I’m 18, and my family wants me to marry someone I don’t love. I feel trapped and don’t know what to do.
I’m 18 years old, originally from Sudan, and currently living in Ontario, Canada. I’ve been holding everything inside for years, and I honestly don’t know who to talk to anymore. I just want someone to understand me without judging me.
I come from a very traditional, tribal family. In my family, parents often decide whom their daughters will marry, and marriages are usually within the same culture, sometimes between cousins or other relatives the family already knows. Girls are expected to obey their parents, and refusing a marriage is seen as bringing shame to the family.
When I was around 14, my parents told me that my father and uncles had chosen a man for me to marry. Nobody asked me what I wanted. I was shocked, and I remember going to my room and crying because I didn’t know what to do.
I had seen my cousins go through similar situations. Some married at 14 or 15, and one of my cousins gave birth at 15, but her baby didn’t survive. Everyone around me seemed to accept these things as normal, but I couldn’t understand how a child could be expected to become a wife and mother.
Eventually, the man my parents chose sent me a phone so we could communicate. I took the phone to my mother and told her I didn’t want to marry him. I thought she would listen to me, but instead, she shouted at me.
She told me about my aunt, my father’s younger sister, who refused to marry the man her family had chosen because he was too old for her. She ran away a week before the wedding, but her family found her, brought her back, and beat her until she agreed to marry him.
My mother told me the same thing could happen to me. I was terrified. I tried explaining that I was only 15 and that the man was about 12 years older than me, but I was told I was too young to understand and that the parents had already arranged everything.
I even tried telling the man that I didn’t want to marry him and that my parents weren’t really asking for my opinion. He dismissed my feelings and told me I was young and didn’t know what I was talking about, and that I needed to respect my parents.
Since then, I’ve been living with this fear in the back of my mind. He wants to get married sometime between January and April 2027, and I’m terrified that it’s actually going to happen.
The marriage isn’t the only reason I’m unhappy. Growing up, I was expected to cook, clean, and take care of the house while my two brothers weren’t expected to do the same. If something wasn’t clean or dinner wasn’t ready, I’d get yelled at. My brothers could go out and do things while I was expected to stay home and help.
I got used to it, in a way. I distracted myself with school and work and told myself that maybe things would get better when I grew older. Before my family moved to a new province, I had a job and school to keep me occupied. Now I’m at home most of the time, cooking and cleaning for everyone. I feel like my life has become nothing but household responsibilities and worrying about a marriage I don’t want.
I’ve tried talking to both my parents about it. Instead of listening, they thought I must be talking to another man. They took my phone, went through it, and yelled at me. They compared me to my cousins and other relatives who never questioned their families’ decisions. They said the engagement had already happened and they couldn’t go back on it.
I feel like nobody understands that I am not refusing marriage because I want to disobey my parents or because there is another man in my life. I simply don’t want to marry someone I don’t love, especially when I never freely agreed to it in the first place.
I’m Muslim, and sometimes I tell myself that this is a test from Allah. I make dua and try to have faith, but there are moments when I feel so hopeless that I start wondering whether I’ve failed as a Muslim or as a person. I know that struggling emotionally doesn’t mean I have no faith, but sometimes it’s difficult not to blame myself.
I also feel guilty about the way I feel toward my culture. I know there are people who love their traditions and find comfort in them, but I feel angry and hurt by the expectations placed on me as a girl. I hate feeling as though I have no control over my own future.
I don’t want to hate where I come from, but I don’t know how to separate my cultural background from the things that have hurt me so deeply.
The hardest part is that I still love my parents. I don’t want them to get into trouble, and I don’t want them to feel humiliated in front of our community or our relatives back home. There is a large Sudanese community where we live in Ontario, and I’m scared of the gossip and shame that could come if I speak up.
Sometimes, when my mother gets angry, she tells me to leave the house. I know she usually says it out of anger rather than genuinely wanting me gone, but a part of me keeps waiting for her to say it again because I wonder if that would be my chance to leave.
At the same time, I’m scared. I don’t have anyone who can take me in or help me figure out what to do. I’ve spoken to some Sudanese friends about my situation, but they told me to accept it and try to get along with the man. That made me feel even more alone.
I don’t want to get married at 18. I don’t want to become a wife and have children before I’m ready. I’m scared of being stuck in a life I never chose and becoming a mother when I still feel like a child myself.
I want to finish my education. I want to go to university, make friends, go shopping with them, take pictures, laugh, and experience the things other people my age get to experience. I want to fall in love naturally, talk to someone I genuinely care about, and choose a partner because I want to be with him, not because my family decided he was the right person.
I didn’t get accepted into university this year and was placed on a waitlist. I already feel terrible about my situation, and that made me feel even more useless. I keep questioning whether I’m smart enough or good enough to accomplish anything.
I’ve been feeling depressed, exhausted, and mentally drained for a long time. Sometimes I have thoughts about ending my life because I feel trapped and can’t imagine how I’m going to escape this situation. I’m scared of how hopeless I feel, and I don’t want to keep feeling this way.
I know my parents love me in their own way, but I wish they could understand me for once. I wish they could see that I’m not trying to disgrace them. I’m a young woman who is scared and wants a chance to live her own life.
I’m posting this because I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore. I’m scared of getting authorities involved because I don’t want my parents to suffer, but I’m also scared of staying and being forced into a marriage I don’t want.
For anyone who has experienced something similar, especially someone from a traditional or immigrant family: How did you get out of this situation? How can I seek help and become independent without putting myself in more danger? Are there any organizations in Ontario that can help someone in my position confidentially?
I don’t need anyone to tell me to accept the marriage or that my parents know best. I’ve heard that my entire life. I just want someone to understand how frightening it is to feel like your future isn’t yours to choose, and to help me see that there might be a way out.