On Love and Boundaries

I finally read Broken by Fatima Bala, and I understand now why everyone speaks about it with such reverence. At first, I was irritated. The lack of direct communication about boundaries genuinely bothered me. They talked about them — but not really. Fa'iza skirted around her boundaries until they came to stare her down. Honestly, women should be taught how to interview suitors. Just saying 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️.............

But by the end, I understood why their journey had to be that imperfect. If their love had been tidy and neatly packaged from the beginning, I would never have felt the weight of that line:

“He could no longer bear to make her do anything that might make her Rabb displeased with her.”

That sentence loosened something in me, a knot I didn’t even know had been sitting in my chest.

Not long ago, I walked away from a talking stage because we had opposing views on celibacy. And it hurt. Not just because we ended things, but because he wanted parts of me that I could not give, and he couldn’t understand why I couldn’t give them. I couldn’t understand why it was so difficult for him to see how going against my own values would break something inside me. That line in Broken gave me language for the ache I felt.

I think all along, Ahmad didn’t truly understand what Fa'iza's values meant to her until his own love for her drew him back to Allah. That’s when his point of view shifted. And I’m not advocating for trying to change a man — absolutely not. People don’t change because we want them to. They change because they want to.

And my dear, you are not a rehabilitation centre.

What I am advocating for is finding someone who is equally yoked, as Christians say. Someone whose values align with yours. Someone who understands where you’re coming from because he’s walking in the same direction. Someone who honours your boundaries not as restrictions, but as reflections of your faith and your self-respect.

Because at the end of the day, love should never demand that you betray yourself to keep it.