Expert: Ken Rapoza Cruz - 5/5/2010

Question
QUESTION: hi,

I'm in love with a Brazilian girl. i have not meet her yet. i have asked her to come to India in tourist visa and we can get married too after that. all my friends and family members are asking me not to get married as she might in some kind of fraud who wants to get married and soon after marriage she will ask for divorce and alimony too. or even she can be associated with some kind of drug racket and so on.....

i have seen her and had also talked to her parents in web-cam too. she looks too good simple and innocent kind of girl. we will chat almost 3 hrs everyday.

can you please help me with your valuable suggestion. i really need your help. is there any risks involved in getting married to that girl ??

ANSWER: You need to meet and be with a woman in person before you can make any decisions about marriage. Brazilian women are very interested in INdia these days, not that Im sure she doesnt think you are wonderful. It will be risky for her to go to India alone not knowing you, and less of a risk for you to come to Brazil to meet her. That way she feels safe at home and in her home country and if you turn out to be a crazy person, she can tell you to leave her alone and have family and friends, and a police and the law of her home country. IF she goes to INdia and it doesnt work out, she is lost. You, as the man, should come to Brazil to meet her if you want my honest opinion. Stay for 3 months. Get to see what she is like, what she smells like, what she looks like in REAL LIFE. Then make a decision.

Good luck.


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: hi,

Thanks a lot for your valuable suggestion.

we both love each other a lot. so i want to give ourselves a period of 3 months to know each other before getting married in India .

But the present scenario is she has already applied for visa to come to India, she will be coming to India on 6 months tourist visa. She will be staying here for 6 months, after 3 months we can get married.

But my family members and relatives are lot worried about the relationship as according to them if she comes with the intention of getting married to an Indian and get divorced and ask for alimony. Is there any chance of that in real ? please do suggest me.

Answer
If you want my honest advice, I would tell you NOT to get married until around five or six months. Three months is pretty fast and it will take her at least that long to adjust to a new culture and new country/language. Trust me, as an expat, it takes a normal human being at least a month to figure out their new surroundings and an average of two to three months to start feeling comfortable in their new surroundings. That means she wont start being herself until at least four or five months in India. She will be on her BEST behavior at first, as she is totally dependent on you in her new and very foreign surroundings. I assume she has never lived in India.

This sort of arrangement can be exotic and exciting. I understand that and dont want to take that romance and passion away from you. So Im not going to judge the relationship. I dont know you, or her.

If you are a rich man, and are afraid she will divorce y ou and take half your earnings and property, you can sign a pre-nuptial agreement with her that states what you had BEFORE the marriage belongs to you. OR, if those things do not exist in your country, then sign over your house, business, major bank accounts, to family members you trust so that you "have nothing" and if she did divorce you and want half of your millions of rupies, she couldnt get them. Get it?

That said, I cannot be a crystal ball. Three things can happen to you both:

1) You marry and live decently until you die or divorce amicably someday in the future.
2) One of you decides that this is a bad idea and you do not marry. She goes back to Brazil.
3) You marry and eventually get an ugly divorce, which is your biggest fear with her.

All I can tell you is that one of those three thins WILL happen. I dont know which one. KNow one knows. Maybe Krishna knows. ; )  When we are romantically in love with someone, we want No. 1 to happen, with the worst case scenario being you both divorce in a friendly way and go your separate ways, with no kids involved in the break up of the marriage (because an international cuple divorcingn with kids could be hard if one of the partners decides she or he wants to go back to their home country...with the children).

Lastly, you family is worried that the Brazilian woman will come to India, marry you, divorce you and take all your money. You have to remind them this: an INDIAN woman can do the same thing to you. So what is the problem? This is what they are REALLY worried about...marrying someone you have never met or lived with or had sex with. You have to give it time and three months is not enough. She will take at least 3 months to adjust to life in a very very very strange and foreign country to her. She may fantasize about living in India, as you fantasize about living in Rio with women in string bikinis, but the realities are always different. There are fat and ugly people ini Rio, and the string bikini girls are 14, or if they are 21 or 31, you can find gorgeous Indian girls thta same age, they dont have to be from Brazil.

Give it time.

Good luck.