The dilemma I am a 27-year-old man and a practising Muslim. I currently live in Germany. I am very liberal, and I respect the freedom and rights of women.

I am engaged to a 24-year-old Pakistani-British girl, arranged by our families. I think you know how things are done in Pakistani families. We have been talking/texting for the last six months.

I’m very doubtful she has been forced into this marriage. I have asked so many times if she is happy with it and she says that yes, she is happy with whatever her parents have decided for her.

She doesn’t take much interest in me, and tries not to share much about herself. I have complained about this and she just said that she is afraid of moving to Germany. She has never lived away fom her parents, and it will be very hard for her to leave everything.

She is a private and reserved person with few friends. She said she doesn’t use social media, but after spying I found she uses Facebook and Instagram. She also lied to her sisters about this. I have a feeling that she has built a wall between family and friends. I don’t want to break up. It would be hard for both families, for me, and maybe for her. These are all just doubts. What should I do?

Mariella replies This is hard. You’ve written to an atheist, Norwegian/British feminist asking what to do about your arranged marriage. I’m flattered, but not sure how much help I’ll be. Obviously I haven’t experienced every dilemma that falls into my postbox, but this is about as far removed from my own experience as possible.

That said, I like a challenge and as my own family will ruefully attest, I’m not short on opinions. I do know “how it works in Pakistani communities”, but having grown up nursing a desire to escape my parents’ bad choices from an early age, the idea of letting them choose my fate would have been anathema to me.

Work at connecting with her as a person, rather than as another male family member with their own ideas of how she should live

Your sense of duty and adherence to tradition are qualities I can only sit back and admire, even wonder at, having always felt entirely opposite impulses. It seems to me the most important thing is not to apply alternative standards to the situation you are in. You can’t expect to immediately imbue your relationship with the irrational but exciting love-at-first sight elements adopted in less traditional unions.

I would suggest that, if at all possible, a visit to your future wife might give her a bit more confidence and understanding of you before she emigrates. I’m interested in her separate life on social media and actually it makes me feel more confident about her. Rather than leading an entirely exemplary life of duty and obedience she has had the wherewithal to carve her own little space in the world where she can enjoy a less restrictive environment. She may well have built a wall between friends and family and elected to keep them separate, and if you think about it from her point of view, it makes sense. It must be very difficult to lead an existence in which you have very little control over your own destiny. At least on Instagram and Facebook she can be out in the world without compromising her parents’ expectation.

I think you should celebrate her relative determination and gently attempt to enter her friends’ world, showing her that she can be as free and candid with you as she can among her girlfriends. Instead of disapproving or seeing her life online as a threat, it could actually provide a really healthy way of getting to know each other better. So long as she doesn’t feel you are spying on her but appreciating her on her own terms. That means you should ask permission to follow her, which you obviously do anyway, and keep your presence low-key to start with so she doesn’t feel intimidated by it. Use the same sites to give her glimpses of your life and make sure you present yourself as the person you really are, not simply as you feel you are expected to be.

You’ve decided to take a route to marriage that is often disparaged in the society we both live in. Yet as long as there is no coercion and you both enter the relationship with the willingness to make it work, you have as much chance of success as those who marry for love. All relationships require mutual respect, an ability to be both co-dependent and independent and a desire to maintain a union in the face of many challenges over many years.

You’ve made a commitment and that leaves only two paths: the one you say you don’t desire which is to let your fears overwhelm you and threaten your engagement; the other is to befriend this woman and work hard at connecting with her as a person, rather than as another male family member with their own ideas on how she should live.

I was nervous to respond, but hope a different view of things may help you clear your muddled head. You have the chance to make a modern, emancipated start to your lives together by showing your fiancée how much you have to gain by being friends first and family second. I’d love to know how it works out.

If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1