Thanks, kickb, for letting us know what happened. This is useful information for other applicants.
As for the OP, 4 years on, with more education, I realize there was one avenue they might have tried. If they were from Pakistan, or perhaps another Muslim country, it sounds like they had a nikah nama, but not a rukhsati. The rukhsati is the ceremony when the bride goes to her husband's family and after which the marriage is consummated. There are many appeal cases where the appeal was lost because the judge found that a marriage with only a nikah nama was not a complete marriage. Basically, they would tell the couple to come back when they were married - when the rukhsati was done. The OP's lawyer could have used those decisions to argue that they were not completely married either.
However, this would have required a good lawyer who wanted to do a test case. There is certainly no guarantee that it would have worked, but it was and is a possibility.