Entering on F-1 but married to US citizen?

[jdh]

Hello, I am a German student at a US university. My F-1 visa expired in July 2015. I am now abroad and want to return to my school in January, hence filling out all visa forms to renew my F-1. However, I recently learned that I could run into problems because last year I got married to a US citizen. I do not plan to stay in the US or adjust my status since my wife and I want to live abroad. My wife is also currently not physically present in the US and will be staying abroad until September next year for research.
However, I have been told I might not be able to enter the US on an F-1 visa when being married to a US citizen since it could be interpreted as intention to immigrate. I briefly looked into possibly applying for a spouse visa, although I do not need/want US permanent residency, but I found out for a spouse visa my wife and I would have to stay in the US for at least 2 years after entering. And my wife is not even in the US now, so that option would not have been feasible anyways.
So as I am filling out my D-160 I am a little worried whether my visa could not be granted.
I did fill in the information about spouse, however, since my spouse is not currently present in the US I also clicked “no” for the question “Do you have any immediate relatives in the US?” and entered her address abroad. Is there anything else I should do?
Any help greatly appreciated!

[jdh]

Here is how it turned out, hope this will help someone else:

I had my visa interview yesterday and was granted the visa. They did not ask any questions about being married to a US citizen. I had assembled a whole package of supporting documents of intent to return to home country, like a letter from my wife that we don't want to live in the US, or flight tickets of frequent visits to my home country, credit card statements, etc.
The officer did not want to see any of that, she only asked who is paying for my studies and when I said I got a fellowship she didn't want to know anything else.

On my DS-160 I had put in all the information about my wife, being a US citizen, but for the question "Do you have an immediate relative in the US?" I selected "no", given that she is not currently physically present in the US. However, I don't know if that was correct. In any case it might have helped. I don't know how their system works, I could imagine that maybe if you click yes on that question something pops up on their screen during the interview saying hey there's someone wanting a non-immigrant visa but married to US citizen, ask them about it ... who knows?

In any case, for me it worked the way I did it, maybe others have different experiences. Maybe someone will find this infomation useful.

Good luck to everyone!

[jnk]

Thank you for sharing this. It will be useful to others.