As soon as I hit publish on my last blog post
the plans began to crumble around us.
WHY is this so hard???
Whhhyyyy??
Whhhyyyy??
We are in love, we are happy,
I'm his person, we're each other's people, loves, lobsters!!
This is it for us, we've chosen, we're decided,
we want to be together forever and ever!!
So why is every visa path so freaking complicated!!!
Why do we feel like we're doing something wrong just by being in lovvveee??
I feel stressed!!
At least that's how I felt the second half of yesterday!!
Now my feels are sunshiny, positive and just overall happy.
Mood swings are in full force over here...
Mood swings are in full force over here...
The reasoning behind my peppy self is due to yet another visa.
Except this time the visa is exactly what we've been looking for!!
We were trying so hard to make the wrong visa's work
that we neglected the search for the right one.
But last night I think I found it!!
I told Tom about it today and we researched and we
both feel like it's a HUGE step in the right direction.
We will do a little more researching but it's
possible that things could start moving pretty quickly
with us if this visa really is the answer!!
Like i've said before you just don't know what will happen
so I won't share our exact plans yet but I will
share the plans that have failed.
The first failed plan was that I was going to move to the UK.
Yea, a big move over seas was in my future for a long time
and we were so excited, we were planning for wedding's and
apartments and all sorts of exciting things.
The way to this visa was through Tom and his career.
I let you know about the money Tom had to make in his job
before we would even be able to apply for the visa.
Well turns out making that much money is hard in the UK.
Tom had a part time job working nights for a retail store on the weekends.
He hated it, a lot!! It kind of made him rethink things about what
he wants from a career...(which wasn't nights in retail)
he wants to be able to do something that will inspire him and allow him to inspire others.
So he quit his retail job and had a little bit of a breakdown and then we decided
that it just wasn't going to work for us to start out in the UK.
Instead we started to look at coming to the USA!
Tom is thinking about going back to school for his masters degree
so we started looking at student visa's.
We thought that we could get Tom over here on his student visa
and get married and then apply for Adjustment of Status that
would cut out the complicated immigration Visa.
You can actually do ALL of that.
You can get a student visa and then if you meet someone
while studying abroad you can marry them...no issues.
But since we've already been together and both border controls
know about our budding relationship we are pretty much
not allowed to go after this visa for fear of the border control
thinking that Tom is trying to come over here for an immigration status...
Which was half of our plan...which is not allowed.
If you're getting a student visa it has to be specifically for school...
If you have underlying reasons for applying for this visa and they
find out about them then you can kiss the visa goodbye
AND they would put a year long ban on Tom coming to the US!!!
And that's where we decided to axe the student visa!!!
FYI Gifs are forever in my blogs future, I just love them!!
Anyways...so now after all of those failed attempts we finally
feel like we've figured out this little visa game and
we're pumped about it!!
I'm not going to say what Visa, or where it will lead
but it's exciting and we both feel like this is it y'all!!
Phew!
I'm exhausted!
More to come!!
Hi Emily! I have been following your blog for a while now and am so glad you're posting again! My husband and I are having similar visa troubles to you and Tom except I'm British and he's American! Even though we are married, we still can't move back to the U.K without either having an exorbitant amount of money sitting in our bank accounts or me leaving him in America while I find work back in the U.K to get him over! ARGH It's so frustrating! Any visa advice you have would be AMAZING! It's crazy how even when you're in love or married, countries STILL don't believe it's legit. Freaking ridiculous! And really hoping you two can finally be together soon!!!
ReplyDeleteOh girl!!! We need to go get dinner or something ;) are you anywhere close to Dallas?? Haha The UK requirements are insane!! I'm so sorry you guys are having to have the leaving each other conversation :( So Tom and I aren't married yet, we are looking into it though and we think we will end up coming to the USA first. But that puts us in your situation if we ever decide to move to the UK, which we will! He wants to get his masters in education so that if and when we head back to the UK he will probably just have to leave me to go find a teaching job. Hopefully we would plan it so that he has some interviews or something so it's not just him leaving with no leads! Or we will try to save that insane amount of money and then go over. But that seems impossible! I think a lot of families are splitting up so that one spouse can find work in the UK and bring the others over. It's awful that it's like that! We are hoping that the UK government gets smart and changes some of these rules by the time we want to come over! They have to stop splitting up families!! I hope that you guys can figure it out, if you get a plan please share it this way!! I'd love to know how other couples plan to get over to the UK! Best wishes Zoe!!
DeleteI work on a show that shoots in Dallas! But alas I live in L.A..If you guys ever do another epic road trip out here, let me know! :) My husband and I are really trying to get him transferred over to the U.K with his job as they have a U.K office but that's still a very long shot. I keep thinking of Lauren from Aspiring Kennedy (if I remember correctly, you know her!) and thinking my husband should go back to school for his masters out there...isn't that what her husband did?? Is there anyway you would want to do the sort of job she does with your university?? We did go talk to an immigration lawyer. They can be expensive but visas are also expensive and the one we talked to said that if we paid $5,500 Jake's visa would be included in that (but that's only if I'm either make over 18,000 pounds or we have 60,000 lying around in the bank.....umm in another life!) So see if yours will do some sort of deal like that! Praying it's not a horrendous fee! Best of luck to you guys too! And i'll update you if we have a breakthrough over here on our search! :)
ReplyDeleteAh yes! We love California, I will definitely look you guys up if we're out your way again! And Let me know if you're ever out this way! A job transfer would be awesome, if only it wasn't up to the company to transfer you. I know that can be a hard route too! I do know Lauren, she's the best!! Her job is a dream, she's a lucky lady and that kind of job would probably be next to impossible to get unless she retires and puts my name in the pot for possible replacements ;) But I think she'll keep it for a while, it's so good!! Tyler did get his masters or some other higher form of ed. in the UK. I think that's what pulled them out there initially. So if that's a path your hubbs wants to take then I'd look into it. It could be the same as Tom wanting to come here on a student visa..if they think he will try and illegally immigrate to stay with you then they won't give him the visa. It's lame! Tom was saying that there are talks that the UK could re-evaluate the money rules on immigration in 2016. So we're kind of just hoping they'll change things up by the time we decide to move over. Or we'll figure something else out.
DeleteWe've finally decided to just go the K-1 visa route and go ahead and get married over here. Then Tom will get his masters and then we'll think about heading to the UK. So at least we've decided on our first step. All of this is exhausting as I'm sure you know haha!! Yea please let us know if anything happens with you guys. I'll keep updating on here so you can see where we're at! :)