Speaking to a guy on a post graduate visa - family disapprove

[Evieanne]

So I have been talking to a guy who is on a graduate visa for a while, and in that time, we have taken to each other and seem to have a lot in common. He has told me he would like to get married by next year and would like to meet my family to inform them he has intentions of turning our relationship into a marriage and would appreciate their support, well wishes and blessings.

My family think he’s a nice guy but are sceptical in case he’s using me to secure a permanent residency here in the UK.

Any ideas?

Are you mad or just terribly naive ?

I think you’re asking the wrong people on Mumsnet because most won’t understand your culture properly. It sounds like your dad has the right idea, to check the guy out before anything else. But Id be v cautious about the guy’s motivation to marry you - he will be thinking about the visa, and possibly also a relationship with you but not necessarily.

OP there's a lot to be gained by working and dealing with the stresses and strains of adult life for a good few years before taking on the serious commitment of marriage. The experience is invaluable when it comes to selecting the best partner for you.
And the same goes for prospective partners - ones who have been working for a few years will be much more mature.

On top of that, it's good to know a prospective spouse two or three years in different situations and stresses before making a final decision. How do they deal with money and budgeting? How do they treat family, friends, colleagues, people they don't know? How do they react to things not going their own way? Can they discuss, listen, and compromise? These are all things you can find out fully clothed and in sight of a respectable sunt.

After all, you're choosing the grandad of your grandchildren here. A certain amount of due diligence will pay off hugely.

The sincere ones probably won't be on a student visa which runs out soon.

Different culture or not. This is the UK, and marrying for a visa, which is what this sounds like, is illegal.

You get to know them personally over a period of time. You spend time together. You get to know him - what is he reality like? Then you make a judgement. Are they trustworthy/

The main reason I would avoid a marriage or family with someone from another country is the issue if you have children and then the relationship goes south.

Well, for a start they won't be talking about marriage in a years time without even having met.

Home culture may be that you don't meet until the wedding day even but here in the UK they all like to date as the opportunity is there.

Tell him you don't have a british passport, you have a long term visa and can't apply for a spouse visa. See what happens.

I would never have married a citizen from another country and I write that as a woman whose origins are not British though I was born here. You have children and then split up, read up what has happened to some women when their husbands have taken the kids back home for a holiday.

My son married a girl from another country and applying for a visa was actually really difficult. They had to prove that they had met each other's families, how much time they had spent together physically, and he had to prove that he could support her financially.

I think you'll probably find this guy is talking to a number of people in the hope that he can get someone to marry him.

No, my child is under two, but i would speak to a friend that way if I thought it might knock some sense into them.
With the cultural context, I feel I was maybe on the harsher side, but the same sentiment stands. He isn’t it.

You can’t which is why your family are being sceptical and why people are advising you to be cautious.

Sorry, this was my reply to your question about how you can tell the difference between a genuine suitor and someone who is just after a visa.

We don’t date as such, we don’t move in together before marriage, we don’t meet alone before marriage, plenty do but we aren’t allowed to do that. My mum is very much a “if he likes you he’d contact me and your dad expressing his interest”, doesn’t matter how old we are, whether we are 17 or 47, it’s never completely our decision as our close relatives must agree for the marriage to be finalised and accepted. We can’t date independently, we can’t meet alone, it has to be run through the family.

He’s 27, he is on an after studies work visa, rather than a student visa. I think he’s feeling some pressure from his family to get married, his mum is incredibly religious and possibly could be the driving force behind it.

We spoke on the phone, he was saying his mum was wanting to see a picture of me, which is normal, I sent him a couple to send to her but he was asking for a forward facing passport style picture which I said no to due to security reasons, and that if she wants to see me she can call me, he agreed. He said he was looking to see if his employer could sponsor him, I said this would be a great idea because if he has this opportunity then he could under the skilled visa route, although difficult wouldn’t be impossible.

When he talks about all the places he will take me “when we get married” it makes me more drawn to him, he is a source of freedom for me, we have a lot in common, he wants to travel and the only way I can do that is if I have a husband and go with him.

Sometimes I think, what’s the point? It is almost as though us daughters are a liability, we belong to our fathers and later our husbands are our allocated guardians, our lives are governed and oversaw by men because they’re our protectors and have responsibility towards us, like keeping us sheltered, fed, clothed, warm. We have to be constantly chaperoned, our bodies objectified, our locations questioned. And If he hits me? Well, not much different to being a child, we got hit a lot.

From the moment we were born to the day we die our lives are never truly ours, freedom is just an illusion. We don’t have freedom. Freedom is at the stake of losing family and getting killed and abused by people

Why does this have to be your reality? Do you have an education? A job? If you're at risk of violence from your family if you refuse to go along with this arrangement there are many women's organisations out there that can help. It's not 'we', it's 'you'.

How can you tell the difference between someone who is sincerely wanting to get married and just happens to be from a different country compared to someone who is using for a visa ?

You listen to your family.

You're dead right, @Evieanne, in a deeply patriarchal culture girls are a liability. There's no global epidemic of parents killing their sons; only daughters. It's a massively fucked-up system, not least because girls could become assets to their families if they were fully educated, encouraged into careers and permitted independence.

Can't change that in people who've fully internalised those values, unfortunately, but you are free to opt out of it over here. Marrying some geezer whose visa just happens to be expiring, according to the rules of this patriarchal culture, will lock you right into it.

Your choice. If it were me, I'd ditch the parents and the visa-hunting patriarch, move into a flat-share with some independent minded women, and start dating like the normal British woman you are.

While you're getting yourself together, how about this? Make some fake profiles on the dating sites you're using. Put in search criteria that perfectly match him. Wait and see how many likes he gives your other profiles.

Op are you basically saying you want an arranged marriage with this guy from Bangladesh hence needing their support but they're saying no?

we don’t date the traditional way because our family don’t agree with free mixing between men and women and the family have to meet to see if the person is well suited.

And how would they be able to judge that exactly? You do sound naive and, yes, he is after a visa!

OP i’m Pakistani and the general consensus is men from abroad usually want the visa yes they’ll send you little gifts and be sweet but the reality is different when they’re over here, it’s been happening for decades to women who have been pressured in some way and felt that’s the best they were gona get, I know this isn’t the case with you but think carefully before you ruin your life and happiness, he has plenty to gain by marrying you but you have much to lose, unless you’re gona tell me he’s highly educated and will have a well paying job once he’s here to pay his own way properly. I’m older than you and the younger girls are more clued up on this because of what they’ve seen happen in the past to women from over here. They come from over there, with their male privilege and entitlement in tact refusing to be equal partners, and then also sending huge amounts of cash back home. I’ve seen so many women complain about this. Yes, you get bad men everywhere but at least when there isn’t a visa on offer, you’re sort of on an equal footing at the start. Not just south Asians, it happened to my friend and the man was from a America, happened to countless women who have met men abroad.

Why don’t you say to him that you want to move to Bangladesh with him, instead of living in the U.K. see how long he keeps his interest. You have to keep it going for a few months, not tell him the next day you were only joking. If you were my daughter I’d tell you to stay well clear but I also wouldn’t want you to marry your cousin either 🤷‍♀️

This. He's looking for a spouse's visa. Don't be a fool.

Great idea!

Yes I absolutely would. Although it would be unthinkable for them to ask. If someone dates you and decides not to marry you, it means that they’ve got to know you and know that you are not the one they want to spend the rest of their life with. That actually makes them more trustworthy than someone who proposes marriage to someone they don’t know and who they’ve never met. Pretty sure he wants a visa!