BritCits

Jessica & Arban

“I can’t wait to just have a normal life with my husband.”

Jessica is a British citizen from Nottingham working in Hampshire. She first met Arban in April 2011, several months after becoming friends with him on Facebook. They got married in April 2013.

For Jessica once they met, she knew Arban was ‘the one’. She went home after the first meeting and told her nana that she had met the man she was going to marry.

Little did she know that Arban himself had said the same thing to his family; showing them a picture of Jessica and telling them that she was his future wife.

Arban is very hard working – he was working 12 hours a day 6 days a week when they first met. Jessica at the time was in her 3rd year of BsC Audiology.

Arban’s visa had run out and he was receiving help from a solicitor for a legacies case giving him grounds to stay in the UK to be with Jessica. However, the authorities didn’t acknowledge Jessica and Arban’s relationship as durable or genuine. So Arban was deported to Albania.

Due to the stress of losing Arban, Jessica started having panic attacks, finding it difficult to leave the house on her own. She was forced to take a gap year from university hence postponing her dream job as an audiologist. She did manage to calm the panic episodes with the help of medication, but soon took a knock back after being attacked by a 13 year old in her local area. She was left covered in bruises and broken ribs.

University was postponed for yet another year.

It was painful for Arban to see Jessica in such a state even over Skype. He was upset and frustrated that he couldn’t be there to protect her or even hold her hand. That’s when Jessica decided to go into live in care, as it meant she could live at work and earn enough money to apply for the spouse visa to bring him home. It is not an easy job; Jessica hasn’t seen her own family or friends for most of the year and has only seen her husband and in laws three times in 2013. This is not what family life should be about.

In June 2013, they made the spouse application, providing evidence of earnings as well as Arban’s English language certificate.

On September 11th, they received the refusal on several grounds, including English language test and financials.

The couple is frustrated. The savings they had built up for a house deposit is being eroded with time apart. In the meantime, Jessica continues managing full-time study and work, in the hope of completing her degree and landing her dream job. The couple just looks forward to the day they can have a “normal” life together.