«زَيِّ الْحُرْمَهْ الْمِفَارْقَهْ لَا هِي مِطَّلَقَهْ وَلَا هِي مْعَلَّقَهْ»

The image is of a wife who has parted from her husband yet holds no divorce. Without one, she lacks the liberty to arrange her own life as she wishes; having parted, she is no longer at his side as a wife. Neither status fully fits her, and the picture comes to stand for any position without settled footing.

Turned on a person, it marks someone confused about their own affairs, whose direction nobody can predict because it never comes to rest. The sense goes beyond simple indecision: the person sits between two conditions and gains the advantages of neither.

Apply it to someone who is bewildered about their own situation and has settled on no clear course, so that others cannot tell where matters will come to rest. The comparison suits a person whose standing remains unresolved, caught between two conditions without fully belonging to either.