Support Group for Ages 18-35 Looking for Marriage.

[Essentials123]

Salaam, first off I would like to say that I am married so the proposed support group is not for me. I am a counselor and come across several young men and women looking to get married and it causes them a lot of stress. I am unable to match make due to my role as the counselor but I was thinking about what it would take and the constraints to start a support group for people looking to get married for the first time. Some thoughts I had were that parents can attend although I would ask if they decide to do that that they do not speak and reserve their comments for emails/private calls. I was thinking of hosting it as a mixed group but am questioning myself - Also, if it was a mixed group what constraints or rules would need to be put in. I am not sure if I will move forward with this. Actually, maybe there is someone better to run the group than me and that is fine with me. Then I would just refer people into the group and save myself the trouble. Many young people in our communities even the children of the leaders of the community sometimes are unmarried. Please share your thoughts on this topic if you have any. Suggestions are welcome. 

[wolverine]

So many people at ShiaChat talk about they cannot find a spouse, I am really surprised that nobody replied in this topic.

[AbdusSibtayn]

On 3/29/2026 at 6:28 AM, wolverine said:

So many people at ShiaChat talk about they cannot find a spouse, I am really surprised that nobody replied in this topic.

The millennials and zoomers all moved to Reddit/Twitter/Telegram I guess. 

[AbdusSibtayn]

On 3/28/2026 at 9:23 PM, Essentials123 said:

Salaam, first off I would like to say that I am married so the proposed support group is not for me. I am a counselor and come across several young men and women looking to get married and it causes them a lot of stress. I am unable to match make due to my role as the counselor but I was thinking about what it would take and the constraints to start a support group for people looking to get married for the first time. Some thoughts I had were that parents can attend although I would ask if they decide to do that that they do not speak and reserve their comments for emails/private calls. I was thinking of hosting it as a mixed group but am questioning myself - Also, if it was a mixed group what constraints or rules would need to be put in. I am not sure if I will move forward with this. Actually, maybe there is someone better to run the group than me and that is fine with me. Then I would just refer people into the group and save myself the trouble. Many young people in our communities even the children of the leaders of the community sometimes are unmarried. Please share your thoughts on this topic if you have any. Suggestions are welcome. 

I will post my thoughts here soon inshallah. 

[ireallywannaknow]

Salam,

Is this an online or offline group? 

Is it just a support group or is it a matchmaking group for people to find their spouse?

[ireallywannaknow]

1 hour ago, AbdusSibtayn said:

The millennials and zoomers all moved to Reddit/Twitter/Telegram I guess. 

I admit that Instagram is a lot more addictive than I thought. I only got it relatively recently and now I fear there's no going back

[Essentials123]

1 hour ago, ireallywannaknow said:

Is this an online or offline group? 

An online group may be best. 

[Hameedeh]

1 hour ago, ireallywannaknow said:

I admit that Instagram is a lot more addictive than I thought. I only got it relatively recently and now I fear there's no going back

Sister, Instagram is also using people's info. I had an anonymous Instagram account but because I am a really introverted person I never posted anything there. I didn't want to chat to anyone through Instagram; just wanted to read and get informed.

One day I got a notification from Insta that asked me if I want to be friends with some people. I looked and one of them was a relative of my best friend in real life. I realized that Instagram "knew" the people in my Gmail contacts list. I immediately ended my Insta account. 

[Guest Nystagmus]

It's a kind proposal you put forward.

I just don't see how it's feasible on an online forum.

If you mean for match-making, on this website, that would mean singles would be 1) typing up their profiles 2) giving it to a middle person who has access to all of these profiles and then 3) that person, or people, on the site, does the match-making. And it would be interesting to see how to organize these two singles to chat - when maturity and religiosity levels might be different, and you want to make sure this is halal and safe.

The problem is, people who are match-makers in real life / offline communities sometimes do a terrible job of it themselves. So it would have to be a good expert, and it's still difficult to understand a single person's requirements completely online. And this expert (or experts) would certainly be bogged down with a lot of profiles, and maybe they won't do all of them justice simply from the numbers.

Shiamatch.com is advertised a lot on shiachat. Personally as a single I've never liked trying using that site - but it's more built for match-making (albeit the singles are seeing the profiles and making the decisions themselves, which maybe some prefer anyway, but you do lose the safety of middle people).

Unless you want to organize some offline session - which would take a lot of planning and again, there are failed rates with mosques who do attempt this.

Now - if you are looking for simply a support group versus a match making initiative, maybe this can work.

Maybe we need to understand the problems singles are having - is it their respective communities that are not doing them justice? Is it their life circumstances? Where is the disconnect - are they unable to meet singles, or simply the qualities they desire are not in the pool they are searching, or they are not in the right pool themselves for someone who would be searching for them?

If anything, I know for sure mosques should be holding anonymous surveys so that singles can inform them how they have been failed. Maybe some kind of initiative here where singles discuss the biggest problems and we can discuss solutions.

Which I'm sure we've had scattered threads doing this in the past - where singles mention their own unique problems. Or one problem I have seen constantly popping up on the forums is that two singles want to marry and the parents stop them. Or someone has life circumstances that circumvents it. 

So I guess if there was a specific group, or club where people can discuss problems and solutions sure that might stimulate some good ideas, but it seems shiachat somewhat already does that when someone seeking help posts a thread - though I guess there a lot of silent people out there who could probably unveil a lot more. But how we can implement solutions to these problems, I couldn't tell you.

i.e, I personally think classism is a huuuge issue that's not discussed or has never been rectified.

[AbdusSibtayn]

On 3/28/2026 at 9:23 PM, Essentials123 said:

Salaam, first off I would like to say that I am married so the proposed support group is not for me. I am a counselor and come across several young men and women looking to get married and it causes them a lot of stress. I am unable to match make due to my role as the counselor but I was thinking about what it would take and the constraints to start a support group for people looking to get married for the first time. Some thoughts I had were that parents can attend although I would ask if they decide to do that that they do not speak and reserve their comments for emails/private calls. I was thinking of hosting it as a mixed group but am questioning myself - Also, if it was a mixed group what constraints or rules would need to be put in. I am not sure if I will move forward with this. Actually, maybe there is someone better to run the group than me and that is fine with me. Then I would just refer people into the group and save myself the trouble. Many young people in our communities even the children of the leaders of the community sometimes are unmarried. Please share your thoughts on this topic if you have any. Suggestions are welcome. 

Running a marriage/matchmaking group is a daunting task. Apart from figuring out the logistics of it, especially if your group gains a sizeable membership/following/engagement ( for e.g. - how to set up meetings? how to protect user privacy? how much interaction to allow/facilitate between parties until they can take matters into their own hands? what about the fiqh of it all?), there's always the risk of being made the scapegoat if things go downhill- incidents of untoward attention, especially for female members (yes, the deplorables have always existed and still exist), 'ghosting', 'bad' matches and you get caught in the middle of it all as the person in-charge, even without realizing it. This is especially the case with online spaces like marriage whatsapp/telegram groups and subreddits. In offline spaces you have somewhat better control over things but the drama follows here too. 

My two cents- do whatever is within your ability. Don't worry about what could have been done more. Serious candidates will work their way further up from whatever point you can help them up to. 

[AbdusSibtayn]

On 4/14/2026 at 3:58 AM, ireallywannaknow said:

I admit that Instagram is a lot more addictive than I thought. I only got it relatively recently and now I fear there's no going back

Never had instagram alhamdulillah. Also shut down my facebook a few years ago. These things are designed to keep you hooked by manipulating your brain's dopamine mechanism, working just like p**n and drugs. I am not on any social media and yet struggle to reduce my scree time, you can very well imagine what the internet is doing to our brains through social media apps. 

On 4/14/2026 at 5:37 AM, Hameedeh said:

Sister, Instagram is also using people's info. I had an anonymous Instagram account but because I am a really introverted person I never posted anything there. I didn't want to chat to anyone through Instagram; just wanted to read and get informed.

One day I got a notification from Insta that asked me if I want to be friends with some people. I looked and one of them was a relative of my best friend in real life. I realized that Instagram "knew" the people in my Gmail contacts list. I immediately ended my Insta account. 

Being on these social media platforms is like willingly feeding your information to intelligence agencies and super-corporates. This should be obvious by now, there's too much incontrovertible evidence to show that they're being used to spy on us. 

[Essentials123]

On 5/8/2026 at 8:06 PM, AbdusSibtayn said:

My two cents- do whatever is within your ability. Don't worry about what could have been done more. Serious candidates will work their way further up from whatever point you can help them up to. 

Thank you for your feedback. You raised some good points I had not thought of.

[Abu Hassanain]

Salam

at this point in time, the traditional methods have become more difficult

Parents expect too much and young women and young men are not prepared or even understanding their responsibilities

I don’t think everyone needs to be rich. I think we’re getting to the point where people meeting each other in high school or college is the best way because people don’t socialize much after undergrad anymore. Nobody talks at the library. Nobody talks at the gym. Nobody talks at the grocery store and I’m not talking about opposite sex talking talking about even people making small talk or having conversations.

Time when you’re around the most people for the longest period of time and interacting with people in a safe environment or limits shouldn’t be crossed as high school and university

I personally advocate 10th or 11th grade people getting married both parents supporting them through graduate school trade school or seminary

And personally, I’m not against a young man meets a slightly older woman with a good career and a lot of money and he knows how to cook clean and do laundry or he’s working 5, 10 hours a week or she puts him on healthcare. I see a lot of people doing that if they agree to that that’s a valid lifestyle choice.

The bar is very very low. I’m sitting here with people.

The community has made marriage less about religion and more about race, lineage, prestige, and money

Our community doesn’t do anything right marriage included. This is why we have the problems we have here in the west.

The eastern world you still to an extent of the family networks, but it’s become more difficult

We need to think earlier marriage with community support

Just an example of the lack of thinking as you had some, the Somali were crying about bars being next to Islamic centers in England, crying about it on YouTube and I’m not a big YouTuber but my son showed me doesn’t really help what we should’ve done is get the Christian groove to Jewish groups, daycare, and schools together approach the local council and try to get a law passed banning new bars from being put up by houses of worship schools or daycare that would’ve been more effective than saying they put a bar by the house of Allah and acting all shocked on YouTube also, the latest fiasco in Texas was my modeling. They paid money to rent out the place just to avoid a headache. I would’ve said private event and then they paid to rent the place out but sold tickets to make their money back plus a profit. The priorities are not where they should be in these llama communities in the US and this is in both schools that the other school may have worse problems, but we have our own issues with our communities. 

My son is mildly autistic and his little to no interest in women so I haven’t got to the point where this has become an issue, but I seriously worry about him and a lot of my other friends being able to marry off their children

wallahu Alam 

[Gaius I. Caesar]

On 3/28/2026 at 8:58 PM, wolverine said:

So many people at ShiaChat talk about they cannot find a spouse, I am really surprised that nobody replied in this topic.

It pains me to write this but sometimes,I am no longer certain that nikah or even mutah is written for me. 

[Guest Rictus]

^ my advice to you to get closer to the answer of your wish of marriage

Stop continually publicizing your du’a (and your feeling of the constant lack of answer) and keep it between you and God (and/or select few privately)

I know it sounds like a harsh and critical comment so I fear the admins won’t allow my post through; but I’m not trying to be mean.

I have my own reasons/thoughts behind it this idea, and I mean it in the most positive and kindest way possible for your success.

But understand the feeling as a single person myself; when it’s so long you start to wonder if it’s written or not considering people have unintentionally lived and died without marrying in their lifetime.

No harm in continuous du’a though and telling God you accept whatever He wills.

[Hameedeh]

7 hours ago, Guest Rictus said:

I know it sounds like a harsh and critical comment so I fear the admins won’t allow my post through; but I’m not trying to be 

Salam. I am sorry, but I disagree. There could be a kind person reading his post about wanting to marry, who will privately get in touch with him and make an effort to help him find a wife. 

[Guest Rictus]

W/salam.

Sure. I don’t disagree about letting it out there that you are looking to marry or want to marry, so that you can receive help - our religion is all about using connections to marry. 

But that carries a different tone then continually displaying to others, “God is not answering me” with public supplication / there’s a subtle difference.

But I’m no sage so I could be off the mark here. No offence intended either. Just a thought to explore.

[Hameedeh]

1 hour ago, Guest Rictus said:

No offence intended either. Just a thought to explore.

Thank you for clarifying your thought. 

[ireallywannaknow]

Just an idea that popped into my head, it might be a weird idea but here goes. 

An online based singles group with a couple of moderators. The group meets once a month on a zoom call. No faces shown, only voices and no names, people just have ID numbers. A different discussion question/s will be asked each time such as "if you had to design an ideal shia community center, what would be the most important things to include" or "what would you consider one of the biggest reasons Imam Mahdi(عليه السلام) has not reappeared?" Or even "what ingredients do you need for a successful marriage?" Or any other number topics. 

Each of the single people would go around and give an answer. This gives other single candidates a chance to 1. Get a glimpse of the values and mindset of that person and 2. A chance to hear how they express themselves and how they sound without visuals getting in the way. It also circumvents the written profiles that often lack soul and can be too easily overlooked by a prospective match because of factors that matter less like race, job, etc. 

Only moderators are able to directly contact candidates. Candidates can request more basic info about someone they are interested in from a moderator such as location and age of such and such ID and if he or she would like to proceed further they would need the other candidate to okay it first via the moderator and maybe parents get involved at that stage as well.

Candidates are only allowed to request info about up to 3 others per session. 

Sessions are recorded and can replayed for a duration of time then deleted. 

Anyway I'm just brainstorming by myself right now, let me know what you all think 

[Abu Hassanain]

On 5/13/2026 at 9:19 PM, Guest Rictus said:

W/salam.

Sure. I don’t disagree about letting it out there that you are looking to marry or want to marry, so that you can receive help - our religion is all about using connections to marry. 

But that carries a different tone then continually displaying to others, “God is not answering me” with public supplication / there’s a subtle difference.

But I’m no sage so I could be off the mark here. No offence intended either. Just a thought to explore.

Salam

our religion is not about using connections to marry our cultures are

If we were doing things literally in the way, they’re done from a religious standpoint during the time of the holy prophet, peace and blessings be upon him people would go to him to ask to be married many of the times and he would help mediate and arrange marriages, other than that, people went with the pre-existing tribal structure of how they found partners

Wallahu Alam 

[Guest Rictus]

^ W/salam

Respectfully, yes our religion is about using connections to marry. We are not supposed to be stuck and alone in finding a spouse and pray for somebody randomly come about and propose - our religion is about community and helping each other.

I think you're misunderstanding me or maybe I used the wrong word when I said "connections" - I didn't mean nepotism or tribalism to marry.

I meant having others help you get married when they see you are single and you express that you want to marry.

- You yourself indicated that people went to the Prophet to arrange marriage

- Imam Ali AS went to his brother Aqil to find a spouse with certain qualities (Ummul Baneen)

- The Holy Prophet's marriage to Bibi Khadijah was in some ways suggested and facilitated by people related to both of them

- I have seen traditions regarding the thawaab one gets for match-making two people

All in all, based from our history and religious figures as examples, we ARE supposed to use community/people to marry.

 

But yes I agree with you - I can attest that communities or our cultures today are absolutely nasty in terms of: a) keeping to their tribe b) keeping to their hierarchy/wealth

Which is an absolute problem.

As a female from a small family/lack of connections, I saw my community match-makers assist my peers who were all from bigger or wealthier families, and left me in the dust. These peers of mine would be speaking to a new potential spouses almost on the monthly, whereas it would be every couple years that someone would be brought to my door.

So yes - our cultures are the problem, but OUR RELIGION wanted our community and our people to help our singles find our significant others!

[Murti156]

On 4/16/2026 at 1:13 AM, Guest Nystagmus said:

It's a kind proposal you put forward.

I just don't see how it's feasible on an online forum.

If you mean for match-making, on this website, that would mean singles would be 1) typing up their profiles 2) giving it to a middle person who has access to all of these profiles and then 3) that person, or people, on the site, does the match-making. And it would be interesting to see how to organize these two singles to chat - when maturity and religiosity levels might be different, and you want to make sure this is halal and safe.

The problem is, people who are match-makers in real life / offline communities sometimes do a terrible job of it themselves. So it would have to be a good expert, and it's still difficult to understand a single person's requirements completely online. And this expert (or experts) would certainly be bogged down with a lot of profiles, and maybe they won't do all of them justice simply from the numbers.

Shiamatch.com is advertised a lot on shiachat. Personally as a single I've never liked trying using that site - but it's more built for match-making (albeit the singles are seeing the profiles and making the decisions themselves, which maybe some prefer anyway, but you do lose the safety of middle people).

Unless you want to organize some offline session - which would take a lot of planning and again, there are failed rates with mosques who do attempt this.

Now - if you are looking for simply a support group versus a match making initiative, maybe this can work.

Maybe we need to understand the problems singles are having - is it their respective communities that are not doing them justice? Is it their life circumstances? Where is the disconnect - are they unable to meet singles, or simply the qualities they desire are not in the pool they are searching, or they are not in the right pool themselves for someone who would be searching for them?

If anything, I know for sure mosques should be holding anonymous surveys so that singles can inform them how they have been failed. Maybe some kind of initiative here where singles discuss the biggest problems and we can discuss solutions.

Which I'm sure we've had scattered threads doing this in the past - where singles mention their own unique problems. Or one problem I have seen constantly popping up on the forums is that two singles want to marry and the parents stop them. Or someone has life circumstances that circumvents it. 

So I guess if there was a specific group, or club where people can discuss problems and solutions sure that might stimulate some good ideas, but it seems shiachat somewhat already does that when someone seeking help posts a thread - though I guess there a lot of silent people out there who could probably unveil a lot more. But how we can implement solutions to these problems, I couldn't tell you.

i.e, I personally think classism is a huuuge issue that's not discussed or has never been rectified.

I am sorry, but Shia match just doesn't work for younger ppl. I am 25 and live in Germany.  If I look in my country for women in my age range, 18-25, with the only requirement of them being never married and wearing hijab regularly, I get 1 profile, that hasnt been active since January. The site just doesn't get enough traffic, the profiles are public and quite limited in what you can put on ur profile to get a more tailored match, and the UI is a bit clunky as well. And the site and the limited profiles feel very impersonal, which raises the barrier to entry. And the fact that a lot of ppl have been signed up by parents or siblings doesn't really help. It is great that the resource exists, but it is mainly used by ppl aged 35+.

[Gaius I. Caesar]

On 5/13/2026 at 12:21 PM, Guest Rictus said:

Stop continually publicizing your du’a (and your feeling of the constant lack of answer) and keep it between you and God (and/or select few privately)

Bold of you to assume that I am not praying privately. Thank you anyway.

On 5/13/2026 at 12:21 PM, Guest Rictus said:

I know it sounds like a harsh and critical comment so I fear the admins won’t allow my post through; but I’m not trying to be mean.

A word of advice for you, be sure that your advice is solicited and if you are going to give out "harsh" and "critical" advice, you have to be willing to eat the harshness yourself. 

On 5/13/2026 at 9:19 PM, Guest Rictus said:

But that carries a different tone then continually displaying to others, “God is not answering me” with public supplication / there’s a subtle difference.

However, that's not I am doing, that is your own assumption of how it looks to you.

[Guest Rictus]

@Gaius I. Caesar

I guess my comment made it seem I assumed you weren’t praying privately Though I certainly was not.

Yes, I figured I may receive harshness back, it’s natural. Though again it was not meant harshly.

Yes, I agree, you’re not literally telling everyone “God is not answering me”.  It’s more of what’s seen from actions.

But, fine, I’ll relent. Maybe it is only in my eyes. Still think it’s worth trying though. 

Prayers for your success nonetheless, the pain is well understood.

[Gaius I. Caesar]

On 5/12/2026 at 6:04 PM, Abu Hassanain said:

I don’t think everyone needs to be rich. I think we’re getting to the point where people meeting each other in high school or college is the best way because people don’t socialize much after undergrad anymore.

 People need to understand that while work is important, the rat race is an illusion like everything else in the dunya. 

[Abu Hassanain]

20 hours ago, Guest Rictus said:

^ W/salam

Respectfully, yes our religion is about using connections to marry. We are not supposed to be stuck and alone in finding a spouse and pray for somebody randomly come about and propose - our religion is about community and helping each other.

I think you're misunderstanding me or maybe I used the wrong word when I said "connections" - I didn't mean nepotism or tribalism to marry.

I meant having others help you get married when they see you are single and you express that you want to marry.

- You yourself indicated that people went to the Prophet to arrange marriage

- Imam Ali AS went to his brother Aqil to find a spouse with certain qualities (Ummul Baneen)

- The Holy Prophet's marriage to Bibi Khadijah was in some ways suggested and facilitated by people related to both of them

- I have seen traditions regarding the thawaab one gets for match-making two people

All in all, based from our history and religious figures as examples, we ARE supposed to use community/people to marry.

 

But yes I agree with you - I can attest that communities or our cultures today are absolutely nasty in terms of: a) keeping to their tribe b) keeping to their hierarchy/wealth

Which is an absolute problem.

As a female from a small family/lack of connections, I saw my community match-makers assist my peers who were all from bigger or wealthier families, and left me in the dust. These peers of mine would be speaking to a new potential spouses almost on the monthly, whereas it would be every couple years that someone would be brought to my door.

So yes - our cultures are the problem, but OUR RELIGION wanted our community and our people to help our singles find our significant others!

Salam

you misunderstood what I was saying in the narrations you’ve posted and statements reinforce what I’m saying go to your local clergy and ask for marriage

The networks work within their own culture and connections for people who are connecting they don’t work for unconnected people

In your situation, small family there are a few connections or female. I would suggest definitely going into the clergy and be open to marry outside your specific language and culture or possibly convert 

Prayers for success for your marriage