u/thatukhti

I feel a bit lost. In the sense that the way my brother has treated me has frankly made me lose respect for him. He says I’m a burden on him and my mum, he says he’s not my wali anymore, but idek if he means it. All because I wanted to marry a white revert man and forwarded the case to him. They admitted the man was extremely respectful and decent, it’s just been the marrying outside of my race or ‘what will people say’ issue.

The fact that they think everyone will make assumptions about me but I was seen as the ‘good obedient daughter’.
He questions my sincerity, constantly takes digs at my hijab, like there’s no winning with him. If I wear it correctly oh I’m just doing it just for the show and when I struggle or commit tabbaruj he doesn’t even understand my reasons for why.

And now it’s just petty arguments like he says things like the bed I’m sleeping on is funded by him and I responded saying ‘idc I’ll sleep on the floor then take your bed’, he responds ‘yeah because you’re for the streets’. He always mocks and belittles me whenever I’ve genuinely tried to voice myself to him, like he never comprehends or even listens to my side of things. It’s like a constant cry on deaf ears.

At one point my mum decides on calling the man to see if he’s serious, the man shows he is and keeps a date, then the next point they cancel on him. Again they pressure me to promise to marry anyone of their choosing and then pressure the man to try and take me within a day if I go for him which is just simply unreasonable and unfair, because they know it doesn’t align at all, we’re supposed to meet through our wali, they constantly threaten to cut ties if I tell them I have a choice and consent because they’re just tired of hearing it from me.

They say things like I’m dead to them, ‘pack your bags and leave’ - I got emotional and had my suitcase there just in case they did try and kick me out. I think upon seeing that my brother began assuming that I was going to try and run away with a man and therefore he came to establish some ‘rules’ saying if I’m to leave the home without his permission from now on, there’ll be severe consequences, and I told him to leave me alone and give me space because I was sad about everything that was said before and all the pressure put on me for hours on end. Then he forcefully makes way into my room and has me in a chokehold, tried justifying it later by saying he knew what he was doing, wasn’t trying to hurt me, I had an ‘ego problem’ that’s why and that Abu bakr (ra) and Umar (ra) raised their hand on their daughters, though that context was entirely different. Now they’ve told me to go ahead and do whatever and get married if you like, the white revert said to him before he wouldn’t do anything without family’s approval, my family knowing this got him to unblock me and then said they won’t be involved anymore, to go and marry him through a mufti if you like, but at the same time my bro also spoke to him on call and told him to just tell me the same things as before that it won’t work without family approval and my bro apparently said they’d never accept so, the man said he was in a process of moving on anyways since he was already let down before.

I told my mum I’ve been on the marriage app now, and she calls me selfish and says if I’m to find it myself I should marry within my ethnicity at least. But then she also says if I’m finding it myself go and get married already and get lost. I’ve come across a few men that seemed as if they were on deen at first but then end up expecting some kind of a haram relationship in order to go all in for marriage… And usually I was the type of woman to try and direct the individual to my wali straight away, but it’s like my wali is never even with me on anything, they simply deem me as stupid or something, it just sort of seems like a no go now since he’ll always try and taint my name and deliberately sabotage me anyways if it’s coming through me ig, my wali is in fact the one who’s got the ego problem, he says things like ‘because you rejected our choices we’ll reject yours’, and ‘I’m not doing you any favours’. Should I go and discuss all of this with an imam now?

It often feels like I need an escape from such a toxic environment, it’s like I can never live a life of my own, always self sacrificing for the sake of dedicating my time effort and energy to family, raising their kids for 4 years now, only for them to turn around and not even appreciate it one bit. And don’t get me wrong I had done it all fisabillilah and kids are always innocent and a great blessing Alhamdulillah, though a little bit of appreciation and encouragement would have gone a long way for me rather than having me feel all bitter. This level of sadness or depression I’m experiencing is even affecting my level of care for them and that truly makes me feel worse :( like if I’m not in the right head space but am expected to care for 4 under the age of 4, I would rather be left alone so these innocent little ones don’t feel any level of frustration from me or shift in my level of care for them! Though, the parents are never there to step up and care for the kids themselves. Family don’t recognise they’re the ones or their approach is what’s causing me the most harm right now.

I’m so dependent on them financially, I don’t truly have anywhere else to go. I also wanted to mend and resolve the issues, families aren’t supposed to function this way I know that much ☹️ if I ever lived with a friend or something, it’s like how long would I live with them without feeling like a burden elsewhere yk? My issue was in all this time if they couldn’t bring me any better or more suitable rishtas than the one I found, what on earth were they trying to delay my marriage for?? Why were they making all these assumptions rather than genuinely sitting down and speaking to the man. Why do they act as if I’m an enemy to myself but they’re the ones who are sort of behaving like an enemy to my happiness and things just for the sake of ‘community reputation’ they want me to live a miserable life. They say stay a spinster and be lonely then if it’s not working out for you it’s the punishment you’ve earned and otherwise they say oh she’s just the type who’ll run away with a man. Like there’s genuinely never any winning with them. My heart is tired and I feel emotionally drained.

There are countless men who can offer a place to stay and a nikkah and all that where I can explain my family situation, though, I’m not sure if I’m just being haste now, or whether I should continue to live this way miserably in depression. They make me feel trapped the amount of games they play, the level they try and control or dictate my life. Do I seek refuge or apply for homelessness or something ? ☹️ I’m genuinely tired of living this way Astaghfirullah, I just want to be my happy self again, productive in the home, I always enjoyed cooking and cleaning and that sort and this depression is just rendering me useless. I was meant to speak to the imam today and they just come and say ‘leaving the home from this moment onwards for you is banned now’.

I feel extremely stuck, depressed and sad. I still have my belief in Allah that perhaps relief will soon follow, it’s just a matter of patience. Though, I feel my family greatly wrong me and it hurts a lot.
My family decline my choice for marriage with no legitimate Islamic reason, their reasoning is that he’s another ethnicity or the ‘what will people say and think about you’ issue to which I respond I’m seeking halal not haram…When I speak to my mum about it she tells me that even my siblings are not with me on this, I grew up with my brother being my wali since my dad was never around. When it is convenient for him he comes and claims that he is my wali, (as in my brother) and otherwise when I talk about my real life issues, my mum tells me he is tired of me, that he’s not my wali, he won’t be getting involved etc. I often feel emotionally neglected, verbally and psychologically abused the more I talk on this issue of marriage with him. Most times it just feels like a cry on deaf ears. I think I’ve lost respect for him due to this Astaghfirullah. I feel imprisoned in my own home, where I’m never heard or valued for anything that I do. And I genuinely don’t know what to do, I got in contact with one mufti who was my teacher when I was young, I respect him a lot, but I guess everyone is busy in their own lives and I often feel too shy to sort of pester him with my family affairs and issues, I often feel my brother should’ve been the one to do that, but he doesn’t and it’s extremely hurtful. Like he said he’d speak to my brother but hasn’t yet, I reminded him again today and it’s been about two months.
My mum tells me that I should rather sit like this in patience and practice celibacy instead, since they won’t accept my choice for marriage.
They made an attempt to make me promise to marry whoever they choose for me or to just call the man I want to marry and leave with him that they’ll cut me off. I had no intentions of cutting my own family ties, this is something they always threaten me with and I can’t help but feel abandoned. When I said I couldn’t make such a promise because I simply refuse to marry just anyone of your choosing and I clearly am interested in someone else but was just seeking family aid. They deliberately keep a condition they know my choice wouldn’t be able to meet like ‘you must leave the same day if you go for him’. Things got a bit heated in my home and they said a lot of dreadful things to me that hurt me emotionally so I thought I’d rather choose my peace. When my brother saw that I had a suitcase ready in my room, it was empty and genuinely there because of the amount of times they’d tell me they’d kick me out, he came to establish some ‘rules’ that apparently I couldn’t leave the home without his permission anymore. He knows I was leaving to go to the gym and that’s all, or running errands for the home and looking after my sister’s and his kids, taking them to the park etc. but it also felt he had emotionally neglected me for weeks when I was depressed, never checked in on me once, the moment my mother tells me yeah go ahead and leave, he comes to establish these rules, doesn’t even ask me what happened or what my mother was making me promise like my side never matters. I told him to leave my room at the time because I was too heartbroken and needed space, I tried closing my door on him when he stepped out and he forcefully came in and it broke into a physical fight.
He had me in a chokehold, I was only trying to push him back out of my room tbh. He later claimed he was only trying to ‘break down my ego’ and wasn’t truly trying to harm me. Bro gave me a trauma for life like I had no such ego man, just wanted to be left alone😭 I think he was worried I was going to run away with a man. My issue is he always tries to impose on me using and abusing his authority without ever comprehending or genuinely hearing my side. He believes I should sacrifice for the sake of my mum because she can’t accept it and when I speak up for myself, (I’m the only one speaking up for myself) I’m seen as the one in the wrong. I refuse to make such a ‘sacrifice’ because it doesn’t even make sense to me. I don’t want to live a life of regret or live miserably because in the end they’ll turn around and say I did it of my own accord. It’s already happened to me before where I was peer pressured into accepting rishta meetings with a man they wanted for me and I never wanted to go ahead with it at the time because I never felt ready for marriage then, in the end, I took matters into my own hand and rejected and they turned around and said why did I ever say yes in the first place if I was to back out in the end??! When they knew it was always their constant pestering, emotional blackmail and guilt tripping to get me to consent in the first place and I had said no to them several times.