“The first few years were very painful."
Mahira Khan appeared on Frieha Altaf’s FWhy podcast and spoke about her “painful” divorce.
The actress married Ali Askari in 2007 and the couple had a son named Azlaan. But in 2015, they divorced.
Mahira revealed that she recognised her marriage was not working at the same time her career took off with her drama Humsafar.
Speaking of her marriage, Mahira said:
“I think when you’re going through it, and you don’t know what’s happening, but you’re in pain, and you’re sitting in a room, and you feel like the walls are closing in on you.
“You feel anxious and you don’t know what it is, that is more painful than when you make a decision.
“When you make that decision, you don’t need to say it to anybody, your heart and mind say this is it, and I think women have this great strength where once they have decided, it’s done.
“I knew I would take my child and be with him, but I knew I didn’t want to depend on anybody, not even my parents.
“When nobody was with me, work was with me.”
She went on to state that although Ali was a good person, the marriage was a painful one.
Mahira continued: “The first few years were very painful.
“Again, it was two good people in the relationship, it wasn’t abusive, it was just two kids who had gotten married.
“Post Azlaan, even prior, I knew my marriage wasn’t working.
“You let it go on, you love the person, they’re your childhood sweetheart, but I knew, and I think that was a difficult and painful time for me.
“Personally, I was like what is happening?
“I had a baby, I was scared.
“Professionally I had no idea success would come in this way, overnight with Humsafar. That was tough.
“Two people can evolve differently. But it was painful. There was a little bit of pressure to go back, that sort of thing.”
Mahira told Frieha that her priority was raising her child and that even though the couple had parted ways, they respected one another’s relationships, and lived like a modern family.
“We respect each other’s partners, it’s taken a lot, but we’re there.”
Recalling her childhood, Mahira explained that she lived in a joint family system.
She labelled her childhood beautiful and said she was a spoilt child as she was born eight years into her parents’ marriage.
“I was the miracle baby because my parents were trying for all these years and they’d given up. I was born and my brother was born a year later.
“I was very protected. Some people go through some teenage rough years, I think for me I was quite a dreamer. I wondered what would happen to me in life. I still am.
“I became very good at keeping relationships separate. But I think I became a people pleaser.”
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