My wife and I (mid 30s) got married recently and we want to continue being together instead of me having to go back to the US and risk not seeing each other for a while, I’ve been in Japan over 5 months now. Basically we’ve been together for 5 months in which we lived together for over 3. We really hit it off, I already know we have to convince immigration so please don’t have me try and convince you as well. My parents are happy for the marriage and extremely supportive, while here are not quite so. My parents married after 2 days of dating, her father is stereotype Japanese businessman, so needless to say our parents value different things.
Now my issue. We spoke to a couple of lawyers, me raised concern for our income but length of relationship is fine based on what we said, the other lawyer said the length of relationship is the problem. So it’s hard to know if both issues or just one of them is a problem, and really it’s up to immigration anyways.
We’re just kinda stressed about this. I have a good job in America I worked, I can start working soon as my visa is excepted, but it will go down to part time like (2 maybe 3 a day 5 days a week) and only earn about 3.5milliom yen. We have like 4 million in savings between us and I also have a paid off home in the US. We are not living together on paper but we have been and can show it with photos and texts between us.
Anyways I’m just more curious about how you or your friend’s visa went and if you can give me any advice, comfort or cautionary tale.
We are going to try and change my status from tourist from USA to spouse visa. Should we hire a lawyer, is it worth the value, or just do it ourselves? We are officially married in Japan through the city hall not just for funsies.
We really want to start this relationship with a stronger foundation.
Thanks so much 🙂
by itsdeno