SOME of us said no to 30 non-Muslims who asked out when we were young as our mothers told us that no-one in the community would marry us if we had a boyfriend. 

Our family doctors know that we have been celibate all our lives and our teachers know that we stood first out of hundreds at school as we listened to our mothers and worked hard and behaved well and believed naively that would get us somewhere in life only to be slandered for our hard won success.

Some of us have lived angelic lives and listened to our mothers only to be demeaned by jealous relatives and have ended up 47 and unmarried and childless and afraid that if we don't meet someone decent before it's too late, we will never have a family.

Some of us have been GOOD MUSLIM girls and have been betrayed. 

We have watched as friends had boyfriends and we spent every Valentine's Day alone waiting for the time when we could marry someone in our faith only to find that men in our faith want to marry us yet run away because of slander and lies and others don't marry us because their mothers don't want a divorcee's child even though divorce is allowed in Islam and their sons liked us.

Some of us then suffer the indignity (after years of our innocent lives have been wasted on lies) of being sneered at and told by men who are 2-5 years older than us that we are too old for them as we won't have children at 47 even though we are still able to have children by the grace of God. 

Some of us were the good Muslim girls who obeyed our mothers and said no to dating over a period of 20 years so that we could have a happy marriage within our faith  whilst we watched as the girls who had one night stands, fornicated and did drugs all got married and had children and became respected mothers and wives. 

Yet, we lived lonely lives trying to please Allah and our mothers and the community and got called filthy names and ended up alone.

The 'My Story' series features letters and posts from readers of Asian Image (the Lancashire Telegraph's sister paper) which they wish to share with others. To be included email: news@asianimage.co.uk. Posts will remain anonymous.