After 4 years long distance and finally getting married, I’m struggling with the thought of waiting even longer

I guess I’m just looking for a place to vent because I’m feeling really discouraged.

My husband is a U.S. citizen and I’m from Chile. We were long distance for almost 4 years before finally getting married a month ago. Last year, when I started researching immigration options, everything I read seemed to point toward getting married first and doing consular processing as the safest and most straightforward path.

At the time, I felt relieved because it seemed like we were making the responsible choice. We didn’t want to do anything risky or that could create problems later or getting stuck in his house for a long time without being able to work sounded miserable… now I might have changed my mind.

Right now I’m getting all of our paperwork together for the I-130, organizing evidence, asking our family and friends for affidavits, filling out forms, getting photos, and preparing the packet. But the more I come on Reddit, the more it feels like processing times have gotten longer than what I originally expected. It thought it was going to be a little over a year for the whole thing but now it’s taking that much time only for the I-130 …

Part of me keeps wondering if we chose the wrong path. Should we have done a K-1 visa? Should I have tried to adjust status from inside the U.S.? I know there’s no point second guessing decisions that have already been made, but it’s hard not to think about it when every additional month feels so significant.

We’ve already spent almost 4 years long distance, and after finally getting married I think I was emotionally expecting the finish line to be closer. Finding out that it may take longer than I thought has hit me harder than I expected.

I know we’ll get through it. I’m still moving forward with the paperwork. I’m just having one of those days where the separation and uncertainty feels really heavy.

Is it really as bad as Reddit makes it seem? Is there any hope at all?