90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days couple Rachel Bear and Jon Walters have shared an update on his spousal visa and their relationship six years after their long-distance love story aired on the TLC reality series.
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Jon, who lives in the U.K., took to Facebook on Tuesday, May 7 and shared some unfortunate news about his marriage to Rachel, who lives in the United States.
“Dear Friends, it’s over. I will not be joining Rachel and [her two] girls in the USA,” Jon wrote.
“The future we wanted for so long isn’t the future we will have. We knew before we started that it would be hard but we always had hope to keep us going when things got tough.”
RELATED LINK: ’90 DAY FIANCE’ COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER? WHO HAS SPLIT? WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (PHOTOS)
90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days’ second season documented Jon and Rachel, who met on a karaoke app, meeting in-person for the first time, getting engaged and tying the knot in May 2018.
But the couple knew Jon’s criminal past was going to be an issue when they finally applied for Jon’s visa to the U.S. in 2019, and they’ve been waiting for its approval ever since.
(Rachel, who was expecting another man’s baby when she met Jon, said she couldn’t move to England because she shared custody of her eldest daughter, Ella, with her ex-partner).
Jon said the couple’s “situation is hopeless” in his Facebook post, adding, “I don’t know what the next chapter in our life will look like.”
Jon continued, “I’m a husband and father by invitation and have never taken that for granted. We aren’t the perfect couple, I know I’m far from the husband and father I want to be or wish I could be, but a long distance relationship are only ever meant to be temporary.”
Jon admitted he and Rachel “need time and space” to wrap their minds around what just happened and “figure out what happens next.”
“I don’t know what else to say other than thank you for all the support over the years and being here every step of the way,” Jon concluded.
A day after Jon’s Facebook posting, Rachel posted an Instagram video titled “Final Visa Update” in which she announced the couple has decided to split up and end their marriage.
“It absolutely pains me to post this,” she wrote in a lengthy text statement set to somber music. “This isn’t the update we wanted to share. This isn’t the ending we were hoping for. Nor is it the finale we were thinking would happen.”
“Long distance relationships can be brutal on the toughest of couples. We fought hard for a long time and stayed strong for over 7 years, waiting. However, the distance for so many years… and so much consecutive time spent apart, time after time, has taken its toll.”
“We have, unfortunately, grown too far apart. The decision has been made, on our end, to not continue,” Rachel announced.
“The visa journey is sadly over. It’s the end of an era and was not an easy decision to have to make.”
Rachel then asked the couple’s fans to give the 90 Day Fiance alums privacy and time.
“Please give us the privacy and time to adjust to our new reality,” she wrote.
“Thank you to everyone who have stuck it out with us through all these years. Here’s to the cherished read page and to new chapters… Social media life is To Be Continued… I love you all.”
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Rachel was a 33-year-old from Albuquerque, New Mexico, when she first traveled to England to meet Jon, a 34-year-old from England, in late 2017 after the pair had established a relationship through video chat and phone calls for a year-and-a-half.
On 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days’ second season, Jon couldn’t wait to become a father figure for Rachel’s baby and move to the U.S.
But Jon explained on the 90 Day Fiance spinoff there are numerous assault charges and five convictions under his belt from younger years when he would get into physical fights with people.
Part of Jon’s record is a guilty plea to bodily harm without intent, which stemmed from an incident when he was in college.
Rachel and Jon announced in March 2019 that they had saved enough money, $11,000, to begin the visa process and eventually reunite their family. A couple of months later, Rachel and Jon reunited in the U.K. to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
Rachel and Jon continued documenting their love story for fans on their YouTube Channel, and Jon became the father figure in the life of Rachel’s infant, her second child.
When a fan asked Rachel and Jon during a Q&A session on Instagram Stories whether they’d ever appear on a future season of 90 Day Fiance, they replied, “A happily married couple doesn’t make great TV. It makes even worse TV if they are just working and saving for a visa.”
“Maybe in the future,” they continued, “Until then, subscribe to our YouTube.”
Rachel and Jon added it would be “boring” for people to watch them on 90 Day Fiance given there is no baby, engagement or wedding storyline to share.
RELATED LINK: ’90 DAY FIANCE: HAPPILY EVER AFTER?’ COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER? WHO HAS SPLIT? WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (PHOTOS)
In December 2019, Jon revealed the couple had finally had submitted Jon’s spousal-visa application when commenting on one of Rachel’s Instagram photos.
“Where does his visa stand? [Were] you able to save up the $11,000?” a follower asked Rachel.
Jon then commented, “Yes we did,” and added, “Our visa application is in — it’s a long wait now, but the hard part is over. Thanks for asking.”
In August 2021, Rachel and Jon announced Jon finally had his interview for a spousal visa — which they had filed an application for three years earlier — but Jon had been denied a visa due to a criminal conviction on his record.
“When I went to the embassy, I took a load of paperwork, I took everything I thought I would need and I thought I would have the opportunity to ask for forgiveness. However, the lovely guy who was working at the embassy said, ‘Unfortunately, I don’t have the authority to give a visa to anyone with a criminal conviction,'” Jon recalled in an Instagram Live session.
However, the news didn’t come as a surprise to Jon or Rachel, as they both said they had anticipated that outcome.
The couple had therefore already filled out a waiver application and pre-paid a lawyer.
After Jon wasn’t granted his visa, the pair’s lawyer submitted the waiver application, which consisted of 200 pages and cost $930 in filing fees.
“So now, we definitely have the final stretch between now and six to nine months,” added Jon, who apparently received a receipt for the submission very quickly.
Jon previously suggested in an Instagram Live session that he didn’t think the ruling was fair since his crime was not of “moral turpitude,” meaning it wasn’t deviant behavior, nor would it shock a community.
“I was never actually sent to prison. I was given a conditional discharge. My actual offense on paper doesn’t illustrate what actually happened and it was one punch. I wasn’t in a gang, it wasn’t a crime, I didn’t beat people up,” Jon explained, according to In Touch Weekly.
“It’s just something that happened and the U.S. is very good at forgiving people, they expunge crimes, punishments all the time. And I think that if someone looked at what happened and what my punishment was, they’re going to see that it’s not even a big deal. So that’s what we’re hoping for.”
RELATED LINK: ’90 DAY FIANCE’ COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER? WHO HAS SPLIT? WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (PHOTOS)
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About The Author:
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.