I think I've found the love of my life. The problem? He lives in France. Should we become '90-day fiancés'?

Amy & T.J.,

I’m a 25-year-old woman and have been dating the love of my life for eight months. But there’s one problem: He lives in France and I live in Oregon.

We’ve only met in person twice — once on a two-week road trip here in the U.S., once when I visited him — and I don’t speak French, so I can’t communicate with his parents. But I’m convinced he’s the one.

He’s willing to move to the U.S., but getting a job on a sponsored visa is almost impossible these days. Should I apply for the fiancé visa? Do I marry him so he can move here and hope for the best?

—Anna

Gut Reaction

Amy Robach: This is giving me 90 Day Fiancé vibes. We have some experience watching the show, so maybe we can lend it to this reader here.

T.J. Holmes: Oh boy. Sure! Go right ahead. Knock yourself out. If everything you wrote to us sounds like a good idea to you, go for it. And if you don’t feel the really thick sarcasm I’m laying on right now, then we have another problem.

On further thought …

TJH: I do not judge anyone’s relationship. But even if you lived across the street from one another, instead of across the ocean, I wouldn’t suggest getting married after just eight months of dating. If you can’t speak French, I wonder how good is his English?

If you know he’s the love of your life, then why hurry? Why not spend time building the relationship instead of marrying and potentially making a mistake that will take years to undo? If you get engaged and he moves here, then you’re responsible for him — and you’ve only known him for eight months, and you can’t speak French. That’s a lot.

AR: If he moves here, you have 90 days to decide if you want to spend the rest of your life with this person. And T.J. and I, having each been married and divorced before, know that it’s easy to think that if it doesn’t work, “Oh, we can just get divorced.” That is not easy. The process is financially difficult, it’s emotionally difficult — it’s horrific, actually.

We would never recommend going into a relationship hoping it works, but planning to resort to divorce if it doesn’t. That’s not the way you enter into a marriage.

And I’ll be honest, Anna: You can’t possibly really know this man yet. I speak from experience, having met someone when I was younger and married them within less than a year. It’s when you actually start living with them that you start seeing all the sides of them that maybe you each hid from one another while you were dating. You need to know those ugly parts before you get married.

TJH: When Amy and I were 25, we each had a year or two of our respective marriages under our belts. Did we know what the hell we were doing? If we had written to advice columnists then, they would have said, “Hell no.”

AR: And I would’ve appreciated that information. I needed someone to tell me, “What are you doing?” I wanted somebody to throw up a red flag, both times around.

The final word

AR: You should watch 90 Day Fiancé! Stop watching rom-coms, because I think that has been the undoing of so many women. I think they give us this expectation of a fairy tale: We’re going to get the man of our dreams, and we’re all going to live happily ever after. Maybe it’s a little tough getting together, but once we get together? Magic happens! The truth is often the opposite: The magic goes away once you start to actually get to know someone.

The reality of that is daunting for many people who see shows and movies and expect that their meet-cute will end in a wedding and living the rest of their lives together. But 90 Day Fiancé, I have to say, is eye-opening because they have all of that hope before the move. And then, once they actually get to be together? That’s when the drama happens. There’s no more rom-com; sometimes it’s a horror show.

TJH: Oh my goodness, you’re making me second-guess relationships.

AR: They’re hard! That’s the reality!

TJH: Can we hold on to some idea of a fairy tale? Can we have a little optimism that it could be sweet, and it could work out? I want to always hold on to just an ounce of possibility that something like that could be possible.

AR: I do think it’s possible, but it happens in a way that people aren’t expecting or anticipating. You actually get closer when you get through the tough times. But for a lot of people, the tough times are the deal-breakers.