Marriage. All those times I've whined and complained about wanting to get hitched. Now, grace of a series of events which I shall summarize below, I have until SUNDAY, as in, March 3, 2013, to decide if I'm going to legally marry my boyfriend or not, and I'm cripplingly conflicted.
Over the past two years, our relationship has been plagued by international paperwork obstacles: I have to pay high taxes on my visitors visa and have never managed to get the right to work. Now, that A, (formerly TMI,) and I have decided to move to the United States' west coast in september to work on our respective fields, (winemaking and art dealing,) the issue of "how are we going to be legal" has again wedged itself into our relationship to jeopardize our plans and career and even threaten to tear us apart, for good.
Coincidentally, there is another couple our age here in Dijon going through THE EXACT SAME SITUATION. I met the girl on expat forums and, like me, she moved here on a touristic visa to live with her french honey. They've also decided to move to The States in September to work and have decided to legally marry here in France to solve their travel and right-to-work problems. She and I have booked a train ticket to go to the American embassy in Paris together in several days to get some of our necessary documents and begin the process.
A has agreed, but I keep going back and forth. We had an enormous fight night before last about how I like to read not-necessarily-scientific articles about "hippy" health and lifestyle topics like yoga, microwaves, chi, chacras, etc. I dont necessarily believe all of it, but I appreciate it and enjoy reading about it. Conversely, it drives A crazy that I would read and consider anything that isn't published in a scientific journal and doesn't have data behind it. My argument is that I like to read both sides of everything and am naturally curious. His is that I "don't know how to research." He's very judgmental in this sense, and I, this week more than ever, am being VERY critical.
On the other hand, I've resolved that our basis for marriage is more practical and sensible than most puppy-love young couple situations. We have a very promising career path that we're both rearing to takle together, and marrying as an international couple opens up many opportunities for the both of us. In addition, we've been living together two years and are happy, seemingly compatible, and in love.
The stipulations are as follows: No rings, no name change, no hullabaloo, and no spreading of the word. We plan to have a real ceremony in several years and don't want to detract the significance from it.
We've decided to decide by Sunday, so I have time to cancel my embassy appointment in Paris. Woah!
Sooo, I replied to a comment on my blog. Then I clicked on the profile because I wanted to thank the person for stopping by and it brought up IFFTP.
ReplyDeleteI know this might come off as weird, but I'm totally "fangirl-ing" right now. :)
::ahem::
Now that that's out of the way, I'd just like to say that sometimes marriages can be days of nothing but arguing. :) You're two completely different people after all. But it sounds like you and Alban have a pretty strong relationship so that's definitely a good start. So good luck with whichever decision you both end up deciding to take!