As-Salaamu ‘alalikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhum

My dear sister in Islam, your age in not prohibitive! Khadijah, may Allah be Pleased with her, was 40 years old when she married the Prophet (Peace on him) and their love was the best ever!!! The idea that age matters is a cultural thing, not Islam. Now, our bodies do matter sometimes. As women age, they lose their sexual attributes—that is why Allah allows us to take off our outer garments when we get menopausal—because we begin to lose our allure after menopause. But, not right away and you are too young for that anyway… this does not sound like the problem you are having, you are just not 18 anymore.

You say you have gone online but I think you should try that again. That to me would be a very good route for you to check out. It used to be dangerous to try to find a suitor online but now it is the norm and very productive. There are a few Muslim websites just for marriage.

I think your problem is confidence—your unIslamic cultural views have corrupted you thinking on this subject. You are a very good woman to take care of your parents –many men would be very happy to have a righteous wife like you! Please don’t let your non-Islamic cultural ideas corrupt your thinking. You could be having love in your life but your culture is making you think that you can’t.

That said, if you can’t find anyone, we are all going to be married to the person who is our “pair” in Janna – so hope for the Next Life in Janna (Allah created us in pairs)! There are many very famous men in Islam who did not marry (Ibn Taymiyyah, for one). Any tests we suffer in this life can give us great hopes for Relief in the Next Life. So, do not forget that the equation of our life includes the next life’ that is how all the suffering in this life makes sense.

Also, if you do not find a husband, you could get involved in some social work that made you feel very useful and meaningful in other people’s lives; sometimes this sort of thing gives a person something else to live for besides personal love, i.e., love for others.

Lastly, when Muslim women don’t marry and have children they are then available to other Muslim women who do—for their health care with a woman instead of a man. I know it is too late in life for you to become a doctor, but how about a nurse or midwife so that you could help Muslim women with having babies so that we don’t have to go to men for our health care. If you don’t want to go back to school, how about teaching driving to Muslim women… or anything else that takes a one-on-one relationship, like tutoring.

About depression, the best remedy for depression is two things: one, respect your feelings and let them process, then, get up, brush the dust off and get to work doing things that you enjoy. Even if those things are not “the” very thing that you wanted to do or have, you can find some happiness and satisfaction in them, they usually can go a long way towards making you feel bolstered internally with something that answers to your need to feel good. Of course, the first line of action is to ask Allah to Help you see through your tests to His Wisdom in your tests –and to give you confidence about the Next Life… inShaAllah.

May Allah Make it easy for you.