Can I ROC with divorce waiver without joint bank account?

[chikaka 4]

I am in process of divorce with my US spouse within 2 years of receiving my conditional green card, and I would like to know if it is extremely difficult to prove bona-fide marriage without a joint bank account. 

 

Summary of our relationship:

• We are both lesbians where I am the beneficiary and my spouse is a USC.
• We were in a relationship for 2 years, and we have been married for 2 years. 
• I got my conditional green card about half a year ago and it wont expire until 2020.
• Unfortunately, things didn't turn out well, and we started realizing that we are too different and we keep fighting almost every day. We have agreed to divorce for each other

 

I read that you can still remove the condition by yourself if you divorced your USC spouse (and have it finalized), with whom you had a bona-fide marriage. However, I also read that ROC with divorce waiver requires stronger evidence of bona-fide marriage, and this has me concerned because almost all websites state that a joint bank account is extremely important, but we never had one. 

 

Reason why we never had a joint bank account:

1) We spend money very differently. I am very stingy and save every penny, while my spouse doesn't care much about saving, and she lives paycheck to paycheck. We both work and have our own income. We could prove my own, and her saving amount, if necessary, to USCIS. 

2) Not only does my spouse not care about saving, she is actually an over-spender, and to her, money is more to use, than to save. If there is even $10 left and still has to survive a week before the next paycheck, I always tell her to keep that $10, but she always uses it till it gets less than $1. She has an automatic payment every month, and she often goes negative. I always send her money to make it positive when that happens.

3) I have a strong reason to have to save a lot of money. My mom paid over $100,000 for my education in the US (I used to be an F-1 student), and I used up her retirement saving. I need to save a lot as much as I can, so I can start sending her money as she retires.

★ When we got married, we actually opened a joint bank account into which we decided to put money every month. However, I realized that she kept spending all her own money from the paycheck, and started spending the money from the joint bank account. And it is not even for our life together, but more for her own personal stuff and hobbies.  

I came to a conclusion that if I put money in it for our life, it will end up being spent on her own stuff, and I cannot let my saving to pay my mom back, be spent on her personal stuff. So we simply stopped using that account, and it has been over a year. 

 

Now, the evidence of bona-fide marriage I think I can submit are: 

1) Photos of us from the relationship, marriage, marriage life (before and after conditional green card was obtained).

2) Photos of me and her family members when we visited them together. (Unfortunately, my spouse has never met my family for many reasons. (They live overseas, it costs a lot, we don't get to take times off together, and more importantly, my family hates homosexuality, and I haven't been able to fully come out to my family.) 

3) Plane tickets of both of us with our seats next to each other when we flew to her hometown to see her family.

4) My job's life insurance listing my spouse as the beneficiary 100%.  (She doesnt have insurance from her job)

5) My job's health/vision/dental insurance listing her name under the beneficiary/spouse. (She doesn't have insurance from her job)

6) My job's emergency contact sheet listing her as the spouse and emergency contact.

7) My car insurance listing her name under my spouse. (She does not have a car, nor driver's license)

😎 2 jointly-filed tax returns as a married couple.

9) Receipts from our dates to restaurants/movies etc from relationship, marriage life (before and after conditional GC was obtained)

10) Receipts from random grocery shopping we did together. We often both paid, so I have collected both receipts showing each of us's card #, date/time, proving we shopped together.

11) Utility bills (Water/Sewer/Electricity) sent to our address with both of our names.

12) Rent payment receipts online showing we both have been contributing to the rent payment.

13) Our apartment lease showing both of our names as the residents.

14) My medical record from a nearby medical clinic listing her as my spouse and emergency contact

15) Our old and recent text messages

16) Texts between me and her mother 

 

We do not have a credit card, nor any loan.

Affidavit, I might be able to ask my friends who know our relationship and marriage. Do they have to be US citizens? Most of my close friends are international. Can a friend on DACA write me an affidavit? 

 

Do you think these are considered "enough" to cover the lack of joint bank account? I cannot think of anything else...

 

Edited December 31, 2018 by chikaka

[TBoneTX 45,330]

In approximate order:  8, 7, 12, 13, 4, 5, 6, 14 are stronger than the others.

Photos are secondary evidence at best, because even dated ones can be forged or Photoshopped.

 

You can get a couple of affidavits -- the more "respectable" the affiant, the better (ministers, officials, etc.).

Each affiant should include complete contact information.

Don't go overboard with more than a handful of affidavits.

 

If you still have (or can get) statements from the dormant or closed joint account, those are fine to add.

 

It looks as though you have enough various items to be successful.