how to best use the 90 days prior to marriage k-1

[Fandango 1,440]

Unfortunately any real discussion in this thread is going to be stifled by the fact that there are a couple people here who are so fundamentalist in their belief that there is only one way to do it, and if you don't do it their way you are a selfish greedy ####### who uses women like kleenex. They refuse to see beyond their own experiences.

There are as many ways to enter a relationship as their are people. If two consenting adults want to "see if it's going to work out," then who the hell are we to question that? As long as they did it legally, what's the problem? Frankly I could give a ####### what the government's "intent" is with regards to the K-1 visa. The government have shown their ineptitude and poor judgment at every step of the way when it comes to immigration, so pardon me if I don't feel like their opinion about what the 90 days should be used for is worth the paper it's written on. Signing a letter of intent, with the intention of seeing if it's going to work out, is not visa fraud. Maybe it is in the strictest most puritan sense, but certainly not in a moral sense.

We are all adults. We enter into relationships as adults, and hopefully we are both honest and upfront with each other. If one or both of the partners is being dishonest, then you have bigger problems than worrying about how to use the 90 days.

There IS only ONE WAY TO DO IT! lolz

As everyone else said, two adults going into this thinking 'ok I'll come over(non USC) and we'll plan on marrying, but we'll see what happens as far as my ability to stay there permanently' and a USC bringing over a foreign fiance to vet before marriage while the fiance gives up everything on the notion that they ARE getting married are

TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

You talk about 'as long as it's done legally' and then go on to say you don't give a ####### what the government's guidelines are for the visa. It's not their 'opinion'....it's the framework for eligibility. If you want to disregard that...well that's really fine...but at the end of the day, don't make lawbreakng out to be some 'let's fight the man cos he says I should like pink!' bollocks.

Now we can play semantics with this for the next week, but those are the facts. We've been debating what the 90 days is for, and I've put that to bed straight from the horse's mouth. Now, if the conversation is going to change about how the 'gov't has no right'...well, then this just turned into an even sillier conversation than it was before.

I mean, I'm not even going to get into the 'where's the common sense?' discussion of how anyone could uproot another individual based on a promise to marry when that USC doesn't even feel he knows the fiancee well enough. I'm not even going to get into the 'how on earth can anyone here petition another human being that they have only spent a week or two with'. I can't even comprehend how a couple with no common language and maybe only a week together in person can say they know each other well enough to even feel comfortable enough to file a petition. I mean focking hell...these foreign SOs are not chattel to be shipped over and returned within the 90 day warranty period because they're faulty!!!!

But those are my personal opinions, and not entirely germane to the conversation of to what purpose the K-1 is for as laid out by USCIS.

I'm going to have to agree with moxcamel....:

"Unfortunately any real discussion in this thread is going to be stifled by the fact that there are a couple people here who are so fundamentalist in their belief that there is only one way to do it, ...."

Consider for a moment that we're a very, very diverse group of people here. Some people have lived together a long time and this visa is just a formality. Less fortunate of us have been able to visit and maintain a relationship long distance. Even less fortunate have met once but it is in the cards for marriage. None of us can know what will go down in that 90 days.

Now personally I'm certain that my relationship will become a marriage. I applied for the visa with the intention that this was my fiance and nothing is going to move that. but none of us know 100% for certain that nothing will happen in that time between arrival and marriage. none of us know that once married, everything will be happy and skippy and perfect or disasterous.

i think that there's some very small-mind thinking going on about one way being right or wrong. this conversation has become very 'black and white.'

do i personally think that the K1 is for people intending already to get married? YES. that is what USCIS has designed it for. Do i think that any one of us could get our fiance here and have a falling out before marriage.

yes, i certainly do.

as negative as it seems.

Of course things happen that sometimes prevent the marriage of a mixed nationality couple who obtained their K-1 under lawful means and with clear intent. And no one here is saying that intent can't change. I suppose that one could see a side to their partner that they don't want to put up with, and decide to call the marriage off.....hell, that stuff happens all the time with 'normal' marriages too. But what you're failing to understand is that INTENT is everything to USCIS....

For instance...unrelated to the K-1....if one of our SO's were over visiting on holiday and fully INTENDED to go back home, but after arrival the couple decides to get married and file for AOS...that's acceptable. However, if the INTENT was to do so before arrival, that person IS NOT ELIGIBLE for AOS. I dunno about you, but to me, that speaks volumes about how weighted INTENT is.

Back to this conversation, I guess then it comes into 'well how can you really prove intent?' and I suppose we could talk til the end of time about that. However, FOR ME....if those are the parameters that the gov't has set, then that's what I will comply with. Each individual person can certainly play fast and loose with their own petition.....but that is a personal choice, and the risk lies solely with that person. However, as a visa community, members here CANNOT ALLOW advocating going outside of the parameters of the visa guidelines.

So basically, if one is going to use this as a dating visa....then

A- At least acknowledge to one's self that you are directly going against gov't guidelines for this visa

and

B-Don't go on a visa website chuntering on about how you're essentially commiting visa fraud. When you write that letter of intent to the gov't saying 'I PLAN TO MARRY WITHIN 90 DAYS' know that the letter does NOT have a little * at the bottom saying *providing I get to know my fiancee well enough

[Fandango 1,440]

Unlike, I think, the vast majority of people on this forum, I had the good fortune to be able to live with my husband for two years before we were married. Our honeymoon phase easily out-lasted those first ninety days.

Yet even having known each other for years before we first moved in together - visiting every few weeks, chatting online every day - we had so much to learn about each other. We were still learning after ninety days; we're still learning after 2.5 years of 'round the clock face-to-face time. The learning and the growing never stops. So the whole argument seems moot because any relationship/marriage is going to be a continuous, fluid process.

I lived with my SO for 3 before we got engaged. Was it easy to uproot myself to go follow my heart? Absolutely not. But before I would ever dream of turning his world upside down by having him leave everything he knows, we were going to make sure that this is what we were going to do.

Learning little things about your spouse is a helluva lot different to bringing over a practical stranger and keylogging the puter to 'make sure you know what you're getting'

[BishopMnA 0]

Tourist visa would be the right way to get to know each other...

Peace and good luck to all!

[britty 1]

Unfortunately any real discussion in this thread is going to be stifled by the fact that there are a couple people here who are so fundamentalist in their belief that there is only one way to do it, and if you don't do it their way you are a selfish greedy ####### who uses women like kleenex. They refuse to see beyond their own experiences.

There are as many ways to enter a relationship as their are people. If two consenting adults want to "see if it's going to work out," then who the hell are we to question that? As long as they did it legally, what's the problem? Frankly I could give a ####### what the government's "intent" is with regards to the K-1 visa. The government have shown their ineptitude and poor judgment at every step of the way when it comes to immigration, so pardon me if I don't feel like their opinion about what the 90 days should be used for is worth the paper it's written on. Signing a letter of intent, with the intention of seeing if it's going to work out, is not visa fraud. Maybe it is in the strictest most puritan sense, but certainly not in a moral sense.

We are all adults. We enter into relationships as adults, and hopefully we are both honest and upfront with each other. If one or both of the partners is being dishonest, then you have bigger problems than worrying about how to use the 90 days.

There IS only ONE WAY TO DO IT! lolz

As everyone else said, two adults going into this thinking 'ok I'll come over(non USC) and we'll plan on marrying, but we'll see what happens as far as my ability to stay there permanently' and a USC bringing over a foreign fiance to vet before marriage while the fiance gives up everything on the notion that they ARE getting married are

TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

You talk about 'as long as it's done legally' and then go on to say you don't give a ####### what the government's guidelines are for the visa. It's not their 'opinion'....it's the framework for eligibility. If you want to disregard that...well that's really fine...but at the end of the day, don't make lawbreakng out to be some 'let's fight the man cos he says I should like pink!' bollocks.

Now we can play semantics with this for the next week, but those are the facts. We've been debating what the 90 days is for, and I've put that to bed straight from the horse's mouth. Now, if the conversation is going to change about how the 'gov't has no right'...well, then this just turned into an even sillier conversation than it was before.

I mean, I'm not even going to get into the 'where's the common sense?' discussion of how anyone could uproot another individual based on a promise to marry when that USC doesn't even feel he knows the fiancee well enough. I'm not even going to get into the 'how on earth can anyone here petition another human being that they have only spent a week or two with'. I can't even comprehend how a couple with no common language and maybe only a week together in person can say they know each other well enough to even feel comfortable enough to file a petition. I mean focking hell...these foreign SOs are not chattel to be shipped over and returned within the 90 day warranty period because they're faulty!!!!

But those are my personal opinions, and not entirely germane to the conversation of to what purpose the K-1 is for as laid out by USCIS.

I'm going to have to agree with moxcamel....:

"Unfortunately any real discussion in this thread is going to be stifled by the fact that there are a couple people here who are so fundamentalist in their belief that there is only one way to do it, ...."

Consider for a moment that we're a very, very diverse group of people here. Some people have lived together a long time and this visa is just a formality. Less fortunate of us have been able to visit and maintain a relationship long distance. Even less fortunate have met once but it is in the cards for marriage. None of us can know what will go down in that 90 days.

Now personally I'm certain that my relationship will become a marriage. I applied for the visa with the intention that this was my fiance and nothing is going to move that. but none of us know 100% for certain that nothing will happen in that time between arrival and marriage. none of us know that once married, everything will be happy and skippy and perfect or disasterous.

i think that there's some very small-mind thinking going on about one way being right or wrong. this conversation has become very 'black and white.'

do i personally think that the K1 is for people intending already to get married? YES. that is what USCIS has designed it for. Do i think that any one of us could get our fiance here and have a falling out before marriage.

yes, i certainly do.

as negative as it seems.

Of course things happen that sometimes prevent the marriage of a mixed nationality couple who obtained their K-1 under lawful means and with clear intent. And no one here is saying that intent can't change. I suppose that one could see a side to their partner that they don't want to put up with, and decide to call the marriage off.....hell, that stuff happens all the time with 'normal' marriages too. But what you're failing to understand is that INTENT is everything to USCIS....

For instance...unrelated to the K-1....if one of our SO's were over visiting on holiday and fully INTENDED to go back home, but after arrival the couple decides to get married and file for AOS...that's acceptable. However, if the INTENT was to do so before arrival, that person IS NOT ELIGIBLE for AOS. I dunno about you, but to me, that speaks volumes about how weighted INTENT is.

Back to this conversation, I guess then it comes into 'well how can you really prove intent?' and I suppose we could talk til the end of time about that. However, FOR ME....if those are the parameters that the gov't has set, then that's what I will comply with. Each individual person can certainly play fast and loose with their own petition.....but that is a personal choice, and the risk lies solely with that person. However, as a visa community, members here CANNOT ALLOW advocating going outside of the parameters of the visa guidelines.

So basically, if one is going to use this as a dating visa....then

A- At least acknowledge to one's self that you are directly going against gov't guidelines for this visa

and

B-Don't go on a visa website chuntering on about how you're essentially commiting visa fraud. When you write that letter of intent to the gov't saying 'I PLAN TO MARRY WITHIN 90 DAYS' know that the letter does NOT have a little * at the bottom saying *providing I get to know my fiancee well enough

You are absolutely right Lisa. If your INTENT is to marry, then file a K1. If your INTENT is to have your SO enter the US to see whether or not he or she will be right for you, filing a K-1 is fraudulent. We are all very well aware that some relationships don't work out. Simply put, if things go wrong after marriage, then you take appropriate action at that time.

[Sinergy 3]

i wanna comment.

i saw somewhere here someone say that their SO is being forced to uproot themselves, leave family culture and country behind.

lemme clarify something here, no one is being FORCED, or MADE to leave their country. they made that choice when they agreed to start the k1 visa.

the 90 days is not to get to know your fiance, you shouldve done that before filing for a k1 visa, if you didnt, and you regret it or are using it JUST to get to know your fiance, shame on you, your abusing the system.

[HannahP 119]

Learning little things about your spouse is a helluva lot different to bringing over a practical stranger and keylogging the puter to 'make sure you know what you're getting'

Learning *little* things? I wouldn't consider "are we as fundamentally compatible in practice as we are in theory?" to be a little thing!

The only person who advocated anything close to bringing over a practical stranger and keylogging their computer would be the OP -- but this thread has morphed way beyond that. Not everyone has the same black-or-white-come-hell-or-high-water attitude that you do towards a relationship. (And whether you want to address the issue or not, only a small percentage of us get to live with our SO for any prolonged period of time before the visa. Many people here /do/ only know their SO for a short period of time; many only meet once or twice before choosing to marry.)

[Drew and Tik 0]

I think moxcamel made one of the best analogies I've heard in a long time and it was lost on most of the people reading this thread.

This visa is basically one of the ONLY rational ways to be with your fiancee. Therefore, if the government told me to say my favorite color was pink, I too would lie and say that I loved pink if that's what it took to be with Tik!

(PS, that had nothing to do with the OP).

If you're outraged because someone would lure an innocent person to this country and then decide they don't want them anymore, you have every right to be completely irritated and pissed off...but if you're mad that they are not being 100% honest to god truthful on their visa application about what intent to marry means to them, I don't know, that's a little nit picky.

So same end result, but you should be mad about the principal and immorality of using someone you supposedly love, not about lying to the government. I mean, they never lie to us, right?

Just want to note that I didn't lie, I have every intention of marrying Tik. I seriously don't think anyone with my sad income would shell out this kind of money to bring her here if they didn't.

Edited October 25, 2007 by Drew and Tik

[Bassi and Zainab 1]

There's nothing wrong with the 90 days being a "get to know if your fiance is going to be able to adapt to a new life" period. Some people simply can't do it, as much as they love their partner. It's heartbreaking, but it's better to find out before signing papers than after.

You can't make that determination in 90 days. Marriage is hard work, if you're not prepared for that, then don't get married. When someone goes to a brand new country and culture there is an adjustment period that is longer than 90 days. You have to make a committment to your future husband/wife to work through making everything good. If you don't make that committment, then don't get married. Don't plan the divorce before the wedding....it's bad karma.

[Bassi and Zainab 1]

Not everyone has the same black-or-white-come-hell-or-high-water attitude that you do towards a relationship. (

That's really sad. Just waiting for a rainy day so you can call it quits? Why get married then?

[Fandango 1,440]

Learning little things about your spouse is a helluva lot different to bringing over a practical stranger and keylogging the puter to 'make sure you know what you're getting'

Learning *little* things? I wouldn't consider "are we as fundamentally compatible in practice as we are in theory?" to be a little thing!

The only person who advocated anything close to bringing over a practical stranger and keylogging their computer would be the OP -- but this thread has morphed way beyond that. Not everyone has the same black-or-white-come-hell-or-high-water attitude that you do towards a relationship. (And whether you want to address the issue or not, only a small percentage of us get to live with our SO for any prolonged period of time before the visa. Many people here /do/ only know their SO for a short period of time; many only meet once or twice before choosing to marry.)

No, YOU said that after x amt of years with your husband, you are still learning things. Those are what I call 'little'. I would say that the stuff you might learn down the road after being together a long period of time is 'little' as opposed to learning who a person fundamentally is and wanting to marry them. You know, learning whether or not the person you love is trustworthy? That's the big stuff IMO.

This conversation has NOT morphed into something different...maybe you feel it has, and if so, that's great for you. And you also misunderstand that what we're discussing here is NOT my 'black-or-white-come-hell-or-high-water attitude towards a relationship'

it's my black-or-white-come-hell-or-high-water attitude towards the guidelines for eligibility for a visa. And we can debate this six ways from Sunday, but the end result is the same:

That much IS black and white. Oh, and yellow and red in case anyone's confused what exactly I'm referencing.

[ramos96 1]

You know instead of arguing about all this, there are homes in Louisiana and Mississippi that need to get re-built. There are people that need counseling and there are fire lines we all could be helping with.

Ramos

[Mephys 2]

I'm a Tauren

Ahko - Thrall

im a troll

Undead priest - Burning Legion

But I guess it is not the place for humor

[britty 1]

I think moxcamel made one of the best analogies I've heard in a long time and it was lost on most of the people reading this thread.

This visa is basically one of the ONLY rational ways to be with your fiancee. Therefore, if the government told me to say my favorite color was pink, I too would lie and say that I loved pink if that's what it took to be with Tik!

(PS, that had nothing to do with the OP).

If you're outraged because someone would lure an innocent person to this country and then decide they don't want them anymore, you have every right to be completely irritated and pissed off...but if you're mad that they are not being 100% honest to god truthful on their visa application about what intent to marry means to them, I don't know, that's a little nit picky.

So same end result, but you should be mad about the principal and immorality of using someone you supposedly love, not about lying to the government. I mean, they never lie to us, right?

Just want to note that I didn't lie, I have every intention of marrying Tik. I seriously don't think anyone with my sad income would shell out this kind of money to bring her here if they didn't.

but the point is you WANT to get married to your SO so you don't need to tell the government anything but the truth.

[ramos96 1]

do you both play?

We are looking for more ppl in my guild if you are interested, we are very couple friendly.

Ahko - Lvl 62 Horde Shaman

[Fandango 1,440]

You know instead of arguing about all this, there are homes in Louisiana and Mississippi that need to get re-built. There are people that need counseling and there are fire lines we all could be helping with.

Ramos

Aren't you too busy building your guild, or do you help rebuild homes too?