I thought I found the perfect one but...

Met a girl on an AM site. She messaged first. I was honestly exhausted with the whole arranged marriage setup and told her upfront I didn’t have the energy for it. We still kept talking, just as friends.

Over time, I started really liking her personality. She’s mature but also kind of innocent. Very religious, same faith as me, strong values, clear life priorities. We don’t match much academically or intellectually, but that didn’t matter as much because culture and religion were our main focus. We’d talk for hours, sacrifice sleep, and I genuinely loved speaking to her.

At first, she barely showed herself. Mostly side-profile pics. She’d say stuff like “there’s a big difference between photos and real life” or “this is just camera angle,” which I found odd because she looked perfectly fine to me. I assumed it was insecurity and tried to boost her confidence. Somewhere in that process, I caught feelings.

Neither of us had ever been in a relationship before, which felt rare and special to me and she was totally into me, I could see from her words. Add to that her values and how caring she was, I ended up asking if she’d consider me for marriage. She said yes. I was genuinely happy. It felt pure.

We got closer, and emotionally it was intense, first time experiencing something like that. She’s honestly amazing in terms of wife qualities.

But here’s the issue.

She didn’t send as many photos. When I asked for more, she sent some recent videos where she looked quite different from the earlier pictures. Not ugly at all, but different enough that my physical attraction just… dropped. In some recent pics she looks cute. In some unfiltered videos, I feel zero attraction (even negative). It gives me this anxious, sinking feeling in my stomach. Like my brain is rejecting what it’s seeing. Now I am not sure whether this is the panic of settling or genuine repulsion but it does trigger at those moments.

She says she’s stressed because of exams, not taking care of herself, and that’s probably true. She sensed my tone shift and said she’ll go to the gym and take better care of herself. That made me feel even worse because I don’t want her to feel like I don’t value her, I do. She’s a beautiful person, but my mind and eyes back off.

Now I’m torn. Emotionally, I’m attached. Her character, values, loyalty, 10/10. But my baseline for physical attraction is clearly reacting in ways I can’t control. I don’t want to marry her out of pity or because I’m lonely. That would be unfair to her. She deserves someone who sees her as the most beautiful woman in the world.

At the same time, the thought of losing her hurts a lot. She’s genuine. She’d love deeply. That’s rare.

People say attraction grows with time. I want that to be true. But what if it doesn’t? I know my family (and maybe even my own standards) value specific looks too.

I wish my mind worked differently, but right now I’m just confused and low.

What would you do in this situation?