Immigrating to another country for someone is a really big deal. Like bigger than marriage, imo. It's a huge commitment, and it takes years of time, energy, money, and foresight. It's a big leap of faith Immigration makes signing that piece of paper look like a breeze! She should be super, super sure before she dumps money, time, leaves friends, family, starts over with credit, job searches, etc etc.. as well as your half, such as the Sponsor undertaking, as you're responsible for her financially in Canada for several years after PR, even if you split.KelseyTVS said:Thanks for all the help and for explaining everything! People here are so awesome, I'm shocked at how easy it is to get questions answered.
Sometimes I wish we could get married to make it all easier. But since I want a really special marriage, and she's one of those "I won't marry someone until I've been dating them for 7+ years" type of people, common law might have to be the best route for us. Unless I can convince her to do it sooner
I'm sure you're aware of all this. Its just, before we started this process, when we were just dating - I sounded just like your partner I didn't want to get married "just for PR" but I saw how it would make our application infinitely easier, how much sooner we'd be able to be together and start living our lives, and realized that moving to Canada to be with my partner was a wayyyyyy bigger deal, commitment and leap of faith than getting married and signing that piece of paper! Hehe. Plus we were already at that point, really, in that we were sure we were serious about this. It sounds like you are too Hope you figure out what works best for both of you!
There is nothing wrong with going the common-law route at all. You just need to prove that you are in a marriage-like level of commitment, not just girlfriends. In my group of apps we had an American/Canadian couple who were common-law for 5 years yet towards the end of their application got a letter from an immigration officer, exclaiming that he felt they were just dating, not in a marriage like level of commitment. So they had 30 days to submit additional evidence, and they just ended up getting married and sending that in. The evidence you send in to prove your common-law status is really important. Make sure you sign a lease together, put them on your insurance etc.. And keep in mind that even a 2 week break (like one of you goes on a trip) while you're trying to establish common-law is enough to make you start back at the beginning. I don't think that's the case after you establish and can prove common-law status, but I'm not sure on that.