Seeking Guidance After Choosing Taqwa Over a Relationship

As-salamu alaykum everyone, I'm a bro who just finished uni in the UK. I need some advice about a situation I'm in-trying to do the right thing Islamically. So about a year back, I got connected online with a Muslim sister from France. We started talking through some mutual friends, and mashallah, we really clicked fast. Our talks got serious quickly-we both wanted marriage, not just something casual. We'd discuss everything: where we'd live, sorting visas between the UK and France, money stuff, careers, family... the whole deal. But here's the thing: as we learned more about our deen, we realized the way we were talking and connecting without proper boundaries was actually haram. We got scared of losing Allah's barakah and decided to stop all contact cold turkey. Right now, we're not messaging or calling at all-she sometimes asks my sister about me, and I might check in with her mum, but that's it. Our families kinda know bits: her mum knows about me and is cool with it, my sister knows about her, but her dad’s totally against early marriage. Plus, I just graduated, so I don’t have a solid job or my own place yet. On my side, I recently had to get out of a forced marriage setup with a cousin-it was planned for years and took a lot of dua and effort to stop it, alhamdulillah. My parents now want me to wait two years before considering marriage again to save face with the family. If I tell them about her now, they’ll probably say no straight up and cause more issues. We're both making sincere tawbah and praying for each other, but we’re stuck on how to move forward practically. We want to marry, but we're in different countries and need to figure out real stuff like timelines, finances, and family approval-without going back to haram ways. My question is: after repenting, can we still have a little bit of halal communication just to discuss marriage plans? Like, respectful talks with clear limits about practical things-visas, money, family steps-to see if marriage is even possible? Or should we keep zero contact until everything's ready? We're trying hard to obey Allah, but we also don’t want to plan a future marriage totally in the dark. Jazakum Allahu khayran for any advice.