TryingToGoHome

Yeah, we've been kicking ourselves for months now about having left the US under the circumstances. It would have been a lot better to fix our legal situation if we'd stayed in the States, but the situation is what it is now. It's nice to know that if/when (I like to think 'when', but since nothing is certain until USCIS makes all their decisions...) we make it back, my husband will be able to naturalize after 3 years on his new residency permit. He's wanted to be a US Citizen for a long time.
 
I can't recommend highly enough to anyone else who may ever read this though: if you can stay in the US while you file various forms and restore your/your spouse's legal status, absolutely do not leave! With the i-601A and other forms available, and USCIS' willingness to consider extenuating circumstances if you're late filing the i-751 to lift conditions on a 2-year residency permit, it makes so much more sense to stay put and fix everything from within the US. Don't get stuck outside like we have if you can avoid it, it's really not fun.

Ok thank you it wasn't clear from that post so I just wanted to clarify that for you and future people who may read this post. I admit it does suck that you guys didn't do that when you could have in the past, hindsight is always 20/20.
 
I do believe that you have to redo it all over again and just wait out for the official decision.

FYI it's not 3 years of being in the USA to file for Naturalization but 3 years of being a Permanent Resident with a Family/Marriage based GC. If you look at his GC then you would see the "Resident since XXXX" that would be the determination of the timeline for the 3 year rule.
They stayed in the country and never left the USA from what it looks like.

Thanks, I'm aware of the terms and didn't intend to imply that it was 3 years from the date of his first arrival. All the same, he still would have qualified in 2014 if we hadn't wound up in such a legal mess. Live and learn, onward and upward. US is our home and we're determined to go back before we're in our 40s, so gonna re-file the I-130 and start the process over.  

Just a quick update:
 
It doesn't look like there's any realistic way around starting a new i-130 and all that entails. If we were still in the US, I think we would've filed the i-751 again and hoped to lift restrictions the 'easy' way, i.e. hoping that USCIS would be lenient / accepting of the circumstances that prohibited us from filing until ~5 years after we were supposed to.
 
Since we're already in Europe though, and coming up on a year here, the safest and most logical option appears to be restarting the process via a new i-130. I am currently waiting to hear back from the Embassy in Brussels to find out if we can file directly with them, and will update again when things progress further. In the meantime, husband is so, so bummed to realize that he could have naturalized after 3 years in the US. We always thought it was after 5 years (and, well, he could have done that too, but it burns a little extra to know he could've done it after just 3 on account of being married to a US citizen). 
 
Anyway, live and learn. When we finally get back to the US, he's going to dig a hole, plant himself, and grow roots this time.