tommo90

Evening all.

Firstly, fantastic forum, with tons of invaluable advice. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to comment and advise!

This may well be the first of many questions pertaining to our spousal visa application which we intend to submit in a months time (end of Feb 2017), so apologies in advance. Also, there is a TL;DR at the bottom of this post, as it may well end up being a bit of a wall of text.

Thanks to this forum, I'm convinced that we fulfil all necessary criteria for the visa. The only section I think we may have trouble in is proving a 'genuine relationship'. This seems odd given the literal years of long distance slog we have had to get through together to get to this point. (I'm sure the people in this forum can appreciate this!)

We met in Japan whilst I, the British national, was working as an English teacher in Feb 2014. We became a couple a month later, and spent the next year together in Japan. During this time she applied for the 'Tier 5 (Youth Mobility Scheme) Visa, and wasn't lucky enough to receive one of these. Our aim has always been to live in the UK together.

I decided to return to the UK in order to train to teach, and did so in April 2015. We continued our relationship, with the idea of re-applying for the Tier 5 visa again, which she did, and was turned down again.

As she turned 31 that May, this was her last opportunity to apply for this visa. It seemed to us we could either go SS route or Spousal visa route. We got married in Japan in August 2016 whilst I was on a visit.

The problem is, we have never actually lived together in any official capacity. I was provided housing by my employer in Japan, which she often shared with me, but she was still back at home with her parents.

My question therefore is: To what extent will this be a problem in proving a genuine relationship?

I should also mention that we never had a proper ceremony as such, as we wanted to do that in the UK when we were settled. We do have a picture of us signing the documents at the City Hall in her hometown. In addition, almost all of our correspondence during this time has been through Facebook chat and video call, which I'm not convinced I will be able to pull logs or records of.

Would a case worker accept a full explanation of all of this in some form of cover letter perhaps?



TL;DR - Together with my Japanese then-girlfriend for a year in Japan, but never lived together. Long distance for almost 2 years now, were married on a visit to Japan last August. Have never lived together officially, is this a huge problem?

SanDiegogirl

It is not necessary to have lived together (prior to marriage) if married and applying as man and wife (plenty of people do not live together for personal, religious etc reasons).

You will need to show that you did have a relationship before marriage.

The fact that you have NOT lived together since your marriage in August 2016 is somewhat strange (especially the time she remained with her parents after the marriage), however if you were continuing your training or in your first job in the UK in order to fulfill the financial requirements then that would be sufficient evidence of a genuine reason to be apart, I think. You must provide evidence that you have corresponded/been in constant contact since August 2016.

I don't understand what ceremony you went through in Japan; however it must be a ceremony which is recognised in the UK as a marriage ceremony. Any documents from that ceremony must be translated to English.

Pulaski

This.

Mrs P and I didn't live together prior to getting married, and Mrs P applied for her visa just a couple of weeks later, during which time we had been on our honeymoon.

tommo90

Cheers for the replies, very helpful!

Good to know that there is no requirement, and SanDiegoGirl is right in the assumption I have been in my first job, fulfilling the financial requirement since our marriage