Job Discussion Forums

nyuszihus · Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Posts: 3

Hi,

I'm starting to look for work somewhere in the Middle East. I'm currently in Hungary, were teaching uni is becoming increasingly more impossible financially. I'm a Canadian woman, have an MA in Applied Linguistics and six years tertiary teaching (Korea, Panama, Canada, Hungary) so I'm pretty sure I'm hireable.

However, I have a Hungarian boyfriend, who I would like to come live with me. Any information on which countries would be open to helping sponsor an (unmarried partner), or at the very least, which countries would tolerate my western values in terms of having him live with me.

No, I don't think I'm quite ready to marry him, in case anyone was going to suggest that.

Thanks for any input!

justcolleen · Joined: 07 Jan 2004 Posts: 654 Location: Egypt, baby!

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

Short answer...

none

If you don't wish to get married, choose another part of the world. In most of the Middle East, you would be considered little more than a prostitute and would be treated as such.

VS

Wilsonthefarmer · Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2013 10:03 pm Post subject:

Indeed, Islamic law in most of the Middle East countries prohibits "living in sin"!
The punishment for "living in sin" in DUBAI is a minimum of 1 year jail sentence in the black box followed by deportation (Article 356 of the UAE Penal Code).

nyuszihus · Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Posts: 3

forgive my presumptions, but surely there are non-celibate foreigners working in the middle east....

nyuszihus · Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Posts: 3

justcolleen, thanks for your helpful response. i appreciate the absence of snarkiness.

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

Yes, there are likely those who faked a marriage certificate in order to cohabit. However, they face detention and deportation if caught. Others live together discreetly, but it only takes one irate neighbor to inform the authorities. And again, detention and deportation. (This refers to the 'less' conservative Gulf countries and not to ultra-strict Saudi Arabia where punishment can be harsher.) Also, be aware you'd run into problems if your employer provides housing (many do) for you as single status.

Anyway, an employer would have to sponsor your boyfriend---that is, he'd have to have a job waiting for him. But at this point, this region isn't doable for you if you expect him to accompany you as your boyfriend and not as your husband.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

2buckets · Joined: 14 Dec 2010 Posts: 515 Location: Middle East

Get married, then when you want to leave, get a Sharia divorce, costs nothing, takes about an hour. Very simple, no lawyers necessary. As long as there are no children, pregnancy or disputes over assets or property, it's easy. I know from personal experience in Abu Dhabi.

jaffa · Joined: 25 Oct 2012 Posts: 403

Oh man, there's one ex-Hungarian girlfriend I'd love to bring out here Shocked

... scratches around for little black book ...

Apparently (re 2buckets' post) there are ladies available for 3/6/9/12 month marriages, length dependent on how you get on - no pun intended. Though I'm not sure how you'd get that past the Housing Dept.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Not possible - anywhere in the ME. Complaints should be addressed to the Grand Mufti of the territory you wish to live in.

jaffa · Joined: 25 Oct 2012 Posts: 403

It is possible. A Job Skills guy at Aramco had a Filipino 'wife' in just this way. When I met her I wondered why he hadn't chosen a decent looking one.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

Wilsonthefarmer · Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2013 2:11 pm Post subject:

sliim · Joined: 27 Jan 2006 Posts: 55

Hi all,

Just to throw a thought in the mix:

As far as laws are concerned about spouses and such, I think the other posters have probably got it right. But I sometimes wonder if the ME that I once lived in is the same ME that other people do. I see it this way: there is a social code that forms an outer shell of ME life, and then there are real lives of the people.

(1) Sex.

On the outside:

No sex before marriage, no boyfriends, no girlfriends.

The reality:

Sex, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. I had never been approached so often by the opposite sex, and I am by no means a looker.

(2) Drugs and alcohol.

On the outside:

Everyone clean and sober.

The reality:

If no one drinks, then how do the nightclubs stay in business and do so well? And as for drugs...I guess it all depends who you frequent. (And I, btw, am a clean living guy).

(3) Homosexuality.

Outside: forbidden. Evil. Don't even go there.

Inside: Is anyone really that naïve about what goes on? I would even guess that most of the homoerotic stuff that happens, happens between otherwise heterosexual people who are, well, frustrated.

Culture in the ME is a "face-saving" culture that does not bring anything socially taboo out front for people to see, but everything you find in any other culture is there as well, it is just expressed in a different way. I personally don't find this the healthiest way to construct a society, because hiding everything in the closet is, in my view, not the way to go, but it is their way and their choice, so who am I to tell them what to do?

But, please, even the 1960s Egyptian films had storylines with men getting women drunk and making them pregnant out of wedlock. Things have not moved in a more conservative direction (at least not inwardly), so why pretend?