The visa officer said she did not believe our marriage was genuine. Her reasons for thinking this: 1. our photos weren't romantic; 2. my husband didn't know enough about me for our length of relationship and the amount of time we claimed to have talked on the phone; 3. we disagree on whether to have children, showing we have never discussed this; in a genuine marriage, the couple will have discussed children; 4. I wasn't wearing my wedding ring (I never do, but I had it with me; how I could have forgotten to put it on for the interview I'll never know) 5. when I first started going out with my later husband in 2001, he was also dating another woman; therefore the visa officer said our relationship was just casual; 6. my husband said he wanted to marry a foreigner, not a Nigerian woman; 7. there is little documentation to support that we were in a relationship before 2007, when we got married; 8. in some emails (which unfortunately my husband showed the visa officer) I ask him questions about the immigration forms - the name of his high school, for example. If we had a genuine marriage, I should have known this stuff before filling out the forms; 9. my husband doesn't support me financially.
In the CAIPS notes the visa officer did not write down what I said on many occasions, and often clearly misunderstood what I said. (She interviewed me and my husband.) We never contradicted each other, except for the baby question, which she clearly misunderstood, since I am the one who wants a child. It's true we have little documentation of our relationship before 2007 - we met in 2001 in Taiwan, where we were both living. When I moved back to Canada and he moved back to Nigeria, I had no idea we were going to be going through a sponsorship, so did not keep things like old phone bills and restaurant receipts.
9 is absolutely ridiculous. My husband has a Nigerian friend who does send money to his Canadian wife. At his interview, the visa officer accused him of fraud, and said this money was to pay for a marriage of convenience. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
