I used ChatGPT to help me express my feelings a bit better and also for translation.
I recently married my wife (Nikkah). She’s a couple of years older than me, but we’re both in our 30s. I’m from Germany, and she’s from Morocco.
We met on a dating app, and she gave me her number right away. In the beginning, she was very affectionate and loving, and we decided to marry after only a few weeks. She also has a young daughter from her previous marriage.
After our marriage, things changed. She’s been under a lot of stress with school and with her residence permit, which was rejected but is still being appealed. Because of this, she has trouble sleeping and is often very tense.
Since then, she hasn’t been as affectionate with me. She struggles to say “I love you” back when I say it, and sometimes she thinks I’m angry or annoyed even when I’m not. I work full-time, and sometimes traffic makes the trip to her place almost three hours, so I usually only see her and her daughter on weekends. When I arrive, I’m often tired, but she still cooks dinner for me, which I really appreciate. We’re also planning to move in together in about two weeks, when I get the keys to my new apartment.
The things I’m finding difficult are:
• In discussions, she tends to talk a lot, and I don’t always get the chance to express myself.
• She doesn’t show much physical affection anymore, and sometimes it feels more like friendship than marriage.
• With her daughter, I sometimes feel unsure about my role. For example, her daughter eats a lot of sweets and often skips meals. When I mentioned that I thought it might not be healthy, my wife told me it’s normal for kids to love sugar.
A few days ago, my wife told me that if her daughter does something wrong, I should gently correct her. Yesterday her daughter kicked me, so I calmly told her that wasn’t okay. She later said sorry, which I accepted.
But when I told my wife about it, she got upset. She told me not to play with her daughter anymore, that her daughter would be grounded, and that once we live together she will handle parenting by herself. That made me sad, because I would like to treat her daughter as if she were my own, especially since she doesn’t have a dad in her life.
So now I feel unsure. On one hand, I understand how much stress my wife is under. On the other hand, I feel a bit left out — both as a husband and as a potential stepfather.
My question is: am I overthinking this and being too emotional?
Or any advice in general? This is in my head all the time and makes me feel not that happy.