Exception from two years of cohabitation condition.

[iamjjoa]

My husband, who is a Canadian citizen as born, sponsored me and I have become a PR last month.

We have been in a relationship for 5 years but married in March 2012, and my application was submitted November 2012 and my whole PR process has been ended last month in 2014. Well, almost..

I have found out that my husband has had serious alcohol problems for a long time but he has been lying to me and hiding from me very well.

Here are some things that he had done:
He drank and drove and ended up hitting a light pole in a shopping mall parking lot. Sometimes he locked me in our bedroom as I tried to pack myself and leave him, sometimes in the middle of a night, he pissed next to our bed as he was just hammered enough to think he was in the bathroom, kicked me out of our suite and made me stay in the aisle of the apartment building for 10 minutes so I could ask him to get in, finally he burnt the balcony of our place, and got fired from his work.
He didn't really hit me ever though. One time he almost strangled me just for a second because I kicked him in his balls when he tried to lock me in our bedroom again.

Every time I asked him to get treatment and tried to drag him to a hospital, or marriage counselor, or any facility that might help his problems, we fought. It only got uglier as time went by.

As of today, my husband has been sober for three months finally after he almost killed himself twice. And I finally moved out. He is slowly on the way back to a normal guy just like the guy I started dating 5 years ago.

But I do not want to be in this marriage any longer as there is no trust, belief, love, or friendship left for my husband.
He also wants to move on with some other girl because he also thinks we have too much history between us.
My husband (now as he sees things straight and asks for forgiveness for what he had been doing to me) and his family feel sorry for me for the things I had to go through all alone. They want me to find a way to keep my PR without living with him.

Would my situation be one of those “Victims of abuse or neglect”...? So I can apply for an exception from two years of cohabitation condition...?
Will the officer say I would be the one who need to leave if I had a problem with my Canadian sponsor as he was the one who gave the opportunity for me to be here at the first place?

 

[screech339]

Even though you are no longer living with him, and he doesn't report you to CIC about it, you could get away with it. However if CiC saw that you are no longer living together through income tax by seeing difference addresses and you file income tax as separated, CiC could remove your PR status.

I think someone with more experience with CIC may be able to help you with your situation.

Screech339

 

[iamjjoa]

Even though you are no longer living with him, and he doesn't report you to CIC about it, you could get away with it. However if CiC saw that you are no longer living together through income tax by seeing difference addresses and you file income tax as separated, CiC could remove your PR status.

I think someone with my experience with CIC may be able to help you with your situation.

Screech339

I thought about it, too. But he has a new girl he just started dating and he does not want to be in 'married status' as it's not fair for her and he feels like he is cheating on me who he can't live with any longer. At the same time, he wants to help me to keep my PR.
And I also don't want to feel comfortable with just shutting my mouth down for two years...
Though I still hate my husband's previous behaviors, I don't want him to go to jail for the marriage fraud if immigration officers find out in the future that he helped me by not reporting the broken marriage...

 

[QuebecOkie]

The "conditional PR" is too new for anyone to really know what's going to happen yet. If he doesn't report that you've separated and continues to file taxes as a married person, CIC will never know unless they do a random visit (no one knows yet if that will happen; I doubt it, as it's always a question of budget, and I don't imagine they have tons of people sitting around idle, waiting for a chance to do a random visit). However, if he proceeds with a divorce, CIC may find out. (Or may not, there's no telling if they will communicate with other governmental agencies to ever "check in" and see if couples are still together.)

The bottom line is that it's kind of a crap shoot at this point. There's no way of knowing whether or not your PR will be revoked, or what exactly might threaten your PR status. I'm sorry you're in this position, but I don't think even immigration lawyers (since there's no president to rely on yet with this condition) could adequately predict the outcome for you.

 

[scylla]

I agree with QuebecOkie. This rule is still way too new and we haven't seen how it will play out in reality. So I don't think any of us here are in any position to give you advice on the matter. At this point we'd just be guessing...

Good luck. Hope things work out for you.

 

[keesio]

iamjjoa - start keeping logs and evidence of the abuse (if you have not started already) so that if it ever comes to the point where he tries to get you deported, you can fight it with the history of abuse.