Ermintrudeclaire, you seem to have the same problem as me. I'm OK (just!) to play the chords but not to fit the words of the song to the strumming. What I find is that I naturally tend to strum on the accented words so the strum pattern goes to pot; then if I try to concentrate on the strum pattern the words go to pot!

I think you really do have to divorce the singing and the strumming in the early learning stage - see them as two separate parts of the whole (I stress, just for the initial learning stage). The best I have done so far is to establish a strum pattern and play the chords over and over, then write down the strum pattern and overlay the words so that the exact word or part of the word appears at exactly the right strum. If this all seems a bit mechanical - it is! But without any musical talent it's the only way I can work it, and it soon starts to relax.

Hopefully there will be some more enlightened advice than I can offer - I need it myself.

Cheers, Terry