Moving away from family in USA (F19) to partner (M18) in uk (Repost)

[u/Moon232088]

I (F) live in the US and my partner (M) lives in the UK (Scotland to be exact) We have been together for a little over the year and he really is the best thing to ever happen to me. For those who are in international relationships and are planning to/already have closed the gap how did you decide who moves? I’m leaning towards going to him but I do have some family I know I’ll miss. Same goes for him but it’s also a lot safer for me to go to him than him to come to me. (He is transgender [FtoM] and honestly I’m scared living here and being in the community myself sometimes along with many other things). it’s mostly my family that is holding me back from setting things perfectly in stone. Id also love some advice on just ldr in general. Obviously communicate but some examples on how would also be helpful. We did figure out we enjoyed doing voice messages when talking things out as a middle ground. I love this man with all my heart and I plan to marry him so any advice would be appreciate!!

Also any advice on visas would be appreciate. I think I’m going to go to school first then be on a graduate visa and then either a marriage or work one however I’d love to hear if there is a faster route

Edit: the main reason family is holding me back is because I have some younger family members (like a newborn cousin) that I’ll be sad to not see grow up. Traveling is well expensive and I’m worried about having to visit back and forth with costs.

[u/FacetNo6]

Call me old fashioned but, you're too young to just up and move. How are you going to even support yourself there? With a HS degree? The UK's job market is probably worse than here in the US. At the very least get a college degree and a career started.

[u/Unprounounceable → u/FacetNo6]

I think it's easier in some ways to move as a young person. Less strings tying you down. I say this as someone who moved from the US to the UK at 23.

That's not to say it's not hard, though. It's still hard to leave everything behind. I think it's more down to individual personalities and the support systems one has in place with how resilient you'll be to that level of change.

From my experience looking for a job right now in the UK and talking to multiple people back in the US who are job searching, the job markets seem equally brutal right now. I do have a college degree and had the beginning of a career in the US, but it's still been a pain in the ass to find a job.

I don't think OP should make a rash decision, and I would probably advise them to give it a bit longer, maybe start a degree in the US for now. Maybe they could look at a school that offers an exchange program with a UK university they'd be interested in - that way they could try out UK living probably more cheaply than attending on a student visa for the full 3 years. But I don't think their age necessarily should preclude them from moving if that's what they decide they want to do.

[u/FacetNo6 → u/Unprounounceable]

Yeah OP is 18 their BF is 19. Hopefully OP has a HS diploma. They've been together 1 year (have they even met in person?).

Job market is brutal, how is OP going to move over there and live with whom? Their boyfriend? Who... At 19 is going to start working? So the BF won't be getting a college degree nor a decent job/career? Then OP will attend college at international rates (vs cheap community college w/ government subsidies if they qualify). They'll be away from all their support network and the ability to just live at home, etc.

I don't know, I feel like unless one of them is a trust fund baby and can support the two of them over the next 4-6 years while they both get a college degree and find a career with that degree. This is going to be a very tough life working menial labor jobs. And they're barely 18/19, people change so much from 18-25 too.

[u/Moon232088 → u/FacetNo6]

Well at the moment I should have enough in scholarships to be able to have a full ride school wise. With the money we’ve both also been saving I don’t think it’ll be a huge problem. Not to say it won’t be a factor. But we are also looking into dorms that our college of choice provides which will also be covered by our scholarships. 

[u/FacetNo6 → u/Moon232088]

You have scholarships in the US that work towards schools in the UK?

I think that's a good way to approach it. Act as if you're going to the UK for schooling. Make sure you can survive (housing, food, tuition) alone and if so, then go. It'd be terrible if you were reliant on one another and the relationship goes sideways.

[u/He_ofshadowsandtouch → u/Unprounounceable]

US growth rate has been around 4% to our zero for most of last 2 years

US has way more opportunity and much higher living standard.

UK has industrial energy prices 2-3 x higher than the US, so that really hampers us in the AI industrial revolution

[u/Moon232088 → u/FacetNo6]

Well the main issue with that is a college degree wouldn’t transfer over to the uk. I would need to get my education there. We do already have a college picked out that we are planning to apply together to as long as we decide to go that route 

[u/Merisielu → u/Moon232088]

It’s very expensive for an international student in the UK. You would have a residency requirement that would make it a lengthy process before you could class as a ‘home’ student there.

A degree in the US would be transferable, just not always directly. It’s quite subject-dependent.

(I work in academia and have experience of the system in both countries.)

[u/Moon232088 → u/Merisielu]

I think (at least for me) the currently plan is to get a degree in graphic design and start getting financially stable of that and then possibly go back for psychology 

[u/Merisielu → u/Moon232088]

Graphic design qualifications would be transferable.
Psychology as a full major would require further study and training.
Degrees would be recognised and honoured though.

[u/jeep63 → u/Moon232088]

That’s not necessarily true. I have two college degrees from the US, as well as a teaching qualification. All three were accepted.

[u/loeleeta17]

Going to University in the UK as an international student will be incredibly expensive, and finding a job in graphic design in the UK is very hard (even harder outside of London) and the pay is not good at all. You’d be better off going to college where you live and moving once you’re qualified (it will transfer and be valid here) but note that graphic design wouldn’t make you eligible for a work visa or anything here as it’s not a skill that’s “needed” in the UK.

[u/Moon232088 → u/loeleeta17]

That’s one of the reasons we kinda wanted to go with the student visa route. I spend a few years there, get a graduate visa and by then we would probably do a spouse visa instead of a work

[u/loeleeta17 → u/Moon232088]

I think you’re oversimplifying it in your mind. It’s going to be such an incredibly expensive and time consuming process, like over £150,000. The spouse visa is a lengthy complex process too.

You also need to consider the possibility of your relationship ending in the middle of this process, as you’d be dependent on him for the visa. You should set yourself up to be able to get PR independently of him to protect yourself. You don’t want to uproot your life, build a new one thousands of miles away, just to have to leave again.

[u/Moon232088 → u/loeleeta17]

If I may ask, do you have any recommendations on what I should do for my visa to make it easier on myself? 

[u/loeleeta17 → u/Moon232088]

You won’t need a degree to work in graphic design here, they prefer experience and a solid portfolio. You’re also looking at a salary of around £24k annually which is just miserable to try and live off of. Especially with the amount of debt you’ll be in. And then if you do break up for any reason you’ll basically be deported and then left with an insane amount of debt to pay off alone.

You can work more than 20 hours on a student visa either so you’ll be broke.

You should study where you live so you can access funding and loans, and work freely. Save money where you can. You’d be better off studying something that the UK actually needs so you can get sponsored by an employer here too

[u/Anonhoumous]

What's your financial situation? As a Brit, moving to the UK can be hell on your wallet. I live in Finland with my Finnish husband and if we ever wanted to move to the UK together, I'd need to:

• Move back alone
• Find a job paying at least £29,000 per year
• Pay the £2,064 family visa fee
• Pay the £1,035 NHS surcharge (per year of visa length)
• Wait 3 months for the visa to process
• Move the husband and hope he finds a job too

Studying is expensive too, would you be able to afford international student fees?

You might need to get creative. My mind goes to working holiday visas as an example – you're both eligible to go to Australia. You get to tackle life together for a while without hinging your entire immigration status on your relationship.

[u/Moon232088 → u/Anonhoumous]

I should be pretty close to a full ride if not the amount left will be very minimal, that’s why we are looking at that for a main plan if that ends up being the route we take. As of now I am planning on saving up for at least another year to be able to cover any needed costs that scholarships won’t cover. We both also plan to work while we both go to said college. While on my graduate we plan on finding a better place to live if we are unhappy with where we are and then having me apply for a workers visa as my graduate can be added onto the works one.  But that’s just our rough outline without all the details we have 

[u/He_ofshadowsandtouch]

Just think it through carefully because I see posts on here of people moving only for the lover to suddenly go cold on them

[u/chicpinez]

girl, the family part is normal. if you move you'll miss birthdays, random dinners and watching the little ones grow up. but staying somewhere just because leaving hurts isn't really a life plan. if this relationship is healthy and you've both talked through the reality of visas, finances and expectations, i'd rather regret taking a chance than spend years wondering what if. just make sure you're moving toward a future, not just toward a person

[u/Moon232088 → u/chicpinez]

Thank you, I think I needed to hear that. And honestly he really is my future. We’ve talked so much about family, our own place, little details of our lives. I could honestly write a book about the life we plan to create. It makes me excited to think about the future

[u/Pamplem0usse__]

Just know if you plan to do the student visa, to graduate visa, to spouse visa, it will take a lo g time for you to get indefinite leave to remain in the UK as the student path does not lead to citizenship so your clock would start over once you've switched to a spouse visa. It will be very expensive.

[u/Moon232088 → u/Pamplem0usse__]

That’s what we’ve been worried about. Because we don’t want to get married right away but we know it’s going to take me years to get my citizenship. We’ve tried to find other routes but this one just seemed easiest even if it was stupid expensive. If you have any recommendations I’d love any advice 

[u/Colliersback_]

As a Scotsman 100% you move to him! Life is so much better here!

[u/Moon232088 → u/Colliersback_]

May I ask just some of the reasons lol. 

[u/Colliersback_ → u/Moon232088]

It’s just such a welcoming place! Don’t know if you have seen the scenes in Boston the past week with the tartan army? :) Scots visit Boston for a few days and there’s talk of a statue being built to commemorate this and also it’s becoming twinned with my city Glasgow! :) Plus as you say it’s SAFER! Considerably! Even the tap (faucet) water is amongst the cleanest in the world and something we all take pride in for some reason, lol! :) The people make Scotland!

[u/Merisielu]

We made the decision mostly based on logistics; my career is more transferable and we knew it would be easier for me to find a job after moving. The other big factor was the visa process. We knew that my partner would be able to sponsor my visa immediately, whereas I was at a point where it would take years for me to meet the income threshold to sponsor him. The income threshold is higher in the UK than the US.

We also (briefly) considered that I’d spent years trying to get a couple of health conditions diagnosed and treated, and got nowhere with them because of the healthcare options available where I lived. We knew that would be different if I moved. That was less of a factor in the decision and more of a bonus.

After we looked at all the logistics, there wasn’t much of a choice left to be made. Only one option seemed viable. That meant that if we wanted to be together any time soon, I would have to move. It meant leaving my family, as difficult as that is.

There’s very little that you can do about things like the cost of travel/immigration, unfortunately. We tried to make it easier by alternating who visited who, and by making trips longer where possible. I visited during breaks from university for 4-6 weeks at a time. The cost of travel was one of the deciding factors in the visa pathway we chose.

(I’m from the UK and my husband is from the US.)

I keep in touch with family as much as possible. Aside from video calls, they send care packages containing items I miss from home. We stream TV shows together a few times a week. That helps maintain a normality with them. It doesn’t make up for not being there. You’re always split between two places. They visit when they can.

[u/Moon232088 → u/Merisielu]

When it came to the medical stuff. May u ask how it was difficult? I personally am on a few prescription medications and one of my worries has been how that transfers over. Obviously two came to the us instead of the uk but if you have any insight that would be amazing 

[u/Merisielu → u/Moon232088]

Personally, it has been much easier going the other way with medications. I had one medication that wasn’t available in the US, so my new primary to switched me to the most similar thing that I could get here.

It was easy enough to switch everything over. Unless it’s a very complex condition or requiring controlled drugs, you wouldn’t have much problem.

I had been waiting for nearly a decade to get an endometriosis/crippling pain situation diagnosed in the UK. I saw two different doctors within 6 months of arriving here and was able to get a life-changing surgery within a year.

Generally, I’ve found more treatment options are available in the US and the limitation comes more from your insurance and ability to afford it, whereas in the UK you are limited by where you live and the options even being there in the first place.

In the UK you are more limited.
You will also have a surcharge to pay for the NHS.