Moving for Love – Challenges Faced by an American in France

Frequently, someone comes across my article about dating French men during an Internet deep dive on the topic.

Since writing the article, I’ve gotten DMs and emails from fellow young women asking how they can make it work. No, I am not leaving guys out – I have only received messages from women trying to move to be with their men.

Moving for love is, as a baseline, a huge decision. Regardless of whether you’re young and uprooting for the adventure of it all, or more established and taking the leap, everyone runs up against similar challenges here.

The short answer to the question, “How can I move to France to be with my French boyfriend?” is that unless you’re willing to take the leap and get wedding bells hitched, it’s challenging. (And, as you’ll read, getting married to move to France does not absolve one of the challenges that come with moving abroad.)

10 reasons why moving for love (and specifically, to France) is not for the faint of heart

1. Unless you plan to marry in order to move, you will have to figure out a way to come here

Oh, man. If I had a penny for every time I saw a Facebook group post saying something along the lines of, “It’s happening!!! Just bought my ticket to move to France to be with my soulmate!! Does anyone have any tips for finding a job in Paris? My qualifications are XYZ.”

Posts like these make me feel nauseous because this literally does not work. You do not get to stay in France indefinitely upon arriving; you can’t even stay in the EU indefinitely upon arriving.

If you simply book a ticket to come to France and come to France, you arrive on a tourist visa that is valid for 90 days. What’s more, those 90 days apply to the EU as a whole, not just France. This means that you can’t just make a “border run” (as we used to say back in my backpacking days in Peru) and pop over to a nearby country for a weekend in order to reset your visa clock.

It’s not that anything immediately happens if you stay past 90 days, but if you’re caught, you can be fined and banned from returning to the EU for a certain amount of time. What’s more, you’re not allowed to work on a tourist visa, so if you’re one of the many people for whom moving for love also means you need a job, coming on a tourist visa will not permit you to work.

Read more: What You Need to Know About Visas in France

A common solution to the visa issue in France is to simply get married

Marriage bestows the powerful French spouse visa / private family visa, in French called the vie privée et familiale. This is a long-term visa that also grants you the right to apply for any jobs for which you might qualify, without needing to worry about your visa being sponsored. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that life is going to be much easier for someone who has the right to apply; you’ve got to actually have the credentials. And France is obsessed with people’s education and work background.

In France, your educational background is referred to as your formation. In the US, I would say it’s pretty common to meet both totally average and super successful people whose actual degrees have absolutely nothing to do with what their careers ended up being. Here, not so much. So, while marrying might seem like the “easy” way to come here, it has absolutely nothing to do with how well-prepared you’re going to be for the job hunt once you arrive – especially if you don’t speak French.

While I’ve certainly been envious of people who move here on a visa that in theory means they’ll never have to worry about how they’re going to stay, even that comfort is an illusion

Marriages fail all the time, and it’s my personal opinion that long term, it’s best to try to stand on one’s own two feet in a foreign country before relying on someone else to give a helping hand.

For my eagle-eyed readers, that “try” caveat is intentional. I tried really hard to stay without my French partner’s help before ultimately finding a PACS to be the only viable long-term option. That said, the time and energy I put into trying to stay without his “help” have immeasurably contributed to my sense of place in this country and my self-confidence as a resident in my own right.

So, you’re probably going to have to get scrappy and be prepared to roll with the punches

When it comes to working full-time in France as a non-EU person, visa sponsorship is absolutely necessary. I almost obtained it before ultimately failing to do so, and I know of just one other person who secured sponsorship in a company that fit her skill set and in which she is still happily working.

For the vast majority, the inroads most-traveled are those traversed as teachers, au pairs, or students. Don’t see yourself teaching English, not into kids, and not sure what you’d study? You might be in for a bumpy road – but that’s totally normal.

2. Everyone will assume you are an English teacher or a babysitter

Moving to France is an adventure in and of itself. To get here, you might well need to enter on an au pair visa or through a teaching contract. The Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF) is probably the most common option here. You can also look into positions as a Lecteur/Lectrice/Maître de Langue, however, these are CDD contracts (a type of renewable French working contract that many expats get trapped in). What’s more, this type of work only becomes accessible after completing at least one school year as a TAPIF teaching fellow. If you try to apply directly as a foreigner without a visa, they will typically not sponsor you.

I moved to Strasbourg after one year of being an au pair in Paris. In Strasbourg, I quickly found a couple of steady babysitting gigs that slowed the bleeding of my savings. Although sporadic babysitting doesn’t pay as well as teaching, I’ve never regretted following my instinct to abstain from the profession – I’ve never felt called to it. What’s more, teaching is an enormous time commitment, and many Americans find themselves reluctantly trapped in a cycle of teaching CDDs.

Regardless of what you actually end up spending your working hours doing, if you come here and you’re under 35, the assumption will be that you’re somehow involved in teaching or child caretaking.

That being said, sticking with babysitting left me with a lot of free time to overanalyze and waste energy bemoaning my life’s choices. It also allowed me to practice giving myself grace, talking myself down, and putting one foot in front of the other. At the end of the day, we end up where we are, and all we can do is work with what we’ve got to build the life we want.

When it comes to teaching vs babysitting, it can feel a little bit like being trapped between a rock and a hard place

Both are going to be mentally and emotionally draining unless your passion truly is teaching or working with children. For me, babysitting was a way to keep a little fire burning under my booty. Even when I wasn’t sure how I’d move beyond childcare work, I always had the urgency of wanting to find a way to move beyond childcare work. However, when the chips and my mental health were down, there were days when I wondered if I was even “good enough” to be “anything more” than one of these two things.

(Please note that the words in quotations were real thoughts that I had when I was deeply unhappy and personally dissatisfied; I certainly don’t opine that it’s a failure when people choose to work with children long term; it has simply never been a goal of my own.)

3. If you’re not going to be an English teacher or a babysitter, you’ll have to figure out what you are going to do to generate an income

Every little thing, for a blissful period in the beginning, takes on the shiny appeal of a novelty. What’s more, your French honey is probably pretty happy to have you around, and so those first few weeks can pass in a whirlwind of morning boulangerie runs, walks around your neighborhood, and lunchtime, happy hour, and restaurant meet-ups. Eventually though, when the fairy dust settles, you’re going to be left with the decidedly unsexy and universal obligation of figuring out how you are going to generate an income and provide for yourself. Pro tip, watching Emily in Paris at this stage will probably be triggering.

At this stage, some expats will have more time than others. Perhaps your partner is established in their career, or at least financially secure enough to be able to foot the bill while you’re getting your bearings. For others, the honeymoon period will pass more quickly as the weight of real-world obligations sets in. Personally, this period was definitely a challenge for me and my partner, and yet, in the end, we came out stronger for it because he got to see me in some of my rawest, most vulnerable (and unpleasant) moments – and I got to appreciate the depths of his kindness and patience.

At this stage, there are so many factors that determine each person’s potential pathway that I won’t go into too much detail. However, determining your pathway might look like some combination of the following

• Initiating the recognition of your career credentials from your home country in France. Not all credentials are recognized though, so for many, this step will be irrelevant (and is best done prior to arriving in France). You can check how France views your foreign credentials here: Faire reconnaître en France un diplôme obtenu à l’étranger
• Applying to jobs – and learning how to make your French resumé stand out. Bear in mind that it’s probably not worth it to apply to jobs that don’t fit your on-paper background unless you or your partner has a personal connection to the hiring manager.
• Commencing an intensive French course. Unless you’re already bilingual, this will practically be a requirement if you’re living anywhere outside of Paris, and I’d highly recommend it even if you are living in Paris. Further, intensive courses will whip your language skills into shape much faster than anything else on the market, so if you can afford it, I recommend plunging in.
• Researching prospective master’s degree programs to enroll in during the next application cycle. Note that in order to enroll in a French-speaking master’s program, you do need to prove that you have a certain level of French (in most cases, at least a B1, usually a B2). Learn more via Campus France.
• Upskilling and learning how to provide digital services such as digital marketing or virtual assisting via online courses and opening your own small business in France (called an auto-entreprise). This can be an especially attractive option for people who qualify for a provision (ACRE) that cuts their taxes in half for the first year.

In my experience, the key is to keep moving

The sheer amount of time that I had once I moved to Strasbourg for my partner was really unnerving, even when I was doing 20 hours a week of my intensive language class.

For those asking why it was unnerving, I have a question for you: When was the last time you really just had endless time and plenty of things to think about, but nothing concrete to actually do at any given moment? Probably not in recent memory. The very real need to find some work or make decisions that have long-lasting implications can feel like a heavy weight pushing down on your chest from very far away. In these moments, it’s important to press ahead, even if you don’t know where “ahead” is exactly leading. This might look like many different things, such as attending expat meet-ups in your new city or registering for free online courses to upskill (or learn a new, marketable skill) in an area of interest.

4. International relationships aren’t like other relationships

Often, when moving for another person, we move into their space. If possible, I would recommend moving into a new space together, and one that you choose together, too. From the moment one person moves for another, for better or worse, the power dynamic is with the person for whom the least has changed. Moving into a new space together is a way for you both to establish yourselves on a neutral footing. What’s more, moving can be a time-consuming, frustrating, and exhausting process – but also a great opportunity to jump-start working well together.

Additionally, when it comes to international relationships, moving in together also means intercultural submersion. How you speak together during and throughout this time means far more than what you’re actually saying – huge misunderstandings and miscommunications are naturally occurring phenomena here. So, it’s best to lead with curiosity and request explanations for your partner’s way of doing or saying things instead of straight-up calling them out. Trust me, there will be plenty of time to do that in the years to come after you’ve laid a genuine foundation based on truly understanding how the other person works.

5. In the beginning, your partner will be your only friend

We all know the drill. Moving to a new place means putting on your big-girl pants and putting your best foot forward to find friends – stat. But what if the new place you move to is in a foreign, French-speaking city? What if your French sucks, but you feel badly speaking in English because you’re “supposed” to be trying to integrate by speaking the local language? These are all super common feelings. They are also exacerbated when you add in the fact that, at the end of the day, the person for whom you moved is first on the receiving line of in-person people to talk to about your day, your impressions of the city, your mental health, etc.

Now, of course, I know where to “look.” Facebook has been an invaluable resource in this regard, and I can personally recommend joining quite a few if you’re moving to Paris, Strasbourg, or even Montpellier as a non-French person (although I personally didn’t manage to make any good friends during the 10 months I lived in MTP – sometimes these things just don’t take off).

6. Expat friendships aren’t like other friendships

Eventually, whether it’s within days or weeks or even months (hey, no judgment here) of arriving, you’ll get out there and connect with someone else who’s also not from where you both are. Before you meet someone you really connect with, though, you’ll probably meet lots of others where the only thing you have in common is that you’re both not from where you are. This can feel lonely and gets weirdly tiring, too.

This part of moving to Strasbourg honestly reminded me a little bit of being a first-year in college; your first friends can sometimes reflect your desire to not be alone more than actually being people you click with. And hey, that’s totally okay! I was super awkward and anxious with many of the people I met when I first moved to Strasbourg because I was taking French classes for only three months, and I didn’t plan to return to school for my master’s.

I hated not being able to answer basic questions about what I did outside of French classes without feeling like a loser (babysitting, but sometimes I write on my blog…) or what brought me here (a Frenchman…)

Both of these are perfectly polite and normal questions to ask someone on the one hand, and on the other, perfectly normal responses within expat circles! But it’s easy to get tunnel vision and be really hard on yourself when meeting new people, especially because the nicest ones tend to be the ones who are the most settled and stable, which can leave you despairing as to how you’ll ever arrive at that point.

That being said, expat friendships are really special, and you truly never know who you’re going to meet. One of my favorite stories to tell is how I met Emily of Emily à l’Etranger. We’d both registered for a Facebook event for women expats in Strasbourg. It was a meet-up on the terrace of a bar and I had just about decided not to go because so many people had RSVPed that my social anxiety was kicking in prematurely.

About half an hour before the event, the organizer canceled. One person commented in the group that she still intended to go, and asked people who were still interested in going to “like” her comment. Only a small handful of people did, so, at my partner’s urging, I followed through on my initial plan and showed up to the event. There, I met a few different people, but Emily and I connected over being from the Chicagoland area, and she invited me to join her and some other women the following week to watch The Bachelor at her place. Just like that, it felt like the universe had granted me a social foothold for me to toe into. And that’s all it takes.

7. Family visits just got a whole lot more exhausting

As a baseline, family get-togethers aren’t generally considered to be the most relaxing. But living in a foreign country layers a new layer of exhaustion to the expected amount. This can be for many reasons, but I’ve found it to be principally because of the language barrier, and a strange type of homesickness.

My belle-famille met me when I could barely get out an intelligible bonjour. Fortunately, they are some of the most encouraging and kind people I’ve ever met, so the language barrier never felt like something they tolerated so much as something I lamented. Learning a language takes time, especially when you live in another language with your partner, like English. (I know many people will just say, “But you can just speak to your French partner in French!” And like, yes, technically you can, but IRL, you often just don’t. IYKYK.)

So as I said, my future in-laws are wonderful. They are also a decidedly monolingual bunch, meaning that when it comes to conversations and all of the jokes, references, and intonations, il faut parler français. I know many people will be curious to know a reference point of when I finally felt like my knowledge of French translated into a genuine presentation of who I am in conversation. I’ll provide one, but with a caveat: you will learn this language at your own pace. When talking about moving (or switching French cities) for love, we may all may arrive similarly, but the means by which we find our voices in a foreign language is infinite.

For me, it’s taken over four years since my first French class to get to a place where when Thibault and I pull up to his childhood home, it also feels like home to me too

Ironically, it’s this comfort that triggers a strange sense of homesickness, one that he senses from me more than I am cognitively aware of.

In the genuine joy I feel at being able to tell his mother about our trip, patiently explain to his dad that I would actually prefer a giant glass of water before any wine, thanks, and greet his brothers in a Frenchified version of how I’d greet my own, I expel energy at an alarming rate.

Fortunately, over the course of my learning my partner’s language, we have also developed our own language as life partners. When we visit with his family, he will create small moments that are just for us, and where I don’t have to be myself in any language. We can simply walk along the coastline, or perhaps sit together on the ancient leather couch beside the family room fire.

8. You will probably cry at a French establishment within the first six months of arriving

On a completely different note – maybe you’re trying to pick up a package from the post office only to find that the hours never seem to match what’s listed online, and they’re always closed. Perhaps you’re just trying to order a brownie at the boulangerie and the lady refuses to understand you even as you’re frantically tapping the glass on the opposite side of said brownie. Maybe French banks keep rejecting you because you’re an American (maybe try Wise instead?).

If none of these get you, the prefecture almost surely will. For those who have not had the pleasure of entering one of these government buildings, this is where you will go every time you need to apply to renew (or change) your visa in France. It is also where you will collect your new visas when they’re ready for you (after your first year, you are issued a residency card called a Titre de Séjour).

Personally, I’ve learned to accept that something as simple as putting together a folder with the requested documents will almost inevitably be found lacking in some administrator’s eyes. That doesn’t mean that I accept this gracefully, of course; it’s not uncommon to leave the prefecture in tears. That said, French people hate violent displays of emotion. I’ve found crying to be a very effective way of eliciting some sort of resolution to what at first was heralded as something utterly pas possible.

9. You don’t first make friends with French people; you first learn to live with French people. And they learn to live with you.

I say this as someone who has genuinely come to appreciate and, in many ways prefer, French culture to American culture. “The French way” is definitely a thing, but damn, can it wear on those of us who are just trying to walk down a street while eating a sandwich outside of meal and gouté hours.

Unlike in my home country, the US, where a 10-minute wait in line can result in a new friendship bound by the overwhelming exchange of every piece of personal information possibly shareable since the age of 12, relationships with French people in France form much differently. A 10-minute wait in line is correctly shared by ensuring you keep the maximum amount of distance between yourself and the other person, apologizing if this is not possible, and keeping an eagle eye on the person ahead of and directly behind you, lest someone thinks you are putting yourself forward before your turn.

In the US, if I think a woman who is a stranger to me is absolutely rocking her outfit, on the street, in a bar, or at the grocery store, I can tell her in passing the same way I would enthusiastically greet a friend and neither of us would think anything of it. Here, because I cannot resist expressing a compliment, I have learned that creating conditions for a proper exchange is crucial to the recipient of my compliment not thinking I’m a creepy weirdo.

10. At some point after moving to France, your mental health will absolutely fucking tank

In some ways, people moving to France to be with their boyfriends these days are lucky; there are so many amazing resources out there. By that same token though, it’s really easy to get overwhelmed by the urge to find friends and to make unconscious mental comparisons between yourself and every other expat you meet. This happens both in real life and on places like Instagram, where it’s perfectly normal to establish friendships with fellow expats via story responses and comments on posts.

One of the many reasons living abroad is fundamentally challenging is that the best resources are the most detailed, and in most cases, those resources are anecdotal. Take this one – I’ve just word-vomited approximately 3,000 words of insight into what it’s like to move for love and be in this country on account of someone else. At least some of it is helpful (at least, I hope so anyway). But some of it may resound for the wrong reasons – maybe you don’t have kind or understanding French in-laws, maybe your partner is still learning to support you in social situations that are happening in French, and so forth.

Whatever your situation – I want to acknowledge and validate that it is completely normal to feel like living in France is making you feel mentally unwell, or to feel like you’re becoming someone you don’t recognize

Moving for love and living in your new home with the person for whom you moved are two completely different things, and it takes time, patience, and resilience to find your footing. It also takes self-compassion. Doing anything for anyone implies a level of sacrifice, and when we extrapolate that concept and apply it to making an international move in the name of love, the size of that sacrifice becomes exponentially larger.

So, after all this, is moving for love right for you?

Woven into the fabric of this piece are stories, first and foremost, in the first-person POV. There comes a point during everyone’s time in France when you realize that you have to take control of your story here. Yes, you may have come for someone else, or perhaps someone else is the reason you stayed. But, you yourself are here as an individual, and you are responsible for making yourself happy before anyone else is. You have to decide if you’re fully in, or not.

This isn’t a one-time conversation we have with ourselves; in many cases, it feels like a constant and ongoing thing. Especially in the beginning, both in the sense of arriving and in the sense of finding your sense of belonging, which personally took me years.

That said, I think there are few greater trials in life that we can choose to undertake compared with moving far away for another person. At that point, whether you’re moving to France or somewhere else in the world, you’re really moving for an idea, for the sense of aliveness that comes with taking a risk and realizing that what you’ve actually done is bet on yourself.

The challenge, of course, is when we start to question whether we’re a good bet – but that’s a perception far more within our control than it may often feel.

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As you can tell – there’s a lot to say on this topic, and the list of things that make moving for love challenging is certainly longer than ten items! Tell me in the comments, what resonated most with you? What would you add?

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If this topic resonated strongly with you, you might be interested in listening to my interview on the Just Jump Podcast with host Ben Small.