I am a US citizen and my girlfriend is a Canadian citizen. I am very well educated (medical doctor) and have a very nice job with the US government that I love. My girlfriend is very well educated, (PhD) and has a very nice job that she loves. She is also very close to her family and reluctant to leave Canada to come to the US. I love my job and I am reluctant to leave the US to live in Canada. Is it possible for us to legally marry then continue to live in our respective countries? If we marry but choose to live apart, what are our legal rights with regard to visitation and immigration? If we marry but live apart and I pass away (or vice versa) is she legally entitled to claim our joint property?
US citizen wants to marry Canadian but continue to live in US and she in Canada
- Thread starter maclou
- Start date
Why marry in the first place?maclou said:
You will not leave your job
She will not leave her job
She loves her family
I am assuming you love your family
You can have a long distant relationship see each other occasionally with out any strings attached, this way you can break up easily without any obligations or complications such as property, joint account, half of what you have is hers and all that non-sense etc
The whole idea is to reduce complications in life so you can enjoy things you love doing why make life more complicated than it already is?
You are visa exempt to each others country so you have the right to visit each other and stay for as long as 6 months at a time. You do not automatically get any rights in each others country just by getting married.
If you want to get permanent residency in Canada, she'd have to sponsor you. However, in order to keep it, you'd have to spend 730 days every 5 yr. period either in Canada or with your Canadian wife outside Canada and you'd have to be able to prove it which could be hard if you are not living in Canada, just going to visit and your wife is not living with you, also just visiting.
If you want her to get a US green card, you would have to sponsor her. A green card however is meant for people who want to live in the US. The residency obligation to keep a green card is not as clear as in Canada but she should enter the US at least once a year, preferably every 6 months in order to keep it.
In order to tie up the legal loose ends of it all, you should probably talk to a lawyer in the US about your US assets that she would inherit and she would talk to a lawyer in Canada about the Canadian assets that you would inherit. I don't see a reason why she wouldn't be able to inherit property in the US. Canadians are allowed to own property in the US as far as I know and vice versa.
However, if you end up getting divorced, you might want to have pre-nups that you each keep your own. Or like newtone says, why even get married? You can still make a will to leave your assets to her when you die, even if you are not married.
If you want to get permanent residency in Canada, she'd have to sponsor you. However, in order to keep it, you'd have to spend 730 days every 5 yr. period either in Canada or with your Canadian wife outside Canada and you'd have to be able to prove it which could be hard if you are not living in Canada, just going to visit and your wife is not living with you, also just visiting.
If you want her to get a US green card, you would have to sponsor her. A green card however is meant for people who want to live in the US. The residency obligation to keep a green card is not as clear as in Canada but she should enter the US at least once a year, preferably every 6 months in order to keep it.
In order to tie up the legal loose ends of it all, you should probably talk to a lawyer in the US about your US assets that she would inherit and she would talk to a lawyer in Canada about the Canadian assets that you would inherit. I don't see a reason why she wouldn't be able to inherit property in the US. Canadians are allowed to own property in the US as far as I know and vice versa.
However, if you end up getting divorced, you might want to have pre-nups that you each keep your own. Or like newtone says, why even get married? You can still make a will to leave your assets to her when you die, even if you are not married.