Randy Pauer of Dallas and Jean Paul Baert, who met in Barcelona, may accelerate wedding plans in wake of high court’s DOMA ruling
Randy Pauer, left, and Jean Paul Baert
Randy Pauer was in the Antoni Gaudi-designed La Pedrera Museum in Barcelona when he spotted Jean Paul Baert.
“I introduced myself,” he said.
They spoke for just 10 minutes because Pauer’s cruise was leaving, but took pictures and Pauer handed Baert a business card.
A month later Baert wrote a letter to Pauer that began, “You might not remember me …”
Pauer wrote back asking for Baert’s phone number. When he got it, they spoke for hours.
This month marks 10 years since the couple met in Barcelona.
Since then, the couple has gotten together four times a year for two to three weeks at a time.
Pauer lives in Dallas. Baert lives in Oudenaarde, a Flemish town in Belgium about 40 miles from Brussels.
Since the Supreme Court ruling declaring parts of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, the couple is re-evaluating their relationship and deciding when they should marry.
Pauer is retired from SAS Airlines. After retiring, he started a travel agency specializing in cruises and has sailed 55 himself.
Baert is a manager for a postal bank in Belgium and has six years until retirement. By the time he retires, he said he expects they’ll be married and will keep their residences in both countries.
But if Pauer was planning to avoid Texas summers at their house in Belgium, Baert has other ideas.
“He’s 5-foot-4, 117 pounds and cold all the time,” Pauer said. “It’s so damn cold in Belgium. He loves the heat here.”
Baert said the key to a long-distance relationship is honesty.
“We trust each other,” he said. “We’re honest with each other and tell each other everything that happens in our lives.”
Pauer said they speak on the phone every day but still get lonely.
Belgium recognized same-sex marriage in 2003, a year before Canada legalized it nationwide. Despite that, the couple hasn’t married yet.
Pauer explained that even though they see each other for weeks at a time, they’ve really only been together on vacation.
“We kind of want to live together first for a few months,” Pauer said. “We’ve never done that.”
But with the Supreme Court ruling and new benefits associated with it, Baert was considering pushing up the timetable. With marriage, the non-resident half of a binational couple may apply for a green card. That would facilitate their travel together.
During each trip, the couple has traveled. Pauer said he’s seen about every European capital. The only capital Pauer doesn’t love visiting in Europe is Brussels, less than 50 miles from Baert’s home.
“It’s the only place I’ve ever been robbed,” Pauer said.
Baert probably has seen more sites in Dallas than most natives. His visits to the U.S. have included side trips to cities across the country from New York to San Francisco and cruises to Alaska and Hawaii.
Pauer said he loves Baert’s large family that is very close. Baert’s brothers and sisters are his best friends.
“Most of his family members speak English well,” he said.
And Baert took classes to improve his English after the couple met. When he wrote that first letter to Pauer, he said he used a dictionary.
That contrasts with Pauer’s family. He called his only brother “a born-again Christian” but said he has a large circle of friends.
Adjusting to some of the cultural differences has been part of the fun in their relationship.
“They’d never do dinner and a movie in the same night,” Pauer said. “And for your birthday, you take everyone else out.”
He said Belgians are more conservative. Not socially — same-sex marriage was not controversial and socialized medicine is a way of life. But personally.
“They respect personal information,” Pauer said.
He said he gets an elbow in the ribs when he’s asked a question considered too personal. If someone said they were sick, he said, you’d never ask what’s wrong.
For their 10th anniversary, the couple is traveling to Ireland and touring the countryside.
On his next trip to the U.S., Baert said they’d probably talk to an attorney to decide if there was an advantage to marrying sooner, if where they married mattered and how it would affect any of their benefits.
Pauer said many people romanticize their long-distance relationship.
“The commute sucks,” he said.
He said they grow closer every time they get together. Little things that bother him when he’s alone don’t seem to matter when they’re together.
“When you love someone, you make due,” he said.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 13, 2013.