I have always wanted a daughter

This will probably be too long, sorry.

So I recently turned 60 and as you may have summazied have never had a daughter.

About 11 or 12 years ago I traveled with my wife back to her country of origin.  While there we visited her aunt and cousin.  Her cousin had 3 daughters, whose ages at the time were about 3, 8 and 16.

The oldest became close to my son and the two spent a lot of time together.  I would often pick up and carry the youngest, but she couldn't speak English yet.  The middle one and I would talk and I would always hold her hand when we would walk around the mall and such.  I ended up caring so much about and would even refer to her in front of everyone as my daughter.

My wife and I had previously discussed the possibility of adopting a girl.  Before returning home I spoke with my wife about an idea that I had, which was to legally adopt the "niece", raise her as our own child, but to not change her name and her parents would still be her parents and she would still communicate with them.  I asked her what she thought about this and she told me, "her parents loved her too much". So of course I understood and went on with my life.

I would still think about her occasionally, and wonder what it might have been like for her to be part of our family.  So this year we went back and eventually we visited her cousin again.  While I was sitting down the niece came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and said, "hi uncle".  Before I could turn around my feelings about her came back from more than a decade ago.

I still wanted to have some type of father daughter relationship with her (2nd father), though she is now a young lady.  So a few days later I told my niece pretty much everything stated in paragraphs 3 - 5 above.

The following morning when I came out of the room where my wife and I slept,  the our niece walked over to me, smiled, said "good morning dad" and gave me a brief hug.  Between the day of the, "good morning" and when we left a few months later to return home, she and I spoke many times.  When I was saying my goodbyes to her we agreed that once a month I would call and talk with her briefly.  I just still wanted to be a small part of her life.  I felt like I had missed out on so many of the milestones in her life; first communion, high school graduation, etc.  Though she did agree to invite us to her wedding, when ever it may happen.

So she accepted and I believe even liked that I cared so much for her.  We would sometimes text on Messenger, until recently. 

Unfortunately my wife doesn't understand why I have these feelings and really doesn't like it.  To at least some degree, my wife thinks that my feelings are romantic and not platonic.

I told my wife that I don't feel that way.  That for me, my greatest wish for her niece and I, would be if at her wedding I could walk her halfway down the isle and then give her to her real Dad to walk her the rest of the way to her groom.

So a few weeks ago my wife and I had a fight about all of this.  She told me I had to choose my marriage or texting, communicating with her niece.  Of course I  chose my marriage.

But I finally felt like I was beginning to have that father daughter relationship that I had longed for so many years.  This really hurts and I can't speak to anyone about it.