My partner and I have been together as best friends for a decade, and romantic partners for many years. I (the immigrant) have been in the US on a different valid visa, living with my partner, and we plan on getting legally married soon and I would like to change my status. However, we are (apparently) very odd people, because we cannot seem to come up with much tangible proof of our years-long relationship.
We love each other and have for many years, but we are in an odd financial situation. I cannot work in the US and she cannot work due to illness, so we live with her mother. All the bills/insurance/etc are in her mother's name, and her mother makes all the purchases. We do not have children together and do not plan on having children (we did adopt a dog together). We don't have bank accounts, let alone joint accounts or joint credit cards. We do not plan on having a wedding or reception at this time either, just a quiet marriage at the courthouse. We DO have enormous amounts of IMs between us but neither of us really want a stranger to read them so I am quite reluctant to use those. When I see the list of suggestions of things to bring to prove the validity of your marriage, I'm getting very discouraged because we don't have any of this despite our long-term relationship! Will some photos and perhaps a couple letters from others describing our relationship be enough? Is there anything else we could bring that could validate us?
We love each other and have for many years, but we are in an odd financial situation. I cannot work in the US and she cannot work due to illness, so we live with her mother. All the bills/insurance/etc are in her mother's name, and her mother makes all the purchases. We do not have children together and do not plan on having children (we did adopt a dog together). We don't have bank accounts, let alone joint accounts or joint credit cards. We do not plan on having a wedding or reception at this time either, just a quiet marriage at the courthouse. We DO have enormous amounts of IMs between us but neither of us really want a stranger to read them so I am quite reluctant to use those. When I see the list of suggestions of things to bring to prove the validity of your marriage, I'm getting very discouraged because we don't have any of this despite our long-term relationship! Will some photos and perhaps a couple letters from others describing our relationship be enough? Is there anything else we could bring that could validate us?