I’m British, and want to return home with my foreign partner. Help!

[brownbreadd]

Hi,

I am a British citizen with a foreign partner. We are currently residing in Dubai and working here, however long term I am very quickly realising that this isn’t going to be my forever place.

I am desperately missing friends and family, and the way of live back home in the UK (yes, really!) and would like to start looking into ways to return home, but with my partner.

My partner is Turkish, we both moved here to Dubai earlier this year to be together after a lengthy long distance relationship.

we are both working here, earning a good salary, and are unmarried.

does anybody know of the process in which I should take in order to look at the possibility of coming back to the UK and bringing him, too?

My friend has cancer. How long he has, I don't know. He is African and married to an African wife and both have lived in UK for about 28 years.

The hospital consultants wrote letters that he could send to the relevant government department for him to have his niece. a trained care worker, come to UK to help care for him, as his wife - an NHS worker - has broken her ankle badly and can only work part time.

He was denied. His niece cannot get a visa to come to UK for even the time he has left, and despite the need for care workers in this country.

Interestingly, a sum of money, equivalent to around £2,000 was given her in advance of her visit by family members. The government department said it was too much and they didn't believe where she got it from. It is as bad as coming without any money at all.

Yet tens of thousands of illegal immigrants from the middle east come to our shores in little boats and treated like royalty.

I have experience in this, so...

Move back. Alone. Get a job, sort a place to live. Do the 6 months. Pave the way for a life together.

The nature of your relationship v immigration laws in both the UK and Turkey means that if your relationship cannot withstand long periods of separation, it will not survive.

You will always be from different countries, and over the course of your hopefully long lives together, you will face challenges due to this. Children who need to spend part of their summers or winter holidays with his family in Turkey, while you have to work. Care of aging parents. Care of ill siblings. Stuff happens and it very irritatingly happens in another country that only one of you can get to at critical moments.

If the relationship has fallen apart after 6 months of you reestablishing residency - trust me that the Home Office has done you a favour.

Apologies, I now see it’s £88,500. Two or three years working in Dubai as a couple and the OP should have most of that. The most important thing is to get get married ASAP, so by the time you have the money together you have history as a married couple. If the OP doesn’t want to get married then she isn’t serious. As for spending 3 more years in Dubai when she doesn’t like it, that’s the price for having a future with the man she loves. It might not be fun, but that’s the hurdle you have to jump. Coming back to the UK with £88,500 in the bank is not a bad start, when she can finally do it.

I have been married before and I am not keen on the idea of getting married right now. I’ve not said never, I’ve just said not for now.

Having children is the much bigger commitment - he will want to share a nationality with his dc, and rightly so. That's either the dc having Turkish + Uk nationality, or him acheiving UK nationality via marriage + time + further requirements (subject to change), or both.

I would absolutely not be resident in a country of which my dc were citizens and I was not, if there was any way to avoid it. Historically, it's a vulnerable situation (see: current horror stories in USA). So, I would not want my dc's Dad to be in that situation.

If you carry on down this road, you will almost certainly - eventually - need to marry this man if you want to stay together.

I understand. Children are not on the agenda.

Fair enough.

My point is that you need to think 10 moves ahead if you want this to work longterm. It's serious hassle. Worth it, for me anyway. But it doesn't half require stupid levels of forward planning.

Hope it all works for you!

Please,please be careful! 4 months is way too short a time to even discuss or consider marriage. I have a neighbour who did this. After marriage she was treated horrendously
I'm not saying this would happen with your DP but ,whatever is next for you,proceed with care. Good luck to you .

If you want to come home, beak up with him and come home.

You don't want to marry him, you don't want to have kids with him, I think you should leave him to get on with his life and you get on with yours.

This is such a new relationship. I don't understand why you began it if being in the UK is so important to you. It's far too soon to be taking on the responsibility of sponsoring a new boyfriend for citizenship, and financially supporting him in the meantime. If you two must be together at all costs, then making your home together in a third country is the sensible way forward. If being in the UK is a must, then move back and find a suitable partner here.

I echo others, it's a very odd thread.

There are so many routes to entry, married, engaged, working etc. I would start by reviewing each one and determining the best route for entry. The married route is straightforward enough but very pricey. I would recommend an immigration lawyer to talk you through the options.

It’s no longer straight forward at all!!!

@Livingbytheocean oh no…….they make it all so complicated. OP needs to speak to an immigration lawyer.

Exactly this. My niece has done this in order to be able to bring her husband here. They met and married in his home country when she went there for work. He is now working and studying in a third country and she is living in her own home and working here, has appointed a lawyer and working through the lengthy and expensive process.

Stop, Slow right down at least. My immediate thought is you are a visa ticket for him. Why put yourself through this torturous route when you don't even want to marry? You miss the uk, so come back and enjoy it. Don't tie yourself in knots for him.

PS it's absolutely gorgeous right now, blossom and trees popping like crazy.

Slow down!! You say you have known him 4 years but have only been in a relationship 8 months which is no time at all!!
Come back to UK to cool your head down and think about things logically.
Let him do some research. He can come over at some point if he meets requirements.
The honeymoon period will wear off soon and you might realise he’s not worth the upheaval

I have gone through the spouse visa route. It is not for the faint hearted. Met dh in his country, married and raised children in a 3rd country (English speaking)

He was at a senior management level. I am a few levels below. We had 15 years of marriage, two kids and about £80 in joint savings, untouched for a minimum of six months.

Despite all that, we had to submit tons of documents, bank statements, passport pages, education certificates, proof of relationship: photos of us when we dated, before kids, post kids, you get the idea. The costs of processing the spouse visa was expensive too. I choose to forget how much it was.

My advice to you OP is to carry on dating, see where the relationship goes. It doesn't bode well that he's not keen to move to the UK.

We did it, was straightforward but expensive.

Meant to write £80k in savings.

I'm sorry love to hear that, I found dating foreigners a real rollercoaster, but in the end I did what was right. Always not too late to walk away from a doomed relationship. All the best.

I know you are in Dubai and it could be quite expensive to call, but either call the immigration and they will tell you the process or find and immigration solicitor (who would be easier and cheaper to contact, considering you can use other option than just a landline) and go from there. Good luck!

There is plenty of information online about this. Something is odd about this post. Maybe a journalist.

im certainly not a journalist … but flattered 🤣
I know there’s plenty of info online but as I said upthread it’s nice sometimes to be able to speak to and connect to others in the same boat.

You can join a group on Facebook called" I love my foreign spouse"
They handheld me through a spouse visa without the need for asolicitor.

You don't need to be married if you've lived together for 2 years