Dear Miss U,
My boyfriend is Brazilian, I am Spaniard.
We met in January 2014 in Brazil, we talked on Skype for 3 months until he came to Europe to be closer to me a year ago. He lived in Dublin (Ireland) because was the only place he could work and study in Europe. This February he got lucky and started an internship here in Spain, in a city super close to mine (2 hours away). Finally we are almost without any distance! The problem is, he has a tourist visa, and his time being legal here is almost over. He can’t get a job because he doesn’t have papers, and he can’t ask for the papers if he doesn’t have a job. He did interviews in places where they told him if it wasn’t because he is not European he would be already hired in the company.
We are worried and stressed, we want to be together so badly, we are madly in love. The idea of him having to go back to Brazil kills me and he doesn’t want. And also, we want to stay here and not Brazil. It would be the same situation there because I would be the one without papers. Marriage is the option everybody says, but we are too young and we have only been dating for a little bit more than a year. We want to get married someday, but just when we feel it is the right moment not because of papers…
My eyes get wet when I think the deadline is in less than a month and we have nothing solved!
I know the answer is about legal stuff and countries and things like that but maybe someone knows something, can help and cheer us up!
Thank you so much!
Namorada
Dear Namorada,
I know it’s not what you want to hear, but he is going to have to go home for a little while just so you can sort this out and perhaps earn the money that will be needed, because in my experience visas and international moves are not cheap. They also tend to take time to process.
As you’ve already discovered, work visas are hard to get, because the person applying has to have a highly sought-after skill and they need to be appealing enough that a potential employer will sponsor their visa. It can be done, but it does seem to be the most difficult option for most countries.
I’m not an immigration lawyer, but from a little research I’ve determined that marriage is probably your easiest route. I understand and respect not wanting to marry for a visa however, so I’ve tried to find other options. Some parts of Spain do recognise common-law/de facto partnerships, but to register your relationship as such you need to be living together, which you’re not. If you could find a way to legally live together for long enough to process the paperwork, this may become an option.
In my research I discovered that if he has lived in Spain for five years OR holds a Blue Card from another EU-Member state and has lived elsewhere in the EU for five years, he can apply for residency in Spain. I only mention this because it may be easier for him to obtain a visa and work in another country under this agreement and then move to Spain later. You mentioned in your letter that he was able to work in Ireland, and Wiki tells me Ireland is an EU Member. Could you both move to Ireland for a while? Is that an option?
Sadly, that’s the extent of the research I can do for you, because I can’t read Spanish. The best place for you to get information would be the government website or the Spanish consulate in his country. They can tell you exactly what you need, and what order to do it in, for successful immigration. I know it seems intimidating but remember that thousands of people immigrate every year. It is possible and if they can manage it, you sure as hell can too!
Either way, it will take time. You are both going back to long distance. You do have to wait. It sucks, but it is by no means hopeless. You can do this! There are options!
Dear Miss U,
My boyfriend & I have been together for 3 years and 7 months, although technically we’ve only been together for 8 months because in September of 2013 (2 weeks after our 2 year anniversary) we broke up.. But while we were broken up, he had a one night stand with this girl and she ended up pregnant. He’s known this girl practically all his life, they grew up together. After they found out that she was pregnant, they decided to get married. I was so devastated that I tried to ruin their marriage because I felt that she took him away from me. Anyways, long story short, he divorced her because she was abusive towards him so he came back to me and now we’re together and engaged. Now my main insecurity right now is looking back and being reminded of how happy he was with that girl. It makes me so sad at how they were together all the time, when I can’t even be with him because he lives in Texas. I don’t know, I guess I can say I’m jealous.. I mean, what am I supposed to do? How can I stop myself from getting so sad and jealous? I mean, I have him, we’re getting married, so idk why I’m getting like this. Please help me, I don’t know what to do anymore
Rheana
Dear Rheana,
There’s this old saying that my grandmother used to harp on with: “What goes around, comes around.”
Do you think, perhaps, that the way you feel now might somehow be a repercussion of the disgusting way you acted when you were younger? Because to me, sabotaging the relationship of two very young people who are about to enter the stressful and exhausting world of parenting is the lowest of the low. You were broken up with this guy. You had no claim to him during the period he had sex with this other woman. Then he tries to do what many would consider “the right thing” by this woman and their child and you go ahead and make a difficult time worse? That’s shameful.
Now maybe she is/was abusive, or maybe she had Postnatal Depression. Maybe being the late teens/early twenty year old that she was she didn’t yet have the skills to navigate the demands of new motherhood or the stress of having a partner who probably didn’t know what the hell he was doing either. Maybe outside pressure, pressure from people like you, made her snap and ruined their chance at what might have ended up being a happy little family. Who can really say?
All I know is that their happiness was such that you feel threatened by it even now that you have “won” and thus I really wonder if she was the psycho he has likely claimed (I’ve yet to meet a “babydaddy” who doesn’t claim the woman he just abandoned with his loin-spawn isn’t crazy).
All you really can do now is assess why you have these insecurities, and if they truly are groundless, build the tools within yourself to let these things go (Google “letting things go”, purchase self-help books or speak with a trained professional.) You can talk to him for reassurance, too.
Beyond that, realise that she and their child are likely always going to be part of his life (and take it as a huge red flag if he doesn’t intend to be in this child’s life at all) and that you do need to make peace with this. There’s a good chance they wouldn’t have worked as a couple anyway, perhaps the reason they hadn’t dated and had remained friends was that a relationship with each other wasn’t desirable. Remind yourself of this and always remember: He is with you, not her. He is with you for a reason. You don’t need to be insecure. Nor do you need to be jealous of her – any happiness they had together is in the past. Likely all she has of him now is memories and a whole lot of resentment. Feel bad for her if you like, dig deep and find compassion. But there’s simply no reason to be jealous of a happiness that no longer exists.
