IMM5490E - Maintaining contact and Financial support

[Bearcheese]

Hello,

I'm looking at form 5490 which I'm helping my wife, whom I am sponsoring, to fill out. She is Armenian and I am a Canadian citizen. I met her while I was in Armenia in 2010. I have been here ever since. So, I'm not sure how to answer questions like "Have you visited your sponsor during the period of your relationship" or "How do you communicate when you're not together".

We have been married since 2012 summer. However, we were living together since 2012 Spring. So when it asks me to give dates of periods of cohabitation, I only get the Day-Month-Year format. How do I indicate that its from 01-03-2012 to present?

Lastly, "Do you receive financial support from your sponsor?"

We live together, she doesn't work right now, so my income is what keeps us going. Does that count as financial support? I don't write her separate checks or give her bank drafts etc. We just, spend our money, which I earn.

I appreciate your help! Thank you very much.

 

[Bearcheese]

bump for great justice.

 

[Catou]

These are generic forms and you will find loads of questions to don't quite apply to your situation. Where a fuller answer is require just use a separate piece of paper to explain why you are answering a question a certain way.
For example, where you need the dates of cohabitation, write something like, "see Appendix 1" then on a separate sheet name it Appendix 1, add the applicant name and date of birth, write the form number and question number, then write your answer.

Do the same thing with the question about financial support and with any other question where you need to explain your answer of give more detail than the form allows.

 

[wowsers]

Good Morning. The thing to remember about these forms is that they are drafted so as to cater for a variety of different situations and as you have found, sometimes they do not fit your own situation. Are you completing the IMM 5490 by hand or by computer? If the latter you will find that some of the boxes cannot be completed. What you should do then is to complete the form as best you can, leaving the boxes which will not complete blank, and then fill in the uncompleted boxes by hand and in black ink. If your answer will not fit in the box, type it out on a separate piece of paper and at the top of that additional page refer to the question you wish to answer, add your wife's name and date of birth so that if the page is detached it does not get lost and then attach the page to your form with a paper clip. I suggest you tackle the specific questions which you ask about along the following lines:

1. Have you visited..how do you communicate when you are not together: answer this simply by stating what you have written in your query on this forum. Say something like < we met in Armenia in 2010 and we have both lived in Armenia ever since. We were courting until the spring of 2012, when we started living together. We married later that same year in the summer. We have never been apart since meeting one another. During the period we were courting we were constantly seeing one another and it is only in that sense that I 'visited' my sponsor. So far as communication is concerned we have talked with one another every day since we met and have never needed to write.> I do not wish to put words in your wife's mouth: just say what happened in your own words.
2. You will not be able to type in the words 'the present' on your computer. You can either delay inserting the date and then complete it with the date on which you send off your application OR you can do what I did, namely to leave the box blank and then complete it in black ink and write in 'the present'. No issue was raised by CIC about that when I submitted the application.
3. Do you receive financial support from your sponsor... The answer to that is yes. Your wife can add if she wishes that you as her husband are at present the sole wage earner in the family and that you support her.

You worry too much! If you fill in most of the form on computer you will find that some of the boxes are shaded out. You do not need to complete those boxes. Just remember to complete all the other boxes adding whatever you cannot fit in on an additional piece of paper as mentioned above.