30 Years Together - A lifetime of paperwork!

​The countdown is on for our 30th Anniversary, a milestone by anyone's standards, let alone a couple of old gay men, who met in their early twenties in 1995. This year we will be travelling to Bangkok and Singapore, where we will spend two weeks visiting our favourite part of the World. For now, we are staying firmly in Australia. After I caught particularly nasty infections on the last two occasions we travelled abroad, we decided to leave it a year before travelling again, in the hope I am fully recovered.

This week's blog will be the first in a series, looking back at our thirty years together. We have certainly led a very different life to most of our peers, but I really wouldn't change that for the World. Darrell and I are not the high-flyers, that many of our friends and family are, but we have approached life in a very pragmatic way. We were always aware that the relationship we had would be difficult, so we understood, relatively early on, the limitations of success in our chosen fields. As a trained political expert, I never realised my dreams; nevertheless, both of us have built a happy, long-lasting partnership together, and at least now, we are finally making up for lost time!

In today's video log, I spoke about a subject, mundane to many, but life changing for us — paperwork! For the last three decades we have had to document our very existence to the authorities, of whichever country we were living in at the time. From The UK, Spain and Australia, we have had to keep every single receipt, bank statement and bill, indeed everything that was important, to prove we were in a committed relationship together. When we moved countries, we had to take an extra flight case full of paperwork, just to show we were still together. If I am honest, it has been a burden that completely changed the way we lived our life, and has left a lasting reminder on our daily routine — even now, 30 years later.

Today the World has changed — In Australia, Spain, and the UK, we have rights that we could have only dreamed of in 1995. Nevertheless, we have still had to document our relationship, only this time in a digital, rather than the usual paper centric way. Yes we still have to keep the significant, indispensable things, like old passports, mortgage forms and marriage and birth certificates, but we don't have to drag everything across the World with us, as we used too in the past.

You know what, I worked out the other day, that Darrell and I have moved over forty times during our life together, and every time, that large flight case of stuff came with us — until now. With the most important files with me in Australia, the remainder is with my Father, at his home in Britain. The day will come when it is transported over to our house in Australia, but until then, at least I know it's safe a sound.

When you meet the person you love, you never second guess how your life will pan out. You take each day at a time; you grow and experience things together, and you learn to accept that not everything will work out as you would have hoped. Despite the spontaneity of life, we have always had that nagging certainty, that wherever we went, we would always have to prove the enduring nature of our relationship together — that is very different to my friends and family.

The difficulties we experienced as a gay couple are still at the back of our minds, despite western societies moving on from the discrimination of the past.  I am especially conscious, of the rolling back of equal rights for gay people, in countries like the United States and Russia. For that reason, our relationship remains the most important achievement in my life. We have remained together despite everything that was thrown our way. After thirty years together, we still keep the receipts, mainly out of habit, and I am still personally documenting our life, even if it is in the form of a blog. I think until the day I die, I will always record events in a way no one else does, and that is quite simply, because of the official road we tread — In reality, it has left an indelible mark on my psyche.

I will be writing more blogs, celebrating our life together over the coming months, and hope you will join me in keeping our memories alive. If you find yourself in the same position as us, starting out on this rather bumpy rollercoaster ride, my advice to you is:  keep everything and never, ever, let the authorities get you down. When you finally win the battle, it will make all the fighting worth it, and that's all that matters. You won't remember the bad days, the difficult, challenging and traumatic ones, all you will think about the success you achieved, when the odds were against you, and the happiness you share, despite the anxiety you endured!

---