International Dating Discussion forum

The fun ends here and the agonizing wait to reunite with the woman you love begins. It takes six to nine months to get a U.S. visa. You are not in the mood to wait months to enjoy the affections of your lover. It can be frustrating and a hassle, but it is necessary. Of all the experiences in this guide, processing the documents and forms to get that visa is the only one that is no fun.

You can forget about getting a tourist visa for her, unless she is from a prosperous country like Sweden or Japan. Chances are she is from somewhere like the Philippines or Russia, making a tourist visa out of the question. Most men get a fiancée visa, in which case you must marry her within three months of her arrival in the U.S. If you get married in her country you must get a marriage visa.

There are two steps to getting her visa. First, petition the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in the U.S. The purpose of the petition and approval process is to make sure you have a legitimate relationship. It minimizes the risk that she is coming to the U.S. just so she can get permanent residency. You must have met her in person within two years of filing. Her children, if any, are eligible to come with her as long as they are under twenty-one and single.

When a petition is approved, as almost all are, it is forwarded to the appropriate overseas embassy or consulate. Your wife or fiancée will receive a list of requirements, the second step in the visa process. These include a physical examination, police clearance and identification documents, such as a birth certificate. She must then apply for a visa to come to the U.S. She will be interviewed at the U.S. embassy or consulate once she has fulfilled the requirements, has all her documents and completed the application.

People sometimes pay thousands of dollars to have a U.S. citizen illegally petition an overseas relative to join them in the U.S. To minimize this sort of thing, you must prove that you have a legitimate relationship. Take special care where the form asks to explain how you met your friend. The instructions don’t mention this, but you should go into detail how you met and how much you are in love.

You may have established much of your relationship through letters and phone calls. You need to prove this. Provide copies of letters, greeting cards and your phone bills. You also need photos of the two of you together to prove you have met personally. Any other evidence, such as greeting cards, should also be provided.

Make your written explanation truthful, sincere and detailed. Describe how and where you met. If it was through an introduction service or correspondence club, describe the details. The service may have included personality evaluations and reference checks. Provide copies of these if you want, but they are not necessary.

Ideally, your fiancée is single, never married, without children and you met her in person. If all these conditions are met, you should have a smooth ride. If not, things can get complicated. Consider professional assistance. Get an immigration attorney or pay an international introduction service to handle it for a hefty fee. Surprisingly, these introduction services often know more about immigration laws pertaining to marriage than lawyers. Lawyers usually deal with more complex and different types of immigration matters. Complete and assemble the immigration forms yourself and you can have an immigration lawyer review them for around US$100. I recommend you at least have this done. Mistakes in preparing the forms or documents can delay the processing and your reunion with your lover for weeks or months.

Information on obtaining a fiancée visa can be obtained from the following State Department web site:

http://travel.state.gov/visa;fiancee.html

It describes the technicalities involved in the visa process.

Applicants with a communicable disease, dangerous physical or mental disorder, drug addiction, or admit to having committed so-called serious crimes such as prostitution, can be refused a visa.

She will also need a valid passport. Birth certificates can be surprisingly hard to come by in the provinces of third-world countries. She also needs a police certificate from all places lived since age sixteen and a medical examination.

The Affidavit of Support causes some men to worry because of the accompanying financial documents you must provide. You don’t need worry about this. All the INS wants to know is that you have enough income to support a wife. Provide evidence of a source of income such as a pay stub and a bank statement. You don’t need thousands of dollars in a bank account or the stock market, just enough income for the two of you to live on.

Once the immigration hassles are over, and you have brought her home, you are ready to enjoy each other. Let her take time to get accustomed to her new culture and country. Her new-found affluence and the experience of seeing a new country for the first time may be a little disconcerting at first. She will be excited about her new land and husband. A little homesickness may creep in, since this may be the first time she has even been away from her family. This is where you come in and experience the joy of guiding her through this period of adjustment.

There are different ways of going about it. You could keep her so preoccupied with your special favors that she has no time to think about her new situation. When she isn’t preoccupied with you she may be resting, recovering from the preoccupations. You might want to show her around town. Educate her on her new surroundings, help her make new friends. Find out if there is a Filipino community in your home town. Above all show her patience and understanding.

Your first few weeks together are an important time for both of you. You’re still getting to know each other. You may have spent only a week or two together before, and that will have been several months ago. She will make an extra effort to please you and, I hope, you will return the favor. How you handle this period of adjustment will affect your entire marriage. Be nice to her. Go out of your way to make her feel comfortable and secure.

Everybody knows women can spend days, if the stores would let them, indulging in shopping. I can’t think of anything more boring than following a woman around Macy’s, but odds are you’ll end up doing that. There’s probably no avoiding this problem.

A woman from a third-world country will think she’s in fantasyland when she hits the mall. A girl from the provinces may never have seen a department store, and only dreamt of beautiful clothes and jewelry. She may be worse than an urban woman. It’s all new to her. She’ll love it even if she doesn’t have money to spend. Since everything will be a novelty to her, department stores will be even more of an enchantment than for her urban sister. She won’t yet have the savvy of the urbanite, but she’ll be even more tireless and persistent in her exploration of the stores.

What to do? Either tough it out or drop her off and, while she shops, shoot some pool at the bar across from the mall.

A "meat and potatoes" man needs patience at first. You may even have to teach your new bride how to cook potatoes the way you like. If you do the cooking she may teach you how to cook some her native dishes. Meat, particularly beef, is expensive almost everywhere except Western nations. Your bride may have tasted it only a few times in her life. Teach her how to prepare meat or she may toss your $10 a pound veal chops into a pot of boiling water for soup.

Her influence on your diet will be an improvement. She may be appalled the first time she sees a rare steak. She will have a good, healthful influence on your diet. The foods she will have the most experience cooking are the kind Americans need to eat more: fish and vegetables. Improved diet adds several healthy years to your life, not to mention the added years of her loving warmth and serenity.

Whether she serves you enchiladas or potatoes and cabbage, try to develop a taste for her food. It is something you’ll share every day for many years to come. Develop an appreciation and interest for her culture and make her feel comfortable. You will benefit from more variety in your life and be a happier companion.

Your influence over your new wife carries a great responsibility. You were instrumental in severing this woman from everything in life she has known: family, country, friends and most of her personal belongings. She left these things behind and came alone to be with you. Take the responsibility seriously. Shower her with kindness, respect, affection and tolerance.