Retention of right of residence help

[dorianmass]

Hi, I'd like to ask your kind advice.
I'm a EEA national married to a non-EEA national woman. We moved to the UK in the summer of 2012 and my wife got her residence card a few months ago.
I'm exercising treaty rights as a self-sufficient person and was planning to get a job once I settled down in the UK.
Unfortunately, my mother has some serious health problems, so I was forced to keep traveling to my home country for assistance and that didn't allow me to get a full-time job.
I decided to postpone the plan and luckily we are in a positive financial situation that allow us to support ourselves thanks to our savings and my wife's job.
This precarious life style, though compromised our relationship and we may decide to separate. She is self-employed and regularly pays taxes. As I said, I am exercising treaty rights as a self-sufficient person.
We've been living in the UK for a year and a half about and, obviously, have proofs of residence in the form of tenancy agreements and utility bills.
Our marriage is absolutely genuine, as demonstrated by the fact that we've been married for almost 10 years.
Honestly, I've never been able to adapt to our new life in the UK and would prefer to move back to my home country. On the other hand, my wife feels much more comfortable in the UK, thanks also to her successful profession.
From what I understand, it should not be a problem for her to retain her rights to live in the UK as long as we can prove that we've been married for more than 3 years and spent at least 1 year in the UK with me exercising treaty rights. That is not a problem because she also got her residence card for 5 years and that automatically proves that we were meeting the requirements. Plus we have documents proving our staying there for more than a year.
I have some doubts though. If we separate and I move back to my home country, I suppose that for the next 4 years, my wife should be fine with her current residence card. But what happens when, during this time, she travels abroad and comes back to the UK if she says that I'm not living in the UK anymore? Immigration officers regularly asks her where I am.
From what I read, during the separation phase, both the EEA national and the non-EEA national are supposed to live in the UK, otherwise the condition of exercise of treaty rights is not met and the non-EEA national is automatically forced to leave the country. That goes against the premise, though that states that my wife can retain her right of residence as long as the 3 years of marriage have been reached with 1 year of which spent in the UK.
If we separate, shall we communicate it to HO? If so, how can she prove she can retain her right of residence? Does she need to apply for a new temporary residence card? If not, should we just collect documents about our living together in the UK and me exercising treaty rights as a self-sufficient person (which means only collecting bank statements basically) during at least the first year since we moved there, and use them to apply for her permanent residence card in 4 years time, once the current one is expired? Thank you very much for your kind time.

[Jambo]

For your wife to be able to retain residence rights you will need to get a divorce, separation is not enough.

[dorianmass]

For your wife to be able to retain residence rights you will need to get a divorce, separation is not enough.

Thank you very much for your reply, Jambo.
That means that as long as we are not divorced, nothing should be done or said to HO, isn't it?
It's just necessary to keep collecting documents proving the fact that the EEA national was exercising treaty rights during the time prior to divorce, for at least 1 year. Is that correct?
Thanks a lot.

[askmeplz82]

There are now a number of circumstances in which non-EEA national family members of EEA nationals may retain their right of residence in the UK if the EEA national leaves the UK or dies or the relevant marriage or civil partnership is terminated

so you need to prove that you left the UK permanently. but i can't tell exactly how you will prove it

[Jambo]

There are now a number of circumstances in which non-EEA national family members of EEA nationals may retain their right of residence in the UK if the EEA national leaves the UK or dies or the relevant marriage or civil partnership is terminated

so you need to prove that you left the UK permanently. but i can't tell exactly how you will prove it

If the EEA national leaves the UK permanently and they are still married, the spouse will lose the right to leave in the UK. You can't retain right of residence in such case (unless children are involved).

[dorianmass]

Hi, I received a couple of private messages, but am not allowed to read them because of my status of new member. So please post directly here, if you have any kind suggstion. Thank you very much.