Should I panic about my daughter?
My daughter had a gap year after finishing school. She is due to go to university in October 2022 in London to study economics.
In the past 18 months, she had an Egyptian boyfriend whom she met online through a school friend who had lived in Cairo. The boyfriend was studying in Europe. She went to Cairo to stay with her family and had a wonderful time but the relationship broke down. She has a huge social media following and friends in Egypt and has fallen in love with Cairo (and I can see why; it sounds fascinating). However, the world of social media is a concern because all is not necessarily what it seems, even if she does not accept it.
She saved money from her gap year job and returned to Cairo in early August 2022 for a vacation. She booked herself an AirBnB and was clearly having a great time with lots of friends. However, one of my contacts living in New Cairo contacted me last week to say that our daughter had married (unofficial marriage) and that it was with a man from a “bad neighborhood”. She shared photos from our daughter’s wedding to a young man I recognize on social media. It’s hard to tell if the photo is a wedding photo. Our daughter was late coming home and our friend urged us to get her out of Cairo for her safety. We managed to find her a flight home with an excuse about the urgent need for her return and she did not protest her return to the UK.
Our daughter came back to the UK a few days ago and now says she doesn’t want to take her place at UK university and wants to go back to Egypt to go to UK university or even just to live . She told us that she would live in a good part of Cairo but told our Egyptian friend (with whom she shares more than us) that she would come back to live with her “husband” in her area (Kormala, Belbes, Sharqia). She didn’t tell us about her unofficial marriage and says she doesn’t have a boyfriend, only lots of friends. Her “husband” is described by her as one of her student friends.
We are very, very worried. We don’t know if our Egyptian friend panics unnecessarily because she is quite rich and dismissive of many who are less so. On the other hand, an “unofficial marriage” is truly concerning, as is the lack of clarity we have about what she’s getting into. Is this a meaningless ceremony between pranksters or something more sinister? There are plenty of stories of western women in real trouble, but we don’t know if the world has moved on in Egypt and we’re ignorant (as our daughter tells us). She doesn’t know that we know about the wedding. She says we either support her (help fund it!) or we don’t, but whatever we do, she will go live in Cairo and if we don’t support her, she will cut us off for good. When we raise concerns, she tells us that we have no idea of modern Egypt, which is true. She’s stubborn and officially an adult so she can’t be stopped I guess.
I would really appreciate people’s opinions here. I’m worried sick and I don’t know what to think. When we raise concerns, she tells us that we have no idea of modern Egypt, which may be true, which is why your insights and knowledge would be so helpful. Sorry this is so long and confusing.
