This is the question I get asked more than any other, usually late at night, usually by a woman who feels guilty for even thinking it.

So let me take the guilt off the table first. Wanting to leave a country with few opportunities is not a character flaw. Wanting a better life is one of the most human things there is, and I say that as someone who has lived in eight countries and watched what a passport does to a person's options. A man can want to move abroad and also be completely in love with you. Those two things sit side by side in plenty of real marriages.

The question isn't whether immigration is on his mind. Of course it is. The question is whether you are the person he loves or the route he needs.

The test I use

Take the visa off the table, in your own head, and see what's left.

If you could never sponsor him, if the borders closed tomorrow and the only future available was you visiting him twice a year for the rest of your life, would he still want this relationship? That's the whole question. Everything below is a way of finding the honest answer instead of the one you hope for.

Signs the relationship is about you

• He talks about his life in his own country with plans in it. Work, study, a business, family responsibilities. He isn't sitting still waiting for you to airlift him out.
• He asks what your life is actually like. Your job, your bills, your family, your health, the boring texture of your days. A man focused on a visa is often strangely uninterested in the life he claims he wants to join.
• He's willing to talk about you moving there, or about staying long-distance for years, without the conversation dying.
• He accepts a no. When you say you're not ready to file paperwork, he's disappointed like a partner, not panicked like someone whose plan just collapsed.
• He's honest about the immigration part instead of pretending it doesn't matter. Real couples discuss it openly, because it's a genuine obstacle in their way.

Signs to look at more closely

• The timeline moved when the paperwork did. Marriage talk appeared shortly after he learned what you could do for him, or the pressure spiked when a visa route opened or closed.
• Affection rises and falls with progress. He's warm the week you're filling in forms and distant the month nothing is happening.
• He wants to marry very fast but doesn't want to know you slowly. No interest in meeting your children, understanding your finances, or discussing where you'd actually live.
• He's researched the process in detail but never researched you. He knows the forms, the timelines, the interview questions. He doesn't know your middle name.
• Every conversation ends up back at the same place. You talk about your week and somehow it's about the embassy again.
• He gets angry when you slow down. Not sad. Angry. Or he suddenly goes cold until you agree.

One flag on this list means you have a conversation to have. It doesn't mean you have an answer.

Four questions worth asking him directly

Ask these calmly, in a normal moment, not in the middle of a fight. You're listening for how he handles the question as much as the answer itself.

1. "If I could never sponsor you, what would you want us to do?"
2. "What would your life look like in five years if you stayed here?"
3. "How would you feel if I moved here instead?"
4. "What's the hardest part of my life that you'd be taking on if we lived together?"

A man who loves you will have thought about at least some of this, and will sit in the discomfort with you. A man who needs the visa tends to deflect, get offended that you asked, or answer with a speech about destiny.

Time is the only tool that really works

You cannot read a man's intentions from his face on a video call. What you can do is watch what he does over a long enough stretch that pretending becomes exhausting. Visit more than once. Spend time with him when nothing romantic is happening. Meet his family in his home, not a restaurant. Let a year pass with no paperwork in motion and see what the relationship looks like at the end of it.

If he's real, you lose nothing but time you'd have spent together anyway. If he isn't, the delay is what saves you.

Before you sign anything

Sponsorship is a financial commitment, not just a romantic one, and too many women find that out afterward. I've written about what you're actually agreeing to in Love and Liability: Before Sponsoring a Foreign Spouse. If your partner is Moroccan, this guide to US visa routes covers the paths available.

I'm not a lawyer and nothing here is legal or immigration advice. What I can tell you is when it's time to sit down with a licensed immigration attorney, and if you're at the stage of filing anything, that time is now.

One last thing. My own husband is from Morocco, and we've had every one of these conversations. Asking the hard question did not damage what we have. It's part of why I trust it.