Divorce/immigration advice

[JenzyFrenzy]

Hi all,

It is very difficult for me to be typing this up, but, looking through the posts, I can see you are all a friendly bunch who are keen to support each other.

Basically, my soon-to-be-ex husband is from Asia. I met him out there while volunteering as an English teacher. We fell in love (well, I did anyway), to cut a long story short, we applied for a fiance visa, were successful, got married, then successfully got his first FLR.

Before marriage, he did show occasional tyrannical behaviour, but I put that down to cultural differences, and assumed things would get better, as he and his family are devout Roman Catholics, and very focused on religion. I was wrong, they didn't get better. Instead, it got to the point where I was totally and utterly under his control. I was being emotionally, sexually and financially abused, cheated on, lied to and controlled. After 9 months of marriage, I had the urge to check his iPad while he was at work and found explicit messages between him and his ex, as well as a TON of other women. I have also worked out that his brother encouraged him to get with me, so he himself could get a visa (despite me explaining countless times that it's nearly impossible to get a visa for the U.K.).

I wised up to his little schemes, and decided to leave him and start proceedings for divorce. Initially, he agreed to the divorce, and there have been many collaborations between him and my solicitor, where he filled in the forms accordingly and signed everything he needed to.

Now we are SO CLOSE to the end of the divorce, We have the Decree Nisi and are awaiting the Decree Absolute. And he has suddenly decided to dispute the original petition. It has been assumed that he has got advice from an immigration solicitor, and is trying to stay in the country. His excuse for disputing the petition was that he does not understand enough English to read it! He also claims that his sister cannot read English, and told him to sign the petition (which is a lie, she DOES read English).

I had decided to wait a little before informing the Home Office of our divorce, just in case there were papers he needed to sign, and now I am so stuck on what to do. I want to inform the HO, but I don't want to be in a position where, if he is deported before signing important documents, I am stuck married to him because there are forms he needs to sign.

I am worried, frustrated and beyond stressed. This has caused me so much anxiety (some of it probably stemmed from the way I was treated while married to him). I know I need to inform HO, and I am always a sticker for following the rules, so this has me very anxious. I'm terrified I will get into trouble.

If anyone has been in a similar situation/can offer advice, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Jenny x

[Wanderer]

Your hands may be tied.

In order to sponsor his next 2.5yr FLR you need to be in an existing man/wife relationship, otherwise it's deception.

So there's not much choice really if you stick by the rules

[JenzyFrenzy]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

That's not really what I meant. I am not at all willing to sponsor him, nor be in a relationship with him. I want him out of my life, and am wanting to tell the HO that we have separated. My issue is that if he gets deported before signing an important document for the divorce (especially since he's decided to dispute), I will be stuck in a marriage I cannot get out of because he is not in the country to sort divorce proceedings.

Hope that made things clearer .

Jenny x

[CR001]

You need to inform HO on the prescribed form. What they do after that is up to them and their own processes and timeframes. You will NOT be kept informed.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... nsent-form

The divorce process is completely separate to this and if his visa is cancelled while the process is still ongoing, it is not something that HO will concern themselves about.

If things don't work out with the divorce, you will have to wait 5 years from date of separation and do the divorce on your own as then his signature is not required.