Right guys! I hate to air my dirty laundry on the internet but instead of sending you all the same long message I thought fuck it, I might as well address you all on the matter in here.
I'm going to give you the low down on everything. I'm going to try and keep as brief as possible, but there's a lot to it so I apologise for the super long post in advance
I've been through everything with the lawyer and read over and over the documentation and, after some (extremely) careful consideration myself and my girlfriend (Alex) have decided we can't go through with it.
Financially, from our understanding we would be required to pay a first installment of $2,200, followed by a second of $1,650, as well as $3,060 for the actual visa application. There's also a third and fourth installment on the payment schedule. As well as other costs which could/inevitably
would occur throughout the process. For example, if we were to require the lawyer's assistance surpassing the estimated time (which we think we would as the lawyer said to me it would not be an easy, straightforward case) his hourly rate is $385. Yes, $385 dollars, an hour. Since I moved out of my house earlier in the week I've been staying here with Alex's Mum and her partner. If we were to go ahead and I was to stay here in Australia I would have to find a place of my own (of course without being able to commit to a 6 or 12 month lease) which would cause even more stress, and of course cost even more money (bond, first months rent, then obviously bills and rent from then onwards). As Alex doesn't work we simply don't think we could afford it all. She would be more than willing to chip in from her savings but we would both stand to lose everything if we were unsuccessful. I know money isn't everything but we just can't go through with it.
Forgetting about the money for a moment; we don't think we'd have much of a problem compiling evidence of a genuine and ongoing relationship, but we simply couldn't cover some of the criteria, for example we don't have any financial ties to each other etc. I know that may be irrelevant as if we were to proceed and go down the strategic route the lawyer said we would, the initial application would be unsuccessful and we would appeal the decision, giving us much more time to obtain all of the required evidence. So not having all the supporting documentation wouldn't necessarily mean I wouldn't be grated my visa, but what it
would mean is a lot of stress, a lot of money, a lot of commitment and a lot of help from other people. People who haven't known me long, or necessarily even really know me all that well - therefore people we can't truly depend on.
This has been the single most difficult decision of my life so far, and while it sounds like one I may regret, the prospect of going through with all this is simply too overwhelming for both of us. Of course it's not what we want to do, as much as we want to follow our hearts and go ahead, I think this is the sensible thing to do.
In a way, I'm nipping this in the bud and taking it on the chin now, rather than going ahead and allowing it to potentially becoming something much worse, much harder to deal with and far, far more upsetting for me (and her) in the future.
I'll be leaving Australia on Tuesday. I don't know where I'm going to go, or how I'm going to deal with all of this yet. But you guys have shown such an interest in my situation, offered me so much support and generally been really cool with me about it all I thought you all deserved to know what's going on.
