Proving a bona fide marriage when living apart?

[bmc100 0]

My wife and I met in August last year. We talked, texted, video chatted for 2.5 months before I flew to meet her at the beginning of November. We went on vacation, spent time with her friends and family. I went back to see her in December and January for the holidays. We did not go far, we booked a little get away and did something special for New Year's Eve. I proposed to her the day after Christmas. We talked about how are we going to make this work being 5,000 miles apart. She came to the US in February/March - we got married March 6th. I could not go down to see her due to COVID and a lack of vacation time. She works for the Brazilian government. She gets 1 month of vacation time. We had to wait. I am flying down in 2 weeks. We are heading to the Amazon River.

 

I worked with her on creating some basic estate planning documents. The quit claim deed has her as beneficiary. I put her as the beneficiary of my life insurance, investment and bank accounts, added her as an authorized user on my credit cards. We have plane tickets. We are building a new house in Brazil. I send her money every month, sometimes multiple times a month based on the exchange rate. We have photos or us together and u with family and friends. We have the marriage license. She is on my car insurance and homeowners policy. I had family members create affidavits supporting our marriage. We have evidence of vacations we have taken together. I cannot add her as a joint owner on my accounts. She needs to sign and she does not have a SSN or TIN. I have records of gifts, cards I had delivered to her. Amazon purchases...etc.

[pushbrk 13,168]

5 hours ago, bmc100 said:

My wife and I met in August last year. We talked, texted, video chatted for 2.5 months before I flew to meet her at the beginning of November. We went on vacation, spent time with her friends and family. I went back to see her in December and January for the holidays. We did not go far, we booked a little get away and did something special for New Year's Eve. I proposed to her the day after Christmas. We talked about how are we going to make this work being 5,000 miles apart. She came to the US in February/March - we got married March 6th. I could not go down to see her due to COVID and a lack of vacation time. She works for the Brazilian government. She gets 1 month of vacation time. We had to wait. I am flying down in 2 weeks. We are heading to the Amazon River.

 

I worked with her on creating some basic estate planning documents. The quit claim deed has her as beneficiary. I put her as the beneficiary of my life insurance, investment and bank accounts, added her as an authorized user on my credit cards. We have plane tickets. We are building a new house in Brazil. I send her money every month, sometimes multiple times a month based on the exchange rate. We have photos or us together and u with family and friends. We have the marriage license. She is on my car insurance and homeowners policy. I had family members create affidavits supporting our marriage. We have evidence of vacations we have taken together. I cannot add her as a joint owner on my accounts. She needs to sign and she does not have a SSN or TIN. I have records of gifts, cards I had delivered to her. Amazon purchases...etc.

A lot on that list is superfluous.  Just concentrate on evidence of time spent together.  Forget affidavits, evidence of sending her money, gifts, and Amazon purchases.  Her intentions are in question, not yours, except in exceptional circumstances.

[Linos 69]

We are in the same situation. We sent a supporting evidence doc with our I-130 packet that we just filed last week. Here we just outlined:

 

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨1. How and when we met with photos

✈️2. A section covering each time and country where we spent time together and photos (of us in different locations together and with each other’s family) receipts/boarding passes from flights, hotels, boarding passes, tours etc.

👰3. Wedding pictures, including pics with my immediate family who were at the ceremony, all of the big receipts, dress, flowers, rings, reception, photographer etc. Our wedding gifts and cards from family.

💍4. Gifts we bought each other for valentines, christmas, birthdays and any love notes or cards.

🌃5. Social media posts where our relationship is mentioned, wedding, trips etc

📱6. A page of call and chat logs

💌7. Finally, also included a statement from my mother who by chance was present when we met and has been close to us through this whole journey ✨
 

Hopefully this is enough evidence for them 🤞❤️ I read a lot about others who submitted similar evidence who got on fine...it’s just so awkward to show joint accounts, property etc as we have never lived together and never had a need to send each other money, it would feel like we were just sending transactions for the sake of showing it as evidence 🤷🏻‍♀️