Older American woman younger Egyptian man

[Jeanne Adil 1,651]

34 minutes ago, MaryJean said:

 

 

I wish I had the means and luxury of traveling back and forth to Egypt but I am not a rich woman and I have commitments here that prevent me from traveling. I'm lucky that I'm managing to get there for one visit. And I can't relocate to Egypt.  

 

I realize that the Consular officer has all the power in the world to judge our relationship and just a few minutes but it seems so unfair that someone who doesn't know us gets to make such an important decision that will affect both of our lives forever.

this is not a judgement and please do not take it wrong but if u do not have the money to travel, u willl not be able to afford the visa process

all in all it costs me over $35000 to do all immigration wanted me to do

this is not fast

this is not cheap

this will not be easy

you must be prepared for multiple visits / plenty of face time

and a tough embassy like ours

you can make it but it will be along and hard vj 

[MaryJean 2]

I appreciate all of the advice. Some of it is new some of that I have heard before but I will consider all of it. I don't mean to sound defensive I'm just frustrated. 

[Boiler 45,547]

Presumably there would be no issue if you are the one that need to move. Sounds like your family are grown and have their own lives.

[Paul & Mallory 1,398]

As said by others, no one here is intentionally attacking or judging you. We've all met in unconventional ways, in one way or another, in order to even be in the middle of the processes that we are, so we certainly understand more than anyone else will. You made a good decision by coming to these forums for some wise and experienced advice. However, what people here ARE here for is to expose you to the questions, expectations, and complications you will face along the journey you are interested in embarking on. It's better to be aware of all of these scenarios now, and possibly be prepared for them. I'd advise to keep that in mind when reviewing responses you get here from other VJ members.

That being said, here is my opinion, based on my own experience and (somewhat limited) knowledge.

 

You do not fully learn a person solely online with zero face time. I know it feels like you know each other inside and out now, but you do not. I met my husband online, so I can entirely relate to you. And I've had to defend us and our relationship many times, for this reason, despite the fact that we met several times before even getting engaged. I felt the same way about him before we met in person. We were involved for a solid year before we ever even met face to face, and I was certain nothing would really change once we did. I was wrong. (Fortunately in my case, I was wrong in a good way). I got to know him on a whole other level. You can't learn how someone truly operates and navigates disagreements, arguments, or general problems unless you witness this face to face. It's easy to hide, or at least sugarcoat, things over the internet. These are characteristics and things that are important, if you are going to marry someone and spend the rest of your life together. This isn't being said to question your judgement of character, or in making your own life decisions. This is because COs will question these same things based on your situation, and it could cause hiccups or worse, denial.

 

I see a lot of people come through here who seem to want, or already have, jump/jumped the gun, so to speak, because the forthcoming wait time is daunting. And believe me, anyone here who's already been waiting any amount of time during their process can attest to that. It can make you eager and want to rush the "preliminaries" so as not to have to wait any longer than you'll have to. That's completely normal, especially when you're in love. Not saying this is necessarily your case, but it just sounds familiar.

 

I truly do not mean any disrespect with this part, and forgive me if that's what it conveys - you already indicated your age bracket and age difference. You aren't a 20-something, or a 30-something, I'd imagine based on the facts you've provided. The reason I bring this up - my husband and I are a bit "late in life" with our marriage, compared to average couples. He is also older than I am. This is also his second marriage. When you're in love, particularly when you are later in life and a bit past the "young and naïve" years of your life, you want your life together to begin NOW. Like, five minutes ago. You don't want to waste anymore time, because if you're like my husband and I, you already feel like you've lived a great deal of your life without them as it is. DON'T LET THIS DERAIL YOUR LONG TERM INTENTIONS. Jumping the gun and acting spontaneously has a large possibility of hurting you in the long run. It is not worth it to shave some time off the frontend, when it'll potentially cause even more time on the backend if you have RFEs, or even rejections where you have to start over.

My long rambling is basically to suggest this - take the time to visit one another as MUCH as you can. Most people here aren't millionaires. It took 2 and a half years for me to ever visit Sweden, where my husband is from, because of the cost of tickets and my vacation time at work. Although nothing is guaranteed, particularly with his past experience, let him try for his tourist visa again in August as you've mentioned - it could go through, and that will be a good visit for him to have on his track record when the time comes for your process. Go ahead and plan/take your trip there. Go. Enjoy it. Get to know him MORE. Get to know his local friends and family. Get to know his culture, his home. Even after almost 3 years together and already being engaged at the time, I gained a whole new perspective on my now-husband when I visited his home country. It allowed me to understand him so much more and form a much stronger bond, which I know only benefitted our marriage once we did finally get married.

As others have said - you have to view the CO perspective as this: when they read our cases, they have to determine if the beneficiary is committing visa fraud (are they just using this to get a green card?). Things like very large age gaps and no in-person meetings beforehand are major indicators for this. While you cannot do anything about your age difference, and this alone is not necessarily means for a rejection, you CAN do something about no in-person meetings. You have to focus on the things you DO have control over, and make sure those factors are as strong as humanly possible. That is how you will get an approval at the end of this yellow brick road. They don't care if you're in love. They don't care about our relationships. We are cases to them, and they have to apply specific criteria to determine the outcome - it's not emotionally based.

 

Sorry for such a long post - I didn't realize my thoughts would take me quite so far when I began typing.  At any rate, even if all you read is this - let it be for me to wish you the best of luck, no matter the choice you and your partner make, and pray for the peace that surpasses understanding (as this is definitely something we have struggled with ourselves!)

[MaryJean 2]

The reason he stated for his tourist visa was that he was coming to visit a friend, me.  We were not engaged at that time.  He will most likely say again that he is coming to visit me when he applies for a B2 Visa in August.  Will that hurt or help us?  I'm so confused right now I'm not sure what we should do.

 

And to your second point about visiting him during the application process, that's already something we did speak about.  And we thought it would be a good idea for me to try to at least come for one more visit after the initial visit/marriage trip. 

 

Do you think our chances would be greater if I went for 2 weeks and then came back and applied for the K1 visa?  I've heard that because of our age difference the K-1 Visa will be more difficult than the cr1?  What do you all think?

 

I know this is not going to be cheap easy or quick.  I don't mind the part that it's difficult because I expected that, I am not financially well off but I find a way for that part of it. I'm hoping that 35000 mentioned in a previous comment was a typo and it was really supposed to be 3500???What scares me most is the timeline of all of this. I'm not getting any younger and I want to start whatever I have left of my life with this man.  

 

 

[Boiler 45,547]

Many of us visited during the process, the fact that he can afford a holiday in the US has to be a plus, I would imagine he is in a minority.

[RJandHamid 1,133]

He should be truthful when asked about who he is coming to visit if he applies for another B2 visit. He should tell the CO that he will be visiting you, his fiancée. Even though him being truthful might lead to the B2 being denied because the CO may determine that he has intent to stay in the US, perhaps to be with you, it's better to be honest than to face a ban for misrepresentation. 

 

I don't think that the K1 route is the best path for you. It's overall the more difficult and expensive visa. Plus, you will need to start over again with a new visa if the K1 is denied. The CR1 visa may take slightly longer to process, but in the event that it is denied/refused, you can go through a process to try to reaffirm the petition. I'd spend some more time browsing these forums and check out some relevant cases related to the visa process in Cairo before making a final decision. 

[doggieandsam 765]

10 minutes ago, MaryJean said:

I'm hoping that 35000 mentioned in a previous comment was a typo and it was really supposed to be 3500???

the application fees alone are more than 3500. for a "no re-application", routine, easy case ie no lawyers. if i remember correctly, the poster above were initially denied and had to re-apply and had to use lawyers and the whole process took several years including the appeals process, so yeah the additional 0 sounds about right!

[mushroomspore 3,044]

7 minutes ago, MaryJean said:

The reason he stated for his tourist visa was that he was coming to visit a friend, me.  We were not engaged at that time.  He will most likely say again that he is coming to visit me when he applies for a B2 Visa in August.  Will that hurt or help us?  I'm so confused right now I'm not sure what we should do.

 

And to your second point about visiting him during the application process, that's already something we did speak about.  And we thought it would be a good idea for me to try to at least come for one more visit after the initial visit/marriage trip. 

 

Do you think our chances would be greater if I went for 2 weeks and then came back and applied for the K1 visa?  I've heard that because of our age difference the K-1 Visa will be more difficult than the cr1?  What do you all think?

 

I know this is not going to be cheap easy or quick.  I don't mind the part that it's difficult because I expected that, I am not financially well off but I find a way for that part of it. I'm hoping that 35000 mentioned in a previous comment was a typo and it was really supposed to be 3500???What scares me most is the timeline of all of this. I'm not getting any younger and I want to start whatever I have left of my life with this man.  

 

 

The $35000 figure is probably in reference to all travel costs going back and forth PLUS application fees. We're just trying to help you understand what you and your significant other are in for by undertaking the US immigration process. It's a VERY sensitive topic, especially right now. The government are not just trying to curb illegal immigration; they are now expressing desires to curb legal immigration too. The US immigration agencies are not playing around. I understand the desire to just get it over with but trying to force or rush this is where people make life-changing mistakes. I'm not trying to scare you; just trying to be real about it. None of us have very much control over the process. It will take as long as it takes. So the things you CAN control (collecting evidence that presents an honest well-developed romantic relationship etc) MUST be done well and correctly.

[Teemo 252]

9 minutes ago, MaryJean said:

The reason he stated for his tourist visa was that he was coming to visit a friend, me.  We were not engaged at that time.  He will most likely say again that he is coming to visit me when he applies for a B2 Visa in August.  Will that hurt or help us?  I'm so confused right now I'm not sure what we should do.

It will hurt you. Because it gives him a significant reason to just stay in the US and immigrate, rather than return back home, which is what the tourist visa is for. At the same time, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot lie or have any misrepresentation as that can be a permanent bar for him to get any type of visa. He has to answer honestly and he will most likely be denied. That is why it is hard to get a tourist visa from a country like Egypt. 

 

11 minutes ago, MaryJean said:

And to your second point about visiting him during the application process, that's already something we did speak about.  And we thought it would be a good idea for me to try to at least come for one more visit after the initial visit/marriage trip. 

 

Do you think our chances would be greater if I went for 2 weeks and then came back and applied for the K1 visa?  I've heard that because of our age difference the K-1 Visa will be more difficult than the cr1?  What do you all think?

From an immigration standpoint, CR1s are easier than K1s because of the strength of the bond (marriage vs engaged). But despite that, any of these visas you apply for, where you just met once, will be difficult to obtain. So just from an immigration perspective, the strongest application would be if you visited at least twice before interview stage, comprising some meaningful amount of time, and even better if you got married on the 2nd trip rather than the first. 

 

14 minutes ago, MaryJean said:

I know this is not going to be cheap easy or quick.  I don't mind the part that it's difficult because I expected that, I am not financially well off but I find a way for that part of it. I'm hoping that 35000 mentioned in a previous comment was a typo and it was really supposed to be 3500???What scares me most is the timeline of all of this. I'm not getting any younger and I want to start whatever I have left of my life with this man.  

If you have a real and meaningful love, it will survive this process. Good luck!

[Teemo 252]

7 minutes ago, Boiler said:

Many of us visited during the process, the fact that he can afford a holiday in the US has to be a plus, I would imagine he is in a minority.

It really depends what country you are from. You are from a VWP country, which is treated very differently than one which is not. 

[mcdull 474]

Your age difference, in my personal experience is not a determining factor.

 

I am the beneficiary and I am over 15+ older than my US husband, this is completely out of the norm in my culture or his. But we had lived together for more than 7 years before we decided to get married and move the the US.

 

Why don't you meet your internet acquaintance few times before making any decision. round trip ticket from US to Egypt should be well under 1,000.

[EandH0904 1,184]

26 minutes ago, MaryJean said:

I know this is not going to be cheap easy or quick.  I don't mind the part that it's difficult because I expected that, I am not financially well off but I find a way for that part of it. I'm hoping that 35000 mentioned in a previous comment was a typo and it was really supposed to be 3500???What scares me most is the timeline of all of this. I'm not getting any younger and I want to start whatever I have left of my life with this man.  

 

 

Counting our failed K1, our current cr1 and my trips and wedding, we've easily spent $10k in the past two years and my husband isn't here yet. No lawyer. 

 

They had a failed k1, failed cr1 and lawyer to appeal. It took them 6 years and yes I do believe they spent $35k due to an age difference similar to you. 

 

As others have said if all that matters is being together, moving there is the best option. 

[Jeanne Adil 1,651]

no the $35000 was correct for alll things immigration had us do 

had to travel multiple times (costly) to satisfy the seeing each other in the last 2 years before each interview  (plus additional meeting and marriage and they wanted to see honeymoon )

the docmentation and translarion are costly

the RFE was a lot of work with affidaifits they asked for

the fees for 3 applications and the appeal fee

[Teemo 252]

29 minutes ago, mcdull said:

Your age difference, in my personal experience is not a determining factor.

 

I am the beneficiary and I am over 15+ older than my US husband, this is completely out of the norm in my culture or his. But we had lived together for more than 7 years before we decided to get married and move the the US.

Your age difference may have been a red flag to the CO, but you overcame it with evidence of 7 years living together. OP does not have that, and thus the statement "your age difference is not a determining factor" is more specific to your situation and not general advice. Yes, I note that you say "in my personal experience" but just want to reiterate that this depends on the totality of circumstances, which were more compelling in your case than OP's. 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Teemo