Hello Ladies,

I know you are suppose to show that you are living as one for the AOS, but how much of your life before marriage has to be altered? I mean if you have a house and insurance on the house did you put your husband's name on it or did you just put him down as a benificary? What about car insurance when they dont have a driver's license? How much of your old life did you alter to put your husband on it in some form or fashion and how did it work at the interview?

I know this is personal so if you would like to email me privately I would be interested.

If someone can talk to me that has been thru this I would greatly appreciate it.

I am not making any decisions based on AOS. Maybe it will backfire, but my decisions will all be made on what I feel is right and not because I am trying to prove my real marriage to immigration.

With that said, from an Islamic perspective, a woman's wealth is hers to keep and own independently - not only what she owned prior to marriage but her dowry and any marital gifts.

I truly understand.

AOS in some ways seems to encourage you to act in ways that are untrue to who you are. I don't normally take pictures; as a result, we don't have many photos together. If we were to take a bunch of picture to please AOS, it would be fake. Yet, somehow this would make our marriage more real.

Hello Friendly



I would this is a personal issue, different person to person... Um, yes sure proves are needed to show your relation but also depends on the person (what proves they want to show: photos, phone logs, e-mails/letters, etc)

Um, in this forum MENA I would think Islam comes into the picture, for the couples that are muslim and practising...as then the women has a right to her own property and money without having to share it with her husband...as the husband is responsible for her maintanence.

But even, if this doesn't apply to couple... I do believe one doesn't have to totally alter their lives from what it was before... Examples would be: changing your surname to that of your SO, joint properties or any other prossessions (money,bank accounts, etc) ...

As far as the car insurance is concerned...that differs also state to state...but in my state I am only required to add any adult that has a driver's licencse to my policy that I know will be driving.

And your house...again a personal issue... I know many couples ( married to foreigners) that didn't add the spouses name...

So as far as the interview is concerned... I mean if you including your SO in your life now, your bank accounts, home, etc...then great show them that in the interview...but if you are not, then I think it wouldn't hurt you... just as long as you can prove you two live together ( have bills or any mails coming to your joint adddress) photos, etc...

If you any more questions feel free to ask me, if I can I will try help...



Peace and Blessings

Rebecca,

You echoed my sentiments about this whole process. It reall does leave one feeling they have to jump through hoops to please the government agencies and to hell with personal choice. I don't like it. I'm like you, I want to live my life as any other American that isn't undergoing scrutiny. I'm flat busted broke, sitting here considering buying a wedding dress. I don't want a wedding dress. I want a MARRIAGE. Even Mohammed said why spend so much money on a dress to be worn only one time. The reason? AOS. P*sses me off that I am actually letting this make my decisions. Then again, I want Mohammed with me and my children here, so I feel I have little choice. Quite a quandry... and still leaves me angry.

Does anyone have any experience with AOS without all the "fluffery"?

(*grumbles something not so nice about fluffery having not one damn thing to do with the quality of a marriage*)

I will let you know when we are done. We have zero wedding pictures. We married alone. I wasn't going to have a wedding celebration to placate AOS. I didn't want a wedding party in my first marriage either so this is just me. My marriage is a committment to my husband and I choose not to have any fanfare (nothing against people who choose otherwise). We have joint accounts. We have letters from people who know us. We do have pictures of him with my daughter, or him in our first big snow as these are things he wanted pictures of. That is about it.

I really wish they would just take my 9-year-old daughter into AOS and drill her. She will tell them about her stepfather and answer any of their questions. There is nothing we are hiding but we also haven't generated "proof" either. Just reminded me, I could pull some of her school papers where she talked about her stepdad as part of our AOS proof.

Rebecca

As you know I was previously married to a Yemeni man. He did not have his permanent residency when we married. I had to go to an AOS interview with him. We didn't have a fancy wedding or anything. I wore a black suit and he wore a suit. We had a few pics of that. Other than that we didn't have any other personal pics together. They never asked to see any pics of us together. They asked us a few simple questions (separately) and that was it. The man who interviewed me just gave me a warning at the end that many mid eastern men use women yada, yada, yada. He gave me my ex's alien number just in case I wanted to report him one day.

Well...I might be able to answer some of this. I already owned our condo, the car, had utilities, etc before we were married. If you filed a joint tax return (if that is possible by this time right now), that will definitely help (our interviewer was most interested in a copy of that). Otherwise, he just asked us a few personal questions as he was looking through Hicham's folder. (I think I might have also given him a copy of our joint bank statement.)

Twila

I feel the same way. I had a big to-do for my first wedding, and look how that turned out. This time, the emphasis is going to be on the marriage... on us and the decisions we make together. The heck with what everybody else thinks. We've had enough life experience to know what we're doing and intend to approach the AOS as the next step... not some giant obstacle to overcome.

That being said, David and I are going to decide together what makes sense for him to be added onto. He needs to be able to establish credit on his own terms, so we're just going to do what makes sense for us.

Jen

when I went thought AOS before. my ex was only added to things that we had togeather,. since we did not own a house or property. it was not an issue. I had my car and he had his. now as with my Bingo. we will ultimately buy a home togeahter so he will go on the deed. since dallas is a community property state he is already joint owner to all.

I had to go thru AOS with my late husband, a Lebanese international student whom I met in college. We had no wedding, no pictures, his name was on the lease, but not the car, and he was granted smoothly. This was pre-9/11 of course. This time, tho, still no wedding, altho there was a honeymoon; few pictures as I don't take photos much either and prefer to put my emphasis on marriage rather than weddings. That's the precedent, we'll see how well it works.

We have gone thru AOS. I sent with the paperwork a copy of our lease with both names, a few utility bills and a bank statement with both names. That was sufficient for Chicago. They asked for nothing in my expandable file that I brought. The only thing that came out of it was the previous years taxes (both names) and his passport.

I also didn't want to 'jump thru any hoops', but after 2 years of USCIS nightmare, I would have jumped thru anything just to have it over with. You have to do what is required by them. We could have said,,'we're muslim so we dont have a bank, or insurance, or joint money...' but you know what...the interviewing officer may not want to learn about Islam in the middle of your AOS interview. They only want to see proof that you are indeed living together as a married couple. Your future depends on this one last person.

Good luck in your process.

Jackie

This is the stuff we had for our AOS interview. Now, I wasn't really "established" prior to Tamer getting here. I graduated from college 2.5 years ago and still haven't gotten really settled in.


Pictures - My husband loves to take pictures, so we have maybe 20, a few with our friends, some from trips we took to the zool.

Wedding pictures - we didn't have a big wedding, just a 5 minute thing at the mosque. So, we had some candid shots from that. The interviewer was very taken aback that we didn't have a reception and that no family and friends were there. But, we explained our reasoning, and she was "ok" with it after awhile I guess.

Health insurance - He's on my health insurance

Joint Checking/Savings - We have a joint checking/savings account, but will both have our own savings accounts as well, to keep our personal funds in. We set his up when he got here, but I'm too lazy to seperate out my own money at this point.

Apartment - We're both on the lease

Utility - We're both on the electric/cable bills

Car title - my parents gave us a car when we got married (alhamduililah), so both our names are on the title, even though my husband doesn't know how to drive.

Taxes - we filed taxes jointly as well

Letters addressed to both of us - wedding invites from my friends inviting us to their wedding, cards from my family congratulating us on our marriage

Letter from my job - stating that Tamer was listed as my spouse in their files



For our interview, I kinda shoved all our evidence on the lady quickly. I was nervous and just chucking things across the table She kept all the evidence we had, although I don't know if that's because we threw it at her or because she really wanted it.

We got approved the same day. I don't know if it was beause of the evidence, or how smooth we looked. A lot of the people in the interview room were wearing jeans and tshirts carrying manila folders. We wore business like clothes, carried a briefcase and had everything arranged in a photo album with folders inside to hold the evidence.

thank you ladies. I have been pondering over somethings and I am going to do what I feel is comfortable for me and our relationship.

Abdou and I went through our AOS interview January 06. This interview was less than 10 minutes and very easy. They swore us both in and asked him the same questions on the paperwork and he answered. She then went through our file on her desk and said everything was there and that was it. We ask didn't she want to see what we had brought and she said ok, show me a bank statement, which I then pulled out. She said again, everything is in order, you are approved. We did bring our wedding and honeymoon pictures, bank statements, utilities in both names, our insurance cards and all the other information given previously on the petition and for his interview. The cars we have are in my name, the house then and our new home now is in my name. I had these things before he came and didn't change them and in buying the new home, he agreed to have it only in my name too as I had already put in the application in my own name. He is now listed on our car insurance because he became a licensed driver in April. I don't think there is anything else I have changed. I'm now going to even take him off my health insurance because where he works it is less, so both of us will just have employee only insurance. I hope this won't bother them when we lift conditions. I worry about lifting conditions more, even though we don't have to do this until 10/07. The lady wouldn't have looked at anything we had brought because she said she didn't need it as our file was complete. I don't know if this happens with others but was sure nice, wish I had known before I put together all our stuff,

It's a hard call what to do and bring. I don't think they require you change everythiing over into the other person's name. All the utilities are back in my name again and wondering if I need to call and have it changed again. The utility companies could care les, they just want one name.

Good Luck, do you have a date yet?

Doreen