Q Salam. I hope you are well. I wanted to ask regarding if marraige is permissible for me given my current life situation. It will take some detail to explain. I am an American Muslim who was born in California USA. My parents had an unfortunate background (poverty, orphanage, etc) which inevitably meant they couldn't raise children properly. This often lead to me and my sister being emotionally abused as children. We were often yelled at for trivial things and our parents would openly argue in front of us, sometimes about issues regarding us. Additionally, my mother was very jealous whenever we tried to make friend with others. While we did have some friends, our times with friends was limited much beyond what other children experience and our mom took envy if we overstepped it. When I was 8 years old, we moved to Saudi Arabia where I was homeschooled. While the environment did keep me away from drugs and other harmful outlets, the result was that I was exposed to the full brunt of my mothers' anger. While she took care of us materially, she thought this entitled her to talk to us anyway she pleased. This went on for another 8 years, then we were in Chicago while my dad worked in Saudi Arabia (my parents are still married and never divorced).While my dad did have issues of his own, he at least sincerely tried to be nice. With him gone, I went through my remainder of American High school and most of undergraduate life with a very emotionally abusive mom. She prevented me from hanging out with friends normally and the result was that I never learned how to make deep friendships besides casual acquaintances. To make matters worse, around the time I moved to Chicago, I had serious doubts about Islam which no one seemed to be able to answer. I went to speakers, emailed scholars, etc. but non gave me satisfaction. I had serious questions about the historical jesus, biblical studies, orientalists studies, ancient archeology, etc. Since most Muslims (even speakers) have not studied about the scholarship in this, I was forced to study the works of scholars such as Bart Ehrman, Neil Postman, E.P Sanders, Richard Elliot Freidman, Ronald Numbers, etc. While this did provide me with knowledge, the sad fact was most Muslims did not care about such kinds of “secular” studying, some even mocking me for it. Most scholars did not even seem to care and I basically was left alone to study. To this day, I read works on comparative feminism from Islamic, Chinese, African, & American writers and I have to do this with very little social support or recognition. To make matters EVEN MORE worse, when I was a 2nd year undergraduate student, I made friends with a homeless brother and my time with him deeply affected me. I often spent nights with him at free masjid night programs and would often be one of his few supports. I shared food with him, listened to his struggles while still trying to study and deal with my mother. While his condition has improved, it is still difficult to deal with. I have also recently met a Mexican non-Muslim who has lived an almost refugee like life due to the bad conditions in Mexico. While I have helped him and he has become a close friend, the fact is most Muslims do not seem to care. I have sought to care for such individuals in my life yet the Muslims by and large seemed to have stopped caring. I have to do these things in private, lest my parents find out. It is quite hard to do these things while most Muslims only care about talking about Syria, Palestine, or other countries. (These people do not have citizenship so there is very little I can ask from other people or organizations to help them.) My final point in my biography relates to spiritual struggles. After my in depth study of Islam, I did feel better and I sought spiritual enlightenment. However, my enthusiasm was quickly drained by the fact that many scholars I listened to was reading from ancient biographies of people who lived lives completely different ours. Many were filled with clearly extreme stories about worship (people dying when hearing an ayah, going blind from excessive tears) and the story tellers seemed quite explicit that this was the manner one should live. It became so overwhelming, that there were times I wanted to lock myself in a room till death as I truly felt it was the only way to be a pious person. There also was a time I slept for 3-4 hours a night on cold hardwood floor for several nights in a row. I have moved pass this stage, but I still eat simply, sleep on the floor, try to pray tahajjud and avoid socializing. All these points of my biography have led me to be very antisocial. I can’t spend time with friends as my interests are too different. I don’t like listening Islamic lectures because I find them often inaccurate (I have confirmed this), irrelevant, or bad reminders how previous people mistreated while appearing to be religious. I love reading books on early Christianity, political science, feminism, gender studies, and how they relate to Islam. My abuse (both spiritually by “religious” people and emotionally by my parents) has also made me a loner. I have tried spending more time with people, but it doesn’t feel right. My time with the poor and downtrodden has led me to live a simple life with basic food, little furniture, etc. My studies will eventually lead me to constantly travel in the future to places such as China, Africa, etc. in order to properly learn more, as well as to do more humanitarian work. While the overall situation has gotten better as we recently changed houses which has calmed my mother considerably, the American elections of 2016 have forced me to become more involved in politics, thereby burdening me more. Given that I have to do all these things, in addition to finishing my graduate studies (engineering related) and work, I do not see how I can have a family of my own. My future family will not be able to put up with my ascetic goals, relatively secluded life, my pessimistic mentality, or with my constant traveling. Most Muslims also don’t seem interested in my goals, which would make finding a spouse even more difficult. I have therefore largely considered staying single, as any other option is bound to make me unhappy and make my potential wife unhappy.