Considering we were going through the immigration process, the amount of paperwork we had to complete shouldn’t have been surprising. Fortunately, Trenton’s company provided us with a relocation specialist whose job it was to help us navigate all the twists and turns of the Dutch government. She would translate documents and helped us find and make an appointment with a real estate agent. She answered all of our stupid newbie questions.

While we were busy freaking out in Kentucky, our agent did all the necessary research. She would email us a list of documents and then we would scramble all over town trying to track them down.

A particularly thorny piece of documentation was our certification of single status. In order to properly immigrate, your visa has to be supported by some kind of permanent situation. In Trenton’s case, his company was supporting his visa, and as long as he is employed with that company, he can remain in the country for at least 10 years, at which point his visa will have to be renewed. Without a sponsoring employer to support my visa, I am completely reliant on the progressive politics of the Netherlands and what counts here as “family.”

Trenton and I have never been interested in marriage, and for a few tense months we danced around the possibility that in order for us to move to Europe together, either I would have to find a company to sponsor my visa (unlikely), or we might have to get married. The Netherlands legalized gay marriage in 2001 (the first country to do so) and has a pretty chill, take-it-or-leave it view on marriage in general. As it turns out, the fact that Trenton and I had been together for as long as we had, (a little less than five years at the time) and lived together for nearly as long, was enough for me to be granted a family reunification visa, no marriage required. Many brows were wiped in relief.

Ironically, in order for me to be legally bonded with Trenton in immigration familyhood, we had to obtain official letters from our local government certifying our “single status.” Basically, documentation saying that as far as the Jefferson County clerk’s office is aware, we aren’t married to anyone else that might raise a stink once we’ve immigrated and started living as a family in Europe.

At a particular stage in your life, if you’re in a relationship for longer than 18 months, you begin (and never stop, apparently) fielding questions about when you plan to marry. With mischievous relish, I surprised my colleagues at work one day telling them that Trenton and I were taking off during our lunch break to go down to the courthouse…

“Yeah?”
To get our legal certificates…
“Yeah????”
“Documenting our official single status as unmarrieds!!

HAHAHAHA suckers.

Maybe it was mean, but I was tired of the questions, and irritated by the not-so-subtle implication that Trenton was somehow flawed, a commitment phobic rom-com stereotype, afraid to take the plunge. As if the decision to marry rested solely on his hesitant shoulders. Barf.

Once we found the dingy basement office where the clerk issued the single status paperwork, the same old questions started popping up again. Three or four times we were asked “Where are you going to get married?”

Turns out this paperwork is most commonly requested when a couple is planning a destination wedding.

“Oh, haha, we’re not getting married.” I’d say. “We need the documentation for a family reunification visa in the Netherlands, which doesn’t require couples to be married, actually, but I guess we have to show that we’re not married to other people, haha! Did you know the Netherlands was the first country to legalize gay marriage, by the way?”

At this point the poor desk employees’ eyes had completely glazed over, and I knew I’d lost them at “not getting married.” They were hoping for a glamorous love story about a rustic castle in the Scottish Highlands or a sandy beach in Aruba, but instead were treated to a demonstration of my impressive knowledge of global politics and views on gay marriage. The desk clerks in the basement office in Kentucky were no longer interested in stretching out the chitchat.

When drawn up, all of those legal US documents and certificates are only valid in the United States. In order to be valid outside the country, every single one has to receive its own stamp from the Secretary of State. The bureaucracy is absurd and I was continually grateful for our relocation agent who held our hand and showed us where to sign (and how much to pay).

Things finally reached a comic boiling point when I started to put together documentation and passport information for my cats. I wish I were joking…