To Move or Not To Move

traveller.1

India is different. You either hate it or love it, It doesn't grow on you. Some people like the differences, the casualness, the elastic flexibility of time, the everything or anything goes mentality. Some people are flexible with food, climates, shops, clothes, markets, levels of cleanliness, poverty, displays of ostentatious wealth, a gaping chasm between the haves and the have nots and some people arent.

I suspect that your fiancee's, resistance to India is not so much resistance to going overseas but to the diametrically, and longitudonally oppositeness of India. She perhaps is not an adventurer, seeking out the the mysterious subcontinent. For all the 9% economic growth, the rapidly rising ranks of millionaires, the IT boom, the BPOs, there are people still living much as they did when Queen Victoria's Brittanic Majesty still ruled the land.

India is an adventure not a destination. You dont visit India, you experience it. Each, state, each district is unique. You come here to experience what you never would, you come here to see the fiercly competitive Indians working late into the nights, their children acing SAT and GRE scores in in the States and making themselves the largest contingent of foreigners in AMerican universities. You see wealth displayed with casual arrogance and poverty prostrated pitifully on the pavements.

YOu can spend more money on a meal than some earn in a several months, and yet see generosity in their chilling poverty. Your fiancee as a teacher would see so much respect from students and their parents, that, that respect alone would make her strive to greater things, so that she herself might feel worthy of that respect. This however is a man's land.

Take a vacation, the 2 of you and see how you both like it here and then decide. Her employment chances post India are better than without India. Your carrer too, post India is probably better. This is wheere the growth is. AS they said in America at the turn of the last century,"Go West young Man, that's where fortune is,", today one might say, "Go East young man, tht is where you will find your fortune."

I am from AZ and have been here for several months. Would not miss it for the world. I however commute very frequently.

Good luck and and as the Indian's say it is in your Kismet. If it is to be it will be.

Piper

It might help your fiancee to do some research, especially regarding expat groups in the area (or even in India). Many such groups have detailed websites with excellent information on the unique benefits & challenges that India presents. I got a lot of info from this site (www.owcbangalore.org) when I was looking into moving here. It's for an expat women's club in Bangalore, and their 'Moving to Bangalore' link was helpful.

chAos

I don't quite agree; I think it can grow on one. I never either loved it or hated it, rather a nice ambiguous mix. It's simply a place; as I get more familiar with it, it becomes less overwhelming, and therefore more comfortable.

To the OP:
Like the others have said, working in India is only going to be an advantage to her, especially if she picks up an extra language or two, does some charity work, expands her view of the world of possibilities (India is particularly good for this).

The Bigger issue is the relationship:
You can't ask anyone to move anywhere they don't want to, doesn't matter if it's India or Idaho. There's way too much room for resentment, and when anything goes off, when anybody gets sick, when anyone is unhappy, guess whose fault it will be?

You would know better if she's the kind of person to stick to a statement or be willing to change it, but her protestations against a place she's never been, based on information she doesn't have, sounds a bit like a kid who's not willing to eat broccoli, without having tried it.

Is she willing to gather more data? Talk to people who have been there, read books, look online...? Does she know she won't have to wash a dish or mop a floor for the duration? Would that sway her (oh, maybe that's just me)?? Like somebody else mentioned, teachers are treated with much more respect in India than you'll generally find in the US. If she's not willing to get more information, then you most definitely should not try to change her mind.

I know several other couples who also have polar opposite travel mentalities; some have stopped travelling altogether, some travel independently, and some have split because of it.

So, here's a stranger's answer (mine) to your question:
You are not married yet; take the job and at the same time, do not expect her to move with you. She can visit while you're in India and see then if she likes it or not, with much less pressure than would be on a short trip before you decide. There's always webcam chat. And 3 years is actually not a very long time.

No, I'm not heartless. I just think that sometimes there are opportunities and only you can know if they are the right ones for you. You have to make that decision for yourself, and she has to make her own.

Ignite

To OP,

I don't think you're going to get a better answer than the one Chaos gave you.

__________________
When life gives you a lime..........drink Tequila.