Hello all,

If your visa is granted and stamped in your passport, but you do not end up going to the US, is there any action you need to take other than to let it expire?
Will it affect any future visit to the United States, such as the Visa Waiver Program? What about if you apply again?

I dont want to particularily go into the "whys and whathaveyous" over this, but right now, I'm not sure I will be able to go and be with my fiancée in the time allocated by the visa.

Thank You for any advice, and I wish everyone else here continuing success in their journey,

Teddy.

I know this doesn't answer all of your questions, but its possible that the consulate could 'extend' the visa (if you can't go over within the next six months).

Beyond that, if you plan not to use it at all, I would certainly inform the Department of State. (Your fiancee can call them from the states, or you can call the consulate.) I don't *think* it would effect future VWP visits, but hopefully someone wiser than me can answer that for sure.

If your fiancee ever petitions for you again (or petitions another foreign fiance), she will have to disclose this petition/visa.

We were in something of a similar situation, except we used our K-1 but then returned to the UK before filing AOS.

While *technically* it doesn't affect your ability to use the VWP, expect a nerve-wracking time having to explain it every time you enter the US. Bring plenty of information to back your intent to leave up, and remember that the people at the POE generally don't know their a*** from their elbow - while we have it in writing from the Embassy that there is nothing further my husband needs to do about this now long since expired visa, we have been told otherwise by officers at the POE (who, conveniently, don't know what it is that we need to do, that we need to speak with the Embassy, which we do, and they tell us the officer at the POE is wrong...)

This is my last letter from the Embassy on the subject. I have two, from different dates, both saying essentially the same thing:

Dear Mrs. Wark,

Thank you for your e-mail correspondence. From the information you have provided below, there is nothing that indicates your husband would not be eligible to travel visa free under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) if otherwise qualified. Provided that he meets all the conditions of the VWP, you husband is not required to apply for a visa. Please refer to the U.S. Embassy website: http://london.usembassy.gov/cons_new/visa/niv/vwp.html for a detailed explanation of the Visa Waiver Program requirements.

The presence of a K-1 visa application indicates that at one time your husband had intent to immigrate to the United States, even if that is not reflective of your current situation. The final determination of who is allowed to enter the United States is at the sole discretion of the Immigration officer at the port of entry. The immigration officer must be satisfied that your husband is not an intending immigrant and that he intends to depart the U.S. after a temporary stay.

We advise that your husband carry evidence of his ties and intent to return to the UK when he travels, in the event that Immigration officials request clarification.

You are correct that you do not need to file to formally abandon permanent residency if you and your husband have never formally applied for adjustment of status in the first place. It appears you were incorrectly advised regarding this matter.

I hope this information has been helpful and responsive to your inquiry.

Sincerely,

Consular Information Unit
U.S. Embassy, London
CONS/CIU/MLPM

The K-1 visa is valid for six months. If it isn't executed it will expire and be null and void.

Thanks.

Where is the best place to look for UK visas and information?

It is looking like my fiancée might come here now instead. When we get married, it will still hopefully be in the US, but right now, we are looking at living together in the UK first, then going at a later date to marry. Is this possible? To bring a long term partner over to the UK to live with but without a wedding planned?

Teddy.

I don't believe there is a 'get to know you' UK visa, either. I'd google it - but I'm pretty sure you can only get spousal visas or fiance/e visas (and at that, you have to get married 6 months after the foreign fiance/e arrives).

I am fairly sure she could only come as a visitor and I bet a pound to a penny the UK immigration officer at the port would deny her entry if they got wind of the circumstances. If she did get in as a visitor it would only be 6 months at most. She could come on a fiancee visa or spouse visa but I guess that isn't what you are looking for.

UK visa info at http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/

That's correct.

And for all the opinions one can read on the web about UK immigration being easier and simpler than in the US, there's definitely one area where it's not easier.

Once a USC enters the UK, they can't just up and marry their UK partner. The United Kingdom will not issue marriage licenses (or whatever they may be called over there) to any couple unless both are either UK citizens or the non-citizen partner has a fiance visa.

At least in America a VWP entrant from the UK can marry in the US. You can't do that across the pond.

My boyfriend and I are in the same pickle like you. We were trying to look for visas where we can just live together. The only ones we've seen are spousal visas and the fiancee visa but I believe the spousal visas are more for the same sex couples? I think I have seen that information in the visa site so we have decided to go ahead and file for the fiancee visa.

I think the UK recognizes long-term relationships even if the couple is not married. I remember something about a 2 year relationship but you would have to check with UK visa info.

That't the civil partnership visa, which requires you to prove that you have cohabited for two years in order to be eligible. That's the one geared to same-sex couples.

It allows for same-sex couples, but heterosexual couples can just as easily use it.

Now this is an area I know about!

The term 'Civil Partnership' only applies to Same-sex couples who have had a civil partnership ceremony (very similar to marriage).

If you've lived together for 2 years or more, you can apply for an Unmarried Partner Visa otherwise known as Further Leave to Remain if you're in the country, if you're not in the UK, you need to apply directly to the consolute for the equivilent visa but it's also an entry clearance. This is granted for 2 years. You can then apply for 'Indefinite Leave to Remain' effective PR Status for the UK.

If you've lived together for 4 years you can go straight to ILR.

FLR is processed in about 6 weeks for £400, or you can do it in person in Croydon, Birmingham, Liverpool or Glasgow for £600 and it's processed the same day. There's no interview unless you go in person.

Here's some more info

http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/6353/1140...r(o)guidmay.pdf
http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/6353/1140...t(m)guidmay.pdf

Hope all that helped.
xx

Only if you have had the equivalent of a Civil Partnership, in which case you would be married

"If you've lived together for 2 years or more, you can apply for an Unmarried Partner Visa otherwise known as Further Leave to Remain if you're in the country, if you're not in the UK, you need to apply directly to the consolute for the equivilent visa but it's also an entry clearance. This is granted for 2 years. You can then apply for 'Indefinite Leave to Remain' effective PR Status for the UK."



That was the one wrinkle for me and my man. Since we have never lived together, we were stuck on what to do next.

I thought the settlement visa for a civil partnership and for unmarried couples was the same process and visa.

I think this has gone off-topic now and I feel kind of bad for contributing to that.

A lot of confusion in these posts....

Firstly with dropping a K1 visa ? I did it and subsequently went to the US on visa waiver - the hardest part is convicing dragon lady at manchester airport - She works for the airline. She wanted to stop me because i didnt have the K1 abandonment papers from USCIS as they were sent to my US fiance.

As she couldnt find a supervisor to back up her decision for no fly - she let me go after half and hour but said i might well be refused in chicago - it was really nasty - but it was a piece of cake at US POE

ok 'partners' - the whole point of partner legislation is that male and female are treated the same so hetros having to be married is incorrect.

getting married - you can marry in the UK but AOS is not available the same as US


Getting married in US and then coming to UK - we did that - it took 10 minutes in the UK Consulate in chicago - then wifey got her UK green card and we walked out !

After that - I think that her coming to the UK was much harder than me going to the US - I am taking about national insurance number/tax people /driving licence/getting a bank account etc - I did it in the US and she did it here in the UK - so WE KNOW !!!!

Have to disagree with that. We have done it both ways and I doubt one way is anymore difficult than the other, both quite straightforward and easy just different.

The only part which stands out was getting her ILR stamp. We needed it for a trip back to the US and so had to go and apply in person. That day at Lunar House in 1998 still lives vividly in my memory. If we had just posted the forms of it would have been very easy.

The UK visa's is much easier because there are virtually no checks before hand. The US does all or it not all it seems like checks before they even grant the visa. Hence those checks have to be done somewhere and the UK doesn't them later in the process.

Overall I remain of the opinion the process is pretty much on a par between the two.

The UK driving test isn't that hard, my wife who had never even driven a car before she went for her test in Oregon and then learnt as she went along passed her UK test at the first attempt. Harder than the US one but not a problem if you can drive properly.

Just some links regarding civil partnerships and marriage between non-UK citizens (straight from the horses mouth).

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/civilpartnerships/

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/marriage...d-questions/#q1

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/marriage...n--required.asp

Don't know how I forgot to include this link before:

http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/lawandpol...tionrules/part8

Here is the relavent bit:

Requirements for leave to remain as the unmarried or same-sex partner of a person present and settled in the United Kingdom

295D. The requirements to be met by a person seeking leave to remain as the unmarried or same-sex partner of a person present and settled in the United Kingdom are that:

(i) the applicant has limited leave to remain in the United Kingdom which was given in accordance with any of the provisions of these Rules; and

(ii) any previous marriage or civil partnership (or similar relationship) by either partner has permanently broken down; and

(iii) the applicant is the unmarried or same-sex partner of a person who is present and settled in the United Kingdom; and

(iv) the applicant has not remained in breach of the immigration laws; and

(v) the parties are not involved in a consanguineous relationship with one another; and

(vi) the parties have been living together in a relationship akin to marriage or civil partnership which has subsisted for two years or more; and

(vii) the parties' relationship pre-dates any decision to deport the applicant, recommend him for deportation, give him notice under Section 6(2) of the Immigration Act 1971, or give directions for his removal under section 10 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; and

(viii) there will be adequate accommodation for the parties and any dependants without recourse to public funds in accommodation which they own or occupy exclusively; and

(ix) the parties will be able to maintain themselves and any dependants adequately without recourse to public funds; and

(x) the parties intend to live together permanently.

Which position is that ?

And if I have read all these links properly, what this boils down to is that you cannot come to the UK as a visitor, marry a UK citizen, and remain in the country - as can be done by a UK citizen in the US?

The UK government in it's eternal understanding and compassion of all the people who wish to live here requires you to have either entered the country on a fiance (or proposed civil partner) visa, you must get a COA, the eloquently titled Certificate of Approval (of your marriage) for ANYONE who is subject to immigration control. Further Leave to Remain is not good enough, it has to be Indefinate Leave to Remain.

That means that you shell out £300 for one COA if you are a UK citizen marrying a 'immigration controlled' person. If you are both subject to control, both people need the COA. And they do not accept applications in person, so it takes minimum 6 weeks. Nice. Now remind me why I want to leave the UK again?

The funny thing is that I qualify for a loophole. Being an Irish citizen my US Citizen partner is here on an EEA Family Permit, and technically he can stay here as long as he likes, provided he remains my partner, cos I have a right to movement, and a right to family life, so we do not need a COA.

HOWEVER, I still think that once you are actually married, the visa process is simpler. They don't ask for paperwork in dribs and drabs, it all goes in together, and you are all sorted out much more quickly. 6 of one, half a dozen of the other, no?

Still can't believe how FAST it was for my USC wife to get 'Further leave to remain' (conditional green card equivalent). We went to the UK consulate in chicago and we were out in 10 minutes - we went for a stroll and a sandwich, returned, and there it WAS !
She came into Manchester, got a job, and that was that.

At the time I had abandoned my US K1 fiance visa/AOS procedure, we were married, and I was in the US on visa waiver for 3 weeks...

Now we have lived through the most horrible 'summer' since the ice age in the most horrible drug using, drunken, ignorant, deprived, litter throwing, non-english speaking county in England (Lancashire) and we are packing for St Petersburg, Florida - lemme out !

Lots of things seem possible when you're Irish! One of my colleagues here at work has a British Citizen son who lives in Malaysia and is married with kids to a Malaysian woman. His children were refused British passports by the British consulate in Malaysia as they were not born in the UK. So, as he has an Irish mother, he went to the Irish consulate, claimed Irish ancestry for the children, and got them Irish passports. Thus although the children aren't UK citizens, their Irish passports are European - so they can enter without visas and work freely in the UK should they desire.

Sorry, a little off topic.

Any Americans out there who have claimed Irish citizenship through ancestry?

excellent post ! My granny's dad was Michael Casson who fled Ireland when he was on a sheep stealing charge....and his son opened the first topless bar in the UK.....good job i don't need an Irish passport...

That's correct Rebecca. You must enter on a fiance visa or be in the country on a valid non-tourist visa. They changed that in 2005.

I really wish there was a US equivilent to the Unmarried Partner Visa. I would be there already if there were. For now I have to stay in this depressing rain soaked place

I like London really, but this summer is wearing me down

UK immigration ? On a sunday morning, about 20% of the people in my local supermarket can speak english - 50% only show their eyes - I am not exaggerating - so since 2005, the sound of bolting horses followed by slowly closing stable doors can be heard throughout the land. During the petrol strikes and shortages, the petrol station had a sign outside which said 'asians only' - I saw it.

Even so, I much prefer many of them to many of the Lancastrians who can speak English and whose own culture has collapsed into drugs and drink and crime. In general, I consider the asians clean, hard working, well mannered and cheerful

But from my perspective, someone just gave my country and culture away - and I might as well be a foreigner in the U.S. as a foreigner here.

So it's hasta la vista to the England that was - you have gone forever - and hola mis amigos Americanos !

http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/news/dar...ts_invasion.php

In all the time I worked alongside immigration at Heathrow you were not been allowed to enter the UK and then change your status while in the UK. You had to leave and come back to do so. What the rational behind it was I don't know because in most cases it was just a paper exercise which could just as easily have been done in the UK as out.

Who hacked into saywhat's account and what have they done with allan?

Shrup or I will put you over my knee ! - I am only being 'America can do no wrong' for a week as its my holiday time and I need a change

The first hurricane shelter experience or leaving my car in a bad area in Tampa will cure me and I will revert to type !

I will zip my lip while I am a resident but then when I become yankeefied, me and Arny are changing the constitoootion so that feriners can become president and then we will make some changes starting with the USCIS/NVC and that recorded message system ! haha !

alan

That pretty much encapsulates the entire problem - NOW they're thinking 'whoops, maybe we SHOULD have a policy...!' Sad, really, that many of you feel like a stranger in a strange land (and are made out to be 'racist' if you actually say that's how you feel).




LMAO!! I have sort of wondered the same thing of late!!

Cheers Alan - we're just picking on you. Its our way of showing we care.

Now lets all sit round the campfire, hold hands and sing...

Haha ! yes travel broadens the bottom if not the mind and Darwen, Lancashire has made a bigger impact on me than Capitol Drive Milwaukee or the New York subway at night or the back streets of Miami.

When we arrived here in February, we went for a walk in the 'riverside park' funded by the European Union. It was full of burned out settees and motorcycles and filth and litter and dog dirt on an incredible scale. I came home nauseated and depressed.

Being a trainee curmudgeon I wrote to the MP and the council - they can't fix it - a tiny number of overweight 5' 4" policepersons who can hardly walk for body armour and gadgets of every description are not going to stop a 6' tall 15 year old boy on a bike.

I went for some fish and chips. In Yorkshire, they do them in beef dripping and they are wonderful - in Lancashire, all the fish shops are Chinese and they do them in the same burned, dirty, tired oil as the spring rolls etc ! I actually threw mine in the bin (everyone else throws them on the footpath where it mixes with the rat droppings).

I think anyone worried about homesickness as they depart for the US should spend 6 months in Darwen, Lancashire after which they will NEVER NEVER NEVER look back. I think Haiti would be a step up actually

A local wag says it was named after Charles Darwin who found the 'missing link' between apes and humans in this town.

Everything in this life is relative and the US is going to have to be very bad to me to make me think I have made the wrong move.
I can't wait to go !

The newspapers are full of people being 'glassed' in the face with broken beer glasses and drugs and rats and gays come from all over to do 'it' in the lay-bys on the A66 road.

http://www.lancashiremosques.com/projects_details.asp?ID=5


http://archive.thisislancashire.co.uk/2002/4/10/624031.html


urghh - come on St Petersburg Florida !

I just dont know what to do, I have a great life here and was feeling really anxious about leaving / going to America and only having my fiancée as a support (no job/family/friends/car/legal rights). My fiancée was planning a biggish wedding, I felt that the twin things of getting the big wedding and emmigrating and all the questions and pressure was really affecting me, so we put things on hold.

Its been a couple of months of "limbo" and I am feeling a lot better and the anxiety is passing but I really dont know what to do...we are one third through our 6 month visa issuance period now and I dont know what the answer is, I just dont know how to make things right.

This is really affecting my fiancée, naturally, and I hate myself sometimes, but I still have a large part of me that wants to stay and bring my fiancée here, I like America, but I was only interested in going to be with my fiancée, not for a green card because I had nothing going for me here.

My fiancée , friends and family are all annoyed by my constant "flux" and dont seem to really understand

Im really torn and trying to work out what I can live with and without. I love my fiancée and wish i could "merge realities" and remove all the red tape / distance but I cant, it feels like "all or nothing" right now.

If anyone has some good advice, I'd love to hear it, Im feeling low about this and dont want to do something I'll regret for the rest of my life.

Teddy.

Unless things changed in the past 5 years, I was able to enter the UK on my visitor passport for 6 months in 2002 apply for a marriage (however you have to be in the uk for over 15 days to apply), get a marriage license, and marry my (now ex-husband) fiance at the time in a civil ceremony. I had no problems at all. I was asked at the POE what my reason for visiting was, I said visiting friends and to meet my fiance's family, they asked if we had any plans to marry and stay in the UK I said no, he said no (he was traveling with me) they saw our return tickets, and then once I was there and met his parents we decided to get married. So it wasn't a lie we were just really effing stupid and did something neither of us were ready for...I did however return home after the marriage, at that time he was supposed to come to the usa, instead his family insisted I move to the UK (which I was in tatters over), his father came a month later to "fetch" me, and he went and got a visa on my behalf in New York and we flew out the next day. Non UKC's - (in fact two non UKC's can marry in the UK if they so desire) can marry without special visas as long as you have clear intent to leave the country on expiry of your visitors visa.

On a personal note, my ex's change of heart (as well as other things) about moving the US was a major factor in the downfall of our relationship. I wish you the best of luck though in whatever you decide to do - do what is best for the both of you.

Edit (i didn't read the whole length of the discussion before posting lol apparently the shtuff has changed! but oh well that's my experience anyway)

Well, the personal note really helped because that's about where I am, I do love my fiancée to bits, I just didnt forsee this big freak out / anxiety over leaving the UK. It's not that I think America is any "better" or "worse" than here, because I believe your life is what you make it wherever you are. It purely is whether just love alone can get us through all this. We are both independent people and neither REALLY like the idea of being dependent on the other and giving up our independence short term, its scary.

I just want to see my fiancée again and have fun and have a reminder of why we wanted to marry in the first place, its been 9 months now but now we arent in the position to visit each other.

In my head, it literally is on a knife edge, it feels like I *can* do it, I need time, which I'm running out of(visa status). I would think most normal people who are marrying for love get some kind of "cold feet" and anxiety over leaving.

I dont mean to be disingenuous to ANYBODY, but if you are marrying purely for the GC which some people clearly do, then going to America is the most important thing to you and all the extras like your family/friends/enviroment are a distant second, because you've clearly decided you want to live abroad first and foremost as opposed to have a good life together forever with your SO.

My head is spinning on this and I'm trying to bury my head in the sand and hope "it solves itself", but it isnt going to.

Nobody quite understands here and thinks im just doing things on a "whim", they all want me to stay (it's nice to have good friends and a family) and dont understand how I can "flip flop" , and I really feel the most for my fiancée because of the strain and the questions this is posing to her. Anybody else have this and do a last minute jump on the plane and throw caution to the wind?

WEll, I guess what you feel is perfectly normal. my husband didn't want to leave the UK but he wanted to be with me. It helped him when I told him that we could always go back if things didn't work out (it's always an option!). Things here are better than he anticipated but I know he misses home, the adjustment was hard for him but it's all been worthwhile.


Is your fiance happy to come to the UK?

Teddy - my husband had some of these same fears - albeit before we ever even applied for the visa. Not that he doubted us being together, but just the enormity of what he was about to do in total.

PM me if you think you'd like to talk with him on email. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.

I think everyone who faces immigration has his/her moments of doubt. It is a massive life change, and doing it for love makes it a bit easier, but its still tough. It will be a big adjustment for you. I'm sure your decision making process isn't made any easier by well-meaning family and friends telling you they want you to stay. But as you say, its your fiancee that this is truly terrible for. She is at your mercy. And trust me, its agony for her (I know I've been in her position waiting for my fiance to decide if he could actually make the move, - like you his worry was about its being BIG move. I'm just grateful we went through it before we started the process.) You need to put aside what everyone else wants you to do and do some serious soul searching to figure out what YOU truly want. Figure out what you are really so afraid of. Its really not fair to leave your fiancee hanging like this. Family and friends are great, but they are not a replacement for a loving life companion. Its sounds like you really love your girl, but if you don't have the courage to emmigrate, then have the courage to let her go and get on with her life.

Teddy - I'm sorry if I sound harsh. I don't mean to, its just that its so hard to be on the waiting end, so I just want you to understand how truly awful it is to be the waiting person.

Yes it's all about the individual - I have met xpats in the Canary Islands (my son is one - 12 years now) and Saudi Arabia and the US and Germany ...they all seemed a bit strange to me (including my son!) and the strange thing is they don't miss home. I think it's positive therefore and an indication of 'normality' when someone does miss many aspects of home.

I am emigrating to the U.S in November, perhaps 2 days before my 60th birthday at a time when most folks retire to their slippers and spaniel. I know I will never like America football with all the strutting and self congratulating hoo-har stuff compared to rugby- and that goes for many other aspects of American culture. But there are many other aspects that I DO like and I will come back to the UK 3 times a year to top of up 'normality'. I will listen to BBC 4 on the internet and get a satellite for BBC tv.. When I lived in Wisconsin I was highly impressed by the sensitive intelligent people who phoned in to radio shows and it was much more 'liberal english' than much of the stuff on the British media. I reckon I can find my kind of people in the U.S. - they are not all George W look and sound alikes. A lot of U.S. tv comedy is really good too so I will pick and chose - you dont have to be an American and You don't have to cling on to the Brit stuff either - you can have the best of both worlds...

If I had met Carolyn in the UK I would have been too scared to get married as I have a lot to lose financially at my age where I can't work again - but to be with her in the UK or US meant getting married so we did it. It was hard for me in the U.S. at first and there were many things really annoyed me like the sheriff getting out of the car with his guns to tell you to mow your lawn more often and the sun glasses/guns/puffed up chests of the police and park security people. Shudder. But there are some bad dudes in The U.S. and I would be glad of police like that were i to bump into the bad guys.

Similarly Carolyn has found it really tough in the UK - she still can't tell what her co workers are saying because 'they talk so quietly' and she fails to laugh at ANY Uk comedy before 9pm...and she thinks single mothers should be thrown out of their council houses and made to work as hookers to support their children. She wants to select her consultant before she has health care and interview them ! Yes her 'cultural programming' is very deep and she would never make it here in the U.K.

A friend of mine in the US has been there 12 years and I found out he is still a UK subject (we dont have citizens). I asked him why given that his kids are American and he has a great job/house etc and its safer to be a USC so he cant be deported. He said - because I am a BRIT and I always will be.

Remember its not forever - its not a 60 year journey to a planet with no turning back - - you CAN return. and I reckon we take the best and reject the rest and stay who WE ARE and become that percentage American that we want to be and have a great time that way.

The Americans can't have it both ways - they can't say 'you are only a resident, you are an alien and you can't vote' - and at the same time ask us to be American. The time for that is when we apply for Citizenship and at that time we have to really do things the American way while we are in America - and do it 100% British when we are in Britain.

Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and criticize the beer when it's freezing cold cat urine !

alan

To be fair, I have expressed my concerns and what I feel and been brutally honest. I did say to her, I'd rather let her go because I do love her than ruin her life by making this change under great pressure and without 100% commitment. My fiancée's "support situation" (job/family/friends) outside of our relationship in the USA, maybe isnt as strong as mine here is in the UK (in my opinion). On the other hand, the wedding **has** to be in the USA, due to family demands.

Her reaction was that "you love me, this HAS to work if we work hard and both love each other"

No, you don't sound harsh and I wish i'd had this BEFORE the interview and issuance, but I cant control my feelings. I am constantly toying with the "gamble, you can do it (emmigrate) more than her" thought.

You can tell me to climb a tree, Teddy, if you prefer not to answer - but I'm curious as to how long you and your fiancee dated (or had the LDR) before you applied for the visa?

3 years, and for those 3 years, I couldnt even think of anything else, I let other aspects of my life slide just to spend a few extra minutes on the phone a night. Never a moments doubt untill i had severe anxiety over all this and since then I have been a muddle.

And as for the enormity of it, i likened to a sport where you just charge for the line and are solely focussed on the finish line, but right near at the end, you suddenly look over your shoulder and see the pack chasing you and wish you hadnt looked till the very end.

Well bless your heart. But I do think your situation illustrates something my husband has mentioned many times in the past - that people sometimes have trouble seeing past the 'romance' and excitement of it all and don't spend any time focused on what will one day be the realities of the situation - sometimes until its almost too late.

I'm telling you, he mulled over this stuff a LOT, so I don't think you're the only one - I just think the timing of yours is very unfortunate.

I have been where your fiancee has been too, as julez mentioned earlier. It was one of the roughest times we ever went through as a couple. But I think we are better for it because we both know exactly why we're in it (and that those reasons are the right ones). That said - I do hope you can find a way to reconcile it sooner rather than later.

I have heard enough - DO IT ! GUILTY AS CHARGED !

You know there are cultures who believe in arranged marriages because you are forced (in its nicest sense) together and you make it work and most of em are really happy five years later...

I am afraid this is a forced marriage like mine coz you are in love! Hard luck you have to do it like I did it...

It will be fine ! absolute nightmares ahead but it will all work out in the end.

just surrender and it won't hurt at all (freddy mercury)...It's a great experience and not to be missed - many bitter/sweet moments but you feel ALIVE

Teddy, I really feel for you, mate. I wish I had the magic answer and could tell you it will all work out brilliantly, but I can't and no one else can either. You either need to make the leap and hope it all works out, but with the knowledge that you have a great support in the UK if it doesn't. Or, you can stay in the UK and get on with life.

Have you considered maybe talking this over with a therapist? I don't mean like you're crazy, but sometimes when caught in the middle of something like this an impartial person could better help you work through your feelings about it all.

I truly wish you all the best and hope your situation works out in a way that you are content with.