Visa Update #3: Telling Your Beautiful, Intimate, and Private Love Story to a Complete Stranger Is Just As Complex And Icky As It Sounds

Lemme start out by filling you guys in on where I am with the visa application.

As I detailed in my brief, calm, and not at all insane visa update last week, I have now completed all of the required medical exams.

I’ve made three calls to Immigration thus far to clarify a number of questions I’ve had. The biggest question, which I asked all three people, was “How late can I submit my application?”. I want to submit it as late as possible, since that gives me a chance to collect even more proof of our partnership, i.e. bills we have both been paying. I asked each of the three different people at Immigration and received three very different answers, which is both infuriating and baffling.

My Visitor Visa, the 90-day visa I was automatically granted the day I arrived here, expires April 1st. The first person I spoke with said that I could submit my application “right before my current visa is set to expire.” The second person I spoke with said Oh god no, early March at the latest!! The third person I spoke with said that it takes about a week for Immigration to look over my application and decide whether it’s completed to their satisfaction, in which case they issue me an Interim Visa which allows me to stay until they’ve made a ruling on my case.

The third guy sounded the most confident, and his answer made the most sense, so I’ll be submitting my application the weekend of March 23/24.

Here is what I have left to do before I submit it:

• Fill in the names/addresses/phone numbers/DOB for three (it doesn’t specify the number, but three is the general consensus) people I know who live in New Zealand. From what I understand, these people will not be contacted unless I flee into the hills of Aotearoa and go into hiding. In other words, it’s just a safety net so that Immigration has a starting point if they need to track down someone who violates the terms of their visa (by overstaying, I imagine).

• Stewart has to complete Form INZ 1146, “Partners Supporting Partnership-Based Temporary Entry Applications.” Despite the lengthy form name and the fact that it’s six dense pages long, it will take less than ten minutes to complete. It’s a lot of basic information—full name, DOB, city or town of birth, passport number, etc—and then there are entire pages he can skip since they pertain specifically to culturally-arranged marriages or people who are eligible to support a partnership-based application but are themselves not New Zealand citizens.

• I need to upload documents proving that we live together in a “genuine and stable partnership,” such as a joint tenancy agreement, screenshots of our joint bank account, photos of mail we have both received at our address…stuff like that. That will be the very last part of the application I’ll do, since I want to collect as much of this proof as possible. (A Kiwi friend of mine, who has gone through the partner visa thing with her American parter, informed me the other day that you can go back in and keep adding stuff to your visa application once you’ve submitted it, which is amaaaaazing because that means I can continue to send them proof that we continue to live together in a “genuine and stable partnership”).

• We need to ask ___ number of people who know us as a couple to write letters on our behalf testifying to our love for and commitment to one another. Technically this is not a requirement for the application; in fact, it’s not even listen on there. But I’ve done a great deal of research into this and it’s really, really good to have people testify on your behalf. Some websites recommend getting letters from “prominent members of your community, such as a priest or rabbi.” Guess we gotta get real religious in the next 4.5 weeks….
  
  
• And lastly, I have to write the “Relationship Timeline.”
  
  Oh, the Relationship Timeline. The deceptively simple-sounding assignment which is in fact an absolute beast of a task, upon which Immigration will base a good portion of my case.
  
  From my research, it seems that Immigration purposely keeps the required “Relationship Timeline” vague in terms of what they’re looking for so that people who are trying to cheat the system don’t just go down and tick off all the boxes. Okay, fair enough, but like…..what do they want???
  
  I have spent so many hours of my life Googling this mysterious Relationship Timeline to find out what exactly they want to see.
  
  I have searched for posts from complete strangers on the internet who wrote Relationship Timelines that satisfied Immigration, and then picked through their posts/comment threads with a fine-toothed comb looking for any tips sprinkled in there.
  
  I have foraged around the websites of licensed immigration officers to see what they had to say about it.
  
  I have found subreddits where people in my shoes have asked what the hell Immigration wants to see, and then eagerly read through successful applicants’ responses while jotting down notes.
  
  Here is the general consensus: the “Relationship Timeline” is where you get to tell the story of your relationship in your own words. There’s no recommended length for this document, but absolutely everyone says the more you tell them, the better. Tell them everything. Send them everything. Do not make them have to contact you for more proof.
  
  I’ve screenshot the most thorough description of the Relationship Timeline I’ve found, which is from a licensed immigration website. You can click on the photos to enlarge them (those of you reading this on your phones may have to just zoom in; apologies). Grab a seat for this doozy of a read:
  

Yeaaaaaaaaaah. That’s A LOT.

Thanks to my years of partner-based NZ visa research, I’ve known about the existence of this “Relationship Timeline” for a while. And I knew it would be laborious putting it all together. But what I did not expect was that it would feel so emotional and…..well, if we’re being honest, so violating. Everyone (“everyone”) says to include screen shots of significant moments in your relationship, such as when you first told one another that you loved each other, and when you decided to become a committed couple. Show them how you got each other through tough times. Include lots and lots of photos of you and your partner on trips, out with friends, having fun. If your partner has kids, include photos of you/you and your partner with the kids. Etc etc etc etc etc.
“Just give them everything.“

About 85% of our relationship has been long-distance, meaning that we have nearly every one of our “significant milestones” in writing, which–I hate to say this–is convenient in terms of having to provide evidence. But going back through our four years of beautiful, private conversations for the sole purpose of cherry picking “the good stuff” for my application feels awful. I don’t want to send someone a screen shot of the first time we said “I love you.” I don’t want to send someone a cute picture of us on our first date. It feels like in order to prove the genuine depth of this immense love we have, I have to cheapen our story down to a bunch of juicy sound bites. I am not a particularly private person, but those moments belong to us.

Let me emphasize again that the visa application *does not* state that it requires any of this information. It simply says they want a “Relationship Timeline.” I could therefore just send them a simple list of dates and events. But I know that won’t be sufficient, and there’s just so damned much at stake here that I feel like I have no choice but to use these intimate, significant moments of our love story as a means to a end.

But that’s exactly how I have to think of it: a means to an end. The more you send them, the stronger your case, says the entirety of the internet. And I’d rather send them too much proof than not enough. And in this case, the “end” part of “a means to an end” is the first step in my getting to live here.

So rather than allowing this monumental assignment to make me feel like my privacy is being invaded, I’m choosing to look at it this way: if there’s one thing I’m good at—in all modesty—it’s telling a story, and we have a damned good story to tell. If they (allegedly) want everything, I’ll give them everything.

The first page of our Relationship Timeline is going to be the most bare-bones list of significant events and their corresponding dates, in case my application lands on the desk of someone with a short attention span who happens to be in a foul mood that day. As for the rest of it? I want it to be the best damned Relationship Timeline that person has ever read. I want them to be riveted, I want them to be moved to tears, I want them to laugh out loud (years ago I came across this obscure quote–attributed to a court jester–which I’ve never forgotten: “Make them laugh; they’ll have a harder time shooting you.”). I want them to forward it to their colleagues. I want them to tell their spouse about it over dinner that night. I want them to be rooting for us.

If they want a good story, they’ll get one.