Writing a letter describing your relationship.

[ColorMePanda]

How long was your letter?
Did you just write about how you felt for your partner or what?

I was looking into wrting mine tonight but wasn't sure on how to go about this the right way.
If you could give me an example of your letter (excluding names or too personal info), that would be great.
Or if you could just type me out a quick sample in word as to what you said, that would be great too.

 

[toby]

Good question.

My ex-immigration-consultant wanted me to just include "the facts" but they had already been included in the forms. So, by elimination we talked about why we were together, what made us click when other potential relationships had not, stuff like that. Someone I talked to, who had already been granted residency, told me "you have to tell your love story".

However, I'd guess that one page of that would go a long way in the eyes of the Immigration or Visa Officer.

 

[diddagirl]

My spouse's and mine was both pretty breif as the application included alot of info such as time spent together, trips, him moving here etc... So I just said when we first met, fell in love and plans for the future, he is the one etc...

Each of ours was only a page.

 

[mitamata]

Mine was 2 and a half pages long and was basically a summary of our 5 year long relationship. I was focusing mainly on explaining the things I didn't get to explain on the forms, which was mainly WHY things were as they were. The forms let you know how things were, but they don't really ask why they were as they were.

For example, on the forms I mentioned we first spent a lot of time talking over MSN (ours was a long distance relationship, we met online) and then later we moved on to Skype. In my letter, I explained that at the time we met, we were both in college and had class schedules that allowed us to spend a lot of time talking together, for hours each day. Later in the relationship, my husband got a job and then I got a job and of course we had less time to spend together - I explained how our calls were made in our mornings, just before we left for work (there was a 9 hour time difference between us). I talked about the trips we made to see each other - we only got to see each other once a year, for one month at a time. I mentioned it was difficult for both of us, living apart like that (without going into much of the feelings), but neither one of us was ready for marriage yet, we were both still living with our parents, it was a first real relationship for both of us and we didn't want to just rush into something just because we missed each other when apart. I talked about how I took him to meet my relatives when he was here and how I got to meet his while I was in Canada. I explained why we got married where we did, how his family came to be here for it etc etc.

I tried to keep it objective, without all the touchy feely stuff. I could write for hours about what he means to me, but I didn't think they wanted to hear all about that. I just put all the facts from the questionnaire into one story in an effort to make them see the whole picture. To understand why we were the way we were. Or something. I don't know. I have no clue if my letter made any impact on the decision, it probably didn't as I had plenty of relationship evidence. But hopefully it made it easier for the IO to see us as a couple

 

[ColorMePanda]

This was definitely one of the things I had dreaded the most seeing I was afraid I would not be able to put our relationship into picture.

But I decided I was going to complete at least this one task tonight and not have worry about at least one part of the application anymore.

Previously, I had handwritten a letter months ago but didn't feel too great about it then later on tonight I muted the television and just began to start writing, however, I felt it too didn't sum up how I felt and our relationship to the best that it could. So I started over and here I am now with a 3 page letter and I feel it does us justice or at least I hope it does.

Now just to get it printed and put into the folder I have with the rest of our supporting documents.
Then I got to get my partner to write one. He says he isn't that great at these types of things or writing and wanted me to do it for him but I can't express his emotions, I only know mine. Plus I can't do all of this application myself. His turn now.

Though are there any tips or advice you could throw my way so that I can explain what to put down in more of a guys terms. Lol.

By the way thanks for your help and advice.

 

[mitamata]

Heh, my husband sucks with these things too. I just told him to do the best he can. He came up with a letter that barely filled a page and because I (stupidly) left the final mailing of the application to him, he put it on the top of the application, not marking it for what it was (mine was attached with the questionnaire) and they returned it to him after the sponsorship approval along with the letter from his employer and his tax info. They thought it was a cover letter! So, it never got to the IO and I guess it wasn't necessary after all

The letter he came up with was pretty much devoid of emotions. lol. Some people are just like that. I'm sure that'd be fine too, just tell him to try to write about your relationship - if he can't do the feelings part, at least he can put down some facts about it.

 

[ColorMePanda]

He is at work right now but he calls me every few hours to check on me. I told him about writing the letter and how I figure I can try to get some of the easy stuff out of the way. Like printing off things. I told him how many times I had to try to get the right words out. I told him not to worry about how well he writes it or anything and that he can use mine as somewhat of an example for his but not to copy it word for word.

But lol, aww poor thing. I think while I am here I am going to go over as much of his part of the application as I can with him. And if we only have to wait on a few things like his Option C then he can mail off his part of the application to me then I will look over all of ours together, organize it to the best of my ability then mail it off. I don't trust my boyfriend with organization. Lol. I love him and all but that is just not something he is too great at. I would rather have the last look before mailing it off that way I know what we are forgetting and what we aren't. Hopefully it won't be anything. Maybe this whole process won't be as hard as I think it is. It is just a matter of gathering everything they ask, filing out the applications, signing and dating them, paying for it, organizing it and sending it off. I think being seperated will be the hardest part of it all but hopefully when I return it will be for good.

My goal is to stop overstressing all of this, accomplish the things I can do at the time, and enjoy being with my boyfriend while I am here.
Plus we have our 1 year anniversary coming up and I should be thinking of what kind of gift to get him right now and not so much on these darn papers. I have time for that especially if I try to do a little bit each day. Live day to day and enjoy it to the best of my ability. That is what I need to learn to do.

I should be alright through this, don't you think? I hope so.
Just having someone like you too along with my friends and family to encourage me helps me to believe that all of this truly isn't impossible.

Actually I might just live hour to hour, lol, what do you think?

 

[bmh]

My husband also found it soooo very tough to write about mushy stuff lol, he wrote his section but his english is also a little weak and its obvious he struggled with it. what we did was sat down and talked about what we wanted in the letter, than I wrote it and had explained that the info was mutual and that we have talked about it and written it together and then had both our signatures on it. Do you think that would be acceptable????

 

[saralune]

Hey I hear you all. We are also in the process. I wrote my letter lst week and it is 4 pages.he wrote his and it s one page and a half or so.....he also seems to have issue writting .it s basically all over the place and lacked things that I tought were important to address...so we sat down and I helped him adding the things and fixed it a bit. I still think that compared to mine it is not as strong and at first it was really stressing but I have decided to let go because if not

 

[WomanOnTheMove]

We felt that our application materials spoke for themselves. Woven into our responses was a narrative of our relationship. We included information about when and under what circumstances we met and how our relationship moved from friendship to a long-distance relationship, to living and dating in the same city, to living together, to getting married. All of these changes were substantiated by supplementary materials. The entire application was designed to paint a chronological picture of how we met, grew closer, and came to the place we are now.

We tried to put ourselves in the position of the person reading the application. If I was doing that day after day I'd get really tired of people trying to convince me of how genuine and continuing their relationships are by including long sappy letters. Anybody can write one of those. What would be more convincing to me is to see evidence that the couple took actions in order to develop the relationship, incorporate themselves into each other's families, and move towards building a life together. For example, we substantiated that my then boyfriend moved internationally to be in the same city as me, but we skipped any touchy-feely statements like "We missed each other terribly and were so happy that we were able to be closer together."

That's not to say that what we presented was purely cold and factual. It's just that we focused on trying to substantiate actions which show a close connection between the two of us. For each piece of information we included, we asked ourselves questions like "How would this help the person processing our application to come to the decision we want?" and "Would the person processing this application be able to use this piece of information to defend a favorable conclusion to others?"

 

[toby]

Woman on the move gave an excellent croterion of what to put in the letters:

".... we focused on trying to substantiate actions which show a close connection between the two of us. For each piece of information we included, we asked ourselves questions like "How would this help the person processing our application to come to the decision we want?" and "Would the person processing this application be able to use this piece of information to defend a favorable conclusion to others?"

That is so much more helpful than another piece of advice I received: "just put in the details, not words. Read the form" (implying that the forms are eminently clear).

When a form asks for "details" about why your relationship is genuine and enduring, what is meant exactly by "details"? That could mean anything from verifiable facts to emotions. It is reasuring to hear what many other have done, especially ones who have already succeeded in getting their visas.

 

[Eric Parker]

"We felt that our application materials spoke for themselves"

This is the same way my wife and I felt with our application. Though my wife is still worried that an uptight VO may want more "private" items and explinations which would annoy us to no end, I assure you.