Nadiya Hussain reveals why she doesn’t want her children to have an arranged marriage like she did

She’s been happily married to husband Abdal for 15 years, who she met just once before tying the knot in an arranged marriage.

But Nadiya Hussain has revealed that she wouldn’t want the same arrangement for her own children as she couldn’t bear them ‘blaming’ her should things not work out.

In a new interview, the Great British Bake Off winner, 36, opened up on her marriage to Abdal, whom she married aged 20, and insisted that there was ‘no way’ she wanted her kids to go down the same path. 

Nadiya and Abdal share sons Musa, 14, Dawud, 13 and 10-year-old daughter Maryam.

Candidly discussing her union with her husband, Nadiya explained to OK! magazine the reasons why their marriage works, noting that one key point is because they were so ‘dissimilar’.

She explained: ‘It works because we have interesting conversations. But we are similar in how we want to raise our family. Although we spoke to each other for six months before we got married, we really didn’t know each other’s personalities that well. We are so like Married At First sight it’s unbelievable!’

Discussing their romance further, the TV personality told how she and Abdal got engaged on the very first day they ‘laid eyes on each other’, marrying just ten days later.

She added that their relationship has been ‘all about compromise’, with the pair committing first and then learning about each other along the way, adding that they were one of the ‘lucky couples’.

But despite the success of her own arranged marriage, Nadiya admitted that there was ‘no way’ she’d want that for her own children, noting that it was too much ‘hard work and responsibility’. 

She said: ‘If my own marriage didn’t work out, I think I would blame my parents. I wouldn’t want that for myself. I trust that I’ve given them the right tools to want the right things for themselves. But if they do make the wrong choice, that’s OK, too!’

Meanwhile, Nadiya claimed that she doesn’t have any plans to add to her brood, despite her son’s wishes, but joked she’d happily add more pets to the family. 

The baker said: ‘Musa always calls me old, but the second I say I don’t want to have a baby he retracts it! He is adamant and on my back everyday to have a baby. I don’t know what it is! I’m like “No, no, no!” I might get more pets but definitely not more children. It’s not for me.’

It comes after Nadiya admitted last year that she didn’t feel the ‘textbook rush of love’ for her first child straight away.

The author said she felt the ‘rush of love’ a few weeks after her son Musa, now 14, was born. 

Speaking on Spinning Plates, a podcast hosted by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, said: ‘As a mum, you’re constantly told and you read that you’ll get this rush of emotions and you’re going to feel love like you’ve never felt before. 

‘When you’re anticipating that, it’s the worst thing because, when you don’t know, you can’t quite pinpoint whether you’ve felt it yet.

‘So I remember after I’d had him, I was like have I felt that yet? You expect the bells and the whistles and the fireworks and I was like, why haven’t I felt it? When does it come?’ 

It wasn’t until a few weeks later, after her husband Adbal went back to work that she experienced the textbook rush of emotions she was told about. 

Initially, she was unsure about being left alone, explaining that she sobbed because she didn’t know whether she could do it on her own. 

The baker said: ‘It was in that moment where he had gone when I had that textbook moment where they say you feel that rush of love genuinely. 

‘It was a few weeks later where he had gone off to work and I realised that like this little human being needs me. 

‘And in that moment, I realised I think I needed him more. And that was when I felt it.’