Hi all,
My wife and I recently received an RFE requesting our marriage certificate and 'evidence of shared marital life' and beginning from March 27 2021 (day we got married) to present.
First, is the wording of their request the same as them suggesting and asking for evidence of a bona fide relationship/marriage?
Second, I'm really concerned we may not have strong enough evidence to submit. That's because between March 2021 to present, we've really just been homebodies (that's why we match so well too) not only due to the pandemic, but also because I work so much from home and my wife works FT hours when I am off work, and we honestly have very few friends.
We don't have joint financial accounts as the banks we looked into need her to be a permanent resident. She does have an SSN, work authorization card, and got her biometrics done, etc.
What we do have, includes:
- Both of us are on our apartment lease agreements for June 2021 to June 2022, and another one from June 2022 to present.
- She's on my employer based health care plan, that includes medical, dental, life insurance and is my 401K beneficiary.
- Notarized Affidavit from my father whom we lived with him and my mom from March 2021 until our first day at our new place attesting he was a witness to our court marriage ceremony and that we dined out together, played games, watched movies, helped them around the house, etc..
- Flight receipt for our trip to Georgia to see my sister in 2021.
- A dozen photos but they're of just her and me mostly (and our dog) as I mentioned us not having many friends. There's a few that my parents took at our court wedding ceremony along with the judge that married us as well and her and I with my parents. (Ceremony video recorded as well). It was just me, my wife and our two witnesses were my parents). Middle of Covid spike.
- Joint utilities, joint electric, joint cell phone bills.
- A single credit card statement with both our names.
- Her bank account statement, highlighting her payments for some of our utilities.
- My bank account statement showing me paying for our apartment.
- My driver's license and her driver's permit ID.
Last, should I write a cover letter and a letter of explanation as to why we don't have so much?
What are your thoughts?
Thank you immensely.