Moving back to the US after 12 years in UK
 

Re: Moving back to the US after 12 years in UK
 

Welcome to BE. Shame you didn't become a US Citizen while you served in the US Military or through your marriage when you had the golden opportunity while you were living in the US previously. Unless you have a criminal history, your process is straight forward. A simple Immediate Relative Visa (IR-1) applied for by your wife initially with the I-130 for you as beneficiary and then your interview further down the line will result in the visa if you are approved. I won't go into great detail about the process as you should be asking your questions in the Marriage-Based Visa forum above and have a search for threads with "DCF" in them. This is for direct consular filing and if it is still available in four years it is what you will be doing.

Re: Moving back to the US after 12 years in UK
 

PS Don't let your wife leave the UK without becoming a British citizen. Makes life so much easier for all concerned if one of the child decides to return to the UK or if you all decide to return there.

Re: Moving back to the US after 12 years in UK
 

If your wife hates it, and you are (at best) ambivalent about staying in the UK, then going back to the US is the best option. Four years is plenty of time to get sorted.

But four years is also plenty of time for your wife to get burned out completely if she's in an untenable teaching situation - and if she's hating her job/school, that's probably contributing significantly to her attitude towards the UK.

In the interim, can she apply for a job at a different school?

As you know - not all schools are created equally, and it may buy her some "breathing space" if she can go from a bad school to a mid-range one.

But teaching has changed a whole lot in the last 10-15 years. Her workload will not decrease at an American school, and if she gets hired at a rough one, she will be just as stressed.

You might want to consider having a 1- and 3-year planning horizon as well. I just think four years for your wife in a high-stress teaching situation may become unviable at some point down the track, and research with teacher burnout is quite interesting - many don't see it coming, they just wake up one morning and hate everything about their job and career, and it's hard to pull out from that. So I think you should have multiple scenarios planned for shorter time periods, and since you are in agreement about wanting to go back - you might want to go on and just speed things up.

Re: Moving back to the US after 12 years in UK
 

Re: Moving back to the US after 12 years in UK
 

Re: Moving back to the US after 12 years in UK
 

The entire DCF process will only take between 6 to 8 months and you should have your visa in your passport. Many here are DIY'ers but there is no reason why you shouldn't use an attorney if that is your choice. So make your long term plans, look into the process by asking questions in the appropriate forum and with your attorney, then have at it.

Re: Moving back to the US after 12 years in UK
 

This! This, for god's sake, this! If you're going to make the move, then just swallow the expense and get another passport in case you decide - for whatever reason - to move back to the UK.

I can only see the rules getting tighter and tighter for getting in with a non-UK spouse and they're certainly never going to make it easier to become a citizen.