Im in a big mess. About a lil more then a year ago i married my friend who was from pakistan out of the goodness of my heart. I loved him and i thought i did a noble thing for him so he could stay in the US. Now a year later, ive come to find that both of us got into having affairs and started lying to eachother, we fought and he treated me more like a blood relative/big brother then a lover!..i naturally do not do those things, but since he has started doing it, i started seeing somebody else and now im madly in love with another man and his family wants us to marry! I left my husbands after an abusive fight we had and i hadnt been there for almost 6 months. He got his conditional green card and we passed the' interview
I want to file for divorce but i dont even know where he is now and i know for sure he will NOT sign the papers and i am scared to death to appear in court ( since the same thing happend to my parents) Is there any way that i can divorce him without him signing? I seen websites in Nevada that offer quick ones. I dont want it to take no 6 months to a year, I as a USC think i have more rights then this! Hes made me feel that im responsible for his staying in the US but it should be the other way around! He is responsible for me and has done barely anything, and says that since i left to stay with my bf and his family that they are RESPONSIBLE for me now. WHAT DO I DO? Does anybody have any feedback or answers? If my bf family find out im married they will throw me out and ill lose my bf forever..and if i go after my husband, his family and our friends will hate me, and im probably going to end up homeless Any feedback, suggestions, advice is more then appreciated. I cannot afford expensive lawyers and courts, but if theres any websites i can use would be good, but im hoping they wont scam me!

"If my bf family find out im married they will throw me out and ill lose my bf forever..and if i go after my husband, his family and our friends will hate me, and im probably going to end up homeless"

Honey, this sentence says it all. Number one - you have got to make choices based on what is the right and honest thing to do. That means, 1) tell your boyfriend you are married and stop using him and his family as a safety net - find out if there is real love between you based on reality and not on lies; 2) don't "go after" your husband as you yourself say you married him with full intent and knowing the whole situation up front; 3) straighten out your own actions and behavior by doing the right thing for the right reasons. Then and only then will you lose the weight that is on your shoulders and stop feeling closed in and trapped. One step at a time, you have got to start taking responsibility for your actions and clean up your life. If you have to move in with a girlfriend or share an apt with a roommate to save money in the interim it is a much healthier way to live than to take advantage of your boyfriends family and basically act helpless, dependent on either them or your husband. Find your self-respect and work your way out of this mess - then you will truly have acted nobly.

Good luck

You can get divorced without the other party "signing papers" etc. It may become contested and take a little longer, but it's possible.

The way you describe your marriage, it doesn't seem to be a bona fida marriage and if BCIS finds out about any of this, you can go to jail for 10 yrs. and/or fined 50K.

Its malissah again
Well many do not know the complete story of it, so you could judge me and say its all my fault that i had gotten into this mess, but i know deep down in my heart i truly love the new man i met because he treats me with dignity, respect and loyalty. We are compatible in every way even i get sick frequently because of all this anxiety and stress and he helps me thru it, and since i can be a difficult person, he understands me and he also knows im MARRIED. But- we kept it from his family. He believes that we are made for each other. On the other hand the husband put me down on a daily basis, critcized me and played manipulative games, therefore he would give me gifts and act extra sweet afterward to confuse me. We never even made love or went out together.It was like i was like,his daughter. Did i made a sacrifise, and is this is what i deserve in the long run? I feel that if he wants to stay in this country he can do it without me, why should i be responsible for his status when he was here for 6+ years working on H1B and applied for green card but his visa expired before his card would even reach his residence. So what was i to do, i couldnt just stand there and watch him cry? So i dont think of myself as a bad guy in this. All i asked for was some simple advice on how to find a lawyer or paralegal that maybe able to help all of us. My parents went thru a painful divorce and i do not want to experience it myself but if i dont do something i will lose the man that i do love, and just in case you got the wrong idea they are not keeping me here for safety, in fact we talked of buying a house Together but theres nothing we can do as long as my marriage is still in effect. Perhaps its gods punishment on me. But as ive said before if anyone knows who i should talk to about this (BESIDES A THERAPIST AND A COUNSELOR..BEEN THERE DONE THAT)!pLEase HelP! Btw yes im very young

By the way Cliff, its my word against his right.? Im the USC here, i didnt marry him for MONEY, Luxury or any other purpose then love. We passed the interview with flying colors because ive known him for 3 years before marriage! It went bad, yes, and i dont have the proper funding to end the marriage because ive been separated from him and trying to make ends meet on my own without any of his help. Im just staying at my boyfriends family's home i dont think thats a CRIME. Many Americans do This!And as for prison, well id rather be there then back in that bad situation!

If you are the US citizen why did you write the "Will I Get Deported" post earlier? Sammy gave you a very lengthy answer for what sounds like a fabricated question.

oh LOL sorry about that..my girl friend uses this id, i forgot my password so she told me to use her name temporarily until i get it back Sorry for the mix up friends. Ahh chaos!
-Malissah

Thanks for the explanantion - I was getting a headache trying to figure it out!

And didn't mean to come across as shaming you earlier; I am a lot older than you (45) and have made MANY mistakes for which I have paid dearly. I would love to have had the chance for a few do-overs, so am just giving advice based on hard-earned experience. I have learned that it is ALWAYS better to make hard choices for the right reasons and be able to sleep at night knowing you were honest with everyone. I realy do wish you all the best with your situation.

Yeah sometimes i feel like giving up because its so hard and so timely, You are the same age as my mum, and she tells me the same thing as you did in the reply. IM really scared and i dont know what to do, i want to do the right thing, but affecting everyone in a negative way is really going to hurt the outcome and i am a good hearted person and i hate to hurt people,thats why im struggling in this decision because in the end i may find myself alone wondering why did it all happen? Its been causing a lot of sickness, depression, headaches you name it, even suicidal feelings. I think to myself why should i go thru all of this for someone else just so they can settle happily, while my life is in chaos. I know that,in some cases, ppl (not all ..dont quote me on that ) can "use" a USC to stay and thereafter marry another girl from there country so that their new "wife" can be with them. Im no positive thats whats going to happen in my situation, but maybe theres gotta be another way where we can all be at peace. How to find it..well maybe in time
Thanks for your reply Lurker Bless ya Friend

TO: Malissah @ MissQT

If I'm not wrong, you've asked an immigration question relating to yr this on-going situation not long ago, wherein I did answer you in detail, but you've abandoned that post without letting me [or others] know that whether or not you've acknowledged our responses to you, since we all did our best to give you best advise in your situation.

Now, it seems that there are more other things going-on in yr life which needs to be straighten out. I can give you the answer to your all questions, but you should know that I give my opinion based upon what I feel in a given situation as well as based upon my knowledge about the laws and facts. It might be possible that my advises may hurt your feelings, but I really don't mean to, because I don't give advise to make people feel happy or sad, nor I give advise what people want to hear for them, instead it's my OWN opinion, and it's not necessary that you need to agree with me if you don't want to. So, you need to forgive me if my advise hurts your feeling in any fashion.

Let me start with matrimonial issue- I don't understand when you said that you are scared to death to appear in court. You should not be scared, because Court is a place similar to Church, and everybody behave in a morally way out there, and if somone behave otherwise, then judge will throw that person out of his courtroom. It's also important that you should not be scared of court specifically when a case is a civil in nature like divorce, instead of criminal case wherein police and other law enforcement are present in the court room. It's not gonna be like O.J.Simpson's case or Perry Mason. Secondly, just because your parents went thru a painful divorce, it doesn't mean that you will go thru the same pain or trauma as your parents. Each case has it's own merit and is dealt on case-by-case basis. The reasons, your parents went thru a painful divorce because there were probably lots of other issues to resolve during divorce proceedings like- custody of child/children, child alimony, spouse alimony, distrubution of property [means distributing everything which were acquired or earned during the marriage including income], as well to issue other monetary damage issues. As you know, when those kind of issues are involved, then both parties always fight their best to gain or save as much they can, for their best interests, and then their attorneys manipulate and advised them to fight the matter for their rights so that attorneys can have huge fee checks in order to provide their services because attorneys do live on their fee and on existence of cases. I strongly believe that you have some kind of stress/clinical depression/anxiety problems which is going on in your life because of the truama inflicted by yr parent's painful divorce. You must seek a counselling to deal with these truama, or talk to some professional people at least, who are involved in helping out in these type of situation.

Definately, I can assure you that you will not go thru the same painful divoce as your parents did, because you don't have similar issues to resolve as your parent had [if I'm right]. Time to time, I've noticed that lots of people talk or say to their spouses that they won't sign the papers or they won't give the divorce, but the truth is they don't know anything about divorce or matrimonial proceedings, and they usually talk what they see or hear from other people. In reality, nobody can decide whether to divorce or not, except the judge. Judge is the sole authority to divorce the parties even if one of them is not willing to let it go. The other statements like 'I won't sign the papers' or 'I won't divorce you' are only matter when other issues are involved, and it would make judge's job easy if both parties agree on those issues by themselves and submit the signed-paper works to the court just for judge's signing, and it will also eliminate the need of attorney's huge fees. But, if any party doesn't sign then it means that the matter would be contested and then judge would decide each issue based on facts and evidences. You should know that lots of contested cases turn out be uncontested after the filing the papers or after the first pretrial hearing, because either parties realize the truth that they won't win, or they don't feel in spending their time and money to fight the case in the court for no reason. So, even though someone is bullsheeting you by making lots of other crapy talks, you don't need to pay any attention, because Judge is the only one will decide each issue if other party doesn't agree on those issue.

As well, you don't need yr husband's signature on the divorce paper, or you don't even need his actual address to get divorce, instead you can serve the paper to his last known address whether he lives there or not. Every State has their own rules for divorce matter, but almost in every states- if you can not find your spouse then you can mail the divorce complaint with its summons to your spouse's last known address by certified mail, and if you still don't get succeed then you need to advertise about the beginning of divorce action in the local newspaper [any newspapers], and if your husband still doesn't submit his answer to your divorce complaint in the court under certain time [which varies state to state],or if he doesn't show up in the court at the time of pretrial preliminary hearing then court will grant you a divorce under 'default judgement'. And, then if yr husband finds out about the divorce later on, he can not do anything because reopening the case back on calendar date costs money and time, as well judge will never-never-never-never open the case [99.99999999999999%] in a case similar to yours, because nobody is loosing anything here and there is nothing to resolve further between both of them. The reason courts do not open the case again because it would be completely waste of court's valuable time to retrial the matter again, even though one of the party never received or knew about the existence of divorce action from filing party. And, even if someone gets succeed in opening the case again after spending great time and money, then what they will achieve after reopening it-DIVORCE, that's it, if there is no other issue to resolve. You should also know that judge can order yr husband to pay you minimum $500 each month upto one yrs even though you don't ask any money from your husband, as well your husband will be ordered also to pay your attorney fees if you have one on yr case, or the fees you paid for this divorce case. It's all depend on judge, they have broader authority in divorce case.

However, in your case, you can seek annulment of marriage based on the ground that your marriage never got consumated because you did state that you NEVER EVEN MADE LOVE to your husband, and it is a ground for annulment. Your boyfriend and his family, or your family or anyone- are not responsible for any fiancial responsibility toward yr husband. You are the only one responsible for him if he seeks govt. help. If you've not signed I-765 yet to remove condition on his conditional green card then you are not responsible for his financial debt, and if you have already signed that form then you can write to INS service center and local INS office that your husband forced you to sign that form so that he can get full green card and your marriage is over for a long time ago [even though you are not divoced yet] because under the immigration law, INS needs both persons to stay in marriage for at least two yrs to conclude if marriage is good or not, and if you say that marriage is over for a long time ago and you were threatened by yr husband until now for not to end the marriage because he was scared to be deported. Then INS would send him appointment letter to come to interview, and may be- you also need to go, wherein you can tell what I have told you. Or may be, INS will just cancel his green card right away and send him notice to leave the country without having any furhter interview in his case. Don't be afraid of anything. But, please don't ever tell to anyone what you have telling here that you married him just to help him to stay here, because it's a federal crime and you will be ended up in jail for a long time. Nobody will believe you that you did this 'mother terresa stuff' for love or friendly gesture even if it's true, instead it would be considered that you took money in exhange of this arrangement. And, there is also a highly possibility that if your husband's green card is revoked then he will try to take revenge on you by telling that you were involved in marriage fraud with him for money, that's why it's very important that you should not open your mouth to any person in this respect even to your boyfriend if you don't want to go to jail, because this types of matter can be reopened any time even 100 yrs from now on, and there is no guarantee that your boyfried would stick besides you as he is now. Don't tell even to any doctors, friends or any one about this fraud, instead you should say that you were married for love. Some truth is better to stay between the line, otherwise you would be ended up in a big criminal trial even though there would be Hearsay- means his words against yours, because police has the right to arrest you if they FEEL that there is crime is committed and govt has the obligation to prosecute the people on PROBABLE cause also.

If your husband makes any type of derogatory comments or tries to put you down or harrases or threatens you repeatedly in any fashion then you should go to family court and ask for a restrainning order against him, then he won't be able to call or threaten you in any fashion, and if ever he violates that restraining order then he would be deported because under 1996 reformed immigration law, if an alien is convicted for violating the restraining order then s/he is deportatble right away from U.S., and that's the sure way to deport your husband, believe me, because there is zero tolerance policy toward violating the restraining order as far immigration is concerned.

It puzzeled me when you said that if your boyfriend's family find out that you are married then they will throw you out and you will lose your boyfriend. First of all, you have to be honest in a relationship because relationship is based upon honesty and I do know that you are honest in yr relationship since you have told to yr boyfriend already about yr marriage. Second, you should not be worried about his family because they should be secondary to you compared to your boyfriend to you. As long as your boyfriend knows about it, then it's fine, and you both can work things out-means you don't need to tell his family about everything. Both of you are not minor and you have your own life or personal choice what to tell and what not to tell. How can you lose your boyfriend when you already told to him? Does he listen to his family or his family is more important to him than you? If so, then I'm sorry to say that he is not a right person for you if he chooses his family on you. There are lots of secrets a boyfriend-girlfreiend, or husband-wife has between them, and it's not necessary that their family should know about it. I believe that you are scared to be thrown out of their place if they find out your secret. Well, then I would say you need to grow up and don't depend on anyone. You can live by your own if you try hard. You can go back to your parents, or to a friend for a while. Do something rather than worrying about the dependency on someone.

There is another issue makes me puzzeled is that you married with full intent that you are helping someone to get paper then why did you fall in love with someone, or want to marry someone else when you know that yr husband's case is not over until he gets his full residence. You should know that it takes couples of yrs to get full residency from the time of marriage, and if you leave yr husband in the middle then he would be deported. You have no right to play with somebody's life for your sake [whatever it may be]. You can not do this thing as whenever and whatever you want, and it doesn't fullfil your "helping" intent to yr husband as you said that you married him so that he can stay here legally, instead he would be deported now because of your this act of filing the paper without keeping the deal upto the end, even though he was here for the last 6 yrs, but there is difference between then and now, because then he was not on the govt. record as he is now, and govt knows about his whereabouts now. You should not be involved if you know that you can not finish the game. I understand that you are very compatible and comfortable with yr current boyfriend, and on other hand- your husband is very abusive, manipulative and etc, but you should think all these possiblities when you get involved in this "helping" game, even though you did not know or expect this before. Where is your that "helping" intent now? Like I said, anybody can figure it out that your case is a fraud case and you are also not a "Inocent" party over here even though you can present lots of bad stuffs against your husband. As well, why do you care if your husband is manipulative or critical to you specifically when you were never in relationship with him nor you ever expected into it, instead your intention was just to help him out for green card, so why not still help him until he receives his full residency, if your intention was for "help" at first place.

USC doesn't have that much more right than a legal immigrant except the right to vote and holding some govt's jobs. Don't go on websites for divorce because - most of them are scam and they charge lots of money for divorce. Their help in divorces are not valid and you will be ended up in jail if you marry again with someone and marriage license office finds out that your divorce is not legitimate divorce because when you apply for a marriage license, you certify that all the information that you are given on its application are true under panelty of perjury. There are lots of people are prosecuted in New York City because those people obtained their divorces thru websites, or Cuba, or Dominican Republic thru the help of these websites, but it turned out that there is no record of those divorces. You can file for divorce yourself because it's very simple like 1-2-3 if you don't have any other issue to resolve except divorce. Go to your local family court, usually they have self representing desk who help the people who can not afford the attorney or want to do by themselves. And, if you don't have money to file the paper, then you can request in a letter [ called-Motion] to the judge for 'indegency status', which means all the fees and costs on your case would be waived. Courts usually grant this type of request especially to woman who can not afford for any reason or have no job etc. However, filing fee for divorce are varied from state to state, but it's not more than $250. I wish you good luck.

Ok, one question. What kind of USC uses the word "mum" to mean anything other than to keep quiet about something. Malissah, Miss QT's identity seems a bit sketchy to me...

I call my mommy as mum is that a problem? Or am i violating the first amendment of the US constitution. Dont worry about my identity, if you want to come meet me face to face and talk you are more then welcome ;-)

And just wanted to give a warm thanks to Sammy for your long post of advice and recommendations. As ive said earlier im a bit young and i havent much experience in these things, but have had a painful past, and i wasnt sure who to talk to regarding the situation. (I really dont know much about all this BCIS,INS stuff, and divorce stuff, just i only had witnessed my parents divorce but like you said, i think it was worse coz of custodial battle)
Just to make one thing a lil more clear when i said i dont want my bf family to find out, its because of cultural and religious issues, as well as moral, because they are a religious family and i guess you could say thats why i am shaken to tell them.
Once again thanks sammy i feel a bit more calmed today. Sometimes the Lord Sends us Angels "messengers";-) and i felt today i was granted one of them. Take care

TO: MissQT

If I were you, I will NEVER tell to my girlfriend's family anything about my past or my previous marriage, especially when they are so cultural, religious, and have high morals. I do understand you because lots of cultures in the world don't accept some harsh reality in the life-i.e. in India, a girl has to be virgin before marriage, and if somebody finds out that she is not, then they will give her very hard time, or she will be forced to divorce, or she will never be accepted or welcomeed in the family. I'm not saying that those cultures are wrong or right, but that's how it stands there as per my knowledge. Then, why should I tell anyone since it's not their business to know your life. Everyone makes mistakes in their life, big or small, and doesn't justify that they should be penalized for that mistake. Your boyfriend is the one, who will marry you and not his family. As long he accepts you after knowing the truth, that's all it counts and matters. And, always remember Love always win in the end, if there is true love.

In addition, I also understand that -being very young, you don't know that much about Immigration, Divorce or other stuffs in the life. But, life always teaches us something everyday. I'm 26 yrs old and consider myself also young like you, but time and experience has taught me all these, otherwise I were also not born with those knowledge from my mommy's tummy. You are doing fine, and will be okay, but just make sure that your current boyfriend won't be like other men [as you know, most of them are ****], because everything seems fine in the beginning. I wish you good luck in the future. Take care.

Thank you, Sammy. I have similar situation. Your advice has opened my mind also. Now, I know what should I do. Thank you very much for whatever help you've extended over this board.