Hi Chica and ChrisR, thanks for your replies!
Chris, I will check out the web site. Many thanks.
Chica, your comments are interesting. Thank you for taking the time to write all of that down. Just to clarify, the worrisome thing for me about having to apply for residency every 5 years is precisely the *long wait* one has to go through every time, with the consequent inability to work or access social security during this time (except thru emergency room, which as you say is already available to anyone in Spain, married and non-married, resident and non-resident alike). This is quite different from having one's driver's license renewed every few years - something that can easily be mailed-in or walked thru and taken care of in a mere half-hour, without requiring that one actually*stop driving* for several months each time.
In my opinion, marriage is a status that cannot be likened to mere residency-- it implies a very different kind of commitment. When I married a Spaniard, I did not do so merely in order to gain residency in Spain (nor did he do so merely in order to gain residency in the US). Rather, I and my husband made this decision because we love each other would like to spend our lives together and have children, whether that be here or in the US, or a combination of both. In a modern democratic state, we ought to have the right to stay together legally in EITHER of our two countries while we are married, without having to comply with a rigid obligatory residency schedule that would curb that right for one of us, or force him/her make a drastic, life-altering citizenship decision.
In other words, I believe that our being married to each other should not require either of us having to live in the other person's country for a given period of time each year in order to receive the rights of forming part of that country-- because marriage makes you that already, and not in the way that an application for residency does. It makes you a part of your spouse's life and vice-versa. People of the same country who marry acquire a different status and different rights than their single selves had, because marriage legally unites them. For those couples, this is not an issue of residency in any *place*, but of one's personal right to choose how and with *whom one* would like to spend one's time. Of course, people live in places, and that is where residency comes in. But the important thing is the act of marriage itself, a mainstay of any modern state.
You may perceive this as "having your cake and eating it too," but I just don't. To me, international marriages are build upon a lot of give-and-take, and there should be a middle ground here to accomodate that need. Both partners must be willing to leave behind their family, friends and homeland if and when the other one needs it. I and my husband are prepared to make those sacrifices & have basically stated so in the eyes of law and society. So why shouldn't we be able to enjoying the same rights as any other non-international married couple living in Spain/ the US? Why *should* I have to renounce my citizenship --a statement much more permanent in its effects than marriage often is these days-- in order to be treated like any other married person here, who has the right to come and go as she or he pleases without losing their right to work and health care? Of course, I would never except to be able to keep those same rights were we to divorce- but that's another issue.
Obviously, things are the way they are. I'll repeat though: it just seems *wrong* to treat a marriage like a mere residency application!!
more later, and thanks again,
Laura**