Jacqueline and I met at Gay Games in New York in 1994 but we did not fall in love until Gay Games in Amsterdam in August 1998. For the next year, we tried to visit each other as often as possible and emailed and telephoned in the meantime. My phone bill averaged US $200 – 300 per month.

At the end of September 1999, my job contract in California ended. I decided to take a risk and spend three months with Jacqueline in Amsterdam as a trial period to determine whether I would be willing to live here. Despite living in a very small one-bedroom apartment for three months, we decided that we wanted to try to live together.

Because the Netherlands’s immigration policy allowed Jacqueline to sponsor me to live and work in the Netherlands as long as we lived together and the United States does not allow its citizens to sponsor their partners, we really no choice concerning where we would live.

Although I had decided that I was willing to move to Amsterdam to be with Jacqueline, it was a very difficult decision. I love California and to this day consider it my home and hope that some day I will be able to live there with Jacqueline. I sent my 15-year old dog on a plane to Amsterdam with Jacqueline. I packed and stored all my belongings. As a California licensed attorney, I had no idea whether I would find work in my profession.

Despite a few bureaucratic hassles, I received my “verblijfsvergunning” or “green card” from the Netherlands’ government about three months after we submitted the application. The green card (actually it is pink) was valid for one-year with the possibility for extension as long as we continued to meet the qualifications that we live together and that Jacqueline earned a certain income.

Having lived off my savings (and Jacqueline’s generosity) for six months, I found work as an administrative assistant and continued searching for work as an attorney. The Netherlands economy was booming then and I found a job working for a Dutch law firm that works with one of the largest audit / accounting firms in the world. Although I had not worked in corporate area, I am happy to have the opportunity to work in my profession.

The year after I moved to the Netherlands, the Netherlands government enacted a law authorizing marriage between two men or two women. I had never thought much about marriage and certainly had my doubts about its impact on heterosexual women. When it became legal for lesbian and gay persons in the Netherlands at the same time that many US States were passing laws to ensure that marriage would only be recognized as being between a man and a woman, I began to see marriage not only as an expression of my love and commitment to Jacqueline but as a political act.

Despite a few failed proposals, Jacqueline finally agreed to marry me. We picked a Saturday afternoon on a holiday weekend in the US to try to accommodate our US guests limited vacation days. We were excited about our plans for the wedding and were excited by the number of family and friends who were planning to come to the wedding from the US. I never thought that I would get married and I was overwhelmed by the love and support that I received from my family. (By coincidence, four of my mother’s five children (all of us over 39) got married within a time period of one and one half years.)

Our wedding was shortly after the two planes were flown into the World Trade Center, however, and some of US friends and family who had planned to attend were unable to do so for various reasons. The wedding was a fun, joyous occasion in the midst of the sad and apprehensive mood that surrounded that first few months after September 11, 2001.

My wife and I just celebrated our one-year anniversary during a family reunion in the US. We received cards and congratulations from everyone. While I do not think that our relationship has changed much since our wedding, some people seem to treat our relationship differently. I personally have more difficulty using the term “wife” than I ever did the word using the term “partner”. It certainly is a fast way to out yourself.

When we went through US immigration recently, the INS officer asked us the nature of our relationship to each other. Although we had different nationalities, different last names and look nothing like each other, he asked whether we were sisters. Without really thinking, I responded that we were married. He grunted “married?” quickly stamped our passports and sent us on our way without another word.

I am grateful to The Netherlands for its immigration policy but I hope that someday Jacqueline and I will have the right to choose whether we live in the US or The Netherlands, just like heterosexual couples.

- Kirsten Anderson

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