Context: I am a US citizen, residing in the US. My wife and I married last month in the Philippines. She is a Filipina OFW who has lived in Singapore for the past 20 years, working in the tech industry. We both work remotely, and decided to pursue the IR-1/CR-1 path as it will enable her to keep her job upon relocation without having to go through the lengthy wait for a work permit. She currently holds a US B1/B2 visa.
We are currently awaiting the PSA version of the marriage certificate to complete processing so we can continue with the process. She wanted to change her last name to mine, so we are going through all of the things she needs to do for that right now... including changing her name on her passport. We have seen that it is OK to file with her maiden name and then change during the process, but she wants to have things as buttoned-down as possible when we apply.
We are both older, and have no plans for children. She has never been married and has no children of her own; I am widowed and have two grown sons from my late wife.
We met online and after a long time talking via chat and videocalls (multiple times daily), I began visiting her there for a few months at a time. I've been there a total of three times so far (I just returned from the third/marriage trip), and plan to go back later this year and return twice per year for a few months at a time until our processing completes. As I said we are both remote so we would travel together so we have several airline itineraries, AirBnB and hotel reservations, etc. from all of our previous trips. I've met her extended family. After my second trip, she returned with me to the US using her visitor's visa. We went straight to Florida, went to Disney, then flew back to Pennsylvania so she could experience life where I live. She was here for 2 weeks. Unfortunately, we were extremely busy trying to fit in all kinds of activities during those 2 weeks and although she met my entire family, we only have a photo of us with my sister. A big, missed opportunity.
As she is currently living in Singapore and we don't have much in the way of co-mingling of assets yet, we are looking for different ways that we can demonstrate proof of relationship as solidly as possible. We have all of our joint travel documented on the TripIt app as well as having various physical tickets/invoices/etc that we kept as souvenirs, photos of us together in the various places we've been. A very, very lengthy record of messaging/video calls. We had a very nice wedding at a large venue with all of her family there, and we have a ton of photos and videos from there that includes interviews with each of us regarding how we met, how we knew each other was the one, etc.
I plan to file my 2026 taxes as "married filing separately" since I don't want to have her income be involved with the IRS until necessary.
She does NOT like posting anything personal on social media and has no online presence of her own... just an Instagram account where she doom-scrolls and posts photos taken as a part of her subject photography hobby... but nothing of or about her at all. She is a private person. Though I did post general travel entries on my page, I respected her wishes and kept her out of the posts... but I did post our wedding video edits to my family/friends only.
I figure we will need to get a lot of affidavits from friends and family.
So, any ideas on more things we can do to more clearly illustrate proof of relationship? We may open up a joint bank account in the Philippines using our wedding gift funds during my next trip there later this year if useful; but is having an invested joint account enough or do we have to actively pull life expenses from it and use it as our primary account?
Also, after filing we are looking into the possibility of getting her processing done in Singapore. She isn't a bona-fide Singapore "resident" by status, but is there on a perpetual work visa and is only back in PH for maybe 2 weeks per year, or when I am visiting her (much cheaper for long stays than Singapore). We aren't sure what criteria they will use to determine whether she can have her processing done where she lives versus her country of citizenship... it will be a quite an annoyance and expense to have to go back and forth on 4 hour flights, rent accommodations, etc just to go to an interview, medical exam, or whatever else she will need to do for this process... plus the Philippines is very slow with processing. Is anyone aware of the current guidance in this area, will she likely be able to have much of her processing done in Singapore? We plan to send a letter requesting the transfer of the case to Singapore.
Any thoughts on our situation will be greatly appreciated, and we're looking forward to this journey together!
