Kooksty

Hey all!

I've been a creeper on BE for a while now and this is my first time posting. Before I get into my little story, I'd just like to say a huge thank you to everyone on here. Reading through your posts has been so incredibly helpful to me in many different ways, mostly in giving me peace of mind.

So here's my quick history. Grew up in Thanet (I know) until my parents moved us out to Red Deer, Alberta in April of 2007. I was 15 at the time and it was the middle of the school year. Needless to say the transition did NOT go well for me and it took me at least 5 years before I even started feeling like myself again. High school was awful, from kids constantly saying they couldn't understand me, to not understanding sarcasm and asking if I was on drugs because I had a bubbly British personality. Just a quick tip to parents thinking about moving teenagers - DON'T. At least not in the middle of the school year and not during GCSE.s. Moving also completely screwed up my education. I was in a grammar school in UK and barely graduated with a diploma.

ANYWAY. Last September I reconnected with my first ever boyfriend on a trip back home and long story short, we are getting married in April 2016. I'm moving back in September of this year as he can't come to Canada until we're married. I couldn't be happier. Before we reconnected I was planning on moving back to the UK as I just have a hole in my heart where Ol' Blighty is supposed to be. Everything feels right with the world now. I miss so many things about the UK, small things, the things that you take for granted when you have them. I will tell you one thing, I feel more comfortable walking through the streets of England than I ever have walking around here (I now live in Calgary). I just feel less judged! It's crazy when you think about the stereotypes for both countries.

The one problem with all of this is currently, our plan is to move back to Canada shortly after the wedding, giving me roughly 9-10 months back home in Blighty. At first that seemed a great idea to me, we've started paying an immigration lawyer to start our file to get my fiancee over to Canada. However the closer I get to moving back, the more I do not want to come back here. My fiancee, however, can't wait to leave England and come here... understandable. If I had never left the UK I expect I would feel much the same. I just feel trapped in Canada, it's so expensive to fly anywhere, it takes hours and hours to drive anywhere. The UK is so close to Europe and so many other parts of the world we could do so much traveling. We are both still young and aren't planning to start a family until we're at least 30. I want to take advantage of being able to travel around and I feel as though coming back to Canada will impede that. I know that my opinions may change once I'm back and we're obviously going to talk about it all. I guess I just needed to get it out there to people who may have experienced something similar!

I hope some of you who've lived/live in Canada can relate to some of my feelings about the great white north. It is great, don't get me wrong. It's just not my home.

Thanks for reading my pointless rant!

K

calman014

I would say spend a little time in UK and go do some exploring in western Europe. If you have the finances to do it why not?..you might even find another place you like better?..

Kooksty

Hi Calman,

That's definitely what I would like to do/my gut is saying to do. OH is just so desperate to get out of the UK, he's so sick of it. Maybe me being there will help that though? We've also already given the immigration lawyers a large sum of money which I'm not sure we'd get back. I'm definitely going to talk to him about it though when I've been back a little while and see where his head is at with everything!

calman014

You could just use UK as your base for European travel, it's pretty well connected and there are plenty of budget airlines. Why not do the same in Canada and go explore the west coast or even go down to USA and look around before making any permanent decisions? It will at least get you out of UK and your own current environment and allow some time for thought.
Good Luck!

curleytops

Hi Kooksty, nice to hear your story and congratulations on your upcoming marriage. Much of what you said rang true and familiar to me and I can understand where you're coming from although I'm a fair bit older than you. I went off to Canada many years ago at a younger age than you did but ran into similar problems including the other kids not understanding me. Hey, you think you had problems coming from the south coast, just imagine what it was like for a Geordie, nobody understands us so I can certainly understand your feelings of isolation.

I spent close to 45 years in the Great White North and like you, barely squeaked through high school (no diploma for me though, I ended up doing the GED thing much much later); however it didn't seem to hold me back getting decent jobs. I moved to Calgary myself when I was 21 and went on to work in the investment industry for 15 years. I loved the work and Canada was ok but I never ever felt like I belonged.

Over the years, I had the odd boyfriend but never ever found "the one" and figured I was destined to be single all my life. All that changed when I caught up with a little fellow I'd known when I first started school in England at five years old and now we're Mr. & Mrs. I came back to England just over four years ago but not to where we'd been born - my hubby's job took us to just a stone's throw away from your home town - we spent a couple of years in Folkestone. Life's not been easy for us but I don't for one minute regret coming home and we're very happily married.

You mentioned that your fiancee very much wanted to leave England and live in Canada. It's perfectly understandable as at his age he wants to get out and see the world and I completely agree that Canada is indeed an adventure. What many of us have dealt with however are well meaning family and friends saying "you're nuts to be coming back here" and in my hubby's case he was hearing "are you mad??? get yourself away off to Canada, you don't want to stay here." There might be a bit of that going on too.

I certainly agree that your fiancee should have the experience of living over there - I think it would be good for you both. One thing you might consider is having him try going the IEC route which would give him a one-year visa for a working holiday that he could extend to two years (I'm assuming he's under age 30). A lot of people have gone to Canada that way and have subsequently applied for PR status while on their IEC visa. I don't know a great deal about it myself but there's a lot of information about it on the Canada forum and no shortage of posters on there who have been down that road. It runs early in the year and there are a limited number of visas available. It may well be less costly than dealing with an immigration lawyer (hopefully you could get at least a portion of your money back if you opt not to use one).

Something you didn't mention was whether or not you had taken out Canadian citizenship. I really would advise you to do so if you haven't already. You've lived in Canada for over five years so you are eligible; however there is a lengthy waiting period for applications to be processed. Having dual citizenship just gives you more options for the future and you don't have the worry about staying out of Canada too long to keep permanent residency status active.

I do wish you both all the best for the future, wherever you end up living. Hope you'll let us know how you're both getting on and please feel free to pm me if there's anything specific you want to ask.

All the best

Kooksty

Hi Curleytops! (I must say, I'm a little starstruck! I've read so many of your posts and responses to people!)

Thanks so much for the reply! You've definitely given me a lot to think about.

Yeah, I haven't found my lower grades on the diploma to have affected me at all. No-one seems to even look at your grades, just the fact that you have one. It's more a blow to my self esteem regarding my intelligence than anything else. It's also interesting to note the differences. I was set to get the highest grades in English for my GCSE and then barely passed the class in high school because they teach it so differently. I was told that I wasn't allowed to think about what MIGHT have happened in a book or poem or whatever because it didn't happen and that was that! That all depends on the teacher though as well I suppose!

Isn't it funny how life works?! Bringing people back in from the past who should have been there all along! So glad you're happily married and loving life, that's lovely to hear these days, especially for myself being younger with the amount of divorce you see all over the place.

See, I've been reading that a lot of you have had a lot of "Why the heck would you move back here?!" but whenever I've talked to my family and friends about it, they all can't wait for me to go back. No-one has said too much in the way of wondering why on earth I would move back. My aunt and I have had a few discussions about the differences in lifestyle between the two countries and depending on the type of person you are and what you want out of life will obviously greatly affect your opinions of each country.

The reason why we've opted to go the route of Immigration lawyers and such is because I've heard so many stories of people being denied re-entry because of grumpy immigration lawyers. I'm not sure if you saw the article but there was recently a case of a Brit driving over the border to the States to get his PR (he has been approved fo rit and everything) and got stopped with his girlfriend (Canadian) and they had everything searched including their cellphones. They found pictures on there of some holes in walls he had patched up in her apartment and they told him that he'd taken a job from a Canadian and kicked him out of the country. So things like that plus the fact there are a limited number of work visas and the line of work my fiancee is in would make it more difficult for him to get a job. I also just had a friend that was unemployed in Calgary for 3 months or so because the extension for his work visa was pushed back. So things like that have made me want the back up of lawyers.

I do have my Canadian citizenship! I actually just got it in April which was pretty great timing

The reason why I guess I'm struggling with it is because in my mind, if we come to Canada he should stay here until he gets dual citizenship otherwise it will be hard for him to re-enter.

Thanks again for letting me rant! We will sort it all out I'm sure. If he wants to come to Canada for sure, I would never dream of stopping him having that opportunity. I'd definitely be open to trying elsewhere in Canada but I hear such mixed things about the different province's economies.

Cheers!

Shirtback

Hi & welcome to BE! Your above statements really stood out to me, and should be required reading for prospective emigrants, IMO

Unsolicited advice follows:

STOP paying the immigration lawyer! Save your money for travelling/setting-up back in Canada!

You do NOT need a lawyer for spousal sponsorship (married or common-law) to Canada. For that, get yourselves over to the "Canada" forum & read the Wiki on spousal sponsorship.

Shirtback

Once your partner/husband gets PR, he can spend as much time as he likes outside Canada *IF* he is living with his CDN citizen wife/common-law partner; wherever in the world ...

Kooksty

Well thank you Shirtback, you have just given me a LOT to think about and research! You may have just saved us thousands of $$$...

I'll update you!