I guess I was just really naive - we both were, actually. Next month will be 8 years ago that we first "talked" to each other online. Eleven months later we met in person and knew that our suspicions that we'd fallen in love were true. In a few weeks we'll celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. I've been in Canada since our wedding day - I walked away from everything because in the four years prior to our marriage, every parting had been absolutely gut-wrenching. I had been in Canada prior to our wedding with valid visitor status - so we'd managed for the 18 months prior to marrying to actually live together - but then a witch at the border sent me home and separated us for 3 months, just when we were days away from filing our common-law inland application. We'd planned to marry all along but hadn't been able to because of complications with his divorce - even though I didn't meet him until 18 months after she walked out on him, she refused to allow him to move on and be happy and she held the divorce hostage, even after it had gone to court to be finalized.
Anyway, we finally won that battle and were married and I came into Canada as a visitor. We started all over again with our application - applying outland because we'd learnt in the meantime that we didn't have to apply inland just because I was in Canada - and it's lucky we did that or we'd have been torn apart again a long time ago. My son got arrested - he had been living with his father for three years already by the time we married and applied for PR, and he wasn't coming to Canada. But I was forced to include him because he was under 22 . . . yet, because he was over 18 (and legally an adult) he had to provide a criminal clearance. He was found inadmissible to Canada, and so was I (wrongly) because of him. For all intents and purposes Immigration Canada has kept me imprisoned in this country - due to their error - for nearly 3 years while we've waited for our appeal hearing and now for reprocessing. In the meantime, they actually tried to kick me out by refusing my visitor extension application while our case was still under appeal. The Minister of CIC overruled that decision and they gave me a work permit (in compensation??), and then we won our appeal last January - but I still don't have PR. Even though I haven't been out of Canada since the last time I got an FBI clearance done, I have to prove I haven't committed any crimes in the States and I've been waiting 3 months on my FBI clearance. I can only pray to God that the prints are good and the FBI can send me what I need to get Buffalo back on the stick again.
This week is the fourth anniversary of the day I gave up my life - my family, my sons, all my friends and my ability to be self-supporting - to come back to Canada and marry my love. I don't regret that decision, but I never expected I'd have to accept being held hostage here in order to have a life with my husband. Most of you know the mess CIC has made of our case, but in hindsight I could never have imagined the unbelievable incompetence of this bureaucracy and their repeated attempts to justify their error have only exacerbated the problem! We have been together in a committed, physically exclusive and genuine relationship now for more than 7 years and they are still jacking us around. I wouldn't wish what we've been through on my worst enemy. Had we had the choice at the time - and had we known what we would endure at the hands of this agency - I'd have stayed in the States and sponsored him to come to me. But he'd have had to walk out on his kids the same way their mother did, and that was unacceptable. So here we are - stressed, broke and waiting . . . waiting to begin living the life we imagined we'd build together and having even fewer resources to do that than we did when we started out. Our attorney once said he couldn't imagine how our case had gone so far off the rails - the way we see it, it didn't just go off the rails, it's been an absolute trainwreck. Breaks my heart.
