'Forced' to marry

[ceriserose 1]

I actually read all 44 pages before posting. I deserve a medal.

The original reason for this thread was discussing if anyone resented being forced to marry by the immigration laws. The last four words are the important ones. People marry or do not marry for many reasons and, as we have seen, are fiercely defensive of those reasons.

I would not have married my husband when I did, without the law forcing me to do so. Whether I would have married him at all is a moot point. It's a moot point because I had no choice. We love each other, we want to be together, therefore, by US law, we had to marry. In our world today, people need months to plan trips, due to work-vacation booking, children in school, etc etc. US immigration gave us three weeks' warning of our final K-1 visa step, then gave us 90 days to marry, while recommending we marry sooner to avoid paperwork backlogs. My grown children could not attend our wedding. My friends back in Canada could not attend our wedding. No one we knew could drop their daily lives and fly off to Texas with so little warning.

Yes, I resent being forced to marry at the government's dictates. It has nothing to do with committment or religion. It has to do with wanting to plan my life. Perhaps I wanted a winter wedding. Perhaps I wanted a summer wedding. Perhaps I wanted to settle into a strange country for a year before moving forward.

Isn't that what this thread was supposed to be about?

I'm giving you a gold star just for spelling "moot" correctly in an internet debate.

Come to think of it, that deserves two. :star: Hellz yeah !

Spelling "moot" correctly anywhere is worth stars! Make it three!

(P.S. WoM, wanna fight about how many stars? I have to go to work but I'll come back and fight if'n you want... )

[rebeccajo 14]

Charles is lying about the corkscrew.

[Ban Hammer 13,656]

Charles is lying about the corkscrew.

i have plenty of corkscrews, why would i need yours?

it's not my fault you could not celebrate new year's eve properly

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Spelling "moot" correctly anywhere is worth stars! Make it three!

(P.S. WoM, wanna fight about how many stars? I have to go to work but I'll come back and fight if'n you want... )

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

For the record...

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a crappy movie.

[Marilyn. 340]

For the record...

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a crappy movie.

hey I thought it was a good movie

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

For the record...

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a crappy movie.

hey I thought it was a good movie

That's your opinion. Your opinion is just an opinion. My opinion is fact!

[rebeccajo 14]

For the record...

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a crappy movie.

hey I thought it was a good movie

That's your opinion. Your opinion is just an opinion. My opinion is fact!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

[Marilyn. 340]

For the record...

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a crappy movie.

hey I thought it was a good movie

That's your opinion. Your opinion is just an opinion. My opinion is fact!

[Sinergy 3]

I actually read all 44 pages before posting. I deserve a medal.

The original reason for this thread was discussing if anyone resented being forced to marry by the immigration laws. The last four words are the important ones. People marry or do not marry for many reasons and, as we have seen, are fiercely defensive of those reasons.

I would not have married my husband when I did, without the law forcing me to do so. Whether I would have married him at all is a moot point. It's a moot point because I had no choice. We love each other, we want to be together, therefore, by US law, we had to marry. In our world today, people need months to plan trips, due to work-vacation booking, children in school, etc etc. US immigration gave us three weeks' warning of our final K-1 visa step, then gave us 90 days to marry, while recommending we marry sooner to avoid paperwork backlogs. My grown children could not attend our wedding. My friends back in Canada could not attend our wedding. No one we knew could drop their daily lives and fly off to Texas with so little warning.

Yes, I resent being forced to marry at the government's dictates. It has nothing to do with committment or religion. It has to do with wanting to plan my life. Perhaps I wanted a winter wedding. Perhaps I wanted a summer wedding. Perhaps I wanted to settle into a strange country for a year before moving forward.

Isn't that what this thread was supposed to be about?

Did you ever concider you can still have a summer or winter wedding? You can still take months to plan around when your kids and friends and family can attend it?? I just dont understand why people blame immigration for causing them not to have the wedding of their dreams or the wedding they REALLY wanted. Yes you have 90 days to get married, go to the courthouse and get married. No one is stopping you from continuing to have the wedding you REALLY wanted. Me and my husband got married in the courthouse for immigration. In the summer we have our "big" wedding planned. This is the one we will count as our REAL wedding, the one where everyone we know can attend, the one where we can do the whole thing. Immigrations helps you get your fiance here, weather it be by marriage already or agreeing to get married once the fiance is here, the rest is up to you, you can settle for the 90 day marriage or you can do what immigration requires and then do what you wanted to do at a later time.

[Caladan 19]

I didn't read all 45 pages, but I'm going to bet it devolved into "It's just my opinion, why are you so offended if I think you aren't committed/you're a troll/you're old-fashioned, it's just my opinion, even if I'm being insulting, it's just my opinion. In my opinion, you're a dog. But it's just my opinion!" It's a whole internet of IMO, IMHO, the magical shields that allow us to be complete twits with plausible deniability.

Am I close?

On the original question, we didn't rush into marriage due to the immigration laws. Both of us take marriage pretty seriously. That's why we've been together three years before deciding to get married. But were there no immigration laws, C. probably would have moved here two years ago and we'd be getting married in 2007 anyway, maybe earlier as we would have been 'sure' earlier.

[Caladan 19]

Did you ever concider you can still have a summer or winter wedding? You can still take months to plan around when your kids and friends and family can attend it??

Sort of. My diocese requires at least 12 months in advance to reserve a church & meet with a priest and deal with the world's first professional bureaucracy, the Catholic Church. Due to work, I'm sort of limited in when I can get married and not mess up my career, so we're sort of limited to next July & August in any case

.... but can't reserve a church because there's not a visa but the churches are going and my mother is stressing and saying I should call people to tell them I may be calling in two months to reserve a church and my sister is accusing me of trying to sneak out of having a church wedding and how can we plan this and none of this would be going on except for the goddamn visa.

Honestly, I was a lot happier before we were engaged.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

szsz, I have never tried to change your opinion about what you believe. What I simply wanted was to understand that you believe that others have opinions that they feel are just as valid. I don't think anyone would look to some stranger on a message board for validation. That's a little egotistical, maybe even delusional, to think that.

You know what, bp? I didn't need you to tell me that other people feel that their views as valid. Why do you think I don't know that? Because I don't act as if I think they're valid? I know that just because people think their views are valid doesn't make them valid. That's a fact, since some do like facts better than raw emotion.

And, yes, it is clear that there are lots of folks here looking for validation. It's not my ego telling me that, it's their actions on this thread that tell me that. Gary and Gupt saw that; they also saw that the reaction to me wasn't about me, it was about each person who over reacted. It's amazing how few could see what they were doing.

With your statement, "What I simply wanted was to understand that you believe that others have opinions that they feel are just as valid." YOU were insisting that I validate them. What difference does my validation make to you?

I actually read all 44 pages before posting. I deserve a medal.

The original reason for this thread was discussing if anyone resented being forced to marry by the immigration laws. The last four words are the important ones. People marry or do not marry for many reasons and, as we have seen, are fiercely defensive of those reasons.

I would not have married my husband when I did, without the law forcing me to do so. Whether I would have married him at all is a moot point. It's a moot point because I had no choice. We love each other, we want to be together, therefore, by US law, we had to marry. In our world today, people need months to plan trips, due to work-vacation booking, children in school, etc etc. US immigration gave us three weeks' warning of our final K-1 visa step, then gave us 90 days to marry, while recommending we marry sooner to avoid paperwork backlogs. My grown children could not attend our wedding. My friends back in Canada could not attend our wedding. No one we knew could drop their daily lives and fly off to Texas with so little warning.

Yes, I resent being forced to marry at the government's dictates. It has nothing to do with committment or religion. It has to do with wanting to plan my life. Perhaps I wanted a winter wedding. Perhaps I wanted a summer wedding. Perhaps I wanted to settle into a strange country for a year before moving forward.

Isn't that what this thread was supposed to be about?

Did you ever concider you can still have a summer or winter wedding? You can still take months to plan around when your kids and friends and family can attend it?? I just dont understand why people blame immigration for causing them not to have the wedding of their dreams or the wedding they REALLY wanted. Yes you have 90 days to get married, go to the courthouse and get married. No one is stopping you from continuing to have the wedding you REALLY wanted. Me and my husband got married in the courthouse for immigration. In the summer we have our "big" wedding planned. This is the one we will count as our REAL wedding, the one where everyone we know can attend, the one where we can do the whole thing. Immigrations helps you get your fiance here, weather it be by marriage already or agreeing to get married once the fiance is here, the rest is up to you, you can settle for the 90 day marriage or you can do what immigration requires and then do what you wanted to do at a later time.

What I hear in complaints like this is that there should be no rules, or the rules "should" be changed to fit the desires of everyone who wants them to be different. I have no empathy for anyone who blames immigration for "forcing" them to marry because how to marry, whom to marry is your choice. You choose someone for whom the RULES to go by are different than they would be if you had choosen someone closer to home. That's how you have to roll. Hell, it's not like you couldn't get married at all!

I'm not the big weddig type, but I would have liked to have had more of a ceremony than sitting in an adoul's office in a sweater and jeans signing a paper that married us. When he gets here, we'll have the ceremony we want. Weddings do not equal marriage, but I'm happy to be married to the man I love. I could not care less how it happened.

[bostonparis 0]

You know what, bp? I didn't need you to tell me that other people feel that their views as valid. Why do you think I don't know that? Because I don't act as if I think they're valid? I know that just because people think their views are valid doesn't make them valid. That's a fact, since some do like facts better than raw emotion.

Just because you think your view is valid doesn't make it so.

Edited to remove sweetie. That sounded condescending.

Edited January 4, 2007 by bostonparis

[Sofiyya 1,687]

You know what, bp? I didn't need you to tell me that other people feel that their views as valid. Why do you think I don't know that? Because I don't act as if I think they're valid? I know that just because people think their views are valid doesn't make them valid. That's a fact, since some do like facts better than raw emotion.

Just because you think your view is valid doesn't make it so.

Edited to remove sweetie. That sounded condescending.

And the same goes for you, sis. Just because you think your view is valid doesn't make it so.

But that's not news to me; I've been saying that all along, and that's why people were upset. I didn't validate their views, and I still don't.

Condescending statements don't bother me. My self-esteem is intact. Condenscend away!

Does it bother you even a little now that you're doing what you've been trying to get me to stop doing for three days?

Edited January 4, 2007 by szsz