“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 as shown in the photo below.
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.
Update:
Jessica exercised her free movement rights and moved to Ireland to live with Arban. The two are also now proud parents to a bouncy baby boy. The family is glad to finally be free of Home Office interference in their lives.
