cut some people out, so be it. if I'm willing to give up certain things that I want, so be it.Ó

Number two, be happy with yourself. Don't put your happiness on somebody else. If you do that things can only become problematic, because there's gonna always be the element of power control. If that person decides that they don't make you happy any longer, do you now yield to this person and carry on being in that toxic situation? Or do you say, ÒOh what do I do now that itÕs not working out? Can I ever find somebody else?Ó And so you completely lose faith in love. 

And number three, finances. A lot of divorces occur due to finances, financial problems. So be smart about your wedding day. It does not have to be huge, humongous. The world doesn't have to see it. This is your life. This is your story. This is about those people that you care about and they care about you. 

People think ÒOh, is that oh, this is the best day I'm ever gonna have.Ó What about the rest of your life? Are you trying to say it's gonna be worse now every day? And so if you do that, it will really set you up for a good foundation for your relationship with the future. And it'll keep growing. And you'll be able to tell those stories to your children afterwards.

Lauren: You talked a little bit about multiplying happiness where you know, someone wins something, and then all of a sudden, everyone's sort of joining in. I would love to know if you could expand on that a little bit. Like just how multiplying happiness can really É maybe, maybe give a personal example of how you used multiplying happiness. 

Ansar: Ok, so think about yourself, any person right now thatÕs listening. When you when you've made an achievement, you've won something, you've done something, what's the first thing you want to do? It's not to just keep it inside and say ÒOh, I'm not gonna tell anybody!Ó I'm gonna just like, Oh, I wonder you don't do that? Do you say, ÒOh, my God, I have to tell somebodyÓ right? You want to express that because you're feeling joyous, you're feeling happy, you're feeling excited. 

Now, imagine those moments where you have an experience with your partner. If that partner wasn't there, you would not have that experience. You just have the experience of a single person, right? So those unique experiences that you get, that you gain with your partner, whether it is going and traveling somewhere, whether it's a new experience of a food that you normally wouldn't try, whether youÕre going and visiting their hometown, and meeting their family, their friends, whether it's reliving a past memory or a fantasy that you may have thought about doing with that person, intimately, right? Those experiences is only multiplied because of your partner. You can't do that on your own. 

You go backpacking by yourself around the world, there's only certain experiences you can have by yourself. You have a partner next to you, suddenly those experiences will multiply because there are certain things that the partner might make decisions on which you would not think about. So essentially, your life actually becomes more interesting by combining the force of two minds on the same frequency. Does that explain it?

Lauren: Yeah, two heads are better than one!

Ansar: Always the case, especially if they're compatible! If you're not then youÕre going to have more problems of course!

Lauren: And weddings should have people who are there to support that multiplying of happiness. 

Ansar: Absolutely! If people are there to make your wedding day, miserable, and not how you wanted it, then there's something that you should be cutting out, right? This is where you have emotional and self-value kick in. Because when you equate your value to say how your parents think of you, or what your community thinks of you, or if your family is going to disown you, suddenly, your happiness is tied to those elements now. 

And that's why it's so important. I said, as the second point, you need to find your happiness and then explain that to those that care about you. And I guarantee you, a lot of people say parents are É ÒMy parents donÕt understand me, they don't want to talk about it.Ó There's always a way to someone's heart. You need to find the way. You need to find the connecting bridge to be able to communicate what you need. If you can do that, you will be able to get there, you have to be patient.

So all in all, I mean, at the moment now, when I go to visit my family, everyone's happy to invite us to the house for a cup of tea and everything else. But I just, I think at that point in time they didn't want to be associated with saying that, ÒOh, we supported him marrying outside of our of our culture. We supported him marrying outside of you know, what we told him not to.Ó But you know, c'est la vie! I'm four years into my marriage, and we are extremely happy and it's getting stronger every year. And we're falling more and more in love every year. And that's all that matters really.