Love, Anger and Isolation

As you all know Jon and I have been going through the motions to finally be able settle together and start our lives. Jon is sponsoring me for an immigrant visa to be able to live in the United States alongside him. We want to have our own home and spend the rest of our lives together peacefully, as any married couple should be entitled to do.
Last week you may recall that I posted a blog entry when we received a notification from the immigration services explaining that our petition had been forwarded to yet another department for processing because of their huge backlog. At this point we have already waited six months since time of filing to even be acknowledged that we're still in the system, and that we haven't just been forgotten about in some filing cabinet somewhere. Six months of our lives wasted while the US government idly makes its way through rubber-stamping people's lives and whether they should be allowed to be together.
This form that we received last week informed us that we now have to wait a further sixty days while this next department gets its act together. Another two months of waiting added to the six we have already endured.

Almost daily Jon and I have friends ask us, "So when is Dan coming over?" Like it'll be in the next week or something. If only it were that simple. But honestly, why shouldn't it be?!
Why does it take eight months to look at our forms to say, "Yes you are approved to move onto the next stage?" Eight months of our married lives (so far) spent in separate countries, waiting day-in, day-out for that letter to arrive. Eight months of sore disappointment.

After these eight months are finally over, all we will get then is a letter to say we are approved for the next stage, where our case is then moved to the consulate, and we have to wait a further three months for them to get back to us. At this rate, we are looking at me moving over to the US in October or November. That'll be well over a year since we filed.

That isn't the end of it either. Even once our case is moved to the consulate (after the next sixty days, then the further three months have gone by), I then have to endure further insult with not just one, but two interviews. A medical interview and an immigration interview. I have to provide blood samples, and and police certificate to say I have no criminal convictions. And for this I have to pay hundreds of pounds. To be humiliated, prodded and poked.

Jon and I talk daily on Skype, and Jon has been able to make some visits over to the UK during this process, but to spend a couple of weeks here and there, in our first year of marriage is a tremendous weight to bare, and is very isolating. We both feel the need to talk on Skype daily, and actually feel like we are "together"; we miss great opportunities like this. We both sit at our desks in our respective homes for hours, wasting our lives in front of the computer, when we should be out together doing something, going places, or even just sitting at home having dinner together.

Two people should never have to go through what we're going through. As if it hasn't been hard enough fighting for equality and being a same sex married couple, and we still have to suffer even more pains to be together. There is no handbook for this situation. No amount of comforting or advice can ever prepare you for the mental, emotional challenges that being an international couple presents.

Love is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It bounds us together and makes us stronger. Jon and I love each other and are determined not to let the daily grind get to us, but sometimes, when you've had a hard day at work, it's miserable outside, and all you want is a hug from your husband, it's the hardest thing in the world knowing that a piece of paper on a desk thousands of miles away has waited eight months to be looked at, and it's that which is the only thing standing in your way.

Dan.