This morning, François and I went to the immigration office. After days of preparation, including visits to city hall, a visit to my previous city hall (because I was registered there on January 1st and paid taxes there), hours of form-filling, and even cutting and pasting a document full of romantic photos and our first messages, I thought I had the application ready. Our mission: to change my visa from Business Manager to Spouse of Permanent Resident. More freedom, fewer requirements, and a path to PR for myself in three years. Hey ho, let’s go.

Of course I wanted to be at the immigration office by 9:00, but François said 10:00 would be fine. “Will that work with your job?” I asked. He had to start at 13:00, so he needed to leave by 12:00 at the latest. “Well, how busy can it be?” he said. “It wasn’t that busy the last time either.” But this time, it was busy. We got a number with 73 people ahead of us. We’d be up around 13:00. (Partly because the staff happily disappeared for their lunch break — blinds down, see ya.)

So yeah, I was already annoyed. I’d asked François to join to help me. Because he speaks better Japanese than I do, and because I find these things pretty stressful. Bit of a pandemic trauma thing. The only thing he could do now was keep me company until 12:00. After that, I wandered around the shopping mall next door for an hour before slowly heading back to immigration.

It was 13:00, and it was my turn! Only… there was a problem. “This document is in French…” Which was true — I had printed an entire webpage: the page that said registering our marriage in France was recommended, but not required. “I included a translation and highlighted the relevant section!” I said. The staff member brought in a colleague, one who spoke English. “You need to register the marriage in France,” she said. “No,” I replied, “you don’t, that’s what this says.” What followed was a whole lot of back and forth about how it might be okay if I were married to a Japanese person, and that for the Netherlands it wasn’t required, but for France, well, it was recommended, so we should just do it…

François and I had done extensive research on this. To register a marriage in France, you first need to request an apostille — meaning, send the full marriage certificate to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who’ll stamp it or whatever to show it’s real. Then you have to have it translated by a sworn (read: expensive) translator. Then you have to send it all to the French embassy, who will then take at least six weeks to register the marriage. And for what? For nothing. Sure, you get a family book, and you can live together in France. But 1) I don’t want to live in France, and 2) even if I did, as an EU citizen I can do that already. In short: a whole lot of hassle for nothing. So we were glad to read that it wasn’t necessary.

The lady at the Immigration counter wasn’t convinced. She even scared me by saying that if I submitted the application as-is, it might get rejected — and that this would then be permanently recorded in the system. With my soul crushed and the entire stack of paperwork under my arm, I left the office. I called François, half crying, half furious: “But why?! We’re married in Japan, for crying out loud! We even had to get prior approval from both our embassies! Why does Japan not consider its own marriages valid?!”

When I got home, I quickly sent our full marriage certificate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the apostille. But the whole process takes months. “That’s fine, right? Your current visa is valid until November,” the lady had said. Sure — but I want to move on. I want to stop being required to run a KK (stock company). I want to stop paying my accountant a fortune every month. I just want to move on. To have certainty. I can’t handle doing things last-minute. I want this sorted. Yesterday, preferably.

So now I’m torn. Should I just try again? We already emailed the French embassy — maybe they can explain things more clearly? Maybe I need to find more sources? In English, or in Japanese? Or should we just go ahead and register the marriage in France, even if it takes months? Which could mean another round to city hall for tax documents, because they can’t be older than three months at time of submission… Should we maybe do both, and see which one comes through first?

Look, I know how Japan works. I know everyone needs their boxes ticked and their stamps in place, and that you need to be able to hand over a piece of paper, preferably in Japanese, or else they freak out. I know you have to play along. But I also know that trying again can sometimes lead to a totally different outcome, depending on what mood Tanaka-san is in that day. And then there’s the Dutch part of me, who thinks this is all nonsense and kind of wants to call the press.

After I sent the required document to Foreign Affairs, I collapsed into bed, completely drained, overthinking what the best strategy would be. I don’t even want a French family book. I don’t wanna be French!