Your Story: UK-US
 

Hello All

Alot of the threads on here are asking for advice on specific matters pertaining to particular issues people have. That's all well and good and this forum has definately been invaluable in quite a number of ways to me personally.

I'm quite interested though in the human side....what's the story, who are you, why are you moving to/have moved to/have come back from the US?

I guess I'll kick off;

My reason for moving is to be with my other half, who after an admittedly very quick romance during her time here for work (July to September), we are going to go ahead and get hitched. We are people who would usually not even have marriage on our radar, but found such a connection in each other over that period that not carrying on feels wrong.

She was over here as part of the Team USA delegation working on the Olympics and subsequently Paralympic Games. I was also working on the Games, our main role was hosting the USA base (High Performance Training Center, Media, Athlete Services, Friends and Family Services, Ticketing, Team Processing, Housing and Catering).

It will probably be no surprise that I expect to work in sport upon moving.

So was I before all that? Well, I was born a Canadian father and British mother, but mostly brought up in the UK before being adopted by a Brit-Australian Stepfather.

Since then I've worked in Professional Ice Hockey and the Higher Education sector all over the UK, but have never lived abroad as an Adult (although did live in both Canada and Australia for a year as a child).

Re: Your Story: USA-UK
 

I like the idea of this thread, its interesting to read about other peoples situations and goals.

Well here is mine...

I was asked to go to the US (Houston) for a project that I was working on back at the end of 2009. I travelled to and from the US for most of 2010 and in July of 2010 I met my future wife. I was offered a transfer to the US company and grabbed it with both hands.

We found out that she was pregnant late September 2010. I proposed shortly after. My fiancée and I rented an apartment together in October 2010 while I was in the US (on the VWP). My wife has 2 children from a previous relationship, I feel in love with them also. So we were living happily as a family together in the apartment.

In February 2011 I was arrested for a DWI in Houston. I returned to the UK and applied for an L1-B visa.

Applied for a L1-B visa on March 21st 2011 – denied March 30th 2011

Applied for B1/B2 visa to attend the birth of my son May 9th 2011 – Denied May 9th 2011

My son was born on June 9th 2011 watched it on Skype. As I’m from Newcastle it was nice that my son was born on this date (people form the north east might realise the significance of this date).

Applied for L1-B with waiver of ineligibility August 3rd 2011

Fiancée and son visited me in the UK for a week in November 2011 (my son was 5 months old).

Denied the L1-B visa on December 2nd

Fiancée and son visited again for a week in January 2012

Married my fiancée on July 17th 2012 in Cyprus, we had 2 weeks in Cyprus with my son and family from the UK. It was fantastic!

Filed I-130 in the US on October 5th

Received NOA1 receipt on October 9th

My son is now 16 months old and I have only seen him 3 times, my wife and son are coming to visit the UK at Christmas and I can’t wait! I have not seen my step-children since March 2011 (except for on Skype).

So I have been trying to get a visa to return to the US for almost 2 years now with very little success. Hoping that this application will be more successful, I hope to be “home” by Christmas 2013 so that we can have our first Christmas all together as a family (that’s if the world doesn’t end on December 21st which is coincidently the date that my wife and son are flying out to the UK!). That’s pretty much my storey up until now.

Re: Your Story: USA-UK
 

The title of your thread, and your comment above, lead me to believe you are asking about people moving FROM the USA, TO the UK? Is that correct?

If so, your thread needs to be moved to the "Moving Back to the UK" forum.

The rest of your story seems to involve why you are moving to the USA, though (from the UK). In which case, the thread title should be changed, and you probably mean "UK" in your paragraph above.

Rene

Re: Your Story: USA-UK
 

Well, I actually meant both - mostly those who are/have already moved to the US - the people behind the keyboard as it where.

Re: Your Story: USA-UK
 

OK I will change the title so it's a little clearer.

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

Since my long-distance other half could not get a visa to the USA to visit me (due to him being Iranian), and we couldn't afford for me to keep going to Turkey once a year to visit (plus once a year just wasn't enough time together), we also took the plunge and did the K-1 fiance(e) visa.

So, his only reason for immigrating to the USA was so we could be together. He was earning more money doing less work in Turkey, so definitely money was not a factor! lol

He immigrated in 2004, been happily married since then. Turned out to be the best thing either one of us did, the risk paid off.

Rene

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

Me (UKC) met my now husband (USC) at graduate school just south of Paris.
After dating for eight months and on graduation we decided we would like to live together. We put together a list of cities that we'd like to live in (I think that these were roughly the ones we considered):
Boston, San Francisco, London, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Sydney, Paris

And the first person to get a job in one of these cities would 'win' and the other person would try and find a job locally. My husband won first with San Francisco (actually he won first with an offer based on a job in Dusseldorf but I told him I didn't love him that much and I would work in London and see him on weekends!)

I came to the West Coast of the USA on the VWP and 'accidently' landed a job with a company who would sponsor me for an H1B.
Got married two years later. Now have three small kids and large dog.

A few months ago we were offered a transfer to the London office but turned it down since we figured we couldn't afford the cost of living there. Would still like to consider that we might live in Europe some time, just don't know when that would be.

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

Brilliant story - I do love the Dusseldorf point!

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

First off, I'm divorced, however:
I worked in HR for a hotel chain in London for about 12 years. I met an American lady on business working for our company. We spent all her spare time together, and travelled round the UK for a year or so. Then her job changed and no more travel. I went to visit in US and we got engaged. I emigrated and we married within a year. Marriage was great but only lasted 4 years. Now I am PR and living the single life...

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

We met online, and then met in person 7 months later, having phoned and skyped every day in the interim. He proposed on new years eve in trafalgar square in 2007 and we married in London exactly one year later on new years eve 2008.

For us it was purely down to economics that I moved to the US instead of my husband (USC) moving to the UK. The recession had just started to bite hard and we didn't think a guy in his mid 50's would stand much of a chance of employment in England. Plus hubby was only a few years away from acheiving full pension with his job and it would be a huge amount to throw away. I found a job within 2 weeks of looking and have been working eversince (3 years now), so it turned out to be the right decision. However, secretly I was happy to make the move as I'd had enough in the UK.

Life in South West Virginia is so much less stressful and although I've always been a city dweller, I really love the quieter and more peaceful life we've achieved here in the country.

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

I came to the US as a post-doc on an H1-B, 25 years ago. I planned to stay for 3 years, but met someone, got married and got a green card. This allowed me to find a "real job". After 8 years we got divorced and I considered moving back to the UK, but my career had progressed in the US so I decided to stay and apply for citizenship. I'm now a couple of years away from early retirement and again trying to decide if I want to stay in the US or return to the UK, mostly because as a retiree my cost of living will be less in the UK.

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

Back in 2002, on a whim, I decided that I just had to spend a semester studying in Scotland. I applied for the program on the day of the deadline, and found out a couple of weeks later I was accepted into Glasgow University. I then had to find a job so I could save enough money to support myself and pay the tuition. I lucked into finding a position through a professor that not only paid enough for me to go to Glasgow, but it also counted as a capstone project that I needed in order to graduate.

So Sept 2002, I arrived in Glasgow all by my lonesome. I met some of the other study abroad students, but decided I wanted to meet some locals so I put my profile onto a popular dating website. A couple of weeks later, my (now) hubby and I began trading a few emails and then it went quiet for a couple of weeks (so I figured it wasn't going anywhere). After a 2 week silence, he emailed me back (turns out his company went through a round of redundancies so he had some other things to worry about), and we set up a time/date to meet up for drinks. That first date lasted for almost 8 hours, and it was a whirlwind after that. We dated for about 2months before I had to return back home to finish my degree. During that 2months, we took a couple of weekend trips and spent 2 weeks in Spain at Christmas and New Years.

I came back in Jan. 2003 to finish my degree, went back to Scotland to visit for a week in March (during Spring Break), he came over to see me graduate in May '03, and I ended up going back to visit in June '03 - which is when he proposed. I should say I was expecting the proposal because we had been looking at other ways to be together, and we knew marriage was the only sure-fire way of being in the same country. So I said "yes" of course! We went back and forth for weeks over where to live, but we decided for him to move to the US since I had just found a good paying job. Although at that time I really wanted to move there. We got married in May '04, almost exactly 18months to the day that we first met.

Here we are still married almost 8 1/2 years later. Now, my best friend will tell you that it was meant to be because I caught the bouquet at her wedding in June 2002 before we met. But I'd like to think it was fate since all kinds of things had to come together in just the right way in order for me to even get to go to Scotland. But who knows.. :)

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

So many threads on this subject too...

Mine, like most isn't that interesting, so I'll leave you to search them out if you're interested :/

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

Ditto as this subject has been done so many times before.

Re: Your Story: UK-US
 

...same here but anyone can read my "unfinished" blog and find out how I ended up here;)