The immigration process is nothing short of stressful. It really tests your patience and I know this, not just from being an immigration attorney, but having gone through the immigration process personally with my husband.

I know it’s hard and you want to be together. A lot of you have distance. You might be living in two separate countries and COVID is happening right now in our world and that’s just an added layer of stress.

But what I want to share a different perspective with all of you who are going through the process. A different way to look at the immigration process. I am not a relationship expert. I am just a person who has personally gone through the immigration process as well and knows what you’re feeling.

I always say to my clients, “Of all the things I can do as an immigration attorney to help you in your journey, the one thing I wish I could do but I can’t is take away all of the stress and emotions you’re feeling because I know exactly what you’re feeling. And I wish somebody could have taken those away from me as well.”

Immigration Will Make Your Relationship Stronger

But what I’ve learned, having gone through it myself and helping hundreds of couples navigate the immigration process, is that the immigration process is something that can actually make your relationship stronger.

For those of you who are going through it right now and you’re living separately, maybe you don’t like to hear that. Maybe it just sounds really frustrating to hear. “I don’t want to hear any advice for my relationship. This process is just horrible. We just want to be together.”

I get it. I hear you. I felt the same way. My process with my husband took almost two years. Even though we didn’t have COVID going on, we had a lot of other general issues that happened with immigration. There was a system that was down for months that prevented anybody from completing their online application.

We were sitting in limbo, waiting for this system to be fixed. I remember checking it multiple times a day, just wondering, “Can you please fix this? We want to be able to do the next step but your system is broken.” And then there are other issues with immigration as they have human beings working there. They make clerical errors. They had made spelling errors that had to be amended and that prolonged our separation and the stress.

But what I have learned with my husband is that we worked really hard on focusing on our relationship and not letting the immigration case take center stage. We worked really hard at being very purposeful in our conversations to make sure we weren’t always talking about our immigration case and we talked about the future.

Having problems, having issues, and having things come up in your relationship and in your life is universal. Everybody is going to go through difficult things. But you can look at this immigration case and all the difficulties that you’re going to go through as something that ultimately is going to make your relationship better, stronger, and richer.

Reference Point

It’s one of those things that you think back when there’s new difficulties that will come up in life as they inevitably will. You have this reference point of something difficult that you went through together in the past and you think, “We can do this.”

You’ve done some of the most difficult things that any couple could go through. Being apart, the immigration process, not being able to see each other, and especially those who are going through this with COVID. You have more difficulties to face that will ultimately make your relationship so much stronger.

Try to look at it and remind each other that you’re going to get through it. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I made it. We have hundreds and hundreds of couples we’ve helped and they made it. It was a long journey and when we get to the end with them they think, “We made it! We did it!” You will regardless of where you are in the process.

You’re going to make it to the end. You’re going to be able to start your lives together. The immigration process is an experience that you’re going to share together to ultimately have a stronger relationship.