How do people go over to the states for such long periods?

[mtempelaar 190]

My husband was unemployed (his company had shut down) so we decided to take advantage of that.  He came to the US for 3 months so we could see if we were compatible actually living together and fighting for the TV remote long term.  He proposed 3 days before he flew back home. 

 

He had minimal living expenses back home as he had no rent/mortgage (lived with family) and no car payments.  On the other hand, I held a job that paid enough that I could support us both for a limited time.  While he was here, he was doing job interviews via phone for back home.

 

 

[rrobin0609 387]

My fiance was doing temp work over the holidays and saved up a nice chunk of money to come visit a few months later. In the months between him coming to visit and his temp work ending, he was able to get a stipend check for being unemployed (he tried discontinuing it just before his trip but something went wrong and he ended up getting the money the three months he was in the US). He was living with his parents, didn't have a car, or anything like that. We lived off the small amount of money my parents gave me for my apartment rent, his accidental unemployment checks, and the money I got employed at my university's library. Not the best situation to be in, but it worked out better than expected. If he had not been there during that semester of school, I don't know if I would have been able to function as well as I did. I first visited him three days after graduating from college and left to come back to the US three days before starting my current job, so that was about a month. Unfortunately since then we have not been able to spend longer than two weeks together since then.

 

It really is all about planning. You have to find your window of opportunity and just go for it. I was really skeptical when my fiance said he wanted to come for three months; I thought it was terrible idea and we had only known each other for 6 months when he suggested doing so, but he was able to plan it just right that him being here wasn't an issue. When he landed in the US he was questioned by a second TSA officer but his reasoning was that we wanted to try living together long term before we decided to file for any visa petitions. According to him, the officers were quite impressed by his answer and thought it was very wise of us.