My "Semi Legal" Kind of Life

This is a post I have been toying with writing for a while but a few days ago there was a hiccup made me feel like it was the right time. 

My debit card had fraudulent activity. Normally, not a problem just a slight inconvenience while you wait a few days for the new card to arrive right? Not when you are living in Denmark awaiting your family reunification approval living semi-legally.  

I am living in Denmark right now awaiting our approval for Family Reunification that we applied for mid-February. Family Reunification is a visa for spouses or cohabitating partners to live in Denmark together but it's not a quick walk in the park. The 40 plus pages of information you have to submit isn't even the hardest part. It's the purgatory that we all have to deal with until we get our results.

When I filed our paperwork I was told we would have an answer in 5-10 months. Two weeks after we submitted they changed the timeline to one year. I have no idea where we fall now but we are coming up to month 3 and no word on anything. 

But that is all besides the point. The point is this semi-legal purgatory life. What exactly does that mean? It means that until we get the "A-Okay" of an approval I can not do anything...literally ANYTHING. I am not allowed to get a job, volunteer or even take my free Danish classes. (By the way, I need to pass a Danish language test within 6 months of approval to stay. I could use this time to learn but I have to pay to learn & I have no income, you getting the frustration now?!)

The golden ticket (literally it's yellow) to living in Denmark is a CPR number. No CPR number, no life. The CPR is somewhat equivalent to a Social Security number but it is what allows you to get a job, go to the doctor, get a cell phone plan & a bank account. We now come full circle, I have no CPR, therefore, the fraud leaves me with no access to money. This makes my already small, small, small daily world even smaller. 

Yes, I signed up for this life of limbo but that doesn't mean the system isn't frustrating and can get you down. I am an American who moved to Denmark to spend a life with her husband, to assimilate into the Danish society & eventually raise our children as Danish children who happened to have an American mother so why the delay? I sit here during the day watching all these stories of denials and families being torn apart hoping that this isn't our story as well. 

I get now that this post is just a big venting ramble, but this answers a lot of the questions I get regularly while having an outlet to express my frustration with yet another road block in my goal to a happy life in the happiest place in the world.

If you have made it this far in the post, thank you for listening. 

Until next time...

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