BritCits

Kelly

“All I have left is the hope that, one day, these rules will be made fairer, so I have a chance at the family life we so desperately want.”

Kelly is a 27-year-old British woman married to an Egyptian man, with whom she has a son (British).

They met in December 2009 while she was on holiday in Egypt, following which she spent a year travelling to Egypt for weeks at a time to see him, and to meet and spend time with his family. They got married in October 2010 and have just celebrated their second wedding anniversary albeit, sadly, not together this time.

After they got married, they lived in Egypt, but it was a huge culture shock for Kelly; despite her numerous visits there is a big difference between visiting and living there. While they tried their best to make it a home for her, she just couldn’t fit in with the lifestyle and the culture there.

Soon after moving to Egypt she fell pregnant; although she was extremely happy and excited about becoming a mum for the first time, she couldn’t enjoy the pregnancy as she would have liked.

Thus Kelly and her husband decided she would go back to England to have the baby and her husband applied for a visit visa to be there for the birth. Unfortunately the visa was refused. At that point Kelly decided to stay in Egypt for the birth, as she wanted her husband with her for the birth of their first child. But in her seventh month of pregnancy she developed DVT and was hospitalised in Egypt.

For her and her child’s safety, Kelly and her husband decided it would be better if she went to the UK, without him, for the birth to ensure she received proper treatment in case there were any further complications.

Their son is now three and half months old and has yet to meet his father. It's a very hard situation to be in, knowing that not only is her husband missing out on their son’s life, but that their son is missing out on getting to know his father.

Kelly would like to be reunited with her husband but is undergoing medical treatment and is cautious about raising her son in a place that she hasn’t been able to adjust to herself.

Under the current immigration rules though, she’s finding it impossible to envisage a situation where she, her husband and their baby could live together. For her, a salary of £18,600 for her might as well be £186,000 - it is so difficult to attain.

It’s sad this family is torn apart because our government puts a price on being a family and Kelly dared to fall in love with someone from outside the EU; so now she is being forced either to live as a single mother, without her husband, or to move to Egypt where she doesn’t want to live, despite the fact that both Kelly and her son are British and thus, effectively, being kicked out of their own home and their own country.

Kelly spends all day thinking of ways that they can be the happy family that she always wanted to have, but she is running out of options. All she has left is the hope that one day these rules will be made fairer, so that she will have a chance at the family life she so desperately wants and should have the right to.