long distance relationship

[forchika 4]

As it has been said before:

A bird and a fish can fall in love, but where are they going to live?

Ugo, it's funny that you should say this because it was one of the very first things that I said to my husband when we started getting serious in our online chats and phone conversations. It was one of the first things we had to figure out before we even decided to get married. We felt we needed to figure it out before either one of us got any more emotionally involved. We both had a similar experience to Jivi in that we knew within a few days of meeting that God was bringing us together. So we cut right to the chase to figure out where this bird and fish were going to live and how we were going to get to that point. We at first decided that we would live in Nigeria but as time went on and we got to know each other better, we felt that Nigeria was not where we were supposed to be at this point in our lives. Someday, maybe, but not now. So we started the long and difficult visa journey. We met in November 2004 and were married on my first trip to Nigeria in March 2005. We spent the first nine months of our marriage separated while we waited for the visa to come through. Was it tough? YES!!! Has it been worth every second of loneliness, sadness, frustration and having to listen to other people's rude comments? YES!!! I do not regret my decision at all. Stephen has been here for six months now and we are very happy together. I couldn't have asked for a better husband. What surprised me was that once he arrived in the U.S., it seemed like the nine months we spent apart were just a few brief weeks. With time, you forget how painful it was to be apart from each other.

My advice would be: 1. Keep your eyes WIDE open before marriage. Really try to evaluate his characteristics and qualities (good and bad) with your mind and not your heart. 2. Read through some of the stories here on VJ, especially those from us who have significant others from Nigeria. Then put some serious, soul-searching thought into whether you can handle the ups and downs of the visa journey. Are you willing to fly halfway around the world to meet him and spend time with him in Nigeria? In order to get the visa, you will need to. It is near impossible to get a visitors visa from the Lagos embassy to allow him to come here to meet you. So you gonna have to go there. 3. If you decide that you are up for the challenge, then get connected and stay connected to friends and family that really support you in your relationship and those that can support you through the visa journey. This website may be the only place you can find friends to support you through the journey. If that's the case, stay connected to those of us here. It really helps you stay sane if you can come here to vent about immigration or get some answers to the bumps in the road. 4. Listen to what your brain says about him and about your relationship and follow your heart. If your brain and your heart are in sync about which way to go, you're headed in the right direction!

Now, all that is my 2 cents (which may or may not be worth that much) but it's what I have to offer today. Hope something I said helps. Good luck! It may very well be the most important decision you ever make---so make it carefully.

Take care

Molly

####### is this all about? Goddamn what's so wrong with Nigeria? Hell I'm not from Nigeria, never been there and don't really wanna go there without a valid cause but let me tell you something. It's not hard to get US visitor's visa from Nigeria. If the intending visitor can show real and proper documents and can prove that he has real and strong intention to come back to Nigeria after his US visit and satisfy the visa officer, the process will not be painful at all. The intending tourist has to learn the inner intricacies and go by the law and respect each and every single part of the visa he is applying for. I'm from Bangladesh and I have travelled to 27 countries (10 of them include world's greatest first-world countries) on tourist visa and I'm a tourist in the USA too and I have visited USA multiple times. And I don't wanna talk about other countries I have travelled to because doing so would unnecessarily broaden this post.

If you are a nigerian and want to visit USA or any country, please find out a valid and fruitful reason as to why you would do it. If you want to visit NYC and enjoy a night in strip clubs in Manhattan, just say it in your interview and show them appropriate documents regarding your passion towards strip clubs, why you want to visit one, why you can't visit one in Nigeria and why you would love a lap dance from a white-skinned blondie. Be yourself but at the same time talk logically. Talk about how badly you wanted to visit Disneyland when your dad told you about it in your childhood and tell them (you better rehearse and video-tape the whole thing using a video camera and modify your lecture to suit their need.) why you must come back after visiting these awesome places of interest that America has to offer. Tell them that you would make a video documentary of your whole journey and come back and live to tale the world about it. There are just so many ways of success.

Remember Nigerians, many of these people are trying to establish the fact that it's hard for anyone in Nigeria to get a tourist visa. But I have seen people from Iraq and Afghanistan come here on tourist visa and some of them even became immigrants later through honest means. Also remember that wheather or not you get a tourist visa, before denying you, they will ask you to present yourself in the interview. When you are stepping towards the visa officer, it's like you're approaching him. In aviation, there is thing called 'approach' and it's mostly used to refer to what a pilot does to properly line his aircraft up with the runway from several miles of distance and several feet of altitude. If his air speed, flaps configuration and other stuffs are alright and by the book, he will make a smooth landing usually. But do you know what happens when he fails to stay accurate during his final approach? He either corrects his mistakes pretty swiftly before the whole approach goes haywire or simply goes around and comes back for another attempt at making a perfect approach.

Your interview with the visa officer is similar to an approach like the one i have mentioned above. This is life and whenever you want to achieve success in complicated stuffs such as flying and immigration and visas, you will have to be careful, educated, down-to-earth and really know what you're doing and what happens for exactly what reason. I wish you all the best with achieving your dreams.

[forchika 4]

P.S. I have never relied on a woman to visit any country. That would be simply too lame. If you are a man, then be it. It's easy to be a woman, but not a man. If you are a real man, be strong enough to stay on your own and achieve your goals by relying on your own power, education, money and wit. Falling in love with a woman in the internet and acting like 'oh my god I'm in Nigeria and you're in the US and I love you so much and I will kill myself to satisfy you' while thinking to yourself 'oh if she falls for it and comes to Nigeria and helps me flee from this hell I would be so grateful damn' is the most lamest thing you could ever do! Most of the times you will not be successful.

All I can say after reading both post is one is entitled to his or her opinion be it right or wrong!!!!!

[Nkybaby 0]

When encounting a long distance relationship you really build on communication skills...It's hard for me who goes to UK every 2 to 3 months...so I can only imagine someone who may see once a year or every six months...

But you have to have patience...Even as I talk I know it's hard from time to time...I know to try to make my other half feel more closer he can usually figure out the pattern of my day without me even telling him...because he is so use to me keeping in communication on that part...

Have faith & trust in God...

For many year my family would have someone send letters or notes from Nigeria introducing themselves to me...and I would turn them down vowed to never ever have a long-distance relationship....God have it be it wasn't until I found my own mate in UK I viewed differently...because I could never understand how one could date someone from another country & maintain a relationship....I mean you think hey is you guy hanging to close to another girl and so forth....but out of all my past relationships this is the first one where I haven't thought of those things....people are going to do what they wanted- granted...however, as you become older and more wise in your spirit...you tend to look into the bible and understand the notion of being responsible for one person and that is self- You can't control what other's do...

There are too many things in life to worry about and the truth will always prevail...

Having a unique family makes me divided in culturals, but whole because of who I am...So it's always a fun task...sometimes the Nigerians don't understand me and sometimes the Americans don't understand me...That's what happens...when you are Nigerian-American descent....

ONE LOVE

NKII

[sercontigo 1]

hello vj members

i read all the posts about the long distant relationship. i see that vj members are really up on giving good advice. i was glad for that because all advice was appreciated and taken very seriously. well my guy(uchenna) and i are still doing the online dating stuff. lately i have been so involved with the internet and our chats that i havent really had time to do much of anything else.

I will continue to chat, email, and phone him. I really like this guy. I think Im falling for him. Im so excited. We havent talked much about the visa processes or anything like that. Just mainly talking about us and our families. I think I will do as most of you said and just take my time. I don't want to rush into anything. Thanks again for all the advice. Im glad to be a part of the vj family.

Uchegirl

These folks on here do give great and very HONEST advice. You will grow to appreciate it even more as your relationship develops. Remember, don't hesitate to "throw anything" at us in the form of questions you may have and we will try to help out or at least give you our very healthy opinions.

Ask lots of questions and take your time. Best wishes!

[Ta Ta 1]

As it has been said before:

A bird and a fish can fall in love, but where are they going to live?

Ugo, it's funny that you should say this because it was one of the very first things that I said to my husband when we started getting serious in our online chats and phone conversations. It was one of the first things we had to figure out before we even decided to get married. We felt we needed to figure it out before either one of us got any more emotionally involved. We both had a similar experience to Jivi in that we knew within a few days of meeting that God was bringing us together. So we cut right to the chase to figure out where this bird and fish were going to live and how we were going to get to that point. We at first decided that we would live in Nigeria but as time went on and we got to know each other better, we felt that Nigeria was not where we were supposed to be at this point in our lives. Someday, maybe, but not now. So we started the long and difficult visa journey. We met in November 2004 and were married on my first trip to Nigeria in March 2005. We spent the first nine months of our marriage separated while we waited for the visa to come through. Was it tough? YES!!! Has it been worth every second of loneliness, sadness, frustration and having to listen to other people's rude comments? YES!!! I do not regret my decision at all. Stephen has been here for six months now and we are very happy together. I couldn't have asked for a better husband. What surprised me was that once he arrived in the U.S., it seemed like the nine months we spent apart were just a few brief weeks. With time, you forget how painful it was to be apart from each other.

My advice would be: 1. Keep your eyes WIDE open before marriage. Really try to evaluate his characteristics and qualities (good and bad) with your mind and not your heart. 2. Read through some of the stories here on VJ, especially those from us who have significant others from Nigeria. Then put some serious, soul-searching thought into whether you can handle the ups and downs of the visa journey. Are you willing to fly halfway around the world to meet him and spend time with him in Nigeria? In order to get the visa, you will need to. It is near impossible to get a visitors visa from the Lagos embassy to allow him to come here to meet you. So you gonna have to go there. 3. If you decide that you are up for the challenge, then get connected and stay connected to friends and family that really support you in your relationship and those that can support you through the visa journey. This website may be the only place you can find friends to support you through the journey. If that's the case, stay connected to those of us here. It really helps you stay sane if you can come here to vent about immigration or get some answers to the bumps in the road. 4. Listen to what your brain says about him and about your relationship and follow your heart. If your brain and your heart are in sync about which way to go, you're headed in the right direction!

Now, all that is my 2 cents (which may or may not be worth that much) but it's what I have to offer today. Hope something I said helps. Good luck! It may very well be the most important decision you ever make---so make it carefully.

Take care

Molly

####### is this all about? Goddamn what's so wrong with Nigeria? Hell I'm not from Nigeria, never been there and don't really wanna go there without a valid cause but let me tell you something. It's not hard to get US visitor's visa from Nigeria. If the intending visitor can show real and proper documents and can prove that he has real and strong intention to come back to Nigeria after his US visit and satisfy the visa officer, the process will not be painful at all. The intending tourist has to learn the inner intricacies and go by the law and respect each and every single part of the visa he is applying for. I'm from Bangladesh and I have travelled to 27 countries (10 of them include world's greatest first-world countries) on tourist visa and I'm a tourist in the USA too and I have visited USA multiple times. And I don't wanna talk about other countries I have travelled to because doing so would unnecessarily broaden this post.

If you are a nigerian and want to visit USA or any country, please find out a valid and fruitful reason as to why you would do it. If you want to visit NYC and enjoy a night in strip clubs in Manhattan, just say it in your interview and show them appropriate documents regarding your passion towards strip clubs, why you want to visit one, why you can't visit one in Nigeria and why you would love a lap dance from a white-skinned blondie. Be yourself but at the same time talk logically. Talk about how badly you wanted to visit Disneyland when your dad told you about it in your childhood and tell them (you better rehearse and video-tape the whole thing using a video camera and modify your lecture to suit their need.) why you must come back after visiting these awesome places of interest that America has to offer. Tell them that you would make a video documentary of your whole journey and come back and live to tale the world about it. There are just so many ways of success.

Remember Nigerians, many of these people are trying to establish the fact that it's hard for anyone in Nigeria to get a tourist visa. But I have seen people from Iraq and Afghanistan come here on tourist visa and some of them even became immigrants later through honest means. Also remember that wheather or not you get a tourist visa, before denying you, they will ask you to present yourself in the interview. When you are stepping towards the visa officer, it's like you're approaching him. In aviation, there is thing called 'approach' and it's mostly used to refer to what a pilot does to properly line his aircraft up with the runway from several miles of distance and several feet of altitude. If his air speed, flaps configuration and other stuffs are alright and by the book, he will make a smooth landing usually. But do you know what happens when he fails to stay accurate during his final approach? He either corrects his mistakes pretty swiftly before the whole approach goes haywire or simply goes around and comes back for another attempt at making a perfect approach.

Your interview with the visa officer is similar to an approach like the one i have mentioned above. This is life and whenever you want to achieve success in complicated stuffs such as flying and immigration and visas, you will have to be careful, educated, down-to-earth and really know what you're doing and what happens for exactly what reason. I wish you all the best with achieving your dreams.

Until you have been in Nigeria, or any other African country and understand the dynamics involved, you will never understand why even a well maneuvered " approach " will more than likely fail to land a tourist visa.

Some aircrafts simply can not land on a runway not engineered to accommodate it......

a few may get a bumpy landing, but most will crash.

No matter how many other Nationals have taken their quest to citizenship.......TIA......

This Is Africa you are talking about.

You can jump through 100 flaming hoops just the way the regulation tells you to and in the end you will be turned away empty handed. That is the reality. I challenge you to do a VJ

poll and ask how many Africans have gotten tourist visas, how many even know of any.

You will get your answer. But , hey, thanks for your motivational opinion. B)