I must have won the lottery !

Submitted by Dorielle (Malta), Nov 15, 2009 at 02:55

Hi Luigi , thanks for your reply ! Well, I'm on this forum because I have loads of time to browse due to my particular line of work and because I am very interested in understanding where my partner 'comes from'. He has, as I said, adapted himself very well to our culture (which is not to say he does not have firm opinions about some things he disapproves of, but there again they are the same sort of things my Catholic family disapproves of - maybe thats why they get on so well LOL !) but he likes our freedom to be who you are ....

Of COURSE I thought of the visa - in his place I have no shame in saying that I would have, before this, have found myself a nice Maltese woman to marry, have a family and be secure for the rest of my life. Don't see much wrong in that as long as your intentions are genuine. However, he has been here close to ten years now, has had other opportunities to marry (not hearsay, his Maltese colleagues talked) but is determined that any second marriage has to be a success on personal grounds (his first marriage was an arranged one, as is usual in Iraq, and was disastrous from day one). However, having had bitter experiences in the past, I keep a healthy dose of realism going and he now knows that when we marry, he will only get his citizenship five years later IF we are still together. Added to which, if things went wrong later and I felt he had been /was using me, I could get that marriage annulled and goodbye citizenship.

So I feel quite protected by our laws ..... he works and though his work is blue collar here, its enough to keep him independant i.e. he is not a financial burden on me. I WILL marry him because its only fair to give him the chance to be protected by our employment laws, health benefits and so on but again , he never ever mentioned marriage himself, is too proud, I think to be thought to be scrounging for benefits .... so I think its fair to give people a chance . You know, on the lines of, There but for the Grace of God, go I .....

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