I’ve made horrible mistakes and wronged others
Ok I guess I start by introducing myself. I’m male and I’m 21 years approaching 22. I’m not even sure if I’m making this the correct post type etc. Anyhow, my story is very messed up and it’s possible it will trigger many people but I need advice now. I guess I should tell you somethings about background, I’m an abuse survivor. I lasted for a quite a few years from age 11-18. It wasn’t anyone in my family it was people outside. I also ran away from kidnappers 2-3 times. Throughout all this I never told my parents, I’ve never been the talkative type and my father isn’t the easiest person to talk to and even if he was he was always busy with work and stuff being a director at a big company. Anyhow fast forward to when I was 19 I moved to my home country of Pakistan, I used to live in Saudi before this. I enrolled into a course knowing no idea why I was enrolling into it and what I could do once I had a degree. To be honest I just did it so I could be in a different country than my parents and get away from the place which held so much fear for me. Because when I lived in Jeddah every moment I lived in fear. I couldn’t even go to the masjid to pray, my head was always on swivel always looking around for potential threats. So I enrolled into a course at university. There they made me the CR for my class. My class had 40+ students and only 6 of them were guys. It was my first time interacting with girls. As before I was very conservative, I wouldn’t even talk to my female cousins and aunts. But h ere I was had to because I was the CR. Anyhow the girls had a GR who was basically a sort of assistant for me of sorts. We talked a lot because of work. Anyhow, at his stage I was finally free of the fear that I lived with so long. And I was finally making friends, everyone wanted to talk to me, the girls actually used to brag about the fact that they talked to me. I was good looking had good manners I was religious and to top it all of I was from abroad and used to be talk very little so had a mysterious aura about me. I began to love it. It all got to my head. Anyhow at this point I was talking to the GR not just about work but in my spare time as well, because this was the first time I was talking to anyone, I have never had a mobile phone before, my father was very strict he didn’t even allow me to make any social media accounts and with how much we shifted houses it was never possible for me to make friends with it. So for the first time I was talking to people I had a connection. One day we fought, and in patching that up, I have no idea why I said that I loved her, the GR I mean. I guess it was because many people began shipping us and she was also doing nice stuff for me like bringing me home cooked food and taking care of me in small ways like making sure I didn’t miss the bus etc. Anyhow so she accepted and we had a pretty happy phase for a while. Now during this whole time, her friends were showering praise on me. Of course they did it to her in privacy but she used to tell me and this got to my head. I began to think of myself as a hotshot. So I can’t remember how, I began talking to another girl over summer vacations, at first it was just me helping her out but then I began trying to get her into a hidden relationship with her, she was kinda vague about her answers sometimes she’d say yes sometimes no but then we stopped talking. Then this other girl, who used to be in my class but took a break for a semester because of health issues. Anyhow she used to message me before for help with technology since she wasn’t very good at it. I helped her out. So she messaged be during that summer vacation asking for help with her mobile. I used to be pretty busy, so I’d reply to her quite late. As a result out chat became very long. I learnt she was facing some problems and I helped her out with them and then, I began to feel she was better for me. She was religious, she seemed like someone who could understand my problems it seemed she could make me a better version of myself. The GR who was my current GF wasn’t very religious and we used to get into fights over me asking her for to adopt religious garments. And also many people at this stage said that I was much better than my current GF that I looked better etc etc and I began to believe that as I already had an inflated ego. Fast forward I broke up with her and got together with the girl who messaged me about fixing her mobile. Now with this girl I wasn’t exactly together with her. We used to talk and stuff but we had decided we would get our families involved. But we began fighting a lot over stuff. Mainly about me still talking to the GR since even though I had left her I still couldn’t bring myself to stop talking to her and stuff. That girl broke it off with me many times but I’d beg her to take me back each time. When the lockdown happened due to covid19 I though this would be a turning point for us. But then I started getting feelings for the GR again. And the other girl I don’t know whether she just plain didn’t trust me or whether she had a good 6th sense she began saying you’re talking to her aren’t and I always spoke the truth and said yes. We fought a lot. Then 1 time we fought VERY fiercely and I finally told her all about my background saying that this is why I’m so messed up but she was angry and she responded with some very inconsiderate things. So I had enough as well I told her I’m leaving her and went back to the GR but by this time it was too late. See me and the GR had already told her family and after a lot of fighting she had finally convinced her parents but I left her. At this point nothing I could do would convince her parents. She admitted she still loved me but her parents would never allow it now. Her parents arranged for someone else to marry her and it’s only a matter of time before they get married. When I heard that I tried killing myself almost 5 times. Now I’ve almost made my peace with it and the only reason for that is that I started talking to that other girl again. But I said to her I can’t marry you. Because my family’s financial position currrently is very bad due to covid and I have no idea what I will do for my future. I have literally 0 idea. I’m doing biochemistry BS and there is no scope for this degree other than teaching in my country. My father wants me to move abroad and study further there where there is some scope but if I do that I can’t marry her as it will take too long for me to settle there and in my country women are married at a specific time period. She’s a year older than me and even I think that by then she’ll be too old and stuff. The other option I have is that I stay here make a career in teaching and open up a side business which the girl is offering to help me with. I have no idea what to do because she comes from a well off family while my family is in the lower tier of middle class. Her family would never agree to this match. Even if they did it would forever be a burden on us that we brought her down. Unless I’m successful and well off I can’t marry her. I know. I’m despicable and pathetic. I have no idea what to do now.
Dear Young man looking for Love,
It was very brave of you to share as much as you did in your post.
It sounds like living in Saudi put you in very dangerous situations and that it left you with lasting challenges in figuring out what love looks like. I know the abuse happened when you were 11-18, but it sounds like you were very lonely in your family before then as well. Did you ever have someone who cared about you for you?
For you to have two serious relationships in about two years is a lot for your heart to sort through — even if you didn’t have all the challenges you described from your childhood. It can be really confusing to be committed to one person when you still have strong feelings for someone else.
I guess the question you have to answer is do you want to be a groom, or do you want to be married and part of a family?
If you want to be a groom, then it sounds like you have plenty of options of people to marry.
But if you want love, commitment, and long-lasting belonging in a healthy family, then it doesn’t sound like you are ready to be married.
You described that you have no financial stability, you have pain from your past that impacts your present relationships negatively, and that you owe it to yourself and to your future spouse to work on your heart’s stability.
Nobody can fill the void of another… we have to find a way to fill our own voids.
If you marry in the state you are in, do you think the marriage will last?
If you have a child in 2-3 years, do you think you will be able to the parent to that child that you want to be?
Allah knows best,
wa ‘alaykum salam,
Sincerely,
“Fatima Z”
