IslamicAnswers.com: Islamic Advice

Assalam O Alaikum wa rehmatullahi wa barakatahu!

Dear Brothers/Sisters,

I am really confused about my life at this point. I fell in love with my boyfriend about 2 years ago, and since day one our intentions were to get married eventually. He belongs to a very religious family and my family is not so much... however, we do pray and stuff as well. So about a year ago, my boyfriend decided to tell his parents about me and the response he received from his parents was not exactly what we were expecting. His parents straight up told him that they will not give his choice even a chance because they want him to marry his cousin. However, after months of convincing, his parents finally decided to give his choice a chance. They invited my family over to their house for dinner without mentioning anything about our relationship then, my family invited them over and there his parents brought up our marriage.

At that time we thought everything was working out completely fine and our parents are going to be very happy with each other. His parents told us that we should both do Istikhara. So we both did it for 7 days. However, one weird thing my family was noticing about his family was that they did not want anyone to know about us even about receiving a marriage proposal from them. This gave my parents weird feelings about the proposal but my mother forced his family to let her at least inform her family about the proposal (which was also very difficult because his family really did not like that idea). This was done at a party right after our 7 days of Istikhara. You can call it day 8 but we did not do Istikhara this day. The next day when he was going to school he got in a bad car accident. It took him a while to recover from it. After his accident, his sister's car got in an accident too which was not bad but just a bit of damage to her car.

His mom did not want anyone to know about the marriage proposal, but she was going out asking everyone about my character in our community! This made the words go out and almost everyone knew about us and everyone thought him and I will be getting married soon. Everyone started asking my family about how far is our relationship moving and when will we be getting married or engaged. This is why my family decided to invite his family over for Eid and ask them about moving the relationship forward. When I was going for grocery shopping for when they visit, some car hit my car. I was not hurt but my car was a bit damaged. When they came over my family brought up "moving forward" and his parents were not too happy with this thought. His family said we gave you our words and we think you guys should live with it why should we do engagement or nikkah already (keep in mind I am 21 and he is 24)?!

Basically, his dad thinks we should wait for 3 more years with his words so my boyfriend and I can finish our education first. My mom thought this idea is silly because why should she make her daughter wait on someone with just words for 3 years especially with the fact that they do not want anyone to know until things are official. All of this was just confusing my parents and they told them we want our kids to have nikkah and they can still live with us until they finish school. His dad said "we will think about it and let you know." When later my parents called his family to ask for an answer they said they agreed on engagement and that too just because my family is forcing them or else they would have not done anything for another 3 years. This made my parents angry and they decided to go over to his house and talk about the issues in person. My family went over to his house and asked why do they not want a nikkah? His parents replied that they are only agreeing on engagement because they're getting forced and they think it is a sin to have nikkah and make the husband and wife live separately.

This made my parents want to think and they asked for some time. Meanwhile, my mom went to Pakistan and later told his parents that we accept their proposal for engagement. Everything was going fine my family was accepting everything his family wanted. One day my mom called his mom from Pakistan and said she is shopping for the engagement and she wants to know everyone's (in my boyfriends family) clothes sizes because she wanted to bring them as an engagement present. His mom said she does not know sizes off her head but she will let my mom know later (a week before this happened his brother got in a car accident where his car was totaled however he was not hurt). The next day his parents call my mom telling her that they have been getting negative feelings about the relationship and they think that we should wait!

They said ever since they offered us the proposal everything has been going bad and that they do not know if they should do this or not. He said he will do Istikhara again in weeks and my family should not do any shopping for the engagement. His dad also said that he only agreed to do this marriage because of his son's happiness and if you ask him personally he does not want to do it. This made my family very upset because they think his family is just finding reasons to not have our relationship official. It also made them think that they are being superstitious and they think I am unlucky for their son because they think ever since I came into his life everything has been going bad.

My mom was so hurt because she felt like his family played with my feelings and they just never wanted this from day one. She said they always made excuses and since we agreed with everything at the end they were stuck and had nothing to say so now they are using this excuse, especially a day after she finally said yes to the engagement. She was so sad that she said to them "The people who hurt my daughter will face difficulties and who intentionally hurt my daughter and tried playing with her feelings Allah will answer them." She said "Everyone has daughters and you guys put my daughter's name upfront asking everyone about her character, and now that everyone knows, you want to leave her. Everyone is going to be questioning us and you will tell them my daughter is unlucky this and that. I just saw your real faces and the sad part is you guys played with my daughter (she also just hung up the call)."

Apparently, these words upset his parents a lot which I guess my mom said in pain because she felt my pain. And now his parents and my parents strictly said no to our marriage. His parents think that my mom is trying to curse them and we are bad people and my mom hung up on him all mad this and that. He told my boyfriend that my family showed them their true colors whereas my family did nothing but to treat them well. On the other hand, my family thinks that they are just trying to find reasons from day one and now they are using superstition as an excuse. They think that his parents just tried to play with my boyfriend and us just to keep my boyfriend happy (because they never wanted anyone to know about us) until they had to do something official.

Now my boyfriend and I are so confused because we do not feel like this is the sign from Allah. Shouldn't we feel some type of way towards each other since we did Istikhara together? We are so confused with what to do...is this really a sign from Allah that we should not be together, or are these just complications that come with love marriages? We do not know what to do... we feel even more in love. All of this did not have any impact on our relationship. We are so indecisive at this point should we leave each other believing its for the best or should we continue talking and just let time decide? We do know what's meant to be yours will be, but I don't know if that is enough for us to rely on.

Please help us we are so confused about our situation. My family at the end told me that my happiness is the most important thing for them so if his dad apologizes for indirectly calling their daughter unlucky for their son and saying he never wanted this relationship they will go back to normal. Whereas his parents are telling him to suck it up and forget about me. Please help thank you.

Sister