Exactly how much "proof" do we need???

[dominokitty]

So I'm kind of struggling here and feeling really overwhelmed with the work load that has gone into assembling our application. I'm at the end of my rope, hopefully someone here can help out a bit.

I'm from Canada, my husband is from Austria. We met while travelling and have been in a long distance relationship since the beginning. We fly back and forth to visit each other every 3-4 months or so, but have never been able to live together because of the visa situation. He doesn't qualify for a work visa to come here and I couldn't move there because I am working on my degree. So, we make do, flying back and forth to visit each other as often as we can afford it/get time off work or school.

I'm really worried that the fact we haven't officially lived together will hurt our application. It's the only "red flag" we might have that could hurt us so I figured we just needed lots of proof of our relationship to compensate for this. We are very much a real, typical relationship except we can not live together because of the immigration system. The longest we've been able to stay together in the same place is 3 months. We are similar ages, he isn't coming from a country with less opportunity than Canada by any means, we met by chance while travelling and it wasn't an arranged marriage or anything like that. We dated for a couple years, then got engaged and married just like any other normal couple.

We are on skype with each other almost 24 hours a day. It is always running in the background so we can pop in to talk to each other whenever we are home. It's just the easiest way with an 8 hour time difference. The problem is, when we went to extract our skype records to put as proof for our relationship, we realized that the VAST majority of the time we aren't writing things to each other. We send links back and forth but our chatting happens through voice chat. Our skype conversations can be days long, it is literally always running in the background, even when we sleep. So our records basically look like this:

[1/30/2015 4:49:49 PM] *** Call to _______, duration 09:25. ***
[1/30/2015 4:59:15 PM] *** Call ended, duration 09:25 ***

... And that's it. The only time we write to each other is when we are arguing or writing dirty stories to each other (haha) and I'd really rather not include our fights/sexy talk in our proof of relationship section. It's none of their business..

Is it ok to just include the call times or are they looking for actual conversations?

The only text-based conversations we could show them are in our text messages (when one of us is at work or school or out with friends) and I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the imessages off my phone and on to my PC. If I had a mac it'd be easy, but I don't. So I don't know if I can even include our imessage records somehow. Because it's through imessage and not regular SMS there isn't even a way for me to contact my cell phone company and get the number of texts we've sent back and forth over the years.

We have copies of our e-tickets for flights we've booked and everything, I have printed all of those off, but I threw all of my boarding passes away. I just didn't feel the need to keep the garbage laying around, I am not a sentimental person who holds on to things like that.

I also have lots of photos of the two of us together, which took a long time to sort out. I didn't want to overload the VO with a huge stack of papers that would take forever to go through, so I cut it down to one or two pictures of us together for each visit/trip that we took together. I included photos from our engagement and our wedding (which was just small, in my parents' backyard with only our immediate families there, another thing that I am worried about).

My biggest fear is that the people at the visa office will decide that our relationship is not genuine for some reason. We have been together for 3 years, he has met everyone I know, attended family funerals and weddings with me, been there for me through thick and thin.. but we just don't have a lot to give them for "proof of the development of our relationship".

It is causing me a lot of anxiety because I know that once the paperwork is sent it's out of our hands entirely. I lay awake every night stressing about this. Does this sound like enough proof? What are they looking for exactly?

We currently have: Lots of photos of the two of us together, receipts for flights we have taken to see each other, and skype records showing call durations and dates but not much else. I also wrote up a timeline explaining times we were together/apart, what we did, where we stayed, etc. but I don't know if this counts as "proof" because the only things I have to back up my statements are pictures, flight records, and skype calls.

I don't know. What did you all include for proof? Is there something else I can do in lieu of the text messages that I can't extract from my phone? Are they going to reject us or be suspicious because we don't have more? I see people on these forums with stacks and stacks of paper, hundreds of pages of proof and we just don't have that much at all. What do we do?

 

[CherPare]

Awwww, sweetie. I understand exactly how you feel. Since I've become pregnant I literally think about immigration every waking moment. I'm so worried we'll get rejected too. It's so devastating to think about. I'm sorry you're feeling this way. Just know you're not alone, there have been countless couples in the same place as you!!!

I am not a huge help since I live with my husband but I read that they like seeing gifts/receipts and cards and stuff like that. Do you two send cards to each other for special occasions? Those are always good.

Another one that is EXTREMELY helpful is letters from your family and friends. I recommend getting letters from some people that are in your family/your close friends and letters from his family/close friend. We sent in a letter from my mom, a friend, his aunt and his uncle! (His parents don't speak any English so it would've been a bit difficult to do that, but if you get letters from both of your parents' that'd be awesome).

Definitely explain the skype situation as well, with the accompanying proof (The logs) this won't look odd to them as long as everything is explained!

I think you should be fine. You've been together a long time and have made due with the long distance for 3 years! That is a test of time and devotion and I think it speaks for your relationship.

Try not to stress too much! We're all in this together.

 

[CanadaBrazil]

Hi,


I think you will be fine!!!

Relax....

 

[Sumo]

Hi
For my wife's permanent visa, we submitted a lot of photos of us traveling to different countries/cities. We also included conversations in Google Hangouts. We did not submit the contents, just a list of emails and chats. They do not seem to be too concerned about the content but more that you are consistently communication. We described in the application how we met, how often we communicated. We did not live together. We lived in separate countries.

I am full time employed and my financial situation seems stable enough for them.

I had contemplated notifying CIC about my wife's pregnancy. I figured that if the baby is born before the visa is processed, we would have to submit changes to the application and they will know of the child eventually so there was nothing to lose. In the end, I sent them an email notifying them that she was pregnant.

My wife received her permanent resident visa after 7 months since we submitted our application.

Good luck! Hope this helps ease the nerves.

 

[little_apple]

So I'm kind of struggling here and feeling really overwhelmed with the work load that has gone into assembling our application. I'm at the end of my rope, hopefully someone here can help out a bit.

I'm from Canada, my husband is from Austria. We met while travelling and have been in a long distance relationship since the beginning. We fly back and forth to visit each other every 3-4 months or so, but have never been able to live together because of the visa situation. He doesn't qualify for a work visa to come here and I couldn't move there because I am working on my degree. So, we make do, flying back and forth to visit each other as often as we can afford it/get time off work or school.

I'm really worried that the fact we haven't officially lived together will hurt our application. It's the only "red flag" we might have that could hurt us so I figured we just needed lots of proof of our relationship to compensate for this. We are very much a real, typical relationship except we can not live together because of the immigration system. The longest we've been able to stay together in the same place is 3 months. We are similar ages, he isn't coming from a country with less opportunity than Canada by any means, we met by chance while travelling and it wasn't an arranged marriage or anything like that. We dated for a couple years, then got engaged and married just like any other normal couple.

We are on skype with each other almost 24 hours a day. It is always running in the background so we can pop in to talk to each other whenever we are home. It's just the easiest way with an 8 hour time difference. The problem is, when we went to extract our skype records to put as proof for our relationship, we realized that the VAST majority of the time we aren't writing things to each other. We send links back and forth but our chatting happens through voice chat. Our skype conversations can be days long, it is literally always running in the background, even when we sleep. So our records basically look like this:

[1/30/2015 4:49:49 PM] *** Call to _______, duration 09:25. ***
[1/30/2015 4:59:15 PM] *** Call ended, duration 09:25 ***

... And that's it. The only time we write to each other is when we are arguing or writing dirty stories to each other (haha) and I'd really rather not include our fights/sexy talk in our proof of relationship section. It's none of their business..

Is it ok to just include the call times or are they looking for actual conversations?

The only text-based conversations we could show them are in our text messages (when one of us is at work or school or out with friends) and I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the imessages off my phone and on to my PC. If I had a mac it'd be easy, but I don't. So I don't know if I can even include our imessage records somehow. Because it's through imessage and not regular SMS there isn't even a way for me to contact my cell phone company and get the number of texts we've sent back and forth over the years.

We have copies of our e-tickets for flights we've booked and everything, I have printed all of those off, but I threw all of my boarding passes away. I just didn't feel the need to keep the garbage laying around, I am not a sentimental person who holds on to things like that.

I also have lots of photos of the two of us together, which took a long time to sort out. I didn't want to overload the VO with a huge stack of papers that would take forever to go through, so I cut it down to one or two pictures of us together for each visit/trip that we took together. I included photos from our engagement and our wedding (which was just small, in my parents' backyard with only our immediate families there, another thing that I am worried about).

My biggest fear is that the people at the visa office will decide that our relationship is not genuine for some reason. We have been together for 3 years, he has met everyone I know, attended family funerals and weddings with me, been there for me through thick and thin.. but we just don't have a lot to give them for "proof of the development of our relationship".

It is causing me a lot of anxiety because I know that once the paperwork is sent it's out of our hands entirely. I lay awake every night stressing about this. Does this sound like enough proof? What are they looking for exactly?

We currently have: Lots of photos of the two of us together, receipts for flights we have taken to see each other, and skype records showing call durations and dates but not much else. I also wrote up a timeline explaining times we were together/apart, what we did, where we stayed, etc. but I don't know if this counts as "proof" because the only things I have to back up my statements are pictures, flight records, and skype calls.

I don't know. What did you all include for proof? Is there something else I can do in lieu of the text messages that I can't extract from my phone? Are they going to reject us or be suspicious because we don't have more? I see people on these forums with stacks and stacks of paper, hundreds of pages of proof and we just don't have that much at all. What do we do?

Relax, kitty You're fine. Add the proof you mentioned above plus maybe some notarized letters of friends and family. But I don't even think they are necessary. You shouldn't have any problems.

Good luck

 

[Morganhannah]

My husband and I do almost exactly what you do with skype! I just took screen shot from a few days each month showing the time that the skype call was on and added those in to the application

 

[canadianwoman]

It sounds like you have enough evidence. The Skype call times are enough, though you could add a few conversations if you wanted. A sponsored spouse from Austria isn't likely to be rejected.

 

[bigredmoose]

So I'm kind of struggling here and feeling really overwhelmed with the work load that has gone into assembling our application. I'm at the end of my rope, hopefully someone here can help out a bit.

I'm from Canada, my husband is from Austria. We met while travelling and have been in a long distance relationship since the beginning. We fly back and forth to visit each other every 3-4 months or so, but have never been able to live together because of the visa situation. He doesn't qualify for a work visa to come here and I couldn't move there because I am working on my degree. So, we make do, flying back and forth to visit each other as often as we can afford it/get time off work or school.

I'm really worried that the fact we haven't officially lived together will hurt our application. It's the only "red flag" we might have that could hurt us so I figured we just needed lots of proof of our relationship to compensate for this. We are very much a real, typical relationship except we can not live together because of the immigration system. The longest we've been able to stay together in the same place is 3 months. We are similar ages, he isn't coming from a country with less opportunity than Canada by any means, we met by chance while travelling and it wasn't an arranged marriage or anything like that. We dated for a couple years, then got engaged and married just like any other normal couple.

We are on skype with each other almost 24 hours a day. It is always running in the background so we can pop in to talk to each other whenever we are home. It's just the easiest way with an 8 hour time difference. The problem is, when we went to extract our skype records to put as proof for our relationship, we realized that the VAST majority of the time we aren't writing things to each other. We send links back and forth but our chatting happens through voice chat. Our skype conversations can be days long, it is literally always running in the background, even when we sleep. So our records basically look like this:

[1/30/2015 4:49:49 PM] *** Call to _______, duration 09:25. ***
[1/30/2015 4:59:15 PM] *** Call ended, duration 09:25 ***

... And that's it. The only time we write to each other is when we are arguing or writing dirty stories to each other (haha) and I'd really rather not include our fights/sexy talk in our proof of relationship section. It's none of their business..

Is it ok to just include the call times or are they looking for actual conversations?

The only text-based conversations we could show them are in our text messages (when one of us is at work or school or out with friends) and I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the imessages off my phone and on to my PC. If I had a mac it'd be easy, but I don't. So I don't know if I can even include our imessage records somehow. Because it's through imessage and not regular SMS there isn't even a way for me to contact my cell phone company and get the number of texts we've sent back and forth over the years.

We have copies of our e-tickets for flights we've booked and everything, I have printed all of those off, but I threw all of my boarding passes away. I just didn't feel the need to keep the garbage laying around, I am not a sentimental person who holds on to things like that.

I also have lots of photos of the two of us together, which took a long time to sort out. I didn't want to overload the VO with a huge stack of papers that would take forever to go through, so I cut it down to one or two pictures of us together for each visit/trip that we took together. I included photos from our engagement and our wedding (which was just small, in my parents' backyard with only our immediate families there, another thing that I am worried about).

My biggest fear is that the people at the visa office will decide that our relationship is not genuine for some reason. We have been together for 3 years, he has met everyone I know, attended family funerals and weddings with me, been there for me through thick and thin.. but we just don't have a lot to give them for "proof of the development of our relationship".

It is causing me a lot of anxiety because I know that once the paperwork is sent it's out of our hands entirely. I lay awake every night stressing about this. Does this sound like enough proof? What are they looking for exactly?

We currently have: Lots of photos of the two of us together, receipts for flights we have taken to see each other, and skype records showing call durations and dates but not much else. I also wrote up a timeline explaining times we were together/apart, what we did, where we stayed, etc. but I don't know if this counts as "proof" because the only things I have to back up my statements are pictures, flight records, and skype calls.

I don't know. What did you all include for proof? Is there something else I can do in lieu of the text messages that I can't extract from my phone? Are they going to reject us or be suspicious because we don't have more? I see people on these forums with stacks and stacks of paper, hundreds of pages of proof and we just don't have that much at all. What do we do?

I think a lot of people haven'tived with their spouses for long. In my case, I've only ever been with my wife 3 times, 2 weeks each time. Been married nearly a year, and we've only ever spent 6 weeks together.

The good thing is that people from Austria generally don't scam their way to Canada as both are developed, comfortable nations.