For two years, Belović taught in Ruma and Osijek, and began writing pedagogical essays. Her writing caught the attention of , regional Secretary for Education, who offered her a teaching position in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1893. Though technically a part of the Ottoman Empire, the area had become an occupied territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. Belović began teaching at the girls' school in Mostar, where she met Janko Bernadzikowski, a Polish civil servant. They married in February 1896 and she subsequently had two children, Vladimir and Jasna. Bernadžikowski was appointed to a position in Sarajevo and the couple relocated. Belović-Bernardzikowska taught at the girls' school in Sarajevo, but was transferred in 1898 to the girls' gymnasium in Banja Luka, when she refused the advances of her mentor. She became an administrator of the school, but increasingly had differences of opinion with her superiors, as she drifted away from their pro-Austrian policies and developed an empathy for the Serbs she was living among and teaching. She learned to write in the Cyrillic script and published in Serbian magazines. In 1900, Belović-Bernardzikowska was dismissed from her teaching post.