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?

That is categorically untrue! My friend has been married for 15 years, they have two dc and a house here, and she still had to go through endless rounds with immigration going back for decades!

It is true. There is an unmarried partner visa. You don't need to be married to apply for it.

Yes but the visa is short term. It is a long way from being granted indefinite leave to remain. Then what do they do? Even married people of decades are struggling.

I have a friend who went through this. It took 3 years of her effectively living as a single parent before she was able to progress her career sufficiently to bring her husband over. It is gruelling.

Pragmatically I think you really should return to the UK and look for a relationship with someone who has the right to be here, given that you have only been with this guy a few months, you do not have to sacrifice so much of yourself for him.

Romantically if he was really worth more to you than anything else it would be better to find a different 3rd country who would accept you both.

Long term, his best option is to return to his home country and retrain in a field where there is a shortage of skilled workers. Employers are not going to be climbing over eachother to sponsor a visa for an entry-level marketing executive in any country.

All initial visas are for 2.5 years. They you apply for FLR then at 5 years you apply for ILR.
It's not a struggle for everyone. I applied for my husbands visa after being with him for 15 months. He came on a fiancé visa for 6 months, we did FLR for 2.5 years, we renewed again for 2.5 years then he gets ILR next year. So 5.5 years in total.
You only need to earn the minimum income requirement for 6 months.

Good luck, OP. The only ways I’m familiar with (as a foreign spouse who came here to be with my British husband) are what’s been mentioned: get married or apply as domestic partners, get a job in the UK, and move back so you can use your income to meet the income requirement. Alternatively if you can get a savings together, you can meet the financial requirement with that, but I think the total you need in cash is substantial — I’m sure it was 60-80k around 10 years ago when we started this process.

UK Yankee is for Americans and British partners, but it’s still a fantastic resource for non-American foreign spouses. Check it out.

This is not correct

Which bit don’t you think is correct?

Technically it’s 33 months for the first visa and then 30 months for the second one but apart from that the process is as fairgame described.

The spouse visa has a category for partner visa..wether you qualify for either or whatever hoops you have to jump through or how long it takes is a seperate issue.