“As long as there’s stigma and superstition about mental health [in Asian communities], women are always going to be disadvantaged,” says Hiba Masuma, a Leeds-based social worker who helps South Asian women requiring mental health support. Masuma tells me she’s dealt with "around 30 or so" cases involving women who have faced obstacles when trying to get married. “There are probably many more – but it’s likely that many women don’t know who to seek help from, and in most cases, women have been told not to speak about their illness in case they’re deemed undesirable... for a lot of families, the idea of getting their daughters married off tends to be more important than their health – and that’s damaging for everyone involved.”

Khaled says that while mental health outreach in Asian communities is “getting better” it will still take a considerable amount of time to overcome cultural taboos. “Because so many young Asians have grown up in communities where they haven’t openly discussed mental health – guys in particular – it’s not part of the conversation when it comes to marriage. That ultimately means they’re ill equipped to support their future wives.”

If anyone knows that, it’s Humaira*, a 36 year-old masters student from Huddersfield, in the north of England. Until last year, Humaira was married, but during her three year marriage, she kept her Schizoaffective disorder a secret from her husband. She didn’t want to talk about the details of her illness, but she told me her husband “came from a highly regarded, conservative family in India.”

“I was already in my 30s when I got married, which is considered old in our community, so I was basically told by my family not to say anything about the treatment I was receiving...Keeping it a secret wasn’t difficult, because he didn’t know anything about mental health, but it was only later in our marriage, especially when we were having conversations about having children, that I had to say everything."

Humaira says her marriage “fell apart” when she said she was concerned about having a child, partially out of fear that her illness, or something more severe, could be passed on; “I had expressed my concerns a few times after telling him about my illness, and I thought we could look into other options like adoption... but in the end it wasn’t something his family would accept - the rift eventually broke our relationship.”