r/ExMuslimGirlies

Hello everyone,

I am a 19-year-old former Muslim from an Arab family in North Africa, where Islam is the dominant religion.

I was forced to wear the hijab when I was 14 years old. When I told my family at the age of 17 that I wanted to take it off, they stopped me from continuing my education. I never got to finish school, and I have been confined to my home since 2024.

I have no money, no job, no university degree, no savings, and no passport. My entire day is spent cleaning the house and serving my younger brothers, my controlling mother, and my emotionally absent father.

Whenever I try to stand up to them or disagree with them, I am beaten and threatened with forced marriage. They even tried to marry me to my brother's 37-year-old friend. During the official meeting before marriage, I deliberately made him reject me by telling him that I couldn't cook or clean.

However, I know my family will try to force me to marry someone else because they consider me "too old" to remain unmarried.

I have decided that I need to escape. Unfortunately, simply moving to another city is not a safe option because I believe my family could find me and force me to return. My plan is to leave without their knowledge, obtain my own passport, and seek help from people or women's rights organizations in Europe that may be able to support me.

I don’t know if anyone will see this and ik my grammar isn’t the best rn I’m js lazy 😒. Anyway, recently this past year I’ve been thinking about my future and realized that Arab culture expects women to stay at their families houses until they get an arranged marriage so they can move with a man they barely know or like that might even end up abusive and I’ve been having serious mental issues because of the idea of it and i think the best thing for me to do in my future is maybe move out and live on my own and maybe get married in my mid 30s but the thing is it’s that I don’t want my family to shame my parents for it, i dont want to be a disappointment or a failure in their eyes either, and i don’t even care if anyone else insults ME bc i expect it, but it also really hurts knowing that my family and friends will be disappointed and maybe even disgusted simply bc i dont wanna be a trad wife. Sometimes i wish i wasnt even born at all, its horrible. And i need advice on whether or not i should do it anyway. I feel like im drowning everyday.